Six-Armed Serpent Demon

Page 71

A total of 621 public servants died in the line of duty.

A huge skylight was opened in the wall of the archives room in the dock office.

Warm sunlight streamed into the archives room through the large opening.

The newly appointed acting port master, the dragon-born paladin Berlik, sat at his newly assigned desk, silently looking at the report on it.

This report was written by the Port Secretary in his name.

The format was standard and conventional. The entire document contained no figures regarding economic or property damage in the city, nor any mention of casualties among ordinary residents.

He stared at the long list of those who died in the line of duty in the report, his dim, vertical pupils momentarily dazed, and a surge of anger rose within him.

He felt he had let them down.

I could almost see Patrick's smiling face again.

When the Dragonborn Paladin awoke amidst the inferno in the warehouse district, he didn't see Patrick; the guy had most likely been burned to ashes by dragon breath. There wasn't a single word about him in the report.

But Berlik always had a feeling that the bastard was still alive, hiding in some corner of the world, giving everything in front of him a strange smile.

As for himself, he was ultimately unable to return to the military system he longed for: as the highest-ranking surviving officer, he was appointed acting port authority as soon as he regained consciousness.

If nothing unexpected happens, the official appointment notice will be issued soon.

He raised his bronze dragon-like head and peered out through a hole in the wall of the archives.

Beneath the steel dome, the burning port is a scene of devastation.

The warehouse district and the surrounding docks and residential areas were all razed to the ground by the two-headed evil dragon. The stone bricks and soil on the ground were melted by the dragon's breath and reformed into a glassy state. Reconstruction would be extremely difficult. The dock office area was also almost completely destroyed, and even the Ottokan family's pilgrimage ship, which was moored nearby, sank underwater.

But looking out to sea, countless boats of all sizes come and go on the shimmering water, even more bustling than before.

The two-headed evil dragon's attack failed to stop the tripartite talks.

The conference lasted eight days, during which the City of Flamelands signed peace trade agreements with the Samarachi to the south and the Enser people on the eastern seas, and also formed a military alliance against the north. Trade routes were consolidated. The Enser people curbed their piracy, began taking a cut of maritime merchants' profits in the form of taxes, and actively cracked down on smugglers. The Samarachi also changed their closed foreign policy and began supplying the City of Flamelands with their arcane magical products.

Everything is moving towards order and peace.

The damage from the burning of the port is severe, but it has begun to heal slowly.

That's somewhat comforting.

The dragon paladin took one last look at the fallen, stretched out his dragon-scaled hand, pulled a quill from the inkwell, and silently signed his name.

The force was so great that it even tore the paper of the report and left deep marks on the table.

“That’s enough,” he said softly.

Berlick looked up at the report's author, the newly arrived port secretary, and asked, "Where is Ivy Beate?"

He said, "Her official employment documents have arrived."

"But she resigned; she submitted it this morning."

The newly appointed port secretary was a burly, strong man, a former city guard who had lost a hand in the battle eight days earlier. With his remaining hand, he placed Ivy Beatrice's resignation letter on the port master Berlik's desk; the envelope bore her distinctive, delicate handwriting.

“She said she was tired of her monotonous life and suddenly realized that from now on she had to live for herself,” the port secretary said with an indescribable expression. “So she bought a boat and went out to sea to search for treasure.”

Upon hearing this familiar excuse, Berlik's shoulders slumped.

He asked, "She bought a boat? Where did she get the money to buy a boat?"

The port authority secretary shrugged.

"She's Beate. Even though it's dilapidated, who knows how much wealth is left? I've heard that ancient families always build several secret safe rooms for themselves to store their most precious treasures. When their descendants encounter difficulties, they can open them and never have to worry about food or drink."

Berlik neither confirmed nor denied the statement.

"Fine," he muttered, his voice barely audible.

Berlik knew some of the inside story, and one of the reasons he was called to Burning Harbor was this: Losques-Ottocan wanted his former fiancée dead.

If Ivy Beatrice hadn't returned and immediately reinstated her city office and taken up a post at the docks, Losques, with the power of the Ottocan family, would have had a thousand ways to kill a notorious commoner.

So Loskes made a small change to the planned pilgrimage. He wanted to label her a "Boctura accomplice" and a demon worshipper.

He wanted to see her burned at the stake.

However, due to a series of unforeseen circumstances, Ivy Beatrice was unharmed, but Losques Ottokan died, and the squad leader Al, who had been working for Losques, also died.

Now, the Ottocan family has lost its direct heir (Berlik is unaware that the Ottocans have even lost their family fortune), and is severely weakened. Numerous branch families are beginning to covet the Ottocans's position as heir, and the atmosphere within the family has become unprecedentedly tense.

Losques's mother, the high priestess, now urgently needs to resolve the issue of preserving the family's glory, namely, which branch son to choose as her stepson in order to prevent the family from falling apart.

She was plagued by internal family conflicts and also had to contend with rising political rivals, engaging in power struggles and intrigues—the previously exiled Thunder Eater had made a strong comeback to the leadership thanks to his brilliant hosting of the tripartite meeting—she had neither the energy nor the interest to continue dealing with her son's ex-fiancée.

Ivy Beatrice is now safe. She no longer needs a government job to protect her from the elements and lives a life of constant anxiety. She can finally afford to squander the wealth hidden in her family's coffers.

Port Authority Director Berlik thought silently.

On the azure sea, a green and purple silhouette of a ship can be seen, followed by long white waves.

This is a huge trimaran sailboat.

The ship is nearly meters long, meters wide, and its mast is meters high.

Three slender, deep purple hulls, linked together, floated swiftly on the water, cutting through the waves. As they turned rapidly, one side of the hull lifted slightly off the surface, leaving two trails of churning water behind the other two.

If the six-armed serpent demon knew how Berlik had guessed her thoughts, he would surely admire his insight.

Berlick was right. She did feel safe, so she dared to resign and spend money, and the ship did indeed cost her a lot of money.

However, she needs to make a small correction:

The money she squandered did indeed belong to a family's secret wealth, but that family was not Beate.

On the middle deck of the ship, there was a large, light green mattress.

The six-armed serpent demon, now posing as Ivy Beatrice, lay sprawled on the mattress, wearing what was perhaps the only bikini in this medieval-style world. She had made this jet-black bikini herself. On her own boat, with no outsiders around, she could use as little fabric as she wanted.

At this moment, the six-armed serpent demon's attention was entirely focused on the black hole-like phenomenon in its own mental world.

“Game panel,” she muttered.

A faint silver light appeared beside the black hole disk of the mental phenomenon; it was demonic writing.

Generic name: Ivy Beatrice (Chu Shih-hsin)

Real name:

Race: Six-armed Serpent Demon/Human

Large-sized otherworldly creatures (chaotic, interdimensional, evil)

Dual-class user: Natural Champion/Mortal Hunter

Life Dice: d+d

Special Attacks: Grip, Master of Grappling, Spell-like Abilities (can be cast at will—faction weapons, Blade Barrier, Magical Weapons, Projection, Invisibility Detection, Telekinesis, Greater Teleportation), Summon Demons

Characteristics: Transformation: Ivy-Beate, Damage Reduction/Good and Cold Iron, Darkvision, Immunity to Electricity and Toxins, Resistance to Acid, Freeze, and Fire, Spell Resistance, Telepathy, True Knowledge, Evil Aura

Attributes: Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma

life experience

She herself didn't know how the system panel was created.

It appeared sometime after the war when I re-examined the mental phenomena. Upon closer reflection, it seems to have been a change that occurred after I absorbed the soul of Countess Lana.

When she first saw it, she was so excited that she almost screamed.

—It was so incredibly moving. This was something that every protagonist in a web novel possessed after all this time!

Then she discovered that this thing was completely useless. There were no stat points or upgrades like in online novels; besides displaying these data points, it had no other functions, and it couldn't even show magical equipment or various abilities and feats.

The most important two sections, her real name and background, were two long, blurry paragraphs of text, each containing over a thousand words, which she couldn't make out at all.

And what the heck is "Natural Champion/Ordinary Hunter"?

Ivy Beatrice was certain she couldn't be mistaken; "Mortal Hunter" was the profession she had chosen, and she had never chosen to become anything else. The words "Nature Champion" were dim and lifeless on the panel, and she had never felt that she possessed the abilities of that profession.

She searched her mind for information about "Nature Champions" and discovered it was a variant of the Ranger class. Those who practiced this class were combat fanatics. They completely abandoned the Ranger's spellcasting abilities, gaining instead a greater focus on combat specializations.

She has a guess about this:

Did Diraz, the demon concubine of the exorcist Eric van Boto, ever have a profession like her? Could she be the currently unusable variant ranger?

If we continue to absorb more souls, will we be able to repair the "Natural Champion" in the same way we repaired the demonic body?

Another theory of Ivy Beatrice's is that the appearance of the panel seems to have come from the soul of the "orb" that devoured the Demon Lord.

The six-armed serpent demon in olive green once said that demons and devils throw "bait" into the multidimensional universe in the form of game panels to lure the ignorant into gradually transforming into evil.

When she absorbed Lana's soul, she also discovered that the Countess's soul had turned black and carried a faint aura of the bottomless abyss. This indicated that she had begun to transform into a demon. Had she devoured the jewel, thus becoming a puppet controlled by Heslaty?

These conjectures cannot be confirmed at present; perhaps the answer will be found as Ivy Beatrice continues to improve.

Yes, the panel now displays her name as "Ivy Beatrice," and you no longer need to prefix her name with "imposter" when referring to her.

With the re-established self-awareness during the restoration of her demonic body, her "mortal form" abilities underwent a change, as if a new fusion had occurred with her demonic body. Now, she can freely switch between "Ivy-Beate" and the six-armed serpent demon form without using the "mortal form"—this form seems to have been detached from the "mortal form" abilities, recognized by the demonic core, and has completely become a part of her.

Ivy Beatrice was initially delighted, thinking she might have regained the shapeshifting ability that the six-armed serpent demon race had lost in a world energy change called "version errata".

It turned out that I had been overthinking things.

She can only freely transform into two forms: "Ivy-Beate" and the six-armed serpent demon. If she wants to transform into another creature, she still needs a piece of flesh to perform the "mortal form," and she can only transform once per hour.

At this moment, her fiery red hair danced in the strong sea breeze.

Ivy Beatrice lay face down on the mat with her hands behind her head, comfortably stretching out her long legs, letting the sun warm her up.

Recalling the earth-shattering melee eight days ago, she still felt a little regretful that she couldn't use "Dragon Madness Lock" to get a triple kill from Bronze Dragon Heslati and that bastard Zaire.

After defeating Patrick, the six-armed serpent demon dealt with the remaining two heavily wounded mantis men, and then attempted to pour the souls of the serpent priest and the three mantis men into the nearest small cube.

After absorbing four souls, the small cube's pale purple light grew even brighter. As it shimmered, four or five more small cubes, seemingly appearing from some hidden corner, flew out and attached themselves to the smaller cube, eventually coalescing to form a larger cube.

And then Ivy Beatrice understood.

In other words, to make the "Dragon Madness Lock" work, a large number of souls must be consumed or sacrificed to bring all the cubes together into one.

If it were before her demonic body began repairing itself, the number of souls she had collected would have been manageable, but now it was simply unthinkable. Her demonic body had suddenly activated on its own, consuming almost all the souls it had absorbed to repair itself, making the activation of "Dragon Madness Lock" an impossible task.

Even if she could kill Patrick and sacrifice his soul to the "Dragon's Madness Lock," it still wouldn't be enough. And the native who had been chasing her seemed to have evaporated, vanishing without a trace the moment he was defeated. Otherwise, he could have added fuel to the fire to activate the "Dragon's Madness Lock."

At that time, she had a crazy idea.

Patrick also took the dimensional positioning device from the hatch when he left, so the dimensional lock's effect had disappeared.

The six-armed serpent demon, in the form of Ivy Beatrice, teleported from the lower deck to the casino.

She considered using the gamblers' souls to fill the gap needed to activate the "Dragon's Madness Lock." However, after circling the casino lobby, she abandoned her plan to wreak havoc with great disappointment: the wills of those worthless souls had long been corrupted by alcohol, drugs, and gambling. Even amidst the fierce fighting outside, their eyes were still only on the stakes and winning or losing. A hundred of these filthy, broken souls were no match for one warrior who had died at the docks.

Since things have come to this point, it's time to give up.

This time it's beyond repair, so we might as well retreat and come back stronger next time.

Patrick is right; they are the same kind of people. Once they make a decision, they are both equally decisive, without a trace of obsession.

Ivy Beatrice simply didn't return to the pilgrimage ship.

She stood at the casino entrance, watching the earth-shattering battle taking place in the distance.

The battle she witnessed shocked her. It was an incomprehensible ferocity, involving unimaginable magic, unthinkable tactics, and earth-shattering hand-to-hand combat.

She watched with glee as the "King of Strife and Tyranny" broke through the layers of magical entanglement and tore apart Zaire's lower body.

She saw the two-headed evil dragon Hethrati finally being held back by the relentlessly fighting "God-King" Gilejin. The bronze dragon bit into one of its necks, tearing at it with all its might. But Hethrati's other head turned and bit down, almost tearing the bronze dragon's wings apart, causing its divine dragon blood to spill into the sea.

She saw Gilerkin's sickle-shaped sword slice across Haisladi's neck, severing the head of the Red Dragon Lord.

She saw the dying Zaire cast a legendary spell, pinning the mountain-sized red dragon's head into the sky.

She saw that Hesladi had somehow dispelled the legendary magic, but the bronze dragon hurled its fallen head far into the depths of the sea, unleashing a massive tsunami.

She saw the heavily wounded Red Dragon Lord roar as he turned and charged at the pilgrimage ship, furiously attacking with his dragon breath and claws, almost tearing the entire ship to shreds, before fleeing in disarray.

Everyone cheered when they saw the enormous evil dragon Heslati, now only a head, turn around and fly away.

At that moment, Ivy Beatrice was gently stroking a small cube in her dimensional bag.

The six-armed serpent demon guessed that Hesrati might attack the pilgrimage ship, and that Patrick might return. So, to prevent someone else from taking the complete "Dragon's Madness Lock," she took one of the fragments beforehand.

In the eight days since the two-headed evil dragon flew away, Ivy-Beate has repeatedly sneaked into the seabed of the dock and retrieved fragments of the "Dragon Madness Lock" from the shipwreck wreckage.

Now all the fragments have been returned to her.