Courtyard of the Heroic Souls

 

The first thing Tongqiu saw, was a type of brick from an unknown material, which could only be described as navy blue colored and extremely durable, so much that the passing of time couldn't even manage to place a speck of dust upon it. And it was a room of at least 4,000 square meters full of it.

Once again, everything was empty, everything except for the distant complete opposite extreme of the room from where Tongqiu entered. There was a kind of incredibly strong mist which didn't allow him to even 'see' with his senses, for whatever it was covering or hiding.

He walked towards it, slowly, as he was more than sure that this huge and even smaller room than the first floor would be quite more challenging than the previous Mortal's Terror ordeal.

As he was merely 150 meters from reaching the abnormal mist that he first saw, a familiar voice, like that of a little girl was spoken; but as every word was uttered, the entire room rumbled and shook insanely for a while: "Mm, young one, the current you... is no good..."

"Uh? What... what do you mean?" With clear sign that merely having a conversation with this being was taxing in every way possible, even worse than facing two Mortal's Terror at the same time, Tongqiu still choose to speak up.

"Too... weak, far too... weak... I'll send you... to a place, your last chance... for improvement... treasure it for... there is no second chance... they are... aware..."

Tongqiu had his brows furrowed, his expression clearly that of agitation, he spoke with a hollow tone: "Am I to do now what?"

He finally sensed some movement, he could swear he saw an immense shadow move its legs a little before a beautiful outlined shadow of the face of a female was then abruptly turned around to look straight at him.

After a while, the all-mighty powerful resounded from withing the strange mist once again: "You'll be able to improve... extremely fast in... there... you'll come back when you... feel it is... time, for now... you are not ready yet."

Tongqiu: "..."

At the moment the rumbling from her, merely uttering words, stopped; Tongqiu could 'see' a door as tall as 2 meters and wide enough for two adults to enter at the same time made of the same kind of navy blue bricks appeared 15 meters behind him.

With but an unhappy face, he turned around and went towards that damned door that also had that dark chasm touch to it, he was already getting sick of going through the same procedures, the feeling of his left foot pressing on the non-existent floor were about to drive him a little mad.

Tap.

But then, he stopped. He turned half his body -his upper body- before condescendingly asking 'her' one more time: "If I wasn't a human being, what would you have done?"

The figure hidden within the mist visibly flinched as it was still looking at Tongqiu, it understood very well why he had provoked her with such a question, this man was courageous enough to face off an existence like 'hers'... it was truly commendable.

Nevertheless, it regained its composure before turning its head away from Tongqiu's direction before her voice, no longer destructive but the ethereal and heavenly type from before answered him: "Don't you even dare to take me as a racist... when the Ancestral Race of my Masters are soon to be exterminated, wuu- I... in any case, only a being with such 'monstrous' Mental Power is capable of entering here, I also didn't know it would've been a human or not. I only followed Leader's instructions, wuu..."

Completely wide eyed, Tongqiu didn't imagined that this omnipotent-like being would suddenly become so emotional.

'Ah, at the end of it all... could it be that she's actually a little girl? Bah, at least behaves like one, I'm sure this is one of those grandmas with the body of a child or something, whatever, whatever.' Thinking to that, Tongqiu was planning to simply run away from such a scene. But, the fact that he made a little girl cry and was now about to leave her alone made him stop in his tracks.

'Huh~... not again.' He turned around, before putting to test his best 'coaxing little kids' voice before speaking: "I've already 'freed' those, um... uncles and aunties from before, so, it's only a matter of time before I bring you away too, right?! Don't worry, I'll come back, I promise!"

With that, not even looking at the result, he ran away as he stepped through his favorite type of door. As long as he felt that his heart was not tingling nor his head was tormenting him, 'was all good, all good.

"O-oh? Um... Heheheee~" The outlined female shadow stopped crying as it instead giggled in relief for a little while... before a mature and ancient long sigh sounded out from within the mist.

***

Where Tongqiu was brought to next, was a boundless and lonely cemetery. There were way too many hills and way too many graves all around that there was basically no road to follow, let alone allowing someone to find out their exact location and the direction they were walking to.

It could've been considered a labyrinth if it wasn't because all the graveyards were of fairly small size, as well as the fact that there was no other structures; no trees, no larger graves, no churchyards and not even a single crow taking a stroll through this grey, lifeless terrain.

At the moment Tongqiu arrived there, he felt gazes concentrating on him to an unbelievable amount and taking into consideration that everywhere one could see, there was nothing but those small-sized graves, there was only one way where these gazes he so much felt were coming from...

Sure enough, right as he already took notice of the problematic situation he just got himself in, from dozens of sounds at different locations of something crawling out of the earth itself were heard before becoming hundreds, then thousands...

*PING*... you've entered the newly created floor, Courtyard of the Heroic Souls, of the Mysterious Hidden Grounds.

*PING*... you are now trapped in the Courtyard of the Heroic Souls floor, to get out, must clear out all the remaining unwilling souls that had taken physical shape.

'Oh great, not even a number, exactly how many are out there? ...or down.' After habitually complaining to the system, Tongqiu took out both his Sunfacing Brilliant Gladiuses before moving forwards, to stay in one place where there is no end to the land and enemies kept on coming seemingly without end... that's not going to end well.

So he moved, as fast as his current stats allowed him to. He kept on running before an important and sudden question surfaced in his mind as he then asked the system: "Am... am I not allowed to disconnect? What happens if I need to disconnect?!"

*PING*... host will be able to disconnect once host has been out of the 'battling state' for at least three minutes.

"Oh, so I gotta run, run and hope no ones comes?!!" Towards Tongqiu's exasperation, the system no longer replied.

"Haah~, whatever. They can't be THAT many, right?... This feels wrong..." 

Poor Tongqiu, he had merely started running for half a minute before a rain of arrows befell upon him, shit luck, shit luck.

Not only were there at least a few thousands of arrows raining downwards in his direction, they were also seemingly moving around so accurately that it seemed as if every single arrow had life of it own! At some point, all the randomly shot arrows started converging in a linear formation which was directly aimed at the reduced impact area of that of 1.5 meters around Tongqiu, meaning he'd have no chance to dodge all of the arrows like he would be able to if it were a normal rain of arrows.

Not even hesitating for a second, Tongqiu pulled away his dual gladiuses before rolling with his right shoulder on the lead, once he was halfway through his roll, his left arm was already in position as he only needed to let loose of the couple of arrows which were already fully drawn, and he did.

Woosh~

SHCK-BBPAM

Compared to the sounds of hundreds of arrows, that of his two arrows shot at the same time were pretty much nothing. The following explosion, however, was so powerful and unique among all the raining arrows that the sound waves of the explosion itself were enough to easily deviate dozens of the raining arrows, while the real explosion disintegrated most of the nearby arrows to the epicenter.

After successfully avoiding catastrophe, Tongqiu immediately deduced where the attack came from as he made a sprint towards the attackers' general location. If he had to start, long-ranged mobs had to go down first!

While running, Tongqiu finally encountered some 'normal' mobs wielding swords of all kinds, spears and even staffs.

[Unwilling Soul Spear Wielder]: Type: Human(Soul), Grade: 1 Star Elite, Level: 30, HP: 27,000. An individual that had already reached the apex in terms of a human, a mortal. Died for the bigger picture yet its emotions didn't allowed it to rest in peace. "The losses were beyond anything..."

[Unwilling Soul Sword Wielder]: Type: Human(Soul), Grade: 2 Star Elite, Level: 35, HP: 41,000. An individual that had already reached the apex in terms of a human. The memory of these brave, sacrificial heroes would forever remain in the Main Kingdom people's hearts.

[Unwilling Soul Staff Wielder]: Type: Human(Soul), Grade: 1 Star Elite, Level: 30, HP: 28,000. An individual that had already reached the apex in terms of a human. Died for the bigger picture yet its emotions didn't allowed it to rest in peace. "The losses were beyond anything..."

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[Unwilling Soul Greatsword Wielder]: Type: Human(Soul), Grade: 3 Star Elite, Level: 45, HP: 67,000. An individual that had already reached the apex in terms of a human. A high elite among the Vanguard army, one of many painful losses for Main Kingdom, and the universe around it.

They all had blue-pale skin color and their eyes color was a crystal blue. Their hair was almost indistinguishable from their skin as they were also mostly naked from their upper body, toned upper body. Most of them had a wise yet heroic beard or mustache that were at least slightly long. Their stance even when walking or remaining still emanated an imposing aura of complete, utter domination over large-scale battles.

'Hm... meh.' Tongqiu was about to actually feel a somewhat kind of honor just by reading their little descriptions but, he felt it was unnecessary, since he already dealt with the Fallen Summoners and their ambiguous lore, hence he wasn't perplexed and instead knew more or less what his was about. 'Is this another kind of 'let go' ceremony where I induce 'peace' into them? Well, at least they're not Fallen or else, they may even be  Lord grade at the very least... tempting but way too taxing, way too taxing.'

Realizing that every single mob here was instead a special mob of sorts, 'of sorts' because compared to before these were like playing against kids, Tongqiu finally understood what that little girl's voice referred to. This was basically a SP farm, nothing else could describe a place like this filled with mobs like these in which the only way to get out of it was to kill every single mob.

At first glance, there were at least a few thousands 1 Star Elite grad mobs. Hundreds of 2 Star Elite grade mobs and finally; dozens upon dozens of 3 Star Elite grade mobs.

Tongqiu's eyes shined, greed for SP and lust of annihilating such a large group of densely packed enemies was any AOE focused class's dream. He didn't even know what his Evil Saint class was focused, if it had any focus on anything at all, but he for sure had the advantage of using Combustion and couple with their 'low' level as well as their grade not being too high, Critical Hits and Pierce Attacks would definitely be a common occurrence here.

The bad news though, were the same as before, were he to stay in one place to farm these SP gifters mobs for a little while, he'd surely get drowned in their numbers. After all, though he had an astounding AOE of 30 meters radius from Combustion's ranged explosion, his arrows weren't able to infinitely pierce though enemies, let alone the possibility of Combustion's explosions being chained to every enemy his arrows would hit...

'Huh... if only that could work out...' As Tongqiu was lost in thoughts, maybe he didn't realized or maybe he did, but he was already a few tens of meters away from the horde which was now also charging towards him.

Feewwwsh~

Tongqiu as if noticing something, looked up as another rain of arrows was heading his way while at the same time, thousands of mobs were charging right up at him.

With no time to focus or for planing, he once again made a roll though this time backwards, and got rid of the rain of arrows quite smoothly. Right after standing up and being separated from the first line of Star Elite mobs charging at him, he dematerialized his essential weaponry before defiantly pulling out his dual Sunfacing Brilliant Gladiuses as he prepared his body and mind to receive such unstoppable-like charge of thousands of soldiers directly heading only towards him.

Such kind of pressure, who could really, really endure it? Specially since the pain parameters were only slightly lowered to a level where anyone can handle being pierced by a sword or spear as if they took a heavy punch to the chest or their backs, yet for a scene were one is to be trampled upon by at least ten thousand feet should they just slightly lose balance... who could really handle such pressure before it even began?

He first started by ruthlessly spearing down a path with Tongqiu's Rain Showdown as 18 shadows, each of a couple of a gladius blade, as it made a little hole through the flood of soldiers.

-11,016, -11,016, -11,016, -11,016, -11,016, -11,016...

*PING*... you've successfully killed a 1 Star Elite grade BOSS, as a reward, SP+30 and Fame+30.

*PING*... you've successfully killed a 1 Star Elite grade BOSS, as a reward, SP+30 and Fame+30.

*PING*... you've successfully killed a 2 Star Elite grade BOSS, as a reward, SP+70 and Fame+70.

*PING*... you've successfully killed a 1 Star Elite grade BOSS, as a reward, SP+30 and Fame+30.

*PING*... you've successfully killed a 1 Star Elite grade BOSS, as a reward, SP+30 and Fame+30.

*PING*... you've successfully killed...

At least ten enemies were put down to sleep with that miserable futile skill as Tongqiu's expression turned to that of complete, unexpected disappointment. He really though too highly of his Tongqiu's Rain Showdown skill.

These were THOUSANDS of soul-like soldiers charging at him at the same time, not a few or some dozens, thousands.

Not giving a fuck, as he also was merely trying to probe into their formation, Tongqiu was about to activate Combustion when another crazy idea popped up in his mind... 'what if... I use Transient Divine Burst, and... 'train' here? Huh...'

Was it a crazy, mad, lunatic idea? It was...

Was Tongqiu going to unnecessarily risk himself for the sake of 'knowledge' aka training? He was...

Transient Divine Burst!

-16,524, -16,520, -16,1523, -16,524, -36,490, -16,524, -16,519, -21,355, -16,522, -16,523...

-127!, -108!, MISS, -77!, -188!, -112!, -126!, MISS, MISS, -127!...

Tongqiu's HP was reduced to [5,505] by the time he had already put down to sleep a few dozens of enemies. A few thousands of SP in exchange of almost 15% his total HP was a total worth it for him. But even though he was still advancing through the sea of soldiers and was accumulating SP like never before, which made him satisfied to industrial proportions, the fact that his Fame was already at the 500k made him quite irritated. Could it be that it'll become 'important', once again Tongqiu is still ignorant to the utility of having high points of Fame, once a lot of players had managed to acquire a certain amount of Fame? If it was so... couldn't they fucking hurry the shit up?! How can they take so long? Aren't there supposed to be little motherfuckers who abuse their status in their association to leech of the hardworking players?! The hell!

Anyways, once Tongqiu HP reached 40% [3,822], he took a Kindness Low-Potion without reservations yet now feeling a somewhat pain in his heart, why didn't he prophesied this kind of event from the future? He's still so ignorant...

+955, +150.

-17,724, -17,725, -17,724, -17,730, -35,201, -17,723, -22,032, -17,740, -17,721, -17,731...

-129!, -120!, MISS, MISS, -192!.

+150.

-17,724, -17,726, -17,724, -38,077, -17,722, -17,728, -17,721, -17,725, -17,722, -21,937...

+150.

From then on, he didn't stopped consuming some more Kindness Low-Potions so as to avoid falling into a 'weak state' from low HP but still remain at an acceptable level, even with Transient Divine Burst nagging at his HP every ten seconds.

As he kept on putting them down to sleep, he would also receive attacks which he would dodge -by the system- a lot of time. Considering that these are BOSSes aka 'special mobs', it was something to really brag about at anyone without feeling embarrassment in any way. His Dodge Rate wasn't that high in the first place, but the real factor here was instead, the fact that as time went on he would become more and more familiar with the unending amount of attacks coming at him from any angle, speed, technique and even as an ability. Hence, his extraordinaire, superb abilities of perfectly dodging with his own body the never-ending and crafty attacks was being tempered even more, to levels Tongqiu himself could also not understand before.

He of course, didn't stop for a moment unless he was forcibly detained in a tight and unshakable 'wall' encirclement of soldiers that were already in a strategic formation so as to block his path while he was being pricked upon on his back. Merely, he only needed a few seconds to fearlessly charge into one of them who had a slight, instantaneous moment of weakness on their holding position for Tongqiu to take advantage of, before starting to indiscriminately cut them all apart.

 

...

 

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Author's Note: I'm writing this as I add the number of 'extra' chapters down below here... my limit right now is 9k words a day but I do 6k only, expect more of these in the future, but not that regular... unless?!

V1: #1 10/10

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