Chapter 1282: He….Who Was Devoured

There’s no need to waste words on the process of Sheyan’s military rank promotion. It’s about the same every time.

But the same process does not always yield the same result. For example, this time, Sheyan had neglected one thing.

One very important thing.

And that was the existence of the rank wall.

The so-called rank wall refers to the gap between each qualitative leap in rank.

For example, a Corporal promoting to a Sergeant is a promotion within the Petty Officer grade, so it is no big deal. But a Sergeant promoting to a Second Lieutenant, though still one level of promotion, is a promotion from a Petty Officer to a Company Officer. This is the so-called rank wall.

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_rank )

( Military Rank: Second Lieutenant < First Lieutenant < Captain < Major < Lieutenant Colonel < Colonel < Major General < Lieutenant General < General )

To make this leap in rank, the difficulty is much higher than in previous promotions.

There was actually a rank wall during Sheyan’s promotion from a Captain to a Major too, as it was a leap from Company Officer to Field Officer, but Sheyan had skillfully circumvented it by using an item he obtained from a Golden Side Mission.

But this time, Sheyan found his way blocked by the rank wall between Colonel and Major General!

Yes, his current rank was “Brigadier General”, which was pretty much the “Pre-Major General” rank. His level of authority was still similar to a Colonel; he just had a better sounding title. The actual change was that his achievement points were occupied by the promotion. If his achievement point total dropped below 400 points, the promotion would be judged as a failure. 50 achievement points would be deducted as a penalty, and he would have to try again. That is to say, he had no chance to turn back.

As for the way to cross the rank wall, the decision belonged to the central administration of the Empire — more precisely, the General Staff Headquarters of the Milky Way War Zone. Normally, it would require Sheyan to complete a certain mission. However, Sheyan was now rushing to save someone, so he could only put the promotion mission aside for now.

Sheyan was still somewhat upset when he thought about this. If he had known, he would have acquired SARS first. Alas, man proposes but God disposes. How would he know that something like this would happen.

Fortunate, his party provided him with some support. First, the dark gold club had been sold to a heavy-spending man for a heavy sum. Well, maybe he’s not really a heavy-spending man, just someone who happened to lack such a weapon to do something really big, so he was willing to spend a lot of funds on the dark gold club. Next, they met someone who was six achievement points short of learning an S-rank ability, so they managed to sell six ‘Smelly Toruk Particles’ for a few times the market price.

After amassing these funds, Sanzi issued a request to hire someone for a high price to repair Sheyan’s dark green glove, which was close to unravelling. The poor equipment had been badly damaged by the liquid metal life-form, G-spot. Now that it had been repaired, Sheyan estimated that he should be able to use ‘Extinction’ twice without a problem.

Of the remaining 7 ‘Smelly Toruk Particles’, Zi took three to upgrade her abilities, and the rest were given to Sheyan to increase his achievement points.

The next thing on Sheyan’s agenda was naturally the legendary item: ‘The Scalp of Crete’.

Before this, Sheyan thought this object was just a scroll.

If he were to be more precise, he would say that it was a rather heavy scroll with the patterns of the cross-sectional cut of an old oak tree.

That was all.

But Sheyan soon realised that he was completely wrong, and that sometimes, one could not judge a book by its cover. Only after one personally inspected something in-depth could one make a truly reliable assumption. For example, a nerd who has watched porn countless times and knows every theoretical thing about sex would not become a sex god the first time he had sex with a woman.

When Sheyan decided to use the item, he was still complaining inwardly that it was totally unnecessary for him to be in his best condition, but five seconds later, he finally understood why there was such a suggestion. The scroll floated into the air. The layer on its surface which looked like a mirror and rippled like water started to shatter and break, revealing what was wrapped inside.

It was…yup, it was a scalp!

It was a bloody piece of scalp the size of a palm, peeled off while its owner was still alive! The scalp was sparsely dotted with hair and had ancient Hebrew divine scriptures on it. It gave off an intimidating pressure!

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The outline of a figure slowly emerged with the scalp as the centre, as if a certain god who had been cruelly treated wished to be reborn through the scalp. The outline was not too vivid, but just by looking at the way he stood, he gave off an arrogant, crazed, bloodthirsty vibe!

(TL: The author wrote “he”, but I’m pretty sure Crete is a goddess. I don’t know if it’s a mistake, but I’ll leave it as it is for the time being. )

Sheyan’s face paled when he saw the silhouette that had a huge body, bulging muscles, hooked nose, bald head, intimidating war stripes on his face painted on with bone ashes, and red stripes on his body. Most importantly, in the face of this figure that had only a scalp left, Sheyan felt like his entire body was being stabbed by murderous intent!!

“Damn! This scroll has its own life and consciousness!” Sheyan gnashed his teeth in anger.

The blurry figure turned around. He yelled furiously when he saw Sheyan, “Another mortal who blindly chases after power and wishes to steal the power of the gods. A foolish idea that is truly infuriating! I hate violence, but I have no choice because your hopeless stupidity can only be cured with violence!”

After that, the terrifying illusionary figure of the deity rushed towards Sheyan. At that instant, Sheyan felt as if a speeding heavy truck was about to collide into him! For the first time, he felt weak. He could only cross his arms in front of himself for protection.

There were only two or three meters separating the two sides. Sheyan, with his 110 points of Strength and 153 points of Physique, was knocked flying like a small rock. His ears buzzed, and he could taste and see nothing but blood.

“Was he too strong? Too fast? No! It was me! My reaction slowed down and my strength has been weakened! I’m being completely suppressed!” This thought flashed across Sheyan’s mind. When he saw the illusionary figure raised both his hands and slammed down, Sheyan instinctively tried to extend his hands to block the attack, but Sheyan found that his reaction speed had been slowed to the limit!

“Is this the power of gods? Is this the might of gods?”

But at that moment, the illusionary image froze.

That was because a black tendril that looked like a plant root had pierced out of a vein on the back of Sheyan’s right hand. It was neither fast nor abrupt; it unspectacularly extended forward at a speed that could be easily avoided by ordinary people. However, it somehow managed to reach the bloody scalp.

After that, the blurry illusionary figure slowly disappeared as if it were a punctured ball. Sheyan stared dumbfounded as the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ pulled the scalp over with its root tendril and wrapped a total of six tendrils around the scalp. This showed that it deemed the scalp to be very appetising food. It then skillfully secreted some digestive juice, which probably functioned like gastric juice, and devoured the legendary item, ‘The Scalp of Crete’….

“The ‘Stairway of the Sun’ is totally unaffected by divine suppression? That’s right! It has no soul! It only has the desire to survive!”

“But why would the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ eat my mission item?”

“Wait, eat?”

“E-e-eat??”

“Eat….”

“AAAHHHH! What about my custom-tailored S-rank/Legendary ability???”

Sheyan searched around carefully and found that ‘The Scalp of Crete’ had truly been devoured! He questioned the Realm angrily and asked what the hell was going on, but the Realm’s reply was “no comment”. The infuriated Sheyan did not notice that the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ behind his sternum was shining with a strange red glow, and it seemed that something terrible was about to hatch from it. In addition, and the description of the ‘Beast of Corrosion’ was also becoming blurry.

***

Despite his successive troubles with his rank promotion and ‘The Scalp of Crete’, Sheyan could only depart on his journey to save Ronnie with a depressed mood because he suddenly realised that the mission to rescue Ronnie did not mention what the penalty for failure was.

It was precisely because the penalty was not mentioned which showed that failure would likely result in really heavy consequences…. It was the same as a wretched man the author used to know who kept lending money to a very beautiful girl, never mentioning the matter of repayment — such a kind, selfless act, but in the end…the girl became his girlfriend! He recouped all his losses, and more!

Someone as shrewd as Sheyan would not fail to notice such a serious loophole. The burden on his shoulders instantly became a little heavier.

After less than ten minutes of waiting in the Nightmare Realm’s pipeline leading to the outside world, the spaceship sent by the Empire to pick him up arrived. It was the same spaceship as before, but the person who came to pick him up was different.

Sheyan heard some news of the people he knew from the Lieutenant sent to pick him up. Archer was a person with great technical skills to begin with, and having received Sheyan’s political donation (two Pi element ingots) and gained the recognition of Lieutenant General Mungo, he naturally enjoyed a boost in his career. He was already a Lieutenant Colonel of the Empire by now and was leading a large-scale, high-end laboratory research.

This Lieutenant was sent by Archer.

Lieutenant General Mungo had become one of the most powerful figures in the Empire after he succeeded in becoming the chief of Alps Base 7. Because the base was close to Uplos, Mungo had a large amount of power and money in his hands.