World's Apocalypse Online Chapter 601

The wind never ceases to blow here.

Within the space vortex, everything was chaotic.

Occasionally some strange creatures or things would show up, but would soon disappear somewhere unknown.

Gu Qing Shan was being pulled forward by a guiding force to fly towards an uncertain direction.

Even though he was in his soul form, a faint light still enveloped Gu Qing Shan's body, giving him a solemn air.

“Ah? Why did you come as well?” Gu Qing Shan asked in surprise.

Within the light, the ancient divine armor answered: 「 The body is only a vessel, the weaker soul is always the most valuable thing to protect, and I promised to protect you until everything is over  」

“How reliable, you're much more trustworthy than a lot of humans” Gu Qing Shan praised.

「 Naturally, humans have never been famous for keeping promises  」the armor replied.

Gu Qing Shan had nothing else to say.

At this time, Shannu's voice came from the Six Paths Great Mountain sword.

“Gongzi, where are we going now?” she asked curiously.

“To see a friend” Gu Qing Shan replied.

The Earth sword also asked: “A real friend, or a friend with quotes?”

“A real friend, he's helped me through a lot of things” Gu Qing Shan replied.

His flying speed was increasing.

Sensing the stronger pulling force unlike the previous times, Gu Qing Shan could faintly sense that it was urgent.

“Shannu, Earth sword, we might be in for a battle very soon, prepare yourselves” Gu Qing Shan said.

The two swords both gave off a sound stating that they understood.

Gu Qing Shan, on the other hand, fell into thought.

He recalled the last time he met the giant corpse and what he said at that time.

“You need to become stronger faster, I can sense some sort of unimaginable monster approaching, one that's more terrifying than any other that have appeared so far, it's coming to this world that imprisons me”

That was what the corpse told him.

Gu Qing Shan could hear despair in his voice.

Up to this point, the 100,000-year-old giant corpse had helped me a lot.
Even the [Mystery of All Beings Equal] came from him.
As long as I'm able to, I have to save it!

While Gu Qing Shan silently thought about that, he also prepared himself for battle.

After a while.

Gu Qing Shan felt the entire space vortex in front of him disappear as a different scenery appeared.

He had once again entered the isolated world.

Countless black skeletons were scuttling around on the vast land below.

-----as if they never knew when to stop.

The only other thing on the ground was a bronze pillar that connected heaven and earth.

A giant corpse wearing jet black armor was pinned to the pillar.

“I'm here, are you well?”

Gu Qing Shan hovered in the air and loudly asked.

The corpse didn't answer him.

Gu Qing Shan now noticed that one of the corpse's hands was now bare to the bones.

Messy bite marks covered the 5 finger bones.

-------as if something had eaten through all the flesh there, then tried to see if it could crunch the bones as well.

“Lower your voice”

A mysterious voice came.

Gu Qing Shan instantly shut up.

-----this was the giant corpse's voice.

Under his watchful eyes, a tiny piece of scale armor broke off from the giant corpse's armor.

The scale flew in front of Gu Qing Shan and blew a gust of wind that lingered around him for a bit.

It seems to be confirming his identity.

After that, the corpse's glad voice came from the scale.

“The current situation is very dangerous”

Its voice contained a sense of urgency unlike never before.

“What happened?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

“There's something eating my flesh from inside my body”
The giant corpse continued: “To make sure that it couldn't discover my soul, I had no choice but to hide inside my armor”

Hearing that, Gu Qing Shan carefully looked at the giant corpse's body.

He very quickly noticed occasional tiny vibrations at the corpse's chest armor, under one of the scales.

There was something under the armor.

“Is it there?”

Gu Qing Shan pointed at the corpse's chest with his sword.

He tried scanning there with his inner sight, but the corpse blocked it.

So that thing must be inside the corpse.

“Yes, it's currently at my chest area, chewing through the outer layer of skin, I feel like it's feeling very interested in eating my heart” the giant corpse answered.

“Why haven't you retaliated?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

“While on the bronze pillar, I can't even move, let alone attack, otherwise I might alert some existences”
“Those existences would notice that my soul hasn't fully died”
“Once I'm noticed, there will be no longer any hope to salvaging the situation”

Gu Qing Shan asked: “So you can only let yourself be eaten by that thing?”

“Correct”

Gu Qing Shan said: “Tell me a little bit about that thing that's eating your body”

“An inexplicable creature, I'm sure it isn't a creature from the 900 million World Layers” the giant corpse said.

“Why not?” Gu Qing Shan was surprised.

“Because its characteristics don't match any life form within the 900 million World Layers” the corpse replied.

Gu Qing Shan was shocked.

At this time, a faint sound of crunching and chewing could be heard from inside the corpse's body.

“Is it strong?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

“From what I can tell, it might be slightly stronger than your current self. But I can't guarantee that, because it's a strange creature that I've never seen before” the giant corpse said.

Gu Qing Shan took a deep breath and spoke: “Alright, I'll give it a try”

The giant corpse went silent briefly and said: “In the worst-case scenario, just take my soul and escape”

Gu Qing Shan spoke: “That's not a very good choice at all, I know that much is common sense. If all you have left is your soul, you'll have to restart from scratch”

The giant corpse sighed: “It can't be helped, even my soul feels fear towards this thing that came from who-knows-where”

“Didn't you say you could tell that it wasn't too strong?”

“It's not a matter of strength or a matter of what it is. It's simply my own problem------- because of how much I know, I can see the implications behind its existence, that is that scares me” saying that, the giant corpse went quiet.

“As long as it's not a matter of strength, I don't care, I'll deal with it now”

Saying so, Gu Qing Shan looked at the War God UI and selected one of the options that were temporarily hidden away.

[You've received 1 use of Iaido]
[You've received 1 use of Iaido]
[You've received 1 use of Iaido]
[You've received 1 use of Iaido]
[You've received 1 use of Iaido]
[You've received 1 use of Iaido]
…
[Please select a skill to use Iaido on]

These were the uses of Iaido that he got when he massacred the ghost army on the plains with his sword array while farming for Soul Points.

In every War God Quest-chain, he would obtain a different method to use Soul Points.

This was the difference between War God Quest and Destiny Quest.

“There's only one enemy”

Gu Qing Shan muttered.

He picked the option and put all uses of [Iaido] on Secret Art, [Swallow Returns].

[Swallow Returns] was currently his most powerful assassination sword art.

Several new lines of text appeared on the War God UI.

[Your Skill: Swallow Returns had received 12 stacks of Iaido]
[After you unleash the power of that Skill once, the skill will return to the original power]
[As you've used Iaido, you will need 1000 Soul Points to activate that still, go you accept?]

“Understood, I accept”

Gu Qing Shan finished his preparations and thought about his plans briefly.

The Six Paths Great Mountain sword flew out and tapped a few times on the outside of the giant corpse's chest.

Clang clang clang!

A clear chiming sound of a sword striking the armor echoed.

The sound of whatever was moving inside the armor stopped.

Then it moved again.

Apparently, compared to the disturbance on the outside, the heart of the corpse was a lot more alluring to it.

The Six Paths Great Mountain sword tried striking the armor again.

Which was ignored again.

Gu Qing Shan scowled.

The Six Paths Great Mountain sword returned.

This time, he used the Earth sword.

“Use soft force” Gu Qing Shan said. (1)

「 Got it  」the Earth sword replied.

It flew up and spun heavily around itself several times to gather power before striking at the corpse's jet black armor.

A strike of 86,370,000 tons!

Bam!

A heavy sound of impact.

The armor was unharmed.

But a short hissing could be heard from inside the armor.

The Earth sword returned.

「 I stopped it from eating, it must be furious and will probably come for revenge soon  」the Earth sword reported.

“Got it” Gu Qing Shan replied.

He looked at the giant corpse's black armor.

No sound could be heard from the armor.

A few moments later, one of the corpse's eyelids lifted up to reveal a crimson eye.

“Not you?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

“Not me” the corpse replied.

“Then it must be the monster”

Gu Qing Shan held his sword with both hands and prepared to strike.

All of a sudden, a roaring voice came.

This voice seemed to be surprised.

“Hmm----?”
“Strange” the voice continued “Gu… Qing… Shan, why are you here?”

Gu Qing Shan froze.

Why am I here?
Here?
------who would know about me in this place?

An unsolvable doubt appeared in Gu Qing Shan's heart.

He asked the giant corpse: “You said it wasn't a creature of the 900 million World Layers!?”

“It definitely isn't” the giant corpse confirmed.

“Then why did it know my name?”

“I'm not sure” the giant corpse's voice seemed clearly alarmed.

While they talked, a monster had already arrived outside of the giant corpse's eye.

“It's coming” the corpse reminded him.

Gu Qing Shan held his sword tight and looked.

It was a very bizarre monster.

Before Gu Qing Shan could clearly make out what it was, he suddenly felt extreme fear.

This was the body's instinctual reflex whenever someone was about to die.

Right in that second, even when he had opened his mouth, he was unable to breathe.

An unprecedented shadow of death loomed over him.

This was a deep sense of despair, like looking down at an endless abyss.

The glow of the divine armor suddenly became blinding and solemn.

The armor hurriedly told him: 「 I can feel your death coming! I can only give you 3 breaths' worth of time!  」

In that instant, the armor activated [God's Order].

[God's Order: When you are about to receive fatal damage or when the armor senses your fate of death, it will immediately activate [Time Stop] once]

Immense light came from Gu Qing Shan's body to dispel the darkness surrounding him.

The entire isolated world ground to a halt.

Time has been stopped!

Gu Qing Shan suddenly noticed a sharp claw stopping right in front of his eye.

The claw was only a milimeter away from piercing his retina.

TN:
(1) soft force: If you've seen any martial arts movie, you'd know what this is. It's a high-level martial arts technique that will directly send the force of impact into the body, bypassing any armor or defenses that only protects from blunt trauma. The Hyuga clan from Naruto uses this to directly strike at chakra points and stop their opponents from ever using chakra for their ninja arts.

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Chapter end