The Five Great Calamities
The Immovable 'Burning Blood Cauldron' has appeared.
"Why the hell won't this one die in one hit?!"
Was it because it'd drunk more blood than the others? No — the hit feedback felt completely different. The moment the thought of Immovable crossed my mind — that garbage prefix that halved fixed damage in exchange for a thirty-percent drop in movement speed — I finally, belatedly, realized that my skill, Spoon, was a fixed-damage skill.
So that was why the damage had always felt so absurdly high. It was fixed damage the whole time.
No matter how hard I tried to push the thought aside, my head was already throbbing at the eok-kka event waiting to pop the second I dropped this last elite. I was already tanking low defense with raw HP and regeneration thanks to the quirks of Slaughter energy — and now defense would drop further, max HP would shrink, and on top of a fixed hit-rate debuff that refused to climb past eighty-five percent no matter how much accuracy I stacked, I was a pure melee with zero mobility skills about to lose movement speed on top of it. Just thinking about it made a sigh want to claw its way out of my throat.
If I wanted to actually profit off the Dharma Treasure this eok-kka event spat out, I should have built evasion — stacking absolute dodge, packing pure evasion gear, and loading equipment that tanked the enemy's accuracy. Problem was, Slaughter had me locked into a regeneration defense tree. Hell, Slaughter didn't help defense or evasion at all outside of attacking, and even the regen was mostly just a side effect of life-steal on hit.
The Gigantic 'Ancient Blood Cauldron' has appeared.
The final elite had apparently swallowed not just neutral NPCs but cultivators and hostile mobs alike, and it was trying to flex dungeon-boss-tier power well beyond a normal elite. Too bad it was still a complete idiot wearing a trash prefix.
A distinctive flash of pure white light burst out. That meant the enemy's attack had missed — or that I'd successfully dodged.
Its attack range had increased? And yet its maximum hit rate was hard-capped downward?! Truly the majesty of a prefix fighting for first or second place among the Five Great Trash Prefixes.
That eighty-five percent I mentioned earlier was only if you clawed together accuracy gear, grabbed related passive skills, or padded hit rate with other Dharma Treasures. Without any of that, base accuracy plummeted all the way to sixty-five percent — and then dropped further based on the target's evasion.
And once I killed this thing, the entire set of those five absolute garbage prefixes would be force-equipped onto me in one shot. The view ahead went bleak on its own.
Not that I could leave it alive. I had to beat it if I wanted the Great Evil currently resurrecting to come out or not come out at all — early crisis still needed clearing either way.
"For fuck's sake."
I pulled out a rare-grade two-handed axe and layered Spoon over it. Pure raw damage among all weapon types, the two-hander sat at the top — and with Spoon on top of that, an elite that wasn't even unique but was close to dungeon-boss strength split cleanly in half and died.
Please let the early crisis end and the eok-kka event fire after this. As if that would ever happen.
The universe's mysterious principles gaze down upon you once more.
Acquired special Dharma Treasure: Five Great Calamities
Forcefully equipped.
◈ While possessed, five prefixes are permanently applied.
◈ Applied prefixes: Terrifying, Mysterious, Sharp, Gigantic, Immovable
— The totality of five calamities forcibly unified by the power of the cosmos. Unless the universe's many whims are further added, the calamities will always sow disaster without distinguishing between enemy and owner. —
Owned Dharma Treasures have exceeded the maximum limit!
Dharma Treasure 'Swift Claws' has been destroyed.
Acquired 1 residual stat point.
I wasn't sure whether to feel relieved that a mid-grade powerful Dharma Treasure had survived — and then the loss of the swift treasure hit, attack speed and movement speed both feeling twice as sluggish, and I shuddered. That was the moment.
I steeled myself against the system's frantic red alerts. Five elites alone were never going to qualify as a real crisis.
The sky split open, and a colossal blood cauldron that had been hidden until now finally revealed itself. It must have been absurdly high up — I watched it fall in slow motion and flung chopsticks at it, but they never even reached.
What is this, an unskippable xianxia-mode event cutscene?
"For a cutscene, I can still move, though…"
Five crimson pillars erupted skyward.
They rose in the exact order I'd killed the elites — the first the thinnest, the last one right in front of me the thickest and most oppressive in presence.
Yeah, these were clearly smashable objects.
Without a shred of hesitation I slammed my weapon into the red pillar in front of me — and my wrist, arm bones, and shoulder blade shattered in a chain reaction like a cookie crumbling. I couldn't even scream. I just dropped to my knees.
"You! Mother! Fuuuuuucking—!!!"
My eyes rolled back. Reflection damage? No — the reason was disgustingly simple. Using Spoon made it fixed-damage, and fixed damage couldn't be reflected unless the reflection specifically bounced fixed damage rather than normal hits.
I should have just hit it with Spoon! The injustice and self-loathing hit so hard my face wanted to go red on its own.
No. It still wasn't too late.
I pulled the greatsword I'd been hoarding from my inventory.
For a weapon locked to a measly level seventy, the grade was Epic. And if I put Spoon on it, the power would match at least a level-two-hundred unique weapon.
I confirmed the barely-holding-together Epic greatsword was wrapped in Spoon, vomiting fierce slaughter energy, then lifted it with both hands — already regenerated by that same slaughter energy.
"Die—!"
THOOM—! I stomped the earth and shot forward. Nearly seven hundred points of transcendent physical stats unleashed their full force, and on top of that my hair tie — no, my Dharma Treasure — activated and spat light.
◈ Grade: Mid | Type: Dharma Treasure
◈ While possessed, attack power increases by 50%.
◈ On use, the first strike's attack power increases by 500%.
— A handful of someone's muscle. Even after so much time, it has not rotted, and though no spiritual power or energy dwells within it, a pure fragment of force that feels as if it could shake the world can still be faintly sensed. —
"—RAAAAAAH!!!!!"
It was the strongest single strike I could currently throw, no hesitation — and even that wasn't enough, because a brilliant yellow flash erupted on top of it.
Every buff from sacrificing an Epic weapon to Spoon, a five-hundred-percent attack boost from the mid-grade powerful Dharma Treasure, and a critical hit all stacked together.
The unstable Blood Heaven has been completely destroyed!
The Great Evil, which had been preparing its resurrection ritual again, urgently rises!
That wasn't damage a mere pillar object — not even a boss with a special prefix — could tank. Even a same-level raid boss would have died to that hit, phase two or not.
And since the pillar I'd just pulverized was the biggest and thickest one, smashing the others should have been trivial. Of course there was still a humble little problem.
"Ah, for real, please."
I was a pure footslogger with no mobility skills, and my base move speed had already been cut thirty percent by the newly acquired Five Great Calamities. Factor in the loss of the swift Dharma Treasure and the difference was even more brutal.
The highly unstable Blood Heaven has been destroyed!
The frail, unstable Blood Heaven has been destroyed!
I'd only managed to destroy two more before time ran out. If I'd just had one decent mobility skill, I could have smashed them all.
"You dare… you daaaaaare! You gnat of a bug—!!!"
Ah, fuck, my ears.
Mute! Or at least open the settings window so I can turn the sound down!!! Do you have any idea how annoying it is when your eardrums burst, regenerate, and leave blood pooled inside?!
A horrific, unstable fragment of the Great Evil has appeared!
Let's see — the presence it gave off was overwhelming and powerful enough to live up to the name "early crisis," but at best it was just a field boss with field-boss-enhancement mode applied.
Mm-hmm. If I'd left it alone, it probably would have climbed all the way to upper-raid-boss tier.
…?
Only then did I notice something wrong. On the minimap, above that early-crisis head, there was nothing. Meaning—
"You don't have a border."
"You dare interfere with this body's great work of completion! I will kill you and drink your blood!"
"No boss-monster designation…?"
"Have you gone mad looking at this body?! Kgh — I will listen to a bug's nonsense no longer."
"What the fuck, is freeloading this hard really allowed? For real? No matter how I look at it, this is just a hostile NPC. A complete idiot with no boss-monster designation is the early? Crisis? Seriously?"
Yu Hee's neck tilted past curiosity into something that looked broken, and her blood-red eyes — red as fresh gore — finally locked onto the fragment of Great Evil that called itself the early crisis.
For a small-bodied little girl, those eyes shone bright and clear, with an ominous jewel-like luster. The fragment of Great Evil froze for a beat without meaning to, and before it could even finish sensing something was wrong and erupt in rage—
The bug — no, the monster — opened its mouth.
"…Auto-Battle."
A red star rose.