The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 249: Pale Body

Annan and Citalopram were already near their objective when the sky turned completely dark.

They didn’t come with the others.

It was because when Citalopram showed the [Pale Body] to Annan previously, Lin Yiyi suddenly realized a great possibility brought by this ability.

“Let’s stop here.” Annan whispered, “It’s not a good idea to get too close. Their scouts might recognize me.”

“Alright.” Citalopram took a deep breath, nodded slowly, and lay down on the wooden bed.

Even though Citalopram appeared to be calm, she was nervous.

They were now at 46 Rusty Water Street.

It was a small inn with little traffic, and it also served the role of a restaurant. Of course, as a restaurant opened in a slum area, the dishes weren’t outstanding.

The first floor of this inn was the house of the owner’s family. The guests lived on the second and third floors. So it felt more like a homestay than an inn.

Annan utilized his superior appearance and managed to rent a room on the first floor. Then, he temporarily had the boss’s family hide in the basement and closed the inn’s door. All these efforts were to prevent alerting the “White Snake” gang to flee after seeing the panicked look of the owner’s family from the window on the second floor.

Another reason was to seal the exit.

Citalopram was able to ignore the restriction from the terrain and building layout when she was under the [Pale Body] effect.

Citalopram lay on the bed, and her face suddenly turned ashen. It was as if she had lost all her vitality and became a ragdoll.

At this moment, a transparent spiritual body with a pale white glow slowly sat up from the bed. This brightness was roughly at the level when a phone was on standby for a long time, and the screen was about to go dim on its own.

This was the discovery of Annan’s previous experiments.

Only Transcended could vaguely see Citalopram’s spirit body. Even Annan could only see a hazy white glimmer if he was far away.

It would take someone to attain Silver Rank in order to see her existence clearly.

On the other hand, ordinary people could not perceive her existence and would only feel that the surrounding air became colder.

Citalopram couldn’t pass through the solid earth because the earth was the domain of the Bone Burying Grandma. Likewise, she couldn’t pass through silver objects, walls covered with gold powder, a bloody wall, or a wall made with slag before it had cooled to room temperature.

In the Noah Kingdom’s folklore, “male animal blood” and “scorching slag” were protective items to repel evil spirits. But at the same time, they also believed that painting the walls with silver powder could also play a role in warding evil spirits.

Unfortunately, the silver powder didn’t work well, even though it should have worked in principle.

Gold dust was the signature of Mr. Ray.

Unfortunately, the “silver powder” used in construction wasn’t silver but aluminum.

With the exception of a few materials, she could pass through almost everything she wanted. Of course, she could also choose not to phase through them. Since she was pretty vulnerable in soul form, she needed the protection in this unique state — and of course, she could pass through other humans.

Those whom Citalopram’s spirit had passed through would suffer an immediate loss of body temperature as if they were immersed in a lake of ice. The victim would tremble and their muscles would stiffen and twitch, making them struggle to move.

Citalopram would then harvest ample vitality, making her body shine brighter. Whenever she passes through other lifeforms, she could continue to plunder their vitality and make her brilliance shine brighter. When she returned to her body, she could bring these life forces back to the body.

The transparent Citalopram sat up from the bed, gestured at Annan, and the corners of her mouth moved silently.

“I… shall go ahead…” Annan heard a faint and ethereal dreamlike voice in his ears.

He nodded, “Okay, I will watch over your body here.

“I shall repeat. After 20 minutes, I’ll poke a needle at your stomach; after 40 minutes, I’ll poke a needle at your chest; after 55 minutes, I’ll poke a needle on your forehead.

“Please remember closely that you have to be back in 55 minutes… Understood?” Citalopram nodded and phased through the wall.

That was another downside of the Pale Body — but it could also be viewed as a feature.

But when the soul left the body, her body couldn’t move at all, and she was unaware of her body’s surroundings.

When the soul left the body, her body would weaken. The farther she was from her body, the faster her body weakened.

In their tests, the weakening speed within 10 meters was negligible. However, if the distance extended to 300 meters, she must return within an hour.

After leaving the body, the body would still give immediate feedback on all feelings and injuries — just like the spiked handcuffs in the previous nightmare. Hence, Annan mentioned time reminders of poking needles at her.

If this ability was capitalized properly, it was indeed a powerful ability.

Unfortunately, there were too many restrictions.

That was Annan’s opinion for this profession — or rather, this race.

Half-dead Enchantresses were strong whether for an assault or a defensive battle. They could put on heavy armor and fight in the frontline. After sustaining a severe injury, they could retreat to the backline and utilize this ability to kill off the enemies who were more vulnerable for their own self-recovery.

—The legendary self-healing tank.

Unfortunately, the Half-dead Enchantresses were of little help in a situation without a fixed base. Her real body needed protection, and protection would tend to be more complicated than destruction.

There weren’t many weapons that could attack the soul body.

Mr. Ray’s special token wasn’t “gold” but “gold powder”. Therefore, gold weapons couldn’t damage the soul… Aside from the divine art damage, only pure silver weapons could damage the soul.

Unfortunately, pure silver weapons weren’t feasible in actual melee combat.

Only those possessing a steel sword and a silver sword, like witchers, had the opportunity to hurt Citalopram.

The players’ assault plan was also simple.

First, they would let Citalopram sneak in first and kill off key targets. The main goal was to stir up chaos.

Suuankou would set up traps at the entrances when the enemies were distracted. Once he was done, he would send signals and retreat. If the enemy had a Transcended or someone who could see the soul, Citalopram would withdraw from the doorway and lure them into the traps.

If there were no Transcended among the enemies with no capabilities to retaliate, then after Citalopram had paralyzed the key targets, she would let Suuankou sneak in from the second floor and assassinate all the targets.

Indeed, the player group didn’t intend to post on the forum to ask for help.

In this regard, Lin Yiyi thought that Suuankou and Citalopram needed the experience points to keep up with the rest of the players.

In other words, it was a trip to boost the newbies.

The veterans didn’t intend to spoon-feed the equipment directly to the newbie and bring them to graduation in that manner. After all, it had no educational value to the newbies if the veterans just sped up on their progress.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime… It was better off guiding the newbies on how to tackle their challenges.

“Hmm, let me see how it goes…” Annan murmured with interest.

Let me see how well this group of players can perform.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Credits to MindMatrix for editing this chapter and improving the readability.