The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 375: Bait

Book of Divine Transporter? Jiu Er found the name a little familiar.

She thought she had heard it somewhere and even had an intuitive understanding of it. However, she was certain she had not learned about it in the past.

Jiu Er was relatively confident in her memory.

This might be the pride of being a youngster under the age of 20.

She was unlike the lazy Sister Hyphen who lived with her. The lazy Hyphen returned the knowledge she had learned in class to the teacher.

“I’m not sure.” Jiu Er pondered for a long time and responded seriously, “I think you should be able to see that I really don’t know.”

Indeed, Bernardino Telesio had lost the ability to manipulate the mind and read others’ memories. However, he still retained the ability to decipher the target’s emotion through expression and behavior, which he learned during the Soul Snatch Wizard stage.

Jiu Er believed that Bernardino took her soul out for questioning because it would be harder for her to lie in the soul state, or he would be able to identify lies more readily.

This deduction explained the situation reasonably.

Facing Jiu Er’s answer, the old man who lost his limbs and eyes like a plaster sculpture in the art classroom smiled peacefully and said nothing.

Wait. Jiu Er suddenly thought of the jewel-like eyes that Longjing Tea had seen before and vaguely realized something.

Instead of saying the old man had lost his eyes and limbs, it was more accurate to say he took the initiative to replace this part of his body with a prosthetic body without a soul.

Therefore, she could not see this part of the body in her soul state. What she saw was the upper half of the body levitating on the wheelchair.

Bernardino’s eyes were curse vessels made of the finest gemstones. But what about his bandaged limbs? What about his skin?

Could they also be curse vessels?

Did Bernardino transform himself into a curse vessel?

Why so?

Increasing his power? Or extending his longevity? Or something else…

It occurred that Jiu Er’s perception grew sharper in the soul state.

She sensed an inconspicuously cold and viscous malice from the smiling old man, adhering to her skin like a black and smooth silt.

However, that malice was not directed at her.

Jiu Er felt her consciousness getting blurry.

She was then pulled into an illusion.

Behind Bernardino, there seemed to be an indistinct translucent giant composed of countless black spiritual bodies rising from the ground.

Like the old man, the giant only had the upper body, but it had silt-like arms and a golden “eye” that slowly rotated like a nebula.

Hmm, this doesn’t seem to be an illusion.

Shortly after the giant appeared, Jiu Er felt the surrounding air quickly become cold and sticky. The ground was covered with strange black mud.

What is this?

Is it Soulbringer or a Stand [1]?

Such a thought rose in Jiu Er’s mind for a moment.

When the black slit approached her, she felt a chill like the overcast wind blowing through her body during rain. It was the same as the “invisible cold wind” that the soul felt when she left the body.

When the black mud touched Jiu Er, she felt an intense numbness, unable to utter a word.

However, she was only paralyzed.

Jiu Er could still see clearly in the soul state.

Under the giant made of translucent black mud, the unknown black entities quickly spread out along the ground. The moment the black mud touched the two “little underlings”, their bodies immediately lost their lives and fell backward.

To put it into words, it was like the black mud “stuck” to the soul of the victims and slapped the body away. The victims died immediately without any resistance.

But, the victims were unlike Jiu Er, who had already embarked on the path of transcendence and thus had a gaseous soul.

Those two were just ordinary people.

Their souls had not formed at all. At the moment when their bodies fell and their souls were forced to leave their bodies, their gray and dull souls were exposed to the air, shattered and disintegrated like tofu. Then, the black mud absorbed the “powder” left after the victims perished.

Why do you kill them? Jiu Er had such doubts in her heart for a moment.

It seemed unnecessary.

When they previously saw Bernardino coming to trouble Jiu Er, they did not try to protect Jiu Er but turned around without hesitation. These poor souls did not dare to look at what happened or speak up.

Aside from the initial exchange of words, the rest of the inquiries happened in the soul state. The initial encounter did not seem to require confidentiality at all.

But even so, Bernardino killed the two elite employees of the insurance company.

Worse still, their souls were crushed into pieces.

As easy as it might seem, it should not be simple work. It seemed more than murdering the victims.

What unfolded put Jiu Er in great fear. She thought she would lose her life without the ability to resist it. It could be an elemental power of a higher grade or something obtained through the Gold Rank. But, Jiu Er was confident that this higher power was only accessible in Gold Rank.

Jiu Er recalled that Annan once told her about the difference between the Gold and Silver Rank. When it comes to Gold Rank, some powers are expensive to use. For example, it might require the host to burn their life energy as fuel, or the power might leave some defect in the body.

Thus, many Gold Rank transcenders would still use the enhanced normal skills to fight instead of using their ultimate move directly.

However, the power utilized to kill the underlings seemed to come from the Gold Rank.

If Jiu Er were at Silver Rank, she could detect the danger and have a chance to struggle before dying immediately.

Since the Gold Rank power was used against a Bronze Rank transcender like her and two mortals, Bernardino wanted to prevent them from revealing any information.

But, what’s his purpose?

Those poor souls did not hear anything significant.

Unless it was mandatory to keep it secretive that they had met him.

Jiu Er quickly thought through her situation.

If it was just the pressure of facing death, she might have gone crazy by now. However, she soon regained her senses upon realizing this might happen to other players.

She had to do something about it.

At the very least, I have to get some intel before it’s too late!

“What’re you trying to do? What do you want?” Jiu Er tried her best to ignore the two souls that were crushed and forget about the possibility that she might be obliterated here.

She maintained her calm demeanor and asked, “Book of Divine Transporter? Are you trying to get into doing something for you?”

“Be quiet, Miss.” The old man kept his kind and gentle smile and said softly, “Ah! You just reminded me to make you quiet.”

The old man glanced at Jiu Er, and the shadow giant behind him had the nebula-like eye staring at Jiu Er.

It was an immense pressure that could only be felt in the soul state. Immediately after, Jiu Er’s soul lost the ability to speak. She felt a strange, weak suction directed at her soul with its intensity gradually increasing.

The suction force had seemingly drawn her in, making her situation much more urgent and critical.

But, it only seemed so. She sensed that she would be fine even if the suction force attached to her had lasted for another day.

Was it because Bernardino was weak?

That was obviously not the answer.

Thus, there was only one answer.

At the moment of realization, chills crept upon Jiu Er.

She realized that she was probably just a bait.

Bernardino wanted to deal with Annan, who arrived in Noah’s capital not long ago!