Chapter 127: Sorrow of ckhearts
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Adam pulled out a dirty, brown pouch from his inventory. It was a pouch to hold Shinecoins, but he had already put all of his Shinecoins into the interface.
There were a few uses for the pouch-to give money away, deposit money through Reality Market into a real-life bank ount, or hide the money in case of untimely death.
Now, he unloosened the pouch''s string and started picking up the small fragments of the crystal from the ground, then carefully ced them inside the pouch.
He did it until the pouch was full and bulging like a man who had eaten away his hunger until his stomach almost bursted.
Those lightless crystal fragments had no value. They were just proof.
Adam ced the pouch inside his inventory, then felt something on his throat, as if a finger were scratching at the walls of his esophagus.
He ced the side of his fist against his mouth, coughed once, and then felt the scratchy feeling disappear.
''What was that?''
Adam looked ufortable.
His first thought was that it must have something to do with the curse. However, after a few seconds, he thought he was overthinking it, and it must''ve just been some dust in the air.
He took a long nce at the interface. The rank of his hadn''t changed.
It wasn''t something that the system was capable of changing.
He had to take the Ordergiver test beforehand, and if he cleared it, he would rank up.
Swoosh-the wind started picking up in the dark cavern.
This was the first time a wind blew in this wretched cavern that had no ending to it.
The ceiling opened up like a sliding roof, revealing a spiraling portal that looked like a whirlpool of deep ocean.
It started pulling Adam towards it with an irresistible force.
As soon as he got swallowed by the portal, the ceiling closed again, and the cavern copsed in on itself.
...
Whether it was on top of a mountain, in the middle of the forest, inside a small cave, or at the beach, every ck-hearted individual turned their gazes to the ck Sun with frightened gazes.
They could feel it.
"Nooooo!"
The mercenaries, spread across different parts of the ind, heard the unholy screams. They also realized that something must''ve happened.
Arkham pushed his long-ded axe through the chest of a ck-eyed humanoid creature. Blood spewed out of the ckheart''s mouth, but then it let out a cry.
It wasn''t a cry of pain; it was a cry of sadness.
"?" Arkham frowned, pulled out his axe from the chest, and then plunged it deep into the creature''s beating, ck heart that was open for all to see.
With thest cries of sadness, the creature copsed on the ground in a lifeless heap. Its ck heart had a deep cut that oozed dark, viscous blood.
"Brother, do you feel this?" A beautiful, fair-skinned woman asked as she returned to her brother''s side after ying a fair share of ckhearts.
"Yes, sister," Arkham said.
Sapphira looked towards the ck Sun with mncholy. Her snow-white hair moved with the breeze. She had a red ribbon, shaped like devil horns, on her head.
"They are mourning," she said.
She could feel their sadness echoing through the air.
At the west corner of the ind, a pile of ckhearts was forming around the crumbling remains of an old shipwreck.
Mercenaries, with death skulls on their backs, fought against ckhearts, their weapons shing and blood spewing.
Thest remaining ckhearts got quickly overwhelmed and were added to the pile of corpses that were already beginning to rot under the ck Sun.
"Their focus was not on the fight," Cmity said, standing over the fallen bodies. "But instead, somewhere else."
Mauricio cut a ck heart out of one of the bodies, slicing through the flesh that was glued to the heart like a grotesque masterpiece.
He was a ck-bearded man with a rough visage, like a pirate, who had seen too much violence at sea. He had a body like a muscled minotaur and a voice that boomed like thunder.
He ced the heart in a jar and whispered a curse before sealing it shut.
"Mauricio, what do you think it was?" Cmity asked, slightly tensed up.
It was strange for him. Those ck-hearted creatures didn''t care that they were being sliced apart; their attention waspletely elsewhere.
"Who gives a fuck?" Mauricio tossed the jar to him. "Take it to the ship, and the rest of you maggots, start harvesting the ck hearts!"
Cmity looked at the jar. The ck heart was still beating inside. It was grotesque and disturbing.
The rest of the mercenaries started harvesting the ck hearts. The corpses, after having their ck hearts taken out, were tossed into another pile by the shipwreck.
The stench of death and decay hung in the air.
It was the perfect atmosphere for the Death Mercenaries.
...
Within the hot spring, the steam cloud swirled around the peaceful cave. It was as if there wasn''t an ind-wide battle happening just now.
Lady Yu, with a smile on her face, rested her naked back against the rocky edge of the hot
spring.
She didn''t notice it, but there was a pile of clothes right behind her, by the edge of the hot spring. Those were clearly a man''s clothes-underwear, trousers, shirt, vest, boots, and a belt were scattered around.
The thick steam just so happened to be covering them. The man who had been wearing them was nowhere to be seen.
At that moment, her brows furrowed in confusion as the water started to rise and fall like a heavily breathing chest.
She looked around and noticed that something odd was happening underwater.
At the bottom of the hot spring, the round-shaped rocks copsed, and a whirling portal of shimmering light appeared.
However, this time, it didn''t have any pulling force but instead lots of pushing power.
A figure emerged from the portal, the pushing power forcing him up to the surface of the
water.
Ssh!
Arge ssh erupted from the air, sttering water across the walls of the cave and straight at the beautiful naked woman, whose face was one of shock.
The portal disappeared, the round-shaped rocks falling back into their ce with a loud plop.
Adam, with his clothes fully drenched, emerged from the water with a startled expression on his face.
The scenery around him changed so drastically. He was at the dark cavern, then was pulled up into the portal, then went through the water that felt like he was running through a tunnel of
water.
Then, finally, he arrived back at the hot spring.
He wanted to take off his clothes immediately and change back to dryer clothes, but then, with a corner of his eye, he saw a peek of soft-looking flesh that was shaped like a mound.
"Ah..." A voice eximed softly.
Adam''s eyes turned wide, like a round moon, and he then shifted his gaze to the woman.
Her eyes were round as well, a surprise on her face.
She then saw his cheeks turn rosy, and she felt rather breezy. She then turned to look down
and noticed that she was still naked, just like when she was born.
"Kyaa!"
With a face full of embarrassment and a blush spread across her face, she covered her chest with her arms, which honestly didn''t do much to cover her up.
''Why is she here...'' Adam averted his gaze, feeling his face heat up as well, but he didn''t want
to meet her yet. Not like this.
He climbed out of the hot spring, the clothes drenched, while having him covered in a wet hug
of cotton and silk.
Lady Yu hid herself under the water, only a little bit of her face showing. It was still clear that she was pouting and angrily looking in the young man''s direction.
She expected a very big reaction from the Curse of Men. Lately, she had been feeling sick by
just getting looked at, and now, being naked and stared at, she expected a full blown curse.
Yet, as time slowly went by, the young man picked up his clothes from beneath the steam cloud, and still, not a single thing happened from the curse.
Instead, her heart started beating. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. It was thepletely
opposite kind of reaction she expected.
''What is this...''