005.
Belatedly, Qiao Luan recalled that this vine had emerged from an aperture, and with no telling what kind of filth clung to it, his expression instantly turned somewhat indescribable. Silently staring at his own fingers, he shook them off in utter disgust, pulled a wet wipe from the entryway cabinet, and meticulously scrubbed every single web of his fingers with steady, thorough motions, even though only his fingertips had been dirtied.
Having finished wiping his hands, he seemed to finally remember that someone else was standing at the doorway, and offered a polite, apologetic smile: “Nothing personal, just felt it was a bit dirty.”
The man: “…”
The explanation proved far harder for the monster to accept than no explanation at all.
Provoked by Qiao Luan’s offhand remarks into unleashing the fury lurking deep within, virtually every location across the man’s arms, shoulders, chest, and heart transformed into exaggerated, ugly apertures lined with two rows of sharp teeth. Countless vines shot out from them, sharing a singular objective:
Qiao Luan’s throat.
Yet regrettably, every single vine met the exact same fate upon touching Qiao Luan’s skin as before. Driven to fury by humiliation, the man flexed his countless apertures, spraying toxic venom while interrogating Qiao Luan with a piercing voice akin to the screams of countless children: “What the hell is going on here?!”
Holy shit!
Hastily dodging that wave of bizarre fluid, Qiao Luan’s expression shifted slightly: “If you want to talk, just talk, why spit all over the place? Although this outfit of mine is cheap, I have no idea where to buy clothes in the future. What am I supposed to do if you ruin it?”
Yet interpreting his changing expression as successfully neutralizing this knife-proof, bullet-proof freak, the vines all over the man’s body trembled with excitement, happily repeating the spit-spit-spit motion.
Qiao Luan’s reaction speed was currently under 50, but relying on a speed stat of 384 allowed him to barely dodge the majority of the attacks. Consequently, most of the venom landed on the floor and cabinets, with merely a drop or two splashing onto the back of his hand.
Yet while the marble material was corroded into a hole, the back of his hand remained smooth, fair, and completely undamaged. While this was a positive outcome, staring at that drilled hole left Qiao Luan truly unable to hold back: “Hold on a second!”
The gaping apertures slowly closed. Devoid of a face, the man used vines to shape a green question mark above his head.
Whether puzzled as to why the venom failed to work on Qiao Luan, or confused as to why Qiao Luan wanted him to hold on, remained entirely unclear.
With a heavy tone, Qiao Luan stated: “Stop spraying. You won’t kill me no matter how much you spray. Come inside, let’s have a chat.”
Stepping aside to clear a pathway, he invited the other party into the living room. The man’s upper body blooming fully alongside his head oh wait, blooming with apertures stared silently for a moment before simply converting his lower half into plant roots, his roots padding clumsily across the ground until he reached the sofa, where his roots slammed downward to forcefully root themselves into the flooring.
Qiao Luan: “…”
The smile on his face froze slightly.
Fucking hell, there goes another piece of flooring.
Taking a deep breath and forcing himself to remain calm, he walked over to sit on the opposite sofa and initiated questioning: “Abyss Monster D098, its true form is a vine-type plant, favoring dark and damp growing environments, and accustomed to using human bodies as incubation beds to nurture progeny. Is that correct?”
The moment Qiao Luan’s final syllable fell, D098 which had previously relaxed slightly tensed its vines once more, aiming every single tip directly at Qiao Luan, only to hear Qiao Luan’s follow-up statement: “Don’t get excited, you and I are from the same hometown.”
D098: “?”
Qiao Luan: “I’m part of the abyss too. Why do you think your vines couldn’t pierce my throat? Simply because my true form is a boulder. Furthermore, my tier is higher than yours; I’m Grade-C.”
Qiao Luan spoke with glib eloquence, purposefully curling his fist to smash against the coffee table to substantiate his words. With a loud bang, the entire coffee table instantly shattered into pieces, turning into debris that scattered beside D098’s roots.
“Where else would you find this kind of hardness outside of a boulder, right?”
Stunned by the sight, D098 nodded its vines frantically.
Qiao Luan continued: “I won’t show you my true form, it’s honestly a bit ugly. Frankly speaking, your current look is pretty ugly too. Why don’t you change back?”
Hesitating for a moment, D098 reverted to its human male form.
Yet the moment Qiao Luan caught sight of the man’s irritating facial features, he pursed his lips: “Never mind, that other look actually seemed more endearing.”
D098 finally failed to restrain itself from speaking out: “You are so annoying!”
That shrill voice threatened to pierce straight through Qiao Luan’s ears. Rubbing them unconcernedly, he finally understood why it rarely spoke; its casual tone and angry pitch possessed identical piercing frequencies, sounding grating and harsh enough to make Qiao Luan yearn to toss the person outside.
Yet he exercised restraint.
Because right at that moment, the mechanical voice belonging to the Disguise as a Deity System rang beside his ear: 【Congratulations to the host for successfully deceiving (duping) an abyss monster. You can now unlock the Grade-A Lucky Wheel and draw a prize.】
Truly, Qiao Luan hadn’t anticipated that the moment he finished complaining about the lackluster contents of the Grade-D Lucky Wheel, a less-than-bright Grade-D abyss monster would be delivered straight to his doorstep.
Outwardly maintaining complete composure, his mind raced with calculations.
He wanted to test the specific manifestations of what the system deemed “successfully deceiving an abyss monster”…
Thus, he opened his mouth to tell D098: “Did you know there’s a giant moth over in the Yuping District? That’s my sworn brother who turned against me.”
Qiao Luan incited D098’s interest with a mere two sentences, prompting it to ask impatiently: “Why did you turn against each other?”
“Oh, back when it was still a caterpillar, it fell out of a tree and landed right on top of me, smashing its face to pieces.” Crossing his legs, Qiao Luan sighed regretfully, “Why do you think it has no facial features? Because its face got smashed flat eyes weren’t eyes, nose wasn’t a nose so it simply smoothed the whole face out. Looks cool, though.”
“Even though it fell down all by itself, I still showed massive respect by kowtowing in apology. But its petty-ass mind couldn’t take it and refused to forgive me.”
Caught up entirely in the narrative, D098 swiveled its vines and asked: “Weren’t you a boulder? How did you kowtow in apology?”
Maintaining a completely deadpan expression, Qiao Luan replied: “Rolling twice on the ground rolling from the top down, isn’t that a kowtow?”
D098 nodded naively: “Oh, true.”
Evidently, D098 had been duped by him once again, yet the system failed to trigger another notification granting draw chances.
…Turns out you can only scam the exact same abyss monster once.
The eager gaze Qiao Luan directed toward D098 instantly plummeted into disappointment. Having encountered such a gullible specimen on his very first try, he had hoped to milk more drawing opportunities from D098. After all, that was a Grade-A Lucky Wheel jumping two whole tiers straight from Grade-D.
Losing interest in entertaining D098 further, Qiao Luan casually tossed a box of braised beef noodles toward it: “I plan to go chat with my brother again. Take these noodles, you should head back now.”
Unexpecting that Qiao Luan would genuinely hand over food, D098’s vines fumbled clumsily to cradle the round box, yanked its roots forcibly out of the flooring, and paddled away with pad-pad steps.
Yet the moment it crossed the threshold of the front door, as if recalling something, Qiao Luan suddenly spoke up: “Are everyone in this building dead? Did I miss my chance?”
D098 swayed its body slightly and answered: “Not just this building, the whole residential complex.”
The moment it departed, Qiao Luan immediately opened the [Disguise as a Deity] draw system. Shortly after, the previously unseen Grade-A Lucky Wheel materialized before Qiao Luan’s eyes. The Grade-A Lucky Wheel likewise divided into eight sections:
Words Follow Action, Absolute Control, Infinite Modification, Prescience, Endless Teleportation, Void Summoning, Memory Tampering, and Time Pause.
Upon closer inspection, however, each of these major sections further branched into distinct sub-components.
【Aside from specialized and powerful capabilities, the Grade-A Lucky Wheel also details specific tiers and contents compared to the Grade-D Lucky Wheel.】 The system prompted alongside him.
Qiao Luan noted this nuance as well; for instance, every ability divided into low, intermediate, and high tiers, capable of handling monsters or espers of varying strengths respectively. Beyond that, specialized abilities like Absolute Control featured two branches: psychological and physical (surface-level objects).
In short, a vast array of selectable abilities existed.
However—
“Are you certain I can only draw once?”
【The host may draw freely; regardless of which major section you hit, you will have the opportunity to draw again within that major section.】
“What happens after I finish drawing everything? This Grade-A wheel shouldn’t allow numerical stacking like the Grade-D wheel, right?”
【Other abilities will be substituted for the host at that time.】
Quite user-friendly indeed.
With a chuckle, Qiao Luan stared at the eight special abilities as spots of light seemed to flash across his pitch-black eyes. True to its Grade-A status, every single skill appeared formidable. Drawing a deep breath, he surrendered his choice to destiny.
The pointer spun frantically, finally coming to a sluggish halt ten seconds later. Under Qiao Luan’s eager gaze, the tip drifted slowly to rest upon [Void Summoning].
Qiao Luan: “!”
The very first feature Qiao Luan noticed when examining this Grade-A wheel was precisely [Void Summoning], for no other reason than the fact that [Void Summoning] could summon deities.
Even had Qiao Luan never played “Old Gods”, he could easily deduce the status of deities within this game.
Since they were utilized for the game’s title, they naturally represented the protagonists.
Based on the lore provided by players, deities genuinely stood as the most powerful entities among the five factions.
However… judging by the laws of gacha draws, hitting the jackpot on your very first pull was virtually impossible under normal circumstances, so he had tempered his expectations. Yet merely a second after tempering his expectations, the drawing interface morphed into a different wheel: the four ornate characters of [Void Summoning] stamped across the wheel, with [Summon Abyss Monster] and [Summon Deity] occupying opposing sectors.
Among them, [Summon Abyss Monster] commanded ninety-nine percent of the wheel, while the four characters of [Summon Deity] squeezed aggrievedly into the remaining one percent grid.
Insane.
Rolling his eyes, Qiao Luan thought to himself that indeed, he needn’t hold any expectations whatsoever.
Tapping the screen casually, the pointer predictably stopped on the [Summon Abyss Monster] column, and during the subsequent three tiers, he unsurprisedly drew the low tier. Regarding low-tier summoning capabilities, the system provided detailed specifications: abyss monsters summonable within the low tier belonged to Grade-D, Grade-E, and Grade-F. Note: Summoned abyss monsters are drawn randomly, and each summoning session may inflict extreme damage upon the host’s psyche; such damage includes, but is not limited to, inducing mental pollution and mental collapse.
Qiao Luan: “…There’s side effects?”
System: 【Because summoning-type espers are relatively special.】
Qiao Luan: “Understood.”
Meaning it couldn’t be overused.
Still, the abyss monsters currently surfacing within public view predominantly concentrated across the three tiers of D, E, and F. Furthermore, Qiao Luan’s physical constitution had undergone breakthrough enhancements; even without spamming [Void Summoning], preserving his life should prove feasible.
Seated before the dining table, Qiao Luan attempted to place a call to the relevant authorities first, yet every single line displayed busy signals.
He felt no particular surprise; military resources remained limited, yet abyss monsters emerged continuously across the globe, meaning they were undoubtedly overwhelmed right now. Thus, Qiao Luan opened his computer first and logged onto the Bizarre Tales Forum.
Today’s Bizarre Tales Forum differed notably from usual. Given the massive traffic volume it now commanded, the First Continent’s authorities had directly taken it over, splitting the forum into several sections within a short timeframe:
Information Exchange Zone, Assistance Request Zone, and “Old Gods” Content Sharing Zone.
Upon registering the forum’s transformation, a single thought crossed Qiao Luan’s mind the governments of the Five Continents were sparing no effort to ensure humanity’s continuation.
He simply wondered when the internet network would completely collapse.
Opening the Information Exchange Zone, Qiao Luan published a post: [Coordinates: Fifth Continent, Jiang City, Wanhua Residential Complex. Abyss Monster D098 has appeared; its true form is a vine-type plant, favoring human bodies as incubation beds for progeny. The entire residential complex has fallen; see floor 1 for details.]
1L: Sharing a few key pieces of information understood by yours truly:
D098 comprises two components: a mother body and progeny. There is only one mother body, but countless progeny. Only by slaying the mother body can D098 be considered truly dead. Otherwise, it will continue to reproduce infinitely.
D098 has virtually decimated the entire Wanhua Residential Complex, but the mother body is not located within Wanhua Residential Complex; its specific whereabouts remain unknown. Everyone, please watch out for vine tendrils originating from dark corners and eerie knocks at your door.
Of course, it’s also possible it has already replaced your friend, your lover, or any existence by your side / cute
Resting his chin in his palm, Qiao Luan clicked submit.
These details had been supplied by the system when D098 manifested.
And what he could do was likely just relay the complete intelligence verbatim to the masses.
Yet… he could actually do something else as well.
For instance, venturing out alone to hunt down D098’s mother body to test whether D098’s blood could grant him an additional esper ability.
Had it not been for the fact that asking someone where their mother body was upon a first meeting felt akin to asking someone where their biological father was buried, Qiao Luan genuinely would have loved to be this intrusive.
…Too bad.