Skill Extraction: Exploring Dungeons

Chapter 928 802: The Culprit of Destruction

"The ways in which world destruction occurs are numerous, countless, and defy enumeration."

"But generally, they should be divided into three scenarios."

"The first scenario is when a world gradually declines due to various reasons and dies slowly without external interference."

"The second scenario is when the inhabitants of the world bring about their own demise by doing something the world cannot withstand."

"The third scenario is when a world attracts attention from external worlds or evil races and is destroyed as a result."

Taking advantage of his access to the ancient Titan bloodline, Longbei recalls some knowledge while sharing interesting information he finds.

This also aids him in searching for his target.

Upon hearing some odd intel extracted from Longbei's memory, everyone listens intently.

Got it, broadly divided into natural or disease death, suicide, and homicide.

Longbei continues, "Worlds destroyed in the first scenario usually won't retain any intelligent life, but tend to preserve the most usable items."

So that's it. In the first scenario, as the world goes into decline naturally, the life within it also slowly wanes and dies with the world.

This type of death allows various buildings, relics, and useful items to be preserved relatively intact.

"Worlds destroyed in the second scenario are likely those where the most life remains, along with corresponding wealth."

In other words, the destruction in this scenario is likely caused by accidental events involving the native life of the world.

Of course, some might intentionally destroy the world out of world-weariness.

But most are likely due to accidents.

"The third scenario is very complicated, often making world fragments extremely dangerous due to the residual culprits and forces of world destruction."

As Longbei mentions this, he opens his eyes.

"I remember now, that shadow earlier must be one of the world-destroying culprits."

Longbei thoroughly finds the presence of that shadow in ancient knowledge.

He begins explaining the origin and characteristics of that shadow to everyone.

"It's something that could either be a result of external invasion or naturally occurring evil within the world."

"Born from the hatred of all intelligent life, when hatred reaches a certain level, it intertwines with rules.

This makes them immortal and untouchable, except when the attack incorporates rules, otherwise they cannot be dealt with."

After listening to Longbei, Kane and the others nod, understanding the object's characteristics.

It means worlds destroyed by this evil are ones with insufficient top power.

Using the dungeon's grading system, these destroyed worlds are mostly silver and bronze level.

When reaching gold level, one can master the rules, which is the power to confront this evil.

Given its fragile nature, it is easily destroyable.

But for those at bronze and silver level, this thing is an utterly helpless existence.

Thinking back, their previous attack indeed lacked rules, only Longbei's lightning, born from Titan bloodline, naturally carried destructive rules.

"Given this, it should be considered a crisis event, even though it's situated on a world fragment of no use."

This thing, whichever way you look, should cause unpredictable casualties to ordinary life.

"If it's a useless world, let's just tag and remove it."

Upon hearing Kane's words, Longbei hurriedly interrupts, "Wait a minute, according to my bloodline's memory, although these evils are destructive, their death may leave behind some extremely rare materials."

"That's all well and good, but we can't find them fundamentally, only wait for them to attack us. But it's been so long, and we've only seen two. How long must we wait?"

"As long as Kreya uses her flames to condense excessive death, it should attract them out."

Longbei thinks for a while before saying.

The knowledge recalled from his bloodline shows that evils always pursue death because excessive death generates enough tragic negative emotions.

Upon hearing Longbei's words, Kane steps forward and pats his shoulder.

"Didn't expect, Longbei, that you'd one day become like a think tank for the team."

Upon hearing Kane, everyone gives Longbei a look of admiration.

Longbei directly swats away Kane's hand, "Get out of here, stop teasing me. With my current power, I'm surely an Elder back at Furnace Castle."

After some playful banter, they begin following Longbei's instructions.

In front, Kreya raises her hands high, black and white flames roar forth, then transform into pure black, a massive death starts to burn.

Beside, all Kane can do is stand ready.

"Ahhh! Oh oh oh aaaah!"

Screeching sounds flood in from all directions, surging like a tide.

The twisted, pitch-black shadows emerge from the air, crowding closely together and twisting like a black, writhing ocean.

This "ocean" formed by shadows transforms into a sky-covering tsunami, sweeping in.

"So many in such a small place!"

Seeing so many twisted shadows, Kane is shocked.

Even Longbei and the others are equally surprised.

Longbei himself didn't expect so many twisted shadows would exist.

Who would have thought such a small area would have so many twisted shadows? It seems this world wasn't unjustly destroyed.

Kane quickly releases magic power, a lofty platform rapidly lifts beneath everyone's feet, elevating them swiftly upwards.

Creating distance from the shadows below.

Then, various floating cannons hover in mid-air, their dark mouths aimed directly at those creatures below.

Besides that, the surface of the platform underfoot started to show densely-packed gun ports.

Dealing with these things using magic technology heat weapons is truly effortless.

Put a trace of rules on all weapons, enabling their attacks to harm these disgust-inducing creatures.

Kreya also directly threw the huge black flames in her hands, letting it float above everyone's heads.

A hundred Ghost Knights appeared around, wielding weapons formed by Soul-Burning Fire, and began to slash at the approaching shadows.

Black and white flames, thunder, colorful effects, energy gun muzzles, overwhelming fist imprints.

Various area skills completely suppressed these tidal wave-like shadows beneath the high platform.

Even though they kept surging, they couldn't step up even an inch.

But attracted by the black flames above Kane and the others, these twisted shadows were indifferent to destruction, continuously trying to surge upwards.

Kane and the others were like playing a mowing game, constantly harvesting the emerging weeds batch after batch.

It took about an hour for the shadows below to start decreasing slowly until they disappeared completely.

After seeing all the shadows eliminated, Kane only then lowered the platform back down.

Although everyone engaged in a battle of attrition for an hour, it didn't affect them at all.

After all, these shadows require just a little bit of power to be eliminated. Even though their numbers were vast, this consumption was insignificant for Kane and the others.

Maybe they didn't even break a sweat. Surely, these things were indeed too weak for them.

And at this moment on the ground, a carpet of black irregular rhomboid fragments stretched out.

These are likely the precious materials Longbei mentioned that can be obtained after the shadow's death.

Everyone picked up a piece from by their feet to inspect.

Kane looked at the fragment in his hand.

Holding two pieces, their shape seemingly matched their twisted appearance, as black as night, giving the illusion that something was squirming on them.

But when held up to the light, a crystal-like texture can be felt, with irregular rhomboid shapes, like a shattered mirror.

Kane decided to identify it to see if any attributes could be discerned.

No idea if this thing can be identified.

[Evil Shadow Devouring Fragment]

[Material/Accessory]

[Color: Golden]

[Attributes:]

[Extremely Solid]

[Malice] (Both the user and attacker will feel a persistent sense of malice.)

[Negative Energy Enhancement]

[Skills: Transform into Evil Shadow] (Crush the fragment, ignite the most tragic and evil emotions in your heart, transforming into an Evil Shadow.

The more intense the tragic and evil emotions, the stronger the transformed power.

This skill is irreversible.)

[Description: Evil born from the most tragic and evil energy within the psychic entities of world's wise beings, inherently carries emotions of total destruction.]

Seems like identification is possible.

Never expected this thing to be equipment, right?

But regardless of attributes or skills, it's not good equipment.

Such severe side effects; who is it meant to harm?

Truly everything from the disgusting core to the exploded remains is coated in headache-inducing evil.

Maybe the only useful aspect is its attribute as a material.

Although Kane isn't exactly a master craftsman, he's at least a mechanician.

He requires some materials, so he can see something in this magic material he holds.

The specific usage of this material isn't completely unknown to him.

According to these material qualities in hand, using some materials to suppress or remove some of the evil might enhance the negative energy effect of weapons and equipment.

There might be other uses, but Kane has reached his understanding limit already.

Also, even Meizike may use it in Alchemy Potions.

If Kane wants to create something evil, it may even serve as an energy source.

Like an Evil Energy Bomb.

However, the quality of this thing is quite inconsistent; one of the two pieces Kane holds is golden, and the other is a silver grade.

Looking at the irregular rhomboid fragments scattered on the ground, Kane slightly deconstructed the materials he held.

Then he spread magic power controlling the fragments to condense into a cluster and later stored them back in the Guild's warehouse.

After doing all this, Kane turned to Longbei.

"Advisor! Is there anything of value left in this World Fragment? If not, I'm marking it for exclusion."

Hearing Kane's jest, Longbei waved his hand helplessly.

"Nothing left, nothing left, mark it and move on quickly."

"Hahaha."

Kane chuckled a few times and then repeated his old trick, his bracelet condensing a mist orb which he tossed into the air.

As the mist surged, shortly afterward, they once again entered the vast white Mist.