The spider creature screeched a few times, its sound became obviously weaker than before. It turned towards Wu Xiaoming, its legs shaking and struggling to support its body in an attempt to mount another attack. But the stab wounds on the side of its tail just flared up, expanded and tore up further. Its internal organs, mostly its guts but also including two deflated bags - maybe glands of some kind.
The spider creature tried to stand up once again, but a beam of golden light shot from Wu Xiaoming's left hand went straight into the rotten wound on its tail. The golden light caused a small explosion from inside of its body, ripping the wound wider and spilling more of its internal organs. The creature let out a final screech and shot at Wu Xiaoming, but he had already backed out of the way.
The bone-chilling cold on his right hand finally registered with him the moment he let out a breath of relief. He dropped the blade he was holding to check on his arm - the skin on his entire right hand was gray and cracked, his palm much more so; his muscles withered slightly and he could barely feel his fingers. The effects of the Cursed Shin Blade, it cursed the spider creature as well as him, the user.
He sat down on the ground, pushed his Qi and hovered his glowing left palm over his right hand. Traces of black smoke arose from the cracks in his skin, and pungent black blood seeped out and dripped onto the ground. He would be lying if he proclaimed to anyone he was not worried or afraid. But the fading cold, the growing pain, and the fact that he could move his fingers just a little more as time went by gave him a lot of relief.
He stopped when the coldness faded away and his skin regained its normal color - ignoring the red blood anyway. He picked the Cursed Shin Blade up with two fingers, then put it back into his inventory. In the future, he should probably NOT use it unless the situation really called for it.
The body of the spider creature collapsed and almost completely turned into a pile of disgusting mush by the time he was in a good condition to go. A single health orb sat beside the pool of liquified organs, along with a glowing white stone.
The health orb healed his cracked skin and withered muscles completely, and the white stone appeared to be a category of item he had never seen before: a gem.
"Stone of the Grudge Spider (Gem): grudge spreads and binds, in webs it traps; in the end, the predator is also the prey. Grants Grace."
Grace, he never imagined this stat was present in this realm as well. In his previous life, this was still a feature that was being tested and they had not planned to release yet. And gems were designed to be just like jewels in other action RPGs - they could be socketed into items to take effect.
Current currencies: 21002 Spirit Fragments, 114 Vision Slivers. A total of 1500 Spirit Fragments and 5 Vision Slivers gained, not a lot, but not small either. Experience wise he was still at level 8, though with probably a few more defeated enemies he would reach level 9.
He checked his own body for a bit - he had no other injuries with him, only that he needed some time to recover his Qi and Spirit.
He checked his inventory - the Rusted Grim Enchanted Sword was still in his inventory, just in a slot beside the Cursed Shin Blade, which would be the reason he took it out by mistake.
Almost at the end of his filled inventory slots, something was there he did not recognize - a light brown rectangular cuboid with a golden aura.
"Brick of Resolve (Construct of Will): from this very brick, stained with his own blood, he saw through the strengths and weaknesses of his opponent. From his heartfelt devotion, he contained his opponent the only way he knew how. From his burning thirst for vengeance and justice, he kept his mind and spirit alive, just to see an end to his long journey. He won. Grants Fortitude. Grants Fury. Grows with evil vanquished."
He had to take a few moments to calm his heartbeats. Fortitude, Fury, and Grace, all were in the same category of stats developed by him and a small group of designers, tested but not ready to release yet. They were a kind of "hidden" stats intended to help prolong the game's life when most players have reached the endgame - in short, they were generic modifiers to enhance player characters.
Grace was a "farming" stat, which would increase currency drop for the player.
Fury was an offensive stat, which would increase a player character's general damage output, and negate enemies' positive defensive effects,
Fortitude was a defensive stat, which would increase a player's general defenses, and weaken all negative influence on the player character. A few examples would be: shortening poison effect time, hastening expiry of curses, and in the case of this brick, making it easier to break free from crowd control effects.
He could dive into all these new elements and information another time. Right now, he simply had more important things to do.
And one of those things was to check out all the wrapped prey. From his experience playing with action RPGs, when it came to cocoons and wrapped prey like this, there were always surprisingly valuable things hidden in there.
The spiderweb wraps on the second floor turned up nothing - all he found were bones of different creatures, some of which were quite old and crumbled into dust the moment Wu Xiaoming touched them.
He proceeded to the third floor. There were several rooms here, all of which were filled with wrapped prey. The webbing looked more fresh, and as it turned out, the prey were as well - a few of them released a pungent but somewhat "fresh" fleshy smell when he opened the webbing. Sometimes it was dark brown or dark green mush, sometimes it was clear, almost eggwhite-like liquid. As strong a stomach as Wu Xiaoming had, after opening up around twenty of them his stomach began to churn.
In the corner of the room furthest from the staircase stood one that was particularly tall and wide. It was probably the biggest one among all of the prey in this building. By the time Wu Xiaoming noticed it he had lost interest in opening anything else directly and was using the energy slashes to open up many in bulks.
"Slash." Wu Xiaoming deliberately unleashed a less powerful, vertical slash. The webbing was cut open from the middle. The webbings burst open from the tension, revealing something black underneath.
Finally something different. He came closer and began pulling on the opening with his hands. It was some kind of tall object wrapped in leather or polyester - a rather curious finding in this realm.
He nudged the black surface with his foot - nothing happened, it was soft but tight, just like its look would indicate. He ran his fingers along the surface - the touch was more similar to pulled leather, rough leather.
There was no opening he could find to peel the leather away, so he simply uttered: "Slash".
The energy slash was stopped by a thin, light green energy shield. The very next moment, the wrapping burst open, and a leg shot from inside, landing on Wu Xiaoming's chest.
"Back the hell off, you shameless marauder! Everything's for sale but nothing's free!" A dramatic, almost cartoonish male voice announced.
Wu Xiaoming pulled out a morningstar but did not attack. A creature that could talk? This was definitely a first.
The black leather unwrapped by itself, turning into a rather big cape. Black on the outside, red on the inside. The thing wearing it was a tall, slender humanoid creature - or he could just call it a human. A human, wearing a strange hat made of rags, a shiny but cracked metal mask covering his entire face, and a whole suit of dark leather armor. His two eyes glowed in green, staring at Wu Xiaoming. His left hand was raised at Wu Xiaoming, in a "stop" motion, while his right hand was in his pocket, in a stance where he could pull out a weapon at any moment.
"Hold it right there, mister. " The masked man narrowed his glowing green eyes and pretended to pull his right hand out a few times: "I've dealt with unfriendly customers before, don't you dare! Do you know where they are now? Dead! Dead as a bunch of sewer rats! Dead as lunch meat! Dead as rotten apples! Dead as…"
"You're human? " Wu Xiaoming interjected with a question.