NOVPUB
Chapter 88: The Truth of the Arm
"What happens after that?" The arm repeated John’s question and laughed. "It’s simple. First, you will be able to wield me. Second, you will get locations of other parts of myself, and eventually, you will acquire me in my complete form and become powerful."
"What?" John was taken aback. "What are you actually?"
"I am an armored suit, duh. But I am a very powerful armored suit. It’s just that the previous owner died thousands of years ago, and the enemy destroyed me while arranging this stupid seal and test. Granted, if he didn’t, then this planet would’ve been destroyed. But that bastard made things too difficult. None of the Tamers that stumbled into this managed to unseal me."
John frowned. If it was dangerous in the whatever trial it talked about, he didn’t want to take the risk.
But most of all, he wanted to know more about this arm. He also couldn’t just trust whatever this arm was saying at face value.
What if it was lying?
"I’ll return later."
After saying that, John recalled Alfred to Monster Paradise.
Alfred didn’t stand and lie down, feeling exhausted.
"Good job, man. You did great," John said as he patted Alfred on his back.
"I was getting attacked with all sorts of life-like illusions," Alfred said. "But I knew you were alive, and everything was false."
"So it goes in that direction eventually," John thoughtfully said. He didn’t stay long outside after seeing that arm. It was just for two seconds. As such, he didn’t experience what Alfred and Rexion experienced.
"You take a rest. Next time, I’m going out myself after figuring more about this arm," John said before he asked the Rune.
"Can you inspect that arm, Rune?"
[ I did when Alfred went outside. Here’s the status, but it’s not much. ]
[ ??? ]
[Rank]: Calamity
[Attributes]: Nether, Blacksun, Carvehein.
"So it’s rank and the attributes. But what rank is this?" Almond raised an eyebrow. "How strong is it?"
[It’s strong enough to destroy this planet in this Seedling Realm.]
John blinked. "Putting aside this new information of this planet being in some Seedling Realm, it looks like things would get troublesome if I unseal the arm."
[It depends. What the arm said about it being an armor suit is correct. But this is a Calamity-rank spirit item with its own ego, and from its looks, it’s close to upper-level progression in Calamity-rank.]
[I can make some deductions. First, it wouldn’t give you anything even if you unseal it, and it will just leave this planet and go to one of the Bloomed Realms.]
"Alright, just tell me already. What’s this Seedling and Bloomed Realms?"
[Primostria Cosmoverse is essentially divided into two. Seedling Realm is below, and on top of it is the Bloomed Realm. To be honest, it’d be unwise for you to go make your presence known in the Bloomed Realm where God-rank beings reside, including the Supreme Gods, who can sniff out this esque-invasion of yours.]
"I see. Well, it looks like I still need more information about the arm before doing anything." John rubbed his temples. "Chuthulos."
"Sup, brother John."
Chuthulos’ avatar appeared beside John, startling him.
"I got a distress signal from the Rune a minute ago, so I came here. What trouble do we have?"
"Oh," John wryly smiled. "I didn’t know the Rune had already called you."
"Wait, I’ll show you the trouble," John said and turned to Pymon. "Pymon, you wanna go out a bit for Chuthulos to see the arm?"
"I-I can! Send me out, Master!" Pymon said as he gathered the courage.
John smiled. Rexion and Alfred both experienced it, so he might as well have Pymon experience that horror and make him tough.
’Next, it’d be my turn.’
After all, if he wanted to leave this doomed gorge, he would have to walk out!
He couldn’t just magically teleport. n𝚘𝚟𝚙𝚞𝚋.𝚌o𝚖
Soon, the screen showed what Pymon was seeing.
Chuthulos saw the arm and blinked. "Interesting. This is indeed a major-ish trouble."
"Major-ish?" John was speechless.
"Oi, why did you send another one of your Pets here? Just come out yourself, survive the fear until you touch me, and go into the trial. You can train your pet monsters and make them stronger and get tons of resources, including wielding me, you know?"
Chuthulos immediately sneered. "It’s lying. This arm’s ego is mixed with its master’s soul. Most likely, the owner of the spirit armor decided to use the armor as his escape and merged with it, but his opponent managed to slap a strong seal and shattered the armor into pieces."
"So there’s no trial or anything, right?"
"Nope."
"Bastard," John cursed the arm. "What if I touch it?"
"No idea. The seal is working, but given that a long time has passed and this arm is sentient and has powers within it, it might have found a way to bypass the seal with some conditions."
"And if I provide it the right conditions, could it escape?" John blinked.
Chuthulos looked at John and grinned. "Or even possess you, which we should prevent from happening."
John recalled Pymon, who fainted like Rexion and went into slumber.
"So what do we do now? I want to escape from the gorge. There is an area to move past the arm, but if it finds a way to get around the seal, things could become nasty."
"I got an idea," Chuthulos said as his eyes blinked and glittered. "Let’s bring it here and seal it better. We can keep it."
John was dumbfounded hearing that. "Is that possible?"
"You currently have 93,490 Molding Essence, and it’s increasing rather fast due to the King-rank and Gold-rank resources you have gathered. The Molding Essence we have is enough to enhance the seal of the arm, so that the arm can’t do anything."
"But I have to touch it to send it here," John muttered.
Chuthulos rubbed John’s head with a tentacle. "No worries. Before it can do anything, the arm will be here. Why? Because I am here!"
John chuckled. "Alright, let’s do it."
Well, Chuthulos couldn’t afford to get John into fatal danger, and John knew that. After all, the entire Eldritch Cosmoverse’s fate depended on John, and he had the Rune of New Beginning, which was made from the core of the literal ancestor of that Cosmoverse, bound in his soul.
"Oh yeah, we can sacrifice the arm to Xhalthuun bit by bit. You will get enough Xhal Drops periodically that way!"
"What?!" John’s eyes shone. "Let’s fucking do it fast then."
"Also, John. You have to upgrade Xhalthuun to level 3. He complained that you have enough resources to get 100,000 Xhal Drops for his upgrade, yet you are not doing it."
"I promise that’s the first thing I’d do after we get that arm," John said with a grin. "Alright, I’m going out now. You make sure I don’t get screwed over when I touch it."
John vanished and appeared outside, making his presence known in front of the eerie arm.
The arm, upon seeing John, trembled. The eye on its palm widened.
"Great, you’re here!"
’So the person merged his soul with his calamity-rank spirit armor. So both the Ego and his soul kind of mixed up, eh?’
’Yes, that’s correct, brother John,’ Chuthulos replied.
’Ok, here it comes...’ John’s eyes trembled and his body turned cold.
