Ultimate Rice System - Chapter 74

Xin Fan closed his eyes. There was only one thing he could do: pray. To whatever god that was above, he prayed. Time seemed to have stopped at this very moment. He could hear everything around him. The sounds of small insects buzzing. The sounds of the grass rustling against the wind. He could even hear the sound of the blast of energy heading his way. There was a sound of feet touching the ground behind him.

*Boom*

Time had resumed. A large explosion sounded out behind him. He knew that his plan had worked because well, he was still standing there. The blast was no joke. He could feel the searing heat, that pure form of energy radiating behind him. Xin Fan turned around to see the specter slowly burning away in a bright flash of light. Each and every particle of the being was slowly becoming disintegrated. The sounds of the metal hitting the earth rang as the specter’s arms slowly fell apart. Although it didn’t have a proper face to emote with, Xin Fan could feel the genuine hatred it had towards him. It was an instinctual feeling, as if it was coded into his body to feel it.

*Ting*

The ringing of a key hitting the ground brought the end to the defeat of the specter. The key was surprisingly small, around the same size as a coin. The silver edges glowed an ominous red and blue as it reflected the starlight. Xin Fan knelt down to pick it up gingerly, making sure he didn’t accidentally snap it.

“XIN FAAAN!”

“Huk!”

Xin Fan felt a soft sensation his back. A pair of arms were wrapped around his waist as he felt something wet on his shoulders. It was a cold night yet he felt warm.

“Hic…Hic…”

Xin Fan sighed letting the tears slowly get absorbed into his robe. He knew himself that what he did was reckless. There simply was not time to explain. Chilong slowly walked up to him. He dragged the axe behind him as if he was exhausted. He stared at Xin Fan in the eye. Xin Fan felt a strong force beneath his jaw.

*Crunch*

“Xin Fan!”

Chilong with his fist in the sky stared down on Xin fan. He had quite the annoyed look on his face.

“What’s that for!?”

“You know why I did it.”

Xin Fan was about to retort but he stopped before he said anything.

“Why did you not tell us? Why do you never tell us anything?”

Chilong had a fierce expression. His fists were clenched still shaking. Xin Fan could not tell whether it was from anger or exhaustion.

“If you were gone…who will I fight. If you were gone…who would I talk to.”

Xin Fan felt the raw emotion in his eyes. It was as if two people were talking. Chilong looked away and started to head to the door. The atmosphere was awkward. It always had been. Xin Fan rubbed the now growing bruise on his chin. Tianfei was helping him up as he felt slightly disoriented.

“Don’t worry about him. He only means well.”

Xin Fan struggled to get up.

“Yeah…I know. It is my fault.”

Xin Fan turned and looked at Tianfei. Although it was mostly healed, Xin Fan could still see a slighly red line marking across her cheek to her right eye. It seemed that the balm’s effects were limited and couldn’t heal it completely. He felt a twang of guilt in his heart as she whole heatedly supported him up. If only he had figured it out sooner, this could have been avoided.

“You’re face…”

Tianfei shook her head. She just smiled as if she didn’t really mind the injury and rubbed away the tears in her eyes.

“It’s fine.”

Xin Fan slowly climbed the steps up to the door. Chilong was leaning against it, waiting for him.

“Sorry…if that hurt.”

“It’s no problem.”

Xin Fan shook it off and took out the key. Looking at the large keyhole, Xin Fan could not possible figure out how it could fit. As the key slowly approached the keyhole, the entire thing shrunk to match the size of the key.

*Click*

The doors slowly opened. Moonlight could be seen shining through the glass ceiling. There was a statue of some sort of deity. Besides from the fact that this place was within the abyss, it almost seemed man made. The statue was in a strange pose, one hand over it’s face and another pointing at a direction almost leading them somewhere. Through inference, they followed the direction it was pointing to.

[ Your plants are ready to harvest ]

–

A boy punched through the monster guarding the altar. Black blood stained his fists as he collapsed onto the ground coughing. Unlike the previous encounters with similar monsters, this one could utilize all their abilities as it pleased. The ability to vanish. The ability to fly. The ability to create clones. The boy’s red hair glowed as he spun around smashing apart two of monsters surrounding him. His breath was erratic almost as if he was drawing upon something precious.

“GRAH!”

The boy did a quick succession of dashes. It was as if he was in a state of rage. A purple aura surrounded him as he slaughtered through the cloned monsters. He kicked off the wall landing on the back of one that was flying. With an iron grip, he wrapped his hands around it’s neck and guided himself to the others. Before collision, he snapped it’s neck and jumped on the next one’s back. Black spilled all over the pristine white marble as he roared.

“GRRR”

He growled as he saw another one approach him. It disappeared into the moonlight for a moment however reappeared as he kicked off the ground twice. He rushed up to it with his jaws wide open and bit at it’s neck.

“ROAR!”

The throat of the monster was ripped apart leaving the boy still growling with eyes red as flames. From behind a pillar, a timid looking body climbed out. The boy still it’s raging state growled ferociously, slowly ambling towards him.

“C…Calm down. Tong Hu”

The timid boy retreated pushing up his visor and taking out something from his pocket. It looked like some sort of needle or dart. The boy looked to the sky for a moment of prayer and pulled out a blowgun. The boy was slow and did not make any sharp movements.

*Tut*

A small dart whistled through the air landing cleanly on the neck of the raging boy. The boy in rage rushed up to the other with his fists up high. Before the fist could land, he stopped.

“Huff…huff…thanks…”

The visor wearing boy sighed in relief. He took out a few more darts in his hands and counted them.

“Only two left. Any more and I have no chance of bringing you back.”

Tong Hu collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion. He took out an orb from his pocket and threw it to the other.

“I’m not good with this stuff…you deal with it. Figure out why it stopped working.”

The boy caught the orb and slowly walked up to the altar. The altar was simple. It was a plain block of black marble sticking out of the ground with a round slot. Engraved on it was the symbol that matched that of the orb. The boy inserted the orb into the slot slowly spinning around until it locked into place.

*Voom*

A few engravings on the block lit up. It seemed to be a bar of some sort, around half full and slowly filled it’s way up. The orb also started to shine the same color and became dimmer over time, as if the altar was sapping it’s power. The bar kept filling up until it stopped 4/5th of the way. The boy frowned attempted to pull the orb out but to no avail.

“What did we come here for?”

The altar once again became dim with the starlight reflecting slightly off it.

“Wanna get out of here?”

Tong Hu nodded his head before slowly recovering his breath. He grabbed his bag and retraced his way out of the Temple.

“Wanna kill some monsters?”

“Sure…”