When the plot-skips players into the game world
Chapter 1335: 56 Lion Head Secret Continuation

Chapter 1335: Chapter 56 Lion Head Secret Continuation

In the beginning, Aiwass indeed didn’t know the specific situation.

But later, when he heard “the Swan King is not completely dead, his soul is still watching the Iris Flower somewhere,” Aiwass suddenly understood which instance this was—

—In all fairness, this kind of statement isn’t entirely wrong.

After all, according to the original game plot, virtually every powerful force or individual with intentions to change the world in this world was ultimately hammered to death by the players.

At that time, Aiwass was completely unaware of any problem here—As a player, is there any problem with turning NPCs that don’t share your stance or agree with you into a boss? There’s no problem at all!

And being a boss, having a previously shattered dream, being misunderstood or persecuted is quite normal; having firm determination and perseverance is even more reasonable. Only when these conditions are met can one be called a compelling antagonist leader—and breaking the lofty aspirations of the villains has always been the job of the player protagonist!

—I’m not interested in listening, you’re not worthy to speak!

From a player’s perspective, this could even count as an enjoyable plot—any organization with a bad attitude toward “players” turns out to be villains in the end, and there’s absolutely no redemption plot; and as long as they’re villains, they’re basically completely hammered to death, at most running away once or twice midway.

And now, with the increasing number of various boss fights following Aiwass, he gradually realized the oddity.

—It is known that there will be an unknown apocalypse in the future, and now is the time for Transcendence… is there really a need to kill those attempting to change? What exactly is the player’s stance? Or rather, as the manipulators of “players,” what is their personal stance? Is it merely “world peace?”

At least in this world… in this idealistic world where one needs a resolute mind to become stronger.

It can be said… every major villain was once a failed hero.

—This is precisely the case for the boss known as the “Box of Emptiness.”

The 4.0 version contained four high-difficulty instances, only two of which had Celestial Marshals. The last one was the Calamity Demon Dragon as the half body of a Crown Lord. In the original world line, Professor Moriarty was the one who finally took the heart of the Calamity Demon Dragon—and that was also the precursor to “Aiwass’s death.”

Among the four high-difficulty instances, the simplest one, and also the first boss, is called “Box of Emptiness.”

Aiwass fought this instance less often because it’s a pure mechanism boss. The instance was full of various mini-games, feeling like playing a round of “Fall Guys.” Aiwass’s short-term memory wasn’t great, and he disliked snapshot memory-type mechanisms—those where you see what color the colored floor is, then the floor turns black, and you follow the mechanism rules to guide skills of different colors onto the same colored grid.

Aiwass could only run along with his teammates the whole time, completely unable to remember anything. And among players like him, Aiwass estimated at least seventy percent or more—everyone as a wage slave basically had no intelligence, mindlessly grinding the game, unlike young students whose minds had become rigid to the point of failing such mechanisms…

And because he kept breaking the team in this instance, he instead remembered vividly the first five seconds of the unskippable opening CG:

Like a treasure chest, the “Box of Emptiness” opened, but what jumped out was not a treasure chest monster—it was a handsome, tightly closed-eyed human head.

Looking back now, that should have been the Swan King’s head.

“—According to my speculation,” Aiwass spoke, “the Swan King’s head should be preserved in the home of a Count of Moon’s Son.”

“…Where did you get this from?!”

Sherlock blurted out.

He distinctly remembered, when he asked Aiwass “What do you think,” Aiwass had said “I’m not very sure” then!

At that time, Aiwass wasn’t even clear whether the Swan King wasn’t completely dead yet… he still needed to check his answer against his own. But now, he suddenly knew where the Swan King’s head was placed.

Simply absurd!

This was not “speculation” at all!

Sherlock increasingly suspected that Aiwass might truly possess some unspeakable foresight ability…

While Aiwass was seriously recalling the pre-requisite tasks for the “Void Nothing Desolate Garden” instance, stating backwards from later events: “The Sons of the Moon actually have a secret technology… they can preserve people’s heads, keeping them in the state of ‘still alive.’

“Hmm, I know this.”

Unexpectedly, the Old Duke nodded in response: “This is a craft from the ‘Secret Continuation of the Lion Head.’

“Back when it was the Path of Love or Beast’s Path, there was once a Lion Sky Department in the Beast’s Path. He self-proclaimed as the King of Ten Thousand Beasts, but had his head chopped off by Supreme Heaven, turning his head into an ornament… Yet even so, he did not die.

“He endured until Supreme Heaven left his throne and finally fled to the Lower Realm. This technique of using ‘a head’ to preserve oneself is called the ‘Lion Head Technique.’

The Old Duke evidently had heard of this technology. He even knew the background.

Considering his age… it was probably propagated by the Sons of the Moon.

After all, at the age of the Ice Heart Duke, if he didn’t enter the Dusk Path, his end should be within these years. He had experienced the Third Rebellion himself, and his age is likely well over a hundred.

If the Ice Heart Duke was unwilling to be transformed into a Son of the Moon, they could also provide another method of prolonging life—that is the “Lion Head Technique.”

“The ‘Lion Head Technique’ originated from the Primordial Empire, formally known as the ‘Head Loss Method,’ and those who mastered this method were called ‘Head Droppers.’

Aiwass remembered it vividly as well: “Sorcerers using this method were also known as ‘Flying Head Barbarians’—their characteristic being that the head can survive detached from the body, freely flying. If the ‘Head Loss Method’ is not practiced well, one must return to their body within a time limit, or they will die. And they can gain life force from others by sucking blood, if the ‘Head Loss Method’ is practiced to a profound level, they can even directly eat heads, taking others’ bodies as their own.

“Though failing to return to their body made it easier to die, conversely… if they can keep ‘life drain’ to maintain a strong blood flow, they won’t die immediately.

“The Swan King is stuck at the boundary between ‘dead and not dead.’ Those Sons of the Moon placed his head in a blood case, thus providing a continuous supply of fresh blood Qi… And for a Count of Moon’s Son, storing fresh blood is a very reasonable need.

“—Therefore, no one will suspect him of using this blood for other things.

“Such as nurturing a former king’s head with this blood.”