A Psychiatrist's Bizarre Game Journey / Dream of the Mist

Perhaps because they had been imprisoned for too long and had most of their magical energy drained, their minds had become less sharp, and they were still worrying about these trivial matters at such a critical moment.

Zhou Ke'er could only move quickly while explaining, "There's no time to explain too much background. Just know that my body can cause great damage to this ancient elven tree. I still need to rescue the other heroes. Now, hurry up and escape along the path I've cleared!"

As she spoke, Zhou Ke'er used her evil power to cut a piece of flesh from her own body, infused it with a certain amount of evil energy, and tossed it to Aisaka Taiga and the others, saying, "If you encounter any obstacles on your journey, just touch the obstacles with my flesh. But be careful not to be affected by the energy inside. After you get out, throw this piece of flesh back into the ancient tree of the elves, or you can destroy it directly, but whatever you do, don't keep it."

"Wait... so that means all these injuries you sustained were self-inflicted in order to destroy the Ancient Elf Tree and rescue us?"

Taiga Aisaka realized this, but still couldn't help asking.

Zhou Ke'er didn't even turn her head, she just shrugged: "Do I even need to ask?"

Before the words were finished, the figure disappeared into the ancient tree once again.

Taiga Aisaka was speechless for a moment, only looking at the blood-soaked piece of flesh in his hand, feeling as if it were a weight he could not bear.

Honestly, if he were asked to do something like that, he absolutely could not do it... Miss Memoride is more like a hero than he, this so-called hero...

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637. Task Progress

Zhou Ke'er eventually sealed her remaining head into the ancient tree of elves, and used her sword to pierce and shred the brain inside the head, making her as dead as could be—although it's not like one could still be considered alive when only one head remains.

With the complete death of this body, the restriction that had been placed on the body to absorb Zhou Ke'er's soul was also broken.

Immediately, countless black mists gushed out from all parts of the head, eventually solidifying into a human-shaped form.

Zhou Ke'er stretched, but there was no "crackling" sound—well, now Zhou Ke'er is no longer an evil being in human skin, he is now truly composed entirely of evil beings.

The theory that Zhou Ke'er is supernatural is entirely true.

If it weren't for the fact that those things would definitely not be allowed, Zhou Ke'er would have wanted to directly expel herself from humanity and become a double agent—just kidding, probably.

Having used that Lan Yanran body for so long, it's really a bit strange to suddenly revert to her original form. But compared to other people's bodies, her own is definitely more comfortable to use.

Moreover, because Zhou Ke'er's body is entirely composed of evil, all physical attacks are essentially ineffective against him. Unlike those monsters that have been corrupted and eroded by evil and turned into fleshy tentacles, his body is composed of no flesh and blood, but is entirely evil.

However, Zhou Ke'er did not rush to leave. Instead, she sat cross-legged in front of her previous head, stroked her chin, and began to ponder.

Although the body was composed entirely of evil, the two evil cores that were originally embedded within it still emerged. However, these cores no longer stored evil energy; instead, they contained the divine power of the God of Time and Space and the spiritual power of the cultivator template, respectively. Quite strange.

Zhou Ke'er had originally wanted to try transforming her body into other forms, but she quickly discovered that, aside from her current human-like appearance, she could only transform into the form of some kind of... "monster." It seemed she was restricted by some kind of rule. That made sense; if evil entities could easily mimic the appearance of other beings, then those evil entities that had possessed the king's body wouldn't have needed to do that—they could have simply transformed.

In this state, his thinking seemed to become sharper, perhaps because he was no longer limited by his brain? The knowledge that Tavel had directly implanted into his mind, which he could only slowly review with the help of the memory palace he had built in his mind, could now all of it surface directly.

Just then, Zhou Ke'er heard a series of messy footsteps behind her, mixed with the sound of a withered tree breaking, as if someone was rushing towards her.

Without even turning around, the eerie aura spread automatically, and Zhou Ke'er instantly sensed who was approaching from behind.

Hmm... Red Crane, Zhao Ritian, and Porius. Thankfully, no hero followed, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to explain this situation.

Thinking this, Zhou Ke'er turned to look at the three people who had arrived.

Honghe was taken aback at first, but she quickly realized that she knew what was going on with Zhou Ke'er, and of course she knew why Zhou Ke'er had returned to her original appearance.

Furthermore, Bolyus was able to recognize Zhou Ke'er through the divine personality of the God of Time and Space, and the physical body itself was not something of concern to him, so he was not particularly surprised.

Zhao Ritian was completely stunned by the scene. He reached out his hand tremblingly and pointed to Zhou Ke'er and the miserable-looking head in front of him—a head whose brain had been pierced and violently stirred—and for a moment he couldn't even speak.

Honghe squinted and couldn't help but complain, "You're really ruthless to yourself, dismembering yourself, and to the point of being tortured to death... You're truly something else!"

"Oh, it's nothing, not worth mentioning. Self-sacrifice is such a noble quality that it's practically etched into my DNA."

Zhou Ke'er wore a smug expression, but still spoke in a dismissive tone, waving her hand and saying...

Polius nodded solemnly and said with great admiration, "As expected of my lord, such character is beyond my ability to match! It is truly admirable."

Honghe, at the opportune moment, put on her standard dead-fish-eyed expression and looked at Zhou Ke'er with a look that said, "You found a so-called servant just to fawn over you?"

"Hehe."

Zhou Ke'er understood the meaning of Honghe's expression without any difficulty, so she tilted her head and pretended to be stupid.

Poor Zhao Ritian only just realized what was happening, his face filled with shock: "Eh...ah?! This is the one from just now..."

Zhou Ke'er looked at Zhao Ritian strangely: "Didn't I explain it to you when we met before? Besides, you've seen me before, so you should remember what I look like, right? What's there to doubt?"

Zhao Ritian opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything.

Red Crane continued, "I remember last time, it was that guy who looked like a cultivator who stuffed you into this body, right? Now that you've come out on your own, aren't you afraid he'll come looking for trouble?"

Zhou Ke'er scratched her cheek, remembering that Nyaruko had said she had "solved" the problem, so she replied uncertainly, "It shouldn't be too much of a problem. That guy is probably in trouble himself right now."

As she spoke, Zhou Ke'er casually glanced at the progress of the first stage of the main quest. The kill rate of ordinary infected was increasing rapidly; at this rate, it should be completed in the next two days. However, the number of special individuals killed was still very small, only slightly over ten.

To be fair, she'd already made about a tenth of the progress, which was somewhat unexpected for Zhou Ke'er. It seemed the other players weren't as bad as she'd imagined. It was likely that those players who, like Zhou Ke'er, had entered the game early were also quietly working hard.

However, special individuals are quite rare to encounter, and even if you do, it's hard to say whether you can defeat them. Reaching the required number in the mission is indeed quite difficult.

Just as Zhou Ke'er was thinking this, she saw that the number of special individuals killed suddenly increased by one. Before she could think about it, the number increased again, and then increased by nearly ten in a row at an extremely fast speed before stopping.

This is clearly unlikely to be a coincidence that happened at the same time; it must be that a player or a team of players killed so many special individuals in a row.

Good heavens, have we stumbled upon a den of evil? And speaking of which, the strength of those players is a pleasant surprise!

At the same time, Chen Tian, ​​who was wiping the blood off his bronze sword, seemed to sense something and subconsciously looked up, blinking in confusion. Did he have a feeling someone was talking about him just now?

However, he didn't pay much attention to it, and just turned to ask, "Chen Tian, ​​how long will it take to break the seal? If we can't escape, I can't withstand so many monsters."

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638. Severe and desolate

Putting aside the rapid increase in mission progress for the time being, Zhou Ke'er looked around and couldn't help but sigh softly.

Everything that happened here was beyond his plans. He had been thinking about whether he could form an alliance with races like the elves, but now, in the blink of an eye, the only passage connecting the elves to the Middle Continent had been destroyed.

As for himself... although his strength has been greatly reduced, his ability to survive has been significantly enhanced.

Besides, explaining his changed appearance back to the capital of Wright would be troublesome—Long Aotian knew he was Zhou Ke'er in this form, although there seemed to be a slight misunderstanding... But he couldn't explain to everyone he met, and he hadn't come up with a suitable excuse. It would be better to just say that the being "Memoride" was dead.

That's a good reason. It saves us the trouble of explaining, and even if "Memorid" dies, the influence left by this existence will not be weakened, but rather it can be said to be even greater—for example, the heroes who were "sacrificed" to save them—and although they can no longer use that identity to point fingers at Sion Elon and the others, they have already been drawn into our camp.

The only troublesome one should be Loyal. But since she's just a lone commander now, and not particularly strong, it's fine if we can't win her over. After all, her demon army was directly teleported into this ancient elven tree, and has already been corrupted by evil; we don't know if there's any hope of saving them.

Zhou Ke'er, a piece of trash in this world, thought to herself.

Honghe squinted at Zhou Ke'er, who was starting to drift off into thought, and couldn't help but ask, "Now is not the time to be daydreaming, is it? Or have you already figured out our next strategy?"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Ke'er snapped out of her reverie—indeed, her thoughts had wandered too far, all of which were issues to be addressed after the matters here were resolved.

but...

"Wait a minute! Why am I always the one thinking of solutions? Don't act like this is my job! I'm not a strategist like Chu Xuan, nor am I the unpredictable Teacher Dang! Shouldn't the job of devising strategies be yours?"

Zhou Ke'er immediately pointed out Honghe's sinister intention to slack off and take advantage of the situation.

Flamingo, her little scheme exposed, remained unfazed, tilting her head and sticking out her tongue: "Heh?"

"Don't try to fool me!"

Zhou Ke'er got goosebumps. No matter what, it was really too incongruous for a dead fish-eyed, expressionless face to make such a gesture!

"whispering sound."

Flamingo scoffed quickly, then regained his composure and said, "On our way here, we encountered those... I think they were the heroes you mentioned. They were searching the ancient elven tree, relying on something you gave them, and have already rescued quite a few other heroes."

They must have last seen me at the human alliance camp, so they remembered me and saved me the trouble of explaining. Therefore, we agreed on a meeting point after escaping the ancient tree. I suppose they should be leaving the ancient tree soon. Shall we go and meet them now?

Zhou Ke'er was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help but show a proud father's expression: "What? You've already arranged everything! I'm so happy with your growth..."

Honghe squinted at Zhou Ke'er, seemingly wanting to say something in rebuttal, but in the end she didn't open her mouth, and just turned around to lead the way away.

Because they were returning the way they came, the group quickly left the ancient tree of elves and returned to the outside world.

Before Zhou Ke'er and the others could catch their breath, and before Red Crane could even lead the way to the place agreed upon with the heroes, a dazzling emerald green fluorescent light suddenly shone on the ancient elven tree behind them, as if the life of the entire tree had been gathered at the same point and then exploded.

The ancient elven tree, which was already rapidly withering under the influence of evil, dried up at an unimaginable speed as its life force was drained. The leaves in its canopy didn't even have a chance to fall and wither before turning into ashes.

Within that cluster of green fluorescence, a small path seemed to have opened up, from which only one figure slowly emerged.

Well... it's not that Zhou Ke'er is face-blind, but in his eyes, all elves seem to look pretty much the same. The elf who came out in front of him also had the standard attire of wearing a flower crown, a white robe, and holding a branch scepter.

But that's not the point. The point is... why is there another elf?! Wasn't the passage already closed because the ancient elf tree didn't have enough energy?

Let alone another elf stronger than Aegno or Alatariel, even if it were weaker, Zhou Ke'er wouldn't be able to handle it now.

Even without unleashing her full power, Zhou Ke'er wasn't as strong as those heroes, who were the kind of people who got wiped out by the elves...

Couldn't he give Zhou Ke'er a little time? He hadn't even had a chance to properly process the knowledge Tavel had given him about using the supernatural. If he could learn that knowledge, Zhou Ke'er's strength would definitely increase dramatically.

However, since gaining knowledge from this module at the beginning, Zhou Ke'er has faced one problem after another, leaving her no room to breathe, let alone delve into the supernatural.

This is really troublesome.

It seems we have no choice but to leave this place quickly while that guy isn't paying attention to us and find somewhere to hide.

As for those heroes...

Ah, I hope they can delay this guy for a while longer. Zhou Ke'er will definitely avenge them!

Zhou Ke'er shed tears of determination (just kidding).

But things in this world rarely go as planned.

Zhou Ke'er had barely taken a step when the elf's gaze was fixed on him, her tone filled with murderous intent: "So it was you who tried to destroy the passage? I can already smell your nauseating stench. In that case, die."

Before he finished speaking, he raised his scepter towards Zhou Ke'er and the others, and the scepter emitted a fierce light.

Damn it!

Zhou Ke'er gritted her teeth and hurriedly searched her mind for ways to use evil spirits, hoping to find a way to deal with this situation.

But just then, a loud shout suddenly came from the green passage behind the elf: "Set sail!!"

Immediately, a gray-black figure rushed out of the passage at a speed that was difficult to detect with the naked eye, brushed past the elf, and arrived next to Zhou Ke'er and the others in the blink of an eye. Without hesitation, Zhou Ke'er grabbed the black figure with one hand and the red crane with the other. The others followed suit and all grabbed it together.

At the same time, intense light bombarded everyone, but caused no harm.

The figure's triumphant voice echoed in the wind: "Hahaha! Didn't expect that, did you! With the anchor propelling us forward, we're invincible and damage-free!"

Before the words had even faded, the figure had already carried Zhou Ke'er and the others far away, disappearing from this place into the distance.

P.S.: This description should be quite obvious, right? But let's still guess who it is!

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639. This is my escape route!