On my second playthrough, they were full of malice towards me.

Next, a horrifying scene unfolded. The supposedly noble elf suddenly lurched forward like a puppet on strings, followed by a tearing sound coming from her back.

puff!puff!puff!

In the blink of an eye, numerous bloody holes appeared on the elf's smooth back. Then, clumps of writhing flesh made of filth, like sludge, gushed out from the elf's bloody holes and covered the entire elf's body.

Soon after, the elf's form disappeared, replaced by something still recognizable as an elf, but shrouded in a huge shadow—that was emerging from the elf's back.

Dozens of grayish-brown tentacles.

The elf's originally fair skin turned dark gray, and dozens of tentacles were covered in smooth mucus. They waved and danced wildly in the air, emitting an incredibly terrifying and massive turbid pollution.

Soon, one of the tender tentacles curled up the miniature Forgotten Spirit that Karl had just left, and then stuck it to the elf's lower abdomen. The belly writhed, and the Forgotten Spirit seemed to be swallowed up, slowly disappearing into the elf's flesh and blood, and was finally completely "eaten" into the elf's stomach.

Meanwhile, behind the elf covered in tentacles, a brand new, tender tentacle "emerged from the ground" and began to wriggle in the air.

"Yes, that's the taste! Foolish children who have borrowed my power. Now return to my embrace, along with your power."

After doing all this, the elf's face showed a look of doting satisfaction. She stroked her belly like a pregnant mother, and as she spoke, the tentacles behind her seemed to sway and echo her words.

“I understand. I understand. I will soon reunite that person with you. I will fulfill your wishes.” The elf reached out to soothe the tentacles, rubbing many of them against his face as if listening to their pleas.

"After all, that's someone who once defeated me, my most outstanding child."

"I will absorb his blood, merge with his genes, make him a part of us, and completely integrate us, becoming one."

It's as if I can already picture that scene.

The elf opened its mouth, its salivary glands secreting copious amounts of saliva in its thirst for stimulation, making its entire oral cavity sticky and moist. Its grayish-brown tongue jutted out, pulling up strands of saliva and licking the corners of its mouth.

I sent it to my brothers. This morning I went to the pharmacy and bought an antigen self-test. Two lines, I'm definitely positive. This is the most dangerous time right now, everyone must take good precautions. Getting a positive result is really awful.

Just to report, the provincial flow: positive.

If I had followed the story, I probably would have known earlier. A few days ago, the author mentioned that I had developed symptoms of pregnancy, but I thought it was nothing serious and just kept going. However, today is the third day of pregnancy, and I feel like I've been poisoned and withered. My whole body aches and I feel cold, and my throat hurts terribly.

I really don't want to stop updating because of the website's mechanism; stopping updates would have a huge impact. So I'll grit my teeth and write a new chapter, but the update time will probably have to be postponed. I can't update in the morning anymore. Now it's really up to fate. If there's still no update, it means that the author is completely dead (please don't die, waaaaah!).

I'm not posting this to elicit sympathy, but to warn everyone to learn from my experience. The first wave of impact after the reopening is the strongest, so please be extra careful during this time.

Also, if you do get infected, don't panic. As it stands, while it varies from person to person, for most people it's definitely not as simple as a cold, but of course it's not as terrifying as many extreme comments online describe.

The most effective lesson I learned during this period is that you absolutely must keep fever reducers at home, such as ibuprofen. I've had many high fevers that were saved by ibuprofen, otherwise I wouldn't be able to sleep at night because of the fever (ice packs are also very effective for physical cooling).

It seems we have to go back to the methods of our ancestors. There are only two: drink water like crazy and then sweat it out under the covers. The former is especially helpful, as drinking water like crazy is very helpful for the treatment!

That's about it.

During this difficult time, I hope everyone can protect themselves, take precautions, and pay attention to their health. Try not to go out if possible. If you get infected, don't scare yourself unnecessarily. Psychological factors are also a key to recovery. If you can be mentally dismissive but strategically attentive, there generally won't be any major problems.

Oh right, the author hasn't been vaccinated, not even once. That's probably why the symptoms are so severe. Those who have been vaccinated should have milder symptoms and recover faster. If there are any unvaccinated individuals, I sincerely suggest they get vaccinated as soon as possible, otherwise they'll only be able to get a "natural vaccine" like me.

That's about it.

Chapter 115 Filthy Black Mud and the Elf Knight in My Memory

"Ugh! What are these? They feel so disgusting."

Irene covered her nose with her hand, looking uncomfortable. Not far in front of her was a gray-brown swamp.

It's not quite accurate to call it a swamp; it's more like black mud made of filth. Like moss, it covers and spreads over the original soil, causing the grass and shrubs to wither and turn yellow wherever it goes, and many trees are left with only rotten branches.

An indescribable stench emanated from these black muddy swamps. What was even more chilling was that they were constantly wriggling rhythmically, almost as if they were breathing. With each wriggling motion, they absorbed nutrients from the earth below, causing the land and all the vegetation on it to become increasingly lifeless.

Having successfully brought the "Terror Lizard Clan" into the alliance and learned that most of these clans were actually descendants of his contractors, Liao Ji didn't linger and quickly adjusted his strategy.

He left 86 at the camp as a precaution, and then immediately continued south with Irene and the Dragon Girl, heading straight for the Wild Swamp to investigate and find the "Watchers" clans who were still holding out on the border and fighting against the swamp.

They thought it would take them a while to walk, but to their surprise, they were able to see the desolate swamp in just one day.

Following Yilin, who was in charge of clearing the way, Liao Ji also caught up.

He followed the girl's gaze and looked at the puddles of black mud swamp wriggling on the ground not far away. He couldn't help but frown slightly, feeling that the situation was even worse than he had imagined.

And more importantly

He found a sense of familiarity in this black mud swamp.

That's right.

The scene in the final stage of the first playthrough, the "Abyss of Turbid Calamity" which is the source of all calamities, bears a striking resemblance to what is before us.

Both are black mud that makes people feel disgusted at first glance, but of course, the level of filth in the Wild Swamp now is still incomparable to that in the Turbid Abyss back then.

The swamp in front of us is merely absorbing nutrients from the earth, causing vegetation to wither.

The dungeon within the Abyss of Turbidity at that time

Images from memory surfaced, depicting a land that had been completely corrupted and assimilated.

No, to be precise, it should be described as a "mother nest".

The black mud is not barren; on the contrary, many "plants" are growing vigorously, provided that you recognize those that are either shaped like "eyeballs" or grow out of the ground like "hands," and that will crawl out of the soil to follow you when you get close.

There are many other strange plants like these growing on the black mud, which left a lasting impression on Liao Ji when he first entered this instance.

Especially as one delves deeper into the mother nest, the characteristics of another "Abyss of Turbid Calamity" begin to appear more and more, that is

Tentacles.

This phenomenon only occurs within the "Abyss of Turbid Calamity," and it is a manifestation of the will of "Turbid Calamity." No matter what kind of monster it is, it can sprout several tentacles from various parts of its body.

When the final boss battle came, and we arrived at the "Mother of Turbid Calamity" deep in the nest, the tentacles filling the screen were simply too beautiful to bear. Liao Ji, who was playing late at night at the time, really wondered what kind of mental state it took to create such a creepy and twisted scene.

Even he, who was off-screen, was like this, not to mention the characters on-screen. Almost all of them would be automatically given a mental fatigue debuff that reduced all attributes when entering a dungeon like "Mother Nest". Moreover, the longer they stayed, the more severe the weakening effect of this debuff became.

However, nothing is absolute. There are two exceptions who are not affected by the "Mother Nest's" psychological intimidation. One is naturally the "Cloaked Man" protagonist he controls, and the other is his own mother.

Anno is an elven female knight of the "Guardian" class.

This is all thanks to Anno's "unique yet powerful" talent.

One of his talents is that all "positive buffs" have no effect on Anno, while all "negative buffs" will have the opposite effect, doubling the effect on Anno.

Secondly, whenever Anno is attacked from the outside world, he gains increased defense, increased damage reduction percentage, increased shield resilience, increased experience gain efficiency, increased affinity, and increased skill proficiency after battle.

It's worth mentioning that neither Talent 1 nor Talent 2 distinguishes between friend and foe, meaning that attacks from friendly characters can also stack Anno's passive ability.

Therefore, there are often dramatic scenes where, after the battle begins, before the enemy even attacks, Liao Ji will have his own character curse Anno, and then focus fire on the female knight.

When Anno learns another skill that allows him to absorb all the damage from the entire team for a short period of time, the harder the enemy attacks, the thicker Anno's shield becomes, allowing Liao Ji to bring all damage-dealing characters without restraint.

Anyway, with Mom's shield, it's just that comfortable.

Because of this improved the gaming experience, even though Anno was the last of "them" and the last to join, Liao Ji's feelings for Anno were no less than those for the previous four. After all, she was his mother, who had saved his life countless times.

Pulling his wandering thoughts back, Liao Ji shook his head in front of the black mud of the desolate swamp.

The scene brought back some memories for Liao Ji, as recent investigations had all pointed to Anno, causing him to reminisce about the elven knight.

Thinking about it carefully, given Anno's motherly nature of "protecting others," she would indeed do the thing of "taking in" those characters she had abandoned in the past.

but.

While Irene, who was clearing the way ahead, was still trying to touch the mud with a small twig, Liao Ji cast an inquiring look at the dragon girl behind him, wondering if the Wild Swamp had always been like this.

Jiuyou shook her head.

In her memory, the southern border did indeed still have a lot of pollution from the turbid E in the early days of the founding of the country, but after Karl led the demi-people to reclaim the land, it should have been almost completely purified.

Sure enough

Liao Ji sighed inwardly.

Whether it's the Turbid Well of Calamity, created by the jackal-like Loba through a blood sacrifice and which enveloped the entire Sealed City, or the filthy black mud of the desolate swamp before us now...

These things, which should have existed only five hundred years ago, are showing similar traces today.

All these signs gave Liao Ji a feeling, a feeling that he seemed to have also sensed from the way Long Niang frowned beside him.

Some existence

He seems to be making a comeback.

However, back then, at the end, I, at level 150, easily crushed Him. That battle was truly exhilarating and incredibly stress-relieving. I chopped and severed the "tender and limbless" tentacles of the Mother of Turbid Calamity, who resembled a giant octopus with a hundred legs, one by one, humiliating Him until He was completely naked and without a single one left.

Liao Ji wasn't afraid of this kind of defeated opponent he had defeated once, and by a great margin. It was like a big star on TV; once you've really done something amazing, when you see him on screen again, he doesn't seem like much anymore.

Although the analogy isn't quite accurate, Liao Ji's current feeling is actually quite similar.

He let out a long breath.

We may despise it mentally, but we still need to take it seriously strategically.

Just like

Now, even though she knows it's dangerous, her curiosity gets the better of her, and she keeps poking at the filthy black mud with a twig.

This undoubtedly made Liao Ji raise an eyebrow, and he began to understand what it felt like to have a spoiled child. His fists hardened as he reflected on whether he had been too lenient and indulgent with Yilin lately.

Just as he was about to call the girl back, someone else beat him to it.

To be precise

It was an arrow flying at breakneck speed.

Chapter 116 Lord Liao Ji, I want to be alone with Yilin for a while.

scare!

After the whooshing sound of something cutting through the air, there was a startled scream from Irene on the edge of the swamp.

Just centimeters away from the girl, an arrow struck precisely at Irene's feet, causing her to immediately shift her attention from the black mud swamp and look around warily and angrily.

Almost immediately afterward, the sound of rapid hoofbeats echoed from the forest behind them, and the owner of the arrow appeared before them—a…

Centaur.

"What are you all standing there for! Daring to get this close to the swamp, are you out of your minds?"