Chapter 134 Laying a Trap

Time, back to the present.

Eleven twelve, Feng Bujue had returned to the Throne Room.

In fact… getting to this room was simple. For example, Ruoyu and Xiaoling had ridden their magic broomsticks up here, and Feng Bujue had simply used [Moon Step] to jump all the way up from outside the castle.

Of course, there was a prerequisite for this method of entry… Dracula had to “let” you in.

Jue-ge had mentioned earlier that this castle was covered by two layers of barriers. Specifically… the outer barrier was a semi-circular dome, covering the outside of the moat; while the inner barrier covered the surface of the castle walls, like a protective film.

The Blade's trio hadn't come into contact with the outer barrier, because when the “Old House” was transformed into a castle, they were already within the barrier. As for the inner barrier… because they hadn't tried to invade the castle from the high windows, but had gone straight through the main door, they hadn't encountered it either.

“Yo, I'm back.” Feng Bujue greeted Ruoyu and Xiaoling as he jumped in through the window, “How are your surveillance efforts going?”

“Just two minutes ago, Long-ge and the others successfully lured the werewolf, the gill-man, and the mummy to one place, and then used a super combo…” Xiaoling replied.

“We don't know the specific effects of the skill…” Ruoyu picked up the thread, “Anyway, judging from the feedback from the crystal ball, they blasted a data gap in the map… those three monsters are probably doomed.”

“Oh…” Feng Bujue nodded, “What about the Count?”

“I am here.” Before Jue-ge could finish, Dracula's voice came from above.

Feng Bujue looked up and soon spotted a bat hanging upside down in the corner of the ceiling.

“Heh… your three generals have been wiped out, aren't you going to go out and control the situation?” Feng Bujue looked at the bat and asked with a smile.

“No matter.” Dracula replied, transforming back into human form and slowly floating down to stand still, “Your so-called ‘wiping out’… is only temporary, we of the dark race… do not truly die.”

“Oh? What do you mean?” Feng Bujue asked with interest, “Do you have the ability to ‘revive on the spot as long as the other party leaves this room and then comes back’?”

Jue-ge's sentence was obviously a reference to the monster respawn method of the “Castlevania” series, but Dracula didn't know this and didn't delve into the sentence. He replied seriously, “When you humans die, you become wandering souls, entering Heaven, Hell, or wandering the world; when my race dies… we enter ‘Purgatory’.” He paused, “For you, death usually represents eternity. But we… are ‘eternal’. When our bodies in this world are destroyed, our consciousness returns to Purgatory, where we will wait for the next time we come into the world.” At this point, he raised one arm and flicked his red cape behind him, “As long as there is darkness in the hearts of humans in this world, we will continue to be resurrected. In fact… many times we are passively summoned into this world. There is no shortage of evil religions, power-hungry autocratic groups, and mad scientists… in any era.”

“I see.” Feng Bujue smiled and continued, “In short… your subordinates have just been sent back to the respawn point, so you don't care, is that right?”

“I don't understand what you're saying.” Dracula replied, “But I feel… you seem to want to get me out of here?”

“Huh?” Feng Bujue raised an eyebrow, his tone slightly changed, “What makes you say that? I don't mean that at all.”

“Hmph…” Dracula gave Jue-ge a deep look, snorted coldly, and then continued, “Since you want to communicate with your companions in private, then I won't disturb you.” After saying this, he actually left…

After the Count left the Throne Room, Xiaoling whispered, “I always feel like this guy is acting strangely…” She turned to look at Jue-ge, “Could it be that our plan has already been seen through by him?”

“Although that possibility exists, it's not high…” Feng Bujue replied, “Dracula isn't a Derivative, he can't see our ‘Side Quests’.”

Right now, the [Side Quest] that Jue-ge was talking about was undoubtedly the follow-up to the Hell Frontline team completing [Find a way to reunite with your teammates].

For the same quest, the follow-up that Blade got was [Enter Dracula's Castle]. By the way, this follow-up was crossed out when the Blade members arrived at the [Desolate City Corridor], and was immediately changed to [Explore Dracula's Castle]. Why didn't I write it at the time, it's obviously because I forgot.

So, looking at the Hell Frontline's side quest follow-up, their mission was updated after Ruoyu and Xiaoling arrived at the castle's high platform and met Jue-ge. The content was—[Complete the ritual recorded in Van Helsing's diary, open the Gate of Purgatory].

To be honest, the moment he saw this quest… Feng Bujue was rather depressed, because he had already joined the ranks of the villains at that time, and the content of this quest was obviously contrary to his position, which greatly increased the difficulty of completion.

But Jue-ge wasn't the kind of person who would give up when he saw difficulties, he was a man who took pleasure in overcoming difficulties… therefore, on the way back to the Throne Room, during the time when he and his two teammates exchanged information, he had already thought of the next layout and countermeasures, and told his teammates as concisely as possible.

After returning to the Throne Room, Jue-ge first pretended to chat with the monsters, and then called on Hill to find the diary. In fact, in his original plan… he wanted to send a monster to follow Hill to get the diary, but due to the side quest that had just been refreshed, he changed his mind… to ensure nothing went wrong, Jue-ge followed him himself.

It can be said… that every step that Feng Bujue took in this script was both planned and changing; while leaving room for maneuver in his actions, he always maintained the initiative.

“Taking a step back, even if Dracula really saw through my intentions…” Feng Bujue continued, “So what?” He turned to look at Ruoyu, “The talisman is in our hands.” Saying that, he patted his knapsack, “Van Helsing's diary is also in our hands.” He looked at Xiaoling again, “Even if I didn't retrieve the diary, we still have the phonetic symbols that Xiao Tan copied back…” He spread his hands, and said easily, “The key items that determine the direction of the plot are all in our hands, the enemy team members have fought with the villain Bosses to the point of mutual destruction; and the three of us are waiting leisurely, almost fully prepared… in this situation, there are not too many variables.”

“Hmm…” Xiaoling put her finger to her lips, pondered for a moment, and then continued, “Even in the worst-case scenario… we only need to give up the side quest and go all out to deal with Blade, the possibility of defeat is indeed very small…”

“Hey hey… it's okay for me to say that, but that sentence of yours is raising a fLAg.” The next second, Feng Bujue pointed with a smile to the crystal ball on the table, “Look… as soon as you said that, trouble came…”

Bang—

Before Jue-ge could finish speaking, the door to the Throne Room was pushed open.

Standing at the door were one figure of one meter and seventy centimeters, and two figures of around one meter and twenty centimeters.

Without dialogue, without hesitation, Xiaoling took out the MP5 and KRISS Super V from her knapsack the moment she heard the door open… even if her figure turned into a little loli, she could still use these two light submachine guns freely.

In an instant, a burst of “tutututu” gunfire erupted, and a barrage swept mercilessly towards the three people at the door.

“Hmph! As expected!” Long-ge smiled confidently when he saw this, and blocked it with his shield.

Tanlang and Qisha flashed behind Long Aomin at the same time.

“Huh? What's going on!” But four seconds later, Long-ge's expression suddenly changed, “I'm actually losing health?”

That's right, he was losing health… although he was hiding behind the Orichalcum Shield, and facing two firearms-type weapons without special effects, his survival value was still decreasing at a rate of 2% per second.

“Holy crap! Get out of the way!” After holding on for a few more seconds, Long Aomin finally realized why this was happening, “She actually filled the submachine guns with special ammunition!”

After saying that, he and his two teammates jumped sideways to the sides of the door, away from the enemy's line of fire.

At the same time, the audience watching the live broadcast also reacted…

“Are you kidding me… what a spendthrift…”

“Just now, in less than ten seconds, she probably fired off three digits worth of RMB…”

“I've never heard of putting special ammunition in automatic weapons, that stuff is sold by the ‘bullet’…”

“Could it be… self-made?”

“Even if it's not store-bought, but made with the machinery specialization, the cost of the raw materials is still not low.”

The audience discussed and commented, and the video barrage ushered in a surge of activity.

To this day, Fearless Dream has been open for more than half a year, and “special ammunition” is already a very familiar commodity to players. Most players will go to the system store to buy a fixed number of types of ammunition, anyway, the store goods are all worth the price, no deception; and some more high-end, or players with special needs, will go to the auction house to pick up special ammunition made by others. As mentioned earlier, many studios are now making money from this kind of machinery specialization product; and some organizations that engage in reselling, or have a large demand for ammunition, will even go to third-party trading platforms for large-scale customized wholesale…

Of course, no matter which kind of buyer, which kind of user… there is one common sense that everyone knows. That is—“Special ammunition” should be loaded into guns that have a slower rate of fire, higher power, or special effects. If there are really no such conditions, it's okay to get an ordinary quality sniper rifle to load it.

As for the basis of this common sense…

For example… if the penetrating power of a sniper rifle firing ordinary bullets is 10, then a submachine gun is about 3 (this is broadly speaking, not substituting specific gun types and bullet calibers); when a sniper rifle fires special ammunition, even without any skill and item special effects, 10 will be converted into 20, 25, or even higher; but when a submachine gun fires special ammunition like this, it's just that 3 becomes 6 to 8…

In short, under normal circumstances, firing special ammunition is considered to be similar to ‘activating a skill’. Considering the price of this kind of bullet is not cheap (as far as bullets are concerned), loading it into a gun with a high rate of fire, low power, and no special effects is undoubtedly a waste.

However, Xiaoling's behavior and thinking are obviously contrary to common sense…

Friends with good memories may still remember… that Xiaoling was actually doing that when she fought Jue-ge alone in the “Unparalleled Martial Arts Tournament” script. Now, she is showing her money-burning behavior of “treating special ammunition as ordinary ammunition and shooting it casually” in front of countless viewers.

For no other reason… just to deal more damage with every shot.

That's how ruthless, that's how rich, that's how willful.

“What's the situation?” Qisha, who had stood up after rolling out of the way outside the door, immediately looked up at Long-ge and asked, “Aren't you supposed to be good at blocking bullets?”

“It would be easier if she really used a rifle to fire special ammunition at me…” Long Aomin replied gloomily, “The attack frequency of submachine guns is super fast, I don't have time to use ‘Orichalcum Barrier’ to convert the power of every bullet, and the power of those bullets just happens to be able to break through my ordinary defense… if I keep blocking like that, I will keep losing health.”

“Tsk… if we had more funding…” Tanlang, who was next to him, replied with a displeased expression, “…we could splurge like her…” He clenched his fists and said viciously, “I'll install two TVs in the conference room, one to watch the news, and one to watch animal documentaries.”

“Hey! Is that the point?” Qisha and Tanlang didn't jump to the same side, so he raised his voice, “Commissar, cheer up! I don't know whether to complain about your lack of ambition or your taste in TV shows!”

Swish—Swish—

Just as they were shouting, they saw… two fast shadows flashed out from inside the door.

At that moment, the three members of Blade instinctively thought that some kind of explosive was flying out… so they all made defensive and evasive postures.

But two seconds later, they took a closer look… and found that it was actually three people flying out.

At this time, Feng Bujue and Ruoyu were flying in the air on a magic broomstick, while Xiaoling was riding one alone.

After the three of them flew out of the Throne Room, they rushed towards the city, completely ignoring the three enemy team members behind them.

“Crap!” Two seconds later, Tanlang was the first to react, “Quick, chase them! They're going to run away!”

With that, he took a step forward and ran to the front.

However…

[Side Quest Progress Updated] At this second, the system prompt rang out, just in time.

And the new quest that appeared in the Blade members' quest bar was—[Kill the Demon King Dracula].