It was a giant with a white mink cloak with black spots on it. He wore a platinum crown and heavy platinum boots. Thick white leather gloves covered his hands, and his entire body was shrouded within his clothing.
The Venerated Skeleton.
Annan had met him before.
The aura of despair exuding from the Venerated Skeleton made Lin Yiyi and Delicious Wind Goose tremble intensely and almost vomit.
But for Annan, it was a life-saving chilly wind.
If it weren’t for the Venerated Skeleton to appear in time, the Rotten Man could have eroded Annan’s consciousness completely.
But before Annan could feel glad about the twists and turns of the events, an intense itch crept upon the skin of the four people present who heard the name [Atabanus].
Annan was still alright, and the two players were only slightly uncomfortable.
But, Salvatore had the most adverse reaction.
He didn’t seem to feel the sharp pain in his body, and he couldn’t help scratching his skin intensely.
Annan knew Salvatore had great perseverance.
If Salvatore couldn’t stand it, it should be an unbearable intense itching.
But after Salvatore scratched his skin, he didn’t bleed. There was no blood dripping out.
Under the skin, there was another new layer of skin.
For the skin that he didn’t scratch yet, it burst open on itself, exposing a new skin layer with no hair underneath it.
Salvatore was startled when he noticed the dry skin on his hands.
He grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled it slightly.
Looking at the hair in the palm of his hand, Salvatore’s pupils trembled violently—apparently taken aback.
No, don’t panic.
It’s fine. I just need to craft some hair-growing agents.
Wait?
Salvatore was startled yet again.
He realized that the ever-present and unrelievable pain in his body had disappeared.
On the other hand, new prompts appeared for Annan, Lin Yiyi, and Delicious Wind Goose.
[You have acquired mysterious knowledge: Deity of Immortality and Heirless, Rotten Man’s real name.]
[This mysterious knowledge can be used as “Ritual: Summoning Rotten Man,” “Golden Incantation (Idol School): Molting Rebirth,” and “High-level Material: Snake Molting.”]
[This mysterious knowledge will be forgotten after using it for “1” time. After that, you can’t reacquire this knowledge.]
This was the first time the players encountered these entities, even though they had repeatedly heard about the voice owners.
Lin Yiyi quickly took a photo of the two deities and saved the screenshot.
Hearing the voice of the Venerated Skeleton behind him, Rotten Man only chuckled.
He didn’t panic at all, didn’t even turn his head, but just raised his head slightly. He giggled like a little girl, “It’s been a long time, senior. I just came to take a look. How did that startle you?
“I thought you had already taken root in the Freezing Water Port. Is it because of poor sleep after being so old? You can’t help waking up to urinate?”
“I… already knew… you would come.” The Venerated Skeleton’s low, erratic, echoing voice sounded, “I have waited for a long time.”
Rotten Man turned around when he heard the words and took a closer look at the Venerated Skeleton.
Then, he overlapped his hands gracefully like a court lady, exclaiming in a low voice, and gave a long sigh, “Wow.”
Unlike Lin Yiyi, who felt the oppression coming from the two deities, the players who watched the live broadcast at Freezing Water Port laughed aloud at Rotten Man’s mannerism.
“—What a talent. His eccentric tone is unique.”
“—He just sounds disgusting.”
“—The title ‘Rotten Man’ means eunuch. So isn’t it expected that his yin and yang is unbalanced, resulting in an eccentric tone?”
[TN: Yin represents feminine energy, and Yang represents masculine energy. In Yin & Yang’s interpretation, the eunuch’s effeminate nature is due to the imbalance of the energies.]
“—By your logic, doesn’t his weird yin and yang indicate that he knows Onmyoji?”
“—Maybe he has the skill [Yin & Yang Eyes].”
[TN: Here, Yin represents death while Yang represents alive. The interpretation here would be the ability to see the ghosts. Those are wordplays for the players to mock on the effeminate nature with Yin and Yang concepts.]
“—Sister Hyphen, do you see it? Learn from him. This is the proper way of roasting. A direct insult doesn’t mean much.”
On the other side, the Venerated Skeleton didn’t respond at all to Rotten Man’s provocation.
He just stood silently and looked at Rotten Man motionlessly.
At this moment, Annan had already taken the opportunity to escape from Rotten Man’s perimeter.
But he didn’t flee too far. Instead, he stood in front of Gate 44 on Clear Water Street, watching the confrontation between the two false deities from a distance.
They just stared at each other and did nothing, and the surrounding air became turbid.
The cold and warm air intertwined fiercely with a trembling whirlwind manifested.
Annan saw a series of dozens of buffs above the players’ head icons constantly emerging, disappearing, and canceling each other:
[Desperate Aura], [Death Air], [Soul-snatching Fragrance], [Bone-burrowing Chills], [Rejuvenation], [Shuddering Air], [Visceral Proliferation], [Chilling Flesh].
To add on to that, the two false deities didn’t intentionally impose these states on the players.
It all happened just because of the turbid air as their hostility against each other clashed.
After a long time, Rotten Man broke the silence, “What do you want?
“What good is this for you?”
“My gain is to stop you from getting the benefits.”
The low and reverberant hollow sound of the Venerated Skeleton answered.
Hearing this, Rotten Man stopped speaking.
At the next moment, Salvatore seemed to realize something. He staggered up from the ground and ran away.
Yiyi and Delicious Wind Goose still didn’t know why.
But they also subconsciously fled after Salvatore.
But they were too late in the end.
Their bodies suddenly became dry and pale, as if their flesh had lost its color. The life within them perished in the blink of an eye.
At the next moment, the two resurrected directly from a distance.
Their corpses left in place became pure white, then collapsed like ashes and spread evenly on the ground. Finally, those ashes turned into a milky pool.
Then, countless people wearing white robes, silver masks, and hairless like Rotten Man walked out of the pool one by one.
Each of them had a level of oppression close to the Soul Eater.
But the next moment, a layer of black ice formed on the white pool. Before the people in white could walk out of the pool completely, the turbid black ice completely froze their bodies.
Then, they shattered into pieces.
Throughout the process, the Venerated Skeleton didn’t make any moves.
It just kept that posture quietly, looking at Rotten Man calmly.
“Are you serious?” Rotten Man’s voice was a little low, “Are you going to declare war?”
“Be patient. Rotten Man.” The Venerated Skeleton said slowly, “I merely stopped you, and I didn’t attack you.”
“I testify that the Venerated Skeleton didn’t attack you, Rotten Man!” At this moment, a cheerful and loud voice sounded.
It was different from the two false deities who preferred to appear silently.
As a brilliant and dazzling silver beam of light that could be easily seen from miles away landed, the crimson halo in the sky and the false black-red sun were instantly torn apart as if they were fakes.
In the blink of an eye, the scene in the sky returned to the early morning. Three runes entwined the nascent sun. It appeared that the new sun rose from the sea by the east side.
From the beam of light, a young man in a short white trench coat walked out quickly.
He wore a monocle, and his smile was bright and sunny. His face is long and thin, his chin was slightly pointed, and his skin reflected a healthy color. He had moderate brown curly hair, looking like a young business person in his twenties or a scholar who had just graduated from school, full of hope and vigor. In those onlookers’ squinted eyes, there was a brilliance of wisdom and little cunning that was just right and not disliked.
Annan recognized him almost immediately—or rather, his identity.
His face was the same as the face on the silver coin.
He was the guardian deity of the Noah Kingdom, Trade Deity!
Silver Sire!