Chapter 22

TERROR PARADISE CHAPTER 22 – THE EERIE CINEPHILE’S CITY ARC(PART 6)

Proofreading: fntsyrdr, Volly

After walking along the street for about 15-16 minutes, the five of them had come up to the door of the police station . This building covered an area of approximately 500 square meters . Its front entrance was facing the street and circling around and entering through the side gate led to the parking lot .

Feng Bujue went and took a look at the side entrance first . It was a strip of driveway, with a high wall at the end . A movable iron barrier had already sealed the entrance . Looking in once more from afar, there was only darkness . Perhaps this road was a dead end .

When he returned to the front entrance, Long Aomin had already finished his examination . The front entrance made up of wood, a double door design and was very thick and stable . At that moment, the door was shut tight, as if there was something inside the police station jamming the doors . Even pushing it didn’t move it by more than half an inch .

Feng Bujue slightly shook his head, indicating that the side entrance was inaccessible . Long Aomin shrugged and said: “This side doesn’t open either . ”

Wang Tanzhi walked ahead for a few steps and looked at the exterior walls of the building . “All of the windows had iron frames separating them . Seems like going in will require a lot of effort…” Before his voice faded away, his expression changed . “Eek…Did you all hear…”

Naturally, Feng Bujue had heard it . While yelling “retreat!”, he ran forward in quick steps, grabbed Wang Tanzhi’s shoulder and pulled him back .

Long Aomin, Loneliness and Lonely had already begun to retreat after hearing that . Meanwhile, the pair consisting of Feng Bujue had just taken a few steps back when they heard a muffled sound behind them . They turned their heads to see…the wall beside the main entrance of the police station burst open with a loud bang from within and a tall monster stretching out half of its body from the opening . Had Wang Tanzhi been standing in his original position and remained in a daze for a few seconds, he would had already been crushed by the rubble .

“Well then… I think what I heard earlier were the footsteps it made while rushing towards the wall . ” Wang Tanzhi’s face was dreadfully pale and his tone was pretty soft . At this point, he had already passed the stage of being easily frightened and was slowly becoming apathetic to the various situations that were capable of raising one’s terror value to 50% or so… and that was because his terror value had practically been stuck at 35% for a long time .

Like every minor boss that appears through a wall, there will be a roar after its entrance . Feng Bujue recognized what sort of monster it was – a blood corpse .

This blood corpse was clearly much stronger than the one Feng Bujue had encountered in the novice tutorial . Looking at its physique alone, it was more than twice as strong . Moreover, the monster in the previous encounter had only hammered a hole out of the wall when it hit it with its hand, but the current one had directly smashed the cement wall into pieces .

“Excellent…not only did it open the entrance up for us, it even used a strong monster to drop us a hint that there’s a good reward within, ah…” Feng Bujue sneered by curling up the left side of his mouth and eyed at the fierce and huge monster covetously . The tone he used made it seem almost as if he had encountered some sort of good fortune .

“Brother Feng…If we want to call it “excellent”, we should first figure out whether or not we can successfully kill this monster . ” Long Aomin’s sweat had begun to drip . While he was incapable of thinking that far ahead, he knew that the upcoming battle would definitely be a tough fight .

“Take this . ” Feng Bujue had actually handed the pipe wrench in his hand over to Long Aomin . “There’s no equipment requirement for this . Brother Long, you can use it for now . There’s bonus damage if you hit an enemy on the head . ”

“This…” Long Aomin hesitated for a moment . Feng Bujue’s action was equivalent to raising a transaction request without asking for anything in return, essentially giving him the item for free

In this world, mutual trust between people was relatively lacking . During the closed beta phase, superior equipment was undeniably a good thing . Before handing it to someone else, one had to consider the decision carefully . In the event a player had gotten his hands on an item and it caught his eye, he could forcibly disconnect and even give up the level in order to steal your equipment and you would be unable to do anything about him . After all, you were the one who initiated the trade of your own free will and even the system could not help you .

“Hurry up and take it . ” Feng Bujue said .

Long Aomin received the “Mario’s pipe wrench” and his expression changed slightly after looking at its attributes . The image Feng Bujue had given others up to this point was that of a very cautious and prudent person . It was difficult to imagine him doing something like easily handing his strong equipment over to someone else .

“Brother Feng…aren’t you afraid I will make off with your equipment and immediately disconnect?” Long Aomin said . Generally, a person that spoke such a line was, on the contrary, unlikely to steal someone’s equipment . A person that would truly steal someone’s equipment would normally log off immediately .

“Afraid?” Feng Bujue smiled bitterly, and thought in his heart: “It would be nice if I could feel fear . ”

He replied: “‘Worried’ should be the more appropriate word…but to be honest, at this point I am more worried we will all perish here . ”

At this moment, the blood corpse had already pushed aside the lower section of the wall and had reached the street . After it had completely come out of the police station, the blood corpse looked even more ferocious . Its body was over two meters tall, its muscle was in a tortured knot, its body was covered from head to toe in a layer of half-coagulated blood, and its skinless blood face was even more terrifying than a bare skull . Needless to say, this monster was a mini boss and the trigger for its appearance was the period of time the players stayed outside the entrance of the police station and their search for ways to enter it .

“Brother Long, for the moment, delay it for a while and stall for time . I will circle around it, sneak inside the hole and see if there’s anything like a gun . I will come and help once I find something . ” Feng Bujue said . “You guys should pay attention to your health and try to preserve them, there’s no need to force it . ”

The moment he’d seen the blood corpse, he’d foreseen the outcome and losses from the combat . At the time they did not have any special equipment of the type ‘blood corpse must die’ . The only three items that could harm the monster were the shield, the pipe wrench, and the fruit knife . It was possible to use such short, close quarter weapons to deal with the relatively small-bodied strange infants, but faced with a blood corpse even taller than Long Aomin, this match-up placed them in a tight spot .

Therefore, the best method currently was to strengthen Long Aomin and have him withstand the blood corpse, while Feng Bujue himself would venture into the police station to search for weapons . The blood corpse’s appearance had Feng Bujue all the more convinced that the police station was hiding some items of tactical value . There was a possibility there could be skills, equipment, or level related items . He planned to find something within the shortest time possible and head back quickly to get rid of the monster .

“You can be at ease and head in . Even if I am killed before you return, I will still find a way to return this equipment to you . ” Long Aomin replied . After speaking he moved forward and immediately attracted the blood corpse’s attention, thereby beginning the fight .

“Mhm…There’s no need to say it in such a serious way, it’s just a piece of equipment, that’s all . ” On the contrary, Feng Bujue looked totally unconcerned . He faced the ferocious blood corpse without the slightest hint of fear, leaned forward and moved at a high speed, circling it from the side . He hurdled into the gap in the wall like an athlete and disappeared into the pitch dark police station…

At that moment, two people far away were at a loss . Lonely and Loneliness were still acting out the role of unarmed, useless characters . They too felt helpless, but they could only retreat, lest they hinder the others .

Wang Tanzhi carefully approached the blood corpse . Currently, the attention of the monster was mainly on Long Aomin, and, as long as a suitable time appeared, he would go up and slash it then immediately retreat . Only after ensuring he wouldn’t be in a situation where the boss could inflict heavy damage on him would he attack .

It was different compared to Long Aomin’s fighting style of using strength against strength, tanking and attacking . Wang Tanzhi’s fighting style was slanted towards the agility build . By walking stealthily and hiding in a flash, striking when the enemy was unprepared, and advancing while retreating, its aim was to wear down the enemy . Such a path wasn’t suited to using equipment like blunt weapons or shields and the like; a weapon with an edge was the best choice . He did not require a large amount of strength; as long as the speed was fast enough, a glancing blow could still deal damage .

The two were players who, in the future, would be specializing under hand-to-hand combat . However, under the same specialization, two characters with totally different fighting styles would be born . An inkling of their style could be seen in this level . One was good at “strength”, while the other was good at “speed” .

Once players reached the late game, their abilities would constantly become stronger . Players that were of the same specialization might come up with unimaginable divergences based on distinct interpretation on their fighting style . In addition, other specializations also existed, such as “hand-to-hand combat” with “shooting” or “hand-to-hand combat” with “healing” . Combining numerous skill combinations, it could be said that the characters in Terror Paradise exist unlimited possibilities .

That was the reason why the game did not create a definition of “profession” . As far as the powerful capabilities of the system were concerned, professions would, on the contrary, become shackles that would limit the players .

The experience in the late game of online games and the personalization of a character’s attributes were very important . If every character possessed the same attributes after reaching the highest rank and was limited on their available skills by profession, it would be quite boring . Any ordinary players could simply look at those walkthroughs written by top notch players and would more-or-less understand the eventual base attributes of their profession which they were raising, the skills that could be used to combine, the equipment they should get to complement their skills, etc…

However, the current configuration in the game had provided players with a huge space to freely express themselves . To start with, other than a stamina gauge, there was simply no “character attributes” . Health and terror value had always been displayed as a percentage in a bar and had no specific values . How much damage an attack dealt and how much harm the armor could withstand were not represented by things like numbers .

Secondly, all the skills and equipment were randomly generated and were not separated by profession . Specialization was king . Players would be able to unlock and discover their specialization in the process of going through the levels . If one had the capability, they could even raised all six kinds of specializations to S-rank .

In this setting allowing a high degree of freedom, Terror Paradise’s biggest selling point other than the Terror Value system was its “Title System” . This prevented players from getting lost while introducing the complicated combat during the later stages, and, at the same time, it gave them a “focus” to ensure that each character in the game had been personalized . It could be said that this system was the finishing touch the Dream company had, racking its brains, thought up .

A “title” would grant the player a type of special ability that was outside the limitations of the twelve categories of skill menu . For instance, Long Aomin’s “Lightning Collision” was a unique ability that did not take up any space in the skill menus . Titles would change along with the players’ growth . From rank 10 onwards, based on the player’s performance and ability, the system would update the player’s title in real time after the completion of a level . Moreover, the title would be unique, even if titles of the same name appeared, the abilities granted would not necessarily be the same . Special abilities might not be active skills . Some might be passive or even some sort of invisible non-explicit addition .

In the beta period, at rank 20 and higher levels, titles would be something equivalent to trademarks . Starting team survival mode after matchmaking, what a teammate’s nickname was would not matter . Generally, players would first look at what their teammates’ titles were, and then would basically know what their strengths were . Titles like “The fierce and brave attacker”, “The reckless pugilist” and “The accurate marksman” were simple and clear, something that one would understand by a glance . Needless to say, one’s ability could also be seen from the title . Once one reached rank 40 and above, with the exception of the sort of title mentioned earlier, there was also a possibility you could see titles such as “Eastern Heretic*”, “Western Venom*”, “Southern Emperor*”, “Northern Emperor*” . One would know just from a glance that these titles were given to top players and could only hope to bask in their reflected glory…

TL Note: These characters were all from the wuxia novel, Legend of the Condor Heroes .

Back to the story, in that moment when Long Aomin and Wang Tanzhi were entangled with the blood corpse, Feng Bujue was groping his way forward in the pitch-dark police station…