Chapter 192: Chapter 192 – Road To Salvation

Should he choose ‘Sacrifice’ or ‘Salvation’?

“It looks like I can’t choose ‘both’…” Ren Suo muttered. At that juncture, a hint finally popped up in the game:

[Sacrifice: Use the right hand to extract the sins from the monster’s heart and its soul. It will no longer have any means of survival, and the magic powers of the mage’s right hand would also be increased from bearing the weight of ‘hatred and memories’ (the attack power of offerings would be enhanced). The maximum mana of the mage would also be increased. However, what would happen if the soul of hatred in the right arm exceeds its bearable limit…]

[Salvation: Use the left hand to activate the human nature and kindness in the monster’s heart. It will turn back into a human and the health and mana of the mage would be instantly recovered from the ‘gratitude and aspirations’. The maximum health of the mage and the holy powers of the left hand would also be increased (the recovery and protective effect of offerings would be enhanced). However, humans who had previously fallen into the pit of hell can only live for one to two days, but even in such a short period of time, they would almost definitely be corrupted and fall again…]

[Fate: Let fate decide how the monster would meet its demise. The holy power, magic power, health, and mana of the mage would all rise equally.]

Ren Suo thought, “To put it simply, ‘sacrifice’ would increase the mage’s powers and mana, while ‘salvation’ would restore the mage’s health and mana…”

Just based on cost-effectiveness alone, “sacrifice” would be far better than “salvation” in the long run. That was because the stronger the magic power of the mage, the stronger the effects of the offerings, which are his main tools of combat. Although the increase in holy powers of the mage from ‘salvation’ could also enhance the effect of recovery and protection, attack power was ultimately still the most important in fighting monsters.

Moreover, in terms of results, “sacrifice” was also far better than “salvation”. The monster which had been sacrificed must have died as a consequence. On the other hand, a monster who had been salvaged would only be able to live for at most one to two days, and even so, there was a possibility that it would turn into a monster again.

Essentially, [Sacrifice] would appeal to those who preferred bloodshed, [Salvation] would appeal to those who preferred grace and mercy, while [Fate] would appeal to those who preferred balance.

“Let’s try ‘salvation’ first,” Ren Suo thought. He selected [Salvation], and Mage pointed his left hand at the thin, bony man. He grabbed his left hand with his right, then shot rays of green light at the man in a stance as if he ‘was almost unable to control his hand anymore’.

At that moment, Ren Suo realized that an icon of a left hand appeared on the left side of the screen. It showed the leveling up from [Holy Hand Level 0] to [Holy Hand Level 1].

The left hand of Mage had grown stronger and more powerful!

Red Hood shook her head slightly but said nothing.

A short moment later, the hungry man stood up from the ground and looked at Mage and Red Hood. He wanted to say something but eventually remained silent as he sat in a daze on the barren land.

At that juncture, Red Hood said: [For what purpose are you being benevolent? Do you think you saved a good person? Just think about the state he was in as a monster, can you really not deduce what sin he had committed in the past?]

[In every checkpoint palace, monsters in human form who are tortured by hunger are the most likely of powerful monsters to appear, other than the evil demon. Are you planning to grant all of them ‘salvation’ in the future?]

[Or perhaps, are you just like the other unenlightened and timid fools in the holy palace who cannot bear to ‘kill the monsters who have sinned’?]

“I merely wanted to experiment with the game mechanisms…” Ren Suo muttered as he pulled his lips. He typed to ask: [Why don’t you sacrifice him yourself then? Aren’t you also a mage?]

Red Hood remained silent for a moment. She replied: [… I can’t do it, and that’s exactly the significance of your appearance.]

Upon finishing her sentence, Red Hood headed back into the monastery to fight the monsters. Ren Suo glanced at the man on the barren field and found that he was drawing on the ground with a stone.

Ren Suo took a look at what he was drawing on the ground and realized that he seemed to be writing words. However, even Ren Suo, who was ‘proficient in multiple languages'(Lianjiang dialect and Mandarin), could not understand what he was writing—it must be a language of the spiritual world.

It was the same situation when Ren Suo was talking to Red Hood moments ago: he could only understand what Red Hood was talking about because of the subtitles.

An hour passed and a few more skinny, bony men and women were on the field. They did not communicate amongst themselves, as if they were true NPCs, and merely remained on the field. Some of them were in a daze, some of them were lying down, and some were crying.

Within that hour, Mage and Red Hood definitely did better than that. During that time, they had also cleared a third of the monsters in the monastery, and there were almost 70 of them.

Among them, there were actually only a few of them who turned into a monster from a human. The majority of them were various small animals: gigantic mice, crows with skull-shaped ears, bees with an upper-body of a woman, rabbits with extremely large ears…

It did not matter whether the small animals were chosen for “sacrifice” or “salvation”. According to Red Hood, they were simply monsters defiled by humans. They belonged to the category of ‘low-level monsters’, which were much weaker than monsters in human form.

Even if they were all sacrificed, they would still reappear after a certain period of time, as long as the evil demon of the monastery still remained in existence.

As such, Ren Suo chose [Salvation] for all of them. Since it was a game where savegames could be restored, Ren Suo wanted to see how it would turn out if he chose the ‘grace and mercy’ route.

There was no doubt that salvation, sacrifice, and fate were three different routes that the player could take, which corresponded to the Holy Arm, the Magical Wrist, and Balance. It was the first time Ren Suo was playing that game, so he naturally wanted to find out the effect of choosing a certain route and persisting with it throughout.

Every time he defeated a monster, a random offering would be dropped from the slain monster. Red Hood naturally did not ‘want’ any of the dropped offerings, and Mage would also be the one deciding the consequence of every monster.

There were many similar types of offerings, and magic power could be used to upgrade an offering to be more powerful. A change in quality could even occur after upgrading an offering over a certain threshold. For example, [Sword Fragment] had already been upgraded to [Fire Broadsword Fragment], which was formed from several pieces of [Sword Fragment] and [Fire Sword Fragment].

Indeed, Mage was still a close-ranged ‘fighter’.

Nonetheless, Ren Suo was being extremely cautious and would save the game every time he defeated a monster. He felt that a game with a 3+ star level of difficulty would definitely not be as simple as it seemed.

Just as he thought, after two hours when Mage and Red Hood had defeated half of the monsters and were fighting a human-form monster, several roars resounded from outside the monastery.

The humans who were in the barren field outside turned back into human-form monsters at the same time. They were returning to the monastery to attack Red Hood and Mage!

[I’m hungry!]

[I’m hungry!]

The Blood Monsters shouted in chaos and drowned out Red Hood and Mage instantly!

Both Red Hood and Mage had to spend several minutes fighting one single human-form monster, and Ren Suo could easily guess the result as they were faced with seven to eight of such Blood Monsters. He quickly returned to [System Interface], [System], then [Load Game Save]. The three steps reverted the game to three minutes ago!

At that juncture, Red Hood was about to begin fighting another monster, but Ren Suo shouted to stop her: [Hold on.]

Then, Ren Suo controlled Mage to walk out of the monastery and looked at the humans he had granted ‘salvation’. They were still lying around in a daze, without any sign of turning back into a monster.

Red Hood said: [Why, have you finally been enlightened? It’s still not too late now.]

[Rather than letting them linger on for a day and a half more as they wallow in sorrow and hatred, it would be better to free them from their suffering now.]

Ren Suo looked at the humans from another world who were awaiting their deaths. With his intuition as a Level 3 Player, he somehow felt that that was not just a simple trap.

It was a game that allowed savegames to be restored. If the only result of granting the human-form monsters salvation was them turning back into monsters, who would then attack the player, no sane player would subsequently choose ‘salvation’.

As such, there had to be some way of making [Salvation] and [Sacrifice] to be valued equally.

Ren Suo asked: [Is there really no way of stopping them from turning back into monsters?]

Red Hood sneered and replied: [A way to stop them from turning back into monsters? There is a way, which is to satisfy their deepest desires. When their desires are fulfilled, their souls would be completely purified and they would never be contaminated by the Holy Grail ever again. Don’t think that they are peaceful because they look calm now; they are already so hungry and famished that they want to tear you into pieces and devour you this very moment!]

[Slice yourself and feed them your meat then!]

At that juncture, a prompt appeared in the game: [Do you wish to slice a portion of yourself (permanently lowers maximum health) to feed the monsters and fulfill their desires?]

Ren Suo asked: [Is there really no food here?]

Red Hood replied: [How can there be food here! Apart from you and me, there are only monsters, dirt, and stones! Ever since a long time ago, no lives can be born here!]

Ren Suo keenly realized that that must be the difference between sacrifice and salvation.

If the mage chose to slice himself to offer his meat to the monsters, then he would definitely receive something beneficial, whose value would likely be greater than the reduction in maximum health. However, in that scenario, the increase in maximum health of the mage through [Salvation] would be reversed.

That seemed to be the only way forward when choosing the ‘grace and mercy’ route…

As Ren Suo was deep in thought, his mobile phone rang. He picked it up instantly and said, “Hello?”

“The food is ready. Head over to eat, Xiaoyan has already arrived,” Dong Chengling said from the other end of the line. She added, “I made chicken nuggets with curry and potato today, I hope it tastes better than that from the dining hall.”

“It definitely tastes better than that from the dining hall… Eh, chicken nuggets?” Ren Suo replied.