Show Me the Money

The eerie statue towered in the middle of the hall. The figure’s empty face, a lingering white haze, and countless kneeling people painted a rather unsettling picture.

Fatty nimbly strode forward, weaving between the Spirits of Misfortune. He’d been cursed with various permanent debuffs: speed decrease, HP decrease, potion effectiveness decrease, etc.

The countless people within the Hall of Misfortune were each a spirit formed from misfortune. When one disappeared, another was instantly born; there was no end to them. At the moment, these spirits, with their ashen faces and wide grayish eyes, surrounded Fatty and hurled themselves at him one after the other.

More and more Spirits of Misfortune flocked to him, every one a bodiless entity immune to attack and defense. Fatty could only gawk as they flung themselves at him, accompanied by a series of system notifications pinging in his ears.

Gradually, his movement grew slower and slower; his max health dropped lower and lower; and, even his appearance changed. White appeared in his hair as he looked tragically older and older.

Thud! The Skeletal Dragon that Fatty had summoned perished under all the curses, and Fatty was knocked out of “mounted” status.

Earthwalk. Fatty used the Movement Art a third time. He directly Earthwalk-ed outside of the spirits’ encirclement and appeared under the statue’s feet.

Swiiish! All the spirits immediately turned and gathered around Fatty anew.

The God of Misfortune’s hanging face was like a majestic god looking down at the ants on the ground motionlessly, as if it didn’t put Fatty in its eyes at all.

Clank! Fatty weakly swung the Elemental Sword. With a small noise, a default –1 damage rose up from the attack.

“A God expert statue is indeed a God expert statue,” Fatty praised.

Climbing onto the statue’s throne with difficulty, Fatty took a look around the hall. The interior of the hall was extremely luxurious with gold and jewelry. However, most of them was for decoration only and couldn’t be removed. Outside from the army of spirits and this statue, there wasn’t a single valuable object.

“Hisss, roah!” The spirits hissed and screamed as they climbed up the throne right behind Fatty, displaying an undying intent to curse him to death.

“You profaners! You should all be publicly beheaded!” Fatty pointed at the Spirits of Misfortune and yelped. Once again, he was forced to crawl up.

Fatty suddenly feel something not right in the middle of crawling. An originally vague idea suddenly became clear in his head. This is the God of Misfortune, they should only have the ability to create misfortune. How do they have the ability to curse if they aren’t the god of curse or something? Could it be that misfortune and curse are one and the same?

However, he didn’t have time to keep musing, because a spirit had already nearing his feet.

“Huh? What’s this?” Crawling up for about 40, 50 meters to the statue’s chest, Fatty saw a feeble white light radiated from within the statue, as if there was a treasure hidden inside it.

“So it’s hidden here!” Fatty was overjoyed. Finally something at last, this trip isn’t in vain.

Quickly pulling out the Elemental Sword, Fatty started to dig at the chest. The statue was made of an unknown material that rendered the sword unable to damage it too much. After half a day, Fatty only pierced out a shallow hole. In addition, the hole was still regenerating with the system’s reset.

Puff! A spirit arrived and merged into Fatty’s body once it touched his foot.

Ding.

System Notification: The Spirit of Misfortune has cursed you. After one hour, you will be blind permanently.

I have one hour left. Fatty contemplated. He moved to another spot to evade the spirits’ attacks and pondered on how to retrieve that object from inside the statue.

Rumbled! Right at this time, Fatty felt his map vibrate. He quickly opened it and saw several dozen red spot appeared on the map. There are other players entering this place again.

Fatty hurriedly chatted with his squad about this and was surprised that they were all unaware. From the looks of it, the new group alert was only available to the squad leader.

“Fatty, you can stay in there to get the object without worry. Leave the matter out here to us,” said HeadofGod, “Ignoring the fact that they won’t be able to reach the Paradise of Misfortune for a while; even if they did, we can still send them on a free trip back.”

HeadofGod didn’t exaggerate. The strength of the other group was truly not enough for the Fat Squad to get serious.

Fatty chuckled faintly and threw this matter to the back of his head, then continued to think of a method to dig away this statue.

The entire statue seemed to be sculpted from a whole chunk of an unknown material. On top of it, it was fortified by the godly power of the God of Misfortune, making it all the more solid. Even the sharp Elemental Sword couldn’t cut it open.

The object inside was unknown as well. It emitted spots of white light and illuminated the statue with a bizarre dignity. When the spots of light reflected on him, Fatty felt as if countless ants were crawling inside his body, making all his hair standing on end.

Unexpectedly, under the presence of this light, the Spirits of Misfortune stopped at the middle part of the statue and didn’t dare to crawl upward, their originally emotionless ash-gray eyes now revealed a hint of fear. The spirits bared their claws and helplessly brandished their arms, unable to reach Fatty’s body at all. This spirit threat was temporarily solved.

Metalwalk. Lacking a better option, Fatty could only tried the Movement Art.

Whoosh. Fatty vanished on the spot.

“AH!”

A tragic scream rang out from inside the statue. A figure had emerged at a spot three meters from the statue’s surface. This figure was extending his arm with his head a little twisted, like a worm that was sealed inside a chunk of amber.

“Damn it! How is it so hard to move?!” Fatty was stuck. He originally wanted to ‘walk’ 10 meters in, but unexpectedly stopped at 3 meters.

“Again!” Fatty continued to use Metalwalk. After three more times, he finally reached the center of the statue.

In this place, the white illumination was much brighter and denser. Each halo that spread out rendered a person unable to open their eyes. Every part of the statue was dyed with this white light and looked like the best quality of white gold.

Thump! Thump! The sound similar to that of heart throbbing echoed. The closer to the white light, the clearer the sound. Fatty’s heartbeat was led by this sound and gradually beat at the same frequency.

Thin streaks of blood started to stream from Fatty’s eyes, nose and mouth. His already weaken body from the curses immediately failed to hold up against this sonic attack.

“Spatial Spoon.” Fatty took pains to draw out the tool. With a flash, he disappeared from within the statue.

Whew. Sitting down in the secluded dimension, Fatty’s forehead was dripping with sweat and blood continued to gush out like a fountain. After stuffing several red pills in his mouth, his HP finally stopped plummeting.

The secluded dimension was detached from the outside world and ran parallelly with it. In a normal situation, entering the secluded dimension was equal to escaping the danger. However, at the moment, that heartbeat sound could still actually transmit in here and affect Fatty.

Fortunately, this effect was greatly weakened. Fatty could remain in here without worry to observe that radiant object.

It was a heart. To be more exact, it was a one-meter radius, ghastly white, with numerous ferocious faces bulging up from the surface that could scare a person witless with one single glance kind of heart.

“A heart? Is this the thing Sevik wanted?”

A doubt arose in his heart. What does Sevik want this terrifying heart for? Could it be…? Fatty thought of a possibility.

“What? A heart?” Seeing the image Fatty transmitted, the others were stunned as well. Such a big hall actually have nothing outside this eerie heart?

“So disgusting!” Qian Xiaoqian and the girls hurriedly closed the image.

“Any way to take it out?” asked West Gate Blowingwind. This brat was actually looking very excited.

“I’ll try.” After the rest, Fatty’s health was fully restored. He stepped out from the dimension. Around the heart was a ten square meter radius space, which was enough for him to walk around.

Whoosh. As soon as Fatty appeared in that space, a majestic voice rang out by his ears.

“I, Aurista, in the name of the God of Malediction, deem you to eternal darkness.”

“I, Aurista, in the name of the God of Malediction, deem you to eternal agony.”

“I, Aurista, in the name of the God of Malediction, deem you to eternal exile.”

“I, Aurista, in the name of the God of Malediction, deem you…”

Along with this voice, every time the heart beat was accompanied by an unknown force of power that enshrouded the statue, putting it under a bizarre state of being cursed.

The God of Malediction? Fatty was dumbstruck. How did the heart of the Malediction God get inside the Misfortune God’s statue?!

However, there was no time for him to keep musing on it. The moment Fatty had stepped out from the secluded dimension, the force of curse had come crashing like tidal waves and twined around his body.

Frailty, pain, fear… Almost every negative states quickly buried Fatty. In this instant, Fatty felt as if he had fallen into an eternal darkness. No light, no heat, no sound, nothing. Only all kind of fears sticked to him like a shadow and slowly ate up his soul.

“Ahhh…” Fatty let out a wretched scream. Blood gushed out from his orifices and the man fell limply to the ground.

Whoosh. Suddenly, a five-colored light shot out from the Elemental Equipment set and formed a halo that nursed Fatty inside. The warmth it emitted relieved his pain a little.

Hoo, hoo. Fatty pant. Just now, in the blink of an eye, his health had reached a terrifyingly low point below 1%.

“Fatty, what’s wrong?” The squad grew anxious when they heard Fatty’s tragic scream.

“Bro, just come out if it can’t be done!” Qian Xiaoqian nearly cried.

“Hehe, it’s nothing.” Looking at the five-colored halo around him, Fatty still felt a lingering fear in his heart. If it wasn’t for the Elemental Equipment suddenly exploded with might, he would have died here already.

However, Fatty was still being gradually weakened despite the light blocking away the heart’s curse. Very soon, his health only had a sliver left.

Standing up, Fatty caught his breath and fully replenished his health. Then, he stretched out his arm through the five-colored screen and grabbed onto the big heart, then viciously pulled it.

Ding.

System Notification: Congratulations. You have acquired the Heart of Malediction.