Despite the late night announcement, Jin was surprised to see that a decent number of cultivators still managed to come to visit his shop for the Goblin Raid Instance. He decided to make a rare appearance at the shopfront while several of his Another Jins were hard at work recreating the western diversion, northern diversion and one hidden instance, the attack of the goblin capital for the entirety of the Raid Instance Event in his shop.
Speaking of the western diversion, Mr Derpy finally got to enjoy some fun the moment he noticed that the ships were moving backwards. He had been staring at them for the longest time ever waiting for any changes. As soon as they retreated and crossed the imaginary line set by Jin during the operation preparations, Mr Derpy did not hesitate.
The other Deep Ones immediately gave way to their Shadow Lord as he launched himself out of the water and made a deep wailing sound that frightened the already demoralised orcs before crashing back into the deep oceans with a large, loud splash. The waves from the splash impacted the medium ships so terribly that some even capsized from it, allowing the Deep Ones to selfishly snatched their prey from one another.
Mr Derpy after having made his grand entrance, swam underneath a warship and bit through the ship’s keel, the bottom most structure holding the hull, causing seawater to gush into the hole rapidly. It also gave the Deep Ones the opportunity to enter and rampage through sinking warship. As for the rest of the warships…One after another they suffered the same fate as the first one, which Mr Derpy gave absolutely no chills for making him so long to act.
The cultivators that were fighting on the ships had been encouraged by the magpies to escape but many continued to press on, believing it was only part of the plot for the raid dungeon instance they were participating. The cultivators took it as some time trial, killing as many as possible before the warship sunk to the bottom of the sea. Hence, many of the cultivators died from drowning though most did not mind a single bit when they returned to the recovery instance.
Some thought there should be a way out which no one had figured out yet, just as always with other Jin’s dungeons. (They probably read too much into the situation.) Still, that data gave the Another Jins the idea to implement it into the real Western Diversion dungeon instance.
Of course, there would be a hidden way to fly out of the whole mess if they could find it in time. If some drowned trying to find out, they could probably purchase more tickets to search for the answer. Another Jins were already contemplating whether they should add hidden achievements for bragging rights.
Eventually, the orcs in the Western Diversion and Northern Diversion had fully retreated and the goblin armies began cleaning up the battlefield. Some of the Ice Orcs had decided to surrender in the Western Coastal Town of Gob Gob Si but the majority of them fought to the death. Jin’s monsters did one last sweep around the area before they teleported away, leaving the goblins to do what needed to be done.
With the scenes of battle clearing up in the Goblin World, Jin encountered a problem he had not have time to plan for before. Technically, the defeat of Orc King Hamu allowed him to proclaim this official event to be over and tell everyone to go home. But that felt like a very bad idea especially after his sudden announcement in the middle of the night.
It also felt unreasonable towards those cultivators who had joined the battlefield mere minutes before the battle was over, only for them to get teleported back. Jin announced to the cultivators that he found a critical technical issue which could result in a server failure. So as an apology, Jin compensated all who had joined too late with an apology pack worth five bronze panda medals.
Even though Another Jins were not fully ready yet, Jin also opened another portal to the real dungeon instance for all who wished to participate after receiving the apology pack. However, the cultivators did not know that this particular dungeon instance was not a complete instance because of the time constraint Jin had encountered. A couple of unlucky Another Jins were simultaneously building the dungeon instance of the Western Diversion scenario as it went live for the cultivators.
Panda Captains Bai and Hei dragged the start of the instance out as long as they could by giving the cultivators a surprise event, stating that the there were reports of Wind Orcs attempting to infiltrate into the Western Coastal Town via the hills at the side. This particular event was supposed to be one of the many pre-sequel events that Another Jins decided to incorporate but for this particular instance, it was a fixed event. That way, Another Jins had some more time to create what was needed for the eventual battle.
But unlike the Goblin World which they had no control over, Another Jins purposely enhanced the Goblin Raids Dungeon instances in many ways. Firstly, communications. Instead of magpies, they made use of the mini pets that most of the cultivators had and those became the new messengers for communication purposes. If one did not have a mini pet they could purchase one for a slightly lower price during this event. If not, a magpie would be accompanying them in place of their pets.
Second, He realised the orcs…were caught in such a bad predicament that they were unable to fight back, making it such an unfair fight. Now that it was no longer a matter of real life and death, he decided to even the odds. So firstly, he removed all the monsters that aided the goblins and changed it to solely a goblins vs orcs battle. Instead of lost tech warships, he purposely used models from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Wooden frigates powered by steam engines (which were way cheaper compared to recreating the lost tech) and the System matched the speed and strength of the lost tech warships which they had collected the data from.
For the airship carriers, Another Jins had decided to copy the idea of aircraft carriers from the past, mainly the HMS Argus, a British aircraft carrier. As HMS Argus was converted from an ocean liner to an aircraft carrier, Another Jins decided to do the same. Because Jin was an engineering student before, he still had a user account giving him access to the university database (He did not clean his browser and cookies!!) and it allowed him to get access to look at the blueprints for ocean liners.
On a separate note, Kraft asked if Jin wished to hack into the database and get access to all the information in case his user account ever expired. “You sure you can do this without being detected? I do not want police to come knocking at my doorstep.” Jin was slightly wary.
“Technically, you already have the Police Heads under your fingertips. Even if you were caught, you could get off with it.” Kraft reminded him that the Royal Zodiac Tiger’s Head, Yuan Ba and his daughter, Yang Ling, owed them a favour though they could probably use that for something grander.
“But in all seriousness, yeah I can do that in a jiffy with the help of the System. Their database is third rate and my judgement tells me, there had already been a few silent hacks in there. So as soon as we find a backdoor they left, we can just use it and subsequently, the blame would fall on whoever placed it there.”
“I had no idea you are able to do cyber hacking, aren’t you a relic from the past?” Jin mocked Kraft only to get whacked on the head by Tsu and Kai. The two black foxes had appeared out of nowhere and each stood at both sides of his shoulders.
“A bellator got to update himself too, else what use would he have to his Master? Besides, did you forget I am in the counterintelligence business?” Kraft sniggered as he enjoyed Jin struggling against Tsu and Kai. “Haven’t you ever wondered how you managed to get your dungeon supplier license? Take a wild guess who made it so that the System was capable of such a feat.”
“But can you hack like erm the Black market or something like the FBI equivalent?” Jin was curious about Kraft’s extent.
“Maybe.” Kraft grinned evilly as he took the opportunity to fiddle with the database that Jin logged into. Suddenly just like in those science fiction and spy thriller shows, dozens of windows appeared in front of the laptop screen. And all Kraft did was place his palm right above the keyboard without touching a single key at all for the hacking process to initiate.
Jin was taken aback by Kraft’s abilities until a small pop up came out which stated the following: “Copy All? Yes or No?” Kraft then pressed ‘Y’ on the keyboard and the screen immediately buzzed with activity.
“Done. Must say, there is a lot of information in your university database, all sorts of stuff. From politics to geography. Peppers will go mad happy deciphering all the raw data.” Kraft stretched his hands and walked away. Looking back after some steps, he snapped his fingers for Tsu and Kai to disappear again. Jin was happy to no longer suffer their joint attack and passed the Ocean Liner blueprint data to Another Jin to work on as they recreated the aircraft carrier and added giant sized turbines to make them fly.
Of course, theoretically in the real world, adding giant size turbines that would magically let a 50,000 over tons float in the air would never happen at all. But because this was a dungeon instance, certain physics laws could simply be altered. This was one of the exceptions that Another Jin was willing to make and provide the new cultivators with another platform to fight against the orcs.
Third thing on his agenda. All of the goblins were replaced with NPCs because he and Qiu Yue had not negotiated the terms thoroughly with the Goblin King for the army. Hence, the System utilised the data of the three goblin generals’ sons when they were first captured. Back then, the goblins only had mediocre to above average attributes as compared to now. Hence, the system copied the data and made hundreds of copies for Another Jins to populate the Western Coastal Town Area. (Of course, Jin had to use the money the system loaned him to pay for the goblin NPCs. Nothing was free.)
They had placed Wyrstriker as the overall goblin commander for the Western Coastal town in the hopes that Wyrstriker would get better understanding what his father, Spear General Argent, was going through for the battles.
Lastly, the System had deduced it would be optimal to provide various modern tactics that the Orcs could take to fight against the goblin NPCs and the cultivators. Hence, it recommended the different plans to the Ice and Wind Orcs that were captured and advised their leaders to choose what they liked the most against the cultivators. Unless specified, the System decided to give them free rein over their commands.
The captured Orcs had no choice but to obey, courtesy of the Loyalty Enforcement Orders that the System put them under. However, no Orc would say no to a good fight. (And most definitely a much fairer fight against the cultivators and goblin NPCs.)
Separately, Jin and Yun were doing customer support and damage control after he put up the notice late at night. He saw Xiong Da rushing into the shop instance after his tedious work in the office and giving him a strange glare. Jin kindly explained that he just wanted to check the response of his customers and had seemingly underestimated the response.
“Enticing us with a free ticket and x5 points, but imposing a requirement that one had to come as soon as possible? This is more like a threat than a favourable deal for the consumers! Have you really not seen this coming?! Aaargggh, I don’t have time to argue, I need to make full use of it. FOR THE (NEXT) PLUSHIE!!!!” Xiong Da stormed off after saying his piece.
He hastily entered the raid instance which the Another Jins were patching it up live. Jin really did not expect that it would be that popular to open at night. Since his only desire was to protect as many goblins as possible with the aid of the cultivators while he dealt with the mastermind behind this whole meaningless war. But Jin believed it was because of their increase in grade over the months that less sleep was no longer much of a concern for the cultivators.
“Perhaps, I should review my opening hours. Essentially I can employ more than one double to take care of the place if I want to.” Jin thought to himself and the System approved of such a method.
“User, please do take note that you are not able to leave behind Another Jin in the shop when you go away from the shop. Your alternate personality will disappear after the distance between yourselves reach a certain threshold. It could also potentially damage your psych up if you forcibly break it.” The System, on the other hand, also encouraged him to train more since it should be possible to achieve what he wanted when he was able to create his astral phantom.
“Okay, noted. How is Slashreaver doing? Are we going to use the recovery capsule on him?” Jin asked in his mind as he greeted another customer into his shop.
“Milk is currently taking care of that. He does not necessarily need the recovery capsule and System had already placed him in his home instance in the Sanctum of Worlds for him to advance his evolution. Does User wish to partake in the process?” System asked and Jin answered that he needed one more minute.
———-
“Man, you are too riled up, calm down Wyrstriker.” Flame Ripper tried to calm his friend down, who had been pacing around nonstop, while he sat at the side of the bench outside their simple goblin hut. They were both waiting while Milk was attending to Slashreaver.
“How can you remain so still? Why can’t Master Jin just kill Slashreaver and revive him? That would make things much simpler. Heck I’d do i-” Wyrstriker replied but before he could say anything else, Iwen his wyvern used his wing to knock on Wyrstriker’s head.
“Be patient! Sit!” Iwen commanded and Wyrstiker grumbled a little before he sat down as commanded by his wyvern. That was when Jin entered their sanctum and hurried into the goblin hut. Wyrstriker took that as an excuse to stand up again and followed Jin into the hut. Flame Ripper sighed a little before entering the hut too.
“So System, what do I have to do?” Jin asked. Through the loudspeaker of his phone, the System told him that there was a new card in Jin’s Tact Tweak. With a little bit of fumbling to search for it, Jin found the card and it materialised at the top of the Tact Tweak’s screen.
“Goblin Evolution Trigger.” Jin read the title on the card and there was a strand of rainbowish DNA as the picture of the card with a goblin silhouette in it. As easy as it sounded, Jin placed the card on the panting Slashreaver and suddenly, a light shone all around Slashreaver.
“Step back, everyone.” Milk commanded and the rest complied.
The shine grew so bright that all of them had to use their arms and hands to cover part of their eyes while peeking through in hopes to see what was happening. Within five seconds, they heard a loud thud of a footstep and out came Slashreaver.
“Dread Reaver.” Jin saw the new name of Slashreaver that was posted on the Tact Tweak as a suit of black armour came out of the light. Dread Reaver was taller than Jin and he featured a dark purplish cape as well as a two handed great broadsword. The great sword was simple looking, and it only had a handle tied in bandages with no crossguard nor pommel attached to it. What’s scary was the width of the Great sword’s blade width. It was at least two goblins head wide, roughly 45-50 centimetres wide and approximately 1.5 metres long. If not for Dread Reaver’s height, he might be dragging it around.
His full body armour had bloodied edges at every edgy part of the armour and there was no single part of his body being exposed. Even the armour that covered the joints were made of a kind of metal which Jin could not figure out but it appeared extremely flexible, similar to tactical fabric. There was also an imprinted insignia of a lightning bolt penetrating a goblin skull at the back of his helmet.
Speaking about his helmet, it had the design for only his right ear. The left side of the helmet did not have any which made it look like he was some one horned devil.
Dread Reaver clenched his fists a little. It was a strange feeling after losing them for a few hours as he looked at his new self. He tried to pull his helmet out but it seemed like the armour was restricting him to do so. After a few attempts, he realised the only way was to pull his helmet similarly to taking a hood off. The helmet then retracted itself to the back of his neck and they finally saw his face.
The side that was burnt by Purple Thunder’s bolt remained charred but his wounds were healed and left with one ear. Dread Reaver took the opportunity to kneel down and thank Jin for giving him new powers.
“It’s all your own effort, Dread Reaver. Thank you for enduring everything. I hope to be able to continue working with you…and wish that Starfire will still love you as you are now.” Jin gave his blessings to Dread Reaver.
“Hahaha… Starfire, I do wonder how she will react and think of me when she sees me like this.” Dread Reaver gave a light soft smile but Jin could feel some bittersweet vibes from it too. Meanwhile, Flame Ripper and Wyrstriker were amazed by the transformation Slashreaver went through and came over to congratulate him as well.
“How did he become this absurdly strong?” Wyrstriker asked out loud as he admired Dread Reaver’s aura.
“He danced with Death for so long that Death must have finally begun to take an interest in him and granted him exclusive powers to represent her. Still cannot believe that Slashreaver is such a playboy to court both Death and Starfire at the same time.” Flame Ripper believed that was the only logical explanation for Dread Reaver’s current class.
The Death Knight.
