Chapter 686: Chapter 465: The Evolution of the Little Raft
Irreversible damage?
Zachary thought back to the first time he had poured a massive amount of gasoline into the cabin of the Mysterious Ship and then ignited the entire ship with a flame. Although the first few attempts to light the fire had not caused any damage to the Mysterious Ship, the last time Zachary not only poured a huge amount of gasoline into the cabin but even threw a powerful cluster bomb into it.
This time, it was even simpler. In gaming terms, Zachary was basically door-spamming monsters.
At the very beginning, Zachary speculated whether the Ironclad Puppets that had fallen off the stage would be able to respawn in the Mysterious Realm after dissipating.
If we follow the normal puzzle-solving process, it should be that the puzzle-solver’s speed of killing the Metal Puppets is greater than the current Metal Puppets respawn rate. So, when all Metal Puppets of the current type are killed, new Metal Puppets will take the stage.
Once all four types of Metal Puppets are slain by the puzzle-solver intruding the Secret Realm, it will trigger the combat of the Octagonal Cage; those four Metal Puppets are probably the final bosses.
With three melee Metal Puppets and one ranged Metal Puppet, it’s not really a question where the core of the Mysterious Ship is hidden; everyone has a pretty clear idea in their minds.
To verify his guess, Zachary prepared to dissect all other Metal Puppets in the Cave, leaving only the final Golden-armored BOSS.
Yet, Zachary discovered that his dissection ability had inexplicably failed this time. Realizing this, Zachary instantly knew he had not guessed wrong.
The ability to dissect within the Cave could dismantle anything within that had no ability to resist, whether it was an inanimate object or something that had temporarily lost the ability to resist. If there was no resistance, it would be directly dissected.
The fact that the dissection ability was ineffective now meant that those Metal Puppets in the Cave still possessed a resistance instinct.
The difference between then and now was just the addition of four Metal BOSSes.
Therefore, Zachary was quite certain that the core of the Mysterious Ship lay with these four Metal BOSSes.
Moreover, after Zachary absorbed the Metal BOSSes into the Cave, the previous Mysterious Realm (Octagonal Cage) had begun dispersing, breaking apart outright, further indicating the core of the Mysterious Realm was now gone.
Having confirmed this information, Zachary immediately demarcated an isolated area within the Cave, much like the separate area designated for the Undead Creatures, completely independent from the rest of the Cave.
Afterwards, Zachary threw the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS into that separate space. Once the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS had disappeared, Zachary again subjected the remaining puppets to dissection and found that, including the other three Metal Puppet BOSSes, all Metal Puppets were instantaneously reduced to raw materials and absorbed by the leylines.
This also indirectly confirmed that the core of the Mysterious Ship must absolutely reside within the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS; that is to say, the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS is the core of the ship itself.
With this revelation, Zachary became even more curious about the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS. It was only after Zachary conducted a Spiritual Sense Scanning of the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS that he found the Puppet to be different from the other Metal Puppets; the Divine Sense could not scan its interior, indirectly indicating that the core of the Mysterious Ship was within the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS.
This was why, though Zachary had destroyed such a large ship, when the raft absorbed it, it only grew a little. This was not only because Zachary had not brought out the raft in time, but also because the true core of the Mysterious Ship had not been destroyed.
Armed with this information, Zachary started to play the butcher. Although, according to TV show tropes, if the core of the Mysterious Ship wasn’t in the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS’s chest, it would be in its head, Zachary meticulously dissected the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS piece by piece, searching for the possible location of the Mysterious Ship’s core.
When Zachary cut off the limbs of the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS, he realized that he could now scan them with his Divine Sense. With this discovery, Zachary hastened his dismantling efforts.
Zachary wielded his Flying Swords as if slicing through tofu, effortlessly severing the head and torso of the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS. After confirming with his Divine Sense that the torso could be scanned, it was now certain that the core of the Mysterious Ship was within the head of the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS.
To avoid wasting the energy dissipating from the destruction of the Mysterious Ship’s core like before, Zachary this time took the raft out from the Divine Sense in advance, and then carefully used the Flying Swords to start cutting the head of the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS.
Zachary, like cautiously shedding light on a jade piece during a stone gamble, performed each step with extreme care to extract the Mysterious Ship’s core intact, to observe what the core of the Mysterious Ship actually looked like.
However, to Zachary’s surprise, at first, it seemed no different from before, as the peeled-off metal was cast aside. But when he began cutting into the brain of the Golden-armored Puppet BOSS, the remainder of the Puppet, as if eroded by the wind, suddenly turned into debris, which instantly got absorbed by the nearby raft the moment it appeared.
As this debris was absorbed by the raft, Zachary noticed the raft’s hull started growing constantly. When the hull of the raft swelled to a certain volume, it suddenly turned into a shadowy mass and then rapidly began to shrink. When the shadow covering the raft dissipated, the original raft had vanished, and now before Zachary was a small wooden boat.
