Chapter 358 - Blood Berserker's Wrath
"Another annoying skill?" Shangguan Bing Xue looked at him puzzled and tilted her head in a super cute way.
Bai Zemin was in no mood to observe the beauty's behavior before him, on the contrary, he let out a bitter smile as he recalled the events that happened several minutes ago.
...
While he was beating Geminder one-sidedly black and blue, Bai Zemin could slowly notice how his ability to reason things out with a level head as in most cases was beginning to become cloudy. All he wanted was to wipe out everything and every one of the goblins, the level of hatred he began to feel towards this race of small but vile green-skinned creatures was reaching such high levels that even Bai Zemin himself realized that it was not normal.
Because he was currently slaughtering hundreds of goblins per second, it was naturally impossible for Bai Zemin to pay attention to every single record that was being engraved within his soul. As a consequence, he completely ignored any messages that appeared in his retina and focused entirely on the battle he was fighting at that moment.
It was right at the instant he broke Geminder's spine that he finally realized that something was not right with his behavior. This was because while Bai Zemin had a savage and violent fighting style, making his enemy suffer in such a way was actually not something he would normally have thought of since Bai Zemin's priority in a death fight was always to take the enemy's life before the enemy took his; this was a rule he had imposed on himself from the instant he killed that level 5 Big Bee.
Such a rule was one that Bai Zemin had been following, until this day.
Curious and a little worried about his own behavior unknown even to himself, Bai Zemin began to search through his most important records. Because he had always been looking at his records periodically with Lilith, he became quite good at it so that even when he had to split his focus he managed to find the source of the problem in no time.
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[Because the user is in a state where anger threatens to blind him completely, one of the skills belonging to the one who walks the path of the Blood Berserker has been automatically unlocked.]
[You have learned a UNIQUE skill.]
[Anger. An emotion that all living beings feel at least once in their lives. However, there is a special kind of anger, anger in which reason completely disappears and all reason ceases. When anger reaches its peak, even the destruction of oneself to achieve a purpose is no longer madness.]
[You have learned the passive skill 'Blood Berserker's Wrath'.]
[Blood Berserker's Wrath (UNIQUE passive skill): When the trigger switch is triggered, the user falls into Wrath mode. Resets the cooldown time of all skills on cooldown at the moment the user goes into Wrath mode and reduces Stamina consumption by half. Increases the adrenaline flow and as a consequence increases Strength by +400 points, increasing exponentially according to the user's anger level. The skill Blood Berserker's Wrath possesses 5 levels of wrath, each level is activated automatically depending on the triggered switch. Side effect: depending on the wrath step, the user's rationality will gradually begin to fade, with the 5th level being the most dangerous and lethal.]
[This skill cannot level up. This skill cannot evolve.]
[Switch of the 1st level of wrath: Threaten loved ones. Loss of rationality equivalent to 10%.]
[Switch of the 2nd level of wrath: Unknown. Loss of rationality equivalent to 15%.]
[Switch of the 3rd level of wrath: Unknown. Loss of rationality equivalent to 30%.]
[Switch of the 4th level of wrath: Unknown. Loss of rationality equivalent to 50%.]
[Switch of the 5th level of wrath: Unknown. The loss of rationality depends on the mental condition of the user, being able to recover 100% of consciousness at certain times but going completely insane at others.]
[For the skill to be canceled, the user must end and completely suppress the rage against the reason for which the skill was activated.]
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Ignoring the fact that he had no idea what a UNIQUE skill was, when Bai Zemin skim-read the skill description, his first thought was that he had received a powerful skill. He was incredibly happy at first. However, as he read more and more, that happiness began to turn to concern when he realized that the skill he had just unlocked was not only powerful but also incredibly dangerous.
Calling the skill Blood Berserker's Wrath a double-edged sword just like Gravity Manipulation was not an exaggeration at all because while it granted the user a great deal of power, the reality was that in return the user also had to pay the consequences depending on the power received.
For example, Bai Zemin could perform devastating attacks by multiplying the Earth's gravity x15 within a certain range along with his monstrous Strength. However, the consequence was that even his own life was not guaranteed.
The same was true for this newly acquired skill, only instead of putting his life on the line, the consequence was to lose degrees of rationality depending on the level of wrath triggered by the activation of the skill. This might seem insignificant, but the loss of rationality was extremely dangerous as at the highest levels one would even fail to recognize even their loved ones.
It was after realizing how dangerous the situation he was in even though his life was in no real danger that Bai Zemin made the decision to end the war. Even though he really had the desire to wipe out all the goblins that had come before him and that 10% loss of rationality had made his desire to completely wipe out the race of the one who threatened his loved ones, he fought against himself to restrain it.
Was Bai Zemin kind? No. He was definitely not. While he did not consider himself evil, he by no means believed he was a saint. It was absolutely impossible that Bai Zemin decided to let Kreir and the rest of the goblins go just because he suddenly received a glimmer of enlightenment.
Bai Zemin realized that little by little he was starting to lose more and more rationality as well as control over his own actions so scared he decided that it was better to put a stop before things got completely out of control.
In the end, after Kreir and the rest of the goblins disappeared from his sight, Bai Zemin stopped repressing the madness bubbling inside him and released himself completely.
Geminder became an extremely pitiful existence under Bai Zemin's uninterrupted fists. After several tens of punches, the Second Order goblin's head exploded and died; but even then, Bai Zemin did not stop and continued. This was because as strange as it seemed, his anger had not yet been completely suppressed after taking the life of the one who released it.
...
After Shangguan Bing Xue heard Bai Zemin's brief but concise summary, she finally understood many things, and the strange behavior she had just seen in him finally became clear.
While Bai Zemin had not told her in quality detail everything his new skill bestowed or how it worked, the fact that this skill had the side effect of taking part of the user's rationality as a consequence of its automatic activation was extremely frightening.
The scariest thing about passive skills with automatic activations was that they could not be bypassed by the user. If the skill was good, then great. But if the skill was detrimental in some way, then that's where the problems began.
To make matters worse, skills learned voluntarily or involuntarily could not be removed. After all, learned skills were runes that became part of one's soul. At the end of the day, it was not as if one could casually erase part of one's soul.
Shangguan Bing Xue knew that for Bai Zemin to have acquired such a skill something extremely serious and important to him must have happened.
Her eyes automatically moved to the lifeless body of the goblin he had been beating until recently and despite her curiosity, she decided not to ask any questions. After all, she didn't want to make him feel sad, far from it, by remembering or thinking about bad memories.
"By the way..." Shangguan Bing Xue decided to change the topic of conversation a bit and as her gaze fell on a shiny object in the distance, her pink lips curved slightly as she said cheerfully, "I see you've received more good items."
Bai Zemin followed her gaze and when he saw the object she was looking at, a small smile automatically appeared on his face which, despite being covered with several drops of blood, still looked handsome and added several points of heroic bravery.
As Bai Zemin's Soul Power became purer and purer, his soul became stronger and stronger. As a consequence of this, Bai Zemin's body began to improve by leaps and bounds as did his appearance. The current him was not aware, but Shangguan Bing Xue was.... That the current Bai Zemin did not lose in terms of appearance even to Chen He, who was the most attractive person in terms of face she had ever met.
But this was also normal. Although Chen He's genes were somehow better than Bai Zemin's in terms of appearance, although he had suffered less from the deterioration of life due to his good family circumstances, Bai Zemin had killed no less than a hundred First Order existences and seven Second Order existences; his genes had been improved to an incredibly high point after his own soul became purer and purer through absorbing and assimilating so much good quality Soul Power.
Shangguan Bing Xue couldn't help but think about Wu Yujin and what kind of reaction that girl would have when she sees him again once they arrive at the Beginning Village in a few days more.
Naturally, Bai Zemin was not aware of the thoughts of the woman beside him. From his own point of view, matters such as his face was not something to be overly concerned about. All his attention was mainly focused on becoming more powerful as quickly as possible, and if he could become the ugliest man in the universe in exchange for being the most powerful, he would gladly and without hesitation accept the trade.
His gaze was focused on the treasure orbs and other items he had received in this battle; his spoils of war. Considering how difficult and hard the battle he had just experienced was, the Soul Record naturally could not be stingy... or could it? Bai Zemin was no longer so sure of this after he gave it some thought.
With a small frown, he walked around the grounds. His attention was mainly focused on the area where he had killed Abil, Kurano, Inac, and Geminder.
Shangguan Bing Xue also helped him in his search for the treasure and with the teamwork of the two of them it took about 30 minutes. The two left no corpse unturned to make sure they were not missing anything.
Bai Zemin and Shangguan Bing Xue looked at the pile of objects in front of them and then looked into each other's eyes. As if they were mentally connected, they both said at the same time exactly the same words:
"I think I now understand how people who hit the lottery feel."
The two were stupefied looking at each other as neither of them expected such a thing. In the end, the two could not help but burst out laughing and Shangguan Bing Xue's smile was so beautiful that fortunately there was no other human around other than Bai Zemin whose heart was extremely difficult to be moved by beauty; otherwise, that unfortunate one might fall in love unilaterally only to end up heartbroken in the future.
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