Ninety: After I Died, I Was Unbelievably Powerful

That line sounds incredibly high-tier, like it is anything but ordinary...

After silently repeating those words to himself, Chen Sheng could not help saying as much.

At that, Yu Youxin could not stop a strange expression from returning to her little face.

She glanced at Chen Sheng again, wanting to speak but holding back, and could only roll her eyes inwardly: could a set of twelve prophetic verses handed down after the Dark Depths were turned into ruins overnight be ordinary?

"What are the other eleven verses?" Chen Sheng asked.

"I don't know." This time, Yu Youxin merely gave a slight, composed shake of her head and did not answer him.

Those twelve prophetic verses had a very odd aspect to them. If Chen Sheng had not brought up Chen Jueshen first, she would not even have wanted to mention the line about the divine martial abandoning the world and reigning supreme over mankind.

Chen Sheng nodded. He had only asked casually and was not especially eager to know, so he went on, "Then what does this divine martial abandoning the world and reigning supreme over mankind mean? Is there some divine weapon hidden somewhere? If there's no divine weapon, then a few punitive relics would do too!"

"Where would there be any divine weapons..."

After hearing that, the young girl was not feeling very well at all. Her little mouth twitched up and down uncontrollably, because she wanted to curse.

A few punitive relics?

Why not go straight to the Netherworld and steal the ledger too?

That ledger, which recorded only powerful malevolent spirits, could be said to be one of the most formidable punitive relics of all.

The only thing that could compare with it was that eerie and terrifying Return-to-the-Nether Hunt Cart.

Its front never changed, and in some mysterious and unknown place it was said to have already gone deep within; its body traveled through the shadowy void, and no one knew how many places it existed in, as though it were everywhere, like a body with endless extensions.

No, wait, there was also the Guillotine.

Only long ago, because of problems with its own definition, and with the scheming of the Return-to-the-Nether Hunt Cart and certain others, it was lost in the Lost Mist and would never again appear in the world.

"No divine weapons? Then in this healing game, how are the equipment ranks and those punitive relics classified? And the gear you get in the beginner village—are they all the same? What did you get?" Chen Sheng had finally seized a proper opening, and took the chance to ask everything he wanted to know.

"There are no ranks." Yu Youxin shook her head. Although punitive relics did vary in strength, there was no clear system of classification for them.

After all, no one had obtained all the punitive relics, and no one had witnessed the full extent of all their powers. How could anyone correctly rank them?

Although punitive relics lacked consciousness, unlike the "spirit of a weapon" or "sword soul" found in novels and anime, they could awaken!

Once a punitive relic awakened and realized it had been given an evaluation that did not match its own nature, or simply came to believe so, it would directly unleash its terrifying power.

The most common outcome was cursing the evaluator to death across a distance of tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of miles.

More importantly, punitive relics were not destined from the beginning.

Some strange objects, even remnants left behind by evil spirits, under special circumstances could accept the value of malevolent spirits' existence and thus, drawing upon the power of those spirits, transform into punitive relics.

So it could be said that every so often, a new punitive relic would appear.

That made them even harder to count.

Therefore, punitive relics had no ranks. If one insisted on making distinctions, they would only be things like "ordinary punitive relic" and "above ordinary."

As for the strongest punitive relics, those were recognized as such because of certain events.

And regarding this notion of "strongest," those punitive relics, once awakened, had never objected to it.

Whether it was that ledger or the Return-to-the-Nether Hunt Cart, both were indeed punitive relics that looked terrifying at a glance. The ledger recorded every powerful malevolent spirit, effectively controlling them indirectly, while the Return-to-the-Nether Hunt Cart had penetrated that mysterious and unknown place.

Anyone who looked upon those two relics could sense the terror concealed within them.

"No classification?"

Chen Sheng thought about it carefully, and then he also felt that having no ranks for the gear in this game was better suited to players' exploration, because there would be unknown delights or frights around every corner.

It also made it easier for the game's designers to be shameless and come up with all sorts of wildly unconventional settings.

So he asked, "Then what about the beginner village..."

Chen Sheng would have been better off not bringing that up. At the mention of it, the young girl could not help wanting to snicker.

Because after she had given Chen Sheng those gold-rimmed glasses, she had kept a constant eye on him. That place could be said to be where the Netherworld had the most resentment-haunted spirits.

Many people who entered after receiving a ticket never made it through, or were killed inside when the malevolent spirits within went back on their word. The memories of those dead would remain forever frozen in the time before their deaths.

So she had been a little worried that Chen Sheng might accidentally provoke those lingering spirits.

After all, the reason Chen Sheng was constantly being complained about was that mouth of his, skilled at praising with one hand and belittling with the other. In the art of insulting people, his mastery was truly profound.

Then she saw the scene of Chen Sheng snatching a punitive relic and running off...

That notorious malevolent spirit had stood there dumbly for quite a while before finally coming back to its senses.

That place in the Netherworld was under intense suppression, from which even malevolent spirits were not exempt. The only things that could remain unsuppressed were the power of flesh and blood, and the dwellings each spirit occupied. Within those houses, a malevolent spirit's strength could be fully unleashed without the slightest suppression, and thus very few of them were willing to step outside.

That was also the lifeline intentionally left there for the living who had obtained a ticket.

As long as one left those houses, then even if one encountered a malevolent spirit, one could still retreat unscathed.

Because under suppression, even a malevolent spirit would move very slowly. Even if it possessed special abilities and could instantly shift a certain distance, so long as an ordinary person ran with all their might, they could still evade pursuit.

However, it was not entirely safe.

If someone touched a punitive relic, they still could not escape death, because that place did not suppress the power of punitive relics. And with the aid of a punitive relic, a malevolent spirit in control of one could unleash curses at any time.

It was expected by Yu Youxin that curses would not be able to harm Chen Sheng, but what she had not expected was that the punitive relic would actually change masters on the spot!

And that punitive relic had even accepted the new definition Chen Sheng gave it.

Only because Chen Sheng still could not communicate with punitive relics had he failed to notice any of this.

If one day Chen Sheng were to die unexpectedly, that punitive relic would immediately release its power and make him open his eyes again.

By then, however, Chen Sheng would already have been elevated into a malevolent spirit.