Chapter 83: The Little Boss

"The twenty-sixth one already."

After Ou Xiaolu had finished off yet another corpse-spirit, the White Queen suddenly spoke.

As Xudra heard that, he hurriedly ordered one of his corpse-spirits to drag over the one Ou Xiaolu had just slain. Once the remaining bits of flesh had been cleaned away from the bones, a black clover-shaped brand could be seen very clearly upon them.

"They should all be here. How dreadful. Including both the completed ones and those not yet fully formed, my family has barely over a hundred corpse-spirits with any real fighting strength. And here there are twenty-six of them in one place. If they ever turn against us, my family will truly be finished. We really ought to thank you."

Ou Xiaolu nodded as he tallied his gains. Corpse-spirits also granted experience: cards from two through ten gave five experience apiece, while ace through king gave ten each. Adding it all up came to one hundred and seventy experience.

At the time, Ou Xiaolu had allocated forty percent of his experience to the Violet Mansion Manual, and this immediately sent sixty-eight experience into it. Combined with the three and a half points left over from his last allocation, he instantly unlocked the second through the eighth points of light.

His harvest this time was immense. Each additional point of light brought new attributes. This time, his Violet Gossamer Robe improved its defense twice, once by four percent and once by five percent; gained automatic attack reflection twice, by two percent and three percent; increased its defensive range by one additional person; strengthened vital-point defense at the head; and granted elemental immunity to fire.

Still, Ou Xiaolu kept feeling that something was missing. The experience was not enough. He was calculating whether, if his enemies also possessed similar means, he should move all his experience into the Violet Mansion Manual first.

Just as they were preparing to leave, Ou Xiaolu glanced unconsciously at the last room and thought he saw a flash of green light there.

It felt as though they had stumbled upon a wild boss.

So Ou Xiaolu pointed toward that room and asked, "What is that place?"

Xudra said, "The final step in creating corpse-spirits. The place where they are brainwashed and given new memories."

"Can we go in and take a look? I still feel as though there is another enemy."

Xudra hesitated, then looked to the Red Queen in the end, after all, she was the one in charge. Along the whole way, Ou Xiaolu had only shown the ability to steal kills.

The Red Queen nodded. "He's right. There are twenty-six in total, and both spades and clubs are present, so the chance of a joker appearing is there as well."

"Is the joker very powerful?" There were only two people in the House of Tirisha, and they did not usually play cards. They simply could not find enough people to play with; surely they could not play against corpse-spirits.

"It is not so much powerful as it is eerie," the Red Queen said. In truth, even she could not explain it clearly. She herself was the Queen of Hearts, so kings above her rank had not appeared; much less would a joker have appeared.

"All right, then. Let's take a look inside."

With that, Xudra pushed open the door to the last room.

This room was rather different from the ones before it. Generally speaking, the corpse-spirits that reached this stage were already finished products, properly prepared, so there was no need for the usual filth and disorder anymore. Inside the room stood three large cauldrons burning at once, each simmering a different magical potion.

The cauldrons seemed to be under the influence of magic; every thirty minutes, one of them would pour out the potion within.

The potion would then flow through pipes into five nearby cultivation tanks, where five finished corpse-spirits soaked: four men and one woman.

Once inside, Ou Xiaolu carefully observed the surroundings, while the Red Queen looked around as well. In the end, she walked up to the female corpse-spirit and cast a growth spell on her.

Seeing that the female corpse-spirit had no reaction, the Red Queen then moved toward a male corpse-spirit nearby.

At that point Xudra began to explain. "This female corpse-spirit is quite rare. Among the bodies we obtain, females are already scarce, and those suitable for making corpse-spirits are even rarer..."

He had not even finished when Ou Xiaolu suddenly fired three shots at the female corpse-spirit's cultivation tank, and all the potion inside poured out.

Xudra froze.

At that moment the White Queen also made her move. She sent out a ray of white light toward Xudra, while at the same time pulling him out of the area.

Only then did Xudra react. The female corpse-spirit had already leaped out of the cultivation tank. A blood-painted smile had appeared across her face, and the nails on both hands had grown as long as daggers.

The Red Queen struck back instantly, hurling a blaze of fire at the female corpse-spirit.

Yet the blow had no effect at all. Instead, it only roused the creature's ferocity. With a roar, she lunged toward the Red Queen.

Ou Xiaolu thrust out a hand, and violet mist instantly enveloped the Red Queen, causing the female corpse-spirit's attack to miss her by even a claw's breadth.

By then Xudra saw that where he had been standing a moment ago, there now lay a pool of yellow-green liquid. It looked like the same poison that had been present when they first entered the laboratory. Had the White Queen not acted, Xudra would already have been poisoned to death.

Thinking of that, Xudra no longer cared about anything else. He urgently ordered his corpse-spirits to charge forward and stop the female corpse-spirit's assault.

But that female corpse-spirit fought unlike an ordinary one. Her movement speed was astonishingly quick. If not for Ou Xiaolu's fine light-footwork and his abilities such as substitution and crab retreat, he might already have been torn open with five or six holes.

Even so, Ou Xiaolu fought with great difficulty. Whenever he could not keep up with the enemy's speed, his attacks were useless.

As for the Red Queen, she could only keep firing small fireballs from the back. She knew nothing else.

Faced with such a situation, Ou Xiaolu had no choice but to enter a time-stopped state and begin rifling through his card pouch.

In the end, he glanced at the position of that female corpse-spirit, estimated her movement speed, and selected an item card: Water Ghost Hair.

This Water Ghost Hair was a fairly ordinary item. Its sole effect was to use water as a guide and summon a great mass of aquatic weeds nearby to entangle an enemy.

It was a kind of area-effect item, and an enemy with enough strength could simply tear all those weeds away.

But all Ou Xiaolu needed was that instant of entanglement. Otherwise, no matter what technique he used, he would not be able to land a hit, and then it would all be useless.

The moment time resumed, Ou Xiaolu hurled out the Water Ghost Hair. His throw was exquisitely accurate, landing directly into one of the cauldrons.

Borrowing the potion in the cauldron, the Water Ghost Hair instantly spread throughout the entire room. The female corpse-spirit was naturally caught in its grasp, and this made the always-mobile creature extremely displeased. She struggled desperately to break free of the weeds.

And just at that moment, Ou Xiaolu's technique was ready as well.