Chapter 51 - Ackerman

The pandemic bird, as a symbiotic existence with the blind, does not have a physical body in essence.
Strictly speaking, the pandemic bird's essence is derived from the blind's two eyes.
One eye has been transformed into the life source of the pandemic bird, while the other has formed a pair of eyes for the bird.
除此之外，疫鸟的身体基本都是依靠精神体加上清风组成的。
也正是因为如此，疫鸟的守护在被破除之后，还会有一段时间的轻盈祝福。
Because of this feature, the Plague Bird flies at a very fast speed in the air.
Almost two or three minutes after Sophie left Eric, she quickly found Ackerman who was struggling with Black Jack in the air.
Only the black short-haired Ackerman was seen, at this time he was like a spirit monkey, constantly shuttling through the aisles of the factory, jumping over.
A little further behind Ackerman, Black Jack was hidden in the mist. Its long and sharp fog blade claws swung up and down, creating a mist that formed an attack like a blade, slashing towards Ackerman's back.
And Akman's back seemed to have eyes. Without turning around, his body instinctively turned and rolled, and the Blade of Mist slashed viciously against the wall next to him.
The wall was directly scratched by the air blade, leaving three long and deep gashes. The shape of the gashes looked like they were clawed by some kind of beast.
After the air blade dissipated, the marks on the wall slowly began to wriggle and rejoin.
However, by dodging Akman's attack, Black Jack avoided Jack's blow, but at the same time, it also cooled the boiling blood that had just been boiling.
Black Jack noticed Akman's sluggishness, and a glimmer of light flashed in his dark pupils, and his skills began to activate!
But just as he paused, a huge, tattered tire burst through the mist and crashed directly onto Black Jack's head, causing his black hat to tilt to one side.
"Hey... Jack! This time you'll taste the flavor of a leather tire."
The fog blade flashed, and the tires on the ground were cut into seven pieces by Black Jack!
This tire has low damage, but extremely insulting!
Black Jack, angered by shame, targeted the escapee who threw the tire behind the fog. With a swing of the fog claw, a fog-formed hunting dog ran towards the mist.
This bloodhound is one of Black Jack's abilities. As long as he is bitten by the mist bloodhound, the next moment, Black Jack can directly exchange positions with the bloodhound and give the survivor a deadly blow!
But just as the hunting dog bit down, when Black Jack shifted and moved, all that was seen was a wooden, delicate puppet collapsing to the ground. The puppet's face was exquisitely crafted, almost lifelike, and its figure was well-proportioned. From a distance, it really was no different from a real person.
However, the mannequin, who originally wore female clothing, was now wearing an oversized men's coat.
It was this mannequin that confused the tracking abilities of the hound, causing Black Jack to come up empty-handed.
But soon, the people on the ground turned into sawdust under Black Jack's mist blade.
A thin man hiding under a withered tree near the factory, outside the mist, felt a pang in his heart as he sensed his mechanical puppet lose consciousness.
My Alice~~
Thinking of the happy time spent alone with Alice in the past, the puppeteer cried.
At least managed to deceive the hound of the Baskervilles to come out.
This dogged thing comes with a locking feature, and once locked, it can even track to the nightmare realm.
But once the hound is released and hits a target, the next release will lose its locking ability until the end of this mirage ritual.
So, Alice also died as she deserved...
And after Ackman dodged this attack again, he went through several times of passing the baton by his teammates and finally had time to stop and recover his own condition.
Just as his boiling blood skill was beginning to weaken, he was still worried about being hit, but thankfully his comrade appeared in time, giving him a chance to catch his breath.
Ackerman, who was adjusting his state, suddenly felt a sense of security in his heart, a wordless reassurance.
Huh?
Could it be?
Ackman seemed to have thought of something, and his heart was filled with joy, but soon, a barking sound came from behind, causing Ackman to quickly get up and look back.
It wasn't until he saw that the mist hound was running towards the other side that he breathed a sigh of relief, but then he got back on guard again.
Don't kneel down again?
But now his essence and blood have not yet recovered, so it would be of no avail to go over at this time. Therefore, he could only force himself to calm down, and then start eating madly to accelerate the recovery speed of his essence and blood.
Theory and practical training are far less useful than actual combat.
Ackman also realized, after entering the Mirage Realm, that it was so dangerous to deal with real hunters.
Under Eric's arrangement, there are a total of six members in the team responsible for dealing with Black Jack.
Among them, Ackerman, as a "Blood Plague" patient, serves as the main force in dealing with Black Jack. Moreover, he brought a relic with him this time - the Fang Necklace.
The so-called relics are actually similar to the magic props that Fang Yu previously obtained, the difference is that most of those magic props are made by the divine servants.
But the relics are not.
By the name alone, it is known that these so-called relics are special items formed from the source essence of the deceased divine or nightmare followers.
As mentioned before, after the death of a divine path follower, the source matter formed on their body can be used as material for the same source matter.
The divine path followers of the same sequence can directly take the elixir made from these same-source substances to advance.
However, after the divine servant dies, the essence within him can only remain active for a short period of time.
This period is approximately one week, during which timely acquisition of the essence and its refinement into a secret medicine is necessary in order to be consumed normally.
Once over a week, after the source quality is extinguished, it will gradually form relics with certain special abilities.
These relics can bring people sustained and long-lasting power enhancement effects. The higher the level of the divine servants, the stronger the relics formed!
Although the source material that has formed relics can still be reactivated through certain special methods and then ingested again, the cost of these methods is extremely high, and the reactivated source material is unstable when ingested. Therefore, few people will reverse the process of relics to obtain active source material.
After becoming a relic, the common practice is to use it as equipment.
This is also a kind of inheritance.
The relic on Ackman is his father's relic.
His father is also a Divine Path follower, and he is a third-order follower of the Beast King Divine Path - 【Monster】 series!
Ackman was influenced by this and chose to become a follower of the Beast King Divine Path.
It's also considered carrying on the family business.
Ackman's father passed away in a battle with an outer god, and what Ackman ultimately received was the relic his teammates brought back - the Fang Necklace.
Uncle Crooked said that his father, upon his death, entrusted his belongings to him as if time were running out.
Finally, when Akman saw his father again, it was as a cold corpse with a fang-like fang on his body.
After Akman tied up the fang with a rope, it became a relic of green quality - Fang Necklace.
Relics of different qualities are easy to distinguish, and the surface of the relic will emit different lights.
Relics formed by first-order and second-order Servants are generally white, and a small number of powerful second-order Servants will produce green relics.
Third-order relics are generally green, with a few being blue.
By the same token, the fourth order is blue, and the fifth order is gold. On the Mandala continent, the strongest relic is of gold quality.
It is said that there is another relic above the gold color, which belongs to the red color. The red relic is also called the artifact, because the red relic is a relic that can only be born by a near-god-level figure of the sixth order.
However, the existence of such life and death is not something ordinary people can know at all, let alone what relics will be left after they pass away.
Most of the so-called artifacts in history are just handed down, and few people know the specific situation.
However, when you think about it, those who truly obtain the artifact probably wouldn't share the information about obtaining the artifact with others, right?
After all, this artifact is just an item, it's not possible to be bound to only one person for use.
If you say it, it would be like letting the cat out of the bag.
And the green relic formed by Akaman's father, the Fang Necklace, its effect is that the user can actively trigger the Fang Necklace three times a day, gaining a swiftness blessing each time.
During the Swift Blessing period, the user will receive a nearly threefold speed boost. Once Ackermann uses it, his speed will instantly surpass that of Blackjack. It is relying on this blessing that he can almost cleave Blackjack's claw knives in half.
Other than Ackerman, there are five others, among whom three are combat professionals and two are support professionals.
The three combat professionals are boxer Henry, mercenary Carl, and another servant who chose Storm Lord as his path in the Twelve Gods' Way—Sailor Badar.
Among these three, boxer Henry and mercenary Karl are professionals, not godsend servants, and both are first-level professionals.
The other two support personnel are also first-level professionals, namely bartender Tamir and puppeteer Rab.
At this moment, the boxer Henry and the mercenary Carl, both of whom had previously confronted Blackjack, were both weakened after being stabbed by him.
Although Tang Wanjun had a healing needle given to her by Fang Yu, she was not foolish enough to hand over her life-saving tool to Eric and his group.
Even if they explained so many doubts to her, it was still not enough.
Although this knowledge is very important to her, it cannot be more important than life.
And on Henry and Carl, in fact, Ackman speculated that both of them should also have relics or props for survival.
Just like him.
But he also knew that, even though they were now all part of a group, human nature was still selfish.
Now that the nodes have not been broken open, they will first lay down their bottom cards. Wouldn't that mean they would be at the mercy of others?
Not to mention the node is unbroken, the holy stone tablet is not unsealed, and Black Jack now has the protection of Mirage Realm. Any means can only suppress him without causing real harm to him, but Black Jack's harm to them is real.
If you're desperate at this point, then you definitely didn't pay attention in class at the Academy of Mandela continent!
The first law of the Mirage Realm taught in the Academy is: if the Holy Stone monument is not deciphered, survival is the priority, and one must not confront the Hunters head-on.
Therefore, Ackman has reason to suspect that Henry and Carl may not have been accidentally injured before, and these two guys may be pretending to be injured first, so there is reason to temporarily withdraw first and watch from the sidelines.
It's not impossible in this situation, as long as both players have a bottom card that can restore themselves, it is possible to take this risk.
However, despite this possibility, Ackerman could not say much more.
First of all, it was difficult to say that they were deliberately losing when dealing with Blackjack before. They were also working very hard to deal with it.
It's just that the nature of Blackjack himself makes it more difficult for them to deal with it.
Before that, Black Jack was not actually called Black Jack, it used to be called Fog City Hunter.
Metaphorically, the hunter inside the city of mist.
As for why it was later called Black Jack.
That's because there was a fog hunter named Blackjack, who once brought great terror to the divine servants of the Mandala continent in a certain era.
At that time, all the escapees were in awe of Blackjack, afraid of running into him in the Mirage Realm.
Later, this guy either died or got promoted. For a while, Black Jack disappeared.
Then, the Mist Hunters that appeared later started calling themselves Black Jack, and the people of the Mandala continent slowly began to refer to the Mist Hunters as Black Jack.
黑杰克在出现的时候，他的身上会自动散溢出一层层的白雾。
这白雾会持续性的释放，一旦黑杰克在某个领域待的时间达到一定程度，白雾的散溢浓度达到一定高度，这里就会形成一个雾场。
Within the white mist, the vision of the escapees will be disrupted, but Black Jack's actions and speed will be enhanced. Furthermore, the obstruction of the white mist makes it more difficult to distinguish this semi-spiritual guy in the mist.
This is also the reason why Henry and the others will retreat.
Once lingering in a place with Black Jack for too long, the more the white mist spreads, the stronger Black Jack's ability becomes.
It can be said that as long as Black Jack is given time, once the white mist fills the entire space, Black Jack will have true cross-tier combat power. At that time, Ackerman and the others will not be facing a second-tier demon follower, but a third-tier one!
At the same level as his father!
Henry and Carl withdrew, while Sailor Badar continued to cooperate with him and is still standing strong.
Badar is the one who previously threw a tire at Blackjack.
It is also because Badar often uses his sailor's strength to throw heavy objects at Black Jack, disturbing him, that Akman can contend with him for so long in the space filled with white mist.
But a first-order sailor only has this ability. The Storm Lord is a late-stage type god servant. In the early stage, the god servants in the sequence of the Storm Lord are not remarkable.
Just like sailors, besides being proficient in water and having a longer breath-holding time, the only skill they have on land is sailor strength, which is simply to enhance strength.
So, most of the time, the first-class sailors are often jokingly called Popeye.
Meaning they only have the strength of one arm.
For sailors on shore, their speed of movement and reaction ability are about the same as ordinary people, so they can only play a supporting role and cannot be the main force to restrain.
In addition to Badal, the other two support professions, one of them is the puppeteer, Laab.
His role has just been played out. He used his puppet to disable Blackjack's Mist Hound, and now Blackjack has lost a core skill.
Despite being left behind, the bartender Tamir is now hiding somewhere.
But Akman always carries a water bag with him.
Inside the water bag is Tamir's masterpiece - the Fearless Warrior.
Bartenders, as the name suggests, are professionals who only know how to mix drinks.
However, as a single-profession bartender with the potential for third-level talent, the drinks they mix are not ordinary at all.
On the continent of Mandela, the drinks made by the bartender are quite popular.
Just like this one - Fearless Warrior.
Once Akman drinks this, he will be fearless of any pain for the next ten minutes. Even if he is hit by Blackjack and falls into a weakened state, Akman will recover to normal within those ten minutes and even increase his physical fitness to a certain extent.
With this wine, Ackman added another ace up his sleeve.
"Chirp~"
Just as Ackman was about to actively seek out Black Jack again after his vital energy had recovered, a cry came from the sky.
This is
Eric's pandemic bird?!
(End of this chapter)