Bizarre Realm-Chapter 144 - 7: Divination Skill! Aemon’s Mad Plan—Bottomless Abyss!

The second day.

After paying the price of death three times, Shawn finally got a rough understanding of the situation nearby.

Originally, after he took down that Eye Demon yesterday, he thought he was quite strong. However, unexpectedly, he was slapped in the face early the next morning. The enemies in the Bizarre Realm did not follow any sense of martial virtue, and a slight difference in strength didn’t affect the final outcome at all.

Everything Shawn encountered here already had a hint of modern warfare.

The first death occurred at the edge of the swamp.

Shawn planned to use invisibility to scout the nearby environment and see what surrounded the swamp while searching for any berries, since he was running low on healing curios. However, he underestimated the Lizardmen’s ability to detect and listen. Even when invisible, the enemies still discovered Shawn’s presence and roughly pinpointed his location, ultimately finding him while he was in an invisible state.

Whiz.

An undisclosed sharp arrow struck, paralyzing half of Shawn’s body instantly. Before he could respond, the enemy rushed over with a knife, mercilessly decapitating Shawn. The action was so neat and skillful, it was certainly not the first time they had cut off someone’s head.

Shawn was poisoned.

The unprincipled monster used poison and ambushed him. Having just broken free from the Death Retrospect, Shawn counter-killed the enemy without hesitation. The counter-kill process can basically be skipped, as he now had many attack methods. After pre-casting an ’Energy Shift Force Field’, the arrow couldn’t hit him. The subsequent battle was easy; compared to fighting the Eye Demon, Shawn didn’t even reveal all his trump cards.

This was the first death, and Shawn roughly figured out the situation at the edge of the swamp.

Then came the second death, at the edge of the forest. The one who took out Shawn was a creature he referred to as ’Crowmen’, a human-like creature with feathers and a face resembling a bizarre crow, with three eyes. They were said to be an Owlman Species, one of the legendary Non-human Races, twisted by the ancient times into various monsters.

All the Non-human Races in the Bizarre Realm were basically twisted.

This death was the most perilous.

Because Shawn was almost killed by the enemy twice. If he had died a second time, he might really have been done for.

Those Crowmen were even more cunning than the Lizardmen because their blow dart poison was more potent, and they had short-distance flight capability. Throughout the battle, Shawn felt something off, as if he was being watched, until he died from the enemy’s ambush, only to find that the Crowmen also had pets—birds in the sky that kept watch on him, locking on to his precise location.

Another unprincipled ambush!

From skirmish to death, Shawn nearly laid all his cards on the table, but ultimately died from the enemy’s poisoned claw.

He still relied on the Death Retrospect ability, pre-judging the enemy’s location, triggering a Dimensional Jump followed by a Blast Flame Technique to flush the enemies out, resolving the battle. A final Strong Acid Arrow exploded the head of the three-eyed Crowman.

The opponent was a Caster, possibly an Illusionist.

Though this enemy wasn’t as strong as the Eye Demon, the battles were far more dangerous than yesterday. Crowmen were slightly easier to kill than Lizardmen, but their attack methods were even more insidious.

Battles in the Bizarre Realm didn’t align with Shawn’s traditional understanding of warfare. There was essentially no back-and-forth exchange of spells. The outcome of the battle was decided within minutes, sometimes in less than thirty seconds.

"When the difference in power isn’t huge, early reconnaissance to discover the enemy’s whereabouts becomes crucial!"

This was Shawn’s new understanding of combat.

The disparity in strength doesn’t completely determine the battle’s outcome, unless it’s a one-sided situation where the power difference is too great. Otherwise, everything here functions like modern warfare. Finding the enemy first is the primary element, as whoever holds the initial information holds the initiative in attacking.

The initiative in attacking is precisely the key factor affecting life and death!

Relying on the power of firearms, Shawn’s firepower was intense. Getting the first strike would almost guarantee the enemy’s instant defeat. Enemies, relying on their familiarity with the environment and various insidious attack methods, could also potentially instantly kill Shawn. Even if not on the spot, poisoning would almost inevitably lead to death.

When facing them, it was either no injury or death for Shawn.

If ambushed and poisoned first, the next battle would be nearly impossible to win.

"Damn it!"

"Where did they find the poison?"

"There must be a readily available source of deadly poison nearby; otherwise, every creature wouldn’t have their weapons poisoned!"

Shawn held the bizarre blow dart of the Crowmen in his hand. This thing was extremely difficult to defend against; the needles it fired were very thin and long, like some sort of hardened pine needles, and could only be blocked with an Energy Shift Force Field. Fortunately, the physical prowess of the Crowmen wasn’t as good as the Lizardmen. Once Shawn locked on to the target, it was essentially shoot to kill upon exposure.

As for the last death, there’s not much to say; he encountered an unbeatable enemy.

Shawn’s enemy was a strange house that could walk on its own, looking a bit like an Evil Witch’s Cottage. The specifics were unclear. Upon approaching, he died somewhat inexplicably, and finally, he didn’t even dare to recon the area further, fleeing directly from the eerie cottage within the forest. (Specific images are available at the end of the Chapter.)