"Nothing’s impossible." Qi Suian immediately restrained Harrington, stripped him of his Sacred Artifacts, and simultaneously injected him with a large dose of life-sustaining medication and hooked him up to life-support equipment.
It wasn’t that Qi Suian wanted to save Harrington, but that he couldn’t be allowed to die.
If Harrington were to die, it would trigger the Sacred Artifact retrieval mechanism on his body.
At that point, Qi Suian would either end up with nothing or be able to keep only one item.
What’s more, he still needed Harrington to learn more about the Sacred Artifact World.
Especially knowledge related to Sacred Artifacts.
Harrington didn’t answer Qi Suian. He just passed out cold, obviously due to his grievous injuries.
He hadn’t died on the spot, thanks to his high stats. If they were even a little lower, he wouldn’t have lasted long enough for Qi Suian to save him.
’I’ll have to let him recover for a while.’
’The interrogation can wait until he wakes up.’ Qi Suian wasn’t in a hurry. Although he didn’t know how he’d managed it, he understood that his opponent had lost all his defenses and taken the full force of his attack head-on.
It was a good thing his Sacred Artifacts were powerful enough, or he really wouldn’t have survived.
After a thorough search, Qi Suian found six Sacred Artifacts on Harrington.
He had previously guessed there were five; it was normal for his estimate to be off.
After carefully inspecting the Sacred Artifacts, he found that four of them were related to thunder and lightning, covering control, attack, defense, and movement. Qi Suian ignored them outright.
The Sacred Artifact path he followed was the plague and disease school; thunder and lightning were a bit redundant.
The remaining two were more special. One of them enhanced its user’s life force via an electromagnetic field.
Qi Suian suspected that Harrington’s elementalization was based primarily on this Sacred Artifact. If he had to classify its attributes, it would be a dual-attribute of life and lightning.
As for the last Sacred Artifact, Qi Suian valued it quite highly.
Unlike the previous five lightning-attribute Sacred Artifacts, this one was more of a general-purpose or even a summoning-type.
[Devout Faith · Choir]
[Quality: A]
[Trait 1: Chorus of the Faithful]
[Trait 2: Piety of the Faithless]
Qi Suian gave it a try and was able to summon a troupe of Priests, complete with a conductor, singers, and instrumentalists.
Anyone within range who heard the chorus would be forced to listen until the performance was over or the chorus was disrupted by another Sacred Artifact.
If it was the former, everyone would receive a one-time restoration; if it was the latter, they would be weakened.
This Sacred Artifact constituted the ’divine descent’ aspect of Harrington’s "Divine Judgment of the Little Angel." The "judgment of the Archangel" aspect was also connected to it to some extent.
As for why Priests became Angels, it was naturally because they were upgraded.
’This Sacred Artifact must be the opportunity the protagonist’s halo deemed suitable for the ’Cursed Psalm of Plague and Disease’.’
"It nearly cost me half my life," Qi Suian grumbled.
In terms of compatibility, it was definitely a match.
Having a choir sing a psalm—it couldn’t be more fitting.
’But there’s still one problem. The ’Cursed Psalm of Plague and Disease’ was once a Sacred Artifact, but now it should be classified as a module.’
’Can it still be used as a piece of the puzzle for a combination?’ Qi Suian wasn’t sure.
[Unknown. You may attempt it.]
[There is a high probability of success. After all, there are previous cases of combining modules.]
The AI didn’t know the specifics either. It understood modules, but not Sacred Artifacts.
Even Qi Suian’s attitude toward Sacred Artifacts wasn’t one of research, but of utilization.
That alone said it all.
’I’ll try it first. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just uninstall it.’
In truth, Qi Suian’s intention was still focused on control, not on a choir.
[SSS·Pestilence Devoted Holy Orchestra]
"Holy shit, it actually worked! But why didn’t a module combination occur?"
"Is it because I don’t have enough modules?" Qi Suian looked at the prefix, his joy uncontrollable.
[Correct. You need to continue collecting Sacred Artifacts with high compatibility. However, one thing is certain: the compatibility between Sacred Artifacts is more important than their series.]
[However, based on current data, the compatibility between Sacred Artifacts of the same series should be the highest.]
"Well, you’ve really mastered the art of the paradox," Qi Suian grumbled.
Then, he thought about trying to activate this module.
The module was off by default.
’I’ll put Harrington in the Subspace Pocket first, so he doesn’t get killed by any area-of-effect damage.’ After anesthetizing him, Qi Suian placed him securely inside.
Then, he activated the Pestilence Devoted Holy Orchestra.
However, this was only the beginning. Once the module activated, the Cursed Psalm of Plague and Disease, Natural Radiation Crystal, Seal of Profound Dominance, Virus Bloodline Colonial Armor, and Divine Purification Force Field were all linked and activated simultaneously.
And then came the secondary chain reaction from other modules.
A large amount of Profound Virus gathered, forming Priests and nuns in green robes.
They weren’t real humans, but aggregates formed from the Profound Virus.
A complete choir materialized before Qi Suian’s eyes.
Then, a sheet of music appeared before the conductor. The baton moved, the instruments played, and all the singers began to sing in unsettling tones.
The Profound Virus spread and mutated through the song, turning into various horrifying diseases that began to proliferate.
"Damn it! It lacks any control! Even I can’t shut it off; the only way is to cut the power." Qi Suian identified the problem at once.
The thing was just a stationary turret. It couldn’t move or react in any other way; it could only spread plagues and diseases by chanting.
Moreover, the longer it went on, the wider its sound would travel and the louder it would become, while the Profound Virus’s mutations grew even more powerful.
To shut it down, there was only one way: to cut off the energy supply from the Supernova Strong Nuclear Reactor directly at the source, the Tai Sui God.
Then, he would have to wait for the Holy Orchestra to run out of power and dissipate on its own.
"A superweapon, but it needs other Sacred Artifacts as modules to cover its flaws," Qi Suian muttered.
Then he discovered something interesting: all these plagues and diseases were mutations based on the Profound Virus from his own body.
’If I absorb them, will they strengthen me?’
"AI, hold the disinfection process. Collect the mutated strains of the Profound Virus. I have a use for them."
If this really could be used to enhance his own power, it meant he had found another way to become stronger—one that relied solely on himself.
A large number of mutated strains were collected. Qi Suian then tried to have the Profound Virus in his body assimilate them, absorbing their strengths.
The moment they entered his body, the Cursed Psalm of Plague and Disease, modified by the Virus Bloodline Colonial Armor, transformed the unruly and defiant mutated strains into ones that practically said, ’I’m here to serve you, my lord.’
The Profound Virus easily absorbed their traits and enhanced its own strength.
"This damn thing isn’t a superweapon at all, it’s a petri dish for the Cursed Psalm!"
Qi Suian understood at once. Spreading and infecting were just derivative functions; its real ability was to mutate and create new plagues and diseases.
However, because of Qi Suian, these mutations could only be based on the Profound Virus.
After all, aside from the Profound Virus, the Tai Sui God had no other basic samples related to plagues and diseases.
Then, due to the link with the Virus Bloodline Colonial Armor module, the cultivated mutated strains were used to strengthen the base sample of the Profound Virus.
This was equivalent to constantly strengthening the foundation to cultivate even more potent plagues and diseases.
"The results are simply incredible." Qi Suian had found its true purpose.
’So the protagonist’s halo thinks I don’t need control, but rather that I need to get stronger?’
Suddenly, this possibility occurred to Qi Suian.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t have sent him this item.
"There’s still one empty module slot... Protagonist’s Halo, I need a Sacred Artifact that is compatible with the Cursed Psalm of Plague and Disease and the Pestilence Devoted Holy Orchestra."
"Preferably one that suits my current situation."
He didn’t know why, but he was certain some kind of danger was probably approaching.
He didn’t know what danger it was for now, but if even the protagonist’s halo was this desperate for him to grow stronger, it definitely wasn’t anything ordinary.
’Is this a side effect of my ’high-speed growth’ enhancement? Unlikely.’
The Wasteland World also had an external Extraordinary system, yet he hadn’t encountered that many enemies there.
Not like this time, where beating the small fry brought out the big boss.
As he was thinking, he suddenly sensed a stirring from the five Sacred Artifacts.
’Harrington isn’t dead, but the retrieval mechanism still triggered. It seems that after the choir became a module, it lost contact, so now it’s trying to reach him.’
Seeing this, before they could react further, Qi Suian tossed all five Sacred Artifacts straight into the Melting Furnace.
He couldn’t be bothered trying to save them; he’d rather just toss them into the Melting Furnace for fuel.
Only after they entered the Melting Furnace did the retrieval mechanism stop.
It wasn’t because the Melting Furnace blocked the mechanism, but because the Sacred Artifacts were damaged while burning, which in turn damaged the mechanism itself.
As for putting them in the Subspace Pocket, it might block the signal, but that would only work against mechanisms like Harrington’s, which first probed before retrieving.
Against a Sacred Artifact that triggered its retrieval mechanism instantly, it would be too late.
As for trying it out? Pointless. The urgent priority was to upgrade the Tai Sui God and increase his strength, not to conduct research.
If he couldn’t even save his own life, what was the fucking point of research?
A lieutenant commander like Harrington was already this strong. Those with higher ranks above him were bound to be even stronger.
Qi Suian didn’t believe for a second that they would send people after him one by one. It was more likely they would just attack him with an entire army.
Although it couldn’t directly evolve the Tai Sui God, it could still increase its armor value.
’As expected, 4% progress.’
’Percentage-based increases are just awesome.’
’As for S-rank and above puzzle-piece Sacred Artifacts, the progress is probably calculated based on the equivalent number of A-rank ones.’
In reality, there just wasn’t enough time. Otherwise, Qi Suian would have combined the five Sacred Artifacts in his hand and thrown them into the Melting Furnace to see how much evolution energy they would produce.
The retrieval mechanism’s probing speed was not slow; there wasn’t enough time to finish assembling the Sacred Artifacts.
If he really did delay, by the time he finished assembling them, they would have been retrieved already.
Wouldn’t Qi Suian have suffered a huge loss then?
Besides, there would be plenty of opportunities to try later.
Who knows, one day he might get his hands on some Sacred Artifacts that weren’t booby-trapped.