Shelter for All: People catch ghosts and gain entries in the end times

Chapter 45: Little Black Knife’s Food

Standing amidst the wreckage, Su Mu continued gathering the loot from the boss.

This boss was called the Ruins Puppet—a massive creature capable of disguising itself as a building. The debris beneath Su Mu’s feet, several meters in size, was its true body.

Although the Ruins Puppet attempted to mimic a small ruin to lure in unsuspecting prey before launching a surprise attack, Su Mu had already marked its location on his map. The creature had no chance of ambushing him.

Instead, with the Little Knife in hand, Su Mu struck first. Charging at the puppet’s disguised body, he delivered a devastating blow, slicing off its left leg in one clean sweep.

The most troublesome part was that this monster had absurdly high defense—and it wasn’t undead. Unless the Anti-Evil Crossbow hit a vital spot, it couldn’t deal much damage.

Fortunately, after losing one of its legs, the Ruins Puppet could no longer move quickly even if it tried to fight back.

After grinding it down for over ten minutes, the three-story-high Ruins Puppet finally collapsed.

“In this world, even buildings can move now?” Su Mu muttered to himself. “This place is getting weirder by the minute.”

Using the lingering flames from the wreckage, he roasted a piece of Scarlet Boar King meat to recover some stamina.

While the Ruins Puppet wasn’t the strongest boss he had faced, its defense was frustratingly high, and Su Mu hadn’t yet found a reliable countermeasure against it. In fact, after having an advantage against so many enemies, he now found himself slightly restrained by this particular boss.

If not for the sharpness of the Spirit Little Knife and his own Level 4 strength, this fight might have been much more dangerous.

“Little Black Knife, do you need to eat?”

Noticing the way the little spirit was staring at the Scarlet Boar King’s meat, Su Mu waved a piece in front of her.

Little Knife shook her head. “Master, I don’t need this kind of food,” she said. “I just like the blood aura on it.”

“Blood aura?” Su Mu raised an eyebrow. “Do you like drinking blood?”

“It’s not just blood,” Little Knife explained. “Pure life essence, or even energy stones—those are my food.”

Even energy stones?

Su Mu suddenly felt like Little Black Knife was a money-draining monster.

No wonder upgrading her required so many energy stones. Was she actually eating them?

Curious, he decided to test it out. He collected some of the Scarlet Boar King’s blood and offered it to her.

As soon as she saw it, Little Black Knife eagerly grabbed the edge of the container and started drinking. After only a few sips, she let out a satisfied sigh and collapsed onto Su Mu’s shoulder.

“So spirits really can consume things,” Su Mu murmured.

The amount of blood in the container hadn’t even decreased much, so he didn’t bother commenting on it. Instead, he set up a simple grill using wooden planks and started roasting more Scarlet Boar King meat.

The World’s Blessing effect still had about eight minutes remaining, and there weren’t any small monsters within several hundred meters, so Su Mu took his time.

Before the blessing wore off, he focused on collecting the Ruins Puppet’s loot.

[Energy Stones] x700

A Level 15 boss dropping 700 energy stones with the World’s Blessing effect wasn’t bad at all. Su Mu’s total energy stone reserves were now close to 2,000.

[Barrier Impact Skill Book] x2

[Quality: Rare]

[Usage: This skill book can be applied to compatible weapons, skill-enabled equipment, or even structures.]

[Additionally, the skill book can also be used directly by the owner of the Sanctuary.]

[Effect: Launches a shockwave with force equivalent to a wall crashing. The higher the skill level, the stronger the impact.]

“A skill book?” Su Mu was slightly surprised.

This was his first time seeing a skill book drop. Neither of the previous two bosses, nor even the Spirit Little Knife, had dropped one before.

That meant skill books must be incredibly rare. But adding a skill? Wouldn’t that conflict with the sub-attribute system?@@novelbin@@

Just as he was thinking about it, the system popped up with an explanation.

[Host, skill books and sub-attributes have similar effects but can coexist.]

[However, if a skill and a sub-attribute are of the same type, they will merge, leaving only one sub-attribute.]

Su Mu nodded after reading the system’s response. As long as skills and sub-attributes could coexist, that was all that mattered.

Otherwise, if he kept obtaining skill books but had no space to use them due to filled sub-attribute slots, that would be a huge waste.

“With the blessing’s help, I managed to get two skill books. Since I can use them on myself, let’s test one out.”

Without hesitation, Su Mu applied one of the skill books to himself.

A moment later, his personal skill list updated, displaying a new entry—[Barrier Impact].

“Let’s test it out.”

Not wanting to destroy the grill he had just set up, Su Mu stepped away from the wreckage. Activating the skill, he slammed his fist into the ground.

Boom!

A powerful shockwave erupted, sending dirt and debris flying in all directions. The barren earth caved in, leaving a massive crater several meters wide.

Perched on Su Mu’s shoulder, Little Black Knife flinched in shock.

Staring at the enormous imprint left on the ground, she turned to Su Mu with wide eyes.

“Master… since when did you have this much attack power?”