Chapter 227

Chapter 227: Raise a Ruckus

It took Yu Sheng a long time to calm the squirrel again.

At the same time, he felt he finally understood the root of the chaos in the Fairy Tale Otherworld.

The wild imagination of cursed children, the Dark Angels’ wrong reading of human stories, and the way generation after generation of Fairy Tale members rebuilt the stage after falling into subsets-all three together, plus eighty six years of buildup and distortion, had formed the twisted Fairy Tale system they faced today.

Now, this swollen mass of stories was like an overgrown lump of flesh about to split open. And Anka Aila’s “child” was about to be born from that growth.

Wood creaked as it grew and a deep rumble rose from the earth beneath the Black Forest. Yu Sheng stuffed the sorted pages into his clothes. In one hand he gripped the bullet that kept giving off heat. In the other, his weapon. He stood up with care.

Irene sat on his shoulder. At some point, the squirrel had climbed into Irene’s arms.

Foxy stood nearby, the fur on her ears slightly puffed, nerves taut as a wire: “Benefactor… the air around us changed.”

Yu Sheng didn’t answer. He lifted his head and looked at the sky.

All scraps of the orphanage building were gone from sight. Through gaps in the crowns, he could see a muddy dusk that clearly wasn’t the Borderland sky.

Faint twilight filtered through the trees and threw mottled shadows among the tall trunks. Muffled howls came from far away, sometimes near, sometimes far, as if an unseen ring was closing.

A soft rustle rose from his own body. Yu Sheng looked down and saw a layer of ghostly cloth slowly cover him.

It was a Hunter’s outfit.

The Hunter’s Garb he had worn once before had returned to his body.

He was surprised for a heartbeat, then he understood at once.

The subset was sealing. The Fairy Tale stage was fully taking the place of reality. Inside the orphanage walls, the force of “reality” had faded away. He had fallen completely to the Black Forest side.

He muttered: “Depth is at least L-3.”

Foxy stared at his clothes, eyes wide: “Benefactor, your outfit…”

Yu Sheng smiled and said: “I got an identity in the Black Forest. Don’t worry.”

He raised his eyes toward the deep forest.

Endless dense trees flickered in his vision. In the Hunter’s view, the real paths through the woods were turning clear.

And far away in the deep forest, he saw that giant Rift again. It stood like a split wound on the earth, thin tendrils writhing along its edges like some living thing.

But before the Rift, something else appeared first: wolves beyond counting.

Big and small, vicious and warped, they came out of the shadows, heavy with killing intent and hate. They gathered into a hair raising wolf pack. Some were only the size of normal wild wolves. Some were more than twice as big. Some even stood like a human, hunched, with eyes glowing green with hunger.

Irene blurted out: “Dang, there are so many?”

“This is how the Black Forest ‘protects’ itself as an Otherworld,” Yu Sheng said calmly as he tightened his grip on his weapon. “We’re about to do something out of bounds, so the forest is reacting.”

The wolf pack began to creep closer. The nearest wolf lowered its body to spring.

“Foxy,” Yu Sheng called.

“Here,” she answered.

“Go wild,” he ordered.

“Okay,” she said.

In the next second, blue Fox Fire turned into sweeping barrages. A cross woven net of fire lashed out like a reaper’s whip at the wolf pack. The evil wolves howled and, at the same time, launched a furious strike.

A grand fire show lit the flickering woods.

Fox Fire rose and tore at the air. Evil wolves roared and surged like a never ending tide. Yu Sheng strode toward the Rift standing at the center of the stage. With every step he took, the forest seemed to shudder under a hard shock. More wolves, even stranger and more savage, kept spawning from the air and the shadows among the trees, leaping at the intruders who were breaking the stage’s order.

Irene grabbed a handful of Yu Sheng’s hair with one hand and hugged the squirrel with the other as she shouted: “When do I help? This looks unwinnable!”

Yu Sheng swung the Tetanus Staff and smashed an evil wolf in half as he said: “Don’t worry about me yet. Keep your focus on the Sanctuary Wasteland.”

“Ah… okay,” the little doll answered in a hurry.

A nearby giant tree suddenly shook. Its branches drooped. The bark shrank and warped. It sprouted fangs and steel like bristles. Hunching over, it turned into a giant evil wolf and reared up, roaring at them.

The next instant, a silver white fox tail with blue thrust flame roared straight into the twisted giant wolf’s mouth and blew its roar-and its whole body-into a huge mushroom cloud.

Three more sharp cracks split the air. Several Fox Carrot Missiles ripped open the Black Forest sky and bombed the wolf pack gathering in the distance.

Watching the plumes roll upward, Yu Sheng grinned: “See? Monsters that stop to pose and roar before charging are brainless. In the time they yell, you can already stuff a missile in their mouths.”

He hadn’t even finished when another black wolf slipped through the Fox Roaming Cannon crossfire and lunged at his blind side. As the squirrel squealed, Yu Sheng shouted, “Crap,” dodged, and lifted Reason, the weapon flashing with chilling light. Before he could strike, a dark shape burst from the side, slammed the black evil wolf down, and a few more shadows piled on and tore it apart.

Yu Sheng turned and saw a red clothed girl rise out of the nearby shadow, with blurry wolves padding at her heels.

“You finally came,” he said with relief. “With all this noise and you not showing up, I was getting worried something happened.”

Her answer came a little breathless and annoyed: “Why do you always make such a big scene? Can’t you try stealth for once? The Black Forest is for stealth. This isn’t Snow White and her crazy stepmother’s brute force stage.”

“I didn’t want this either,” Yu Sheng said. “But if we fail at the very first step, we get nowhere.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Little Red Riding Hood snapped, kicking a wolf that rushed in from the side and sending it flying. “Tell me what to do next. I just got here and I’m still lost.”

Yu Sheng pointed toward the distant Rift while he kept moving and said: “That way. Open a path.”

She lifted her eyes and looked where he pointed. All she saw was more repeating forest.

She didn’t ask. She just nodded and raised both hands high.

“Listen. I almost never use this move,” she growled. “If Dr. Lin finds out, she’ll scold me all day.”

Shadows spread from under her feet, swelling and writhing like something solid. They rolled out to cover hundreds of meters and even climbed into the air, staining the air dark.

“But it doesn’t matter now,” she said. “I’m about to turn eighteen. Either we end this today, or this is the last time.”

In the shadows and the air, blurry wolves showed themselves. Countless Illusion Arts thickened into real entities.

The coat on her shoulders had become a cloak as bright as blood, and it billowed in the wind.

She smiled, and a cold light flickered in her eyes.

She opened her mouth, and her voice carried a wolf’s note as she cried: “Awoo!”

Little Red Riding Hood’s true wolf pack appeared.

Every wolf she had ever seen.

Every wolf she had ever fought.

Every wolf she had ever killed.

They all came with that one howl. They gathered under her cloak, in the shadow at her side, and in the air around her.

In moments, these shadow wolves even outnumbered the Black Forest wolves nearby.

“Time to hunt,” she shouted.

The girl in the red cloak rode the strongest wolf and threw up her arm. Fine fur had grown over her cheeks. Her eyes had turned wolf like. Her voice blended with the howls around her: “Charge!”

The wolf pack charged and slammed into the other wolf pack.

The Black Forest became a battlefield of evil wolves.

They were everywhere.

Foxy rushed in too. After getting Yu Sheng’s order to “go wild,” she plunged into the thickest press of wolves and rolled once.

A Nine Tailed Fox as big as two vans rose in a wash of glittering light. With one sweep of her tails, a sea of blue fire spread.

Riding her wolf, Little Red Riding Hood stared, stunned, at the Demon Fox that was now romping and rolling and biting its way through the evil wolves. After a long moment, she looked back at Yu Sheng and asked: “She can turn into that?”

Yu Sheng grinned and said: “I never told you? When the true fox cuts loose, the noise is huge…”