Chapter 228

Chapter 228: Make an Even Bigger Ruckus

Yes, when Foxy cut loose, the noise was huge.

Just picture it: a house sized Nine-Tailed Fox wreathed in Foxfire, a cloud of Fox Roaming Cannons drifting around her and firing in waves, while she dashed through the woods, rolling, biting, and ramming for fun. When she opened her mouth, she could chomp half a meter into the ground in one bite. Ancient trees or stones that had sat there for ages cracked with a snap between her teeth. Evil Wolves that leaped at her popped like fruit under her fangs and claws.

With a big white fox like that, and a full belly to boot, you can imagine how much damage she could do.

Just by tumbling forward, she almost crushed a road open by herself. If not for the endless Wolf Pack spawning in the Black Forest, Yu Sheng even suspected this Cyber Fox Immortal could punch through the whole place alone. [He wondered if she really could bulldoze everything by herself.]

But the trouble was that the Wolf Pack in the Black Forest was endless.

And Foxy could only clear the monsters right around her.

Luckily, Yu Sheng had more than a single Cyber Fox Immortal at his side. He also had Little Red Riding Hood’s Wolf Pack.

A real Wolf Pack.

Shadow Wolves poured out of the darkness beyond counting. Under Little Red Riding Hood’s command, they formed a wedge that surged like waves, cycling forward again and again to clash with the Evil Wolves pouring out of the Forest. The gap Foxy opened was quickly held by Little Red Riding Hood’s Wolf Pack, and they pushed ahead from there. Even with enemies without end, Yu Sheng’s group drew closer and closer to the “Rift.”

A massive Evil Wolf toppled with a scream under three Fox Carrot Missiles. In the rising smoke and the strange, blazing Foxfire, Yu Sheng saw that eerie Rift standing a few hundred meters ahead. Its inside was pitch black, like a hollow nightmare. Its edge was shattered and kept trembling in the air, swelling and shrinking. Thin tendrils had grown from its rim, reaching out and waving in sickening ways as if sensing something.

Yu Sheng felt the breath of Anka Aila, and he knew it “saw” him too.

“We’re almost there!” he suddenly shouted.

With a quake like thunder, a huge silver white Demon Fox barreled toward them. Foxy sent nearby Evil Wolves flying and wagged her tail in delight as she yelled: “Benefactor! Am I awesome or what!”

Yu Sheng went speechless for a second, then smiled and rubbed her chin as he answered: “Good, good, you’re amazing!”

Foxy looked very pleased, then bounded back into the Wolf Pack and grappled with a Giant Wolf almost her size.

Right then, a strong unease and pressure surged up in Yu Sheng’s chest. He lifted his head at once and followed the feeling to the sky above the Rift.

A shadow covered in uncountable eyes, nearly big enough to pierce the sky, stretched out from the top of the Rift. Like a mighty watcher, it slowly swept across the dusk colored heavens.

Where that shadow passed, the forest fire lit by Foxfire died out in an instant. The paths plowed through the Forest sealed up at once. The Evil Wolves that had been slain began to rise again.

Wolf Granny appeared too. Those tall, thin, terrifying figures came out from deep inside the Wolf Pack. There was more than one.

Yu Sheng sensed almost at once that the Wolf Pack Little Red Riding Hood had Summoned was shrinking back. With the Foxfire fading, the steady battle line suddenly opened with many gaps.

The Squirrel in Irene’s arms let out a sharp scream: “Anka Aila is here!!”

Riding on a wolf, Little Red Riding Hood reached Yu Sheng’s back. Fighting the fear Wolf Granny brought her, she lifted her eyes to the shadow in the sky and stammered: “Th-that… what is that?!”

“You can see it?” Yu Sheng was a little surprised, then he caught on and said in a low voice: “That’s Anka Aila… maybe only a part of it.”

He paused, drew a slow breath, and his face turned grave as he said: “Sure enough, once we got close to the Rift, this thing decided to act itself.”

Before he even finished, the surrounding Wolf Pack launched a new wave of attacks. The shadow drifting across the sky seemed to “wake up” from a daze. It began to lower, and the noise it gave off stabbed at their minds. The hatred it carried felt almost solid, and then the real attack began.

The Black Forest started to “come alive.”

Towering trees, thick bushes, boulders in the dense woods, even every inch of soil, every stream, every flower began to grow wild, twist, sprout clicking limbs, and open countless blinking eyes.

Even Foxy was suddenly locked in a hard fight.

Anka Aila turned and murmured in the nightmare. This “Angel” was redefining the whole dream.

“Yu Sheng! Think of something!” Little Red Riding Hood shouted on instinct as the stone at her feet rolled and fused into horrible limbs, and a shiver rushed up her spine: “We can’t win like this!”

Yu Sheng only turned to look at the little Doll on his shoulder and said: “Irene, it’s about time.”

“Now?” Irene’s eyes went wide as she blurted: “Are you sure? I haven’t even ‘linked’ everyone yet…”

“Part of them is enough,” Yu Sheng closed his eyes slowly as he said, “We’re not here to beat Anka Aila. That’s impossible. You can’t defeat a dreamer inside their own dream.” As he spoke, he stretched his hand forward. Even with his eyes shut, he could clearly “see” that giant shadow in the sky, could see the self symbol the Dark Angel Anka Aila had cast inside its own nightmare.

“But we can try to break this dream, to the max, with the highest intensity, and smash the subset structure of this whole Fairy Tale system.”

Fine black threads rose in the air, their cold chill drilling into flesh and mind. Irene’s voice muttered in his head: “Okay, okay, if you say so then fine…”

Black Spider Silk spread from Irene like living hair. One strand after another slipped into Yu Sheng’s body, then stretched back out through his hands, crawling across the whole Black Forest.

Even though they had “worked together” more than once, Yu Sheng still felt that special cold and strangeness when the Spider Silk entered him, especially when the Illusion Arts they traced showed Irene’s blurry shape and scarlet eyes. That eerie feeling was hard to suppress.

But even inside that chill, Yu Sheng also felt something familiar and steady. He felt the little Doll trying her best to match him. He felt her let go of all control over the Spider Silk without conditions, so he could weave these dream crossing threads into something he knew better, like The Door. [He pictured The Door.]

Yu Sheng imagined what The Door looked like.

Its principle was like the first time he and Irene worked together to open the Portal to the Black Forest.

But this time it was huge.

Borderless.

Like a mirror, with the whole Black Forest as the scene inside the glass.

And yet it was small, concrete, and very… precise, linking one stage to another.

With his eyes shut, in one brief instant he saw the Sanctuary Wasteland through Irene’s senses.

The children and “parents” who had fallen into the wasteland after losing inside their subsets were gathered together on the grass.

They seemed to be asleep. Each one was wrapped in black threads.

The threads pierced their dreams and ran through all the subsets.

One Door after another took shape.

They were the Evil Queen’s Magic Mirror. They were the foyer Door to the Eternal Ball. They were the ship’s cabin where the Mermaid had hidden when she came ashore. They were the shop window the Little Match Girl lit on a freezing winter night. They were the Door to the Giants’ home that Jack saw at the top of the Giant Beanstalk. They were the Castle gate hidden deep in Sleeping Beauty’s thorns…

Yu Sheng thought, there is a Door.

A Door leads from one place to another. What was blocked becomes open because of a Door, and what was open can be shut because of a Door. A Door is the layering of link and break.

And he was the Collapser.

Now, The Door’s handle turned.

Little Red Riding Hood stared at Yu Sheng, startled. She didn’t know what had happened. She only knew that countless black threads had spread out from Yu Sheng and Irene, and then the two of them stood there without moving.

Every second after felt as long as a year.

The entire Black Forest was quickly turning into the enemy. Everything here was waking up. This was no longer the Forest she knew, the one she walked through to visit Grandma. [This place was becoming a stranger to her.]

Then, she heard the sound of a Door handle turning.

She couldn’t see where The Door was, but the click of a turning handle came from the air itself. Nothing visible opened, yet she clearly heard the whole “world” creak.

Nearby, towering trees rose with a roar. As the trunks lifted, twisted faces appeared in their bark. A Giant Wolf leaped from the trees, its bloody fangs and claws gleaming with malice. The Shadow Wolves acting as her bodyguards were falling back step by step. Even vines and stones tried to slow their feet. But the very next second, the balance shattered at the sound of a ripping sky.

Under the evening light, bright fire swept above the Forest. Firefly like trails fell from the clouds. Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes widened as the fire points grew fast. Then the Forest ignited. Great flames rose and, as if alive, raced wildly from one waking tree to another.

“That’s a White Phosphorus Bomb… Little Match Girl?!” she finally recognized the spreading blaze, cried out in shock and joy, and looked up.

A Thunder Titan jumped off a falling Dragon, hugging a bomb to his chest.