Chapter 297

Chapter 298: Strikes Again

After hearing what Xuan Che said, Yu Sheng could not help thinking more, and he began to guess about the Holy Revere Hermitage’s moves in the Borderland.

A faint sound in the fog cut off his thoughts.

“Plop,” it sounded like a foot stepping in a puddle.

Yu Sheng snapped his gaze toward the sound, but only saw milky fog slowly rolling not far ahead.

All around was dry ground. There were no puddles at all, much less anyone walking through water in the fog.

All the more reason to be careful, he thought. A strange sound in a normal-looking place could only mean some “impossible” thing was creeping closer.

“The sky is getting darker,” Foxy whispered.

With the Fox Maiden’s reminder, Yu Sheng noticed it too. When they came out of The Door, the real Boundary City was in broad daylight, so this Mistbound City that always “matches” the real Boundary City was also day. Even with thick fog, the sky had been bright. But at some point, that brightness was fading fast.

It felt like a sheet of heavy clouds had settled over the fog.

Yu Sheng frowned, and then the odd sound came again: “Plop.”

The watery footsteps sounded again, closer this time. Almost together with it came a second and a third sound.

A sharp hunch rose in him. He snapped his head toward a patch of fog a few meters away, and as another footstep came from that direction, he finally caught a trace.

Water splashes, nearly transparent, popped up in the fog as if a creature from another dimension was stomping on invisible puddles, and those splashes were wetting the fog of this world.

The instant he saw that faint sign, a thin tearing sound rushed toward him, and something lunged.

Yu Sheng caught a near-transparent shadow, the fog around it slightly warped.

He threw his Spiked Mace across his body and swung forward, then slid his body aside; using only that sliver of afterimage, he snapped a kick up into the air.

The Spiked Mace struck something. Sparks burst in midair. The jolt made his grip tingle, but the hit stopped the lunge, and the enemy, checked for a breath, had no way to dodge his kick.

Yu Sheng felt like he had kicked a block of metal.

A second later, his guess proved right. The attacker’s “invisible” state was broken by the heavy hit. Wrapped head to toe in thick Brass Armor, a Knight popped into view, flew sideways through the air, then crashed down with a boom and shattered into a scatter of loose armor plates.

Yu Sheng blurted: “What on earth is that?!”

What happened next was even stranger.

The heap of Brass Armor stayed still for only a few seconds. Then great gobs of black, sticky, swamp-smelling muck oozed out, writhing like a soft-bodied creature. Slurping free of the armor with a sick noise, it gathered fast, shook, and rose into a hunched human shape, and then-

A giant roaring fireball of Fox Fire slammed in and burned that human-shaped sludge to ash.

“What is that thing!” cried the little doll on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, “something so nasty poured out of that shell!”

“How would I know,” Yu Sheng said loudly as he kept his eyes on the stilled Brass Armor and the pile of ash, shifting his stance for the next strike: “if I had known, I would have brought Little Red Riding Hood. She knows more.”

The little doll retorted: “She is in class right now, senior year.”

He was about to say more when the crowding, deadly footfalls around them cut him off. A streak of blade-wind tore the fog. The death of the first attacker seemed to enrage the hidden Bronze Knights. They finally launched a full assault. As ghostly splashes blossomed in the fog, near-transparent figures pounced from every side.

Yu Sheng only had time to shout, “Watch out,” before he had to whirl his Spiked Mace and focus on the foe before him.

A web of Black Threads exploded from his side. The threads slipped through the mist without a sound, spreading in all directions toward any hint of enemy breath or strange motion.

The sweeping Spiderweb scoured the air. Even if the enemies were invisible, the passing Spider Silk brushed and snared them. One touch was enough for Irene to jam them for a few seconds. The Bronze Knights staggered mid-charge, some tripping, some stopping dead. Their stealth weakened at once, and one after another, half-transparent shapes like glass statues under a film of water showed in the air.

Yu Sheng did not waste the opening. He swung his Spiked Mace and smashed a stalled enemy aside.

The heavy Brass Armor broke apart in midair, and thick black muck burst out like paste squeezed from a jar.

Foxy leaped at another armor that had flickered into view, kicked it flying, then rushed in. She seized its arm and tore hard, then ripped free the helmet, the heavy chest plate, the legs. She tore the whole suit apart with raw, beast-like force, then Fox Fire bloomed behind her, and the blazing flames burned every lump of sludge nearby to powdery gray.

A sudden chill swept the field, ringing like metal in the air.

Yu Sheng looked toward the sound. Xuan Che took one step forward. An icy sword, rimed with pale blue frost, was now in his hand. He drew the blade through the air, and the fog around them froze at once into fine ice crystals that drifted down.

Cold surged out, spreading from Xuan Che through the whole fogbound street.

Yu Sheng could not look away. [No wonder he is from Cultivation, look at that special effect.]

Then Xuan Che strode on, flicked his hand, and the cold sword left his grip. It did not fly at the enemy, but hovered behind him as if alive. He pinched his fingers and sketched quick golden sigils in the air with one hand. With the other he turned his palm, and, who knew from where, pulled out more than a dozen elixirs and tossed them into his mouth.

Yu Sheng thought: […?]

Colors flared from Xuan Che’s body. Each elixir made the light brighter. He threw out another spray of talisman papers. They ignited midair, circling him as flowing bands of light. Before they had finished burning, he grabbed another handful of elixirs and popped them like he did not care.

After all that in an eye-blink, he finally stopped. He walked up to a Bronze Knight held midair by Spider Silk, sank his hips, raised his fist, drew a breath, and threw a plain straight punch.

Yu Sheng heard a heavy “puff,” like someone blowing away a handful of dust, then a strange low hum.

The fog choking the street vanished at once. A breeze moved across their faces. Seven or eight Bronze Knights before Xuan Che, and a building farther away, were blown out of existence.

Yu Sheng even thought space itself bent for a blink, because he saw vague, suspicious crack lines shimmer in the air.

He had no time to praise that wild, cool straight punch.

As the fog cleared and many Bronze Knights showed themselves in the punch’s aftershock, he suddenly sensed a breath he knew: the bit of his blood he had split off.

It was the Artificial Saintess. That aura rushed in at frightening speed, almost like teleporting from a hideout to nearby. Yu Sheng barely had time to look up before a black shadow rippled in the air ten-plus meters away, and that familiar tall, slender, steel metal doll sprang out. She moved like a dancer, but struck like lightning, stabbing straight at Xuan Che, who had not yet pulled back his fist.

Fast as it was, Xuan Che shifted before those blades reached his back. His body blurred into a flash of light and snapped to a spot more than ten meters away. Almost at the same time, several blinding, burning beams lanced past Yu Sheng’s cheek and raked the charging Artificial Saintess.

Irene (Pro) had held her fire until now. She knew the Bronze Knights were strange, but no match for Yu Sheng and Foxy, and Xuan Che looked strong too. Yu Sheng had said the Artificial Saintess might be lurking nearby. She also knew this body’s energy was limited, so she saved it for this moment.

Facing the sudden, unknown attack, the Artificial Saintess reacted at once. She slid aside, bending her joints to the edge of snapping, and dodged most of the beams.

Even so, one ray hit her side.

Fox Fire could only leave a black scorch on her. Her outer armor could shrug off many kinds of small and medium firepower and resisted most spells. But Irene’s beam was not only heat. A force like breakdown or corrosion was mixed in, and it pierced clean through the shell.