Chapter 348

Chapter 349: Crushing Battle

The black-robed cultivator reacted fast. He didn’t understand why the world had changed or why a blonde knight-girl had appeared, but he adjusted instantly and triggered a secret art, trying to rouse his treasures for defense.

Then he froze. Nothing answered his call.

Every treasure on his body was gone. Even the Flying Sword in his hand had become a bare, smooth stick.

He stared at the stick, dazed, and for a moment he remembered the wooden practice sword his master had tossed him when he first set foot on the path of Stepping into Immortality.

The knight did not give him time to reminisce.

Footsteps thudded from not far away. The long-haired blonde raised her Holy Sword and charged in silence.

Flames roared to life along the Holy Sword, the heat feeling like it could burn a soul. The black-robed cultivator had no time to think. He poured power into the stick and swung up to meet the foe already at his front.

His head throbbed and split with a sudden stab of pain. His sight tore into two streams. In the second view he saw the real battlefield: the yellow sands deep in the Otherworld, where the Automaton caught by his Binding Mirror trembled in midair. She was breaking the mirror’s hold, leaping with a dancer’s grace, and her blade-like claws shot straight for him.

His heart lurched. His body felt slow as mud. He barely forced his legs to move and dodged those razor fingertips by a hair. In the other sight, the blonde in holy armor brought her sword down. He raised the stick to block, and the instant it touched the blazing Holy Sword, the wood aged, crumbled, and blew away as dust.

In the wasteland beneath the upside-down Nether River, the black-robed cultivator’s arm was severed in a flash. Agony like a torn soul ripped through him, and he turned to flee in panic.

On the yellow sands, one arm went limp. Though there was no wound, black smoke curled from the flesh as if burned by an unseen fire, and the arm shriveled into a charred stump.

His horrified retreat drew the others’ notice at last.

Another black-robed cultivator wearing a crimson mask rushed from the side to ambush Luna as she sprang through the air. He had only covered half the distance when Luna snapped her head around as if she had eyes in the back.

In an instant, the world lost color for the crimson-masked cultivator. The pale, smiling face filled his vision as if it were the only thing that existed. A chill kissed his arm the next heartbeat.

A Fingertip Blade swept across his shoulder and almost cut his arm off.

He hit the ground with a muffled groan. The dunes vanished from his sight, replaced by the endless gray plain. Twelve hollow Brass Armors appeared among withered grass. A stabbing wind blew. The Bronze Knights lifted their blades in unison and closed in without a sound.

Two black-robed cultivators dropped dead in the swirling sands, so suddenly that almost no one on either side reacted in time.

One had only lost an arm. The other died without the “Artificial Saintess” ever truly touching his body.

Some invisible flame burned through their bodies in a few breaths. Smoke rose black and thick, and two powerful cultivators curled into charcoal lumps.

One of them seemed to understand something in his final moment. He strained to lift his head toward the nearest companion and opened his mouth to speak, but only a hoarse rasp came out. The body thought it still lived, but that was just a brief illusion in the seconds after death.

The remaining black-robed cultivators who were besieging Foxy and Yu Sheng froze at the eerie sight. They halted without thinking, every gaze locked onto Luna. Then a storm of Protective Treasures flew out, and vicious killing moves slammed at the steel Doll.

Luna only bowed slightly, crossing her legs in a dancer’s curtsy as she raised both hands. Ten blades flashed, leaving a single chilling line in the air.

When she lifted her head, every black-robed cultivator felt his perception split in two. In the soul world they saw the gray plain that had suddenly descended, the blonde girl beneath the hanging Nether River lifting her Holy Sword at them, and the Bronze Knight regiment arrayed behind her.

Yu Sheng stood on Foxy’s head, staring at the strange battle, a bit stunned.

He saw Luna glide between enemies, her Fingertip Blades fluttering like butterflies. Her speed and grace looked nothing like her usual clumsy, slow self.

He saw the black-robed cultivators move oddly, as if their bodies and minds were badly disturbed. Some stood blankly in place like their souls had been pulled elsewhere, not even reacting when blades reached them.

Some fell to Luna’s Fingertip Blades.

Some weren’t cut at all, not even touched by Luna. They stood frozen for a few seconds, then toppled into the sand and burned into cinders in invisible fire, as if they had been killed in another world.

The two Irenes on Yu Sheng’s shoulders were stunned too. The little Doll squinted for a long time and finally blurted: “What is going on? C Buckle never had this move before, right?”

Yu Sheng only frowned in silence. Then something “came into view” for him.

His blood bond with Luna sent him what her eyes saw.

Reality and the soul world overlapped. A gray wasteland lay atop the dunes. In the Artificial Saintess’s deadly dance, a blonde girl with a Holy Sword was leading a troop of Bronze Knights to hunt down a group of confused souls.

“Two-line combat?” Yu Sheng muttered.

Irene didn’t get it and asked: “Huh?”

Yu Sheng waved a hand: “Talk later. Finish them first, then we ask questions. Luna, Xuan Che, try to keep one alive!”

As his words fell, Foxy lunged at the nearest black-robed cultivator.

There weren’t many enemies left.

The two or three who survived realized the tide had turned. With nowhere to hide or run in this boundless Otherworld, they went all in as if ready to die together.

Not far away, Xuan Che leapt high and chopped his palm down at his foe: “Medical Dispute Mediation Palm!”

Right in front of Yu Sheng, a black-robed cultivator flashed like lightning, pierced through the swirling halo of Fox Fire around Foxy, and sent several small cauldrons flying from his back to block a round of Irene’s Scorching Rays. The treasures were smashed to pieces at once by the powerful beams, but they bought him time to close with Yu Sheng, and his sword came slashing down.

Yu Sheng didn’t dodge. He raised the Tetanus Staff that had been soaked in his blood and reforged again and again with Foxy’s Fox Fire and dark iron. The immortal sword and the savage Spiked Mace smashed together with a thunderous bang.

Black Threads burst from beside Yu Sheng, and while the black-robed cultivator was stiff from the blocked strike, Irene wrapped him tight from head to toe.

Cocooned in black, the enemy dropped straight down. Foxy stepped forward to pin him with a front paw, then yelped, jerked her paw up, and began scrubbing it hard in the sand, whining as she rubbed.

The little Doll cackled right away: “Silly fox! I told you you’re silly! Why would you touch my silk?”

Still scraping at her paw, Foxy had already dug a half-meter pit: “I just didn’t want him to get away…”

Irene pouted: “You really underestimate me.”

By then, the fight was over.

The last black-robed cultivator turned into a corpse in front of Luna and fell face-first into the desert.

Silence returned.

Yu Sheng hopped down from Foxy and saw Xuan Che walking over with a regretful look.

“I wanted to keep one alive, but the last guy used a self-destruct technique at the end. I didn’t expect he had a Soul Ignition treasure on him. By the time I noticed, I couldn’t stop it.”

Luna also walked up. The moment the battle ended, she went back to that slow, slightly dull state. She lowered her head to Yu Sheng and, after a long struggle, finally said: “He died. I tried to hold back, but too weak.”

Irene shot Luna a weird look, then started grumbling: “How are you even stronger than before… did you hold back last time… you were my defeated foe…”

Luna shook her head: “New move. Useless on you. You have no brain.”

Irene thought for a beat, then exploded: “C Buckle!!!”

“Alright, you two can fight later,” Yu Sheng cut in before the little Doll on his shoulder blew up again. He glanced at the black-robed cultivator on the ground who was still wrapped in Irene’s Black Threads and curled up in pain from bone-deep cold, then added: “It’s fine. We still have one alive. Irene’s power is great for catching someone.”

Irene went from stormy to sunny at once and grinned with pride: “Of course. Who do you think I am?”

Yu Sheng laughed and patted the little Doll’s head, letting her bask. Then he turned his gaze to the cocooned black-robed cultivator.

Next, they would carefully figure out where these people had come from.