In the twisted city overshadowed by layers upon layers of shadows, beneath a bizarre windmill of unknown origins, the roar of the Iron Armor Giant echoed through the streets.An extremely chaotic battle unfolded in the open space. Uncontrolled spiritual energy waves created illusion after illusion—bizarre and absurd phantoms with almost no pattern, blending with fragments of a young man's childhood memories, nightmare visions, and past real events, all blurred and grotesque through the filter of time. The giant was entangled and wrapped by this storm, continuously roaring, wielding its long blade to tear apart the surrounding illusions again and again.
Zheng Zhi sped out from the edge of the storm on a blue children's bicycle. A big yellow dog, riding another bicycle, followed behind him, pedaling hard and howling: "Do not harm my Lord! Do not harm my Lord!"
But Li Lin no longer had time to marvel at such a thunderous and shocking scene. He saw the giant's long blade sweep across, the flames on the blade tearing through swathes of illusions.
The aura created by his nephew's one punch of the "Ancestor Fist" was grand, but obviously, the power of those illusions mainly lay in their attack on the san value—and the giant, whose head had turned into a mass of black fire, clearly didn't have that anymore.
Idiocy immune to Stupidity Technique, mental illness immune to spiritual pollution, an out-of-control Exotic Realm entity encountering out-of-control spiritual illusions, at most, the latter had a little binding effect—it was, after all, an illusion. After Zheng Zhi ran out of the storm area, the "Ancestor Legion" left behind was quickly exhausted by the giant.
"Damn, I really don't want to use this thing... I'll have piles of reports to write when we get back..." Li Lin muttered, reaching into his arms to pull out a small metallic box. Quickly completing identity verification and unlocking, he forcefully tossed the box at the foot of the over four-meter-tall giant.
The small box landed with a crisp collision sound, then burst open with a flash and smoke neither too large nor too small. The next second, that flash and smoke shrank rapidly, even a small area of space began to show signs of collapsing inward!
A terrible suction emitted from the gravity bomb's epicenter, and the giant, who had just escaped the illusion and hadn't had time to move, was instantly captured by this force. The tower-like body staggered, with one leg drawn into the collapse point—armor made of unknown material emitted a harsh creaking sound, surprisingly withstanding the terrible pressure briefly, but it still began to deform noticeably to the naked eye.
The giant let out an angry howl at once. Ah, the mass of inward-collapsing black fire inside the helmet started to burn more fiercely.
To be honest, Li Lin was really curious about how that mass of black fire could produce a roaring sound...
Zheng Zhi, who had pedaled his bicycle out of the storm, also rushed to a safer open space, staring at the giant whose body was slowly tilting, and exclaimed: "Damn, Brother Li, official employees have such cool stuff?!"
"Normally, these are issued to deep divers," Li Lin clapped his hands, his tone containing a hint of pride, "but I'm an elite..."
Li Lin's words were interrupted by a sudden loud metallic snap, causing both of them to hurriedly look in the giant's direction, only to see the enemy stubbornly endure the force of the gravitational field, vigorously straighten itself, and actually ripped off nearly half of its own body!
The pitch-black armor shattered into fragments within the force field, and the brief effect of the gravity bomb almost simultaneously reached its limit. After the field dissipated, the giant still stood on the ground, with large amounts of ominous black flame erupting from the torn body, outlining unstable limb contours, shakily supporting the giant's body, yet in the end, it did not fall.
"... Damn it!"
Li Lin stood dumbfounded at the scene, finally unable to hold back a curse.
He then saw the giant slowly turn its head, the fiercely burning black flames seeming to overflow with a slurry of hate.
Zheng Zhi had already jumped off the ridiculous children's bicycle by then. Seeing the situation, he immediately took a step forward and raised his hand: "Don't panic, Brother Li, I have one more Temple Impact move..."
"Don't bother," Li Lin pressed down Zheng Zhi's hand, "anyway, we've already got the contact information; let's withdraw."
Zheng Zhi was still somewhat immersed in the inexplicable combat enthusiasm at that moment—after all, he had always had to run away when encountering strange things before; this was his first proper fight (last time's mess with the lizard monster using a random sword technique didn't count). But hearing Li Lin's reminder, he quickly calmed down, nodding swiftly while reaching into his pocket: "Oh, right!"
This time he confirmed that what he pulled out was indeed the magical escape card given to him by Yu Sheng.
Not far away, the giant had already fully stabilized its body, its flaming long blade raised high, stepping forward towards them.
Zheng Zhi gripped the card: "Goodbye to you then..."
However, just as he was about to tear open a gap and escape, a sharp psychic howl suddenly halted his action. The next second, a dazzling flash appeared at the edge of his vision.
It was a light cannon, streaking through the sky like a long rainbow piercing through the sun, carrying the power to melt gold and break stones, almost skimming past Zheng Zhi and Li Lin's bodies as it shot across the open space. As the white light flashed suddenly, the entire area in front of the windmill was illuminated as bright as day.
Frankly, having such a thing almost brush past them without wetting themselves only showed they hadn't drunk enough water…
The light cannon crashed head-on into the giant.
The giant let out a painful roar, the thick black armor quickly dissolving in the holy light. He turned to wield his long blade and attempted to counter the light explosion with the flames on the blade. However, it lasted less than a second before both the blade and armor were completely burned through by the light beam.
Out-of-control black flames erupted violently from the giant's armor, transforming into a massive, eerie vortex that continually collapsed inward.
Then the light cannon suddenly thickened fourfold, in an astonishing display of force directly engulfing and burning away all the black flames.
A few shattered black fragments fell down, landing in the scorching pit on the ground.
Zheng Zhi's neck stiffened as he twisted to the side, seeing an extremely bright figure swiftly fly past. Freyja ran to the remains of the giant she had just killed, swinging the holy light greatsword like a door slab in a chaotic smash, wielding a greatsword like a wolf fang club.
After smashing, she was still uneasy and jumped into the pit, stomping hard several times. After confirming that every fragment was crushed, she satisfactorily nodded, floating gracefully in front of Zheng Zhi and Li Lin.
Zheng Zhi: "...?"
Li Lin: "...?"
The two were dumbfounded at this moment, staring blankly and unable to understand where this Miss Angel had sprung from.
Fortunately, after dealing with Freyja for some time, Zheng Zhi had somewhat adapted to her unpredictable appearances and quickly reacted: "Uh, you came just in time, can you call Brother Yu over? Things aren't quite right here..."
Freyja promptly nodded, reached out, and snatched the rune card from Zheng Zhi's hand, stuffing it into her mouth.
Zheng Zhi broke into a cold sweat: "Hey! Don't eat it!"
The next second, he realized Freyja merely held the card in her mouth. Spiritual power radiance leapt and burned at the card's edges, and the lofty "Artificial Angel" gently flapped her wings, causing a phantom gate to manifest in the space her wings brushed.
Zheng Zhi was incredulous: "...Is this how it's supposed to be used? How come when I use it, all it does is vomit all over..."
Li Lin was equally amazed but quickly glanced at Zheng Zhi upon hearing his mutters: "Ever since you developed the Ancestor Fist, you've been immune to anything cool, you know?"
Meanwhile, Freyja had already passed through the gate to No. 66 Wutong Road. Shortly thereafter, Yu Sheng was bewildered as Miss Angel roughly pushed and dragged him over—while Luna, Hu Li, and the Little Puppet tagged along for the excitement.
Yu Sheng was completely clueless about what had happened. He had just returned from the supermarket and hadn't even warmed the sofa yet, when a pre-made door opened before him, followed shortly by Freyja bursting through. She performed a series of incomprehensible "spiritual songs" in front of him—then he was escorted over.
"What's the situation... you two?"
Yu Sheng saw Zheng Zhi and Li Lin standing in the open space and soon noticed the peculiar surroundings.
A twisted city, incongruously styled foreign buildings, debris stuck between the earth and buildings, a chaotic sky, and not far away, a pit still emitting intense heatwaves.
Erin swiftly jumped onto Yu Sheng's shoulder like a sailor stationed on a lookout tower, shading her eyes as she glanced around: "Wow—where have you dropped to now, big nephew!?"
"I don't know! We were just at the express station entrance," Zheng Zhi hastily explained. "At first, I thought we fell into Mist City, but soon realized this seemed like a new odd place. Brother Li suggested we gather some intelligence before leaving, but unexpectedly we encountered a monster here..."
Zheng Zhi recounted his prior experiences to Yu Sheng in full detail—mentioning even his Ancestor Fist and the unused Hall Impact, including Freyja's sudden intrusion and the mind-blowing light cannon, with Li Lin adding plenty of details, leaving Yu Sheng and others utterly stunned.
The astonishment focused mainly on the big nephew's lightning moves.
To be honest, Yu Sheng felt Zheng Zhi's naming ability was comparable to Erin's cultural literacy, nearly reaching a book-burning level...
However, his attention quickly turned back to the bizarre environment surrounding them.
"...It doesn't seem to be the 'Lodaxim High Wall,'" Hu Li observed the surroundings, his large ears swiveling in the air, "but some debris here bears resemblance."
"Considering Baili Qing's mention of more fragments emerging from the Fault lately, we can't rule out this being another larger 'fragment,'" Yu Sheng slightly frowned, "...It might be space structure from the other side of Lodaxim High Wall, detached from that 'Kingdom.' Anyway, while this area is still stable, check the surroundings."