Accompanied by two clear and resonant calls, the fox girl released the two investigative chickens, White Cut and Salt Roasted, into the air. Yu Sheng looked up at those multicolored, auspicious cloud-surrounded feathered creatures flying higher and higher, feeling emotional: "They should be close to transforming..."Hu Li waved her hand beside him: "I asked them, and they said they won't transform, afraid that once they do, you'll make them go to work."
Yu Sheng: "..."
Zheng Zhi watched the scene and whispered to Li Lin: "See, I told you, compared to Brother Yu, my little style problem isn't that big of a deal."
Li Lin raised an eyebrow when he heard this: "Well, I still think the shrine impact seems more impressive..."
And while Hu Li was releasing the chickens, Yu Sheng walked over to the pit that was still radiating heat.
The Iron Armor Giant mentioned by Zheng Zhi and Li Lin had turned to ashes, leaving not even a fragment behind. Freyia flew over from the side, and seeing Yu Sheng interested in the pit, she immediately began to vividly explain—first gesturing with a giant sword to show the release of a Light Cannon, then swinging the sword to mimic smashing the pit, creating a bunch of sounds that others couldn't understand, and finally floated proudly in mid-air, waiting for praise.
This somewhat childlike behavior, combined with the over-two-meter-tall figure of the Living Saint, left Yu Sheng at a loss for words. He could only give a few casual compliments and then grabbed a handful of candies from home to hand to this flashy girl.
Luna, on the other hand, walked directly into the pit—the remaining high temperature was nothing to her. She bent over to search through the molten remains at the bottom, seemingly discovering something suddenly.
Yu Sheng saw Luna prying open a pile of molten slag, surprisingly extracting a tattered piece of paper from it.
"Master, I've found it, this."
Yu Sheng reached out to take the object, finding that the surface of this piece of paper, once buried in molten slag, had not a single scorch mark.
He saw familiar, child-like crude strokes, outlining the image of a giant on the paper with simple black lines, and beside the giant stood a crooked windmill mill.
Erin nudged her head over: "Look at the back, look at the back."
Yu Sheng flipped over the piece of paper and among the slanted, blurry handwriting, he saw the description of the giant—
"...afflicted by plague...guard exiled to the wilderness... took what was forgotten as the Royal City's tower, guarding the mill's entrance day and night..."
Yu Sheng looked up, and that crooked windmill mill stood on the open ground not far away. Its structure twisted unnaturally, as if the space it occupied had distorted, not due to collapse. There were damaged areas on the mill's outer wall, which were void and dark inside.
Luna's figure flickered to the mill's entrance, gently pushing open the slightly ajar wooden door.
She peeked inside, seeing an ancient stone mill standing quietly at the center, with giant wooden gears broken and collapsed beside the millstone. The stone mill was covered in dust, and the grooves of the millstone were stuffed with tiny stones, but no grains could be seen.
Above the stone mill, some dangling ropes and the broken main shaft of a windmill could be seen, all shrouded in darkness, carrying an ominous and desolate aura.
Luna retreated and reported what she saw to Yu Sheng.
"It's basically confirmed, this place also hails from that knight's homeland," Yu Sheng said as he stored the paper carefully and nodded, "The paper mentions the wilderness... so this should also be part of the area outside the Lodaxim High Wall, but it should be very close to the wall."
The sound of flapping wings arose from the sky, and a bony, ragged-feathered strange bird landed on the windmill of the mill. It stretched its neck and cried out wretchedly: "An invader approaches the kingdom's gate!"
Zheng Zhi and Li Lin both flinched in unison at the sound of the strange bird, a hint of PTSD in their reaction.
However, the giant was no longer there, and the strange bird's wretched cries echoed futilely in the air.
"Invaders! Foreigners! Approaching the kingdom's gate!"
The strange bird flapped its wings and cried out strenuously again, circling above the windmill mill.
"Invader, invader..."
Erin suddenly raised her hand, and in an instant, a web of black spider silk enveloped the screeching strange bird, which flapped a couple of times mid-air before plummeting to the ground, emitting a few broken screeches, soon going silent.
Seeing this, Erin was momentarily at a loss: "That's weird, I—I didn't hit it hard! I just webbed it down..."
Yu Sheng patted the Little Puppet's head, indicating that this might not necessarily be her fault, and then stepped over to the strange bird.
A black flame quietly burned on the strange bird, reducing it to ashes in moments, leaving only a few broken feathers on the ground.
A tattered piece of paper remained in the ash heap. Yu Sheng picked it up and saw the front of the paper depicted the bird in a simple drawing, and the back had only a brief, scribbled description:
"Nameless bird... often perched on the guard."
Yu Sheng quietly looked at this piece of paper for a few seconds, placing it close together with the giant's piece.
"That knight's hometown..." Erin lay on Yu Sheng's shoulder, frowning slightly, "What on earth is going on..."
Yu Sheng didn't speak for a moment, only quietly pondering some matters, when suddenly, Hu Li, who was paying attention to what was happening over at White Cut and Salt Roasted, lifted her head.
"Savior, White Cut has discovered something over there!"
As she spoke, she rolled on the spot and transformed into a gigantic Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. At the same time, a brilliant streak of light flew over from afar, and Salt Roasted made a handsome landing in an open space not far away.
Yu Sheng, while clambering onto Hu Li with Erin, turned his head to look at Li Lin and Zheng Zhi: "You two together..."
Before Yu Sheng finished his sentence, he saw Zheng Zhi wave a hand, and an electric tricycle that his grandpa used to ride appeared out of nowhere on the ground—with an old man with a broken tooth and white beard on it.
"We'll take this," Zheng Zhi looked quite proud, "this thing is steady."
Li Lin, however, looked troubled: "Uh, this..."
Yu Sheng also instinctively twitched the corner of his eye: "Can this thing keep up?"
Just as he said this, the old man on the tricycle glared and fluffed his beard: "Who do you think you're looking down on—grandson, get on!"
Zheng Zhi immediately yanked the still bewildered Li Lin onto the back seat of the tricycle, then saw the old man at the front twist the handle. The tricycle made a cool clattering sound as Li Lin turned his head in horror and saw a row of engine nozzles coolly appear at the back of the tricycle...
Zheng Zhi grinned so widely his front teeth showed: "When I was a kid watching TV, I always wished our old tricycle at home was like the ones in the cartoons..."
Li Lin: "...Then what's the point of your imagination being this good!"
However, it was too late for him to jump off the tricycle now, because Hu Li's nine tails had already begun spewing flames. The next second, accompanied by a loud call as Salt Roasted took off, this twisted urban area suddenly erupted into myriad beams of auspicious light—
The enormous Spirit Bird spread its wings and soared across the sky, followed by the Nine-Tailed Fox spewing flame as it flew low, and after that, the rocket-boosted tricycle sped like the wind.
The moment the tricycle rose into the air, Li Lin already regretted not agreeing to let Zheng Zhi make a run for it right away, but halfway through his regret, he saw the old man at the front cackling and twisting the handle again, activating the nitrous boost...
Li Lin turned his head in despair, only to see Zheng Zhi beside him grinning like a fool, his face filled with a childhood-like glee.
How to put it, this smile, this scene, made Li Lin feel that if the guy next to him strayed even a little on the road to moral growth, at least he'd make a psychologically traumatic killer worthy of a 40-episode drama.
Yu Sheng sat on Hu Li's back, gripping the two tufts of fur beneath him tightly. He heard the commotion and peeked back, seeing the toothless, wrinkly old man almost blown smooth by the wind, and the excited nephew.
Yu Sheng chuckled.
"Yu Sheng, what are you laughing at?" Erin nestled in Yu Sheng's arms, couldn't see the scene behind and looked up curiously.
"Oh, nothing, just that a guess of mine got confirmed." Yu Sheng replied cheerfully.
"What's the guess?"
"Zheng Zhi is indeed Anka Aela's Holy Relic..."
"Wow—"
The place Hu Li pointed out wasn't far, and before the elongated "Wow" from the Little Puppet could fade, Salt Roasted, leading the way ahead, already began to gradually slow down and lower altitude. Meanwhile, Yu Sheng also saw the condition of the ground ahead.
He saw an enormous crack stretch across the earth.
The crack seemed to be some kind of "boundary," extending left and right to the edge of the horizon. Inside the crack was a cityscape with bizarre distortions, while across from it seemed to be nothing but barren rock, with the rocky wilderness extending into pure darkness.
A flash of fire lit up beside him, and Yu Sheng saw a Fox Radish Missile spewing flames as it shot towards the dark wilderness on the other side of the crack, then, just as it crossed the crack, it seemed to hit an invisible barrier and erupted violently in midair.
"That should be this 'Exotic Realm's' border," the fox girl turned to Yu Sheng and said, "about 100 meters past the crack is an invisible barrier."
The Nine-Tailed Fox landed steadily on the ground, and the rocket-boosted tricycle also landed safely amidst a clatter and crash. When Li Lin climbed off the tricycle's back seat, his legs were weak, and he grabbed Zheng Zhi's arm wide-eyed: "Is this what you call steady?"
Zheng Zhi rubbed his chin thoughtfully: "I remember it felt pretty steady when I was a kid..."
The toothless old man at the front of the tricycle, with a radiant smile, waved Zheng Zhi farewell: "Grandson, don't fight in school. If you see something unclean, tell Mr. Wang. Grandpa will pick you up after school..."
Then the tricycle and the old man faded into the rippling glow of a sunset that had appeared out of nowhere.
By this time, Yu Sheng and the others had found White Cut waiting nearby on standby, and under White Cut's guidance, they reached the edge of the crack.
Sharp-eyed Erin was the first to notice something unusual.
"Hey, Yu Sheng look over there! It's like something is growing out of the ground... does it look like tree roots?"