Before the director and Kant rushed over, the falling red stream of light had already shattered with a bang, transforming into a large swarm of scattered black bats, which quickly converged into a humanoid form. Red lay on the ground in a disheveled state, struggling to get up shakily.The director reached out to help the person up: "What happened?"
"The rift within the storm is expanding," Red said weakly. Her originally pale face now bore a hint of a ghost-like bluish-gray, "I was attacked by a phantom of time while reinforcing the seal... Cough, cough..."
The black-haired girl suddenly coughed violently and managed to stop only after a long while: "Don't worry, in the end, I dealt with it, but the loss is quite big."
Reluctantly, seeing this scene, Kant immediately handed over a small glass bottle, which contained a crimson liquid, slightly viscous in texture.
"Drink this, it's high in blood sugar."
"Thanks." The vampire girl didn't hesitate, took the bottle, twisted off the cap, and drew out a metal straw from her body, started sucking on it. She took several gulps before catching her breath, her face with the pallor started to show some life.
A small bottle of blood was quickly consumed. Red exhaled lightly, pulled out the straw, sucking hard from the other end, then casually wiped it clean and put it back in her pocket. Her face showed a bit of unsatisfied expression as she returned the bottle: "Is there a high-blood-clot type?"
"That's enough, are you treating it like pearl milk tea?" Kant looked at Red with some difficulty, "And as a vampire, is it slightly problematic to use silver straws every time you eat?"
"Disinfect as you drink, you don't understand. Back in the day, my Dark Moon Royal Court always led the Blood Clan trend..."
"Alright, I have no interest in the weird trend you led in your kingdom back then," Kant waved his hand, "Anyway, it seems the seal you left down there won't last long... Hopefully, there's some progress over at the Colorless Dragon soon."
"How's Ah Qing's situation?" Red immediately asked.
"A large group of reinforcements from the 'travel agency' are entering various invasion points in batches," the director said solemnly, "Although we have not yet found the Rift to the 'Kingdom', at least the joining of the reinforcements has somewhat delayed the erosion process of various places. The current situation is stalemate, but as long as the storm at the fault doesn't end, it shouldn't last long."
Red lightly frowned, turning to the side of the fault.
Beside the faulty thing floated a large number of classic monitor projections. Baili Xue was currently passing through each projection – thanks to the increasingly popular 'Spirit Fox Node' technology, more and more Exotic Realms now have communication nodes set up. The battle footage taken by frontline troops also could be relayed back to the real world in time. Although still many of the footage remained delayed and disrupted, it was much better than the past.
Red ignored Baili Xue, who suddenly pretended to be busy, and instead focused on the battle footage relayed from the frontline...
...
The roar of the heavy particle shoulder cannon echoed in the open courtyard. The once magnificent classical fountain had already been blasted to pieces. A huge, hellish demon-like monster finally fell under continuous bombardment and was quickly reduced to ashes by a rising black flame.
"Boss! This one's down, meow, take a rest, meow!"
The voice of the Spiritual Servant came from nearby. Xu Jiali leaned against the broken wall embankment, exhaling long, then high-fived Lingdang, clad in light power armor.
He peeked outside.
A gloomy and eerie ancient castle stood across the open space, with its black spire and the castle's wing towers stabbing into the sky like jagged fingers. Thick clouds hovered above the castle. Surrounding it was an endless swath of garden courtyards that seemed to have no boundaries.
The courtyard appeared thoughtfully designed, yet upon further inspection, one would perceive its bizarre and grotesque nature. Every fixed distance within the courtyard presented repeated landscapes, distributed in neat blocks like copy-pasted replicas—a uniform arrangement of identical fountains, flowerbeds, and lawns, with low decorative walls separating the blocks, covered in thorny vines.
"Rose Manor," a composite Exotic Realm comprised of a "fortress" and a piece of "wilderness," with a depth of L3, a Danger Level fluctuating between 2~3. Entry points are randomly located in the castle or courtyard area. Dangerous entities known as "Attendants" spawn within the castle, while the courtyard area is relatively safe, though the gardeners randomly appearing in each "garden block" are not exactly friendly.
But now, the most dangerous things here are clearly no longer the roving Attendants and gardeners, but those "foreign entities" constantly running out from the castle.
Xu Jiali caught his breath and looked above the castle.
A gigantic clock tower pierced through the castle's roof, skewed and "embedded" within the building. The style of that clock tower clashed with the castle's, its primitive and heavy look seemingly from a far more distant and ancient world—in fact, it truly was.
Several figures appeared nearby. Xu Jiali slightly turned back to see several tall, elegant figures in nun robes also leaning against the low wall, seemingly taking a short rest.
Nearby, several Deep Diver Warriors felt somewhat awkward and tense as these "killing machines" approached—these warriors were reinforcements just transferred from elsewhere, not having participated in the previous operations in the Dark Meteor Domain like Xu Jiali, nor had they worked alongside the "Artificial Saintesses" before.
Xu Jiali thought for a moment, recalling that the few artificial saintesses in front of her had introduced themselves as the "Sigrid Team" when they first arrived—these artificial saintesses usually form a combat team of five people, supplemented by a guard knight order ranging from dozens to a hundred people, and the team's name is determined by the name of the captain of the five-person team.
But Xu Jiali couldn't recognize which one was the "Ingrid" miss—he thought all these mechanical girls looked the same.
"Do you also need rest?" Xu Jiali curiously asked the artificial saintess closest to him.
"Medium intensity combat, the body has not yet reached fatigue status," the holy lady with a perfect face said casually, "But since you all are resting, our imitating to a certain extent is helpful in building battlefield trust."
Another artificial saintess nearby nodded in agreement: "Yes, yes, the legion commander said so, she told us to be a little more human-like when dealing with people outside, so we don't look like a swarm of cockroaches getting larger like the dwarf corps."
Then Xu Jiali heard several suppressed laughs from the communicator built into his helmet.
Apparently, compared to the newly introduced "Valhalla Corps," the Special Service Bureau soldiers here were more familiar with what the opposition called the "dwarf corps."
Xu Jiali also laughed, and the originally tense and alert atmosphere onsite quickly improved.
And at that moment, a sudden loud noise from within the castle followed by a series of explosions interrupted his movements.
Lingdang instantly looked cautiously towards the castle direction, the surface of the mechanical magic ball floating by her side glowed with fine electric sparks, and under the mask of the power armor, the pair of vertical pupils of the Jipulo girl slowly expanded, shimmering with spiritual power radiance.
"That tower is activating again... things coming out of the tower seem to be fighting with the attendants in the castle... ah, the active cycle of the castle has started, attendants are being generated in large numbers—boss, opportunity meow!"
Xu Jiali immediately reacted, sharply turning his head to exchange a look with the artificial saintess whose name he didn't know, then both nodded simultaneously.
"Finally, the locals in there are fighting the outsiders," Xu Jiali picked up the heavy particle rifle in his hands, "Get ready, once the commotion inside weakens a bit, we'll rush in to mediate."
"Our guard knight order will take the vanguard," the artificial saintess next to him said, noticing Xu Jiali's turning gaze, she added an explanation, "Our bodies and those of the guard knight order can be exchanged at any time; a large number of blank specimens awaiting mind download have been transported to Boundary Land... under the Lord's protection, we fear no death."
Heavy footsteps sounded by their ears, over a hundred knights, whose bodies were composed of hollow armor, passed the deep dive team, striding towards that castle.
A faint glow of energy shields floated over their brass-colored armor, and a decomposition force field glimmered on the surface of their greatswords.
...
"Alfne Squad encountered a large number of living statues in the Museum... no large rift leading to other kingdom fragments found in the deep area of the facility...
"Brunhild Team entered the dark alley; they rescued 36 cats and three spirit realm detectives who couldn't evacuate in time... a small rift was discovered deep in the alley, evaluating whether there is a need to mass-produce Erin for assistance.
"A spatial disaster occurred at the 'Windmill Mill,' Shirel Team damaged... spare specimens reloading minds, a large rift might be present, additional manpower required.
"The second batch of cargo shuttles has departed from Pasture Star, current legion station spare speciment reserves sufficient, no need to activate production line 2..."
Deep within the Soul Wilderness, in the magnificent black Great Cathedral at the center of Vas↑ha↓llaha←ra→, the golden-haired Luna clad in knight armor was reporting with a serious face the latest news from the combat squads, while Yu Sheng sat at the end of the long hall on a chair, listening to her report with a solemn expression.
At the same time, his body remaining in the real world was also keeping an eye on the situation over at the Special Service Bureau, while maintaining a blood connection with each combat squad—the intelligence from these connections, though vague, paired well with Luna's report, helping him grasp the current situation.
—Actually, Yu Sheng couldn't understand much; he couldn't remember so much information aggregated together at once, but having a serious face at this time made him seem pretty awesome.
In his perception, the "tactile net" established through blood connection had already expanded to thousands of nodes, and thousands of abnormal temporal structures (kingdom fragments), like scattered dewdrops, were linked on this net, gradually presenting a whole.
A whole that, despite being fragmented, was stubbornly glued together by some force, delaying its collapse minute by minute.
Yes, after the "tentacles" spread widely enough, Yu Sheng suddenly sensed a force operating among the kingdom fragments, counterbalancing "disintegration."
However, based on previous information, the roots presumably from the "Tree Angel" had long withered at the Kingdom Border... if not the "Tree Angel," what now is striving to delay the disintegration of the "Kingdom"?