The "Minstrel" was annihilated in the glorious Holy Light, and this time it seemed to be truly dead—at least within the visible range, Yu Sheng did not see that mass of black flames regroup.However, Freyia obviously wasn't completely reassured. After blasting a giant pit in the ground, she continued wielding her Holy Light Greatsword and jumped into the pit to smash around for a while. Only after Yu Sheng called from the edge of the pit did she trod begrudgingly back up one step at a time, dragging the Holy Light Greatsword behind her.
Who knows how she developed this habit of having to finish off the fight by thoroughly checking. Yu Sheng felt it was certainly not related to his teachings.
Because he never really taught her anything—the angel girl was even more capricious than Erin, never easy to catch...
With the "Minstrel's" disappearance, the endlessly appearing monsters on the wasteland finally began to retreat, and the enemies that had been slain no longer stood back up.
Luna began to lead her Valhalla troops to speed up the cleanup of the remaining monsters, while Erin's Brick Girl-type mass-produced dolls flew into the sky to confirm the situation on the battlefield's edges.
"Wow, it's finally over," the Little Puppet climbed onto Yu Sheng's shoulder, wiping nonexistent sweat from its forehead while shaking its head, "I told you, these endless monsters must be part of the boss mechanism, dung monsters are like that, not only is the body hard to kill, but they also summon a bunch of minions, when they stand there, it's like their shared zone extends for hundreds of miles."
"You should play fewer games, I really mean it," Yu Sheng poked the little creature, "You can't defeat them, yet you play them all day, what's the point?"
So Erin started huffing onto Yu Sheng's head, but because it was utterly unthreatening, he ignored it.
Beside them, Hu Li, still in her Nine-Tailed Demon Fox form, raised her head to look at the majestic Lodaxim High Wall.
"Savior! This wall seems to have cracked!"
Yu Sheng quickly raised his head to look towards the wall's direction, and indeed saw its surface rapidly covering with massive cracks, those cracks penetrated the whole wall, and continued to expand and branch out.
However, the anticipated collapse did not happen, those fissures simply continued to extend silently, like a curtain being consumed by invisible flames, the high wall gradually devoured by the expanding cracks, finally completely disappearing into the wasteland.
Meanwhile, the last batch of remaining monsters nearby also all collapsed under the Knight Order's force field sword.
"Gather the troops, maintain alertness," Luna commanded the captains of the Valhalla troops, "Each squad report the state of doll damage, uniformly replace their shells."
A lively artificial saintess, unknown to Yu Sheng, suddenly blurted out: "Commander, why do you speak like that in the real world?"
Luna: "Enough, enough nonsense..."
The battle ended, the roaring artillery fell silent, only the smoke had yet to completely disperse, while some fox fire still burned distantly on the wilderness.
Luna's troops needed a brief rest; damaged artificial saintesses and guard knights needed their shells replaced or repaired—they used an armed transport vehicle as a base, inside which they set up a temporary teleportation gate leading to the Ranch Star Legion's station, an impressively creative solution.
And on the other side, Erin's mass-produced puppets also needed reinforcements, and the "Brick Girls" required more ammo from the valley—fortunately, the bricks… construction-type flying swords they used weren't the exquisite Magic Treasures usually employed by Master Yuan Hao, but rather mass-produced in a kiln built by Yun Qingzi and Master Yuan Hao on the mountain, with each batch firing 3,000 blocks, so they could use as much as they wanted without worry...
However, speaking of which, the "flying swords" used by those little puppets were all fired in kilns in batches of thousands, Yu Sheng genuinely felt that they hardly differed from bricks, at most just mixed with some spiritual materials, which can, in a sense, be said to share the same ingredient with the mass-produced dolls...
"What, what?" Sitting on Yu Sheng's shoulder, Erin sensed something, and turned her head to see Yu Sheng staring at her, which immediately made the Little Puppet a bit embarrassed, "What are you staring at me for?"
Yu Sheng rubbed his chin: "...I suddenly realized you are a civil engineer..."
Erin: "Huh?"
But Yu Sheng didn't explain further; he just casually patted the Little Puppet's head twice, then walked over to the hole still emitting heat.
The "clumsy knight" was quietly sitting there, seemingly indifferent to the surroundings.
Yu Sheng approached the knight from behind and saw that his heavy armor had become battered and worn after the battle, covered with more gaps and cracks, along with several dents of various sizes.
Upon hearing footsteps from behind, the knight turned his head, a muffled voice emanating from beneath the helmet: "Ready to depart?"
"Take a rest first," Yu Sheng found a stone nearby to sit on, hesitated for a couple of seconds, "Are you really continuing with us?"
"Of course," the knight nodded, "Why ask that?"
Yu Sheng took out the piece of paper that fell into his hands after the Minstrel's death and handed it to the knight.
Amidst a clatter from his armor, the knight accepted the paper, the short writing on its reverse side coming into view.
"Don't go back..."
The knight murmured softly, examining the paper over and over, but eventually returned it to Yu Sheng.
"Don't you have anything to say?" Yu Sheng looked at him, "This seems to be a warning, and that 'Minstrel'... he wears armor like yours."
"I... don't know," the Knight shook his head, "I don't know him."
Erin leaned out halfway from Yu Sheng's shoulder, her crimson eyes gazed at the opponent with quite an intimidating glare: "Really don't know? Really don't recognize?"
"Hmm."
"You better think it through," Erin continued, "I'm telling you, I've seen this kind of plot before, where you're given a hint in the middle to turn back, but if you force yourself to keep going, it often doesn't end well... so do you still want to continue? Or do you want to 'go home'? Or..."
Before the Little Puppet finished speaking, the Knight across from her lightly nodded again: "Hmm."
Then the Knight was silent for two seconds, finally adding a few more words: "I don't consider other paths."
The Little Puppet continued to stare at his opponent, staring for almost half a minute before finally withdrawing her gaze.
"Alright then, after all, this is your path."
The scene then fell silent for a while.
A small mass-produced puppet walked over and kicked Yu Sheng's foot, the latter shifted his body to the side, then he saw the little guy digging under the stone he was sitting on, unearthing a puppet missing an arm and a leg buried in the dirt.
The little guy held the torso with only half a leg and a head against the stone to knock off the dirt, wandered away.
Several other mass-produced puppets were bustling around nearby, they occasionally found parts like an arm, a head, hands, and feet from the soft soil. A few Brass Knights brought over to help each pushed a small cart following behind the puppets, the carts piled high with the scraps gathered by the little guys.
The Brass Knights had no faces, their mass-produced metal shells all looked identical, yet Yu Sheng could clearly feel each of them exuded a strong and hard-to-contain aura.
Apparently, while the Brass Knights were veteran players who could return to the battlefield after getting a new body post-death, in the face of Erin's hardcore operation where she gathered fragments to form a batch of new puppets, they resembled new recruits.
As for Yu Sheng, he could quite understand Erin's thrifty operation—though mass-produced puppets akin to a "worker bee" type cost very little, today's battle had her bringing along all "precision models," puppets learning Sword Flight from Mr. Yun had to meet the most basic spiritual energy affinity conditions, and the Spiritual Fox Mysterious Iron within them was used by the pound...
Hu Li sauntered over, having transformed from a big fox into a little fox form, approached and placed her head directly on Yu Sheng's lap, a murmur coming from her throat.
Yu Sheng casually rubbed the fox's head, turned to look at the Knight: "Your daughter... Her name is Rosaline, right? What kind of child is she?"
The Knight slightly lowered his head, seemingly reminiscing, after hesitating for a moment, he spoke softly: "She... is a very quiet child, very sensible, she likes reading, likes listening to stories, and enjoys flowers and plants.
"The flowers in the Royal City never grow well, the most beautiful blossoms are only outside the city. Before the plague broke out, she would occasionally sneak out... Every time, I actually found her, but she never knew."
"Do you still remember where you lived?" Yu Sheng asked again, "I mean... that Royal City, which might be a very large place."
The Knight gently shook his head.
But soon after, he nodded again.
"I will find it."
"So, what plans do you have once you find it?"
This time the Knight was silent for even longer, until half a minute later he spoke softly: "Go home, going home is enough."
Yu Sheng then did not continue to question, simply gently patted the little fox's head.
"Resting enough," he said softly, "it's time to set off."
"Alright~"
Therefore, Yu Sheng led the mighty troop to depart again, continuing their journey toward the heartland of the Kingdom.
The thin mist over the wilderness had already dissipated without anyone noticing, leaving only the distant dust rising slowly under the chaotic daylight, the Space Rift floating between the clouds seemed to have temporarily stopped expanding, and in the direction pointed by one of the distant rifts, Yu Sheng vaguely saw a magnificent and grand city silhouette on the horizon.
On the way to that grand city, the team again encountered several small-scale skirmishes, with undead creatures emerging from the ruins of towns, mutant monsters loitering in the wilderness, they even encountered a ferocious giant beast double the size of Hu Li in her battle form—Hu Li directly fired a Fox Radish Missile into its belly.
All these battles were thrilling yet safe, at least before reaching the Royal City, Yu Sheng did not encounter any opponent as strange and dangerous as the previous "Minstrel."
The team thus moved and halted, yet that grand and ancient city seemed always standing at the end of the horizon unchanged, the distance not diminishing by a fraction.
But then just as Yu Sheng began to suspect that the space here might have issues again, suspecting the distant city might merely be an illusion, everyone in the team suddenly felt a blur before their eyes—the seemingly endless path disappeared, the grand and ancient "Royal City" was standing not far in front of them now.