CHAPTER 435: CHAPTER 435: POLLUTED SUBORDINATE

When there’s danger, Senior Uncle is the safest; when it’s safe, Senior Uncle is the most dangerous—but in rare cases, when there’s danger, Senior Uncle can also be the more dangerous one.

The barrier that Xuan Che managed to sustain under the attack of dozens of people shattered instantly with the fire support from Master Yuan Hao. But then again... he indeed did break through the enemy’s siege. As far as the whole process goes, the intentions were good, the execution bad, but his physical constitution wasn’t bad.

"...I suddenly feel that Xuan Che has it pretty tough too." Yu Sheng sighed as he sat on Hu Li’s back, looking into the distance.

Erin glanced at Zheng Zhi: "Both of you have quite the lives."

Zheng Zhi quickly waved his hand: "He’s hard to kill, I’m hard to die, we’re not the same."

"...Is that so?"

"Alright, let’s not debate semantics at this point," Yu Sheng interrupted the two, his eyes fell on the smoke-filled depths not far away, "there seems to be more trouble over here."

As if to confirm this statement, right after Yu Sheng spoke, a flash of lightning suddenly lit up within the dust and smoke.

The lightning rushed straight for Hu Li, who was flying in midair, but it was blocked by the Protective Spirit Qi around Hu Li. The impact scattered the mushroom cloud Master Yuan Hao had just created, and then, as rain clouds regathered in the continuous rain curtain, Yu Sheng saw a familiar silhouette.

Tall, imposing, clad in a white robe, like a classical demigod emerging from a marble sculpture—a middle-aged man wreathed in lightning emerged step by step from the smoke, walking on air, watching this side with a sullen face.

In the instant Yu Sheng clearly saw the man’s appearance, the vague suspicion that arose when he saw the lightning in the sky was instantly confirmed, causing him to be shocked: "...You’re not dead?!"

However, the figure standing in the air seemed not to hear him. He only fixedly stared at the little puppet sitting beside Yu Sheng, expressionless, with eyes reflecting fine electric arcs yet exuding a crystal-like icy luster.

Hu Li cautiously adjusted his position in the air, and the white-robed "Great Sage" of the Hidden Monastery also moved his eyes along, still expressionlessly staring at the puppet on Nine-Tailed Fox’s back.

Just as Yu Sheng was puzzled, Luna, who was floating in the air alongside Hu Li, suddenly leaned over.

"Yes, a clone," Luna said in a low voice, keeping her guard while watching the "Great Sage" act, "but something’s wrong with its state."

"A clone?" Yu Sheng widened his eyes a bit at the remark, realizing some things, but before he could figure out what Luna meant by "something’s wrong," the white-robed figure in mid-air suddenly moved again.

He lifted his hand toward Erin’s direction, and in an instant, lightning layer upon layer appeared behind him, as if charging up the entire space. Even the falling rain curtain in mid-air flickered with countless tiny electric arcs, the Protective Spirit Qi around Hu Li crackling with sparks.

Seeing this, Erin instead laughed: "Hey! Using that move again, don’t you ever learn?"

Before the words finished, the little puppet had already raised its hand, and dozens of space rifts appeared instantly on the field. As the rifts rapidly opened and turned, one production-line Erin after another with vacant stares arrived at the battlefield.

The first thing the little puppets did after being transported was to simultaneously lift their heads, raising their hands to fire "Erin’s Beams" at the "Great Sage" in midair, casting a dense barrage.

At the same time, Erin forcefully slapped Hu Li’s back: "Silly fox!"

No need for more words, Hu Li understood Erin’s meaning and immediately lowered altitude towards the ground.

The "Great Sage" in midair indeed immediately shifted his focus—the dozens of thin, scorching beams weren’t lethal enough to threaten him. They just rippled the air intensely around him, while his attention remained fixed on the real Erin. As she dashed toward the earth on the nine-tailed silver fox, he suddenly waved his hand.

The lightning in midair... disappeared.

At the spot where lightning gathered one last time, countless black rifts appeared instead, scattered across the sky. In the next moment, innumerable pale crystals surged out from the rifts, pouring down like a torrential rain towards the ground!

"What the hell?!"

Erin looked up, and the puppet was dumbfounded on the spot—her original plan was to summon the production-line puppets and "catch" on the ground, then she would draw aggro and fly across the production-line "fortress," so when the Great Sage struck with lightning, the summoned production-line units would instantly recharge. Although it might not match the charging effect of the Pro max form, a volley of dozens of overloaded beams should also kill the Great Sage...

Her operational plan was quite perfect.

However, the crystal storm hammered down and disrupted everything.

Crystals fell like a meteor shower. The nine-tailed silver fox wove through the crystal storm, with clusters hitting Hu Li’s Protective Spirit Qi, causing continuous explosions. Meanwhile, scattered crystal shards splashed onto the ground. The production-line puppets summoned just before were instantly thrown into disarray, running everywhere across the wasteland, only to activate their return instructions due to the unavoidable attack from the sky, disappearing back into the valley one by one.

"Ah what the heck, this isn’t right!" Erin exclaimed frantically as she noticed the growing shortage of her mass production "legion". "Where did these crystals come from... wasn’t that thing supposed to have an Electric Attribute?!"

The shock Yu Sheng felt was no less than Erin’s. He looked up to see the white-robed "Great Sage" still persistently summoning strange "space rifts". The crystal clusters bombarded and piled up on the wilderness, while various crystals emerged from the rift in the earth, as though responding to something, rapidly growing from the rocks and soil. This scene...

It was so reminiscent of the situation on Guard-3!

Hu Li let out a low growl, finally seizing the opportunity, finding a gap amidst the dense crystal barrage, then swiftly twisting her body. Several tails were launched forcefully.

The fox’s tails dragged long propulsion flames, darting straight towards the airborne "Great Sage", who surprisingly remained stationary, seemingly unconcerned about life or death, accepting the bombardment head-on.

Following deafening explosions that shattered the clouds, foxfire erupted into dazzling fireballs in the sky. As the fireballs dissipated, the silhouette of the white-robed cleric faintly emerged from the smoke.

The "white robe" was no longer there.

His body was almost torn apart, yet no blood flowed from the ruptured body—more than a dozen fragmentary limbs floated in the air, with crystalline, transparent luminescence shimmering at their severed edges. This horrifying shell drifted in the wind and rain, and then all the fragments began to convulse and writhe, transforming into even more bloated, grotesque shapes. Numerous tiny crystal "branches" emerged from the broken edges, interconnecting the fragments, seemingly trying to integrate into a complete entity...

Now everyone knew what Luna sensed as "something’s off".

"My goodness, the Puppet Progenitor! This guy’s already been consumed..." Erin’s eyes widened in surprise. "Weren’t they supposed to be on the same side?!"

"Who do you say he’s with? The controlled ’Yun Qingzi’? Or the ’Inference Star Body’ behind Yun Qingzi?" Yu Sheng, oddly calm, remarked when he saw the white-robed cleric transform into a pile of mutated crystals. Instead of shock, there was a sense of inevitability, "That’s just the way it is when welding detonators to saw bulbs—I always thought these cultists would eventually go too far—and when they do, someone else has to clean up their mess."

While speaking, the airborne "Great Sage" had slowly turned his mangled head, a pair of cold eyes embedded within the split skull. Despite the ruinous body, those eyes remained locked onto Erin, while his crystallized brain was exposed to the air, frantically flickering with light from a residual implant component, brimming with resentment.

Erin felt goosebumps under this stare, instinctively shrunk into Yu Sheng’s chest: "What the heck, even in this state, why is there still so much anger..."

"I suspect that before being devoured by the Inference Star Body, his greatest grievance was being poked to death by a puppet with one finger—and the power of that finger was his own contribution," Yu Sheng mused, "Anyone would remember that in their next life and kick Meng Po to speak for two hours when drinking Meng Po’s soup."

Erin: "...Who’s Meng Po? Met another new puppet?"

Yu Sheng said nothing, while Hu Li had completed preparations for the next round of Fox Radish Missiles, then fired another volley without hesitation.

The already severely injured "Great Sage" was shattered into fragments scattered across the sky instantaneously.

The pale crystalline material mixed with wind and rain fell from the sky, emitting an eerie glow amid the foxfire.

However, witnessing this scene did not bring any relief to Yu Sheng’s heart, but instead, heightened his vigilance.

Cuddled in his embrace, Erin suddenly seemed to sense something, the small puppet peeked out and gazed across a spot in the wilderness.

She blinked, and in the next moment, the ground in her line of sight abruptly swelled up, followed by a violent rupture of rocks and soil.

A substantial amount of crystalline matter gushed out of the crevice like a fountain. At the center of the "fountain", a familiar figure emerged.

It was still the same "Great Sage"—one entirely composed of crystalline substance.

"I knew this would happen..."

Yu Sheng sighed helplessly, clearly already anticipating this when he saw the "Great Sage" reappear.

Yet no sooner had he sighed than a second and third "crystal fountain" appeared on the wilderness. With the nerve-racking sounds of crystal friction, fragmentation, and reorganization, one "Great Sage" after another emerged from the crystal clusters.

Yu Sheng: "...?"

Erin poked his arm: "Did you predict this?"

Yu Sheng: "...This isn’t right! At Guard-3, those Yun Qingzi at least regenerated one at a time, how can they all appear at once at Shuji?!"

"This is crap monster," Erin sighed, "Model unchanged, secretly modified mechanics, finally multiplying value by ten to throw in your face... And after killing them, no good stuff drops."