novelraw Chapter 129 : Song of Sand and Mirage
Chapter 129 : Song of Sand and Mirage
When the two teams left the base station, Zhou Chen managed to trick another energy pipe from Chi Buyu through his "playing pitiful" act.
In reality, it was also an exchange for Zhu Jing Fu repairing Xitisi's mecha damage.
With several energy pipes gradually acquired, the Zhu Jing Fu members, already mounted on their mechas, conversed in the team channel: "The Xitisi people are quite nice, lying to Chi Buyu makes me feel a bit guilty."
"Guilty? You should feel guilty toward Noya first," Chen Sui said with a smile.
Speaking of victims deceived by Zhu Jing Fu, Xitisi would still be behind Saint Laurent, while Na Luo River had no role in this play.
Upon exiting the base station, the Zhu Jing Fu members immediately put aside their joking attitude, because on this journey, they had to conceal traces of the absorption device under Xitisi's watchful eyes.
The absorption device's attraction to energy bodies was unsolvable. Zhu Jing Fu could only lure people toward places with strong energy fluctuations.
"Song Yuan is meticulous, we can't fool her for long."
Xie Chunshi was very familiar with the personalities of Commanders from various academies. From leaving the base station to encountering large groups of energy bodies gathering, Xitisi never mentioned energy pipes again.
Chi Buyu had been using this to tease Zhou Chen earlier, but his expression suddenly turned serious, perhaps due to the surrounding energy bodies or because he had been cautioned by his Commander and didn't dare to be frivolous anymore.
"The atmosphere feels a bit strange."
Zhou Chen whispered, clearly feeling the scrutinizing gaze coming from the deep black mecha in front, because the analyst was right behind him.
"Their analyst has scanned me three times already."
Chen Sui suddenly said, her voice mixed with a few indecipherable low laughs.
The low-grade energy bodies around weren't difficult to handle, but the current temperature in the sand mirage was extremely high, far exceeding before. In theory, such a large gathering of energy bodies shouldn't occur.
If they were near an oasis, perhaps they could hide, but now these energy bodies directly bypassed Xitisi, rushing toward Zhu Jing Fu, even seemingly attacking the analyst. It was all too obvious.
However, Xie Chunshi hadn't planned to deceive Xitisi for too long anyway.
"Almost at the mirage."
On the route he had determined, there was a mirage about to sink into the ground. The base station's prediction of mirages relied on the energy concentration situation on the ground. This mirage was about to complete "charging" and enter the ground.
With Xie Chunshi's reminder, the Zhu Jing Fu members calmed down, secretly guarding against the surrounding Xitisi.
Meanwhile, in Xitisi's team channel, the foot soldier Jing Yao confirmed: "Chen Sui doesn't have the absorption device. I personally scanned her mecha."
Jing Yao wasn't a repair technician, but a mecha enthusiast who knew various mecha components well, so Song Yuan had asked him to scan Chen Sui's mecha to see if any extra components had been installed.
Song Yuan suspected that, given Zhu Jing Fu's style, they might not honestly install the absorption device directly, but might hide it deeper.
After he spoke, on the other side, He Chigui suddenly remembered something and softly tapped out a few signals. When the team channel quieted down and wouldn't interrupt others, he spoke: "Come to think of it, Zhu Jing Fu seemed to deliberately divert us, and then Chen Sui started repairing Forest Envelopment. I wanted to go over and take a look, but Zhu Jing Fu's agile attacker blocked me, chatting about various things."
He Chigui's cheeks reddened as he spoke. He rarely spoke such a long sentence without pausing for breath, especially when it involved 'criticizing' teammates from different schools, so he felt quite embarrassed.
Song Yuan pondered for a moment, then suddenly smiled on her hard face: "No wonder Xie Chunshi kept me in the information tower."
This smile carried a hint of coldness. Song Yuan's eyes showed faint regret, seemingly blaming herself for not seeing through Zhu Jing Fu's deceptive trick in time.
"What should we do now, just fight?"
Lu Hang Jiu was simple and direct, quite similar to Lu Ting. He preferred fighting over putting on a false appearance if it could solve the problem.
Song Yuan's expression turned serious, and she shook her head before answering: "Zhu Jing Fu has sufficient energy, and their mechas are in good condition. If we fight, we might not come out on top. We need to find an opportunity."
As for what opportunity, Song Yuan looked at the black gold mecha surrounded by a group of energy bodies, a light suddenly flashing in her eyes.
If the absorption device was on Zhu Jing Fu, then after entering the mirage, facing numerous energy body attacks, this would be Xitisi's best chance to take the absorption device.
After leaving the base station, the two teams' facade of unity became increasingly obvious, but when energy bodies approached, they still cooperated well.
Both team Commanders were making their own calculations, trying to lure the other team toward the mirage.
Song Yuan was now more urgent than Xie Chunshi. Seeing Xitisi actively deviating from part of the route, rushing toward the nearby mirage, Xie Chunshi squinted his eyes and smiled like a fox. In the Zhu Jing Fu team channel, he looked at the analyst: "You'll prepare outside the mirage?"
Chen Sui nodded, "No problem."
Plants were rare in the sand mirage, but wood attribute energy was abundantly concentrated, allowing Wood-Born Flower's vines to probe at least a hundred meters underground, enough for Zhu Jing Fu to climb out of the mirage.
—They hadn't planned to enter the mirage again.
Zhu Jing Fu's most important task now was to go to the main base station.
With the absorption device helping to attract monsters along the way, they didn't need to worry about points.
After resolving the surrounding energy bodies, the group propelled toward the mirage's location.
The bullet screen viewers switched between the two perspectives. Although they already knew Xitisi had noticed the anomaly, hearing Song Yuan's words still made them feel frustrated.
[Leader Song, open your mind, open it, is it possible that Chen Sui didn't put the device on herself at all]
[Who could have thought, devices and analysts are both things that need protection, and with the analyst's mental barrier isolation, who would have thought Zhu Jing Fu would do the opposite]
[But this isn't hard to guess, right? Zhu Jing Fu's analyst doesn't need protection, hey! Chen Sui alone can fight a group, she charges the fastest. If the absorption device were on her, wouldn't it get damaged by energy bodies?]
[The way you put it, that's right. Why, when Zhu Jing Fu is already so unconventional, do other academies still use conventional guesses?]
[I'm more curious how the fight between Xitisi and Zhu Jing Fu will turn out]
This question would be answered soon when they saw the mirage.
"This mirage is strange," even before getting close, the analysts from both teams felt abnormal energy fluctuations.
Not yet close, the black gold mecha in the yellow sand stopped in place, raising its eyes to examine the mirage in front.
This mirage was quite similar to the previous temple, with an overall pyramid-like shape. Each level was surrounded by an exaggerated relief wall, with the door at the top open, the red energy tinting the yellow earth walls with a reddish hue.
"Actually fire attribute energy?"
Chen Sui said with some confusion.
Sand mirage was a typical earth and wind attribute energy field, with most energy bodies of these attributes. Of course, there would be many other attribute energy fields, but they shouldn't be strong enough to have such powerful other attribute energy storms to support the mirage's operation.
This fire attribute energy field raised a bad premonition in Chen Sui's heart. She remembered that both the Magma Beast in the Sultry Red Forest and the energy field descent in the Polar World had originated from fire attribute anomalies.
After the Polar World, Chen Sui had curiously checked once, according to the God-Abandoned Domain's pattern, this top ten energy field was currently experiencing a fire attribute wave.
She suddenly exhaled a breath.
Ahead, when He Chigui explained it was a fire attribute mirage, Song Yuan's eyes flashed with surprise, but then she thought of something else.
Fire attribute—for Chen Sui, energy concentration wouldn't be so easy.
"Shall we go?"
Song Yuan looked at the Zhu Jing Fu members who had been motionless for a long time.
Chen Sui said to her: "Leader Song, please wait. This mirage is a bit strange, let's take a look first."
Saying this, she quickly moved around the mirage once.
When she finished speaking, Song Yuan's eyes immediately cooled, thinking Zhu Jing Fu was about to run away. Her hand was already preparing to control energy, but seeing Chen Sui only taking a simple look and immediately landing, she said to the other Zhu Jing Fu members: "It really is fire attribute. Could it be because the sand mirage temperature is too high?"
Within Xitisi, He Chigui finally had a familiar topic and quickly turned to talk with Chen Sui: "You noticed it too, the fire attribute energy in the sand mirage seems particularly intense. The leader showed me the base station data, it's increased at least threefold."
Chen Sui nodded, and began discussing with him: "This kind of energy level increase is very abnormal. In theory, the sand mirage's energy ecology has been basically fixed, unless new fire attribute energy from outside has been concentrated in, but in recent years, the sand mirage's range has been well controlled, and the boundaries haven't expanded."
"What could be the reason for this fire attribute? Could it be that the sand mirage has recently given birth to many fire attribute energy bodies?"
He Chigui asked in confusion. When talking about professional fields, he wasn't as shy as usual.
Chen Sui thought for a moment but didn't give a definite answer, only saying: "From the beginning when we entered the sand mirage, the temperature was somewhat abnormal. Anyway, let's be careful."
As soon as she finished speaking, the group passed through a corridor and entered the pyramid structure, into an extremely large palace interior.
"These are reliefs of Poplar Star, ancient star relics of Flo City!"
This magnificent palace was erected with desolate stone pillars, the floor paved layer by layer with marble, extending upward.
In the ancient relics of Flo City, these walls depicted heroes who had rendered meritorious service in the protection of the ancient star, but now, they were all covered by energy bodies of various forms.
This scene was undoubtedly a provocation to the Star Alliance.
No different from moving down ancestral tablets to worship enemies instead.
"These energy bodies are too arrogant!" Lu Hang Jiu and Chi Buyu, both hot-tempered, quickly found common ground with Zhou Chen from Zhu Jing Fu. The three charged their cannons, raising them toward the wall sculptures, "Today, this young master will blast this place flat."
Occupying their Star Alliance's land, and daring to trample on Star Alliance's predecessors.
The military school students' anger was all stirred up.
In the Zhu Jing Fu team, Chen Sui calmly looked at the surrounding reliefs.
If someone looked closely, they could see that these crudely crafted reliefs depicted faces very similar to those unclear-faced energy bodies surrounding green energy on the wall paintings of the temple mirage.
Neither team's Commanders stopped their teammates. Cannon fire quickly shattered the stones in front, with stone fragments flying everywhere, raising layers of dust indoors.
After demolishing the four-sided reliefs in this palace, the palace surroundings quickly became somewhat dilapidated. The group walked from the half-ruined palace toward the interior.
However, the structure of this mirage seemed like a copy-paste. After leaving the lowest level of the palace, the upper level had a structure identical to the lower level, with even the relief content being very similar.
When Chen Sui scanned it, she suddenly fixed her gaze on one of the reliefs and instinctively reported a position.
Zhou Chen, having just finished demolishing a palace below and with his fiery temperament subsiding, came up to see identical images again and directly raised his cannon to continue firing. Hearing Chen Sui report a position, he turned his cannon toward it and directly blasted that wall to ruins.
Chen Sui: ......
"I meant, there's something different on that wall."
Zhou Chen was stunned: "Huh?"
"What's different? Where?" He looked at the position in front, now a ruin blasted by cannon fire, and suddenly felt a bit guilty.
Chen Sui shook her head. One of the energy bodies' long chitinous fingers seemed to have changed into a somewhat human-like shape.
Chen Sui suddenly held her breath for a second, "Stop blasting, let's go up!"
She looked sternly at the Zhu Jing Fu members. Hearing Chen Sui's voice, Song Yuan also looked over. The two Xitisi members stopped their actions and followed the crowd, running layer by layer upward.
This pyramid structure had six layers in total, each layer becoming slightly smaller, but all arranged with such reliefs.
After arriving at a new layer, Chen Sui's first glance was always at the reliefs.
"Fingers..."
"Limbs..."
Xie Chunshi, hearing her voice, quickly recorded the scene in front of him, directly marking in the team channel the different points Chen Sui found abnormal.
The bullet screen viewers, watching the two military school teams check off the reliefs like a to-do list and then run upward, were completely confused.
[Could any expert explain what Chen Sui discovered?]
[I don't know why, but I got goosebumps all over]
[Something feels strange, but I can't say what's strange, it's so eerie]
[Check the report in the forum special section, there are screenshots of each layer, people are already looking for differences]
[Are the fingers and things Chen Sui mentioned the positions where changes occurred?]
In the control room, upon seeing the reliefs, a flash of hatred appeared in the eyes of several reviewers, but as the military school students entered the second layer, this hatred turned into a kind of worry.
When they reached the fifth layer and saw the reliefs, everyone instinctively gasped.
Before their eyes, who would still think these were energy bodies?
In the image, the energy bodies had shed their typical characteristics, transforming into human-sized bodies, with parts of their original body behind them, fused with their human-like faces, looking particularly eerie.
They could no longer be simply called energy bodies.
That face, the same as the meritorious heroes of the past, but fused with beast forms of energy bodies behind, just looking at it made one's blood run cold.
[I'm getting goosebumps]
[What's going on, I seem to see a process of an energy body transforming]
[No, what are these perverts doing, why turn into our form? Are they sick!]
[What does this mean, is it saying energy bodies can become us?]
[It's so creepy, so creepy, no, I'm just watching the league livestream, why am I seeing such creepy things]
[According to energy body theory, energy bodies cannot transform into humans. Our energy structures are different. To become human, the energy body's energy crystal would directly separate from the human body]
[Like how we can't directly produce energy crystals, but need to use the mental domain as an intermediary?]
[That's the idea. As we all know, energy bodies will die without energy crystals, but human bodies cannot withstand the energy impact of energy crystals]
[What if energy bodies also have mental domains......]
[No, you still don't understand. This isn't about whether energy bodies have mental domains or not. They've already produced energy crystals. Even with mental domains, they can't produce a second energy crystal. This isn't a mental domain issue, it's that their energy crystals aren't compatible with human bodies]
[I understand now, having an energy crystal means energy bodies cannot become human]
[You scared me for a moment, but internet friends are reliable]
[They did all this just to scare me into sweating? Energy bodies? Can you sleep at night?]
[They're so disgusting, doing these things on the wall of merits. The previous shrine too, it's truly disgusting]
At the fifth layer of the mirage, not only did Chen Sui suddenly stop, but accurately speaking, both military schools simultaneously stopped.
At the fifth layer, energy bodies could already exist with a human-like face. Apart from the undetached parts of their original body, they were basically indistinguishable from humans with some concealment.
In this situation, who could distinguish whether they were energy bodies or their own kind?
Chen Sui's heartbeat became particularly strong at this moment.
Beneath the ruins of the mirage, an extremely thin vine crossed the surrounding yellow sand, extending into it, climbing up the mirage layer by layer, trying to slowly encircle its owner's finger.
In Chen Sui's mental domain, the green crystal flickered with active light. That light fluttered, making Chen Sui sense a subtle mocking meaning.
Her fingertips trembled slightly, "Let's go to the sixth layer."
After she spoke, she rushed toward the highest layer of the mirage.
Just as the military school students were leaving the fifth layer, the entire mirage temperature suddenly became scorching, the walls began to shake violently, and the surrounding energy fluctuations became extremely chaotic, with large amounts of fire attribute energy spreading.
Around them, they could even hear the sound of yellow sand sinking into the ground, with rumbling sounds of rolling rocks, as the surrounding light was gradually covered.
Outside the mirage, a huge energy wall surrounded the mirage, with the entire building rolling downward.
The Xitisi members all entered battle readiness.
After reaching the bottom, it would be the moment of rupture between the two teams. The five Xitisi members were ready to open fire on Zhu Jing Fu at any time.
The path to the sixth layer was somewhat rugged. With the shaking of the mirage, the steps became particularly unstable, but after crossing the last step, Chen Sui saw the scene in front of her.
The same palace, reliefs.
—There was no content on them.
When this image appeared, not only did Chen Sui breathe a sigh of relief, but in the control room, everyone also breathed a sigh of relief in unison.
Energy bodies remained separated from humans by a barrier.
Unable to truly become human or replace humans.
This was the answer given by the sixth layer's blank reliefs.
Chen Sui exhaled a breath, but her tense nerves did not relax. Watching the mirage sink deeper into the ground, the top of the sixth layer had already completely submerged into the yellow sand, immediately plunging the entire mirage into darkness.
"Zhou Chen!"
Chen Sui called out.
Zhou Chen immediately understood. His cannon had been maintained at full charge, with the excellent excuse of continuing to blast reliefs. The high-charged energy cannon did not alert the Xitisi members to anything unusual.
"Alert," Song Yuan, hearing this voice, her eyes flashing sharply, immediately turned on the mecha's illumination light, only to see Zhu Jing Fu's agile attacker flash a white light around him, rushing directly toward the top of the pyramid.
—One shot straight to the tower peak.
"Boom!!!"
A fully charged energy cannon, fired at full power, carried strong lightning flashes around it, rushing straight to the roof.
Upon contact with the building, it made a huge explosive sound, like mountain-breaking and stone-splitting, directly tearing open the top of the pyramid to reveal an opening. Dust fell like pouring rain, immediately stirring up the entire hall's visibility.
"Chi Buyu, stop them!"
Song Yuan, seeing Zhou Chen blast open the top, immediately knew Zhu Jing Fu's intentions.
Chi Buyu immediately flew out, the shadow of a long-tailed cat floating behind him. A huge lightning net flew from his mecha's hand, floating toward the top, directly blocking Zhou Chen's ascending route, stopping him in mid-air.
"It seems our cooperation can only end here," Song Yuan looked at the black gold mecha, a circle of water columns forming above her hand. "Zhu Jing Fu isn't very sincere. The absorption device is on you, right?"
Song Yuan didn't need their answer. In fact, after leaving the base station, both teams were somewhat aware.
Xitisi knew Zhu Jing Fu carried the absorption device, and Zhu Jing Fu knew that Xitisi knew this.
The two sides had each experienced extremely complex mental transitions during the short journey from leaving the base station, and now directly confronting each other didn't feel abrupt at all.
"What, the absorption device is actually with us?"
Zhou Chen dodged Chi Buyu's lightning, saying dramatically.
Song Yuan smiled a bit, a smile without much warmth. The water column in her hand shot out directly, bursting into a layer of water spray throughout the sixth layer. The moment the water droplets fell, they congealed into layers of ice beads, spun by energy storms, rushing toward Zhu Jing Fu's direction.
"The mirage has already entered the ground, can you still leave?"
Song Yuan watched as the last glimmer of light disappeared, with the mirage completely moving underground.
Chen Sui's mouth curved slightly, a subtle green light emitting from her body.
"Ah Xue, Zhou Chen, breakthrough."
Gu Qinxue and Zhou Chen drew their weapons. The thorny fire whip, carrying a layer of fierce flames, directly illuminated the palace. The thorny fire whip spun out snake-like fire lines in all directions, colliding with the falling ice beads.
Zhou Chen leapt into the air, his square mace carrying lightning, directly colliding with Chi Buyu's lightning orb.
"Competing with lightning?" Chi Buyu muttered. "You're quite brave. Little Chi is known as the Lightning Law King, forever incredibly strong, determined to be the indestructible cockroach. In the league—"
"Stop with your meaningless rhymes, can you learn from Jipuna after the match?"
Zhou Chen's toes curled with embarrassment, feeling embarrassed on his behalf.
Chi Buyu seemed unaware, seeing Zhou Chen somewhat irritated with his square mace approaching, he just smiled slightly, his asymmetrical eyes particularly obvious, with faint patterns beginning to appear on his face.
"Is that so? Then it seems I'd better stay silent!"
As soon as Chi Buyu finished speaking, he completely closed his mouth. A silver-white lightning line drew from the center of his forehead, directly sliding down his philtrum to his chin. As the lightning line formed, the long tails of the three-tailed cat spread around, with the mid-air lightning storm wielding extremely volatile lightning power downward.
"Damn, you're playing for real, bro."
Zhou Chen was directly hit in the face by the lightning, his palm already spreading in front, instantly dispersing the lightning net.
"Rumble—"
The double lightning strike, if on the ground, would have had the momentum to tear the sky apart.
Underground, it wasn't any less powerful, with the ground-shaking sensation traveling far through the undulating yellow sand.
"Hurry, the descent is reaching its limit."
Wood-Born Flower's energy entanglement couldn't bring mechas out from too deep; they were already nearly a hundred meters deep.
Chen Sui moved immediately, vines leaping up from the bottom, directly twining around the group's mechas.