Chapter 551: Chaos

Above the Borderlands, the “Border Bridge” extending from a distant dimension continued to “grow,” while pollutants spilling from the ancient outer god’s remains relentlessly corroded the Great Shield. On the surface of the Great Shield, countless cracks of all sizes were spreading and growing. The viscous shadows seeping through the cracks dripped into the city, transforming into terrifying, chaotic hallucinations.

The fog spread, and the city was “flipping” block by block. To protect the Border City at the reality level, the Special Service Bureau had no choice but to replace more and more of the Mist City with reality. Although they were reversing the successfully purified areas as quickly as possible, as the pollution continued to expand, the number of “foggy areas” across the city inevitably increased.

Now, the boundary between reality and illusion across the entire area was gradually blurring. Fog of varying density was slowly spreading through all neighborhoods, and the Mist City and the real Border City coexisted in a jumble. Deep within the haze, every building and street seemed to be covered by a surreal, kaleidoscopic filter.

“It’s over, it’s over… this time it might really be the end…”

Luo looked at the situation around her, hearing the constant roar of heavy weapons firing in the distance, and the harsh, strained screeching of the Great Shield overhead from time to time. She couldn’t help but start muttering to herself. As she murmured, a group of shadows wandering from the nearby neighborhoods noticed the “prey” here.

Those shadows had almost completely lost their human form, closer to monsters that would appear in the nightmares of the outer gods—as if they gathered all the fearful impressions mortals had of death and the end. The shadows twisted and deformed, charging toward this spot along the nearby buildings and twisted roads in a horrifying manner.

But in the next second, Luo saw another group of entities condensed from shadows appear in the nearby fog—a pack of wolves from the Black Forest manifested in the fog as if out of nowhere, charging without hesitation at the gathering monsters.

“Snow White, are you ready yet?” Little Red Riding Hood took a moment to turn her head, looking at the short-haired girl standing not far away.

The short-haired girl waved without turning around: “Done, done, they’re all in position. Watch your wolves’ heads so they don’t get stepped on—”

The next second, Luo heard heavy footsteps, and the smell of lightning and flames burning the air.

Feeling a heavy pressure descending out of nowhere, Luo looked up in stunned disbelief.

She saw seven giant-like figures stepping out of the fog—clad in armor forged from elements like lightning, fire, steel, and frost, with hair and beards bristling, like gods walking the earth from some ancient legend.

The unlucky elf, who had just been thinking her life was about to end, was completely dumbfounded. She watched as the short girl, who clearly wasn’t even of age, was pinched onto the shoulder of one of the lightning giants by a few fingers, and then the seven “mythical creatures” began rampaging through the entire neighborhood under the little girl’s command. For a while, shadow monsters were being flattened and sent flying everywhere.

Luo held back for a long time, then finally couldn’t help but yell: “What the hell is this?!”

“It’s Snow White and her seven Thunder Titans,” Little Red Riding Hood said matter-of-factly, but quickly realized, “Oh, right, you’re an extremist—you probably don’t read children’s books…”

Luo snapped angrily: “I told you I’m a sci…”

But before she could finish, a sudden warning struck her heart. A whistling sound came quickly to her ear. As she turned, she saw a blurry shadow pouncing at her. She hurriedly tried to condense a mental fireball—but before the fireball formed, a nearby Thunder Giant strode over and casually pulled a streetlamp pole from a nearby intersection, swinging it in a full arc and slapping the shadow to the ground.

Luo felt a gust of wind in her face, and broken earth and stones rained down on her head and face. She could only clumsily dodge aside: “Oh my god—”

But her exclamation was quickly swallowed by the successive roars nearby.

The number of monsters around was astonishing, and the battle between the wolf pack and the Thunder Titans was unlike any battlefield Luo was familiar with. After nearly being stepped on by a Titan a third time, Luo decisively scurried back into the “guardhouse” where the gate was, hugging the doorframe and refusing to go out again.

But just when she thought it would be a little safer, a figure suddenly dashed out from the gate, bumping into Luo, who was still hugging the doorframe, and knocking her into the open space outside.

The unlucky elf hadn’t even gotten up, dizzy, when an excited voice exploded in her ear: “You guys are fighting and didn’t tell me! I’m coming to help too!”

Luo shook her head vigorously, and saw a pretty girl in a plain silk long dress, hands on her hips, with a radiant expression—but below her waist was a snake tail several meters long.

Snake Girl cracked her knuckles: “Who are we fighting? Who? These twisted, crooked things, right?”

“Where did this one come from…”

Just as this thought crossed Luo’s mind, she saw a nearby Thunder Titan striding toward her. She instinctively dodged, but saw the Titan bypass her directly, then bend down and casually pick up the giant snake monster by its tail.

Luo didn’t react, and neither did the snake monster.

A blob of viscous shadow dripped from the sky and quickly took shape in the fog.

The Thunder Titan swung Snake Girl in a full arc and slapped her onto that shadow mass. “Smack!” It was loud, and that thing was scattered.

The air immediately echoed with Snake Girl’s wailing: “Fuck!—Nobody told me before I came that outside this gate was Snow White and her seven bodyguards! Oh fuck, don’t, don’t… Ah!”

“Whoosh—smack!”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t! I can fight on my own…”

“Smack! Smack!”

“You fucking… that’s not how you use me—”

Luo sat on the ground, staring in shock at this violent scene, watching the Thunder Titan swinging an eight-meter-long snake monster, whipping and whipping, the surrounding dense fog shattered and blown away by the gale, forming an expanding vortex. It was no exaggeration—she suddenly felt she’d rather be back on that space station that could collapse at any moment.

“Th-This… who is this now?!”

“Her name is Snake Girl,” Little Red Riding Hood said without looking back while directing the wolves. “She’s a monster, a freeloader.”

“…Why do you have a freeloading monster here?!”

Little Red Riding Hood turned to look at Luo: “Don’t you guys keep pets in your kindergarten?”

In the distance, a loud rumble sounded. A dragon wrapped in flames fell from the clouds, and a small mushroom cloud rose at the end of the block.

Luo’s expression twisted a bit in the flash of the mushroom cloud: “I’m fucking begging you, just use some Black Psychic instead…”

But Little Red Riding Hood didn’t pay attention to Luo’s frantic muttering. She looked up at the giant snake fighting valiantly alongside the Titans, and shouted: “Snake Girl! How did you come alone—where’s Elder Yun?”

Snake Girl fluttered in the air: “What did you say—the wind is too loud, I can’t hear you!”

Little Red Riding Hood yelled: “I said, why didn’t Elder Yun come—it’s turning into a damn furnace out here!”

“Someone from Shuji came!” Snake Girl yelled back. “Said they sent a batch of weapons. Old Man Yun was afraid the kids couldn’t handle the scene, so he went to receive them personally… Woohoo… Ahaha!”

Little Red Riding Hood looked up, watching Snake Girl flying around and around in the Thunder Titan’s hand, and frowned slightly.

“Why does it feel like she’s enjoying it?”

As she spoke, she noticed Luo sneaking toward the teleportation gate guardhouse, and immediately glared: “Where are you going?”

“Can I go back and hide first?” Luo was almost crying. “I don’t think you need me…”

“No, you’re a dangerous element.”

“But I feel like everyone in this damn place is more dangerous than me!”

…

Inside the central pyramid in the valley, one of the gates in the teleportation hall was opened from the other side. After a moment of stabilization, Mo Ran walked out of the gate with several trusted subordinates.

Among the trusted experts were three special “guests” under constant surveillance—Elder Kuting, Blood Prince, and Bone Devouring Immortal.

“Don’t be rude here,” Mo Ran turned to the three behind her and instructed. “This is True Lord Yu Sheng’s otherworldly cave dwelling. Being able to come here is your fortune. If you three hadn’t been meritorious in artifact forging, you would never have had this opportunity.”

As she spoke, she looked up and surveyed the extremely spacious hall before her. She felt that the style was extremely archaic and imposing, as if the entire building had been naturally grown from a single boulder by the forces of creation. Her heart stirred with slight awe.

Although Yu Sheng had left a fixed teleportation gate between Shuji and the valley before, this was the first time she had personally come here. Well… it was worthy of a True Lord’s work.

A few of the mines in Shuji that had recently resumed operation were also “grown” and repaired by the True Lord using secret arts—presumably similar great divine abilities?

Behind Mo Ran, Elder Kuting, Blood Prince, and Bone Devouring Immortal were also secretly sizing up their surroundings.

They found no trap spirit artifacts, sensed no spiritual energy secret arts, and didn’t even see any decent guards.

“Before we came, I happened to hear that the ‘True Lord Yu Sheng’ is not in his cave dwelling,” Elder Kuting transmitted his voice to the other two. “We’re just here to deliver the goods to his sect disciples…”

“What, you have an idea?” Blood Prince wore his usual smile, but his eyes flickered slightly. “It might cost us our lives.”

“Just thinking—thinking isn’t a crime,” Elder Kuting lowered his gaze. “But then again, what if… We’re no longer within the Feather Realm. Just one step, one step out…”

“Anyway, I wouldn’t dare think about it,” Bone Devouring Immortal’s bright eyes looked at his two companions, and under his iron mask, there was the usual creaking noise from time to time. “Neither of you have ever directly touched that ‘blood.’ I have. That thing… is evil beyond belief—eviler than you, old man.”

Elder Kuting’s eyes flickered, but he said nothing more. Just then, they saw a few figures appear at the entrance of the hall.

They were a few half-grown children with no trace of cultivation aura.

“Elder Yun will be here soon!” One of the children came up to Mo Ran, curiously observing these strangers who had come to the valley for the first time, without any shyness. “There’s a war outside right now. Sister Red Riding Hood and the others aren’t here…”

“Elder Yun?” Mo Ran was momentarily stunned, not catching on.

“Ah, he’s the gatekeeper grandpa at our orphanage~ The parents are all out, Brother Yu isn’t here either, and the teachers are all off today, so he’s receiving you.”

Mo Ran was still frozen, but behind her, the three—Blood Prince—had already exchanged glances instinctively.

There was a war outside the True Lord’s cave dwelling! The elders inside were all out fighting! There were only these uninitiated children here—and an old man guarding the cave dwelling!

In other words, the only threats around were Mo Ran and the few experts she brought…

The look of glee in Blood Prince’s eyes could barely be contained. It was about to reach his brow…

But it stopped right at his eyelids.

Because the next second, he saw an old man with an immortal aura walking in through the door.

The old man’s cultivation level was beyond his ability to discern—but the back scratcher in the old man’s hand was probably half a realm higher than Bone Devouring Immortal.

Elder Kuting, Blood Prince, and Bone Devouring Immortal looked up and exchanged glances—looked at each other, look at each other.

A moment later, the three of them had expressions as firm as if they were ready to go through fire and water for the Borderlands.

Or of course, they could go through fire and water for other things—wherever that True Lord Yu Sheng pointed, they would go.

…What the hell kind of place was this?! An expert who looked at least in the Supreme Harmony realm was acting as a gatekeeper grandpa here!