Chapter 557: An Acquaintance

Yu Sheng felt something was off—although he couldn't see the expression of the pure white dragon, in just those few seconds of descending toward the high platform, he could tell from the dragon's series of deceleration moves that it was completely flustered.

Then, the next second, his spiritual intuition suddenly twanged, and a premonition of imminent death surged up.

That kind of feeling he was all too familiar with.

So Yu Sheng shouted, "Holy shit!" and without a second thought, he jumped straight off the dragon's back. He flipped twice in the air, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dazzling streak of light flying swiftly toward him from nearby. As it flew, it kept making a frantic "coo coo coo" sound, then it accelerated and slid right under him, catching him steadily.

Yu Sheng didn't know if he was riding Yanju or Baichie, but this bird had evolved to the point where even its own mother wouldn't recognize it. He grabbed a tuft of rainbow feathers near the neck of this immortal fowl and followed the dragon's downward trajectory toward the high platform. Halfway there, he saw the dragon retract half its wings, ready to land—and then it drove its head straight into the ground at the edge of the platform.

The impact was truly earthshaking.

Yu Sheng watched as that colossal creature, twice the size of Huli in her fox demon form, let out a low roar (which might have been a yelp) and smashed through a series of rocks and pillars at the edge of the platform, mowing down all obstacles like a whirlwind before hitting the platform itself. Then, carried by momentum, the entire dragon flipped up and slammed onto the stage with its back first, carrying an astonishing force…

If he had still been on that dragon's back, he'd be as flat as Ailin (oil painting version) by now.

Fortunately, the people on the high platform reacted quickly. The moment the dragon swooped down, they sensed something was wrong. Huli immediately wrapped Ailin in her tail and dashed to a safe corner. Luna used Shadow Leap to hide atop a nearby pillar that hadn't been affected. The remaining mass-produced puppets were scurrying around the platform in a chaotic mess, bumping into each other, rolling off the edge, and even freezing up with a mechanical click before being dragged away by other puppets—and somehow, none of them got hit.

The shockwave from the dragon's crash even temporarily halted the tide of shadows surging from the temple ruins—a pale ring of force spread outward from the impact point, sweeping away the nearby chaotic shadows.

Only then did Yu Sheng land, riding Baichie (or Yanju). He hesitated for several seconds before carefully approaching the head of the pure white dragon.

Ailin ran over from the side, quickly climbed onto Yu Sheng's shoulder, looked up at that enormous head for a long time, and finally blurted out: "Guess it's not dead."

The huge dragon's head shook slightly. Its pale eyes slowly focused on Yu Sheng standing near its nose—its gaze seemed a little dazed, or maybe it was just too close to see clearly.

The atmosphere on the scene stiffened for a moment.

Then Yu Sheng suddenly felt that the color of those eyes and... the "temperament" looked vaguely familiar.

Huli came over from the side. Bold as ever, she reached out and touched the dragon's nose: "Um, are you okay?"

"Who are you?" Ailin, holding onto Yu Sheng's head with one hand, leaned forward and shouted, "Where did you come from? Can you understand us?"

The dragon shook its head again and finally broke the silence in a deep, muffled voice: "...I haven't flown for too long."

The instant the dragon shook its head, Yu Sheng and the others instinctively stepped back, but halfway through, Yu Sheng suddenly realized something. His expression turned startled: "That voice... Baili Qing?!"

The dragon, who was slowly turning over and getting up, paused at the words. Then it turned its face away: "No."

Ailin stood straight up on Yu Sheng's shoulder and pointed at the other: "Then you're Steel Face!"

"I'm not Steel Face."

The little doll laughed, clapping her hands: "Hey hey! It really is Baili Qing!"

Yu Sheng: "..."

Baili Qing: "..."

"Hold on, I'm a little confused. This situation is ridiculous."

Yu Sheng waved his hand as he spoke, thinking to himself that his tolerance wasn't that bad, but his head was still ringing. He finally chalked it up to this world—no matter how open-minded you were in this damn place, there was always something even crazier waiting ahead on fate's path...

"So what exactly is going on?" He looked up at the pure white dragon before him. "Let's put aside how you got here for now, but this appearance of yours..."

"Remember when I told you that the Borderlands once had a chaotic 'Classical Era'?" Baili Qing lowered her head slightly, seemingly resuming her usual cold and indifferent demeanor. "Before the stable domain cities we have today, that land was covered with ancient and chaotic mutant city-states—dragons, elves, giants, and demonic beasts once ruled those fragmented territories."

Yu Sheng blinked.

"But didn't you say they all..."

"Yes, they vanished with the end of the Classical Era," Baili Qing said softly. She slowly turned and faced the direction of the temple ruins. "But just like seashells left on the beach after the tide recedes, there are always some 'debris' that slip through the sieve of changing eras and fall onto the other side of the new world."

She paused and glanced sideways at Yu Sheng: "The Borderlands gather the most bizarre phenomena and all kinds of races from the entire universe. It shouldn't be too unbelievable that some surviving 'ancient mutants' are hidden there..."

Viscous shadows were spilling out from the temple ruins. The briefly halted "tide" began to surge again.

Huli and Luna immediately rushed to meet it, and the group of mass-produced puppets hastily ran to the edge of the high platform to start suppressing the dark tide flowing out of the ruins.

"Alright, we'll talk about these details later. Right now, we need to deal with the trouble at hand," Yu Sheng quickly shifted his focus to the main issue. "In short, we've found the 'source.' It's at the center of that pile of 'corpses'—the remains of the Omen Goddess. Below it is something like an ancient mechanism, which should be the control hub for the 'World Bridge.'"

Baili Qing: "Can you destroy it?"

"Or maybe turn it off," Yu Sheng said rapidly, amidst the foxfire flashes rising around them again. "I've already established a preliminary connection with that thing, but it's not enough. To have enough influence, I need direct contact. I need you to send me near that ancient device. I was close just now."

"That's very difficult," Baili Qing said bluntly. "The closer you get to that pile of remains, the more dangerous it is, especially after those 'eyes' appeared. The mental contamination will make me lose control—I've already injected an extremely high dose of rational suppressant that even a dragon couldn't handle, but I still can't get too close to those 'gazes.'"

"Hey, what about that stuff you spat out earlier?" Ailin, while directing the mass-produced puppets on the scene, suddenly interjected in a rush. "That last 'whoosh' thing, like an ice storm all over the ground. I saw it seemed to temporarily suppress the activity of that pile of remains in the temple. What was that?"

Baili Qing looked down at the little doll. It might have been an illusion, but her pale gray slit-pupiled eyes seemed to show a hint of embarrassment. Still, she spoke: "That was an Anti-Ailin Crystal."

The little doll froze solid on the spot.

Then came a torrent of chirping and cursing—until Yu Sheng grabbed her and covered her mouth.

"Given the situation, I think it might be called an Anti-Omen Crystal by now, but we'll discuss the details later," Yu Sheng said quickly to Baili Qing while holding the struggling doll against his chest. "Anyway, that stuff seems to work well against the Omen Goddess's remains. Do you have any more?"

"Yes, I brought a lot, all stored in my body," Baili Qing nodded. "But their suppressing effect is limited to the spawn near the corpse. I can't handle the close-range mental contamination."

In Yu Sheng's mind, the countless scarlet eyes that tore open on the surface of the Omen god's corpse involuntarily surfaced.

Chaotic and mad.

He frowned in deep thought.

Below the high platform, the dark tide of shadows was surging. Foxfire blazed, rays swept across.

Baili Qing couldn't help but speak up: "You..."

"Don't rush, don't rush," Ailin struggled to pry Yu Sheng's hand off her mouth, shouting loudly as she squirmed, "He's got another idea."

Before the little doll finished speaking, Yu Sheng had already snapped back to attention. He raised a hand: "Luna—"

A black shadow dashed over in a flash. Before Baili Qing could even react, a blade flashed, and a long gash appeared on Yu Sheng's arm.

Then Luna ran off without looking back.

Yu Sheng thrust his arm in front of Baili Qing: "Here, give it a lick."

Baili Qing was dumbfounded (though her expression was hard to read, since her current face was much tougher than her human form): "...Huh?"

The little doll beside her was frantic: "Stop 'huh'-ing! Drink up, this gives you resistance!"

"Drink it. Everyone in Fairy Tale has had a taste. It's not bad," Yu Sheng quickly explained. "I call this process 'Blood Granting.' After receiving the blood, you can share a portion of my special ener—"

Before he finished his sentence, he saw the pure white dragon in front of him lower her head without hesitation and lick his arm with her tongue.

To be honest, that tongue was about the same size as him. A single lick felt like being smashed, and half of Yu Sheng's arm went numb on the spot.

But the blood connection did establish itself, even faster than when he granted blood to others before.

Yu Sheng was a bit stunned.

Because he clearly remembered that even after mastering the Blood Granting ritual procedure and control over his blood, it still took a while for the effect to take hold when he granted blood to the kids of Fairy Tale. There should have been a delay...

But on Baili Qing, the process ended instantly.

It was as if... the blood had always been inside her body, and now it was just being reactivated.