Super Souvenir

The angels had fallen. The gloom that had shrouded the Borderland was finally swept away. The Boundary Bridge and its associated spatial rifts had completely receded more than ten minutes ago, and the spatial anomalies above the Borderland dome had calmed as well. As the great shield restarted and gradually dissipated, the entire city began to recover from "wartime state."

The Linghu System was restoring the temporarily flipped districts back to the real dimension. Mobile units and special operator teams that had been deployed in various areas began checking street by street to ensure no residual contamination remained on the real border. The Deep Divers began an orderly withdrawal, making sure no traces exceeding the "safety level" remained in the real Border City.

The Council Tower still stood in the city center. Its upper levels had been affected by spatial rifts at the edge of the Boundary Bridge, damaging the top and some curtain walls, but the melodious horn sound emanating from the tower had persisted until the end—now it had become a calm, gentle chime like wind chimes, indicating that a full-area "awakening" was about to be performed.

After all districts were fully reset into the real dimension, people would wake from a collective daze and return to normal life.

While the official forces of Border City were conducting these cleanup operations, the "civilian forces" that had fought in various districts to help repel the invasion also withdrew to their respective strongholds.

At the square of Fairy Tale Town, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Mo Ran from Shuji were among the last groups to return to the valley.

The good news that the crisis had subsided and the joy of victory made everyone quite excited. The square was bustling—of course, the liveliest ones were always the same few goofballs.

"Let me tell you, your big sister here was slaughtering them left and right," Snake Empress boasted, having taken the highest point in the square—the roof of Dorothy's tactical command vehicle. She was coiled around the roof several times, her upper body raised high, bragging triumphantly to a group of nearby kids. "All those things falling from the sky, I swallowed them one by one, killed a bunch without even lifting a finger..."

Rapunzel ruthlessly exposed her: "You call that not lifting a finger? You were grabbed by someone and never got a chance to move—I saw you being swung around by that Titan until sparks flew."

Snake Empress's face flushed red. She banged the roof of the command vehicle with the tip of her tail and argued, "I, I opened my mouth, I have teeth. It's a snake demon thing—when a snake demon uses its mouth, that counts as using its hands, you understand..."

Rapunzel: "You were vomiting—"

Snake Empress kept flicking her tongue at Rapunzel and banging the roof of the command vehicle with the tip of her tail.

Dorothy really felt sorry for her vehicle. She waved her hand and retracted it. Snake Empress fell to the ground with a splat. She had been coiled up like a pagoda candy, and now she collapsed into a coil like a mosquito incense coil. Then she let out a stream of literary curse words mixed with crude phrases from the Taixu Ling Region—she stopped mid-rant, flustered, because she saw that there were kids under ten years old at the scene...

As a wild yokai, she didn't really have the concept of civility or not corrupting children—but Old Man Yun's itch-scratcher really hurt when it hit her head.

Little Red Riding Hood ignored the commotion between Snake Empress and Rapunzel. She was busy checking the material losses and injuries from this operation. Now that the family was better off, they had plenty of rationality blockers and gray matter compound—remedies they wouldn't have dared to use before, but now in ample supply. Yet she still found that several people had gone out to save medicine. Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella had even brought their medicine packs back untouched.

Little Red Riding Hood knew that this wasn't because they were deliberately economizing or unable to distinguish between minor and major issues. It was a habit they had long formed. Many companions acted this way during missions: unless the situation was truly desperate, they would tough it out first. Especially now that they had the safety net barrier of the Soul Wilderness—as long as they could retreat alive, no matter how severe the contamination, they just needed to sleep it off. That made them even more inclined to be frugal without thinking.

But this wasn't a good habit these days. However, habits don't change overnight. She would have to have a good talk with everyone later...

There were also a few injured. Though not serious, each had lessons to learn. Jack's injury was the most ridiculous—he was a summoner who normally didn't need to engage enemies directly, but he ended up hurting himself by using his beanstalk to blow up a self-propelled artillery piece of the Greenfield Field Army. Clearly a coordination problem.

There were also problems exposed during coordination among several squads: chaos caused when everyone's abilities misfired together, command disconnect due to Snow White's overly aggressive advance, communication difficulties caused by Belle's loss of language ability after turning into a beast...

Little Red Riding Hood looked up at Rapunzel, who was still messing around with Snake Empress, and felt her head ache even more.

Mo Ran stood with several of her trusted retainers in a corner of the square. Newly arrived, she couldn't quite integrate into the "unique atmosphere" here. But after fighting side by side, she was deeply impressed by the maturity and viciousness far beyond their ages displayed by these seemingly young "children," as well as their bizarre abilities. Now, watching them return to being lively and playful like young people should be, she found it all quite unbelievable.

"So these are Yu Sheng Zhenjun's 'family'? Quite fitting for the Zhenjun's... 'style.'"

"When can I go back to prison..." said Bone-Eating Immortal, sitting on a nearby swing set. Her voice came muffled from under the iron mask. "Life in the Demon Suppression Tower is so peaceful."

But before she finished speaking, Blood Prince stood up and solemnly cupped his hands toward the air: "I have decided to strive for the Zhenjun's great cause for the rest of my life..."

Bone-Eating Immortal's eyes went wide: "Sissy, did you take the wrong medicine?"

"Alas, when the giant tower in the sky receded, he made a mistake and let his energy loosen," Withered Garden Elder sighed nearby. "At the time, he was standing right next to the diffusion device. The last wisp of blood mist was coming out of the blood storage tank, and he absorbed it all."

Bone-Eating Immortal was stunned. A bit flustered, she looked at the eerie old man full of deathly aura: "Are you okay? You were standing even closer than he was."

"I am different," Withered Garden Elder said, stroking a few pale, withered beard hairs with an inscrutable expression. "He was affected by the blood mist. I willingly continue to serve the Zhenjun—the blood contains boundless mysteries..."

He then went on a string of exclamations about wonderful insights, great benefits, how he had been foolish and gone astray before but now knew the true path—a bunch of incomprehensible stuff.

Bone-Eating Immortal gradually felt a chill run down her spine. She quickly moved to another swing, trying to get as far away from the sissy and the old geezer as possible.

But as soon as she moved, she felt eyes on her. She turned around and saw a little girl in a white dress, about six or seven years old, with two pigtails and bright eyes.

The sound of gnashing iron from under the mask suddenly stopped.

"Do you want to play on the swing?" Bone-Eating Immortal asked.

The little girl nodded.

Bone-Eating Immortal jumped down from the swing and watched the little girl sit on it. The girl waved at her: "Push me."

Bone-Eating Immortal tilted her head, her eyes seeming a bit dazed. Then she hesitantly reached out and gave a gentle push, then another.

The swing swung. Xiao Xiao laughed happily. She had not yet obtained her own "Wolf," but the wolf's instinct had awakened in her spirit. She felt that the strange older sister with the iron mask was quite easy to get along with.

"I used to... have a daughter," Bone-Eating Immortal mumbled softly.

Xiao Xiao turned in surprise, thinking for a moment, then asked curiously, "How old is she?"

"Five. Always five." Bone-Eating Immortal laughed, her eyes curving.

The swing swayed. Xiao Xiao tilted her head in confusion.

"She was killed by bad people," Bone-Eating Immortal said casually, pushing the swing gently.

Xiao Xiao was taken aback. After a moment, she asked, "And... the bad people?"

"I ate them," Bone-Eating Immortal's eyes curved even more, as if she was especially pleased. "Ate them all—and then I became a bad person."

The swing swung high. Sky and earth tilted up and down in her view. The clouds in the sky slowly scattered, and the sky between the Black Forest and Starport shimmered with an eerie light, bright and dazzling.

Xiao Xiao laughed happily, holding the swing rope with one hand and pointing at the sky above the Black Forest with the other: "Look!"

The children here aren't even afraid of eating people?

Bone-Eating Immortal looked at the child on the swing in confusion, then turned to look in the direction she was pointing.

She saw a gorgeous "aurora" spreading above the forest. In the curtain of light, a huge rift slowly opened in the sky.

Inside the rift was another world—a solitary peak suspended in chaos, with ruins like an ancient secret realm vaguely visible on its summit. It was quite large, but the style was unrecognizable.

Withered Garden Elder and Blood Prince also stood up instinctively.

Everyone's gaze turned toward the rift—including the children running around on the square and the formidable old man who called himself the "orphanage gatekeeper" not far away.

The rift moved slowly across the sky. At first, it seemed to want to stay above the Black Forest, but soon it shifted above the Starport. Then, as if thinking the location wasn't right, it began to drift toward the white tower at the other end of the valley—that was Rapunzel's tower. She didn't usually live there; the tower was mainly used as an adventure base for the children or a place for Jack to hang his beanpoles.

Bone-Eating Immortal's eyes grew wider and wider. The ancient, vast aura emanating from the solitary peak in chaos shook her spirit. The sight of an entire space moving across the sky surpassed her understanding of "secret realms" as a cultivator.

So what was the space on the other side of that rift? A newly opened ancient secret realm? A hidden sanctuary in this valley?

The swing stopped. She heard the little girl next to her clapping, full of excitement.

"Look! Big brother brought back a souvenir! This time it's a mountain!"

(End of chapter)