Chapter 813 - 812: Beneath the High Wall

Chapter 813: Chapter 812: Beneath the High Wall

As soon as Erin saw the bonfire in the distance, she began to poke Yu Sheng’s back of the head: "Hey, Yu Sheng, look over there! That scene looks familiar—"

"I see it," Yu Sheng said while dodging the fingers that kept poking, "it’s quite a coincidence..."

The group then approached the remnants of the broken walls, and as the distance decreased, Yu Sheng could clearly see the figure hiding by the bonfire—a familiar ragged robe and strange instrument placed on his lap. The nameless minstrel leaned against the building ruins, mostly hidden by a collapsed wall, almost blending into the shadows of the structure.

Yu Sheng led a mighty group, some flying in the sky and some running on the ground, including an oversized armored troop carrier and an even larger Nine-tailed Fox, yet the figure sitting by the bonfire seemed oblivious to the massive presence approaching, never lifting his head until Hu Li was almost close to him.

Yu Sheng felt a vague sense of unease, jumped off the Nine-tailed Fox’s back, and called for the Knight, cautiously approaching the minstrel from a few meters away.

The minstrel still sat quietly by the bonfire pile, the hood of his tattered robe covering his face, leaving only a shadow beneath the brim.

"Hey!" Erin, who also felt something was amiss, still reached out to greet him, "We’ve met again! This time we’ve come directly to your homeland!"

The minstrel remained with his head down, like a shadow left in a past moment.

Yu Sheng walked forward two more steps, right next to the bonfire—the orange flames burned at his feet, icy cold like the surrounding mist.

"Can you hear us talking?" Yu Sheng asked guardedly, "The Lodaxim High Wall seems to have disappeared... I heard the exiles were called back to the Kingdom, is that why you returned?" ℯℯ𝑙.

It seemed the keywords Lodaxim High Wall and Kingdom finally elicited a response, and the minstrel’s hood slightly turned towards Yu Sheng, a hoarse, hollow voice emanating from beneath the hood: "...Can you hear it?"

Yu Sheng frowned: "Hear what?"

"The sound of writing, the sound of smearing, the sound of turning pages, then another page," the minstrel slowly spoke, his voice growing hoarser, and his body seemed to tremble slightly under the cloak, "the air speaks, the stones and earth speak too... they say this story is coming to an end, there’s one page left, the final page..."

Erin suddenly grabbed Yu Sheng’s hair, a doll never afraid of anything, but now she was nervous: "Yu, Yu Sheng, this guy isn’t right... I feel like his head is going to have a health bar..."

Yu Sheng was about to say something when he saw the minstrel suddenly turn his hood again, his gaze seemingly falling on the Knight.

"Ah... the clumsy Knight has returned home... why come back?"

"You know me?" The voice from under the Knight’s helmet was somewhat muffled and surprised; he instinctively stepped forward, "I, I’ve been gone for so long, I don’t remember who I am... you know me, do you know where my home is? This place feels different from my memory..."

"You want to go home? What does going home mean at this time?"

The Knight spoke softly: "I want to go home to find my daughter, her name is Rosaline, she’s... waiting for me home alone..."

The minstrel was silent for a long while, then the hoarse, hollow voice came from beneath the hood—

"I am also searching for the path home..."

His tattered cloaked figure slowly stood up from beside the bonfire.

"I’ve saved money for many years... the wind on the wilderness tells me, the walls of the Kingdom are built with darkness, only pure brilliance can open the door to return home..."

Hu Li suddenly lowered herself, growling lowly from her throat: "Savior, something’s wrong under that cloak..."

"Clumsy Knight, the wall still stands, come, push open its gates..."

The minstrel lifted his head, and beneath the ragged hood, a ball of pitch-black flame fiercely burned, collapsing madly towards its center.

Erin let out a sudden scream: "I said there’d be a health bar appearing!"

The next second, Yu Sheng already retreated several steps carrying the little puppet, simultaneously pulling along the Knight who seemed a bit slow to react, distancing themselves immediately from the minstrel who had clearly undergone a mutation. Almost at the same moment, the ragged cloak on the minstrel was instantly incinerated by the violently erupting black flame.

Erin, who had just summoned the frying pan, abruptly widened her eyes.

Beneath the incinerated cloak was a set of heavy and remarkably familiar armor.

The knight’s armor.

However, it was even more tattered and ancient-looking—as if it had weathered countless ages. The black armor was already rusted, covered in defects and cracks, with large and small dents that seemed to have come from innumerable fierce battles.

Pitch-black flames spewed from every crack of the armor, only to coil back inside. The swirling fire at the head of the "Minstrel" expanded and contracted, emitting a hoarse, hollow sound—

"The horn has sounded..."

A battle axe formed of black flame appeared in his hand, and the figure of the "Minstrel" suddenly grew nearly twice as tall, then swung the axe down without hesitation.

But Yu Sheng and the others had already reacted. Just as the opponent raised its weapon, more than a dozen concentrated clusters of Fox Fire suddenly swept across with the rapid "dadadada" of gunfire, followed immediately by the sound of paving stones slicing through the air from above.

Yet the pitch-black flames surged, and Hu Li’s hastily launched first wave of attack was instantly consumed by the flames, while the mass-produced puppets flying high in the sky encountered a large area of enemies that seemed to appear out of thin air—massive Stone Gargoyles and winged Demons emerged from nowhere, swarming towards them.

The horn sounded, and the deep, suffocating horn echoes between heaven and earth, interspersed with what sounded like war drums, the earth trembling as if mountains collapsed onto the plains.

A mighty high wall astonishingly appeared out of nowhere in front of everyone; the ruins where the Minstrel had previously nestled became part of the wall. The endless ramparts stretched from the wilderness to the horizon, and in the distant clouds, a vast mountain descended—

"Whoa?!" Erin, holding a frying pan in one hand and clutching Yu Sheng’s hair with the other, stood on his shoulder and exclaimed, "Where the hell did this come from? Wasn’t it all just a picture till now?!"

However, Yu Sheng could no longer respond to the little one’s exclamations, because as the immense high wall appeared, countless grotesque mutated creatures also emerged from all directions.

There were ancient armors, rusted and hollow. There were high wall sentinels, nearly rotten away entirely, with only black flames coursing through their skeletons. There were statues come to life, swaying treefolk, and a variety of bizarre beasts whose original forms could no longer be discerned.

The two defensive laser cannons mounted on the armored transport vehicle were instantly activated and began furiously firing at all surrounding enemies, accompanied by the continuous humming of crystal recharging, dense beams sweeping over all who dared approach.

The Force Field Sword emitted a deep hum, and the brass knights clad in heavy armor instantaneously formed a line, withstanding the onslaught of monsters from every side. The decomposition force field on their greatswords repeatedly tore through the armor and bones of the twisted aberrations.

Meanwhile, within the battlefield, phantom-like shadows leaped into the air, elegantly dancing as they shredded what appeared to be the more threatening mutated creatures into pieces.

Then several bursts of fire lit up, and silver-white Fox Tails, spewing blue propulsion flames, launched into the sky. Some of these "Fox Radish Missiles" passed through gaps in the "Erin Earthwood Sword Array," causing powerful explosions among the sky-occupying Stone Gargoyles and winged Demons. Others plummeted onto the plains after traversing a few brief arcs.

Mushrooming fireballs roared upwards, the ghostly blue Fox Fire rapidly spreading across the battlefield, using the remains of monsters as fuel.

The spreading Fox Fire even temporarily suppressed the black flames brought by the tide of monsters.

Nevertheless, the monsters were endless, with a considerable number seeming to directly split off from that boundless, magnificent high wall—they came in wave after wave, to the point even Luna’s Valhalla unit felt immediate pressure.

"Clear the area! Hu Li, make some space!" Yu Sheng, now mounted on the Great Demon Fox’s back, shouted while rapidly using the Blood Needle Launcher to convert the nearest enemies, "Luna, get ready to call for reinforcements—we need more manpower. Erin, do you still have any reserve paving stone fairies? And—"

"You’re the paving stone fairy, your whole family are paving stone fairies! This is the ace unit! Airborne Puppet Army—"

"Call it what you like, just call for reinforcements!"

Yu Sheng kept talking loudly, all the while shooting around from Hu Li’s back, quickly converting dozens of grotesque mutated beasts to follow him, while he also took a moment to glance to the side.

A tall figure wrapped entirely in black flames was wielding a battle axe; the once "Minstrel" had completely transformed into a foreign form. Its figure swelled, towering over three meters, and it seemed that neither Hu Li’s occasional barrage nor the paving stones dropped by the mass-produced puppets could inflict enough damage on it.

Even Erin exclaimed in surprise: "...What kind of material is that, how can it be so resilient?!"

Yu Sheng could not answer her, and in the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the knight—the latter was crawling out from a pile of ruins and looked quite battered, evidently having just been knocked away.

Yet, the knight shakily stood up, and somehow a battle axe also appeared in his hand—a battle axe that was rusted and wrapped with dirty, scrappy cloth.

Then he rushed forward again, charging toward the creature clad in identical armor to him, the creature now turned into a maelstrom of uncontrolled, icy black flames—the "Minstrel."

And then he was knocked away once more.