Chapter 557 An Acquaintance
Yu Sheng sensed that something was wrong—although he couldn't see the pure white dragon's "expression," in the few seconds it descended toward the platform, he could tell from the dragon's series of "deceleration" movements that it seemed flustered.
The next second, he felt a sudden surge of spiritual intuition in his heart, and a premonition of impending death suddenly emerged.
He's all too familiar with that feeling.
So Yu Sheng yelled "Holy crap!" and jumped off the dragon's back without saying a word. He flipped twice in the air, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dazzling streak of light flying towards him from nearby, making a loud "coo coo coo" sound as it flew. Then the streak of light accelerated and rushed to his side, catching him steadily.
Yu Sheng didn't know whether he was riding a salt-baked bird or a boiled bird. Anyway, this bird had evolved to the point that even its own mother wouldn't recognize it. He grabbed a tuft of colorful feathers near the neck of this "celestial bird" and flew towards the high platform in the direction the dragon was falling. When he was halfway there, he saw the dragon fold up half of its wings to prepare to land—but it ended up slamming its head into the ground next to the high platform.
The commotion was truly earth-shaking.
Yu Sheng watched as the colossal creature, twice the size of the fox demon in its fox form, let out a low roar (or perhaps a cry of alarm), smashing through a series of rocks and pillars at the edge of the platform. It swept away all obstacles with overwhelming force before crashing into the platform. Then, due to inertia, the entire dragon was lifted up, carrying an astonishing momentum, before slamming its back onto the platform...
If he were still on the dragon's back at this point, he would have been a flat figure like Irene (in the oil painting version).
Fortunately, the people on the platform reacted quickly. When the dragon swooped down, they realized something was wrong. Hu Li immediately used her tail to wrap around Eileen and rushed to a safe corner. Luna used Shadow Jump to hide on a nearby pillar that was not affected by the impact. The remaining mass-produced dolls ran around noisily on the platform. Some bumped into each other, some rolled and fell, and some crashed and were dragged away by other dolls. In the end, they were all miraculously not hit.
The impact of the dragon's fall even briefly halted the tide of shadows surging from the temple ruins—a pale shockwave spread out from the point of impact, sweeping away the chaotic shadows in the vicinity.
At this moment, Yu Sheng landed on his white-cut (or salt-baked) horse. He hesitated for several seconds before cautiously approaching and coming to the head of the pure white dragon.
Eileen ran over from the side, quickly climbed onto Yu Sheng's shoulder, looked up at the huge head for a long time, and finally managed to squeeze out, "It seems he's not dead."
The enormous dragon head swayed slightly, and its pale eyes slowly focused, looking at Yu Sheng, who was standing near her nose—its eyes seemed a little dazed, or perhaps it was because it was too close to see clearly.
The atmosphere at the scene became a little tense for a moment.
Yu Sheng suddenly felt that the color of those eyes and... "temperament" looked strangely familiar.
Hu Li walked over from the side. She was bold enough to reach out and touch the dragon's nose: "Um, are you alright?"
"Who are you?" Eileen grabbed Yu Sheng's head with one hand and leaned forward, asking loudly, "Where are you from? Can you understand us?"
The dragon shook its head again, finally breaking the silence in a muffled voice: "...I haven't flown in too long."
The moment the dragon shook its head, Yu Sheng and the others instinctively retreated, but after only halfway back, Yu Sheng suddenly realized something and his expression changed in shock: "That voice... Baili Qing!?"
The dragon, who was slowly turning over and getting up, paused for a moment upon hearing this, then turned its head away and said, "No."
Eileen stood up abruptly on Yu Sheng's shoulder, pointed at him, and said, "Then you're a steel-faced idiot!"
"I'm not expressionless."
The little doll laughed and clapped its hands: "Hey! It really is Baili Qing!"
Yu Sheng: “…”
Baili Qing: “…”
"Wait a minute, I'm getting a little confused. This situation is a bit outrageous."
As Yu Sheng spoke, he waved his hand, thinking to himself that his ability to understand things wasn't bad, so why was his head still buzzing? In the end, he could only attribute it to the world—in this wretched place, no matter how big your heart is, it seems there are always more outrageous things waiting for your fate...
"So what exactly is going on here?" He looked up at the pure white dragon before him. "Leaving aside how you got here, your appearance..."
“Do you remember when I told you that the border region once had a chaotic ‘classical era’?” Baili Qing lowered her head slightly, seemingly returning to her usual cold and indifferent demeanor. “Before the stable border city of today appeared, that land was filled with ancient and chaotic alien city-states—dragons, elves, giants, and strange beasts once ruled those broken territories.”
Yu Sheng blinked.
"But you didn't say they all..."
“Yes, it disappeared with the end of the classical era,” Baili Qing said softly, slowly getting up and turning towards the direction of the temple ruins. “But just like the seashells left on the beach after the tide recedes, some ‘fragments’ will always pass through the sieve of the changing times and fall to the side of the new world.”
She paused, then turned her head slightly to look at Yu Sheng: "The borderlands are where the strangest and most bizarre phenomena in the entire universe converge, along with all sorts of races. Among them are some surviving 'ancient alien species'... It shouldn't be too unbelievable."
A viscous shadow is spilling out of the temple ruins, and the "tide" that was briefly stopped is beginning to surge again.
Huli and Luna immediately went to meet them, and a group of mass-produced dolls also hurriedly ran to the edge of the high platform to suppress the "black tide" that was spreading from the ruins.
“Alright, we can talk about those details later. Right now, we need to deal with this problem first,” Yu Sheng quickly focused on the important matter. “To put it simply, we’ve found the ‘source’. It’s in the center of that pile of ‘corpses.’ It’s the remains of the Goddess of Omens—there’s something underneath that looks like an ancient mechanism. That should be the control center of the ‘Boundary Bridge’.”
Baili Qing: "Do you have a way to destroy it?"
“It could also be to turn it off,” Yu Sheng said quickly amidst the flashes of foxfire rising again around him. “I’ve established a preliminary connection with that thing, but it’s not enough. To have a sufficient impact, I need ‘direct contact.’ I need you to take me to that ‘ancient device.’ We were almost there just now.”
“It’s very difficult,” Baili Qing said directly. “The closer you get to that pile of wreckage, the more dangerous it becomes, especially after those ‘eyes’ appear. The mental pollution will make me lose control—I’ve already injected myself with an extremely high dose of sanity blocker that even dragons would find difficult to withstand, but I still can’t get too close to those ‘eyes’.”
"Hey, what happened to that stuff you threw up earlier?" Eileen asked hurriedly while directing the mass-produced dolls on site. "That last 'whoosh,' you threw up all over the place like an ice storm. I think that stuff could temporarily suppress the activity of that pile of wreckage in the temple. What was that?"
Bai Liqing glanced down at the little doll, and whether it was her imagination or not, there seemed to be a hint of embarrassment in her light gray vertical pupils, but she still spoke up: "That's the anti-Eileen Crystal."
The little doll froze for a second.
Then came a burst of poetic and literary chatter—until Yu Sheng grabbed him and covered his mouth.
“Now that things have come to this, I think that thing should probably be called an anti-ominous crystal, but let’s not discuss the details for now,” Yu Sheng said quickly to Baili Qing while pressing down the doll that was struggling in his arms. “Anyway, that thing seems to be very effective against the remains of the Ominous Goddess. Do you have any more?”
“Yes, I brought a lot with me, and they’re all stored in my body,” Baili Qing nodded. “But their suppressive effect is limited to the spawning organisms near the corpses. I can’t deal with close-range mental pollution.”
Unconsciously, Yu Sheng's mind conjured up the countless scarlet eyes that had cracked open from the surface of the ominous god's corpse.
Chaotic and insane.
He frowned and fell into deep thought.
Below the high platform, a dark tide of shadows surged, foxfire burst forth, and rays swept across the land.
Seeing this, Baili Qing couldn't help but exclaim, "You..."
"Don't rush, don't rush," Eileen forcefully pried Yu Sheng's hand off her mouth, shouting as she struggled, "He's got another idea."
Before the little doll could finish speaking, Yu Sheng had already come to his senses and raised a hand: "Luna—"
A dark figure rushed over in a flash. Before Baili Qing could react, she saw a flash of light and a long wound appeared on Yu Sheng's arm.
Luna then ran away without looking back.
Yu Sheng then stretched out his arm in front of Baili Qing's eyes: "Here, lick it."
Bai Liqing stared in disbelief (though this expression didn't really show it, since her face was even harder than in her human form): "...Huh?"
The little doll next to him was getting anxious: "Stop! Drink it now! This will boost your resistance!"
“Go ahead and drink. Everyone on the fairy tale side gets a sip, it won’t hurt,” Yu Sheng quickly explained. “I call this process ‘blood donation.’ After blood donation, you can get a share of special energy from me…”
Before he could finish speaking, the pure white dragon in front of him lowered its head without hesitation and licked his arm with the tip of its tongue.
To be honest, that tongue was about the same size as a person's, and a light lick felt like it was hitting someone. Yu Sheng's arm went numb immediately.
But the blood connection was indeed established, even much faster than when I donated blood to others.
Yu Sheng was a little confused for a moment.
Because he clearly remembered that even though he had mastered the blood-giving ceremony and the control of the blood, it still took a while for the blood to take effect after he gave it to the children in the fairy tale. This thing... should have a delay.
But for Baili Qing, this process ended instantly.
It was as if... that blood was already in her body, and now it was just being reactivated.
(End of this chapter)
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