Chapter 390 Xia Pingzhou: Black Pupa, Still Alive (asking for monthly tickets)
The girl in the ochre-red kimono stood above the Black King's territory. Looking around, the black and white checkerboard grids extended endlessly, as if reaching the end of the world.
She is like a touch of the brightest and most beautiful color, standing in the center of this gray and black world.
At this moment, Xia Pingzhou and Gu Qiye looked into each other's eyes.
The moment his eyes met the other person's, Xia Pingzhou raised his hand and grabbed the chess shadows on the ring, and the light and shadows of giant statues suddenly scattered above the chessboard.
"We don't need to defeat him," he said. "He's the strongest man on the other side. We just need to delay him. Do you understand?"
As he spoke, Xia Pingzhou slightly tightened his grip on the kimono girl's right hand. The kimono girl was stunned for a moment, then nodded slightly.
Xia Pingzhou knew very well that Gu Qiye's strength increased again after defeating the Puppet Father.
By now, Big Brother might have reached the pinnacle of the Calamity Grade, perhaps even on the same level as Lin Xingshi. Xia Pingzhou and Ayase Origami were clearly no match for this monster.
Let me put it this way, in front of Gu Qiye, he didn't even have time to fuse the queen's stone statue with the devil's chess piece, because the moment the bridge between humans and demons appeared, Gu Qiye could destroy both chess pieces together and prevent the birth of the fused queen.
Therefore, what he needed was to complete absolute defense on this chessboard, delay Gu Qiye for a while, and finally find an opportunity to evacuate from the Black King's territory.
It took Xia Pingzhou four seconds to shrink the entire area.
As the master of the Black King's domain, he could send others away the moment he came into contact with them, but he could only escape by completely converging the domain into a loop.
At the same time, within the four seconds when the chessboard is closed, he cannot use any chess type - this is because once entering the chessboard, the chess player must decide the winner, it is either life or death, so the conditions for the chess player to leave the chessboard are extremely harsh.
And in these four seconds, which seemed like a "waiver", Gu Qiye was able to kill him a thousand or ten thousand times.
If the Black Pupa, which had already reached its full form, had come here, Ji Minghuan would have been confident of subduing Gu Qiye. However, the one standing here was only a chess player who had just been promoted to the Calamity Level.
Before completing all the main missions, this machine can only temporarily avoid this BUG-level opponent.
"Guard." Ayase Origami said.
"Yes." Xia Pingzhou said softly.
Normally, Ayase Origami would have already launched an offensive by now, but since Xia Pingzhou had said so, she thought it wouldn't hurt to defend for a few rounds and see how it went.
As the chess pieces shattered, Ayase Origami pulled the Endless Manuscript from her sleeve. Without a single breath of wind, the manuscript flew free, and suddenly, swirling vortices of paper formed around the chessboard.
The next moment, vortices formed by the paper pages spread out in all directions of the chessboard.
One of the whirlpools hid the stone statue of the king that Xia Pingzhou summoned.
At the same time, he also released a lot of chess pieces as a decoy.
These chess pieces are: two soldiers, a knight, a bishop, and two cannon carts - like the stone statue of the king, these chess pieces are now buried inside a paper vortex.
Gu Qiye's vision was blocked by the pages, and he couldn't see what they looked like, which more or less distracted his attention.
As long as the stone statue of the king is still there, Xia Pingzhou can ensure the safety of himself and Ayase Origami.
On the black and white checkered chessboard, pieces of pink paper like cherry blossoms fluttered in the air, forming vortexes that enveloped nearly ten chess pieces.
At the same time, Ayase Origami also used a paper curtain to cover the figures of him and Xia Pingzhou.
The two of them coordinated seamlessly, as if they were performing a magic show. The scene on the chessboard suddenly became hazy and blurred under the cover of the paper pages, and the shadows of the chess pieces appeared and disappeared.
Gu Qiye's face remained expressionless. His gaze swept across the swirling pages, and he understood the principle of capturing the leader first. Naturally, he ignored the bells and whistles and focused his attention solely on Xia Pingzhou.
"boom--!"
In an instant, his figure shot out and turned into a black lightning that swept straight forward.
He was incredibly fast. Xia Pingzhou and Ayase Origami barely had time to react before Gu Qiye's figure appeared in their pupils, so close! Lightning flashed like a swift dragon, tearing through the hazy paper curtain.
Then, he raised his right hand, his five fingers together, and black lightning danced on his fingertips, forming a sharp lightning blade. Gu Qiye twisted his body suddenly to gain leverage, bent his arm, and stabbed forward with his knife.
But at this moment, the blade, which was emitting electric light, suddenly hit a huge bone shield.
"Shield?"
Gu Qiye frowned slightly, and his pupils reflected the white bone shield engraved with a cross pattern - there was no doubt that it was Xia Pingzhou's third contracted demon, the "Furious Demon".
At this moment, the furious demon transformed into a "shield" form, suspended in mid-air, guarding in front of him and Ayase Origami.
At the same time, thousands of paper butterflies gathered towards Gu Qiye, like a rainstorm.
"It's useless."
He reacted quickly, and a black arc of electricity burst out from his body, forming a magnetic field that spread out around him.
“Boom!”
The magnetic field exploded with a roar, burning all the paper butterflies into black fragments that fell like rain.
Then Gu Qiye raised his hand again. At this moment, the electric light attached to his right hand suddenly changed. It was no longer pure black, but a mixture of deep blue and inky black.
It was as gentle as the sea and as fierce as the night. The two different types of lightning blended together, and the light that bloomed at this moment was unprecedentedly dazzling, eclipsing everything on the chessboard.
Xia Pingzhou raised his eyebrows slightly.
He had seen this move before. Previously on the battlefield in Osaka, Gu Qiye used this fusion electric current to break the telekinetic shield of the "Star Caller", killing the Puppet Father and his two puppets in one breath.
At this moment, Gu Qiye once again demonstrated his amazing destructive power. The bone shield formed by the furious demons showed signs of breaking in an instant, and thousands of cracks appeared, sweeping across the surface of the shield like a tide.
At this time, a prompt box popped up in Xia Pingzhou's pupils.
[Tip: When encountering an attack that exceeds the shield's endurance limit, the Raging Demon's "Shield" form can help the user block the attack by sacrificing itself.]
"no."
Xia Pingzhou replied in his mind without hesitation that this was an ability that could only be used once. Once used, the furious demon would be sacrificed—not in the sense of returning to the chess shadow state, but in the sense of completely erasing its existence from this world.
At that time, Xia Pingzhou would have to find another contracted demon, which would be very troublesome.
"Boom!" The angry demon's shield shattered, and it turned into a dim chess shadow and returned to the ring road.
Gu Qiye approached like lightning, vibrating his hand knife at a frequency far exceeding the speed of sound, and the black and blue electric light pierced Xia Pingzhou.
However, at this moment, Xia Pingzhou's plan was complete.
The stone statue of the king in the distance raised his scepter.
The black and white halo formed an indestructible shield, covering Xia Pingzhou's body, and also covering Ayase Origami beside him.
He looked at Gu Qinye who was so close to him with an expressionless face, and the other party's disbelief was reflected in his pupils.
Black and blue lightning trembled and fell on the barrier, but the barrier did not move at all.
Gu Qiye never thought that the two-color electric current that even the Puppet Father could not block was blocked by this invisible barrier of black and white at this moment.
The strange thing was that the barrier showed no signs of breaking. Instead, it completely absorbed the power of the lightning. If he had to say it, he thought this kind of defense was close to mythical. But why would such power appear in an exorcist? Gu Qiye was puzzled for a moment.
"Is it impossible to break through?" he thought. "It's not the ability of this girl who controls the paper, but the ability of the chess player... Then as long as I destroy his chess pieces, he will be helpless."
Thinking of this, Gu Qiye kicked the top of the barrier and it bounced back a distance.
At the same time, he twisted his body slightly, stretched out his palm, and shot out a deep blue beam of light, shattering the flying paper blades! The strong wind lifted his long black hair.
If he had been half a second later, his neck would have been cut open by the paper. The girl in the kimono was looking for an opening to strike his vital spot, and her timing was perfect.
Gu Qiye raised his eyes and looked at Xia Pingzhou.
Logically speaking, Gu Qiye should have noticed the hazy beam of light emanating from the king's scepter long ago - that beam of light connected Xia Pingzhou and the king's scepter, and was very eye-catching, allowing him to find the king's location at a glance.
The reason why he didn't notice the black and white beam of light was because the pages of Ayase Origami's paper were flying in the air like a heavy snow, blurring his vision.
Xia Ping Zhou did not mention this tactic, it was done spontaneously by Ayase Origami.
"His chess pieces are hidden in the vortex of those paper pages. Does that mean I have to look for them one by one? But it won't take much time." Thinking of this, Gu Qiye's figure had already rushed out.
He turned into black lightning and rushed towards the nearest vortex of paper at high speed.
As if opening a blind box, Gu Qiye crossed his arms and stretched them out to look, and a cross-shaped lightning tore open the curtain of paper.
Hiding in the whirlpool at this moment was Xia Pingzhou's stone statue of a knight.
"charge."
Xia Pingzhou mentally ordered the knight. Immediately, the stone knight slammed its saddle, its entire body covered in a layer of black light. It and its fierce horse transformed into black cannonballs and charged out, its spear pointed straight ahead.
Gu Qinye stomped his foot on the ground and jumped up, avoiding the oncoming knight.
At this moment, Ayase Origami seized the moment when Gu Qiye was suspended in the air, gathered the surrounding pages of paper, and formed a miniature storm that swept towards him.
He flipped in mid-air, pointed his left palm forward, and condensed a pulsating ball of electricity, shooting it at the oncoming storm of flying pages. The electricity exploded, and the storm collapsed, leaving not even a scrap of paper behind.
Then he raised his other hand and pointed the fingertips at the knight's head, shooting out a sharp and violent beam of lightning, crushing the knight and the horse together.
Immediately afterwards, Gu Qiye pointed his right palm behind him and ejected a pulse of electricity from his palm. Immediately, under the reaction force, his body shot sideways, attacking a vortex of paper pages.
With a whoosh, he kicked forward with a foot wrapped in lightning, smashing the giant soldier statue in the vortex into pieces on the head, and diamond fragments fell in the wind.
"Isn't it this stone statue?" Gu Qiye turned his head to look at Xia Pingzhou, and saw that the paper barrier surrounding the other's body was still there, so he quickly fell to the ground.
Then, like a gust of wind and lightning, it rushed towards the nearest vortex of paper pages.
In the eyes of Xia Pingzhu and Ayase Origami, there was only a blurry beam of electric light flashing on the chessboard, and only the jumping spots of light could be seen.
It was extremely difficult to anchor Gu Qiye's figure. Every time the light came on, it was already a hundred meters away from the previous position.
The two knew very well that to deal with such a fast enemy, they could only rely on prediction.
Gu Qinye was like a wild leopard transformed from thunder, bending over and running on the chessboard. His legs rubbed against the ground, creating a violent firework. His body slid to the right and passed through the vortex of paper pages.
In an instant, he pierced through the heart of the stone soldier statue like a hot knife through butter, then shot straight forward, broke through a vortex of paper pages, and pierced through the heart of the bishop hiding behind it.
Immediately afterwards, Gu Qiye's body jumped through the gap inside the giant statue.
He pointed the palm of his left hand at another vortex of paper pages, and suddenly a flash of electric light gathered at the point of his palm.
"boom--!"
The next moment, the electromagnetic cannon fired out, roaring and tearing through the air.
The gun carriage hidden in the vortex was destroyed. Flames shot up into the sky and the roar of the explosion was deafening.
At this moment, only two vortexes of paper pages remained on the chessboard, and the king was hidden in one of the vortexes.
Gu Qiye's series of attacks were smooth and easy, and were resolved in just one second. No matter how Ayase Origami tried to defend or counterattack, she could not catch up with this lightning-fast shadow - this is the absolute advantage of speed-type psychics among their peers.
The next second, Gu Qinye flew towards the vortex of remaining paper pages.
He knew in his heart that the giant statue protecting Xia Pingzhou was now hidden in the last two whirlpools. No matter how bad his luck was, as long as he eliminated the chess pieces in the two whirlpools, Xia Pingzhou would become a lamb to be slaughtered, and the girl in kimono would not be able to protect him.
This time, Gu Qiye was lucky because he found the king instead of the remaining artillery carriage.
However, at the moment when the dark lightning broke through the vortex of paper pages.
Xia Pingzhou ordered in his heart,
"King's Rook Castling. Cannon Cart, self-destruct."
[Castling: Exchange the positions of a "King Statue" with a "Cannon Statue" on your chessboard.]
[Hint: The self-destruct command has been activated on the "Cannon Cart Stone Statue."]
In an instant, the king and the cannon cart switched places. So when Gu Qiye rushed into the whirlpool, what he saw was not the king holding a scepter, but a cannon cart with a dazzling red light all over its body.
The next second, the artillery carriage heated up rapidly, turned into a flame that shot up into the sky and engulfed his figure.
"Was it predicted?"
Gu Qinye's heart moved slightly, and he curled up in mid-air, raised his arms to protect his forehead, and lightning overflowed from his pores, blocking the raging fire approaching his body.
Even so, the violent explosion of air blew his body away.
"Bang!" His body flew backwards, leaving a trail of residual black electric arcs in the air.
At this moment, the kimono girl once again seized the opportunity when Gu Qiye was suspended in the air and gathered the scattered paper pages in the air towards him. The paper pages instantly formed a huge cocoon, trying to wrap around his body.
"That's easy to think about." Gu Qinye's body suddenly turned around, and his hands flipped in the air.
At this moment, he forcibly transformed himself into a storm of lightning! In an instant, the storm surged, tearing open the wrapped paper!
But just when he thought he could catch his breath, he suddenly heard a deep roar! He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw a giant paper dragon!
Gu Qiye twisted his body suddenly, and the paper dragon flapped its wings and flew towards him, opening its bloody mouth towards him.
At the same time, a noble figure radiating diamond light all over his body came like a falcon—the stone statue of the queen waved two daggers in the air and stabbed Gu Qiye's back from behind!
"What a good time."
Gu Qiye's pupils constricted. The paper dragon and the stone statue of the queen were flanking him from both sides.
At this moment, he had nowhere to retreat. He didn't even have a fraction of a second to react. He didn't have time to turn around and deal with the enemy behind him! So, he could only choose to withstand the attack from the Queen's stone statue from behind!
In an instant, in order to avoid being hit in the heart by the Queen, he slightly turned his body, and the Queen's two daggers pierced through his shoulders, and blood gushed out.
"Puff!" A horrifying bloody wound opened up on his shoulder, and his entire arm was almost cut off.
But at the same time, Gu Qiye suddenly raised his right hand, and a ball of electricity gathered in his palm. The ball roared and shot into the open mouth of the paper dragon.
In an instant, the pitch-black electric current tore through the air, spreading across the sky like ravines on the earth, and engulfing the paper dragon's head, body, tail, and wings.
Immediately afterwards, it exploded completely, and the airflow pushed Gu Qinye towards the stone statue of the king.
Blood sprayed in the air. Gu Qiye raised his left hand and burned his shoulder with lightning to stop the bleeding. He turned around suddenly and stabbed the king's statue's heart with his right hand.
"Shadow Demon."
Xia Pingzhou gave the order expressionlessly. In an instant, the stone statue of the king was pulled into the shadows by the shadow monster beneath its feet.
"What?"
Gu Qinye frowned, and his body suddenly hit nothing. He stomped the ground quickly to distance himself from the shadow.
As he bounced back, Gu Qiye raised the tip of his index finger and shot a beam of lightning towards the chessboard, piercing through the shadow.
But it was no use. Shadows cannot be destroyed. The shadow still loomed intact over the chessboard. The shadow demon grinned, chuckling sinisterly at Gu Qiye.
Gu Qinye hugged his injured shoulder and looked up in surprise.
The barrier covering Xia Pingzhou still existed, which meant that as long as the shadow demon was still protecting the king, he would not be able to hurt Xia Pingzhou at all.
"That's really exaggerated..." Gu Qiye couldn't help but curl the corners of his lips, saying with a tone that sounded like both a complaint and praise, "This is definitely the most tiring fight I've ever had."
The shadow demon only exists for five seconds, after which the king statue will break free from the shadow and return to the top of the board.
"Zhezhi, go out and wait for me first." Xia Pingzhou suddenly said.
After saying that, without waiting for the kimono girl's permission, he raised his hand and touched her wrist.
Immediately, her figure disappeared from the chessboard. In that final second, Ayase Origami's eyes widened slightly, but it was too late for her to say anything.
"Send your companions away first..." Gu Qiye murmured, "As a bandit, you are quite loyal. It's already a great achievement that you can hurt me. There's no need to struggle. I can give you a quick death."
Xia Pingzhou looked at him quietly, without saying a word.
The moment the shadow demon disappeared, the stone statue of the queen shot out like an arrow and raised her hand to touch the top of the stone statue of the king.
At the same time, Gu Qiye flashed, transforming into thunder and approaching. His right fist, brimming with electricity, lashed out, sending a massive lightning fist shadow blasting towards the Queen and the King!
"Transformation into nothingness." Xia Pingzhou said.
The figures of the queen and the king turned transparent at the same time. Gu Qiye's fist missed and he stopped charging forward.
The next moment, the Queen's statue's right hand released the King's body. She held the dagger in her hand and stomped towards Gu Qiye.
The dagger collided with the back of Gu Qiye's hand, sending both flying several meters. But the moment Gu Qiye landed, he transformed into a beam of lightning and bypassed the queen.
Then he raised his knife and pierced the king's chest without mercy.
"boom!"
Lightning burst forth from the king's body, crushing him to pieces.
"So what can you do next?"
As he spoke, Gu Qiye raised his head, completely ignoring the stone statue of the queen chasing him, and instead transformed into a thunderous afterimage, attacking Xia Pingzhou like a hunting leopard.
But at this moment, he suddenly saw an incredible scene. There was still a black and white barrier in front of Xia Pingzhou, and above his head there was a halo connected to the distance, just like a black and white rainbow.
Gu Qiye suddenly turned his head and saw the second stone statue of the king standing dozens of meters away.
That was the king that Xia Pingzhou copied using the second contracted demon "Copy Demon" before the king was destroyed. The Copy Demon can exist for eight seconds.
But he knew that within these eight seconds the cloned king would be destroyed by Gu Qiye.
"There are quite a lot of tricks." Gu Qinye said.
He knew in his heart that, at least in terms of delaying time, Xia Pingzhou had done a perfect job. The two had been fighting in the "Black King's Territory" for such a long time. If it were outside, he didn't know how many members of the brigade would have been killed.
Xia Pingzhou's ability mechanism successfully transformed a battle that was originally a one-sided crushing victory without any suspense into a game of strategy and battle of wits on the chessboard.
Gu Qiye felt like he was playing a puzzle game for a minute. Only by solving all the puzzles and mechanisms could he take down the chess player. But if he guessed wrong at each level, he could die on the spot.
As a result, his speed seemed weak and powerless, and he was forced to follow the opponent's rhythm.
"Should I say that I'm unlucky that I happened to find the member who can restrain me the most?" Gu Qiye thought to himself, Xia Pingzhou may not be the strongest person in the brigade, but he is definitely the one with the most means of saving his life.
At this moment, Gu Qiye twisted his body to avoid the Queen's stone statue's thrust, and then shot towards the fleeing King clone. He raised his hand and easily broke the King's neck.
Lightning shot out from his five fingers, tearing apart the king's body.
"So now, what are you going to do?"
Gu Qiye slowly turned his head, looked at Xia Pingzhou expressionlessly, and asked almost word by word.
He could see that Xia Pingzhou had run out of ideas at this moment.
The huge chessboard was empty. Papers were scattered on the ground. Only a stone statue of the queen stood faithfully before Xia Pingzhou, a blazing blue flame burning in her eyes.
Xia Pingzhou had indeed run out of ideas.
So, at this moment, he chose to take back the Queen's stone statue. At the same time, the entire chessboard began to shrink.
Once the domain shrinks, he and Gu Qiye will return to the real world. But this process lasts for four seconds, during which he can no longer use any chess games.
"Have you given up struggling?"
Gu Qiye spoke expressionlessly and turned into a beam of lightning and headed towards Xia Pingzhou.
However, at this moment, Xia Pingzhou's lips moved slightly.
In the silence, he suddenly spoke:
"Black Pupa, still alive."
At that moment, the world was completely silent. Then, the roar of lightning, belatedly, shook the entire space. The lightning bolt that had been hurling towards his forehead suddenly stopped.
The chessboard was still closing in. The Black King's territory, like a shrinking maze, continued to advance towards Xia Pingzhou and Gu Qiye, as if it would crush them in the next second.
The whole world seemed to have suddenly become quiet, strangely and unbelievably quiet.
Gu Qiye placed his right hand on Xia Pingzhou's forehead. After the roar of lightning faded away, the trembling arc of electricity still remained in the air.
He slowly raised his head and looked into Xia Pingzhou's eyes.
"What did you just say?"
Gu Qinye murmured in a daze, his face pale with shock. The flash of light dancing in his pupils suddenly disappeared, and his voice had never been so weak.
Xia Pingzhou remained silent.
He dared to bet that once he said this, Gu Qinye would never kill him.
This is the most powerful trick.
The result was just as he expected. While Gu Qiye was in a daze, Xia Pingzhou successfully recovered the Black King's territory - originally this was impossible to do, because he had to wait four seconds after recovering the chess pieces before the entire chessboard could be closed, which was almost like laying down his weapon and waiting to die.
But he did it.
In the very end, the black and white chessboard shrank to its extreme in an instant, turning into a jumping light spot, converging into Xia Pingzhou's heart.
Immediately, amid Gu Qiye's silent and urgent questioning, the two disappeared.
(End of this chapter)
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