Chapter 1659: Setting Change
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
While Lily had tried her best to decelerate, a five-meter-tall fully armored war beast smashing into the wall still shocked the city guards. Some of the wounded who were resting even thought that the wall had been breached when they heard the crash. They looked fearfully in the direction of the crash, and only saw a nose the size of a calf hanging by the city walls.
Lily tried to paw her way up the city wall as she struggled to get over it. Yet, the tall and straight wall plus a layer of slippery barrier made it difficult for her. The werehusky, in her hurry, jumped up and down as she barked loudly at the defenders. “Open the gates! Let me in! Can’t you see we’re here to help!?”
The city defenders were a confused mess by now. They could, of course, see that the beast before them was friendly, but the city’s highest level barrier had already been activated. Opening the gate right then meant that they needed to shut down the entire front-facing barrier. But the flaming monsters had already regrouped for another wave of attack. Under such circumstances, shutting down the barrier was not a decision a group of front line soldiers could make. In fact, it was not a decision even their commanders could make. They had to send a messenger soldier back to the fortress because the lord and generals with the required authority were commanding the fight from there.
At that same moment, another wave of monsters struck, and it was already beyond a normal wave of attack. Countless flaming monsters converged together like a tidal wave as they slowly marched on the plains. It was an endless sea of fire, and every moment massive fireballs were launched from this sea against the walls of White Maple Leaf City. Where there any other words to describe the scene other than epic?
While she was running at full speed, Lily could rely on her CIWS and protective barriers to carve a path out. But now she had stopped, the sight of the converging monsters sent shivers down her spine and her furs bristling. The werehusky let out a bright howl before turning around and leap towards the city wall…
With an unsightly clambering across the wall, Lily proved that the adage of a panicked dog is capable of scaling walls.
Thankfully, L’Haronne’s shield technology had not developed to the point of an enveloping screen, rather, the barrier was erected through the magical stones embedded in the walls itself. The stones projected a magical barrier to protect the wall. Otherwise, Lily would not have been able to climb through even in her panic…
The city’s defenders could only look on as massive beast climbed over the wall as one by one stood there stunned. Some did not even realize that their weapons had already fallen off their hands. Only until the commander had regained his composure and started barking commands to regroup that the soldiers recovered from their stupor.
At that point of time, Lily had made through the wall and had landed safely on an empty plot behind the wall… alright.. not that safely.
Her teammates inside the passenger cockpit had already gone through a triple whammy of rolling deceleration, embarrassing wall-climbing and a panicked dog scaling the wall, and none of them were looking any good. Even the usually robust Y’zaks were slightly stunned, much less the rest.
And frankly speaking, if not for the fear of the doggie going crazy, they would have puked where they stood.
“F*ck me… You….” Hao Ren’s bore a pale look as he unbuckled the seat belt and started mumbling. “Can you say something before you scale the wall or step on the breaks. Did you forget that there are people on your back?”
“How could I remember?” Lily retorted as she squatted and rubbed her ears. “Normally no one will be riding on my back…”
Hao Ren was almost thrown off as he was just about to get up, “Eh eh why are you squatting… Don’t shake!”
But Hao Ren was a step too late, and Lily had already started shaking her entire body. While she had a thick layer of armor and did not need to worry about mud and debris getting into her fur, she was still sweaty after the long run, and before the armor’s build-in circulatory system could activate, she had already started shaking subconsciously.
And threw everyone out in the process…
“Woooo…” Lily lowered her head awkwardly as she looked at her comrades she had just thrown out before lying down and covering her head with her paws. “It’s not on purpose…”
“I never want to ride on doggie’s back ever again.” while Vivian could fly, she was thrown out before she could even react. “And I thought it was a good idea earlier.”
“Thankfully we are back in the city,” Nangong Sanba had recovered from his daze and saw the group of soldiers converging upon them, and came to Hao Ren’s side whispering, “What should we do next.”
Hao Ren took a glance at the stunned Rheia, “We’ll head to the wizard’s quarter, Rheia’s tower.”
“How about them?” Nangong Wuyue said as she pointed somewhat stunned, somewhat nervous soldiers with an “orders m’Lord?” expression on their face. They were reserves deployed behind the walls and none of them ever thought that before their orders to man the walls came, a fully armed and armored siegebreaker beast would have appeared from the sky. This was obviously beyond their expectations.
Hao Ren pondered for a bit before coming to Lily, who was idling about and pulled a microphone from a panel on her hind leg armor to the side of his mouth. “Ahem…”
A piercing buzz soon rang across the entire quarter.
“Please make way. We are here to help. We have just beaten back a direct assault against the wall but the wizard quarter is weakly defended so we are heading there now. Please cooperate, I repeat, please cooperate.
Lily gave Hao Ren a confused look. “Mr. Landlord, why is that inside my armor?”
“I’ve already said that your equipment is an integrated combat support module. As a moving base, how can this function be missing?” Hao Ren rolled his eyes at Lily, “There’s even an ice-cream maker behind your neck.”
“…Mr. Landlord, it feels like you have taken me for a ride!”
Hao Ren laughed dryly as he ignored the werehusky’s question. The soldiers surrounding them seemed to have received their orders and filing out orderly. At the same time, an officer-like man made his way towards Hao Ren.
“No matter who you are, White Maple Leaf City thanks you for your help.” The officer stood pencil straight and with a powerful voice, he continued, “But the situations demands, and I have orders to understand your origins…”
“They are my helpers!” Rheia who was dazed for a good part of the day had finally regained her senses, and while things had progressed beyond her understanding, she could still correctly determine what she should be saying. “Foreign mercenaries, a reliable bunch.”
The officer looked at Rheia and seemed to recognize the impoverished mage’s identity. “You are… the poorest one in the wizard’s quarters…”
“The smartest one there is!” Rheia waved her staff menacingly. “I am a registered great mage and archaeologist! I have even got you a group of powerful mercenaries to defend the city! I could be asking for an additional two hundred gold coins for that you know!”
The officer took a reflexive step back, not sure if he was wary of Rheia’s tone or the staff in her hand. “Alright, fine. I understand. I will report it as it is…”
The officer seemed to have understood that neither the siegebreaker beast nor the berserk mage with her staff was something he could deal with. He was originally here reluctantly to complete his assignment, and wanted to make his presence scarce after completing his duty. At any rate, the group before him had clearly blunted a wave of attack, and now an infamous person in the city had vouched for them, it would be remiss of him to ask more questions.
With that temporary respite, Hao Ren quickly ushered the rest towards the wizard’s quarter before any more trouble rears its head.
“What are you gonna do at my tower?” while Rheia had followed the team in her gaze, she was still the most confused person, especially as an employer. “Oh I know, you lot are after my inheritance after all… Eh, that’s not right! Seeing your equipment you’re probably filthy rich! My tower and land, added up together won’t even cover the cost of Ms. Lily’s armor…Wait, I understand now! You’re gonna pack your stuff up and make a run for it? Do you think White Maple Leaf City is about to fall? I do think that the city may not hold out for long, but this is my home and I’m attached to it… Eh, why aren’t you guys talking?”
“Goodness please, Madam, can you rein in your wild imagination for a bit?” Hao Ren had a headache looking at the curious and wildly imaginative scholar. “We are heading to your place to get some information.”
“Information?! At this juncture?!” Rheia was stunned. “And here I thought me learning how to disarm an alchemy bomb after activating it was weird enough…”
“….”
As they spoke, the group had arrived at the wizard’s quarter at the south of the city. The area here too had gone into combat readiness.
Towers upon towers were lit up in an orangey light beam as massive magical energies were drawn from magical focal points all over the place as they were injected directly into White Maple Leaf’s defensive system as various combat automatons were sent by their masters in batches towards the combat zone.
The ‘holy ground of knowledge and the arcane’ were no longer the supernatural and peaceful place it once was.
As its master was not around, Rheia’s tower was the only one that did not enter combat readiness, but the run-down tower stood alone in a corner, and no one noticing it.
After Lily had returned to her human form, the group quickly made their way into the tower and ran up to the study on the second floor.
Rheia, not understanding what was going on, followed as well, before seeing the group starting flipping over those old tomes. Confused, she asked, “What are you looking for? If you are looking for important information, you can go to the library on the third floor. The books here are mostly harmless time passers…”
Hao Ren interrupted the little mage as he waved an old book. “No, we found it already.”
The book was not some valuable scholar’s tome, rather a book regarded as a ‘nonsensical garbage’ by the scholastic world, a ‘generic science’ book about the Great Pit. Its author was Roan Zell, an pretty much unknown ‘scholar’.
Hao Ren turned open the book and quickly found the passage regarding the Great Pit.
Upon the already yellowed pages, Roan Zell described the Great Pit as such, “… I have always been looking into the Great Pit, but I’ve seen nothing but a sea of darkness… There is no sense of direction in the pit, neither any floor nor any buildings, only bizarre debris floating about… It looks like a destroyed world, and its debris float deep within the Great Pit… I, Roan Zell, can safely declare that, the Great Pit is a different dimension in itself, and aside from the bizarre sightings, I could not find any logical objects within it.”
As she heard the passage, Lily’s eyes widened. “The passage was different when we read it the other time!”
“This words… are different from our memory.” Nangong Sanba was stunned. He quickly picked up a different book, one that he read before earlier. “The description of the Great Pit had also changed. There were no books talking about the toxic gas or monsters…”
Y’lisabet blinked. “Uncle Ren, what is going on?”
Hao Ren’s expression did not change much as he saw the changes to the words, he only took a deep breath before nodding at Vivian.
“The setting has changed,” he said.