Chapter 887: Pickle Rick!
This sentence came out of nowhere, and Lin Sanjiu didn't understand its meaning for a moment. "Ah? I can lead you... Did you get injured too?"
Silvan smiled slightly at her, his green eyes contrasting sharply with his snow-white teeth in the scattered golden light, almost startling. "Then lead us there," he said softly, almost hoarsely, and stood up immediately.
Us?
Lin Sanjiu was taken aback, and then his shadow, his body temperature, and a faint smell of figs enveloped her simultaneously, mixed with a faint hint of blood. She shivered and couldn't help but glance back at him. Silvan's hands were in his pockets, and he lowered his head towards her neck, his messy blond hair and gentle breath lightly tickling her skin. "You two should go out first, and stay away from the church, alright?"
Bohemia refused to look at him, keeping her head down and staring at the ground. As soon as his words fell, she immediately hurried towards the door as if fleeing. Lin Sanjiu instinctively followed suit until Silvan slammed the door shut behind them with a "thud," which startled her back to her senses.
She stood at the door and thought for a moment, signaling Bohemia to retreat to a safe distance with her.
"What's going on?" As soon as Silvan disappeared from beside her, Bohemia's mind started functioning normally again, as if she had started breathing anew.
"Didn't he ask us to stay away?"
Lin Sanjiu didn't expect that she had only managed to say that much before dozens of dark figures suddenly leaped out from the darkness ahead. Startled, the two of them were about to strike back when their gaze fell upon the faces with various skin tones but the same numb and expressionless features. They immediately realized that these were all puppets and quickly dodged to the side.
After the puppets rushed past them like a tide, they glanced at each other, both with a different layer of surprise in their eyes.
"They... all went into that church," Bohemia said in a low voice, as if afraid of being heard.
Lin Sanjiu bit her lip and hesitantly looked back.
...What are the puppets doing?
"Did Silvan ask us to come out because...?" Bohemia didn't finish her sentence.
The half-ruined church stood quietly amidst the overgrown grass and vines under the night sky. The pale moonlight lingered around it like the dying breath of a person, rather than illuminating the surroundings. It seemed more like it was about to sink into endless darkness.
Both of them felt a bit uneasy. After waiting for a few seconds, Lin Sanjiu cleared her throat and tried to lighten the mood through conversation. "What happened to you just now?"
"What do you mean, what happened?" Bohemia pretended to be ignorant.
"You froze as soon as you saw Silvan," she said bluntly, "I've never seen such an exaggerated reaction before."
Even if Bohemia didn't understand what freezing meant, she rolled her eyes so hard they almost reached the back of her head. "What nonsense are you talking about? I'm just not used to this kind of person, that's all. He... he has quite an impact in terms of appearance."
Among those who had seen Silvan, they seemed to think that "impactful" and "shocking" were more appropriate descriptions, rather than just "handsome" or "good-looking."
"You better get used to it sooner," Lin Sanjiu reminded her, "After all, if he's going to join us in the Astral Plane, you can't act like a disabled person."
Although she couldn't figure out why Silvan treated her somewhat special—of course, it couldn't be romantic feelings—because of this, she was confident that Silvan wouldn't refuse to help her.
"You're the disabled one, not to mention him," Bohemia muttered impatiently as she paced around. "Why do you insist on having Puppeteer go to Exodus? Do you know what they call him in the Twelve Realms?" She lowered her voice, "Mad Dog!"
"Today he's a friend, tomorrow he's a puppet," her face turned paler the more she spoke, as if she wanted to shake Lin Sanjiu hard to get rid of this crazy idea from her mind. "Why don't you go die outside of Exodus if you want to die so badly? I still have plenty of things in my room..."
"We're not friends." Aren't we? Lin Sanjiu murmured.
"Isn't that even worse?"
"He accidentally said once that he won't kill me. I think he's pretty trustworthy..."
Bohemia looked at her with despair, as if she was beyond help.
Lin Sanjiu opened her mouth to say something, but was startled by a loud bang that almost made her heart stop. Both of them reflexively took a few steps back. Looking up, they saw the abandoned church collapsing in a rumble of smoke and dust. The roof of the church seemed to have turned into a powerless cloth, sucked in by a non-existent vacuum, unable to support itself anymore, and shattered and collapsed piece by piece.
The ground beneath their feet trembled like a roaring beast for a while, and the two women were a little stunned.
Wasn't Puppeteer's web-like bed hanging from the roof?
"We...we should run now," Bohemia's eyes brightened. "Maybe those two are having a dispute and fighting. It has nothing to do with us, so it's a good opportunity to escape... Hey, where are you going?"
Lin Sanjiu dashed towards the shadow of the church, moving so quickly that it seemed like an illusion to the naked eye.
"What are you doing?" she shouted loudly. However, before she could approach the church gate, another figure suddenly rushed out from the shadows and charged straight at her. Lin Sanjiu abruptly stopped, swiftly maneuvered like a fish, and managed to dodge past the puppet.
But while she evaded one, she couldn't escape from the consecutive puppets that emerged from behind the door. One of them manipulated numerous bowling ball-sized spheres, which rolled out from the church, engulfing a large area like waves. It forced Lin Sanjiu into a moment of confusion.
"Get away!" Puppeteer's voice sounded weak and slightly panting from inside the church.
Lin Sanjiu was blocked by several puppets and despite several attempts to maneuver and dodge, she couldn't break free from their encirclement. Desperate, she had no choice but to shout at another relatively reasonable person, "Silvan! What are you doing? Why did you break the roof?"
It couldn't be Puppeteer who caused the collapse.
"I'm assassinating him," Silvan replied. His voice had a unique and pleasant tone, even though they were at a distance, it felt like he was whispering directly in her ear, "How can I assassinate him without bringing him down first?"
"Wait, you two know each other—"
Lin Sanjiu couldn't finish her sentence as she was hit squarely by one of the puppet's abilities.
She never expected Puppeteer to unexpectedly attack her at this critical moment. She didn't know what ability the puppet possessed, but her entire body, bones, and muscles felt as if they had been soaked in strong acid. The pain was so intense that everything seemed to contract and crumple. Pain always felt particularly prolonged, and when the blinding light finally disappeared from her eyes and her blood flow gradually slowed down again, Lin Sanjiu gasped for breath while realizing that her line of sight had lowered.
...Lowered by a lot.
Not just from 1.8 meters to 1.6 meters kind of lowering; she blinked and looked at the clump of grass in front of her, at the boots of the puppets, all aligned with her new eye level, but she couldn't comprehend what had happened.
"Lin Sanjiu?"
It wasn't until Bohemia tremulously called her that Lin Sanjiu turned around to look. Moving her body felt strange, as if her neck wasn't quite long enough. She turned her head, gazing blankly at Bohemia and her own lower half, which was now a green and glistening cucumber.
After a few seconds, Bohemia's voice came from a distance.
"You've turned into a cucumber."
A cucumber?! Apart from her senses still being intact and her mouth able to open, Lin Sanjiu had lost her hands and feet—she even felt her "neck" snap back when she relaxed, perfectly resembling the slightly elastic tail end of a cucumber.
When the puppets saw her become a cucumber, they immediately turned and left, quickly disappearing behind the church door.
"Lucky," the church flickered with light, and the remaining walls trembled slightly from the forceful impact. Even in the midst of battle, Puppeteer chuckled breathlessly, "You drew the worst prize all at once."
The puppet that hit her, no matter what evolutionary ability it had, must have had limitations. The power to "change the physical appearance of the opponent's species" was too strong, so there must be significant restrictions. Lin Sanjiu thought for a moment and realized that the limitation was likely a time constraint. She immediately shouted, "Bohemia! Take me away!"
"Why would I take you away?" Bohemia refused to budge, "To make cucumber salad?"
"Don't be ridiculous!"
"You should stop messing around. If they want to fight, let them fight. Why are you getting involved?" Bohemia was very unhappy. "Wait, I'll throw a rope over. Make sure you hold on."
However, before Bohemia could throw her rope, Lin Sanjiu suddenly felt her body loosen, and in a warm and comforting sensation, her limbs regained their flexibility. Her earlier speculation was correct. The puppet's ability not only had a time limit but also had a very short duration of effectiveness. The more powerful the ability, the stricter the limitations.
She couldn't help but look at her hands and feet, quickly climbing to her feet. In the short span of a few tens of seconds when she turned into a cucumber, the church had become dark and quiet again. Lin Sanjiu hesitated, about to walk forward, when the church door was pushed open from the inside.
Silvan walked out of the door, rubbing his shoulder, looking even more exhausted. He took off his dark blue uniform, hanging it on his arm, and it wasn't clear if he was injured or not. When their eyes met, he bit his lip and smiled faintly at her. In the darkness, his pair of lake-green eyes seemed to shimmer with a soft yet intoxicating light.
"Let's go," Silvan's tone remained gentle and affectionate. "Take us to your medical room."
Lin Sanjiu glanced behind him.
A sturdy figure—a clear puppet—walked out of the church, holding a slender black shadow in its arms, which was as thin as a withered leaf. It seemed that Silvan had employed some method as the puppet obediently followed him without any other movement.
"So stubborn," Silvan sighed when he saw her perplexed expression. "You wanted him to go to the medical room, right? You can't just use force to make him lose consciousness. He won't go willingly. But I took the opportunity while he was severely injured. I'm afraid this matter isn't over yet."