Guinaifen pulled Lux down onto the sofa and organized her thoughts.
“I’m not entirely sure myself, I only know that the Ambrosial Arbor is a creation of the Aeon of Abundance.”
Lux blinked.
The Aeon of Abundance—she had seen the term online, but she had no real concept of what it actually meant.
“The Aeon of Abundance is also known as Yaoshi.
Their blessing can make all things grow wildly, and it can also grant immortality.
It’s just…” Guinaifen frowned, “those affected by the power of Abundance will slowly lose their sanity and eventually turn into monsters.
The Xianzhou people call this the Mara-Struck.”
“If Xianzhou people are eroded by the power of the Ambrosial Arbor, they might trigger the Mara-Struck prematurely.”
Lux’s tail tightened involuntarily.
“So everyone is so afraid of the Ambrosial Arbor reviving…
because it drives people mad?”
“Then the Cloud Knights…”
“The Cloud Knights have to deal with enemies on two fronts,” Guinaifen sighed.
“Outside are the Abominations of Abundance, and by their side are comrades who could turn into the Mara-Struck at any moment.”
Lux fell silent.
She suddenly felt that her words of comfort earlier were truly easy to say when she wasn’t the one in danger.
“Then isn’t…
Sushang in great danger?”
Guinaifen didn’t say anything, but her expression answered for her.
Sushang’s goofy, smiling face flashed through Lux’s mind.
“No, she won’t be.” She shook her head, as if to encourage herself, “Sushang is so strong, she’ll definitely be fine.”
Guinaifen gave a wry smile.
Just as she finished speaking, Guinaifen’s jade abacus went “ding.”
She grabbed it to take a look—a message from Sushang:
“I’m okay!
Don’t worry!
I’m at Starskiff Haven right now, the situation here is basically under control!
You two stay safe at home, don’t run around!”
Guinaifen stared at those two lines, reading them over and over again, and the tension in her heart finally eased.
“This silly girl…”
Lux leaned over to take a peek and also let out a sigh of relief.
But her brows quickly furrowed again.
“Starskiff Haven…
I remember that’s the container area, right?
The terrain is so complex; what if a monster pops out from some dark corner…”
The two exchanged a look.
Lux took a deep breath and stood up.
“If we’re this worried, why don’t we go help Sushang?”
Guinaifen’s eyes lit up.
“That’s right, I almost forgot that I’m a Pathstrider too.” She patted her forehead, then immediately realized, “But Lux, you should stay home.
I’m a Pathstrider, so I at least have some combat ability and can help out.
It’s too dangerous for you to go as an ordinary person.”
Lux raised an eyebrow.
“Guinaifen, don’t you underestimate me.”
She reached out and pulled an iron sword out of her inventory from thin air.
The blade gleamed with a cold light as she held it in her hand and twirled it.
Guinaifen’s eyes widened.
“Actually, I’m a Pathstrider too.” Lux told a lie without changing her expression.
It was hard to explain her messy pile of abilities, but the title of “Pathstrider” was so convenient—anyway, people in this world knew that Pathstriders had all sorts of weird and wonderful skills, so one more or one less didn’t matter.
“You, Lux, you’ve been hiding this well!” Guinaifen leaned in, reaching out to touch the iron sword, but Lux dodged.
“Don’t touch, it’s very sharp.”
“That’s perfect!” Guinaifen clapped her hands.
“Let’s go together!
Two people are definitely better than just me alone.”
Lux nodded and put the iron sword back into her inventory.
The two packed up simply and slipped out the back door.
The streets were filled with Cloud Knights maintaining order, so they didn’t dare take the main roads, choosing instead to duck into small alleys.
Guinaifen was very familiar with this area, leading Lux through twists and turns to bypass several checkpoints. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
“How come you’re so familiar with these kinds of alleys?” Lux asked in a low voice.
“Of course, I used to walk these paths all the time back in the day—to film ‘Breaking News’ videos, you know.”
The two jogged along, passing through one narrow path after another, occasionally hearing shouts of battle and explosions from afar.
Lux’s ears were pricked straight up, twitching constantly to capture the movements around them.
After running for about twenty minutes, they finally arrived at Starskiff Haven.
Starskiff Haven was a container storage area, where iron boxes of all sizes were stacked into a maze-like structure.
Blue, red, gray, stacked layer upon layer, some leaning precariously, looking like they could collapse at any moment.
“This place is way too perfect for filming a horror movie,” Lux muttered.
“Don’t jinx it.” Guinaifen tapped her on the head.
“Ouch…”
The two weaved between the containers; the terrain was even more complex than imagined.
Every path looked the same; after one turn, they couldn’t tell north from south.
“Sushang only said she was at Starskiff Haven, she didn’t say exactly where…” Guinaifen was getting a bit anxious.
Lux stopped and twitched her ears.
There was movement in the distance.
It wasn’t the wind, nor the creaking of containers—it was the sound of metal clashing, mixed with low roars.
“Over there.” Lux pointed to a passage on the right and pulled Guinaifen to run in that direction.
The sound grew closer and closer.
Turning a corner, the scene before them made both of them stop in their tracks.
In a relatively open clearing, seven or eight Cloud Knights were fighting a group of monsters.
Those monsters were humanoid, but you couldn’t tell they were human anymore.
Their bodies were covered in golden branches—sprouting from their eye sockets, mouths, chests, arms, everywhere.
The branches kept wriggling and growing; with every movement, the monsters let out a low hiss.
The Cloud Knights stood back-to-back in a circle, waving their blades, cutting off the branches reaching toward them.
But those branches grew back as soon as they were cut; there was simply no killing them.
Sushang was right there in the crowd.
Her uniform was stained red with someone’s blood, her hair was half-disheveled, and there was a bloody scratch on her face, but the sword in her hand was still steady.
“Sushang!” Guinaifen shouted.
Sushang turned back and saw them, her eyes widening: “Why are you here?!”
“To help!” Guinaifen pulled a handful of things from her crossbody bag, all red and green.
Lux looked closely—firecrackers?
No, not ordinary firecrackers.
Those little things were emitting a faint glimmer in Guinaifen’s palm, as if infused with some kind of power.
Guinaifen swung her arm around and threw them all out, shouting:
“Happy early New Year!”
The firecrackers exploded, and flames ignited on the monsters.
Those wildly growing branches suddenly seemed to deflate, becoming listless, and their growth rate slowed down visibly.
[Excitement from Guinaifen, Emotion Points +0.03]
Lux didn’t have time to look at the system prompt; she pulled an iron sword and a shield from her inventory.
She took a deep breath and charged in.
A monster covered in golden branches pounced at her.
Lux raised her shield and firmly blocked the impact—the force of the collision made her arm go numb, but she gritted her teeth and held her ground.
The iron sword in her right hand poked out from the edge of the shield, stabbing into the monster’s chest.
The monster let out a piercing scream, its body convulsed twice, but it didn’t fall.
Golden branches surged madly from the wound, winding along the iron sword toward Lux’s hand.
“Eek!” Lux let go of the sword and jumped back.
The iron sword fell to the ground and was instantly entangled by the golden branches.
A few seconds later, fine golden patterns began to grow on the surface of the blade.
“My holy sword!”
“Don’t worry about the sword!
Watch out behind you!” Guinaifen’s voice came from the side.
Lux spun around abruptly—another monster was already pouncing in front of her.
She instinctively pushed the shield forward—”bang,” the shield smashed into the monster’s face, knocking it to the ground.
“Hmph, eat my righteous serve.”
Taking this opportunity, Lux pulled a fishing rod from her inventory.
With a flick of her wrist, the hook flew out, precisely snagging the ankle of the monster that had just climbed up.
Then she pulled hard, and the monster lost its balance again, crashing to the ground with a “thud.”
“Enemy off-balance!” Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
The nearby Cloud Knights saw their chance, one blade hacking off the monster’s head, followed by several slashes to chop it into pieces.
“Nice!” that Cloud Knight shouted.
Lux didn’t have time to be smug; she pulled out a new iron sword and charged at the next target.
An Abomination of Abundance floating in the air pointed a finger, and a yellow ball of light flew toward Lux.
Lux caught it in her peripheral vision; the phantom image of stones appeared in her hand, and with a gentle wave—two stones rose from the ground in front of her, forming stone pillars that blocked the ball of light.
“Boom!”
The stone pillars were blown apart, and gravel flew everywhere.
But at least it had been blocked.
Lux clicked her tongue—good grief, it could even destroy the terrain.
She used stones to elevate herself on the spot, then headed toward the caster, running and placing stone pillars along the way so she wouldn’t be bogged down by the monsters on the ground while in the air.
She quickly reached the casting monster and slashed it to the ground with a jump attack.
However, the iron sword’s damage was truly limited, so Lux had to use the fishing rod to pull Sushang, who was not far away, over.
Sushang was fighting an Abomination of Abundance when suddenly a pulling force from behind dragged her away.
She looked back and saw it was Lux, so she didn’t struggle.
“Quick, kill it, I can’t cut through it.”
Sushang looked down at the caster struggling on the ground and, without a word, sent it to its end with one strike of her sword.
The growth of the Ambrosial Arbor stalled, and the power of Abundance it exuded was no longer as dense.
The self-healing speed of these Abominations of Abundance clearly slowed down.
The Cloud Knights seized the opportunity, launched a counterattack, and hacked all the remaining monsters to the ground.
When the last monster fell, everyone was panting heavily, leaning against the containers to rest.
Sushang sat down on the ground, threw her sword aside, and panted heavily.
“How…
did you two get here?” She looked up at Guinaifen and Lux, her voice a bit hoarse.
“We were worried about you!” Guinaifen crouched down to check the wound on her face, “What happened to your face?
Are you okay?”
“It’s nothing, just got scratched by a branch.” Sushang waved her hand, then looked curiously at Lux, “Lux, you’re actually a Pathstrider too?”
Lux kept a straight face: “Yeah.”
“How come you never mentioned it?”
“You never asked.”
Sushang scratched her head: “I guess that’s true.”
“Wait.” She suddenly realized, looking at the two of them with annoyance, “Even if you’re both Pathstriders, you can’t just sneak out here.
Go back quickly, leave this kind of dangerous stuff to us Cloud Knights.”
Guinaifen stuck her tongue out playfully: “Hehe, we were just worried about you.”
“That’s still not okay.
I can tell Guinaifen led the way and corrupted Lux.” Sushang put her hands on her hips.
“Pfft.” Lux couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
“Hey, hey, am I that kind of person in your eyes?
What kind of best friend are you?” Guinaifen’s eyes widened, her face full of wronged grievance, “This time, it was Lux’s idea, okay?”
“Huh?
Is that so?” Sushang scratched her head awkwardly.
“Anyway, no matter what, you guys go back first.
The Ambrosial Arbor has stopped growing, so there shouldn’t be anything this troublesome later on.
I won’t get into any trouble, don’t you worry.”
Lux suddenly remembered the item she had drawn last night.
She hesitated for a moment, then pulled the enchanted golden apple from her backpack and handed it to Sushang.
“Here, Sushang, this is for you.”
“What is this?” Sushang took it and looked curiously at Lux.
Although it looked like an apple, she could feel that this thing was extraordinary.
“It’s for saving your life.
Eat it if you encounter danger or are seriously injured; it might just save your life.” Lux said solemnly.
Sushang looked at Lux’s serious gaze, and her heart warmed: “Thank you, Lux.”
“Hmph, I’m just afraid that if a dummy like you dies, Guinaifen will definitely be sad.” Lux turned her head away, her tone carrying a hint of tsundere.
“Heehee, Lux is soft everywhere except for her mouth.” Guinaifen teased with a smile.
“W-what, no…
I’m just telling the truth.”
“Yeah, yeah, just telling the truth.”
“Guinaifen, who are you being sarcastic to?
Go die!”