Chapter 279: Harvest

To be honest, Yu Sheng was quite surprised—surprised by that monster's "ruthlessness," and also surprised by the opponent's "judgment" in severing an arm at a critical moment.

He was becoming increasingly curious about this bizarre enemy.

The iron puppet, now missing an arm, stood quietly nearby. In the glow of the streetlamp filtering through the thick fog, its tall figure looked like a beautiful yet grotesque statue, even... exuding a certain faint "holiness."

That smiling metal face gazed silently at Yu Sheng. She slowly raised her only remaining left arm; the half-meter-long blade fingers emitted a faint clicking sound.

The bodily functions of a living person were gradually collapsing. Yu Sheng's body swayed, then he lifted his head, draped in death, and slowly walked toward that seemingly holy "goddess statue."

The iron puppet stepped back half a pace.

Yu Sheng extended a hand he had previously pressed against his chest. Fresh blood on his hand dripped slowly into the mist, yet the droplets hovered in mid-air, circling around him like living plankton. A smile slowly spread across his face as he invited the monster: "Come, don't be afraid. It's still warm..."

A discordant clacking sound came from within the iron puppet. "She" stepped back again, this time even hopping away.

"So, you feel fear, and you think," Yu Sheng stopped, staring fixedly at the monster. "What... exactly are you?"

The iron puppet bent its knees slightly, as if preparing to charge, but immediately changed posture and suddenly leaped high backward.

"Her" figure was enveloped by a shadow that abruptly appeared, vanishing into the thick fog in the blink of an eye.

Yu Sheng did not pursue.

Yu Sheng was already dead.

In the rapidly descending chaotic darkness, Yu Sheng's mind drifted. He continued to think, recalling every detail of his clash with that monster.

He had to admit that, aside from the Dark Angel, that thing was indeed the most formidable enemy he had ever encountered, even the one that made him feel the most pressure—stronger than the oppressive feeling given by those terrifying, hideous creatures. This pressure was obviously not just due to "her" strength, but also because of the strange... "atmosphere" "she" exuded.

Like a human, but not human. Like a living creature, but in terms of aura, the dead part far outweighed the living.

And she was truly strong.

Her speed was astonishing, her strength immense, her movement ghostly. Although she didn't use many flashy "skills" during close-quarters combat, relying simply on cold weapon attacks, every strike of her ten blade fingers was exceptionally lethal. More importantly, her combat intelligence was extremely high; she knew how to use tactical deception, capable of both fighting and fleeing.

"She" even possessed a self-destruct mechanism that could be retracted...

Moreover, "her" shell was incredibly sturdy. Yu Sheng had hit that thing; a single strike with his staff caused no visible damage to the naked eye. Hu Li's fox fire had also hit it several times; flames capable of melting ordinary steel only left a few scorch marks on its surface. Although Hu Li's rapid-fire fireballs, mainly used for suppression, indeed lacked power, the iron puppet's defensive capability was truly somewhat exaggerated.

But the iron puppet was not without weaknesses.

"She" thinks, feels fear, knows how to deceive, and can be deceived...

Yu Sheng's consciousness drifted in the darkness, reviewing the battle while waiting for the symptoms of death to fade. Then, after an unknown duration, he suddenly felt a sharp "fall."

Death faded; the living returned.

A hard sensation came from beneath his body. Cold, damp mist drilled into his nostrils. Yu Sheng opened his eyes and saw he was lying on a street shrouded in thick fog.

He took a deep breath. His reborn body was pure and strong. He rolled over and rose, his gaze sweeping the surroundings.

This was still the same "battlefield" from before. That bizarre iron puppet had long since left and did not appear to have returned to check the scene.

Something a few meters away caught his eye.

Yu Sheng walked over and saw a metal-cast arm lying quietly on the open ground.

He bent down and picked up the arm. It felt cold to the touch. This former weapon of killing had now completely lost its vitality; its loose joints hung down, emitting a faint metallic grinding sound. The long, slender blades serving as the puppet's fingers, half a meter in length, shimmered with a silver-white cold light under the streetlamp. Although no bloodstains were visible on the surface, Yu Sheng could still feel the connection between himself and this arm.

And it wasn't just a connection to this arm.

Yu Sheng narrowed his eyes slightly, feeling the vague guidance transmitted through the blood.

A distant "blood trace" was moving rapidly deep within this vast city.

The iron puppet's act of severing its own arm was very decisive—but not enough. However, the act of amputation did serve a partial purpose. Yu Sheng could feel that distant connection, but it was weak and vague. Coupled with the great distance, he could not track the target's exact location, nor could he observe the surrounding environment through the target's eyes as he had done with the physical "guards" in the "Museum" before.

This made him somewhat regretful.

But leaving some trace was better than nothing. If "she" appeared nearby again, Yu Sheng was confident he could capture the opponent's "signal" immediately.

And then uncover the secrets behind this thing.

Yu Sheng exhaled lightly and reached out to pull open the gate leading to No. 66 Wutong Road.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, he heard the voices of Erin and Hu Li coming from the direction of the living room—

"Hey, hey, silly fox, have you checked the watch? How long has Yu Sheng been dead?"

"Over thirty minutes. He should be alive by now, right?"

"... Could he have been corpse-guarded by that inferior puppet using the C-type clasp? Woke up and got chopped again..."

"Impossible. That monster doesn't know the Grace Guild can resurrect."

"True... Hey! I'm sensing Yu Sheng's mental response! He's alive, he's alive! Seems pretty close, right at..."

!

The small puppet looked up and saw Yu Sheng standing nearby, watching her with a half-smile.

Erin: "... Wow!"

Hu Li happily pounced over: "Benefactor, you're alive~~"

Yu Sheng casually tossed the iron arm he had retrieved aside, assumed a lunge with his waist sunk to hard-block Hu Li's embrace, and then, while he could still breathe, hurriedly reminded the Miss: "That's enough, that's enough... Don't mess with a new account, don't mess with a new account. It's about to break again..."

Hu Li quickly let go of Yu Sheng, her tail wagging like a windmill as she happily swayed nearby. Erin ran over with a pitter-patter, looked at the arm thrown on the ground, reached out to try and pick it up, but dropped it halfway through lifting: "Oh my god... this thing is really heavy! Yu Sheng, you're amazing. You disarmed that guy of an arm before dying?"

"She took it off herself," Yu Sheng sighed, catching his breath after being winded by the nine-tailed fox's embrace, and said casually, "Probably wanted to get rid of the influence of my blood, but she still left a trace..."

He then briefly recounted what happened after Hu Li and Erin left, and also mentioned a few of the many things he had thought about while dead and having nothing to do.

Erin and Hu Li listened very attentively.

"All in all, there was a harvest," Yu Sheng said, exhaling as he bent down to pick up the arm. "I left a mark on that iron puppet. Now I can roughly judge that she is still deep within the foggy city, but moving rapidly, so I can't lock on accurately... I suspect she can feel that something remains on her and is trying to get rid of the tracking this way, but she will eventually stop. Besides that, the harvest is this arm. It counts as a trophy."

Speaking thus, he placed the arm with the attached blades on the coffee table—doing so very carefully, mainly because those "finger blades" were excessively sharp, and he felt that one slip would puncture the furniture or something.

"What can this thing do?" Erin also climbed onto the coffee table, curiously and cautiously poking at the palm connected to the blades, observing its structure, her tone laced with disdain. "Ew—rough, ugly."

Yu Sheng: "But it can fight better than you."

Erin cursed very nastily.

"We can show it to the Special Bureau later; maybe they can determine where that thing comes from," Yu Sheng directly ignored the small puppet's jumping around and said to himself, "Also, I mainly liked her blade hand—it works so well. Light, sharp, and sturdy. It poked a hole right through me..."

Erin was in the middle of cursing when she heard Yu Sheng's words. She instantly choked the rest of her colorful language in her throat, stared with wide eyes for a long time, and finally blurted out: "Oh my god, why does what you just said sound like something a pervert would say..."

"I've just been worrying lately about not finding a good bloodletting knife," Yu Sheng said with a look of complete self-evidence. "Knives you buy in ordinary stores get dull after just a couple of stabs on your body, and I can't use my teeth every time—I am, after all, a civilized person."

Even Erin was shocked: "What the hell, a civilized person? So a civilized person uses a table knife to cut themselves too?"

Yu Sheng ignored the little doll's sarcasm. He pushed the arm toward Hu Li: "Try to see if you can take this thing apart. Mainly, can you cut off a small piece of her 'nail'? It doesn't need to be this long; just cut off ten centimeters. Then I'll attach a knife handle..."

The shell of the iron doll had extremely high strength; the Fox Radish machine gun only left a scorch mark when it swept across it, but the fox-fire fireballs themselves were not particularly powerful ultimate moves. Yu Sheng knew that Hu Li's flames were graded. Although he wasn't clear on exactly how many levels there were, based on what he knew so far, there were already the 'Hot Rice' level, the 'Stewed Fox' level, the 'Fox Radish Machine Gun' level, the 'Booster Rocket' level, and so on. Beyond these classifications, there was also the 'Argon Fox Welding' level, whose power was unknown but grew stronger against stronger opponents...

There must be some level of fox fire that can cut open this thing on the coffee table... right?

(End of this chapter)