Chapter 280: Origin

Yu Sheng always had many, many original ideas—some of them were even flashes of brilliant darkness.

And Hu Li had always executed every single one of his outrageous ideas without the slightest doubt.

So this demon fox didn't feel at all that it was wrong for her benefactor to want to pry off the fingernail of a killing machine to make a knife and stab himself; hearing Yu Sheng's order, she immediately happily took that arm, which still looked terrifying, over, then pulled a large tail from behind, rubbed the tip of the tail, and released a cluster of glaring blue fox-fire, beginning to cut with a hissing sound on the iron doll's palm.

She planned to first cut off all five "fingernails," then proceed to further segmentation according to Yu Sheng's requirements; as for detaching the entire arm... that could wait.

The living room was instantly filled with splashing flames.

The bright light illuminated Erin's face, nearly blinding the little doll's eyes.

"Stupid fox, can't you cut this thing in a different place!" Erin complained loudly, "There are sofas and appliances all around; if you set the house on fire!"

Hearing this, Hu Li immediately stopped her work, thought for a moment and felt the other party had a point, so she carried that arm and ran to the basement—she planned to take this thing to the valley to cut it.

Erin watched Hu Li run down the stairs, then turned back to look at Yu Sheng: "You really intend to use that thing's 'fingernail' to make a knife? It looks quite eerie."

"What else?" Yu Sheng said while taking out his phone, editing a message without looking up, "Using dropped materials to craft equipment after defeating a monster should be the normal procedure, right?"

Erin, who had recently been obsessed with games, heard this and her doubts vanished immediately, deeply agreeing.

Then she noticed Yu Sheng's hand movements and curiously leaned over: "What are you doing?"

"Sending a message to Bai Liqing," Yu Sheng said, having already sent the photo of the arm he had taken earlier, while editing a message to briefly explain the process of his exploration in the thick fog and the ambush he encountered, "She should be asleep by now, but I'll leave a message first; in case she happens to know what the creature we fought today is—though regardless of whether she knows or not, I have to go to the Special Operations Bureau tomorrow."

Erin made an "oh" sound, then ran back to the sofa and picked up a black veil to study.

This was precisely the scarf Yu Sheng had previously pulled from the iron doll's head—its overall shape resembled a "nun's habit" worn by some female clergy, the fabric looked quite high-end, and on the thicker front part of the entire veil, a strange golden symbol could be seen; the symbol consisted of two interlocking rings, one large and one small, intersecting at the bottom, with a golden crack running from top to bottom through the entire emblem.

There had been no opportunity to observe carefully during the intense battle earlier; only now did Yu Sheng notice the strange mark on the veil and immediately stepped forward to take a photo with his phone.

Erin held up the veil, curiously studying its internal structure.

For her, who was only 66.6cm tall, this thing could practically serve as a cloak—Yu Sheng watched from the side, almost unable to resist poking the little doll, wanting to see what her reaction would be if she pulled her hands in and got completely wrapped up by the scarf, but after thinking about it, he decided not to be mischievous...

"Do you think that creature is a 'physical entity'?" Yu Sheng said casually, "Not a doll from Alice's House, carrying such an obvious eerie aura, the style looks very much like something generated within the thick fog."

As soon as he finished speaking, Erin's voice came from under the veil: "Ah—regardless of where that C-type buckle came from, I'm now certain she definitely isn't a physical entity."

Yu Sheng was stunned: "How did you determine that?"

Erin struggled to turn the veil inside out, pointing to a corner of the lining: "Because there's a logo here, and next to it a tag saying 'Recommended to hand wash'."

Yu Sheng almost jumped off the sofa on the spot: "What the heck?!"

He leaned over to look, and found that the little doll hadn't lied to him—the scarf pulled from the "iron doll's" head really did have a logo and a care label inside.

Yu Sheng immediately took out his phone to search for the brand of that logo, and a huge number of links popped up.

It wasn't even some mysterious brand or rare haute couture; it was something you could buy anywhere.

Of course, what he found online did differ from the actual object before his eyes—there were slight variations in style, and the images found online didn't have that golden double-ring emblem.

"It looks like someone bought it online and modified it themselves, cut both sides shorter, and then sewed a symbol onto the forehead," Erin leaned over Yu Sheng's arm to look at the search results on his phone, analyzing with a serious expression, "Hey, it's actually quite expensive."

Yu Sheng remained silent, as if lost in thought.

Erin looked up at him: "What are you thinking about?"

Yu Sheng looked serious: "I'm thinking about what this piece of information means."

"It means that C-type buckle definitely isn't a physical entity, right? Physical entities don't go shopping..."

"No, not just that," Yu Sheng slowly shook his head, "This also means that creature isn't alone—there are humans behind her, possibly allies, or possibly a master." Erin couldn't figure it out for a moment: "Why?"

"Because her claws can't do needlework," Yu Sheng glanced at the doll whose brain seemed to freeze at critical moments, "Besides, there's this symbol; this symbol clearly has some special meaning..."

Before he could finish speaking, the phone in his hand rang loudly.

The caller was Bai Liqing, the Bai Liqing who was still awake at 11:30 PM.

Yu Sheng was surprised, but immediately reacted, picked up the phone and held it to his ear; before he could even speak, he heard a cold and slightly hurried voice from the other end: "You were attacked by an enemy resembling a black metal doll? Her appearance is that of a tall and thin woman?"

"Ah, yes," Yu Sheng knew immediately that Bai Liqing must know something, so he didn't bother to ask why she wasn't asleep yet and quickly responded, "She looked about the same height as Xu Jiali, a full iron shell, a deathly pale face, fought like she was dancing, so fast you couldn't keep up, weapons were fingernails—each fingernail was a blade. Oh right, she was also wearing a veil, a bit like..."

Before he could finish, he heard Bai Liqing speak: "A nun?"

"... Yes, a nun, and the style suggests a heretical cultivator," Yu Sheng said, casually sending the photo he had just taken, "I pulled off her veil, and there's this mark on it... From the sound of it, you know her background?"

There was silence on Bai Liqing's end for a few seconds, probably checking the image, then Yu Sheng heard a slight intake of breath.

"You encountered the 'Artificial Saintess' of the Holy Hidden Order."

Yu Sheng was stunned for several seconds before vaguely recalling that he had heard the name "Holy Hidden Order" before; it also seemed to belong to those folk vitality clubs that opposed the rule of law society, but he didn't know the specific details.

!

"Listen... is it a very powerful thing?" he asked tentatively, "Is it something one shouldn't normally encounter?"

"An extremely powerful killing machine, responsible for protecting the Hidden Order's important assets or key personnel," Bai Liqing's voice sounded exceptionally serious, "Usually requires a fully armed team of Deep Divers to deal with; the survival rate for conventional combat personnel encountering an Artificial Saintess alone or in small teams is zero—you're saying that thing appeared in the 'Fog' and suddenly launched a surprise attack on you?"

"Yes," hearing Bai Liqing's words, Yu Sheng's expression quickly turned serious; although he still wasn't clear on what exactly the "Holy Hidden Order" did, just from those few sentences on the other end of the phone, he could judge that this wasn't the same level of organization as those secretive Angel cultists before, and the appearance of that "iron doll" probably meant this incident was quite serious, "We walked into an area where the fog was extremely dense; at that time, the surrounding environment had already shown abnormalities visible to the naked eye—then that creature suddenly emerged from the fog."

"Did you have the environmental recording function of the border communication turned on at the time?" Bai Liqing suddenly asked, "The Special Operations Bureau's custom phones come with multiple special sensors that can record many environmental parameters."

"Ah, yes, it was on; I turned it on as soon as I left."

"Good, I'll have someone pull up the environmental data from the backend shortly," Bai Liqing said quickly, then immediately followed up with another question, "Exactly where were you attacked?"

"Roughly the area north of the Old Town district, adjacent to the commercial street," Yu Sheng recalled, speaking somewhat uncertainly, "But the streets in the fog felt very strange, especially after entering the thick fog zone; the positions, sizes, and even orientations of many buildings seemed to have changed. The place where we fought, the ground in the distance was even 'rolled up'; my recollection can only serve as a reference."

Speaking of this, he paused, then added: "Also, I confirmed that the fog on the Old Town side is connected to the fog at Wanxiang Market before—we didn't walk directly there, but I could... um, 'feel' it. The scope of this 'Otherworld' is probably quite large, possibly even as large as Border City."

"Mm." Bai Liqing simply responded on her end, sounding not very surprised, as if she had already anticipated this possibility.

Then she fell silent for less than two seconds and spoke in a deep voice: "Can you come to the Special Operations Bureau now? Bring the 'sample' you confiscated from that Artificial Saintess."

Yu Sheng instinctively looked up at the clock on the wall.

It was almost midnight.

"At this time?"

"Sorry, the matter is urgent."

"Ah, no problem," Yu Sheng, hearing the other party's sincere attitude, quickly replied, "Then I'll head over right away—by the way, are you still at the bureau?"

"Yes."

"Uh, thanks for your hard work..."

Baili Qing's voice was as usual: "It's fine; I'm used to it."

Yu Sheng: "..."

(End of Chapter)