Chapter 376: Simple Numerical Values

The fissures in the sea of clouds continued to multiply, and as more and more large fissures appeared, the monsters escaping from their confinement became gradually harder to deal with.

Yu Sheng immediately drove Zheng Zhi and Cinderella, who were not good at fighting, into No. 66 Wutong Road, and then joined the others on the Cloud-Watching Platform in an endless battle against those monsters.

A strange creature, slender as a snake yet bearing a feathered crest and limbs, swooped down from the sky, emitting a piercing shriek that made one's head split with pain, but before it could land, countless pitch-black spider webs materialized out of thin air, piercing the monster's entire body and locking it firmly in place; immediately following this, a blinding, scorching beam swept across the half-sky, slicing that monster and another strange creature emerging from a nearby crack into two pieces.

Irene (Rebar) sat on Yu Sheng's shoulder, constantly controlling the black spider webs spreading everywhere to capture monsters approaching the Cloud-Watching Platform, while another Irene (Black Iron) stood on the ground not far away, raising her hand to shoot scorching beams into the sky, simultaneously shouting arrogantly: "Ahahaha, you little fish! How's the heat, how's the heat?! I charged all night last night—now I'm terrifyingly strong!! Bring as many as you want, I'll... hey, Hu Li, watch where you're going, don't step on me!"

Hu Li leaped through the air, stomping a humanoid giant monster shaped like a demon under her foot, while fox fire surged all over her body, turning that monster to ash in the blink of an eye; hearing Irene's complaint, she didn't even turn her head: "Then can you find a higher place to stay? —It's really hard for me to see my feet in this form!"

"Who made your snout so long!" Irene (Black Iron) shouted loudly while darting frantically across the ground to avoid being stepped on, "I was just sitting on Yu Sheng's other shoulder—didn't I just fall off!"

Yu Sheng reached out, scooped Irene up, then held the small doll in one arm while waving the Tetanus Staff in his other hand, his gaze sweeping across the surroundings—

Rapunzel, wielding a golden war scythe made from her magical hair, was engaged in a fierce battle with a powerful ape-like ferocious beast on the Cloud-Watching Platform; she had basically no set techniques, relying entirely on the "hunting skills" honed through life-and-death battles against various demonic creatures since childhood to deal with enemies, and precisely because of this, every strike was lethal; her magical hair could transform into any weapon or armor at her command, and she wielded knives, spears, swords, and halberds with unmatched proficiency, fierce as a golden beast.

But the most dangerous weapon in her hand was not those weapons that looked heavy and powerful with wide, sweeping moves, but rather the strands of hair she raised in the air, which seemed merely to be blown by the wind.

Threads of golden hair moved quietly around her; the slender strands were so fine they were almost imperceptible without close observation; silently and without a sound, these hairs had attached themselves to the surface of the ape-like ferocious beast, and by the time the latter sensed the killing intent and instinctively retreated, it was already too late—

Rapunzel swung her golden war scythe down; the ferocious beast instinctively raised its arms to block, but suddenly hundreds of tiny blood flowers erupted all over its body; the all-penetrating golden hair pierced its limbs, then spread through all its meridians and blood vessels inside its body, finding several hearts within the monster in the blink of an eye and slicing all of them into fragments.

The ferocious beast crashed to the ground with a boom; the blood-stained hairs that had killed it slowly retracted, transforming back into their brilliant golden form while still in mid-air.

Rapunzel laughed, her face stained with purple-red demon blood, looking exceptionally happy.

These things were much easier to deal with than her holiday homework.

But just then, a grating "creak" sound rose from the sky, catching everyone's attention.

Yu Sheng instinctively looked up toward the direction of the sound, only to see a "channel" distinctly different from the previous fissures slowly opening in the sky above the cliffside of the Cloud-Watching Platform.

The crack shimmered with crystal-clear radiance, appearing as if a magnificent crystal cavern was gradually opening; it looked strange yet carried a peculiar splendor, and as the crack continued to widen, what emerged from within was not the hideous ferocious beasts and demons seen before, but a sharp... crystal spike.

A huge crystal of magnificent colors, several meters tall, was gradually floating out from that crack, descending toward the ground with an air of arrival.

Yu Sheng instantly sensed immense danger; he saw thick demon-suppressing chains bound around the crystal's waist, covered densely with talismanic seals all burning fiercely, while beams of light spread out from within the fissure, seemingly still struggling to drag the crystal back—however, all these sealing measures were rapidly weakening as the damage inside the Demon-Suppressing Tower expanded, and in the blink of an eye, half of the chains binding the crystal snapped.

The next second, as the crystal gradually broke free, everyone on the Cloud-Watching Platform heard a pleasant, light chime.

The sound was like wind chimes, or jade gently striking jade; the pleasant tones emanating from within the crystal were so refreshing to the mind and spirit that they felt like celestial music.

The moment the crystal chimed, most of the fighting on the Cloud-Watching Platform ceased; everyone felt a sense of relaxation and laziness rising from the depths of their hearts, and even those hideous and terrifying ferocious beasts, demons, and alien ghosts seemed to have received some kind of "purification," lazily restraining their killing intent.

However, in sharp contrast to this suddenly descending "comfort" and "relaxation," fear suddenly surfaced in the eyes of certain intelligent demons.

A demon covered in scales, shaped like an upright lizard, stumbled and fell the moment it saw that crystal; seeing the chains binding the crystal snap inch by inch, it even spoke human words in terror: "G-Great Desolation Falling Crystal!"

Before the words had fully left its mouth, the fighting spirit in the demon's eyes had already vanished; accompanied by the crystal chiming again, a calm, joyful laziness rose upon its non-human face; immediately, its entire body of scales was quickly covered with a layer of iridescent, crystal-clear texture, and within a few breaths, the monster had transformed into a lifelike crystal sculpture, seemingly of the same origin as the iridescent crystal in mid-air.

Seeing this situation, Yu Sheng's hair stood on end instantly: "Holy crap, what the hell is this thing!"

Rapunzel, who had been fighting happily, was stunned at once—she soon discovered that her hair could not penetrate the crystal at all, and the moment her war scythe struck it, it became as weak as if all strength had been drained, her fighting spirit like being thrown into an ice cellar, leaking away and dissipating every second, while an irresistible laziness, a desire to simply stop and rest, or even to turn into a stone and bask in the sun doing nothing, surged uncontrollably from the depths of her heart.

Just then, a black figure suddenly passed through the battlefield like a ghost.

Luna seemed completely unaffected by that crystal; she gracefully leaped over everyone, her fingertip blade casually harvesting enemies along the way who had already lost their fighting spirit or were even beginning to gradually transform into crystal sculptures; her figure moved between the world of the living and the dead, every step precise, elegant, and perfectly timed—without a hint of hesitation, nor a single waste of stamina or time; after a few steps of "dance" that were slow in appearance but fast in reality, she arrived before the floating crystal, then thrust her sharp blade directly.

The crystal was exceptionally hard, so much so that the unidirectional crystallized alloy blade, capable of cutting through warship armor, could only produce a string of sparks on its surface, unable to harm it in the slightest.

But this seemingly ineffective attack directly interrupted the pleasant, light chime constantly emanating from within the crystal, turning its originally harmonious vibrating sound into a series of grating, strange noises.

Before Yu Sheng's eyes, he saw the golden-haired female knight leading twelve brass knights in the Soul Wilderness, beating that crystal with swords, spears, and staffs...

He was instantly greatly surprised: "... This thing has a soul?!"

"Whether it has a soul is debatable, but it certainly has a mind," Yuan Hao Zhenren's voice came from the sky, "The Great Desolation Falling Crystal is a dangerous strange object my master found a thousand years ago after a strange meteor shower; this thing fell from a foreign realm named 'Desolate Heaven'; it is actually a high-risk 'entity' within that foreign realm; after leaving the foreign realm environment, it mutated but still survived to this day. This thing has a mind, can think, is treacherous and dangerous, but its chime, after processing, can be used to suppress demons prone to losing control, so for these years we have kept it chained under the tower to serve as a 'Demon-Suppressing Stone,' but now it seems... this thing ultimately cannot be kept."

As he spoke, the chime emanating from that strange crystal had already gradually faded, and then the iridescent flowing light on its surface was quickly covered by a layer of gray-white symbolizing death; it fell from its floating state half a meter above the ground to the earth, making no sound anymore, yet still trembling slightly, as if even after its "soul" died, its shell remained alive.

It was even attempting to regenerate its soul.

"Needs to be smashed," Luna stepped back gracefully, turning her head to look at Yu Sheng, "But it's too hard."

"Easy."

Yuan Hao Zhenren's voice rang out from the sky; immediately, he floated down gracefully; Yu Sheng saw the other party flip his palm, tucking the "Ten Directions Heaven-Suppressing Ruler," which looked like a brick, into his sleeve; immediately raising his hand again, another weapon appeared out of thin air in his hand—

This weapon was square at the front, neither metal nor wood, blazing red and dazzling to the eyes, cold and chilling to the bone, with a handle half a meter long at the back.

Yu Sheng: "..."

It was just another bigger brick with a stick welded to the back; at best, it was a warhammer, but essentially it was just... ah, just a hammer.

Seeing this thing, Yu Sheng couldn't help but want to open his mouth to complain, but Yuan Hao Zhenren clearly wouldn't give him that chance—the old master stepped forward, every gesture and movement displaying the style of a grandmaster; his white clothes were like snow, his white hair and white eyebrows like swords in the wind; with a body full of killing aura, he held that red brick with a handle high in his hand, and as he raised the hammer and brought it down, he chanted: "Haotian Demon-Suppressing Hammer!"

Then, with a single "Bang" of a deafening roar, that hard crystal, which even Luna's fingertip blade couldn't chip a single fragment from, was smashed by Yuan Hao Zhenren into a sky full of fragments with one hammer strike.

Highlighting a complete lack of aesthetics, special effects, attribute counters, skill techniques, or exquisite Daoist arts, but with sufficient numerical stats.

(End of this chapter)