Chapter 647

That building was very tall—so tall that in this gray, misty ruin, it was the first thing you saw.

Its appearance is hard to describe—if you say it's a tower, it lacks the tiered narrowing profile of a tower; if you say it's a building, it doesn't resemble any building she's ever seen.

The walls were vermilion, but that vermilion had faded more than half, leaving a dark red like dried bloodstains.

It stood there like an old tree grown from the ruins, crooked but unmoving.

Ilya had no time to examine it closely.

She clutched Robin, slipped through a broken window of the building, and landed in a hallway inside.

Meanwhile, Gudazi stood on the crooked stone pillar, watching Ilya clutch Robin and dart into the building.

Its head tilted slightly, and the smile on its face widened further, almost reaching its ears.

"Hide-and-seek?"

His voice bubbled with uncontainable joy, "Oh yes, oh yes, I love hide-and-seek."

He jumped down from the stone pillar, landing on the ground with a motion light as a wind-blown leaf.

Gudazi didn't run; instead, he swayed leisurely toward the building, hands shoved into the pockets of his ragged clothes, humming an unknown tune.

The crimson spears kept raining down, some landing nearby and exploding in red bursts, the shockwave nudging its body, yet it didn't glance at them, continuing forward with composure—as if anything capable of blasting a crater in the ground were merely a drizzle to it.

Saber stood in place, watching Gudazi walk away; her foot twitched, wanting to follow, but her whole body felt nailed to the spot.

Her brows knit tighter, her golden eyes filled with something indistinguishably between anger and resignation.

She wanted to move, but she couldn't, because Gudazi wouldn't let her.

The perspective shifted from inside Huo Huo's belly out to the mirror world outside.

Jiaoshou stood on the roof of the fifty-plus-story building, one hand in his lab coat pocket, the other gripping a banana he was eating.

The banana had been gnawed more than halfway, leaving only a small stub still pinched in his hand, the peel dangling and swaying slightly in the wind.

He wore the Vortex Glasses on his face, the lenses narrowing his eyes to slits as he gazed at the distant Giant Fox.

The Giant Fox was too large.

Jiaoshou stood on the building's roof, over fifty stories high—the tallest structure in the ruins—but he still had to crane his neck to look at the Giant Fox.

The Giant Fox stood at least several hundred meters tall, its four legs like massive pillars; each step made the ground tremble.

Its tail spread behind it, over a hundred meters long, swaying slowly beneath the gray sky like a huge serpent gliding through the air.

The flames on its body had shifted from cyan-gold to black-gold, burning its fur and heating the surrounding air into distortion; viewing it, its outline blurred within the warped air, as if seen through heated glass.

Jiaoshou took a bite of the banana, chewed a few times, swallowed, then clicked his tongue twice.

"Tsk, tsk,"

His voice wasn't loud, but on this quiet rooftop it rang clear: "What the hell is this thing?"

Then he saw the Giant Fox move.

The Giant Fox's head lurched downward like a boulder falling from height, slamming into the ground.

The sound was deafening, shaking the building where Jiaoshou stood; his banana nearly slipped from his grip, and he hastily clamped both hands around it.

The Giant Fox's head punched through the ground.

It didn't just make a crater; it punched straight through.

Its head buried deep into the earth, so deep its neck vanished from sight, leaving only its massive torso and tail exposed.

Its limbs scrabbled at the ground like a dog digging a hole, sending shards of stone and dirt flying like artillery shells in all directions, some striking distant ruins and shattering already tottering structures further.

Jiaoshou's mouth opened slightly.

The banana in his hand halted midair, the uneaten morsel caught in his throat, neither up nor down.

Through the Vortex Glasses, his eyes locked onto the distant Giant Fox.

What was it looking for?

A thought flashed through Jiaoshou's mind, followed immediately by another—could it be searching for that thing?

Jiaoshou's pupils constricted sharply.

The rings on the Vortex Glasses spun faster, his mouth fell fully open, the banana chunk dropped from his lips, hit the ground, rolled twice, and gathered a dust coating.

"Holy shit."

Standing there, watching the Giant Fox.

How did it find it?

Jiaoshou's mind raced.

That thing was hidden deep, tucked into the crevices it had taken two whole months to locate.

But now, a Giant Fox wreathed in black-gold flames was plunging its snout into the earth, searching for that thing.

Jiaoshou drew a deep breath, cycled the air in his chest, then exhaled.

His hand released the banana; the uneaten stalk slipped from his grasp, fell to the ground, and lay beside the earlier spat-out morsel, looking like a pile of chewed‑then‑spat‑out matter.

He raised his hand and pressed the tiny Communicator on his ear.

"Gilgamesh."

His voice changed, no longer the previous slow drawl.

"Go, take care of that thing."

He paused, then added, "And that Saber too."

There was no response from the other end of the Communicator.

But Jiaoshou knew it had heard.

Because far off, the Giant Fox's back suddenly erupted in a patch of black‑red light.

A few minutes earlier.

Jing Yuan hovered in midair, the Golden Long Spear held horizontally before him, tip pointing upward, butt downward.

His white long hair fluttered in the wind, his robe still looked imposing in the dim light, but his brows were furrowed, and his golden eyes stared at the black‑armored figure before him.

Gilgamesh stood on the edge of the rooftop of that tall building, and the black‑red ripples behind him rotated slowly.

His face showed no expression, and his red eyes looked at Jing Yuan as if examining an item displayed in a shop window.

Behind Jing Yuan, the massive Divine Lord phantom was tightly bound by golden Lock chains.

Those Lock chains reached out from the void, binding the huge figure like a prisoner tied to a pillar.

The Divine Lord struggled, and golden light flickered through the gaps of the Lock chains, but the chains remained motionless, like an iron‑cast cage.

Heaven's Lock.

Jing Yuan did not panic.

He had lived so many years, and had seen far more than this Lock chain.

He simply stared at Gilgamesh, calculating in his mind how to get out of this situation.