Chapter 719: with translation of chapter title

The viewpoint shifted.

Heimu sat sideways on the Magic Staff, her gray-white long hair pulled by the high-altitude airflow into a straight silver line under Yongzhou's golden sky-light, her purple-black skirt flapping behind her, the brim of the Witch Hat flipped up slightly by the wind.

A few hundred meters ahead, two tiny red figures were sprinting across the stone slab road at a speed utterly mismatched to their size, their short little legs alternating extremely fast.

Heimu lowered her center of gravity, magic poured from her palms into the staff, the rear of the Magic Staff burst a ring of purple-black light, the whole staff shuddered in the air, then suddenly accelerated.

The distance closed from a hundred meters to fifty, thirty, ten—she could even make out the frequency at which the little cowlick on Ti Bao's crown twitched in the wind, her outstretched fingertips about to touch that mass of fluffy red hair when a golden door tore open before the two small figures without warning.

Light patterns wove into a door shape; the door's interior roiled with twisted folds, and through the frame one could faintly see a sky of a completely different color on the other side.

Ti Bao and Ti Ning jumped in hand in hand, their four legs vanishing from the doorframe as if sucked into another dimension.

The door snapped shut behind them, leaving only a faint golden ripple in the air that spread outward in rings before fading.

Heimu rushed past the ripple's position, her fingertips grasping only a handful of air still warm with the residual power of the Gate Path.

The Hundred Worlds Gate.

She halted the Magic Staff in midair, the staff swinging sideways to stop where the ripple had faded, her purple-black eyes fixed on the void ahead, her lips moving as she swallowed an uncivilized remark.

Hiss!

How could she have forgotten? Though these two little ones had regressed to the mental state of cubs, their permissions were undiminished—opening the Hundred Worlds Gate was as easy as opening her own backdoor.

The System Panel unfurled from her fingertip, a translucent Light Screen showing a three-dimensional map of the replicated Weng Fa Luo Si; two red light dots were darting outward from the Tree Court zone at high speed, their trajectory completely disregarding geographical continuity.

One second she was at the Tree Court Main Gate, the next she had jumped straight to the outskirts of Suspended Blade City—a distance that would take at least an hour of regular flight.

Heimu slapped the Panel, purple-black magic surged from her palms to envelop the entire Magic Staff; the gem at the staff's tip shot forward a beam of light that tore a space rift in the air roughly the width of her shoulders, the rift's edges roiling with purple-black light strands matching her magic.

She dove headfirst into it.

The moment the rift snapped shut behind her, the surrounding air turned suddenly cold.

The warmth of Ao He Ma's Yongzhou was replaced by a biting chill; wind swept in from the open expanse, stirring up fine iron-gray gravel on the ground.

The sky was a clear, almost transparent light blue, utterly different from the golden hue of Ao He Ma's Yongzhou sky drenched in eternal daylight.

Iron-gray stone bricks were laid neatly on the city wall, with weapons arrays hung in orderly fashion.

Suspended Blade City, now under the afternoon sun of the replicated world, was silent as a vast open-air training ground.

In the distance, a sword-shaped fortress rose into the clouds, its iron-black spire reflecting a piercing cold light beneath the blue sky, and within the watchtowers on the wall one could faintly make out a few patrolling guards.

Before Heimu could properly take in this restored Barbarian Capital, a clear child's voice rang out from above the city wall.

"Here here! Mama's too slow!"

Ti Bao stood on the city wall's crenel, hands cupped around her mouth like a megaphone, her fluffy red hair trembling in the wind.

Ti Ning sat quietly beside her on the crenel, her short little legs dangling outside the wall as she swayed, holding a cup of juice from who-knows-where and sipping it slowly through a straw.

Heimu's mouth twitched.

These two little brats—she lowered the staff's tip, preparing to dive down, but the Magic Staff had barely slid forward less than three meters when the gem at its tip emitted an extremely faint buzz.

Perception went berserk in her brain, popping up alerts: straight ahead, seventeen meters away, height two point three meters, spanning the entire city gate passage.

She yanked the staff upward sharply; at the last instant the Magic Staff surged up at an almost vertical angle, its tail grazing an almost completely transparent golden web.

The web's material shared the same origin as the light patterns of the Hundred Worlds Gate; it was completely invisible in sunlight, only discernible at extremely close range as each strand faintly shimmered with a pale gold glow.

A few unlucky guards hung from the net, their limbs bound by intensely adhesive light strands, unable to move, emitting only dull hums—these little rascals didn't even spare their own patrolmen.

Hehe~

Ti Bao's gleeful laughter drifted down from above the wall.

Heimu steadied the staff in midair, about to change direction and loop up from the flank, when the stone slab pavement below suddenly emitted a rapid series of click-clack sounds.

She looked down and saw the gaps between the iron-gray stone slabs rapidly widening, each fissure glowing with gold-red light, the flashing frequency matching a rhythm she knew all too well.

Her pupils contracted; she slammed both hands onto the staff, deploying a shield before her as the entire Magic Staff shot backward at maximum acceleration.

The next second, an entire row of stone slabs at the base of the city wall exploded simultaneously.

Boom!

Gold-red flames shot up from the cracks in the floor tiles, the exploding shrapnel wrapped in scorching blasts spraying in all directions; the shockwave spread along the wall's base, laying out a continuous wall of fire before Heimu, its height just clearing the crenel and casting the spot where Ti Bao and Ti Ning sat in a vivid red glow.

The two little rascals had actually stuffed explosives directly into the gaps in the pavement.

Heimu waved her staff to disperse the smoke and dust, her purple-black eyes gazing upward through the still-burning flames toward the top of the wall.

Ti Bao had already risen to her feet on the crenel, hands on hips, her cowlick standing straight in the blast's gust, her face wearing an extraordinarily bright, innocent smile that, in this context, sent a chill down anyone's spine.

Ti Ning remained seated beside her, her juice finished, the bangs lifted slightly by the blast's shockwave to reveal the closed eyes beneath and the slightly upturned corners of her mouth.

"Mom, you gotta cheer on!"

Ti Bao waved at her, then grabbed Ti Ning and turned to jump down the other side of the wall.

As the two red-haired tiny figures vanished from the crenel, Heimu heard Ti Ning add in a calm tone utterly unlike someone who had just blown up a street: "The next location is ready."

The golden flash of the Hundred Worlds Gate opening and closing flickered past behind the wall; by the time Heimu rode her staff up above the wall, all that remained on the crenel was an empty juice cup and a small crayon-drawn card.

The card depicted a lopsided stick figure, its head topped with a tangled mess of gray lines, its body wrapped in several loops of red something, and beside it, in the same wobbly script, were the two characters "Mom, cheer on!" with three exclamation points, the last one's tail drawn out extra long.

Heimu flipped the card over; on the back was drawn a heart.

She slipped the card into her pocket, her face unsure what expression to make, finally settling on a very subtle curve.

Alright, still pretty polite—blowing people up and leaving a sympathy card.