"Is this where the Ambrosial Arbor's root system is located?"
"Yeah."
March 7th gripped the control stick of Torijinmaru, overlooking the Artisanship Commission through the Mashin's field of vision.
"The situation looks pretty bad."
The complex of buildings, originally orderly like interlocking gears, had now turned into a purgatory where the Ambrosial Arbor's roots danced with mechanical wreckage.
Pillars were twisted into braids by gold-and-green vines, mortise-and-tenon eaves hung with the severed remains of Ingeniums, and roof tiles cracked apart amidst the mad growth of vegetation.
The Mara-struck Ingeniums were completely out of control, wreaking havoc everywhere. Caelus saw a dog-shaped Ingenium ramming into and collapsing half an attic, possessing a certain beauty reminiscent of a Husky tearing up a home.
"Tsk tsk, was this Ingenium beast actually modeled after a Husky by someone?"
"I feel like in its normal state, it would be quite cute?"
Though somewhat reluctant, March 7th still pulled the control stick. Torijinmaru spat out several Wind energy shells, precisely hitting the dog-shaped Ingenium that was gnawing on a load-bearing pillar to grind its teeth.
Ingeniums were similar to robots and different from omnics; they had no personality, only programming. When they became sources of danger, the best choice was to eliminate them first.
Along the way, Stelle had been peeking around through Dragon Sword Ryujinmaru's super vision. Suddenly, her eyes lit up as she looked up towards the end of her line of sight:
"That must be the Wood Demon that Master Gongshu mentioned, right?"
Several thousand meters away, floating two or three hundred meters in the air, was a bronze furnace emitting a green glow.
According to Master Gongshu, that was the Artisanship Commission's supreme treasure—the Creation Furnace!
Though called a furnace, it didn't look like the stove people imagined. It resembled a die with over a dozen faces, displaying a complex topological structure. It was about a hundred meters in diameter, with the furnace body engraved with talismans.
Industrial manufacturing, weapon research, and so on all required energy. Whether it was industrial manufacturing, the drive energy cores of Ingenium beasts, or even the energy used by the Xianzhou to sail the Star Ocean, a portion came from the Creation Furnace.
To use an Earth analogy, it was a massive, radiation-free nuclear reactor.
It was just that what participated in the reaction inside wasn't radioactive elements like uranium or plutonium, but the far more useful Spirits of Starfire—energy lifeforms, Heliobi.
Over a thousand years ago, the leader of the Heliobus race, the Great Heliobus Ignamar, dueled the previous Luofu General Teng Xiao in Fyxestroll Garden. Ignamar was utterly defeated, unable to condense into form again, and scattered into different spirit fragments.
If Star Rail were a management simulation strategy game, Ignamar fragments would definitely be precious power generation materials for the Xianzhou region.
Most of the Heliobus race met similar fates; almost all were sealed within a certain Xianzhou after hurting people or causing trouble, becoming batteries.
In a sense, they were sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor for life to repay the trouble they caused and make up for the losses the Xianzhou suffered.
"Wait! Look, those branches—are they trying to break the furnace?"
Sharp-eyed March 7th was the first to see the situation clearly and let out a cry of alarm.
The Creation Furnace originally floated two or three hundred meters in the air. While this height wasn't exactly stratospheric, the tallest building in the Artisanship Commission was only a little over a hundred meters, and the surrounding area was a restricted flight zone designated by the Commission.
Aside from the workers specifically responsible for it, basically no person or Ingenium could touch it.
But now, the Ambrosial Arbor's roots had crossed a distance of over a thousand meters underground, pierced through the rock strata, and burst out of the ground directly beneath the Creation Furnace.
Countless knotted roots rose like soaring green pythons, weaving together to wrap around the Creation Furnace.
"Hiss~ Not good! It's the legendary Biological Mother Bind!"
Stelle sucked in a breath of cold air.
"Huh? Biological... Mother Bind?"
March 7th was completely confused.
"Ah Qi, you don't know? The Biological Mother Bind is a God King Skill!"
Caelus explained with a face full of depth and seriousness.
The thickest of the veins firmly bound and suctioned onto the furnace.
The roots, glowing with a green halo, moved like spirit snakes, their heads bobbing and teasing at the 'Kan' trigram position at the bottom of the furnace. They slowly breached that thin energy membrane, then with a fierce thrust, completely broke through the protective array and rushed inside.
"Eee~! So... so lewd!"
"This Wood Demon is truly shameless, to actually do this kind of thing in front of a one-year-old child!"
Watching that scene, Stelle's face flushed and her heart raced. She reached out to cover Caelus's eyes, speaking gently in the tone of an older sister coaxing a younger brother:
"Caelus-cub, we won't watch such lewd things!"
"Hah?"
The ahoge atop March 7th's head slowly curled into a marvelous question mark as she stared at Ryujinmaru with inexplicably weirded-out eyes.
"There is something wrong with you!!"
"Just what kind of brain circuit do you need to see lewdness in this scene of the Ambrosial Arbor reviving and causing chaos?!"
"And another thing, you're meow-freaking one year old?"
"A one-year-old who clubs the Doomsday Beast?"
"Who flips over every trash can in Belobog?"
"Hurry up and apologize to all the one-year-olds in the universe, hey!"
"Ignore her. This guy has been reading too many doujinshi about Sister Yaoshi and Male Little Brat Lan recently. Plant root play has gotten into her brain; she even insisted on dragging me to try it earlier."
Caelus grasped the gray-haired girl's wrist, pulling away her fair, tender hand, and waved dismissively at March 7th.
"Oh... wait, both of you are messed up!"
March 7th nodded instinctively. It wasn't until her smart-ish brain understood the meaning of those words that she suddenly jumped up from the pilot's seat, her pretty face turning crimson.
"What the heck is that!"
Stelle reads too many doujinshi and dragged you to try... is that something you can just say?!
And, what kind of doujinshi did you say she reads?
Sister Yaoshi and Male Little Brat Lan?
March 7th was dumbstruck, her brain gradually overloading.
Just after that root penetrated deep into the interior of the Creation Furnace, a bizarre symbiotic phenomenon erupted where the other Ambrosial Arbor roots contacted the furnace wall.
The cluster of roots seemed to merge completely with the Creation Furnace. From a distance, it looked like an unbloomed lotus stem and bud.
The gilded cloud patterns on the furnace body were dyed into dark red veins resembling blood vessels, and the green spiritual fire leaking from the furnace core surged along the roots.
"It's absorbing the Creation Furnace's energy!"
Caelus raised his eyebrows slightly and shouted, "Ah Qi! Speed up and get us over there!"
"Oh, oh!"
March 7th raised her hand and knocked on her head, squeezing out the somewhat colored thoughts to make her brain clear again, lest it affect the serious business.
She slammed the control stick forward, and Torijinmaru accelerated, breaking through the airwaves.
"Eat an arrow from this young lady first!"
Wind Wave gathered in Torijinmaru's mouth, and a sphere of light wrapped in the power of Wind broke through the air.
The Ambrosial Arbor's roots seemed to sense the approaching threat. Several thick roots wove together to form a wooden shield, and the energy cannon blast exploded against it.
When the smoke cleared, a dent appeared where the wooden shield had been hit, and the entire shield was tattered to a second degree.
"It's effective!"
"Ah Qi, saying that at a time like this counts as a flag."
Stelle shook her head and sighed.
Torijinmaru's attack power wasn't high, yet the wooden shield was still blasted with significant damage. From this point, it could be seen that the defense of the Ambrosial Arbor's roots wasn't particularly outstanding.
But just as Stelle's voice fell, the wooden shield restored itself to its original state within a mere second, and the remaining roots coiled into layers of protection around the Creation Furnace.
"Ah, this..."
March 7th's expression froze, then froze again.
The reason for the second freeze was that the siphoned energy was so massive that a green-white energy cloud formed around the coiled root system. Plants, trees, and vines grew at an accelerated rate, becoming increasingly lush.
The rich energy formed dozens of brilliant golden bands of light among the Ambrosial Arbor's branches and leaves, converging to the ground along with the energy inside the roots.
Spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the ground, and a seedling broke through the soil. It grew at a speed visible to the naked eye into a green-gold flower bud, and it continued to grow.
"That thing is growing so fast!"
Amidst March 7th's cry of alarm, the flower bud grew to dozens of meters in size.
"Yooo~!"
Accompanied by a deer cry that seemed poised to pierce the firmament, the giant flower bud surrounded by dazzling ribbons of light bloomed.
It sprayed out golden pollen that looked like divine light, illuminating the artificial sky of the Artisanship Commission as if it were day; even the distant, dark alleys were lit up.
A massive deer, over thirty meters tall and nearly seventy meters long, walked out of the flower bud.
It had antlers like the branches of mysterious black trees, and pale gold radiance circled its sides. Within the radiance, branches, leaves, and blooming flowers floated indistinctly.
"What kind of monster is this?"
March 7th blinked. Wasn't the Ambrosial Arbor a plant?
How did an animal suddenly grow out of it?
"Truly worthy of a divine miracle, creating life with a wave of the hand. This power is really something..."
The descent of the Abundance Ebon Deer was majestic. All survivors in the core area could hear the deer's cry and see that ever-burning vitality.
Phantylia narrowed her long, narrow fox eyes, gazing at the Ebon Deer walking out of the flower bud. After sensing Bronya's gaze, she immediately adjusted her expression to inquire.
"Miss Bronya, I fear the Benefactors have encountered a major event. Should we still go over?"
"Of course."
Silver Wing smiled and said, "Let's go. We'll follow behind Mr. Welt."
Old Yang had steered Senjinmaru around the moment he noticed the disturbance, heading toward the Ambrosial Arbor root system where the Astral Express crew was.
However, since Senjinmaru was a Groudon, it couldn't fly directly. Welt could only clear the entangled vines and other roadblocks while moving, so his speed was a bit slower.
The surrounding Mara-struck Ingeniums had been mostly cleared out by Welt and March 7th. By following behind Senjinmaru, they would be able to reach the root system's location without obstruction.
"That Wood Demon actually possesses such supernatural power!"
Master Gongshu's expression changed drastically upon seeing such an anomaly.
"Little girl, let's go! Let's see if we can do something!"
Master Gongshu called out to Seele.
"Okay, Grandpa."
Seele answered softly, maintaining her persona. She pressed the mechanism named 'Luminous Flux' in her hand, clearing away the branches entangled on the Teleportation Screen.
She followed the hurried steps of the old man into the screen, teleporting to the other side of the spatial rift.
"It is an abomination incarnated from the Ambrosial Arbor's roots, and the Ambrosial Arbor has even connected to the Creation Furnace!"
Fu Xuan, who was commanding the Cloud Knights to sweep the periphery of the Alchemy Commission and fight the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, summoned the Remote Sky Mirror after seeing the wondrous sight in the sky.
After seeing the situation inside the Artisanship Commission clearly, Fu Xuan's small face turned deep, her expression solemn.
"Fortunately, they are there..."
Seeing Torijinmaru and Sword King Ryujinmaru descending from the sky, Fu Xuan breathed a slight sigh of relief.
But before she could finish exhaling, Fu Xuan saw the subsequent scene in the Remote Sky Mirror, and her body froze.
"This!"
Fu Xuan seemed to think of something.
"In that case... the trouble is huge!"
The pink-haired girl's face looked increasingly grim.
Just as Fu Xuan was thinking with all her might about whether to go support them, the image in the Remote Sky Mirror made her solemn face turn peculiar.
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