"Hiss~"
Seeing the commodities displayed on the System screen in front of Hachi-Stelle, Caelus sucked in a sharp breath of cold air. Without a second word, he summoned his own System Store.
The first row of the store interface displayed four figures Caelus was all too familiar with—the 'Four Hooligans' of the Ultra Series: Noah, Legend, King, and Saga.
"Hiss, hiss, hiss~"
Caelus inhaled another storm of cold air, making an outstanding contribution to the warming of the Scalegorge Waterscape's atmosphere.
Originally, he was a bit worried that with the Ambrosial Arbor, the Ten-Tails, and Phantylia all mixed together, a situation might arise that even a fusion warrior couldn't handle. But now, he could let go and play to his heart's content.
Of course, Caelus couldn't afford to hire the 'Four Hooligans'. Purchasing them required 1199 Crystals each, and the transformation time only lasted from 3 to 10 minutes.
Spending over a thousand Crystals for an invincibility trial card... if he steeled his heart, he could buy one to play with Aha, but right now Caelus had just finished a ten-pull gacha session. He had no Crystals left even if he wanted to be ruthless.
He swiped down the interface with his mind to take a look. The prices for ordinary Ultramen were acceptable, ranging from 99 to 299 depending on the power gap.
Caelus glanced at his Crystal balance in the top right corner: 236.
"Emmm..." Caelus stroked his chin and nodded.
As expected, he should think of a way to scam Crystals from the Stellaron spirit!
Since Stelle couldn't spend money on gacha, she must have saved up a lot of Crystals!
"Sister~"
With this thought in mind, Caelus instantly switched to a sunny, cheerful smile. He hugged the gray-haired girl from behind, pinching his voice into an extremely magnetic tone.
Being hugged was nothing, but that moist breath blowing into her ear canal combined with the affected, artificial voice made Stelle shudder violently.
"Scram!"
Stelle spread her arms, using a terrifying brute force to physically break free from Caelus's bear hug.
As if possessed by Teacher Tom, the gray-haired raccoon's legs churned like twisted dough twists. She flashed ten meters away with speed bordering on teleportation and raised an international gesture of friendship.
"(#°△)凸"
"Don't you dare covet this baby's Crystals!"
"Eh, but that's our joint marital property! My Crystals are my Crystals, and your Crystals are also my Crystals."
Caelus looked at her with the gaze of a heartless man watching his wife and children leave him, his expression of utter grief difficult to look at directly.
"Are you really so heartless and unjust, cruel enough to leave me behind to act cool all alone?"
Dan Heng, who had finished parting the sea and was slowly descending to the ground, saw this scene and almost stumbled and sprained his ankle.
The baffling transformation of the two Gray-hairs was incomprehensible. March 7th, however, had heard Stelle's earlier words clearly. She widened her pink-blue eyes and asked curiously:
"Hey, you can part the Ancient Sea too? What kind of Lord are you?"
"I am Celestial Lord Agul."
Stelle retracted her expression, feigning depth. She struck a pose, displaying the aura of a King of Posturing.
Caelus shook his head. The pose was too deliberate; she had lost the essence of the King of Posturing's aura.
"?"
"??"
Jingliu, Jing Yuan, Fu Xuan, and Old Yang were left with faces full of question marks.
Celestial Lord Agul?
What is that?
They had never heard of it.
Considering the beautiful mental state of the two Gray-hairs, everyone's attention quickly returned to the Scalegorge Ancient Sea.
"The Vidyadhara Dragon Palace, the Ambrosial Arbor..."
Jingliu cast her sharp gaze beneath the myriad hectares of waves.
The ancient roots of the Ambrosial Arbor were restless and overgrown, like a beast waking from a great dream after crouching for a thousand years.
"During the Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae, I was fortunate enough to witness the event personally. The mountains moved and the seas turned, the palace city was left empty, nothing but broken walls and ruins... The Xianzhou owes the Vidyadhara race a great deal," Jing Yuan said slowly, sinking into memories.
"However..."
Narrowing his eyes, Jing Yuan did not continue. He suspected that behind the matter of the Ambrosial Arbor's resuscitation, there was the support of the Vidyadhara Preceptors.
"What is that?"
Silver Wing pointed a finger at the dragon shadow coiling in the distance, asking the question on behalf of the Little Duck inside her body. After learning of the situation on the Xianzhou, Little Duck had proactively proposed coming over to help.
A gigantic dragon shadow, phasing in and out of existence, was floating in the deepest part of the Scalegorge Waterscape. The vivid dragon shadow looked extremely realistic from afar, appearing as if it might roar to the skies at any moment, filled with an oppressive presence.
"'Pay respects to the Three Claws, grant audience to the Chimù.' Only then will the path to the depths of the Profound Roots open," Dan Heng said expressionlessly.
"Is this another riddle?"
March 7th scratched her head in confusion.
"Forget about the Three Claws or Chimù, let's hurry up and go!"
Spotting golden light flickering within the Dragon Palace ruins, Caelus stopped sucking up to Stelle. He had other ways to make her obediently cough up Crystals to buy the transformation device.
The urgent task now was to snatch the treasure chests in the Dragon Palace ruins. Caelus called out Sister Wind and flew down, leaving a trail of dust behind him.
"Caelus-cub, don't you dare steal a march on me!"
Stelle grabbed March 7th's arm and followed closely behind.
Jing Yuan laughed dumbly. These young people really could find joy at any time.
"Master Fu..."
Jing Yuan tilted his head to look at the Master Diviner, but before he could finish speaking, Fu Xuan nodded with a solemn face.
"I know."
Fu Xuan's gaze was torch-like. Watching Jing Yuan, who intended to risk his life, she said gravely, "This Seat will certainly become an excellent General. I absolutely will not let you die with regrets!"
Looking at Fu Xuan, who assumed the posture of someone waiting to take over the General's position after his death, the corner of Jing Yuan's mouth twitched.
Good heavens, really, good heavens.
He hadn't expected Master Fu to crack jokes too. Was it the influence of the atmosphere brought by Stelle and Caelus?
That wasn't bad either.
"Haha, if Master Fu puts it that way, then I'll have to save up some energy to survive, won't I~!"
Jing Yuan laughed heartily and turned around, gesturing for the others to catch up with Team Star Rail.
Yanqing was left at the entrance to assist the Cloud Knights in battle.
A direct confrontation with Phantylia was a battlefield for Emanators; no matter how many ordinary soldiers were present, it would be meaningless. The gap between ordinary Cloud Knights and a Lord Ravager was even greater than the gap between ordinary humans and Herrschers in Honkai Impact 3rd. Going there would be purely throwing away lives.
"So beautiful!"
At the bottom of the Ancient Sea, there was a feeling of being cut off from the world. Flora and fauna that Stelle didn't recognize were everywhere.
"Such huge coral? And it glows?"
Caelus tipped his head back, looking at the coral emitting a faint fluorescence.
It was actually as tall as a building.
"Ah-woo...!"
Seeing a starfish-shaped animal wriggling on the ground, Stelle squatted down and tilted her head to observe it. Suddenly, she picked the starfish up by hand, tilted her head back, put it in her mouth, and clamped her teeth down.
Caelus could see the starfish's limbs instantly straighten and curl up due to the pain, and sensing the weird feeling in his own mouth, he slapped the back of Stelle's head.
"What are you doing~ Yo!"
Stelle was almost planted into the ground like a scallion. She spat out the sand left by the starfish's limbs twice, then clenched her fist and hammered it toward the space between Caelus's legs.
"We are all Little Stars, why rush to fry each other!"
Caelus jumped back to dodge, smacking his lips.
The sensation of sand entering the mouth was transmitted through their synesthesia.
"Is it tasty? Heave—ho!"
Unable to find stairs, March 7th could only choose to jump down, her fluffy skirt pleats unfolding in the airflow like a blooming flower.
"Maybe it would taste pretty good boiled?"
Stelle threw the starfish behind her, hefting her bat as she looked at the Voidranger troops ahead.
"Such a big palace, all destroyed... If it were me, I'd be heartbroken for several weeks!"
Amidst her laments, March 7th took out her bow and arrow to begin supporting Team Star Rail.
"This is the Vidyadhara Dragon Palace. Dan Heng is the Vidyadhara High Elder, and Dan Heng is also our good brother. If the Dragon Palace were intact, we could stay in the underwater Dragon Palace when we come to the Xianzhou, and play however we want. Thinking about it that way, Ah Qi, would you only be heartbroken for a few weeks?"
Stelle knocked a Voidranger dead with a pained and regretful expression.
"What you say makes so much sense... I suddenly feel so heartbroken now!"
March 7th increased the frequency of her drawing and releasing arrows.
"So, it's all Phantylia and the Voidrangers' fault! Eat my Lightning Fast Strike!"
Caelus flicked his yo-yo. The sphere burst with imaginary blue light, drawing afterimages as it formed a looping elliptical rotation.
The string extended with pale blue lightning until the sphere transformed into a swift bolt of lightning, ricocheting and shooting back and forth at high speed between Caelus's hand and the Voidrangers.
"Uh, but, it wasn't Phantylia who destroyed the Dragon Palace, was it?"
March 7th froze a Voidranger charging at Caelus with an arrow, blinking as she spoke.
"Then let's just say she destroyed it—Atomic Fission!"
Facing the encircling Voidrangers, Caelus flicked the yo-yo out again. The axle burst with blue-gold dazzling light, and the sphere acted like an atom undergoing fission: one divided into two, two into four, four into eight... in the blink of an eye, it split into over a hundred clone spheres.
Dragging comet-like tails, they smashed into the Voidrangers like a meteor shower.
The ruined Dragon Palace was not peaceful; droves of Voidrangers and Abundance Spirit Beasts were everywhere.
"Those old fogies of the Vidyadhara race really are ruthless and unscrupulous."
As Gin, the second-in-command of the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, Caelus knew exactly that the Dragon Teachers had participated in and assisted with the Ambrosial Arbor resuscitation incident.
The Scalegorge Ancient Sea was not only an important safeguard suppressing the Ambrosial Arbor's stump, but also the realm of reincarnation that the Vidyadhara relied on for survival. Every Vidyadhara would come here when approaching death to molt their scales and be reborn, turning into a Vidyadhara egg to await reincarnation.
Although the Vidyadhara eggs were far from the Ambrosial Arbor's main root, and there were Pearlkeepers and several Dragon Teachers deploying troops to block threats in time, the rebirth of the Ambrosial Arbor using the Stellaron's power still caused a certain degree of mutation throughout the seabed.
The twisting and spreading roots of the Ambrosial Arbor had caused some Vidyadhara eggs to lose their vitality. The Ambrosial Arbor sucked out the Power of Permanence contained within the eggs, turning it into its own nutrients.
It had to be known that due to their own characteristics, the Vidyadhara could not reproduce. Only Vidyadhara who died naturally could turn into eggs and be reborn. Aside from that, every Vidyadhara who died on the battlefield represented a -1 to the Vidyadhara population.
To revive the Ambrosial Arbor, those Vidyadhara Dragon Teachers had actually sacrificed so many of their own kin.
"..."
Dan Heng gazed at the destroyed Vidyadhara eggs around him and the spilled, dissipating blood. His face was dyed with a few shades of sorrow, while his eyes and footsteps became much more resolute.
Even though he had always thought of severing ties with the identity of Imbibitor Lunae, he still could not bear to see his kin in such a miserable state.
With the Abyssal Pearl in hand, seawater churned to form a water spout, drilling through the Ambrosial Arbor's roots like an electric drill and piercing through the Voidrangers.
"Leave this place to Master Fu and the Cloud Knights," Jing Yuan sighed.
The Cloud Knights were powerless to participate in the battle against Phantylia, but eliminating Voidrangers and assisting the Vidyadhara Pearlkeepers in protecting the Vidyadhara eggs was no problem for them.
"En."
Dan Heng nodded. "To open the path entering the depths of the Ambrosial Arbor's Profound Roots, a total of three seals need to be undone."
"Leave that kind of professional work to you. We'll go deal with the Voidrangers and Abundance Spirit Beasts."
Caelus waved his hand at Dan Heng, leading Stelle, March 7th, and Bronya to eliminate monsters, open chests, and find Crystals.
"Balance Whirlwind."
The spinning yo-yo whipped up a dazzling tornado, rolling several Voidrangers into mid-air. Caelus only felt that he and the Curio yo-yo were becoming more and more compatible, as if their minds connected at a certain moment.
"This is..."
Caelus stared at the yo-yo in his hand, his expression shifting slightly.
"The intimacy level has changed. Should I... try Divine Awakening?"
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