A Perilous Return

The Blank Scroll that Chang Xi took out appeared to be a portrait painting, and there was also a nomination on the Blank Scroll.

Title of the painting: [Love of the Heart▪Fantasy of a Young Girl]

In the lower right corner of the scroll, there is a small signature: [Ge▪Qing].

However, for some unknown reason, the figures that should have been on the scroll mysteriously disappeared.

"Hmm..."

Unrolling the scroll in her hands, Chang Xi looked up at the Tian Kong, then, holding Formless Brush, she began to paint intently on the scroll.

Bai Zhi was also curious about what the other party could do, so he had been observing her from God's Perspective. However, as he watched, his expression suddenly became a little strange.

The other person's painting skills were clearly excellent, and their speed was also quite fast. In just a short while, they had Perfect copy the hotel and the surrounding scenery into the painting.

However, none of the Player's images were drawn on it; it was just a simple environmental sketch, like taking a picture of their rooftop and then cutting them out of the picture.

"Okay, everything should be fine now."

After the last stroke was completed, Chang Xi visibly breathed a sigh of relief, then looked up at him and unfolded the painting in front of her.

"The preliminary preparations have been completed. If there are any problems on West Pavilion Gardener's side, I will quickly make up for them. Is that alright?"

"What's the use of your painting?"

After firing another shot and taking down a fire truck, Bai Zhi turned around and glanced at it with feigned interest before asking the other party a question with a hint of curiosity.

"Of course, if it involves personal privacy, you don't have to say."

Bai Zhi added an extra sentence.

"Anyway, you'll find out soon enough... By influencing reality through brushstrokes on the scroll, if something really happens to West Pavilion Gardener, I'll just add a glass Protective Shield to the rooftop. This is a real object; it doesn't possess any Spiritual Energy and isn't afraid of being devoured by Spiritual Energy. However, we need to be careful that the other party might also gain Life."

Chang Xi carefully rolled the scroll up again, letting out a soft hum.

"This painting is one of a kind in the world. If it gets damaged, there's nowhere to repair it... If the impact from external objects is too great, it could destroy the painting."

"What's painted in a picture can become reality!?"

Before Bai Zhi could speak, Li Changyu, who was in charge of defending this wall, suddenly brightened up.

"Could you please draw Izumi Konata for me? Also, Tokisaki Kurumi, Rem, Platelet, Keqing, Exusiai...?"

In one breath, he uttered more than a dozen names.

"... It can only be something that truly exists."

Seeing Li Changyu's excited expression, Chang Xi's face darkened slightly.

"No problem."

While swinging his Spiked Club, he knocked down several sledgehammers that were almost reaching the top floor. Li Changyu looked at Chang Xi with his head bent at an abnormal 180 degrees, his face full of confusion.

"My wives, they really do exist, don't they?"

Chang Xi: "..."

To be honest, Bai Zhi had seen Player use scrolls as weapons before. In the Rose Manor Dungeon, one of the two siblings from Otherworld, Between Heaven and Earth’s Mountains and Seas, used a scroll.

The only difference is that the other party transformed the illusory things they drew into reality and even scenes, while Chang Xi drew real things into her paintings.

One turns the abstract into the concrete, the other turns the concrete into the abstract.

The one Between Heaven and Earth’s Mountains and Seas is clearly her main fighting style, while Chang Xi's is simply the function of that Blank Scroll.

Slightly narrowing his eyes, Bai Zhi silently memorized the name of the Painter [Ge Qing], then turned back to deal with the excavators and bulldozers below.

However, as time went on, the number of fire-fighting equipment that arrived at the scene increased, and it was only a matter of time before the flames below were extinguished. The only difference was how much further they could postpone that time.

The first unexpected event was the appearance of those Firefighting Tools and the steel products that covered the walls. The second unexpected event happened to West Pavilion Gardener... or rather, it happened in the air.

Those Flying Abomination weren't individually strong, and some of them flew in groups. Thanks to the Exploding Bat created by the West Pavilion Gardener, the occasional Corn Cannon, and the fact that the Poison Fog Zone showed no signs of dissipating, those Flying Abomination didn't come to their side.

Even if a few manage to break through the heavy defenses and get here, the Cabbage Pult and Watermelon Pult can easily take them down. Besides, not all the Player on the rooftop are weaklings.

--But then even larger Flying Abomination appeared.

The airplane wasn't a model airplane, but a real airplane.

When they saw the massive silhouette of the plane emerge in the Tian Kong, everyone felt a strong sense of "Holy crap!" Regardless of the plane's model, with such a huge plane crashing down, at least half of the nine Player on the hotel rooftop would be dead.

And there weren't just one or two, but more than a dozen... Luckily, there were no Fighter Jet among them.

The revival of these large artifacts signifies that the impact on this world is becoming increasingly severe. If things continue like this, perhaps even the hotel beneath them will gain Life and transform into Walking House...

The Unique saving grace was that the planes were just circling in the Tian Kong at a distance, showing no intention of diving down anytime soon. After all, judging from the situation, they were practically doomed.

Thirteen minutes remained until their return, and the raging fires that had engulfed the entire city were now completely under control. The fiery Hell below the hotel had also been extinguished, and a massive wave of variant was surging in, threatening to overrun the rooftop...

--At the height of the battle, West Pavilion Gardener suddenly disappeared from the library.

Originally in Vampire form, he was the Unique Player present who possessed the ability to fly.

Whether it was the Exploding Bat he created or the Knight Longsword that could sweep away a large number of Flying Abomination with a single swing, they firmly blocked the Flying Abomination in the sky. However, with the sudden disappearance of the opponent, the Flying Abomination, now unobstructed, surged forward, catching them off guard.

Just as the people on the rooftop were about to be overwhelmed by the variant, a Transparency glass Protective Shield appeared out of thin air above them, isolating the entire rooftop.

"It can only last for three minutes at most."

After glancing at the painting in her hand, Chang Xi solemnly held up three fingers in front of her.

"We have ten minutes left before we return."

Looking at the countless variant crawling all over the tempered glass around him, Li Tong's expression turned somewhat grim.

"Once the glass barrier shatters, we'll be swallowed up in less than two minutes... Should we go down into the room?"

No one talked about the West Pavilion Gardener, because they were no longer in the mood to care about anything else.

Although it was only for a short time, they were already covered in bites and wounds from those Flying Abomination.

"No, I have a better option."

With a slight shrug, Bai Zhi, whose two guns had long since been put back into his Inventory and whose body was also covered in wounds of varying sizes, looking far more miserable than OriginDeficit and Chang Xi, began to speak.

"Last night, I set up nine safe points in nine different locations throughout the city. Some were wardrobes, some were boxes. I confirmed that all those items were killed and wouldn't revive. I left a Shadow Guard at each safe point. I can teleport you to those safe points now, as long as you can survive these ten minutes."

Although blood was still flowing from his wounds, Bai Zhi remained calm and spoke.

"Including my Storage Spiritual Energy, I currently have approximately 4400 points of Spiritual Energy, enough to teleport all seven of you away."

Previously, he had been carefully controlling his use of Spiritual Energy, and later he didn't use any Spiritual Energy at all, which is why his condition was much worse than OriginDeficit's.

"I've said it before, you can always trust me."