After the giant mech was destroyed, the other machines stopped moving one after another. Okegis and Mia then entered the castle and made their way to the main hall, where a crystal coffin stood in the center. A young girl lay inside it.
"Ah, that's my body. Thank you, both of you."
Mia clasped her hands excitedly as she looked at Duanmu Huai and Okegis.
"If it hadn't been for your help, I never would have been able to defeat the wizards, much less return to my own body!"
"Mm... that's... your body? How are you planning to get back into it?"
Duanmu Huai kept a wary eye on his surroundings as he spoke. Mia merely smiled.
"Please wait a moment."
After saying that, Mia stood before the crystal coffin and closed her eyes. At the same time, Duanmu Huai tightened his grip on his Warhammer again, signaling Okegis to stay alert.
It was no wonder Duanmu Huai was so wary. This Soul Shard World was simply too strange.
Put simply, the content of this Fragment World was straightforward. Mia's soul had been transferred into a puppet by an evil wizard, so she had asked others to help her defeat the wizard and reclaim her body.
But the question was... could that really support an entire Soul World?
Compared to the Puppet Master and the scholar, Mia's "grudge" felt far too childish.
More importantly, Duanmu Huai hadn't found anything related to magic along the way. So was Mia lying? Or did she simply not understand the difference between consciousness transfer and soul sealing? Or was there some other hidden truth?
The final battle had been somewhat difficult, but compared to the previous ones, the whole process had been far too easy.
Could there be a second phase?
Crack—
As Duanmu Huai stared ahead vigilantly, the crystal coffin before Mia slowly opened. The Sleeping Maiden inside opened her eyes and gradually sat up. She looked almost exactly like Mia, with no discernible difference. The Mia before them raised both hands toward Duanmu Huai and Okegis. Then...
Bang bang bang bang!!
A cheerful tune began to play, and flower petals suddenly drifted down. At the same time, Mia's voice rang out again.
"Congratulations, you two are the first group of players to successfully clear the White City instance!"
"...Huh?"
Duanmu Huai froze when he heard that.
"What did you say?"
"Congratulations on defeating the Evil Wizard and clearing the Sky City instance."
Mia walked over with a grin, looking at the two of them.
"Sky City was developed by the Multi-Dimensional Company. It is the newest high-difficulty experiential attraction. Previously, 32,167,735 players attempted the challenge, but all of them failed. You two are the first group to clear it successfully. Congratulations!"
"Uh..."
Faced with Mia's cheerful smile, Duanmu Huai was completely stunned. Even Okegis blinked in surprise.
"So... this is a game??"
"Yes. Sky City focused on combat intensity, hoping players could enjoy themselves through fierce battles..."
Enjoy your ass! Level-thirty monsters, and you used them as game NPCs? Was there something wrong with this civilization's brains? Or rather, if they could use level-thirty robots as NPCs, just how absurdly powerful was this civilization?
Looking at Mia, Duanmu Huai almost spat out blood. Monsters averaging levels twenty to thirty, paired with a level-forty Elite boss—damn it, even an Evil God Believers main camp was only around that standard. And they used this as an amusement attraction? Come to think of it, not one person out of tens of millions had cleared it?
"Yes, because this game had strict requirements regarding strength level and party size..."
That explained it.
Duanmu Huai rolled his eyes. His earlier doubts had finally been completely resolved. Clearly, what had truly caused this instance to form was not Mia's backstory—that was merely a standard main quest script. It was the resentment of all those players who had failed to clear Sky City... From that, one could see just how much trauma the Sky City quest had inflicted on that civilization's players back then...
That was also why Mia's quest had felt so unremarkable. It was like an FPS game: as long as you knew where to go, what to kill, and who to kill, nothing else mattered. You just fought.
"...Can people die in your game?"
"Of course. Since the game opened, a total of 15,234,122 players had unfortunately died because they failed to clear it..."
"Alright, I get it."
Duanmu Huai silently cut off Mia's report. This civilization was bizarre enough. It could create a game world that killed people and still not care about deaths... He had no idea what kind of absurdly powerful civilization it was.
"So... what reward do I get?"
Duanmu Huai glanced around. Although this Fragment World had not been particularly difficult, he had still expended quite a bit, especially since he had used up both Death Shortcut and Puppet Surgery. The experience he had collected was not yet enough to reset them from the graveyard back into his hand. All he could hope was that this reward would be generous enough to at least make up for his losses...
"Of course."
Mia smiled and nodded at Duanmu Huai's question, extending both hands.
"As the victors, you will receive the entire Sky City as your reward!"
"...Holy shit!?"
This was a massive profit!!!
Duanmu Huai was shocked, and at the same time, the system displayed a quest completion notification.
Quest "Sky City" Complete Quest Evaluation: Not bad Surprised? Unexpected? Soul Card +8 Ancient Amplifier (Silver) Cost: 1 Each turn, randomly add two cards from (Analyzing Creation), (Ancient Creation), (Mysterious Creation), and (Splendid Creation) to your hand Sky City Fusion Ancient Automaton (Bronze) Cost: 1 Each turn, randomly add two cards from (Mysterious Creation), (Splendid Creation), and (Profound Creation) to your hand Sky City Fusion Puppet Angel Mia (Bronze) Cost: 2 Attack: 2 Defense: 2 When another one of your followers evolves, add a (Puppet) to your hand Blast Enhancement 7: Gain +3/+3 and add two (Puppets) to your hand Mobile Motorcycle (Bronze) Cost: 2 During your turn, when a follower enters play, grant it +2/+0 and rush Sky City (Gold) Cost: 3 Grant all followers on the battlefield +1/+1 and (storm) Each day, produce (Magic Iron Mad Lion), (Steel Tiger), (Prototype Mechanical Soldier), (Mechanical Soldier), and (Large Mechanical Soldier), adding them to your hand Mobile Armor (Legendary) Cost: 4 Attack: 3 Defense: 4 Instant Summoning: If ten or more of your Creation Cards have been destroyed in this battle, automatically summon this card onto the battlefield Paradigm Shift (Bronze) Cost: 7 Summon one of (Guardian Creation), (Sharp Creation), or (Swift Assault Creation) onto the field (cost -1 for each Creation destroyed) Might of the Relic (Legendary) Cost: 8 Attack: 6 Defense: 6 Deal damage to all enemy followers equal to the number of your Creation Cards destroyed in this battle Sky City must be in play
Of all these cards, the best was naturally Might of the Relic. Its area damage made it an absolute weapon for large-scale battles. In other words, as long as Duanmu Huai sent his Creations out to die early on and built up enough of a count, he could summon this card and wipe out the entire map in one blast.
However, for now, Might of the Relic was apparently Sky City's automatic defense system, so Sky City had to be in play before it could be used.
Sky City itself was also quite a good reward. What Duanmu Huai lacked most right now were low- and mid-tier attack cards. After all, both Puppets and Wraiths only had 1 attack and 1 defense, which was simply too low. They were fine against enemies above level ten, but beyond that, they began to fall short. The reason Duanmu Huai had even needed to flood the field with Puppets this time was because he had too few low- and mid-tier cards and too little attack power, leaving him no choice but to barely compensate with numbers.
But things were different now. Among the cards produced by Sky City, Magic Iron Mad Lions and Prototype Mechanical Soldiers both had 2 attack and 2 defense, while Large Mechanical Soldiers had 3 attack and 3 defense. That at least made up for part of the problem. Besides, compared with Wraiths, these Mechanical Soldiers looked much more normal when taken outside. At the very least, he would not have to worry about being mistaken for a Necromancer.
As for the Creation-type cards, they were the things that had floated around atop the Large Mechanical Soldiers during Duanmu Huai's earlier battle. Their structures were all fairly similar: a geometric core surrounded by a frame, after which they hovered in the air and went pew pew pew with lasers. Quite a few of these Creations had considerable attack power. For example, Ancient Creation had 3/1 attack and defense, Splendid Creation had 4/5, Guardian Creation had 4/6, and Profound Creation had 5/5.
They still could not compare to Okegis, but the attack power of these Creation Cards was already enough to make up most of the gap!
Still, Duanmu Huai's favorite card was Mobile Motorcycle—it was a spell card that could be summoned freely, and more importantly... it was a vehicle!
Although summoning it required Psychic Power, that was already enough for Duanmu Huai!
At that thought, Duanmu Huai could not help but burst into tears.
He could finally say goodbye to traveling by foot!
Before you continue