A Forced Summon Without Lunacy! Don Quixote's Thrust and Peccatulum Broth
Beside him, Amber whipped her head around, the bunny ears on her headband standing upright with the motion:
"Huh? Mr. Liangzi, you know what they are? We suddenly ran into these brand-new monsters on patrol a few days ago. Miss Lisa searched the entire Knights of Favonius library, but she couldn't find a single record of them."
Teyvat's monsters, whether Hilichurls, Abyss Mages, or Ruin Guards, no matter how strong they were, all operated on the same fundamental principle: "elements."
But the thing before them operated on pure "negative emotions."
The Knights of Favonius were badly shaken by the eerie sight, and their encirclement showed signs of falling back.
Wei Zhenzu swallowed, looking at the monster with a blurry coin icon faintly emerging above its head (his PTSD was acting up). His expression turned peculiar:
"This thing is... uh, a specialty from my hometown?"
Before he had finished speaking, the Peccatulum Irae, which had been twitching in place, suddenly let out an ear-piercing shriek.
The monsters, made manifest from pure negative emotions, went completely berserk.
With no formation and no elemental windup, they relied on their beastlike instincts and charged straight into the Knights of Favonius' shield wall.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Dull impacts rang out one after another. Although the absolute combat power of first-tier Peccatula was not particularly high, their bizarre impact force and complete immunity to conventional elemental application still threw the knights in front into disarray, instantly tearing a gap in their sturdy formation.
"Watch out!" Kaeya drew his longsword, Cryo rapidly gathering on its blade as he prepared to step forward and fill the gap.
At that critical moment, a roar suddenly sounded deep within Wei Zhenzu's mind.
Time around him stretched out infinitely in that instant.
Once again, he saw the Limbus Bus radiating a dark red glow. A virtual screen popped up with a swish, and the gacha interface flickered with a faint blue light.
His gaze swept to the upper right corner. His Lunacy balance was still zero.
I'm screwed. Couldn't Xiao Jin get happy again and give me another ten-pull or something? Wei Zhenzu's heart sank.
Then a miracle happened.
Just as he thought the system was going on strike, the extraction machine in the center of the gacha interface began to shake violently.
Without him spending any Lunacy at all, a dazzling golden light burst forth.
A Sinner who loved adventure and was perpetually hyper, apparently unable to contain her inner restlessness any longer, disregarded the system's rules, forcibly kicked open the bus door, and appeared of her own accord.
"Is it my turn to make an entrance? I am Don Quixote!"
The girl's shrill voice, brimming with unrealistic heroism, rang out in Wei Zhenzu's mind.
The next second, Wei Zhenzu's eyes flew open in the real world. Scorching golden energy surged through every part of his body like an electric current.
His red trench coat flapped in the rushing air. He closed his empty hands, and with a burst of blinding light, a massive, heavy Western-style lance materialized from thin air, held firmly in his grip.
What followed was a drastic change in his mental state.
An inescapable, almost manic excitement filled Wei Zhenzu's head.
He felt as though his blood were boiling, and everything he saw looked like an evil dragon that needed to be slain!
"Gallop forth, Rocinante!"
Unable to control himself, Wei Zhenzu struck an utterly exaggerated, chuunibyou opening pose and roared, "Onward to battle!"
Under Amber and Kaeya's astonished gazes, Wei Zhenzu drove off with both legs, stamping a crater into the grass.
A fierce gust trailed him as he charged straight at the Peccatulum Irae that had just broken through the shield wall.
"Hah!" Wei Zhenzu gripped the shaft tightly with both hands and used the momentum of his charge to drive a textbook [Lance Thrust] deep into the Peccatulum's tough muscular shell.
The blow not only stopped the Peccatulum in its tracks and sent it into a solid stagger, but also let Wei Zhenzu use the powerful recoil from the lance tip against it. He twisted at the waist.
In an instant, he shifted into a perfect position to unleash his strength.
"How dare I grow complacent! History shall surely remember this deed!"
He tucked the lance tightly beneath his arm. As he briefly gathered his strength, the shaft rubbed against the air with a deep, muffled hum.
With another explosive shout, he and the lance became one, and with unstoppable momentum, he launched a ferocious [Focused Thrust].
Boom!
He abruptly turned his wrist, using the broad lance blade to twist violently inside the monster and completely destroy its bodily structure.
"[For Justice!]" Wei Zhenzu's eyes were wide, his gaze utterly fanatical.
The muscles in his arms unleashed their full strength, lifting the lifeless Peccatulum into the air on the tip of his lance. He proclaimed loudly, "Indeed! Justice shall endure forever!"
Not far away, the Knights of Favonius stared in stunned silence.
Amber's mouth hung open, and she even forgot to draw the bow in her hand. Kaeya's smile froze completely as his one visible eye remained fixed on Wei Zhenzu.
They had never seen such seamless, violent martial skill without the slightest fluctuation of elemental power.
With the monster's death, the extreme excitement that belonged to Don Quixote began to recede from Wei Zhenzu's mind like the tide.
He gasped for breath as the Western-style lance dissolved into golden motes and vanished into the air.
Reason reclaimed the high ground. Looking at the remains scattered across the ground, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, still shaken.
"That's not right. Isn't that thing weak to blunt damage? Why did Little Don show up?"
Just then, another crisp ding rang out in his mind.
[Hidden passive module unlocked: Hell's Kitchen]
Wei Zhenzu froze. Then an enormous, exceedingly familiar black iron wok, stained with a little grease, appeared out of thin air in one hand, while a gleaming chef's knife appeared in the other.
"You can do that too?" Looking at the Peccatulum's corpse on the ground, Wei Zhenzu felt the New Oriental chef instincts in his DNA suddenly awaken.
He walked over to the pile of dark red flesh and deftly brought his knife down, slicing off the parts of the Peccatulum that looked edible and tossing them into the wok.
Then, from somewhere, he produced a handful of scallions and slices of ginger, and began heating oil and tossing the contents of the wok right there in the wilderness.
Sizzle!
As soon as the bizarre chunks of meat touched the hot oil, they released an indescribable aroma.
Kaeya and Amber approached, their faces full of shock. "Mr. Liangzi... what, what are you doing?"
Amber pointed at the unidentified stew bubbling away in the wok, her voice trembling. "That's a monster! You can't eat it, can you?"
Wei Zhenzu tasted a spoonful of the soup and nodded in satisfaction. He turned to the Knights of Favonius with a thoroughly professional New Oriental chef's smile:
"Don't worry, everyone. I removed the Peccatulum Irae's toxins, but kept its bite."
A deathly silence fell over everyone. The knights stared at the broth, dark red chunks of meat rolling in it, terror written all over their faces.
But just a few seconds later, when the broth with its strange aroma was ladled into bowls, the nearest knights, who had been injured earlier and were wound extremely tight, instinctively took a sniff. To their shock, they discovered that the fear, exhaustion, and negative emotions in their hearts had been swept away.
"So full of flavor~!" the others couldn't help shouting the line.
Looking at the stunned knights, Wei Zhenzu was just about to put on a modest act when a piercing scream rang out from the depths of his mind, like someone abandoned by a scumbag-
"Executive Manager!!!!! Where did you go, leaving me here!!!"
After the commotion.
Amber patted her chest and leaned forward, her eyes shining as she extended an invitation:
"Liangzi, you're amazing! You not only helped everyone, but you can make such incredible food too. Would you like to come back to the Knights of Favonius with us? I want to introduce you to Grand Master Varka!"
Wei Zhenzu, who was scraping the bottom of the wok with a large iron ladle, suddenly froze. "Who? Varka?"