Chapter 342 Heirloom

The Players didn’t know why the tortoise colossus was blowing up, but that was clearly good news for them.

After its HP had dropped by an entire notch, the monster had stopped in its tracks while the unusual patterns painted all over its body was flashing in red light like a siren light. “The God of Games protects us! Now, everybody! Charge!”

Thanks to his experience in many major battles, Mufasa was the first to recover, yelling as he raised his sword while everyone else was left stunned by the turn of events.

Even so, most of the Players still looked confused.

Simba, who had recovered as well thanks to Mufasa’s yell quickly noticed that. Still, an idea quickly came to his mind, and he raised his weapon like Mufasa did. “The Boss is stunned! It’s now or never-for the items!”

At his words, the Players recovered with a star, and began to charge with like a storm at the tortoise colossus that was rendered immobile!

Mufasa glanced at Simba, his flatfish eyes full of tenderness.

He was immeasurably pleased that the ordinary young refugee who he saved had grown so much.

Still, he only spent half a split second to be in awe before running ahead of the other Players.

And he wasn’t interested at all with the tortoise colossus-his real target was the undead elf which had hidden on the supermassive Boss’s head!

Regardless of whether that thing had been the one who summoned the tortoise colossus, it wouldn’t be a mistake to cut it down. Even if it wouldn’t work, he would at least prevent it from killing the other players in the same way it killed had Edward: getting frozen by its spell and then vaporized by Pyrocrystal Cannons.

Be that as it may, the undead elf seemed to realize that its colossus was malfunctioning as well. Even if the instincts carved in its DNA allowed it to continue controlling the model of the high elves’ Synchronized Intellect Nation (SIN), instincts remained no more instincts—there was no way it could have a tortoise colossus diagnostic and maintenance manual carved into its instincts.

And such was reality: after noticing that the tortoise colossus has stopped moving, the undead elf left its head and headed towards the core-naturally to reactivate it instead of repairing it.

It was an equipment anyway. It’s a glitch sixty percent of the time, and restarting it would fix it…

That was why it was gone from the colossus’s head by the time Mufasa reach it.

***

Meanwhile, Eleena had returned to the city of Crookes above the colossus’s back.

To be precise, it was what was left of Crookes -over half of the buildings had crumbled from the explosion just now, and what was left were partially crumbling in the aftershock of the blast.

The ruins were filled with the sounds of fires blazing against the wind, cracking as they devoured the wood of houses.

Human sounds, however, were non-existent.

Even though Simba and did their best to evacuate most citizens, there should have been over ten thousand people who had yet to escape the city. Now that only the sounds of fire and wind could be heard while human voices were the only thing missing, there was only one cruel truth.

The citizens who couldn’t make it in time were all dead.

Nonetheless, before Eleena could start looking for the old man calling himself her grandfather, a stout man suddenly appeared before her.

“Young Mistress!”

“You’re…” the young girl glanced at the word above the automaton’s head to find that it had turned completely green, meaning that it was a friendly unit.

“My former master has passed his clearance to you.” It said, going down on one knee while handing her an old crystal key respectfully. “From here on out, you are the controller of the Faint Crystal Stratum.”

“Faint Crystal Stratum?” Eleena’s head tilted in confusion.

“It’s the domain I protect, the outermost stratum of the Elven Synchronized Intellect Nation (SIN).”

The automaton answered. “The SIN is divided into five stratums: Faint Crystal, Deep Wall, Dark Sky, Steel Earth, and the Eternal Archives, with each stratum having a different guardian.”

So that was it. The event this time was to clear stratum by stratum until they reach the Eternal Archives—the core of the SIN.

Eleena nodded lightly, gesturing she got the rough idea. “By the way, what happened to your former master?” She couldn’t help asking then.

mer

“He has infiltrated the outer reaches of the Deep Wall.” The automaton kept its head lowered as it answered truthfully. “He intends to use his dwindling elven stone to suppress the corruption that comes from deep within, to try his best to delay the revival of SIN.”

“In other words, the big tortoise was not reactivating because he is buying us time?”

It was only now that Eleena understood why the tortoise colossus was immobile, even though it only had its outer shell blown up.

Glancing at the key, she asked, “Can I enter the Faint Crystal stratum with this key? How do I use it?”But before she finished, the stout automaton was suddenly on its feet—with a war hammer in its hand.

However, even as Eleena raised a barrier over herself by reflex, she realized that she wasn’t its target: the automaton’s war hammer bypassed her, hitting the undead elf which was about to ambush her.

Nonetheless, the undead elf seemed to have buff itself. Not only did the war hammer that weighed tons failed to send it flying. Instead, the weapon struck its arm with a deafening ring of clashing metals, even igniting sparks! Eleena panicked for a moment since she never fought alone before, although she soon regained her composure to summon a Spear of Victory even as she raised her hand.

And yet, the undead elf merely shifted slightly to evade the radiant spear, and even retaliated by launching a spell resembling Frost Nova at Eleena—the barrier that shielded here immediately became her ball cage instead, obstructing her from moving.

Then, when she finally smashed through the thick ice with her meteor hammer bible, she found that the elf had already killed the automaton, and was using its skin to absorb its mangled body.

With that, the body of the undead became thick and filled, with some extent of facial expression returning to its cheeks.

It sensed her gaze then.

Even so, it didn’t feel threatened and with the rest of its body remaining still, its neck turned more than ninety degrees to face the girl directly to flash a ferocious but otherworldly grin.