Chapter 306: Fighting is Worse Than Picking Up Trash
Kazumi stated that she never wanted to experience sliding from the top to the bottom of a snake-shaped structure tens of stories high again.
Although her semi-undead body had minimized her fear, the intense sensation of weightlessness and the uneven scales beneath her were still quite unpleasant.
“What a… perverted taste.”
Frowning, the young girl stood up from the dirt-covered ground, brushing off dust from her body while complaining about her temporary superior.
Even though the snake tail’s distance from the ground was controlled to be very close, the immense impact caused Kazumi to roll ungracefully on the ground. This was even with Little Black’s intervention.
She could fully understand Sakuraba Masashi’s intention. After all, she would be a burden on such a high-stakes battlefield with the extent of her injuries. However, his method of removing her from the battlefield truly did not consider her feelings as an involved party.
After checking the wear and tear on her human skin cloak and confirming it hadn’t been damaged during the high-speed slide, Kazumi began to focus on her surroundings.
The young girl was now within the magic array firmly protected by a blood-red energy light membrane behind the two of them. Despite being an evil magic array with a bloody aura, Kazumi felt an incredibly dense life energy.
Countless tiny blood-red light spots converged from all directions and, as if controlled by some energy, moved towards the western side of the entire magic array.
At this moment, the snake pillar on the far west had become completely different from its previous appearance. The blood-red long snake seemed to have come to life, flicking its tongue, and the life energy carrying a bloody scent gave off a strange sense of disharmony.
“Using life energy as the primary material to activate the magic array? But… does it require all snake pillars to be fully charged?”
Sensing the life energy in the air with her body, Kazumi understood the basic operating rules of this blood sacrifice magic array, which absorbed the life force of all living beings within the entire space through the power of the magic array.
Except for Kazumi and Sakuraba Masashi’s followers, who were exempt from being absorbed due to special energy reasons, even powerful heroes were constantly being weakened. Otherwise, Sakuraba Masashi’s few subordinates would not be able to fight on equal footing with other heroes.
The problem was that after such a long time, only one snake pillar of the entire magic array had been fully charged.
And based on the current situation, unless the anomaly in the northern part of the city went unnoticed, this magic array absolutely would not last much longer.
But going unnoticed was completely impossible. This was not a deserted forest or an isolated island. Even if [Shadow]’s concealment ability was excellent, anyone, even a fool, would know that something was wrong in the northern part of the city after such a long period of lost contact.
Now, it was just a matter of when the heroes sent by the Association would arrive.
“Then…”
Reaching out to touch the specks of blood in the air, Kazumi didn’t care whether the magic array would succeed or not. That was something Sakuraba Masashi’s level needed to consider. She was just a grunt dragged here to work, and whether it succeeded or not seemed to have no difference in benefit for her.
What the young girl was more curious about was whether the life energy gathered by the magic array in the air could be used by her.
Feeling a bit guilty, she glanced at the battlefield in front of her, which was constantly erupting with deafening explosions. The young girl’s eyes slowly turned from curiosity to determination.
Sakuraba Masashi was busy fighting there; he probably wouldn’t have time to worry about her.
Besides, absorbing a little bit shouldn’t be too big of a deal, right?
Just a little bit.
With that thought, Kazumi slowly extended her hand, intending to use her body’s power to absorb the life energy around her that was drifting towards the snake pillar.
At that moment, the small snake coiled around her wrist suddenly spoke.
“I suggest you don’t do that.”
“Gah!”
Startled by the sudden voice beside her, Kazumi, who had been lost in thought, jumped back a step, letting out a cute sound from her throat.
“Lord… Lord Sakuraba?”
Looking at the small snake in her hand with some confusion, Kazumi couldn’t help but ask.
After all, the voice that just came out of this small snake sounded very much like Sakuraba Masashi from her memory.
“Mhm, it’s me.”
Hearing Kazumi’s question, the small snake, which had been standing upright, opened its mouth again. However, this time, Sakuraba Masashi’s voice coming from the small snake was mixed with the sounds of battle explosions.
“Don’t mess with the life energy in the magic array, and pick up the thing I gave you earlier.”
The small snake continued to speak. It seemed that due to the magic array’s defense mechanism, Sakuraba Masashi immediately used his ability to notify her after sensing her actions.
This was beyond the young girl’s expectations. She originally thought that with Yuz’s strength, if not defeating Sakuraba Masashi, he could at least fight him on equal terms.
But she didn’t expect that this guy Sakuraba Masashi still had time to send her a message. It seemed that Yuz’s ability didn’t suppress him much, or rather, as an executive, even with considerable injuries, he could easily suppress the frontline hero, the [Word Spirit User].
“Okay.”
Compared to slacking off, attempting to embezzle public funds was clearly a more serious matter. The young girl quickly adjusted her expression and took out the snake-shaped small ring that Sakuraba Masashi had given her earlier. The metal snake ring felt a bit cold in her hand. A small piece of purple crystal was embedded in its faint purple snake eyes, emitting a faint fluorescence under the moonlight. Overall, it was indeed an evil item that perfectly matched Sakuraba Masashi’s style.
“After the second snake pillar is fully charged, I will activate the magic array directly. At that time, use your energy to inject the underworld energy scattered in the spatial rift into this snake ring. Remember, it must be evil energy mixed with other energies.”
However, Sakuraba Masashi didn’t intend to pursue Kazumi’s responsibility too much. After all, in a way, even he joined this organization for a certain purpose. Those within [Shadow], except for a few irredeemable idealists, were all egoists adept at using others.
Sakuraba Masashi’s instructions continued to emerge from the small snake’s mouth.
Sakuraba Masashi’s words made Kazumi instantly understand what he wanted to do. It seemed that Sakuraba Masashi also knew that with this amount of energy and efficiency, even if no one stopped him, the life energy of the entire northern part of the city would not be enough to charge all the snake pillars.
Their real mission was merely to attract some of the firepower for another plan of the organization. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have chosen Kyoto, where the headquarters of the Heroes Association was located, to cause trouble.
However, Sakuraba Masashi was indeed a qualified villain executive; he was a master of abusing his power for personal gain.
At this moment, by directly using the energy of two snake pillars to open the seal’s gap, and finally relying on Kazumi, who could manipulate death energy, to help him absorb the special energy he needed, he not only completed the task from above but also achieved his own goal, a win-win situation.
“Okay, Lord Sakuraba.”
Nodding obediently, Kazumi now intended to follow the other party’s plan. At the very least, from this perspective, it was indeed as Sakuraba Masashi said, she only needed to absorb energy from a safe rear.
“Also… boom!!”
The small snake continued to open its mouth as if to say something more, but a sudden, massive explosion interrupted Sakuraba Masashi’s next order. Outside the light membrane, a dazzling energy beam shot straight into the sky, followed by continuous explosions and rising smoke.
The small snake, which had been standing on the girl’s wrist, transformed back into a bracelet and coiled down after losing energy. Watching the constantly rising battle fluctuations in the distance, Kazumi knew that Sakuraba Masashi probably wouldn’t have time for long-distance chats for a while.
[He must be putting his all into it, right? Did he sense something, or is support about to arrive?]
[If he’s going all out, he wouldn’t be chatting with me while fighting. This way, his strength is still within a predictable range.]
[However, Sakuraba Masashi is likely not a specialized combat ability user, so his special energy rating needs to be slightly higher.]
Silently updating her assessment of Sakuraba Masashi’s strength in her mind, the young girl played with the metal snake ring in her hand while watching the various energy fluctuations erupting from the two people’s battle in the distance.
But due to the vision limitation, besides the giant snake summoned by Sakuraba Masashi and the large-scale energy attacks, Kazumi couldn’t see anything else from her current position.
The corpse crows’ long-range vision had virtually no chance to get close to the two’s battlefield before being crushed into ashes by the residual energy waves.
So, Kazumi was feeling a bit bored now. The battles between two high-end powerhouses were indeed spectacular, but she could only see the superficial aspects. She couldn’t see their specific abilities or the effects of their use, like watching fireworks from afar.
But the problem was that watching fireworks for too long could lead to aesthetic fatigue. It would probably take a while for the two to determine a winner, and she couldn’t touch the life energy within the magic array.
And based on the previous absorption rate, it would take about ten minutes for the second snake pillar to be fully charged, and during this time, she could only wait.
Stepping onto a piece of stone debris, Kazumi decided to summon the black coffin to temporarily serve as a seat and get into a more comfortable posture to continue watching the fireworks, as there was nowhere to sit amidst the rubble and broken stones.
But suddenly, a strange and bold idea flashed through her mind.
The giant, decaying coffin rose into the air, and a vast army of ghouls emerged from it.
“These things shouldn’t be included in the life energy, right?”
(PS: Congratulations! We’ve reached chapter 300!!)
