Xu Xiaoyou stared blankly at the girl, whose dust-covered face was surprisingly calm.
In the middle of the night, the girl had grown wings that seemed painted with the colors of the dawn, and above the fading clouds, the starry sky shone brilliantly.
The players watched in a daze, forgetting for a moment that they were still in the heat of battle.
The monsters, previously frenzied, saw the turbidity in their eyes clear, and they remained unmoved no matter how the female general in the distance roared in exasperation.
Under the stunned gazes of the crowd, those monsters were like a field of reeds snapping in a gale.
Guided by the sound of the flute, they spontaneously leapt off the city walls, falling into the long night like water from a dam.
The black tide poured out under the blue moon, a spectacle so grand that it was hard to believe one's own eyes.
Xu Xiaoyou reacted quickly: "Quickly, while we have the chance, push forward!"
The players, snapping back to their senses, tore open a gap and freed themselves from the bitter struggle, sprinting forward with long strides.
Even if a few monsters unaffected by the flute tried to resist, they were dealt with in passing.
The artillerymen on the distant wall turned their cannons, intending to bombard the path and block the players' advance, but at that moment, the Heifeng and Red Glow squad sent by Xu Xiaoyou finally arrived.
"What happened over on the president's side?" someone asked while throwing a flying dagger that pierced a rat-man's throat.
"I'm not sure, but it looks like they successfully broke through!"
Shadow Weaver Poem stepped onto a cannon barrel and moved forward rapidly, slitting the throat of a monster before it could react to her presence.
"Hahaha, as expected of the president!"
"I knew she wouldn't fail; she could lead them through the blockade!"
"Of course, that's our president after all."
The nearby Heifeng members were greatly encouraged, their movements becoming equally swift as they raised their blades and spilled blood.
In an instant, the barrels of dozens of cannons on the left wall were lowered and subsequently destroyed.
Realizing she had been tricked, the female general roared at the sky in fury and turned her gaze to the right.
There, a girl wearing the Angry-Laughing Spider Mask was leaping across the heads of the artillerymen, her twin daggers dancing wildly wherever she went.
Her dark red hair fluttered chaotically in the wind.
Walking in the darkness, the red light of the Angry-Laughing Spider Mask flashed and vanished as Akabane Tsubaki, like a life-reaping yaksha, mercilessly harvested the monsters' lives.
In less than three minutes, over seventy percent of the artillery facilities on the wall were destroyed, and all artillerymen had lost contact.
Watching this scene, the female general let out a long, unwilling howl, forced to watch as the main force of players advanced forward without obstruction.
Finally, she snorted coldly, gave the blue-haired girl a meaningful look, and turned to leave, vanishing into the moonlight.
Finally, the players rushed into the gate tower in one breath, quickly following the spiral staircase down into the depths of the Bastion.
"Sevia?" watched the players disappear from view, lowered her flute, and bowed.
Her figure then vanished along with the wings of a crow.
Meanwhile, on the other side.
Yan Ze swung his long blade back, and the necks of several clickers following close behind him exploded with blood.
At the same time, he used his long tail to hurl a heavy blade, pinning several plague doctors to the wall.
After reaching grade 3, Angelina had become increasingly familiar with this body.
She leaped and sprinted between two walls, her eyes sharp as she suddenly performed a horizontal sweep and thrust.
A massive aberrant monstrous bird let out a piercing cry and crashed down behind her, making the entire platform shake as if it were about to collapse.
The sensing mechanisms on the walls on both sides were triggered.
Angelina tilted her head slightly, and a sharp arrow whistled past her temple, pinning itself deep into the wall.
They were currently inside the Bastion, in a corridor leading to the depths of the prison.
Below was a bottomless abyss, and the walls on either side were like cliffs whose tops could not be seen.
Monster platforms were distributed at intervals, and countless traps were embedded in the walls; a single misstep would lead to disaster.
A necromantic priest circled its withered claws, and several magic missiles flew toward the silver-haired girl like shooting stars.
The latter swung her lance, parrying all the missiles before throwing her weapon to impale the necromantic priest.
Several team members darted between the platforms, leaping forward.
"Why are you so certain she doesn't need support?" Yan Ze asked.
"Just now, it looked like she was about to lose everything."
Angelina popped a self-exploding firefly that pounced on her.
"I know that girl too well."
"To her, as long as the potential profit is large enough, there's no risk she won't take."
"All of this was within her expectations."
As for why that Starry Singer appeared here?
Angelina rested her fingertips on her shoulder, her eyes clouding with thought.
She was the only one around Xu Xiaoyou who knew about the existence of character cards.
She also clearly understood that for that person, the three girls beside her, including herself, were merely in a subordinate relationship.
Angelina suddenly wondered if the connection between the Starry Singer and The Artist was similar to her own connection with the Heart of Desire?
'World-class urban legend... Vessel...'
'Ordained... Destiny...'
'Leading to...'
'Mystery.'
The heart, saturated with the colors of desire, seemed to whisper these words into her ear.
The survivors cleared a space inside the Bastion and quickly constructed a defensive line, intending to turn this area into their wartime base.
"I can't believe we actually made it out!"
"Yeah, I was already prepared to die in battle."
"Was that the Starry Witch just now?"
"Definitely, but she seemed a bit different from the one we saw in the opera house..."
"Why would she show up here?"
Everyone instinctively turned their gazes toward Xu Xiaoyou.
The subtle relationship between Dark Gold Rose and the Starry Singer was nothing new.
The previous scene had naturally been recorded by players and posted on the world forum.
"President, what was the situation just now?" a member, still shaken, followed behind and asked.
Xu Xiaoyou did not answer, simply walking forward with quick strides.
To be honest, she had indeed made a mistake this time.
She had thought that since the Bastion was a core outpost, there was a high possibility of a world boss existing.
That was why she had left the members of Death Watch squad behind to cover the rear, not expecting that those crude men would nearly drag the entire force into a desperate situation.
She also blamed herself; she had focused all her attention on the battlefield and should have noticed the anomaly sooner.
If not for the sound of the flute, even if she could have led everyone to break through in the end, they would have certainly paid a heavy price.
At the same time, the figure of the girl from just now appeared in her mind.
Whether it was the girl's appearance or temperament, she felt incredibly familiar.
Yet every gesture and movement felt strange, as if she were a different person from the Tang Xin in her memory.
And this time, it wasn't just her; everyone around her had witnessed the descent of "Sevia?".
Why would the other party appear in Oasis?
And why could she control countless monsters to commit suicide with just the sound of a flute?
Furthermore, why did she act as if she hadn't seen Xu Xiaoyou at all?
Recalling the visitor email she had received previously, the silhouette she had seen in the tavern, and everything that had just happened.
Countless questions bubbled up to the surface like murky froth.
Xu Xiaoyou suddenly came up with a bold guess.
This "Sevia?" was not an actual player.
Instead, she was a dungeon NPC projected by Oasis, deduced from the data of the real Pangard.
Rate on N.U.
