Chapter 135: The Perils of Preservation

The battle began the moment Chen’s ridiculously theatrical war cry echoed through the chamber.

Ms. Welt, as always, took the lead, leading the main assault. Lances of distorted gravity and barrages from constructed ethereal cannons slammed into the Abundant Ebon Deer’s crystalline, jade-like body without pause.

Meanwhile, Caelus was a gray-haired blur, weaving around the beast’s colossal frame. His simple steel bat crashed against the deer’s legs, flanks, and other relatively vulnerable points with percussive thuds that echoed like a drumbeat.

March 7th’s role was support; a constant stream of his six-phased ice arrows zipped through the air, each one blooming into a rime of frost upon impact, dedicated to slowing the great deer’s movements.

However, this was no ordinary creature. It was a direct spawn of the Ambrosial Arbor’s formidable power, further bolstered by an environment saturated with both the dense aura of Abundance and the ambient energy of the Creation Furnace.

(A quick clarification: this deer’s recovery power is truly overpowered. In the original plot, the main cast lost once and had to defeat small mobs to reduce its buffs before they could win. This isn’t a case of suppressing combat power.)

The result was a creature with astonishing restorative capabilities.

The jagged wounds torn open by gravity lances and the spiderweb cracks hammered into its hide by Caelus’s bat were sealed shut by new, vibrant wood at a speed visible to the naked eye. The chilling effects of the ice arrows couldn’t even last two seconds before the surging life force within its body contemptuously shattered the frost.

“Holy crap! Look at that recovery speed… Is it using cheats?” Chen muttered, clicking his tongue in amazement from behind a piece of half-destroyed mechanical wreckage.

‘It’s bad enough we can’t see a damn health bar,’he thought,’but this thing has built-in, percentage-based HP regeneration per second! How are you supposed to fight that?’

“Lady Welt!” he yelled. “Stop holding back! It’s time for the big one! You know, the black hole! The one that sucks everything in and turns it into space dust!”

Against an enemy with such high recovery, the only options were overwhelming burst damage or a hard mechanical counter.

Ms. Welt’s voice was a low, steady counterpoint to the chaos. “I cannot.”

“We are too close to the Creation Furnace,” she explained, her tone leaving no room for argument. “The suction and spatial distortion from a singularity cannot be precisely controlled in this environment. One slight miscalculation could affect the furnace, triggering an unpredictable energy explosion or even causing catastrophic damage to the furnace itself. The consequences would be far more severe than this creature running rampant.”

“Ah, well…” Chen scratched his head. She had a point. If the furnace went up, more than half of the Artisanship Commission would probably go with it, and their mission would be an abject failure.

The battle had reached a stalemate. While the Abundant Ebon Deer was clearly crying out from the constant barrage and its movements were becoming sluggish, its incredible regeneration allowed it to remain a potent threat. Every time it reared its head to stomp or swung its magnificent antlers, it would unleash a wide-range volley of shimmering golden thorns or a sweeping beam of pure life energy. These attacks forced Ms. Welt to divert her attention to protect Caelus and March 7th, which inevitably hindered her own offensive.

‘We can’t keep wearing ourselves out like this…’Chen’s eyes flickered, his mind racing through possibilities.’Wait…’

“Got it!” His eyes lit up with inspiration. “Watch me give everyone some insurance first!”

With a thought, a shimmer of light enveloped him. His form dissolved and reformed, shrinking rapidly. In the space of a heartbeat, the black-haired young man was gone, replaced by a petite girl in elegant pink robes. Her hair was swept up into a dignified bun, and most strikingly, a third eye rested serenely on her forehead. He had become Fu Xuan.

“The stars of Taiwei move as chess pieces, the Spirit Altar reveals the shadows!” Chen, now in the guise of the diminutive sage, shouted in a voice that was startlingly crisp and clear. Her small hands wove through a series of complex seals, and a formation flowing with the light and shadow of hexagrams bloomed on the ground beneath her.

At the same time, a faint, ethereal echo of this formation enveloped Welt, Caelus, and March 7th as they fought on the front line.

“Oh? Chen, you…” March 7th glanced back, his expression one of surprise as he saw the little Fu Xuan. But as he felt the warm, protective energy settle over him, his surprise melted into relief. “This is good! I feel like I can take more of a beating now!”

Ms. Welt also looked over, a flash of surprise in her own eyes. She didn’t say anything, but her offensive immediately became even more fierce, as if she intended to use this opportunity to deal a decisive blow to the deer.

Caelus took a deep look back at Chen, his expression hidden behind his mask, though it felt strangely complex. He said nothing, but the bat in his hands swung even faster, hammering relentlessly at the deer’s lower body.

With Fu Xuan’s buff active, Ms. Welt could attack more boldly, while Caelus and March 7th dared to press closer, maximizing their damage output. For a moment, it seemed to work. More wounds exploded across the Abundant Ebon Deer’s body, and its healing speed finally seemed unable to keep up.

However, just as the tide of battle seemed to be turning in their favor, the great deer became completely enraged.

It let out a long, piercing cry to the heavens as a blinding light erupted from its eyes. Every golden energy pathway on its massive body lit up at once. Then, it raised its front hooves high and slammed them down onto the ground with cataclysmic force.

An indiscriminate, area-of-effect shockwave of pure power!

From the ground, countless golden thorns, each one wrapped in the suffocatingly dense aura of Abundance, erupted with violent fury. They burst forth in a circular wave, spreading from the deer like ripples in a pond of death and covering the entire core area of the furnace.

“Watch out!” Ms. Welt shouted sharply, striking her cane against the ground. A thick gravity barrier instantly expanded, shielding herself and the nearby Caelus and March 7th.

But the range of the thorn impact was too wide, its power too immense. Even with the gravity barrier weakening the assault, many thorns still slipped through, slamming hard into Caelus and March 7th… and into Chen, who was maintaining the formation from afar.

Caelus and March 7th grunted, stumbling back several steps as the force of the thorns slammed into them. But they only felt their blood and qi churn; they suffered no substantial injuries.

A miserable cry, however, rang out from the back line.

“Ouch! Oh my god!”

In the distance, Chen looked as if he had been struck by a colossal, invisible hammer. His petite Fu Xuan form shuddered violently, and he crumpled to one knee, the color draining from his face in an instant, leaving it a sickly, pale white.

“Chen!” March 7th cried out in alarm.

Caelus spun around instantly, about to rush back to his side.

“Wait!” Ms. Welt shouted, stopping him. She frowned, having sensed something unusual. Caelus and March 7th had been hit, but it seemed most of the damage…

Chen felt the churning, agonizing pain roiling inside him, his stamina draining away like water from a sieve. He looked up, meeting everyone’s shocked and worried gazes. He forced a smile that looked worse than crying and complained weakly, “I… holy hell… this deer doesn’t play fair… That AoE attack… all the damage… it all freaking hit me…”

He took a ragged breath and continued to explain in a pathetic voice, “It’s my skill… it takes the damage for my teammates… It’s not damage immunity… You get hit, I lose the health… That one hit just now… nearly took out this little body of mine…”

He had finally experienced firsthand what it meant to be the team’s designated health pack, and what the phrase ‘your pain is my pain’truly felt like. Fu Xuan’s Matrix of Prescience was indeed powerful, but the price was that its caster had to bear the massive, aggregated total of all shared damage.’It hurts like a bitch!’

Chen wobbled as he stood up. He deactivated the Fu Xuan form, the light receding as he changed back into the black-haired youth. His status instantly refreshed. His complexion returned to normal, and his eyes, though still holding a hint of lingering fear, now shone with an even greater degree of excitement.

“Looks like I can’t just use that move randomly… at least not for now.” His mind was already whirring. “I need a different approach…”

[Elysian’s Note:

Having a good time with the story?

Every single bit helps immensely:

Thanks a ton for making this journey possible!]