[Volume 2] Chapter 21: A Battle of Wits and Nerve

“How am I supposed to stop him? I can’t fight a Dou Emperor!” Sainquartz snapped.

Before entering the world of Battle Through the Heavens, they had analyzed its power levels. A Dou Emperor was roughly equivalent to someone in the upper rank of the Auspicious Realm(Tier 6).

As a summoner, Sainquartz himself was only in the upper rank of the Calamity Realm (Tier 2). Going up against Xiao Yan would be certain death.

By spending money, Sainquartz could summon a random character and temporarily gain that character’s abilities.

He tried to shake Chen-Awelon off, but Chen-Awelon clung to him with a death grip, clearly determined to drag him down too if things went south.

“Can’t you spend some money and pull a character?” Chen-Awelon gazed at Sainquartz with tears in his eyes. “Come on, give it a shot! Maybe you’ll pull a God Realm (Tier 9) powerhouse who can crush Dou Emperor Xiao Yan!”

“You know I’ve got garbage gacha luck! Fine, fine, I’ll do one pull. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have no choice but to exit the Imaginary World.”

Sainquartz finally pried Chen-Awelon off. With a wave of his hand, he took a pile of gold coins out of his personal storage.

“Pay to win!” Sainquartz shouted.

The gold coins spontaneously burst into blue flames and were soon consumed entirely.

Sainquartz pressed his palms together, his expression devout as he muttered a fervent prayer.

“Buddha bless me! God bless me! Allah bless me! Cthulhu bless me! Jade Emperor bless me! Flying Spaghetti Monster bless me! Card draw! Silver, turn gold! Rainbow light! Five-star! Ten-pull in one second!”

A rainbow glow rose from the spot where the coins had burned, and a figure appeared within the light. He was tall and imposing, with a curved saber at his waist and a commanding air. His golden slit pupils gleamed brilliantly.

“A character who looks that badass has to be strong, right?” Chen-Awelon exclaimed. “We’re saved! At the very least, he should be able to buy us some time!”

Sainquartz’s expression turned as black as obsidian. He sighed. “That’s the Myriad-Faced Demon Lord. He’s only at the middle rank of the Perseverance Realm(Tier 1). Other than shapeshifting, all he knows are some basic saber techniques.”

“Middle-rank Perseverance Realm?!”

Chen-Awelon nearly coughed up a mouthful of cerebral hemorrhage. Against Dou Emperor Xiao Yan, the guy would get slapped to death in a single hit.

Moonbell joined their video call, and her image appeared beside them.

“How are things going, Chen-Awelon?” she asked calmly. “Is the mission over yet? I still need to go back and peer-review a journal article.”

Chen-Awelon glanced at the Child of Fortune Analyzer. Its progress bar had only reached ninety-two percent. He covered his face and groaned. “We’re screwed! The mission’s going to fail!”

Sainquartz quickly explained the situation. Moonbell thought for a moment, then said, “I have an idea. Have the Myriad-Faced Demon Lord transform into Xiao Xun’er and go flirt with Dou Emperor Xiao Yan. That should buy you some time.”

“That’s brilliant!” Chen-Awelon cried. “Moonbell, your brain really does work faster than ours. You actually managed to turn a completely useless pull into something useful!”

Moonbell smiled faintly and slipped a spoonful of ice cream between her lips. “My IQ is higher than yours, so it’s only natural that I can think of ideas you can’t. There’s no need to make such a fuss.”

She continued, “He’ll obviously see through a transformation into the young Xiao Xun’er. It has to be her adult appearance. Tell him that she was worried about Xiao Yan and followed him across the river of time.”

“Myriad-Faced Demon Lord, hurry up and transform!” Chen-Awelon looked at him expectantly.

To his surprise, the Myriad-Faced Demon Lord’s face fell, obvious reluctance written all over it.

“We don’t know what the adult Xiao Xun’er looks like,” Sainquartz said. “He can’t transform without a reference. If he gets her appearance wrong, Xiao Yan will see through him immediately.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I have footage from the mission that recorded the young Xiao Xun’er in the Xiao clan’s main hall. I can use a computer model to extrapolate what she’ll look like as an adult. Cultivators don’t visibly age much, so the difference shouldn’t be too great,” Moonbell said.

She clenched the wooden ice cream spoon between her teeth and rapidly typed on a virtual keyboard with both hands.

Before long, the screen generated a lifelike image of a breathtakingly beautiful woman. Her features bore a clear resemblance to the young Xiao Xun’er.

“Myriad-Faced Demon Lord, I order you to copy this appearance!” Sainquartz commanded. “Once you’ve transformed, go seduce Dou Emperor Xiao Yan and keep him occupied!”

The Myriad-Faced Demon Lord gripped the hilt of his saber, his face turning thunderous.

“You want me to turn into a woman and seduce a man? What monstrous humiliation! What a vile insult to my very person!”

“Huh?” Sainquartz stared at him blankly. He had never expected a character he summoned to object to his orders.

Dou Emperor Xiao Yan was getting closer by the second, while the Child of Fortune Analyzer had only reached ninety-three percent. Sainquartz barked, “I’m the summoner, and you’re the character I summoned. Are you saying you can disobey my orders?”

“I cannot,” the Myriad-Faced Demon Lord said with a deep sigh. “But I can still make my own choice!”

Sainquartz was at a loss for words. “What choice do you have?”

Characters he summoned were required to obey his orders without question. That was an absolute rule.

“I choose death!” the Myriad-Faced Demon Lord shouted.

He drew his saber and slashed it across his throat. Blood sprayed through the air.

The Myriad-Faced Demon Lord collapsed to the ground.

He had killed himself...

Sainquartz, Moonbell, and Chen-Awelon stared in stunned silence. None of them had expected the Myriad-Faced Demon Lord to be such a fiercely chaste man—a veritable paragon of male chastity—that he would rather die than turn into a woman and seduce another man.

“Well...” For once, Moonbell had nothing to say.

Chen-Awelon stamped his feet anxiously. Then his eyes suddenly lit up. “Wait! Can’t you temporarily inherit the abilities of the characters you summon? That means you can shapeshift now!”

“Uh... I really don’t want to do this!” Sainquartz’s face went as pale as dolomite.

Chen-Awelon threw himself at Sainquartz’s feet and clung to his leg. “I’m begging you! If we complete the mission, I’ll give you an extra hundred Contribution Points!”

“What happened to the swagger worthy of the Flex King?” Sainquartz sighed. “Fine. For the sake of the Contribution Points, I’ll help you out.”

Light rippled across Sainquartz’s body, and he transformed into Xiao Xun’er. Even “her” clothes followed the design Moonbell had generated, matching the style of the Battle Through the Heavens world.

The adult “Xiao Xun’er” shot into the sky and flew toward Dou Emperor Xiao Yan.

When Xiao Yan suddenly saw the adult Xiao Xun’er appear before him, he exclaimed in shock, “Xun’er! What are you doing here?!”

“Xiao Xun’er” pursed her red lips, flew to his side, and linked both hands around his arm. “I was worried about you, so I crossed the river of spacetime and followed you here.”

“You’ve comprehended the laws of time and space too?” Xiao Yan smiled at her indulgently. “I never expected you to progress so quickly. At this rate, you might catch up to me someday.”

Then he sniffed the air, and confusion appeared on his face. “Xun’er, why can’t I sense even a trace of Dou Qi from you? It’s almost as though... you’ve lost all your cultivation.”

“Xiao Xun’er” hemmed and hawed for a moment before blurting out an explanation.

“I’ve attained a new state of enlightenment and washed away all worldly trappings. From now on, existence is nonexistence, and nonexistence is existence.”

“There’s a state like that?” Xiao Yan asked. “And your clothes look rather unusual. They’re nothing like what you normally wear.”

A Dou Emperor’s senses were incredibly sharp. The suspicion on Xiao Yan’s face grew stronger by the second.

The adult “Xiao Xun’er” coughed lightly. “I designed these clothes myself. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Really? But you’ve been a sheltered young lady since childhood. You’ve never done needlework in your life.”

Xiao Yan’s expression grew darker.

“Xun’er, what do you call me when you come?”