The two ran all the way and arrived at Qingqiu Terrace to meet up with Xueyi.
Guinaifen excitedly waved her arms.
"Family! Huohuo! Great, great, you're all fine, it really worried me to death!"
Xueyi nodded to them.
"I have already dealt with the nether envoys controlled by Huiyan along the way. Having to control the force while defeating them was truly troublesome."
"How did your task go?"
Huohuo took out the Moon-Hiding Gourd from her bosom: "Huiyan's fragments are almost all sealed inside."
Stelle: "What do we do next?"
"Seal the fragments from the Moon-Hiding Gourd into the Shape-Binding Evil-Repelling Array. As long as we strip away Huiyan's power, it will no longer be able to influence the people and matters in Fyxestroll Garden."
After speaking, Xueyi formed seals with both hands and began activating the array core. The formation patterns quickly lit up.
Stelle let out a sigh of relief: "Finally can rest for a bit."
Just then, Guinaifen suddenly leaned forward.
Her eyes stared fixedly at the Moon-Hiding Gourd, as if nervously rubbing her hands.
"This gourd is so beautiful and exquisite, wow, is this the legendary Xianzhou treasure?"
Huohuo quickly spoke to stop her: "Miss Guinaifen, please be careful. Getting too close to the formation might make one dizzy and disoriented."
"It's fine, it's fine."
Guinaifen paid no mind at all, but her tone sounded strangely eerie.
"It's my first time closely observing the Ten Lords Commission's demon-exorcising treasure!"
Tail seemed to sense something, its gaze suddenly sharpened: "Huohuo! Don't let her get close—"
Unfortunately, before the words finished, the Moon-Hiding Gourd in Huohuo's hands was snatched away by Guinaifen in one grab and smashed hard toward the ground.
With a crisp sound, the Moon-Hiding Gourd shattered into several pieces.
In an instant, countless heliobi, like evil spirits breaking free from their cage, frantically escaped from the broken treasure!
Guinaifen's body also went soft, and with a thud she collapsed to the ground, falling unconscious.
Xueyi, who usually had sparse expressions, now had an extremely ugly look on her face.
Fell for it. Got caught in Cirrus's scheme.
Countless faint, mournful wailing cries echoed in the air:
"Cirrus, it's Cirrus! You won! You won! Don't abandon us... take us with you~ Let's recreate Ignamar's glory!"
"Hehehe... hehehe... hahahahahaha——!"
Cirrus let out a series of extremely piercing, extremely arrogant sharp laughs, filled with wild joy.
"Thank you all, Judge lords, for clearing the obstacles for me and collecting all the countless fragments that Huiyan turned into!"
"I said I would come out from your body, little chess piece. Now it's time for me to fulfill my promise—"
A glaring green flame suddenly drilled out from within Stelle's body, whooshing as it shot up into the high sky!
Stelle only felt as if her body had been crushed under a great weight, feeling uncomfortable all over.
But the next second, all the discomfort symptoms disappeared completely.
Eh?
Before she could think about the reason, her attention was drawn to the changes around her.
Countless smaller green flames converged toward the midair, emitting heart-rending screams.
"Ah!! Going to, be, sucked, away, la——"
Those flames were also heliobi.
"Bad!"
Huohuo tightly clenched the command flag in her hand, her small face filled with anxiety.
"That bad guy wants to devour the power of the other heliobi."
"This power... I feel... unprecedentedly— powerful!!"
The deafening mad laughter was piercing to the extreme. Cirrus overlooked the ground from above, still laughing wildly.
"Hahahahaha! Chess pieces, how about another round?"
The nether envoys on the ground who had been knocked unconscious by the impact now twisted and turned, standing up one after another like puppets on strings.
Their eyes were hollow as they gripped their weapons and step by step surrounded them, tightly trapping the three in the center.
Stelle took a big stride to stand in front of the shivering Huohuo and the unconscious Guinaifen.
A massive riding lance appeared out of thin air, gripped tightly in her hand.
She looked up at the expanding green evil fire in the sky, her face solemn and also somewhat heavy.
Miscalculation.
She should have thought of it earlier.
Huiyan could split off power fragments to control the Ten Lords Commission's nether envoys.
Then why couldn't Cirrus scheme a similar method to control the ordinary person Guinaifen without anyone noticing?
"Also have to thank you for not killing the nether envoys in Fyxestroll Garden. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to have so many chess pieces right now, hahaha!"
The face-to-face mocking words made the corners of Stelle's eyes twitch slightly.
After working hard for half a day, in the end they had made a wedding dress for Cirrus. How unpleasant.
"Leave those underworld martial officers and nether envoys to me. Xueyi, Huohuo, you two quickly deal with Cirrus."
Stelle issued a deep shout. The riding lance burning with raging flames emitted waves of ripples that spread across the entire battlefield.
When the ripples passed through the controlled nether envoys, they forcibly drew their attention over.
But with the Moon-Hiding Gourd destroyed, Stelle could not seal away Cirrus's dispersed power.
That meant the fallen nether envoys could keep standing back up.
If they kept dragging it out like this, without going for the kill, the battle would never end.
Stelle gritted her teeth and persisted, refusing to bow to this war of attrition.
In the entire Fyxestroll Garden, there were no fewer than two or three hundred nether envoys controlled by Cirrus, all of them innocent.
To have her kill these people—even if justified—would be hard to cross the hurdle in her heart.
The Nameless Guests aren't the faction that does such things!
After an unknown amount of time, the battle finally had a momentary gap.
Xueyi covered her shoulder, with many visible damage marks on her body.
Around the battlefield lay a large number of nether envoys.
Many had completely lost signs of life, all burned out their own bodies after being controlled by heliobi and died.
"This monster... really troublesome..."
Huohuo's voice trembled: "Everyone... are you okay?!"
Stelle's breathing was rapid: "Can hold on."
It was Xueyi's side that was clearly very not optimistic.
A puppet body indeed wouldn't fear pain, but once the damage was too great, it would lose mobility.
Xueyi gritted her teeth: "That guy has aggregated too many heliobi. If we want to weaken it bit by bit, even if we tire to death we have no chance of winning."
"Not necessarily no chance of winning, puppet..."
Tail suddenly appeared, its tone mixed with a trace of deep meaning as it looked at Huohuo.
"According to its own words, when heliobi fuse and aggregate they form a fragile balance. You understand what to do, right, Huohuo?"
Huohuo understood Tail's meaning, her small face anxious: "But... but..."
"Afraid of what? If I'm gone, wouldn't you be able to live the life you want?" Tail deliberately put on a cold voice.
Huohuo fell into struggle.
Cirrus's voice carried mockery.
"Tired, tired. These little chess pieces are too boring. Why don't you all join in as well, how about it?"
As the words fell, Cirrus suddenly widened its eyes and launched a mental attack.
"Give up resistance, be used by me!"
Xueyi's body suddenly stiffened, struggling with all her might against the pervasive mental attack.
Stelle endured the discomfort and was just about to act when she discovered the nether envoys lying on the ground had suddenly tightly entangled her feet.
In the split second of distraction, the locked feet felt a loosening, and immediately her entire body uncontrollably flew toward the midair. Many still-conscious nether envoys did the same.
Cirrus wanted to devour everyone to continue strengthening itself.
"Can't win... so you're playing dirty huh!"
Xueyi swung out a chain that wrapped around Stelle's waist. With her other hand she swung out a second chain. The weapon at the chain's end deeply embedded into the ground, stopping Stelle from being devoured.
The only one unaffected was Huohuo.
Yet Huohuo fearfully hugged her head tightly, squatting on the ground and trembling violently.
Tail, hating iron for not becoming steel, angrily shouted:
"Useless thing, you— you stand up straight for me!"
"Wuwu... no matter what, we can't kill this guy. We're finished..."
"Finished my ass! Don't you still have, still have me?"
"You?"
Tail returned behind Huohuo: "Quick, undo the seal!"
Huohuo's palms trembled, her heart struggling violently.
Meanwhile, up in the midair, at this moment Stelle made a move that made Xueyi's expression change drastically—
She actually took the initiative to undo the chain around her waist and dove headfirst into Cirrus's eye!
"Stelle!!"