Chapter 444: Chapter 429: I Think You Look Like My Daughter (2nd Update)

Holy Spirit City had finally transformed from a small town into a medium-sized town after nearly half a month of construction.

The permanent deities of Holy Spirit City had increased from the system-gifted Lake God to ten residing gods, all of whom came from the City of Gods in Black Tide Island, such as the Goddess of Beauty, God of Harvest, God of Casting–faces familiar to the players who, after being conquered, chose to settle within the city.

The population attribute also rose to one hundred thousand.

Throughout this half-month, Holy Spirit City still held various celebration activities every day. Unfortunately, no foreign gods were willing to reside in Holy Spirit City yet; the main reason being fear of the Devouring God and the potential annihilation by the Devouring God’s successors at the Sanctuary of Creation.

But what did that have to do with Silver General?

Silver General… had been kidnapped by Rosh again.

“Girl, didn’t you try last time? Kidnapping me is of no use,”

Silver General, somewhat speechless, sat in a corner of the cave. He had just logged on and intended to inspect the construction progress of Holy Spirit City, but the moment he regained his senses, Rosh had appeared from nowhere, grabbed his collar, and thrown him back into the cave.

“Be quiet.”

Rosh seemed to be suppressing her restlessness; she hadn’t sought treatment from Denghis Xisi after losing to Zhao Mingwei.

So now she had multiple burns on her body caused by qi-energy…

Failure, that was the reason for Rosh’s restlessness. She had believed in her ability–that under equal conditions on the star chart, there existed no one who could singularly defeat her, one hundred percent defeat her.

This was something even Zhao Mingwei couldn’t achieve–Rosh remembered she had fought Zhao Mingwei ten rounds, winning three… But she lost in the most critical elimination round!

Rosh had lost her direct chance to meet Thorne, but she didn’t plan on giving up… In this predicament, Rosh had no choice but to resort to the method she had planned to use upon her arrival in Holy Spirit City: interrogation.

But when Rosh had tied Silver General in the cave, she found herself somewhat… unable to proceed.

Initially, kidnapping Silver General was because he seemed to Rosh to be an evil descendant of the Devouring God, but after spending half a month together, Rosh truly couldn’t associate the saintly spirits with the evil catastrophe. To quote a member of Rosh’s team: these holy spirits are simply my recent source of happiness.

That’s right… a source of happiness. Rosh had been occupied with the Holy Spirit Challenge and hadn’t paid much attention, but her teammates had been enjoying themselves in Holy Spirit City and had been collecting information for Rosh.

And Rosh had received crucial intelligence on how to meet Thorne–that was the inner world!

“Open the gate to the inner world!” Rosh tentatively stated her demand, still thinking of communicating with Silver General.

“The inner world… Your target, Thorne, is indeed there, but whether or not you can go to the inner world isn’t something I can decide,”

Silver General had allowed Rosh and her teammates to settle in his base, but that didn’t mean he completely trusted them… In the eyes of most players, the inner world might just be a map modeled after the real world.

However, Silver General had understood from Denghis Xisi’s descriptions that the inner world was not as simple as a game map.

Rosh’s identity as an Eternal made her a potential enemy of the saintly spirits!

“I swore in the name of the Devouring God, I only want to go to the inner world to capture Thorne, that dangerous fugitive!” Rosh showed Silver General the mark of the Devouring God on the back of her hand.

She had bet everything to participate in the Holy Spirit Challenge, one might even say she had bet everything to capture Thorne.

“Actually, I’m not the chairman of the Quantum Leapers; I don’t have the authority to open the portal to the inner world,” Silver General decisively chose to play dumb at that moment.

“You…” Rosh’s calm finally began to falter at that moment.

But just as she was about to do something… sounds of someone entering echoed at the cave entrance, and Rosh instantly activated her invisibility, but her living armor had been partially destroyed by Zhao Mingwei.

Rosh’s invisibility malfunctioned after less than two seconds, and her figure reappeared in the cave, causing her nerves to tense up immediately.

Her injuries had not healed, and encountering another hostile holy spirit now would exacerbate her injuries… Judging from the shadows reflected on the cave walls, the creature entering the cave was a powerful beast.

Rosh readied herself to shoot at any moment, but when she saw the figure walking into the cave, her finger twitched away from the trigger.

Not killing the innocent was one of her life principles, and under this principle she also forbade shooting at the elderly and children, which was hard to adhere to and distinguish on the perilous star chart.

Because the Void Swarm Rosh often hunted were nearly a thousand years old.

But standing at the cave entrance was indeed an old lady.

“It seems someone has already found this place.” Li Hua stepped in with her heavy shotgun, accompanied by her Dragon Vein Sabertooth Tiger, Qiuqiu, and immediately noticed Silver General bound with ropes.

“Is this Mr. Lu? Everyone in this video game dresses so bizarrely, but you haven’t changed much, Mr. Lu. Who is this child?” Grandma Li Hua asked.

“I… friends,” Silver General replied.

“The friends you game with online, huh? Oh, young lady, please move aside.” This old grandma didn’t really care about the deceitful tricks in the game, she was here to collect a very rare type of crystal, precisely located beneath Rosh’s feet.

“Oh…”

Rosh, who had previously been on high alert, now looked like a primary school student who had just been called on by a teacher, leaning somewhat blankly to one side.

Grandma Li Hua took out a small hammer and started tapping the crystal by Rosh’s foot, but her mining level was obviously not high enough. She tapped for a long time and finally managed to break off a piece, only for the crystal to instantly turn into mist and dissipate as soon as it left the ground.

“That’s what’s wrong with this game.” As she complained, she continued tapping other crystals, and both Rosh and Silver General exchanged glances, both seeing the embarrassment in each other’s eyes.

Eventually, a somewhat agitated Rosh, after seeing Grandma Li Hua damage the fifth crystal, could no longer hold back.

“That is a Blazing Fire Crystal, madam.” Rosh sheathed her gun, walked over to Grandma Li Hua, and gestured for her to hand over her little pickaxe.

Grandma Li Hua, without any suspicion, handed over the not-so-valuable pickaxe to Rosh, who tapped it lightly… but the deep red crystal still looked as if it would dissipate.

Rosh hesitated for a moment, then still deployed the power that she had rarely used in her lifetime, the authority of the God of Blazing Flame.

A small flame emerged from Rosh’s fingertip and seeped into the crystal. Once the flame started to burn slowly inside the crystal, Rosh finally excavated it.

“Young lady, how did you do that? Or was it the proficiency level of the game’s skills?” The old lady looked very pleased. Blazing Fire Crystals were among the few crystals that most players could not cultivate from mother crystals.

This type of crystal was extremely fragile; once it left the dragon vein, it would quickly shatter into dust and dissipate, so there wasn’t much stock of vibrating nuclei, but for some reason, Grandma Li Hua was fixated on these crystals that had never appeared in the real world.

“It requires some special collection methods. How many more do you need?”

Although Rosh was actually almost a hundred years old, her psychological age was only twenty-one, as there is a distinction between actual age and natural age on star charts.

This was a common concept in interstellar travel; some civilizations’ people would sleep in hibernation chambers to extend their lifespans, and Rosh’s mother was the God of Blazing Flame, and a god needed hundreds of years to conceive their offspring.

So… this did not prevent Rosh from calling Grandma Li Hua “grandma.”

“Five or six pieces, and young lady, how did you burn your hand?” Grandma Li Hua sharply noticed the burn marks on the back of Rosh’s hand.

These were burns caused by Zhao Mingwei’s psychic energy…

“It’s nothing.” Rosh quickly retracted her hand as if she’d been electrocuted, but it was still caught by Grandma Li Hua who had grabbed the burned hand.

“How can this be nothing? A girl’s hands are as important as her face… Oh, I reckon this is inside the game, huh? Well, it still needs to be treated.”

The game Holy Spirit was overly realistic; while the youngsters were fine, this old lady, although constantly reminding herself she was in a game, often treated it as reality.

Just like now… she pulled out some homemade burn ointment from her backpack.

“This island, ah… has no shortage of strange things, but there are still some herbs and minerals I know of here, this stuff can heal burns, just apply it and it’ll get a lot better.”

Grandma Li Hua had studied a bit of everything in life professions, including herbal medicine, and Silver General, using a Tracking Technique on the herbal ointment introduced by Grandma Li Hua, confirmed it could indeed cure burn conditions.

“This…” Rosh initially wanted to pull her hand back, as the burns caused by the Devouring God were not like ordinary burns, but she forgot… this was herbal medicine mixed in Holy Spirit.

A cool sensation overflowed from the back of Rosh’s hand, and she ultimately gave up the motion to retract her hand.

But suddenly, a chilling presence appeared outside the cave, and Rosh sensed it instantly… this presence belonged to the one who had left these wounds on her–Holy Spirit!

“What’s wrong?” Grandma Li Hua also noticed the change in Rosh’s expression.

“Someone might be here looking for me, to fight me… You might want to hide first, ma’am.”

Rosh’s intuition told her that Zhao Mingwei found this place not likely through any Tracking Technique or positioning; one of her team members was in Zhao Mingwei’s hands.

“A fight? I’ve never had a fight with anyone in this game. Don’t worry, young girl, this time I’m on your side!”

Grandma Li Hua, seemingly exhilarated at the prospect of someone coming to pick a fight, didn’t wait for Rosh to persuade her otherwise and walked out of the cave along with her Dragon Vein Sabertooth Tiger, Qiuqiu.

“Wait!” Rosh, seeing the old lady’s figure disappearing, could only look helplessly at Silver General, whose expression was one of complete innocence.

“Lao Xiao is not from our guild… oh, if only he were from our guild,” Silver General said, feeling upset.