Crisis! The Abyss Order's Attack

"Hey! That was way too dangerous! What if you accidentally hit me?" Shen Qin glared at them angrily.

Sucrose stuck out her tongue, too embarrassed to meet his gaze, while Klee crossed her arms and asked sternly, "Brother Shen, don't you trust Klee?"

"Huh?"

"Don't you trust that Klee wouldn't hit you?"

Faced with Klee's questioning, Shen Qin scratched his head, unsure how to respond.

"They are all outstanding knights of the Knights of Favonius. You should trust them. And as an excellent alchemist, you should also trust your own inventions," Albedo said with a smile.

"It—It was Mr. Albedo who told us to do it!" Sucrose decisively shifted the blame.

Albedo's smile froze. Under Shen Qin's strange look, he chose to ignore it and calmly said, "Just a little joke. Their attacks just now weren't enough to reach the shield's limit."

"I didn't expect Mr. Albedo to enjoy such humor," Shen Qin said with a forced smile.

"Alchemy can be quite dull at times. It's just a way to add some fun to life," Albedo said, stepping onto his flying skateboard. "I'll go deal with the Ruin Guard. You all stay on the platform and watch. Its detection range doesn't cover this area."

Shen Qin looked down and saw a Ruin Guard wandering slowly at the bottom of the canyon. Just like in the game, it had a large upper body and a smaller lower body, with arms twice as long as its legs.

When Albedo got within a certain distance, the Ruin Guard's "eyes" suddenly lit up with a bright red glow, and steam burst from the pumps on its shoulders—this meant it had entered high-load combat mode.

At first, it faced Albedo, but upon detecting his intrusion, its upper body immediately rotated 180 degrees. It planted its hands on the ground, its back tilting at a 45-degree angle, and then missiles shot out from the launch ports on its back, homing in on him.

"Burst forth!" Albedo didn't slow down. Flowers of Geo energy flew from his hands, colliding with the missiles and detonating them prematurely.

He emerged unscathed from the explosion's smoke and reached the Ruin Guard.

Seeing him enter melee range, the Ruin Guard immediately switched to close combat mode, swinging its nearly three-meter-long arm at him with tremendous force.

Albedo naturally wouldn't test his durability against a hunk of metal. He sidestepped the attack and pressed a hand infused with dense Geo energy against its knee joint. With a crack, its knee gave out, and its entire body toppled in that direction.

After it crashed heavily to the ground, Albedo stepped forward and blasted Geo energy into its main body, destroying its internal structure. Its limbs went limp, and the light in its "eyes" dimmed.

He pried open the casing of its "eye" with his bare hands and pulled out a fist-sized sphere. The sphere had some weight to it, and its material was hard to discern. Intricate patterns covered its surface, with faint streaks of light flowing through them.

Albedo returned to the platform with the Chaos Core, and Shen Qin took it, giving him a thumbs-up. "Impressive."

"Let's study it back at the alchemy workshop. For now, let's regroup with the investigation team and see if they need any help."

But as they rushed toward the Knights' location, they heard the sounds of battle from afar. They sped up and saw numerous monsters frantically attacking the investigation team.

Behind the monsters, an Abyss Mage raised its staff, chanting obscure Abyssal incantations. The monsters radiated an ominous aura.

The investigation team was surrounded on all sides, with many knights lying on the ground, their armor stained with blood.

Three Abyss Mages floated above the team, blocking their escape route with flying skateboards. Whenever a knight tried to take off, they would focus their magic on them, forcing them back down.

But when no one was airborne, they simply watched the slaughter below, not lifting a finger, as if enjoying the knights' desperate struggle.

Jean unleashed a Wind Domain to push the monsters outward, but it had little effect on larger monsters like Mitachurls. She had to maintain the Wind Domain, leaving the knights to deal with the rest.

"Klee, Sucrose, go help the Knights! Shen Qin, use your shield to protect the wounded!" Albedo quickly issued combat orders before charging toward the chanting Abyss Mage.

It was easy to deduce—the monsters were under the Abyss's influence, being controlled by that Abyss Mage.

"Big bad guys, see how strong Klee is!" Klee flew into the air, tossing bombs at the three Abyss Mages and the monster horde.

Sucrose used Anemo to spread the flames from the explosions to other monsters.

Shen Qin hovered above the wounded, activating the shield's overclocking mode to protect them all. He called out to the still-combat-ready knights, "Ignore the regular monsters! They can't break this shield! Focus on the elite ones!"

The four of them joining the fight drastically reduced the pressure on the Knights. With the shield protecting the wounded, Jean could stop maintaining the Wind Domain and turn her attention to the stronger monsters.

While maintaining the shield, Shen Qin took out the Chaos Core and began studying it. He needed to use it to enhance the shield's strength in overclocking mode to withstand full-power attacks from elite monsters. Only then could the Knights focus their efforts on eliminating the Abyss Mages.

But the Chaos Core was just a sphere—unlike the parallel energy system, it had no positive or negative poles. Connecting it directly to the bracelet wasn't an option.

"If the Chaos Core is the positive pole, where does the negative pole connect?" He closed his eyes, visualizing the energy flow within the bracelet. Ten seconds later, he opened them. "Got it!"

He had a few knights temporarily guard the wounded, then quickly disconnected the bracelet from the parallel energy system. He connected the Chaos Core to the bracelet's positive pole and inserted the negative pole into the ground.

With a soft hum, the overclocking shield reactivated—but now, it was complete!

"The shield can now fully block elite monsters' attacks! Hurry and take care of the Abyss Mages!" Shen Qin shouted to the knights.

"Understood!" Jean abandoned her fight with the Mitachurl and charged straight at an Abyss Mage.

One of the Abyss Mages glanced at Shen Qin and teleported next to the shield. It waved its staff at him, sending a surge of Abyssal energy his way—but to its shock, the energy dissipated upon contact with the shield!

Realizing the dire situation, it looked back at its struggling comrades and decisively chose to flee.

"Abyssal energy can be blocked by a new type of shield—this information must be reported back!"