Pillar of Yita

As Fang Hong pushed open the second red door, a mechanical and neutral prompt sounded in his ear:

”Extreme Multicontrol—”

He lifted his head. In the darkness, the space seemed extremely vast, as if he were inside a grand hall. However, in the brief moment that he hesitated, the door silently slid away from his hand and closed automatically. At this moment, a beam of red light lit up in the distant gloom, dazzling and striking. Fang Hong hadn’t yet reacted when the red light slashed towards him.

Only then did he come to his senses, but as an Alchemist, it was almost too late to dodge.

However, at this moment, the Lizardman tribe’s ritual ’Language of Stars’ had already taken effect automatically. Under the control of ’Intuitive Dodge,’ he unconsciously dodged to the side, but ’Compulsory Dodging’ also caused the light blue evasion value to instantly drop to zero, while the balance value simultaneously plummeted to a red warning threshold.

Since he himself hadn’t realized it either, he instinctively fell backwards. It was fortunate that some balance value remained, allowing him to roll a few times after hitting the ground, dodging the opponent’s attack. The red light brushed past him, leaving a dark red glow on the smooth floor.

The high-temperature glow soon dissipated.

And Fang Hong, his face slightly ashen from the fall, climbed back to his feet, finally able to see what was attacking him.

It was a Clockwork Fairy he had never seen before, covered with mysterious patterns and entirely black.

Yet Fang Hong wasn’t sure if this could really be considered a ’Clockwork Fairy,’ because he had never seen such a flexible construct before—it was not only completely black but also an irregular sphere with a rhombus protrusion on each side, with edges glinting with metallic cold light.

At the center of the sphere was a rather austere observation device, like a black pillar or a dark hexagonal crystal. Beneath its somber crystal surface flickered a dim red light, like metal melting under extreme heat, gradually cooling but still retaining residual warmth.

Undoubtedly, the previous high-temperature red beam was fired by this device.

What on earth is this?

Besides the Fire Giant, Fang Hong had never heard of a Clockwork Fairy having the capability to attack. In fact, due to limited internal space and the world’s generally inefficient heat dissipation devices, the majority of attack-oriented magic-guided devices simply couldn’t be installed on a Clockwork Fairy.

People came up with many solutions, but eventually, the compromised concept was epitomized by the ’Annihilator QV700,’ a slow-moving magic-guided construct that, although deviating from its original design concept, paved a new path for flexible constructs.

One such concept was a one-time flexible construct like the Fire Giant, which didn’t require consideration for heat dissipation due to its disposable nature, but its cost was exorbitant.

Moreover, the closed-loop device of the Fire Giant also occupied the efficiency of the Clockwork Fairy’s cooling system. Originally, a Clockwork Fairy could incorporate a communications system in addition to a visual plugin, leading to the development of the Clockwork Fairy II model.

Yet the Fire Giant could only originate from the I model. Of course, barring true wealth, ordinary people wouldn’t consider using a Clockwork Fairy II for a kamikaze attack.

But this peculiar ’Clockwork Fairy’ in front of him was clearly beyond Fang Hong’s comprehension.

However, he soon didn’t have to worry about this anymore—

Because Fang Hong looked up, witnessing countless such pitch-black spheres emerging densely from the darkness—in order to describe them conveniently, we might temporarily assign these peculiar little things a name, say, pitch-black stars.

Or something similar.

In any case, as these pitch-black stars rose one by one from the gloom, resembling small points of starlight, they aligned in equidistant arrays within the vast space; much like a gigantic matrix erecting before Fang Hong, with hundreds of such flexible constructs surrounding him on all sides.

Fang Hong held his breath, quietly looking up at this scene, and a single thought flashed through his mind: why was the room beyond this red door named ’Extreme Multicontrol’? Presumably, this was the reason.

But as he looked around—all challenges in the world behind the doors, ultimately, were related to the Alchemist—surely they wouldn’t expect him, a frail Combat Artisan, to practice evasion skills like Nightingale?

Having experienced so many doors, Fang Hong had gradually become familiar with this place’s style and was aware that there must be measures to respond to the challenge within this room. And at that moment, he suddenly felt a certain sense of awareness in his mind.

As a Combat Artisan, he was not unfamiliar with such awareness. It was the resonance of the Artisanal Magic Guided Furnace with the Resonance Crystal of flexible constructs, ”There’s a masterless flexible construct,” Miss Tata’s voice came through, though Fang Hong had already realized this, ”above you.” Miss Tata’s calm voice was slightly anticipatory.

Fang Hong looked up.

He sensed something there in the darkness.

He raised the Control Gloves without hesitation and indeed felt an ether link in the darkness, connecting to the space above the dome. His heart sank as he spread his five fingers and gave a command, causing a buzzing noise to instantly emanate from the darkness—a sound he was all too familiar with.

It was the sound of the Clockwork Fairy flapping its wings.

Then a slip of silver light appeared in the darkness, as three peculiar ’Clockwork Fairies’ consecutively descended following his command from that direction.

Fang Hong stared at these three ’Clockwork Fairies,’ momentarily stunned. It truly was baffling, for he had never seen this type of Clockwork Fairy before.