Chapter 52: My Lord, the Times Have Changed!

Page 1 of 3

Xiate forcibly pried open Yelin’s mouth and poured down a bottle of World Instrument. Not only did it dispel the control effect, it also cleared his mind considerably.

Once he got to his feet, the resentment on Yelin’s face was plain to see. He had gained absolutely nothing from that encounter—he had merely ended up gnawing on metal armor.

“None of you try to stop me! If I don’t dismantle this bastard today, I’ll never sleep peacefully again. I’ve never suffered such a grievance in my life!”

Anyone capable of directly controlling his body had to be hiding somewhere on this floor. They might even be nearby.

“The fact that it could render my purification spell useless means it may well have been the Puppet King.” Luna helped Mylu to her feet while nervously scanning the surroundings. She was afraid their enemy might strike from the shadows again.

Doglee, the Puppet King, had once served the Dragon King Bakal and was himself quite renowned as a descendant of the ancient puppet-masters.

“But how are we supposed to find it? It may already have escaped.” Xiate gripped her greatsword cautiously. She had abandoned her earlier impression that the Puppet Vestibule was nothing special. With nothing more than its ability to control people’s bodies, the Puppet King could destroy most adventuring parties.

Even Luna was unable to remove this abnormal condition. Only a World Instrument could do so.

Yet hardly anyone possessed one. World Instruments were products of the Box, and Celia’s Box had only been on sale for two days. There was no way such an item could have reached the Sky Castle so quickly.

Once someone fell under the Puppet King’s control, they could neither be rescued nor touched. What were they supposed to do?

“Magic has its own wonders, but technology has its strengths too. My friends, the times have changed!”

Yelin gave a cold laugh and took out a small robot about twenty centimeters tall. He pressed the activation switch on its back.

The RX-78 Chaser was a creation of a mechanic, one of the Gunner professions from the Heavenly Realm. It could automatically seek out hostile targets and inflict explosive damage.

This Chaser had originally been obtained from Kiri. Although that madwoman’s primary profession was Spitfire, her restless and capricious nature had led her to learn the other three professions as well, more or less.

Moreover, many unfortunate Gunners who had fallen into Arad would seek help from Kiri, the wealthy tycoon. Expecting her to offer them a few coins out of fellow-countryman sympathy, they instead found themselves ruthlessly exploited.

The Chaser began running its program. Yelin did not need it to identify the enemy’s exact location; knowing the general direction was enough.

He took out a grenade, bit off the pin, and fixed his eyes on the direction in which the Chaser moved.

The Chaser headed toward an exceedingly dark corner filled with pottery jars and fragments of puppets—a place easy to overlook at a glance.

“There!”

Before Xiate could move, a grenade traced an elegant arc through the air and landed squarely in the depths of the darkness.

The grenade had also come from Kiri.

Boom!

Flames shot into the sky. The violent shock wave sent a short, emaciated puppet-master tumbling out, while the weightless fragments beneath it were blasted to pieces.

“Puppet King Doglee? Where are your lackeys? I heard you had plenty of underlings who could summon earth spikes and ice lances.”

Page 1 of 3

Page 2 of 3

Yelin crouched down. The Blazing Sun was planted ten centimeters from Doglee’s head, and its scorching heat and flames singed the puppet-master’s stoneware-like hair into curls.

The Puppet King gurgled and muttered in its throat. Yelin could not understand a word, but he easily read the intense hatred in its eyes.

“It says the City Lord won’t let us escape, invaders.”

The sudden translation made Yelin pause. It had come from Mylu. This was an extremely ancient language, one that had nearly been lost, but when he considered Mylu’s background, he found it hardly surprising.

“The City Lord of Light, Seghart? That really is troublesome…”

The handsomest boss. The resurrection-coin harvester. Please stop flying and give me your autograph. Seghart had countless nicknames.

“Invaders, my foot! Nearly a thousand years ago, the Sky Castle was the passage connecting us to the Heavenly Realm. You are the true invaders! You occupied another bird’s nest and still think you’re in the right?”

He thrust a sword through Doglee’s chest, then casually stripped the bracelet from its wrist. The entire movement was smooth and practiced.

[Puppet King’s Cursed Bracelet]: (Artifact) (Usable at Level 20) (Bracelet)

Magic Defense +1200
Strength +19
Vitality +30
When attacking, 2% chance to inflict Confusion on the target. Duration varies according to the enemy’s strength.

Note: I tell you to go east, you go west. I tell you to chase a dog, you hunt a chicken…

“Should we keep going upward? I suddenly have a bad feeling.” Yelin frowned and gazed anxiously toward the heights, toward the summit of the Sky Castle.

After killing the Puppet King and reaching Level 20, the new ability unlocked by the Mark of Heaven was a perception skill. It allowed him to actively determine where the damage to Mar’s Grand Magic Array was located.

He had just tested this new ability, only to discover that the Grand Magic Array covering the entire Sky Castle was perfectly intact.

That should have been cause for universal celebration. Yet in the Sky Castle, it somehow felt wrong.

The very top of the Sky Castle, where Seghart was located, passed through the magic array and extended into the Sea of Clouds.

In other words, the Sky Castle stood precisely where the magic array was most vulnerable—an array maintained by the Dark Elf Sharan.

Originally, the array here had indeed suffered severe damage. Seghart had polluted it with a gray aura and used Bakal’s magic array to seal off the final passage leading to the Heavenly Realm.

“Lorraine, the vain little girl who should have been captured by the dragonfolk, apparently wasn’t taken. Nor have we seen any traces of the Black Nightmare’s corruption along the way. Now the Grand Magic Array is intact, yet the Eye of Sin in the Floating City seems to still exist.”

“And then there are Pinochio and Krah, who are most likely in the Floating City, along with the people trying to repair the chains. What… is going on?”

Yelin’s brow furrowed tightly. Perhaps certain things had changed, but whether they had changed for better or worse was still unknown.

If they wanted answers, it seemed they would have to reach the City Lord’s Palace, or even the Floating City itself, before they could uncover the truth.

Page 2 of 3

Page 3 of 3

“Let’s keep going upward. Once we defeat the Stone Giant, we’ll return immediately, find Sharan and Kakhun, and obtain Bakal’s last words.”

The City Lord of Light was a special elemental being that could neither die nor perish. So long as Bakal never issued an order to abandon his post, Seghart would never fade away.

Kakhun’s father possessed a final message from Bakal, recording Bakal’s praise for Seghart’s loyalty and his farewell.

After spending some time locating the suspended staircase, they passed through several more levels of the pitch-black Puppet Vestibule. Then the space before them suddenly opened wide, and a bright, clean atmosphere swept over them.

“We’ve reached a very high place.”

Xiate pointed out the window. The bustling, flourishing city on the West Coast had been reduced to the size of a palm. Only the mountains, rivers, and other distant features could still be made out, while clouds drifted past outside from time to time…

Rumble!

A violent impact came from the floor above. Even the ground beneath their feet seemed to tremble, leaving them all stunned.

Someone was actually fighting a Stone Giant above them!

Ora ora ora ora…

Hearing the powerful, rhythmic battle cry, Xiate exclaimed in delight, “Could it be the Saint’s Fist known as ‘Windbreaker’ from the Priest party? His voice is rough and thunderous, impossible to mistake. I never expected Priests to have come here too. No wonder there have been so few monsters along the way.”

“Then let’s hurry and join them,” Grandis said. The small party was quite capable, and in a place as dangerous as the Sky Castle, having more people around was undoubtedly safer.

Thud—

“Ow!”

The sudden cry of pain made Yelin quicken his pace. Had something happened to the Priest party?

“Second Brother, what happened to you? Hurry up and keep ora-ora-ing those stone men!”

“Big Brother, the Stone Giant is too hard. My hand cramped up…”

“Useless! Third Brother, you’re an Exorcist. Release the hound and have it pin the thing down for Fourth Brother!”

“Big Brother, let me reiterate: this is the Divine Beast Black Tortoise, an energy-based divine beast. Do you understand what a divine beast is? Prosper, go bite this Stone Giant to death.”

“What? You’re saying you chipped a tooth?”