Chapter 9: The Border of Space

Hu Qingyu felt that from birth until now, he had never suffered such a huge loss.
Just when he was about to rid the world of a menace by killing Ye Cheng, he was inexplicably transported to a forest, and a bizarre-looking tiger ruined his perfect opportunity to kill Ye Cheng.

Now this tiger was chasing him relentlessly, which in turn gave Ye Cheng a chance to escape.
Logically speaking, it wouldn’t have been a problem for Hu Qingyu to take down this “Snake-Tiger” with his strength, but Ye Cheng had actually taken the opportunity to launch a sneak attack on him.
This was a true loss.

“Damn it! This demon beast actually knows demonic arts!” Hu Qingyu was viciously knocked to the ground by a beam of light shot from the “Snake-Tiger’s” mouth.
The scenery before him began to blur.
“Damn it, I can’t fall here…”

Just then, a young girl and a person completely encased in armor rushed out from the side, seemingly to rescue him.
The girl rushed straight towards Hu Qingyu, gently helping him up and cradling him in her arms.
At the same time, a very fresh and pleasant scent reached Hu Qingyu’s nose.

Mianbao supported Hu Qingyu and shouted at him, “Hey! Bro, are you okay?”

Meanwhile, the person fully encased in armor wielded a glowing longsword and engaged in a fierce battle with the “Snake-Tiger.”

Hu Qingyu tried his best to open his eyes wide to see clearly what was before him, and he got a clear look at the girl who had come to help him: she had beautiful, bluish-white long hair that Hu Qingyu had never seen before, and a pair of azure eyes like the ocean.
She wore a strange outfit that exposed large parts of her shoulders and thighs… This scene was simply too stimulating for Hu Qingyu.
The immense mental shock made his head spin, and his vision blurred once again.

“This… miss, why are you dressed so… immodestly…” Hu Qingyu said intermittently, looking as if he were about to breathe his last.
A pure stream of crimson blood trickled from his nose.

“Hey? What did you say? Hey, hey! What’s wrong with you?” Seeing the man in her arms seemed to have fainted, but didn’t appear to be in mortal danger, Mianbao paused for a few seconds to ponder his intermittent words.

‘Huh? What’s a “miss”? My clothes? They’re perfectly normal women’s clothes, aren’t they? What did that last part mean? Is it some kind of dialect?’ Mianbao thought.

On the other side, Zero was fighting the Ropuoluo Beast.
The integration strength between Snow Dove and Zero was at level five.
Against a Ropuoluo Beast, which was one of the weaker level-five magical beasts, there wouldn’t be too much of a problem as long as she was careful.

The so-called integration strength between a person and their Magi-Knight Armor was similar to a magician’s magic power or a warrior’s battle aura.
The higher the integration strength, the more power the Magi-Knight Armor could unleash.
For someone like Zero, who at only sixteen years old already had a level-five integration strength with Snow Dove, she was, like Mianbao with her marksman ability, a rare talent.

Snow Dove punched the ground, and a bolt of lightning surged up from under the Ropuoluo Beast’s feet.
The Ropuoluo Beast cried out in pain and retreated a few steps with a roar.

Level-two Thunder Magic, Lightning Surge.

Zero pressed her advantage, swinging her light sword and leaving several wounds so deep they nearly reached the bone on the Ropuoluo Beast’s massive body.
When Zero was about to attack again, Snow Dove suddenly stopped.

“Warning! Insufficient magic power reserves.” A line of text displayed before Zero’s eyes.

The actions of Magi-Knight Armor all consumed magic power, and the particles that Snow Dove released with every move were the residue of consumed magic power.

‘Damn it!’ Zero’s heart tightened.
The battle with the two Umbral Beasts during the night had consumed a lot of Snow Dove’s magic power, and later, she had been so shocked by Mianbao’s powerful recovery ability that she had forgotten to replenish Snow Dove’s magic.

Now, Snow Dove and the Ropuoluo Beast stood facing each other, neither daring to make a rash move.

‘What should I do…’ Zero’s brain worked at high speed, trying to think of a way to perfectly resolve the current predicament.

Unexpectedly, before Zero could take any action, the Ropuoluo Beast itself seemed to realize it couldn’t beat the Magi-Knight Armor before it.
It let out a few low whimpers and roars, then turned and fled at high speed.

Zero breathed a sigh of relief.
She deactivated Snow Dove on the spot, which now had no magic power to move.
Because of her legs, she fell into a sitting position on the ground, her overly slender legs splayed out in an alluring W-sit.

“Firia, is he okay?” Zero asked, sitting on the ground.

Mianbao shook her head at her.
“His life isn’t in danger for now, but he still needs treatment as soon as possible.”

Zero nodded and requested assistance from Mianbao: “That’s good. Can you help me push the wheelchair over?”

“I can.”

When the two returned to the camp, it was a chaotic mess.
Mianbao was supporting the injured man with one arm, carrying the maximum amount of firewood in the crook of her other arm, and also gripping the man’s incredibly heavy sword in her hand.

Originally, Zero wanted to help Mianbao, but Mianbao refused: “No need! I can do it myself.”

And now, Mianbao was paying the price for her boast.
She wobbled with every step she took.
Each time Zero thought Mianbao was about to fall and went to support her, Mianbao would manage to pull her body back upright with great effort.

By the time they returned to the camp, although there were no major problems, there were still minor ones.
Mianbao had dropped quite a bit of firewood along the way…

“Someone, help!” As soon as she got back, Mianbao started yelling for help.
She hadn’t said much these past few days, but when she did open her mouth, it was to yell for help, making it impossible to sense any of the demureness a girl should have.

However, Mianbao wasn’t really a girl… no, that’s not right.
She used to be a boy… that doesn’t seem right either…

Under Kunta’s arrangement, a girl who knew healing magic cast a low-level healing spell on Hu Qingyu, who was lying on the bed.
Then, Mianbao was assigned to take care of this stranger, Hu Qingyu.

‘Why me again…’ Mianbao felt aggrieved in her heart, which only strengthened her resolve to shoot Kunta after she got “Sirius” back.

Mianbao held a corn pancake, taking bites now and then.
Then she watched as Zero replenished Snow Dove’s magic power.

A faint white ring slowly encircled the level-three elemental crystal from the Umbral Beast that Zero held loosely in her hand.
Then, accompanied by beautiful rays of light that formed from nowhere, the crystal continuously faded until it completely disappeared.

“Zero, where does the Magi-Knight Armor go after it’s deactivated?” Mianbao asked, having finished her corn pancake, a question she had been wanting to ask for a long time.

Zero glanced at her coldly.
“Magi-Knight Armor, like much of our technology, was invented by King Edis of the Meiluos Empire. So tell me, besides technology, what else is the Meiluos Empire famous for?”

Mianbao thought for a moment, then shook her head in confusion.

“Space magic,” Zero explained.
“They opened up an exclusive space for Magi-Knight Armor, called ‘other-spacetime’. This space was born on the border of our own spatial dimension, which is why we can summon and retract the Magi-Knight Armor so easily.”

“Oh! So that’s how it is!” Mianbao finished the corn pancake in her hand and clapped her hands with a look of sudden realization.

‘I didn’t understand a thing, but it seemed really impressive.’