"What kind of bullshit Puchi teleportation technology is this? It's unreliable as expected!" Alvione cursed as he leaned in the corner, carefully repairing his buttocks with a half-broken sword.
Something went wrong during the teleportation. He remembered that after the flash of light, the space beneath him went empty. His buttocks and two legs were gone, and he crashed directly onto the fungal mat.
Of the four swords on his back, two also snapped in half.
It didn't look like teleportation, but more like some kind of dismemberment trap.
Additionally, a Puchi's body possessing too tenacious vitality wasn't always a good thing.
After cutting and splicing back together, even if it wasn't aligned properly, one could still make do and use it.
He recalled those cannon-fodder Puchis he had seen fighting the Empire earlier; quite a few of them had this kind of abstract spliced art style.
Some had legs attached backward, some had mushroom caps tilted to one side, some had an extra tentacle—all falling under the category of "as long as it can charge, it's fine."
But he was different.
He was a Sword Saint. A skewed butt would affect his center of gravity, his force generation, and his movement flexibility.
So he could only be like he was now, holding his broken sword and repairing it bit by bit.
Shaving off the excess parts, and for the missing parts, scraping off a layer of mycelium to stimulate it to grow back on its own.
If he had known it would be this troublesome, he wouldn't have tried to save trouble by splicing and just waited a bit longer for it to grow out on its own.
The sword blade shaved past the final protrusion.
Alvione's movements suddenly paused.
The tentacle released the broken sword and silently curled around the hilts of the two intact swords beside him.
The blades were slowly drawn from their sheaths without making a single sound.
A dark shadow suddenly descended from the sky. Dual-wielded battle axes cleaved through the air, aiming straight for the center of his mushroom cap!
The axe blades hit the ground, but the Sword Saint Puchi's figure was already standing three meters away.
The half-vampire who launched the sneak attack chuckled, "You really have some skill. No wonder they wanted us to..."
Before he could finish speaking, a bloodline emerged from his jaw to between his eyebrows, and he subsequently fell straight down just like that.
However, this was only the beginning. From all directions, over a dozen Demon-kin figures surged out simultaneously from the tree shadows, along with about a hundred combat Puchis charging out alongside them.
Although it was still unclear what was going on, Alvione didn't intend to hold back.
Moonlight stepped under his short legs, sword light crisscrossed, and blood mist and mycelium permeated the air.
In less than a minute from start to finish, the twelve sneak attackers and the combat Puchis they brought had all been killed in action.
Especially the Puchis. The Sword Saint, deeply aware of the Puchi resurrection ability, sliced these hostile Puchis exceptionally fine.
Alvione flicked the blood off his swords, slightly turned his mushroom cap, and looked toward that giant tree not far away.
From behind the tree trunk came a rhythmic clapping sound.
Clap, clap, clap. No. 13 walked out from behind the tree, followed by two shivering lackeys. "As expected of the strongest little No. 14, truly can't find a single flaw."
Alvione lowered the tips of his swords but didn't sheathe them: "No. 13, what is the meaning of this?"
"No meaning at all, just saying hello." No. 13's tentacles gently crossed in front of it. "After all, we still have to cooperate next."
"You only need to tell me which direction the cultists are in; that's enough. I don't need your interference in anything else." After saying that, the Sword Saint Puchi left on his own.
There was a mycelial network here too; if they wanted to communicate, there was simply no need to do it face-to-face.
No. 13 shrugged its mushroom cap, transmitted a few locations to the Sword Saint through the mycelial network, and then added: "Don't come near my territory, and definitely don't cause any commotions. Here, Puchis are still the Demon-kin's best friends."
This was what it truly wanted to say.
No. 14 was teleported over by the Mushroom Lord, so No. 13 naturally didn't dare to cause trouble for the Mushroom Lord.
But it was afraid No. 14 would act recklessly and planned to show off its strength to grasp the initiative.
Unfortunately, when the Red Dragon attacked the Mushroom Fortress, No. 13 had already left the Mushroom Garden. Otherwise, if it had witnessed the Sword Saint Puchi's strength, it wouldn't have used this method.
The Sword Saint Puchi left, leaving only No. 13 in the clearing, along with the terrified Mengya and Stinky Fish.
The two demons had already woken up from their initial sweet dreams of getting promoted, getting rich, and reaching the pinnacle of demon life.
Ever since No. 13 demonstrated its method of exploding mushrooms on the old goblin's knee, they understood their current predicament.
They could only tremble with fear and act as true lackeys, praying that no conflict would break out between No. 13 and Her Ladyship the Duchess.
Unfortunately, the more they knew, the slimmer this hope became.
This time, another super-strong new Mushroom Tribe member had come. Killing those warriors who were even stronger than them was as easy as chopping vegetables.
Yet Lady Elinore was completely unaware of this, even thinking that Mengya and Stinky Fish were properly monitoring No. 13 according to her orders.
Mengya had a feeling that the powerful Lady Elinore might ultimately fall under No. 13's short feet as well...
...
The Sword Saint Puchi hopped onto the canopy at the edge of the forest, observing the nearest Demon-kin city from afar.
Although this was just a small city, the Sword Saint still easily distinguished the notorious Blood Livestock Factory within the city.
Strictly speaking, it was the Sword Saint's first time seeing the real thing.
When he was alive, he at most slipped through Highkeep Fortress to conduct some surprise attacks in Sigmund's territory. It was impossible for him to directly fight his way into Elinore's territory located in the rear. Naturally, he had no chance to see a real Blood Livestock Factory, having only seen them in some intelligence reports.
Only after becoming a Puchi could the Sword Saint infiltrate the Empire's territory without any misgivings like this.
This point was truly exactly as the Boss often said: Puchis can go wherever they want!
Through several non-human reconnaissance abilities, the Sword Saint took in the situation inside the factory at a glance, his tentacles unconsciously curling around his sword hilts.
It was hard to say whether the Sword Saint loathed the Empire or the evil cult more. Given the chance, he wanted to wipe them both out.
However, he didn't just charge into the city and destroy the factory like this.
Long before he set off, the Boss had reminded him that a rescue plan was being secretly carried out here, but it wasn't time to launch it yet.
The Sword Saint wasn't a hotheaded youth with zero patience either. So, even though his tentacles were itching, he still chose to bypass the city and run toward the coordinates No. 13 gave him—resolving the Hand of Passage first wasn't a bad idea either.
...
On the other side, Crescent and Gini were discussing how to make contact with the Mushroom Tribe.
Due to the location of their hideout, the only option they could consider was contacting No. 13 in Elinore's territory.
However, Elinore obviously valued the Mushroom Tribe very much.
Not only did she place No. 13 in a high tower, but she also arranged the tightest defenses. Even if they had some believers lurking in Elinore's territory, they had no chance to contact No. 13.
Ever since the previous accident, the High Priestess's health had deteriorated significantly again.
For the upcoming ritual, they couldn't let the High Priestess expend any more effort on other matters.
One human and one cat discussed with frowns for a long time. The few methods they came up with were somewhat dependent on luck and didn't have a high success rate.
Crescent sighed: "We can only try, meow. We can't just wait for the Mushroom Tribe to come to us, or expect to get a response just by shouting a couple of times at the fungal mat, right meow?"
Gini also nodded: "We can only let the believers try their luck and see if they can bump into a chance when the Mushroom No. 13 goes out."
(End of Chapter)
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