A whole bunch of One-leaf Foxes were lying on the ground, which naturally drew a lot of curiosity, but since other people had already given explanations, those without enough strength didn’t dare go near, because even after those One-leaf Foxes woke up, they still hadn’t returned to normal and were just as ferocious as before, trying to attack others.
The Beastmasters guarding the One-leaf Foxes didn’t dare slack off in response. Fortunately, this group of One-leaf Foxes wasn’t particularly strong, otherwise just this pack alone would have been enough to cause quite a bit of chaos in the plaza in front of the Department Store.
"This bunch of One-leaf Foxes is really off. Rather than saying they’re affected, it’s more accurate to say they’re naturally like this."
Veronia picked up one One-leaf Fox and examined it carefully. This kind of Spirit Beast was so common that humans understood it very well; Veronia had of course also seen all kinds of human records and data on One-leaf Foxes. Except for its appearance, this One-leaf Fox matched hardly any of the One-leaf Fox’s traits. No—more precisely, there were differences.
These differences weren’t on the level of heaven and earth, but for those who knew what they were looking at, the gap was still quite unbelievable, because all of these discrepancies appeared in areas that should have been impossible to change.
In other words, every way these One-leaf Foxes differed from normal One-leaf Foxes happened to be in aspects that simply should not be alterable for a One-leaf Fox.
For example, their traits: this whole group of One-leaf Foxes was aligned toward the death side, which completely contradicted the life-side alignment of normal One-leaf Foxes. Not to mention, the Ultimate Moves they used were also of types that a One-leaf Fox absolutely shouldn’t be able to master.
"Naturally like this? So these One-leaf Foxes aren’t normal One-leaf Foxes?"
Feng Yuan froze for a moment. He’d been busy knocking out the attacking One-leaf Foxes just now and hadn’t taken a close look at these little guys, so he didn’t know about this. After Veronia said that, Feng Yuan couldn’t help glancing at the One-leaf Fox caught in Veronia’s Crystal Luminace Stone "big hand."
That One-leaf Fox kept struggling in Veronia’s hand, occasionally unleashing strange Ultimate Moves. After staring at that One-leaf Fox for a while, Feng Yuan frowned slightly and said,
"It really is wrong. This bunch of One-leaf Foxes looks like the embodiment of evil."
Strictly speaking, that wasn’t quite accurate, but that was how Feng Yuan felt. If normal One-leaf Foxes could be called cute, then these odd beings that shared the same appearance as One-leaf Foxes gave off a distinctly sinister air.
"Could this be some new attack method from the Imperial People? But that doesn’t sound right. If they used time-hopping, they couldn’t possibly bypass the Temple’s Shelter to reach here. Don’t tell me they’ve already infiltrated this place without anyone noticing?"
Feng Yuan spoke with some surprise. One had to know that the Temple’s Shelter was very special. On the surface, it banned timeline jumps, but Feng Yuan had tested it himself: what that thing actually prohibited was entering the Shelter Zone from outside the world by any means. You couldn’t even use the World’s Shadow as a springboard.
If their attacks could appear here, it could only mean one thing: the Imperial People had already infiltrated this place. But that shouldn’t be possible. The defensive line of Maomu City shouldn’t be that pathetic.
"Maybe. It’s just... this kind of method doesn’t really feel like something they’d do."
Veronia said doubtfully. It wasn’t trying to argue anything; it was just that the Imperial People’s attacks were never this gentle. Even the previous attack used to pin them down had involved a special and powerful method like a Time Storm. There was no reason for it to suddenly turn into a weak One-leaf Fox assault now.
That’s right—through Veronia’s eyes, this group of One-leaf Foxes was weak. Although they were evil and extremely ferocious, their strength was still stuck at the same weak level as normal One-leaf Foxes. No matter how you looked at it, this didn’t fit the Imperial People’s style.
"Mm, you’re not wrong. But what do we do with this bunch of One-leaf Foxes?"
Scratching his head, Feng Yuan looked at Veronia. Veronia snorted lightly. Even though Feng Yuan hadn’t said it outright, how could it not know what he meant? Didn’t he just want it to temporarily restrain these One-leaf Foxes?
In theory they could just wipe them out, but who knew whether these strange One-leaf Foxes were modified from the local Spirit Beasts? If they went straight for the kill, it might have a bad impact on the wild Spirit Beast populations.
Even if Veronia didn’t care, it still had to consider Agunas and the others’ views. After all, this wasn’t exactly troublesome.
"Wait, let me see."
As if something occurred to him, Feng Yuan beckoned, and the Dark Ancient Book floated to his front and opened on its own. A moment later, golden words emerged, and the One-leaf Fox in Veronia’s hand instantly fainted. Not just that one—every One-leaf Fox lying on the ground did the same.
"You’re... Well, this works too. Saves me the trouble."
Glancing at Feng Yuan, Veronia immediately understood what he had done. The souls of this group of One-leaf Foxes had been suppressed into a pseudo-death state, so there was no need to watch over them anymore. As for why those strange "people" from before couldn’t be handled this way?
For one thing, there had been too many of them, and they weren’t in Maomu City. More importantly, although those "people" counted as living beings, they weren’t very affected by the Dark Ancient Book directly. Feng Yuan’s trick simply didn’t work on them.
"Let’s leave it like this for now. Keep them under guard, and when Agunas and the others are free, we’ll decide how to deal with them."
Putting away the Dark Ancient Book, Feng Yuan glanced at the group of One-leaf Foxes and said. These odd fellows were Spirit Beasts after all; going without food for a long time wouldn’t do much to them, so this method of confinement was actually quite suitable.
After completing the handover with the arriving Special Duty Team, Feng Yuan turned to Qi Chen with a strange smile and said,
"Never thought you’d run into something this weird just going to the bathroom."
Qi Chen rolled his eyes at Feng Yuan and said irritably,
"It’s not like I wanted this to happen. But are we really fine? Their appearance is very strange."
"If they popped up out of nowhere, the only thing I can think of is some spatial method. But Maomu City’s spatial defenses should be fully prepared; the Imperial People can’t use their old methods to jump straight in anymore. So figuring out what’s really going on is going to be hard."
Spreading his hands, Feng Yuan spoke with a helpless expression. He was of course aware that this group of One-leaf Foxes showing up was highly unusual, but so what? Qi Chen’s side of things still hadn’t been resolved; he didn’t have the time to investigate how this pack of One-leaf Foxes had popped out.
With conventional methods all sealed off, tracking down whatever special technique they used would be no easy task. And on top of that, these One-leaf Foxes didn’t look like they could be communicated with, so there wasn’t even a chance to interrogate them. That made it even more of a hassle.
Anyway, these One-leaf Foxes didn’t look like they could cause massive destruction. Feng Yuan simply decided not to bother. If he tried to handle everything, he’d never be done, and there wasn’t any benefit in it either.
Great Xia certainly wouldn’t expect Feng Yuan to help with everything. From their perspective, unless there was absolutely no other choice, letting outsiders like Feng Yuan and the others step in would mean they’d failed at their job. Protecting their citizens was their responsibility to begin with.
So even though Feng Yuan left this matter alone, the Special Duty Team had no objections. They even felt that this was better. For now, aside from their unusual state, this group of One-leaf Foxes posed no major threat. If something like this still required Feng Yuan to intervene, wouldn’t that just prove they were useless?
"Mm~ never thought there’d be so many hassles. But now we can finally relax a bit~"
Stretching, Feng Yuan looked around the Department Store, which had resumed business, as he spoke. Although there were signs of commercial activity shifting toward the Data Square, unfortunately this was wartime. Even if ordinary people had already moved out of the Data City, the Data Square still had to undergo certain changes to meet wartime needs.
Of course, the Department Store knew this was its chance. If they didn’t find ways to retain customers now, once the Data Square fully reopened, they’d slowly decline again just like before.
To that end, the Department Store’s management and operations teams came up with all sorts of events and activities to keep guests around.
Simple price cuts were naturally not enough. For Beastmasters, prices did affect them, but not that much. The stronger a Beastmaster was, the less they lacked money.
What the Department Store was doing now was trying to create an environment where Beastmasters could truly relax, so they’d develop a positive impression of the Department Store. Only then could it win the battle for customers against the Data Square.
"These mascots have a real retro feel."
Qi Chen looked at the mascots enthusiastically greeting tourists and roaming through the Department Store with surprise. Here, he even saw mascot costumes of the cartoon characters that had swept through his school in childhood.
"Going the nostalgia route? Not a bad idea, actually."
Looking at the Department Store’s drastically changed style, Feng Yuan rubbed his chin as he spoke.

Comments

Loading...