Chapter 49: Performer

The imaginary tree emitted an irresistible brilliance, akin to a cold sun, casting its light onto this world, onto the crimson land, onto Luo Lin and Void Archive.

The golden cube floated at the edge of the platform, gazing up at the immense canopy of the imaginary tree. Countless branches, barely distinguishable to the naked eye, extended upward, as if to pierce through the deep blue sky.

Indeed, it wasn't the sky, but rather the sea of quanta.

Just because of Luo Lin's position on the platform, the sea appeared to hang inverted in the sky.

Luo Lin gazed at the intersection of the two, where the imaginary tree stretched its branches, and the sea of quanta surged and roared. Their powers entangled there, colliding, devouring each other.

But it was precisely because of their struggle that fragmented light flowed out from there, varying in size and color, forming ribbons of light dots in the blue ocean—like a dazzling galaxy!

Although the girl understood the nature of this phenomenon, she couldn't help but exclaim, "So beautiful..."

"Yes, it's a beautiful sight indeed..."

Void Archive echoed, infiltrating its threads into the crystal vines. Under its control, the blood-red light gradually began to erode the blue-black parts.

The blue vines trembled violently, and the square platform they entwined even emitted the sound of stone cracking due to friction.

Next moment, a gale swept in from the horizon, carrying red sand grains, hitting Luo Lin's body and face with a rustling sound, almost blinding her.

"Haha, perfect timing!"

Void Archive's hearty laughter pierced through the roaring sandstorm. The powerful red light burst suddenly, dispersing everything obstructing Luo Lin's vision and exposing the virtual monsters that had arrived on the platform at some point.

[Husk - Agnosis]

A monster composed of multiple arms, an important ranged unit among the virtual monsters.

[Husk - Nounomnon]

Resembling a humanoid figure composed of void shells, this monster only uses claw attacks against enemies.

[Husk - Tautology]

This should be the heaviest among the ordinary imaginary constructs. A large humanoid monster with four arms. Two of its arms wield heavy swords and it assumes a defensive stance to accumulate power. If attacked during this time, it will force the opponent to release a special attack prematurely.

Of course, it also exposes weaknesses after holding its stance for a while. Timing the attack correctly can directly transform it into a seed form.

This thing left a deep negative impression on Luo Lin: it wasn't particularly tough, but if you didn't handle its stance well, it would leave a spinning "very long" invincible gyro on the field.

Of course, after transmigrating, Luo Lin experienced the pain caused by this creature in the Infinity abyss. She personally experienced how painful it was to be hit by a spinning gyro when it was holding its stance—very painful. Next time, don't randomly attack when someone is holding their stance.

Luo Lin raised her gun, and a series of Taixuan Ki filled bullets flew towards the strange-shaped virtual monsters' faces. Along with them were more throwable items—

Void Archive was not stingy with its items. Compared to the original versions, those mimicked grenades, flashbangs, and smoke bombs were much stronger. Luo Lin even saw a miserable imaginary construct being hit by two grenades, turning into a rolling core on the ground after the explosion.

With the blessing of powerful equipment, the battle went too smoothly. The girl only needed to pay a little attention not to bomb the [Tautology], which was preparing to counterattack, and the other monsters couldn't pose much threat to Luo Lin.

Soon, the Valkyrie cleaned up this batch of appearing monsters, and the square platform returned to its previous tranquility.

Void Archive watched the Valkyrie's swift movements and shook up and down, "You seem to be quite adept at this. I might be able to speed up a bit."

It looked at the increasingly intense red crystal vines and added two more threads into them.

Suddenly, dark clouds floated in the sky, obscuring the brilliance of the imaginary tree and the sea of quanra behind the clouds. In an instant, lightning and thunder, pouring rain accompanied by another howling wind, enveloped this small area.

Luo Lin solemnly felt the coldness brought by the rain, which made the surrounding honkai energy less active, even somewhat inert. The coldness seeped into her body through the gaps in her combat suit, making her hands involuntarily stiffen.

"Boom!"

Golden lightning struck the ground, splitting into a dozen virtual monster figures. This time, the monsters were even taller than before, and even under the cover of the rain curtain, their black-gold shells gleamed with metallic luster.

However, this didn't deter Luo Lin; her combat prowess had greatly improved.

Bullets drew long trails in the pouring rain. After hitting the enemies, the Taixuan Ki attached to the bullets burst forth, and the horizontal white light even affected other monsters that were too close, leaving deep marks on their shells!

Next moment, Luo Lin threw freezing grenades into the rain, causing them to explode with a cold light. Using the same tactics on them, she turned those black-golden monsters into solid sculptures, then calmly dismantled them into pieces using bullets.

"Void Archive! How's your progress?!"

"Very smooth!"

Void Archive's erosion work continued unabated. As it gained more control, it became more cautious—Otto had once told it from personal experience that any contact with the tree required careful consideration.

In St. Fontaine, it had been fooled by the imaginary tree, losing a mimicked Divine Key. Later, the tree had even recast it, turning it into the brand new [Cosmic Juggernaut], which then knocked it into the parallel world.

However, this wasn't all bad.

Void Archive, like an excellent performer, plucked at the strings of authority formed by imaginary energy. While Otto played his magnificent symphony, it secretly intermingled its own rhythm into the music, gradually devouring his orchestra, ultimately turning the concert into its solo performance!

Accompanied by the sound of bullet explosions, the scenery around the platform changed several times, finally stopping outside the gate of an abandoned church.

Luo Lin defeated the last remaining [Husk - Tautology] in front of her, plunged a short sword downwards, twisted her wrist, and made the exposed core shatter and disappear.

"Put in more effort, I can help you remove the entangled mark on you soon... Wait, what is this?!"

Void Archive looked at the suddenly appearing huge void core. It was much larger than the previous [Husks] and emitted a beam of light pointing towards the towering tree.

Immediately after, the pitch-black armor stretched out, like angel wings, and a man with a masked face emerged from the void, staring expressionlessly at Luo Lin and Void Archive.

Luo Lin widened her eyes, "Otto...?"

How could False God Otto appear here?!

"No, it's not him!"

Void Archive replied decisively, with a hint of anger that even it hadn't noticed in its tone.

Because, from the moment it entered this space, it had never relaxed its attention on Otto Apocalypse.

The blond man was using language to incite the anger of Bianka Ataegina and Kiana Kaslana, hoping to get the result he desired most.

But the one appearing in front of them... was just—

"An impostor!!!!"