Chapter 265: Does the Goddess Look Like She's Been Captured?
After completing a single charge, a total of 24 Silver Royal Guards did not disappear on the spot but remained.
After the prince's sword was upgraded to +7 by the Saint Beast Lu using Cleria Ore, it underwent a second qualitative change. This change was not the acquisition of new additional effects, but the addition of a new effect to its existing skills.
[Silver Royal Guard — (preface omitted). After completing a charge, the Silver Royal Guard will not disappear immediately but will temporarily remain around you as a summon. (+7 Additional Enhancement)
The default attributes of the Silver Royal Guard are Strength 27, Agility 15, Spirit 12, Charm 16, with no skills.
Each Breaker (Horned) Silver Knight will gain 3 special HP. When the first effective blow is suffered, the warhorse will disappear; the second, the armor will disappear; the third, they will completely disappear. Even if they do not suffer an effective blow, they can only last for a maximum of 5 minutes.
The Silver Royal Guard will receive a 2x amplification from the "King's Presence" effect, gaining a 20% increase in Strength, Agility, and Spirit attributes.]
Since Cheng Tian used a charged ability to release the Silver Royal Guard twice in a row, a total of 24 strong but fragile horned knights, who would lose their horse and armor upon taking hits and could only last 5 minutes, appeared on the scene.
Cheng Tian seriously suspected that this enhanced attribute contained elements of Arthur from Makaimura, and he wondered if these knights had matching strawberry underwear after their armor exploded.
However, given that they could only take three hits at most and only last five minutes, they were basically useless against enemies with AOE capabilities, leaning more towards cannon fodder, albeit powerful blank cannon fodder.
Anyway, Cheng Tian now had the Goddess's Charge +1 effect, so by timing his charges, Cheng Tian could casually get 12 powerful cannon fodder for free.
Bazett's mind had already switched to her identity as a Holy Grail Servant, and she had knowledge infused from space, so she simply assumed that what Cheng Tian summoned were some kind of high-level Dragon Tooth Warriors.
Uhtan, on the other hand, simply collected some blood and insect meat with the help of the cannon fodder knights, intending to take them back for research to see if he could combine their genes with the Queen Fragment he obtained from the Metal Slug wormhole earlier.
"Monster!? No, it should be a person, a human made of magic!"
But Fina, who knew nothing of this, had an expression of uncontrollable surprise.
Cheng Tian's ability to summon knights out of thin air was essentially very similar to the creation of monsters, both using magic to create life-like entities. And purely from the perspective of life forms, Cheng Tian's method might be more advanced than that of the Dark Ones.
The other side could only create twisted monsters, while Cheng Tian created humans with flesh, soul, and thought!
In that instant, she suddenly remembered the provocative words Cheng Tian had spoken earlier—
"If you ask me, you might as well just build a twin tower next to this place to farm angels, and directly engage in tower defense battles with the Black Tower, just spawning troops against each other."
At the time, it sounded like a jesting remark, but now, it seemed as if he was serious. (He wasn't)
"Goddess, time to work."
A very rare and niche combination of words in the Ys Kingdom came out of Cheng Tian's mouth.
Fina, her mind full of thoughts, was first startled, then saw Cheng Tian point to the insect corpses scattered all over the ground.
"Oh~ Coming, coming~"
The Goddess wasn't annoyed; after seeing Cheng Tian absorb the soul fragments, she immediately began to decompose the insect corpses.
And this time, Cheng Tian's chosen target for enhancement was the war elephant Mammoth.
The Insect Demon Nigutielg was a very special lightning-attribute insect demon. The lightning-attribute insect demon core extracted from its head was simply rolled up by Mammoth's trunk, stuffed into its mouth, and swallowed.
Accompanied by crackling electrical flashes, the current extending from its stomach to its nasal cavity illuminated its long trunk, and then a purple lightning bolt shot out.
[War Elephant "Mammoth" has consumed "Purple Lightning Insect Core", 『Lightning Fire Stomach』 derivative ability "Lightning Strike" has been activated.]
[Lightning Strike — The Lightning Fire Stomach can release Lightning Strike by accumulating enough lightning energy in advance. The elephant's trunk will release a high-voltage current that affects all enemies in a ten-meter linear path, dealing 200 points of lightning damage.
Releasing Lightning Strike requires pre-charging, or consuming high-performance batteries, or consuming a large amount of food and at least 60 minutes of charging time to generate bioelectricity spontaneously, supplemented by 50 MP to release. After release, the nasal cavity will be in an overheated state, requiring a 3-minute cooldown time.]
Originally, Cheng Tian had planned to see if he could get high-performance batteries from Billy Gates after his next entry into the Metal Slug instance to activate the Lightning Fire Stomach, but now that effort was directly saved.
Compared to Exploding Flame, which had strict release conditions, Lightning Strike's release conditions were clearly more lenient.
Charging, eating batteries, or eating a large amount of food to generate bioelectricity itself could all satisfy the release requirements.
Meanwhile, when Cheng Tian withdrew the elephant into the Void Garage, a thought crossed his mind, and then the Purple Lightning War Hammer in his inventory also appeared synchronously in the garage (the hammer was still occupying an inventory slot, a linked effect). Mammoth scurried over, rolled its trunk around the hammer, and electricity could be seen flowing from the war hammer through its trunk into the war elephant's body. The war elephant, lying in its parking spot, even showed an expression of enjoyment.
War elephant Mammoth is charging~
After dealing with the spoils of war, it was naturally time to continue climbing the tower. And this third layer was the domain of Blazing Fire where the Goddess Fina wandered before meeting Cheng Tian... Black Tower Third Layer, Blazing Fire Domain.
As the domain name suggests, this was a high-temperature domain filled with scorching magma, completely opposite to the aquatic domain of the second layer.
Here, just breathing made one feel the heat penetrating the nasal cavity, and the throat would also feel uncomfortable. Cheng Tian had only experienced a similar sensation in a sauna room where a lot of water had been poured.
Just a few minutes ago, Cheng Tian had already ordered his 24 Silver Knights to charge in ahead of him, killing as many monsters as possible on the way before they disappeared.
It was a good thing they only lasted 5 minutes and were essentially summons rather than real people; otherwise, the scorching environment alone would have been enough to cause the knights to suffer heatstroke, even without the monsters' intervention.
But Cheng Tian himself had no major problems; it was still the enhanced effect brought by the Azure Fire Dragon Scale Armor. Due to its owner's mutated bloodlines of both Spades and Diamonds during its lifetime, in addition to "Deep Water Environment Adaptability," it also allowed Cheng Tian to simultaneously gain "Lava Environment Adaptability" effect.
Furthermore, even though this was inside the tower and outside was in a state of eternal night, the Sunfire Blessing, which shouldn't have been effective, could automatically grant Cheng Tian immunity to high-temperature related debuffs when its fragment count reached 15%.
And the Goddess, even without the Sunfire Blessing, could rely on her magic shield to resist it herself.
But this was a bit hard on Bazett and Uhtan.
Bazett was somewhat better; relying on fire-resistant runes, she could resist the high-temperature erosion to some extent, but she inevitably loosened her tie and opened her collar, trying to allow areas where girls easily sweat and get rashes to cool down further. The water she had drunk quite a bit of in the Water Prison Domain was also being expelled in the form of sweat.
Uhtan's situation was very bad. For a long-haired primate like him, this scorching environment was sheer torture. It was also fortunate that his species was originally a rainforest creature with well-developed sweat glands, but it seemed he couldn't last much longer.
And at this moment, it was time for Cheng Tian A-Dream to play his part.
"Fire~ Protection~ Potion~"
Cheng Mouren, who had prepared in advance, first held the potion above his head, and then began to distribute it under the incomprehensible gazes of others.
These potions were bought from the same store as the underwater breathing potions.
However, just as the potions were distributed, the statue directly in front of Cheng Tian and his group, which had been corrupted into an evil god idol, suddenly became highlighted. Then, a familiar figure appeared from within a purple magic circle.
The newcomer was none other than the female sorceress Saba, who had previously sent Cheng Tian to the lowest level of the Black Tower.
Because she sensed the successive deaths of the Berserk Beasts and Insect Demons she had painstakingly sent to guard the first and second layers of the Black Tower, a very unhappy Saba teleported over, wanting to see what was going on, whether it was done by those people from Ys or by her own people.
Saba, who was already displeased with Cheng Tian, was naturally very unhappy when she saw the sunfire mask on his face. But when she looked further, seeing Cheng Tian, Uhtan, Bazett, and then following the cloth strip at Bazett's waist, she saw the Goddess Fina floating in the air like a balloon. Saba's face first showed surprise, then delight.
"Although I don't like you, I have to say, well done."
Hearing Saba's words, Cheng Tian and Fina couldn't help but look at each other, and then the Goddess pretended to put her hands behind her back, adopting the posture of a captive...