After the giant mech was destroyed, all the other machines immediately ceased their movements. At that moment, Olgis and Mia also entered the castle and made their way to the main hall—where a crystal coffin lay at the center, with a young girl resting peacefully inside.
"Ah, that's my body. Thank you both!" Mia beamed as she clasped her hands together, smiling gratefully at Duanmu Huai and Olgis.
"Without your help, I wouldn't have been able to defeat the wizard, nor return to my body!"
"Hmm… so that's your body?" Duanmu Huai asked cautiously, scanning his surroundings. "How do you plan to go back?"
"Please wait a moment," Mia replied with a soft smile.
With that, she walked over and stood before the crystal coffin, closing her eyes. At the same time, Duanmu Huai tightened his grip on his warhammer and subtly signaled Olgis to stay alert. He had good reason to be cautious—this soul fragment world was far too bizarre.
Simply put, the premise of this fragment was straightforward: Mia's soul had been transferred into a puppet by an evil wizard, and she needed help defeating him to reclaim her body. But the problem was… could something this simple really support an entire soul fragment world?
Compared to the puppeteer or the scholar, Mia's "resentment" seemed almost childish. More suspiciously, Duanmu Huai hadn't found a single clue related to magic throughout the entire instance.
So… was Mia lying?
Was she unable to tell the difference between consciousness transfer and soul sealing?
Or was there some hidden layer to the truth?
Although the final battle had been tough, the entire journey felt oddly simple compared to previous experiences. Was there going to be a second phase…?
"Crack—————"
As Duanmu Huai watched with suspicion, the crystal coffin before Mia slowly opened. The girl inside—identical to Mia—opened her eyes and slowly stood up.
She looked exactly the same as the Mia who had accompanied them. That Mia turned to face Duanmu Huai and Olgis, raised her hands, and then—
"Bang, bang, bang, bang!!"
Cheerful music suddenly blared as flower petals fell from above. At the same time, Mia's voice rang out once more.
"Congratulations! You are the first team to successfully clear the White City instance!"
"…Huh?"
Duanmu Huai was stunned.
"What did you say?"
"Congratulations on defeating the evil wizard and successfully clearing the Sky City instance." Mia walked toward them, smiling as brightly as ever.
"Sky City was developed by Multiverse Dimensions Inc. It's our latest high-difficulty amusement experience. Until now, 32,216,735 players attempted the challenge—all failed. You two are the first team to clear it. Congratulations!"
"Uh…"
Faced with Mia's smiling face, Duanmu Huai was completely dumbfounded. Even Olgis blinked in disbelief.
"So… this is a game??"
"Yes! Sky City focuses on high-intensity combat, designed to let players experience joy through fierce battles!"
Joy your ass!
A level 30 monster, and you just throw it in as an NPC?! Are the people of this civilization insane? Or rather… how absurdly advanced must their civilization be to use level 30 robots as NPCs?!
Looking at Mia, Duanmu Huai nearly spat out a mouthful of old blood.
Monsters averaging levels twenty to thirty, plus a level forty elite boss—and this was supposed to be the main base of the evil god cultists? And yet it was used as an amusement project?! And no one among tens of millions had cleared it?
"Yes, because this game has very strict requirements for both power levels and team composition…"
No wonder.Hearing this, Duanmu Huai rolled his eyes. All his earlier confusion was now completely resolved. It was clear that the real source of this instance wasn't Mia's background at all—that had just been a basic quest narrative.
The true reason behind this soul fragment's formation… was the resentment of the players who failed to clear Sky City. That alone showed just how intense and frustrating the quest had been for the players of that civilization. And it explained why Mia's mission had felt so generic and unremarkable. It was like a standard FPS level: know what to kill, where to go, and just keep fighting. No deeper meaning—just survive.
"...…Do people not die in your game?"
"Of course they do. Since the game launched, a total of fifteen million, two hundred thirty-four thousand, one hundred twenty-two players have unfortunately died trying to clear it…"
"Alright, I get it."
Duanmu Huai silently cut off Mia's statistics report. This civilization was really something else—to build such a high-lethality game world and yet remain unfazed by the deaths. He wondered just which civilization could be so unbelievably advanced… and insane.
"So… what kind of reward do I get?"Duanmu Huai glanced around. Even though this soul fragment wasn't particularly difficult, the resource cost had been high. He had used both [Death's Shortcut] and [Puppet Surgery], and he didn't yet have enough experience to recall them from the graveyard back to his hand.
All he could hope for now was that the reward would be generous enough to at least cover his losses…
"Of course," Mia replied with a bright smile, nodding as she extended her hands. "As the victor, you'll receive all of Sky City as your reward!"
"...…Holy crap!?"
This is a massive win!!
Duanmu Huai was stunned by the announcement. At the same time, the system interface popped up with a quest completion notification:
[Quest: Sky City - Completed][Quest Evaluation: Not Bad][Surprised? Unexpected?]
Rewards:
Soul Cards +8
[Ancient Amplifier (Silver)]Cost: 1Effect: Randomly add two cards each turn from (Analyzed Constructs), (Ancient Constructs), (Mysterious Constructs), or (Splendid Constructs) to your hand
[Sky City Fusion]
[Ancient Automaton (Bronze)]Cost: 1Effect: Randomly add two cards each turn from (Mysterious Constructs), (Splendid Constructs), or (Profound Constructs) to your hand
[Sky City Fusion]
[Puppet Angel, Mia (Bronze)]Cost: 2Attack: 2Defense: 2Effect: When another one of your followers evolves, add one (Puppet) to your handOvercharge 7: Gain +3/+3 and add two (Puppet) to your hand
[Mobile Two-Wheeler (Bronze)]Cost: 2Effect: During your turn, when a follower enters the field, grant it +2/+0 and (Charge)
[Sky City (Gold)]Cost: 3Effect: Grant all followers on the field +1/+1 and (Haste)Daily effect: Generate (Demonic Iron Lions), (Steel Tigers), (Prototype Mechanical Soldiers), (Mechanical Soldiers), and (Large Mechanical Soldiers) into your hand
[Mobile Armor (Legendary)]Cost: 4Attack: 3Defense: 4Instant Summon: If 10 or more of your construct cards have been destroyed in this battle, this card can be automatically summoned to the field
[Paradigm Shift (Bronze)]Cost: 7Effect: Summon one of (Guarding Constructs), (Sharp Constructs), or (Swift Constructs) to the field(Cost is reduced by 1 for each construct destroyed in this battle)
[Relic of Divine Might (Legendary)]Cost: 8Attack: 6Defense: 6Effect: Deal damage to all enemy followers equal to the number of your construct cards destroyed in this battleCondition: [Sky City] must be on the field
Among all these cards, the most powerful was naturally [Relic of Divine Might]. Its massive area-of-effect damage made it a true divine artifact for chaotic battles. As long as Duanmu Huai sent enough constructs to die early on, summoning this card could allow him to wipe out the entire field in one blow.
However, for now, the [Relic of Divine Might] functioned as Sky City's built-in auto-defense system, and could only be used when Sky City was on the field.
As for [Sky City] itself, it was an excellent resource generator. What Duanmu Huai lacked the most at present were reliable low- and mid-tier attack cards. After all, his [Puppet] and [Vengeful Spirit] cards only had 1/1 in stats—adequate against enemies around level 10, but completely outmatched above that.
This was the reason Duanmu Huai had to rely on overwhelming numbers of puppets earlier: he simply didn't have the damage output, so he had to compensate with mass deployment.
Now, however, things had improved. The cards produced by Sky City, like [Demonic Iron Lions] and [Prototype Mechanical Soldiers], had 2/2 stats, and [Large Mechanical Soldiers] had 3/3. That at least partially resolved his damage deficit. Plus, unlike Vengeful Spirits, these mechanical soldiers looked a lot more… normal.
At least now he wouldn't be mistaken for a necromancer.
As for the (Construct)-type cards, they were the floating units Duanmu Huai had encountered in his earlier battles—hovering around the larger mechanical soldiers. Their designs were uniform: a geometric core housed inside a metallic frame, capable of firing laser beams from above.
Many constructs also had solid stats:[Ancient Constructs] with 3/1,[Splendid Constructs] with 4/5,[Guarding Constructs] with 4/6,and [Profound Constructs] with 5/5.While they weren't on the same level as Olgis, they definitely filled the gap in his current deck's offensive capabilities.
That said, the card Duanmu Huai liked most was [Mobile Two-Wheeler]. Not only was it a Rune Card—meaning he could summon it at will—but more importantly… it was a vehicle! Sure, it consumed psychic energy to summon, but for Duanmu Huai, that was a small price to pay.
Just thinking about it made Duanmu Huai tear up a little.At long last… no more walking everywhere!
(End of this chapter)