Volume Two, The Devil’s Game Chapter Fifteen, The Arrival of the New Warden

The machine spun slowly like a lottery device, its multicolored balls battering again and again against the transparent barrier. Before long, one ball was ejected, and the host in the battered wizard’s hat lifted it high for all to see before slowly placing it into the magical array.

“Wow, this new guardian looks pretty strong.”

“I didn’t expect that girl Shen Yixue would actually get away.”

“Exactly. But this guardian seems even stronger than the last one.”

When the ball had fully sunk into the array, Lu Yi, standing within the sand table, suddenly raised his head. He sensed a certain presence, and when he looked up he saw a streak of light flash swiftly overhead before landing not far away.

“Black Scale Sauce says: Lu Yi, Lu Yi, a new guardian has descended. Want to go take a look?”

A mechanical prompt suddenly sounded in Lu Yi’s earphones.

He glanced at the time on his wristwatch. The first guardian’s berserk period had indeed already passed, and more than fifteen minutes had gone by since he had shaken off the pursuit.

During that time, Lu Yi had opened a few more crates, replenished some supplies, and upgraded the earphones that had once only been able to play gift notifications. Now he could hear part of the bullet comments, and the reason it was only part was naturally because some comments were being blocked.

“Sweetheart Yiyi says: Lu Yi, better not go. Keep building defenses here and stay steady.”

“I’m a husky says: Streamer, go take a look. It’ll benefit you. If your stream stays the most popular, it’s good for both you and us.”

“A Fish says: Yeah, I came here because you were being chased. If you just keep stacking blocks here, I’m leaving.”

Lu Yi arched a brow. Those comments urging him to go take a look quickly gained the upper hand. By his guess, the gifts in the livestream would ultimately be tied to his harvest, so if he wanted greater gains, he would have to take some bolder actions.

With that in mind, he fixed something beneath a streetlamp, then stood and looked toward the place where the streak of light had landed.

“Thanks for your concern, Yiyi and Yueyue, but I have to go. If I don’t learn the guardian’s abilities, I’ll only be more passive when it shows up beside me.” As he spoke, Lu Yi moved a skateboard over from the wall nearby.

“I’m a husky says: Go, streamer! Awooo.”

“I’m a husky has gifted streamer Lu Yi one Bull Demon Guard.”

“Yandere Fairy says: Husky, shouldn’t you be saying woof woof woof?”

“Yandere Fairy has gifted streamer Lu Yi six pairs of skate shoes. With skate shoes on, you’re the wildest kid around. Charge!”

Lu Yi’s face darkened. The gift descriptions were poisoned, weren’t they? But he was now even more certain that these viewers were definitely not human like him.

Soon Lu Yi had covered some distance. Along the way, not to mention the guardian, he did not even see a single moving creature.

“Strange. Based on what happened before, there should absolutely be other people near where the guardian appears. Why is there no one here?” Lu Yi muttered as he kicked off the ground a few more times.

Not long after his words fell, he passed through a row of houses and at last saw a person. More precisely, he saw someone locked inside a cage.

“Black Scale Sauce says: Huh? That frog got caught. She’s so silly, how did she even get thrown into this game?”

Lu Yi naturally also recognized the person in the cage. It was the girl named Jade Toad, who always seemed a little ditzy. Lu Yi glanced around. Seeing that there was indeed no one else, and no guardian either, he quickly got off the skateboard.

He took out the Break-Prison Talisman. Then he frowned, because this was a metal cage. The previous guardian’s attacks had mostly been plant-based, and even the prison she created had been a vine cage. Clearly, this was not something the previous guardian had left behind before departing. In other words, this guardian could create metal cages.

That thought stirred something in Lu Yi’s mind. Did guardians also have attributes? Like the five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—did guardians correspond to those as well? And if so, would using a substance that opposed them produce a different effect?

Yes—the five elements and the four symbols. Lu Yi’s thoughts turned. The previous guardian had been of the wood element. All things grow from wood, and so she seemed relatively inclusive and full of vitality. This current guardian was metal, so perhaps there would later be one fire-attribute guardian and one water-attribute guardian as well.

This was not a wild guess. During the previous two hours, he had been chased by the guardians for quite a long time, and his talisman consumption had been rapid. From that, he could see that if someone were unlucky enough to be chased repeatedly, they would surely exceed the range of the bonus reward, and that reward line would become an impossible condition.

Moreover, in just the first two hours, two trial participants had already been purified. There would surely be more who were eliminated later. The fewer people remained, the greater the chance of being chased, and that would in turn further increase the consumption of talismans and items.

There was an even more important point: through prolonged struggles with the guardians, he had already discovered that if one fought them head-on, their attacks would become increasingly fierce. But if one stalled with talismans, the guardians’ attacks would not increase rapidly. Did that not mean it was simply raising the consumption of talismans?

So there had to be some method that could help trial participants preserve their lives without using talismans. However, the idea of setting up obstacles had already been crushed under the guardians’ actions, so he had to seek another way. What Lu Yi now thought of was exploiting elemental opposition.

With these thoughts in mind, Lu Yi remained alert as he quickly approached the metal cage. Soon he could see Jade Toad clearly. Her hands were locked in shackles, and she was pouting with an aggrieved expression.

Jade Toad clearly also saw Lu Yi walking toward her. She hurriedly waved her hands. “Are you here to save me?”

Lu Yi nodded, then pressed the Break-Prison Talisman against the cage. The mysterious writing on the talisman immediately lit up. A golden point of light began moving through the characters, growing faster and faster, and the whole talisman grew brighter and brighter.

Just then, a burst of metallic clanging came from one side, followed by a roar that entered Lu Yi’s ears. “Stop! She is my sacrifice.”

But it was too late. After the talisman erupted in a brilliant flash, Lu Yi felt the resistance on the cage suddenly vanish. The talisman pasted itself directly onto the bars, and in an instant the cage turned faint and insubstantial, disappearing together with the talisman. Jade Toad fell to the ground.

“Thank you. You’re a good person,” Jade Toad said, moving her body about a little.

A good-person card? Lu Yi’s face darkened. Girl, you should be running right now.

Just as that thought surfaced, he heard a rush of wind. A black blur sprang up from behind a building. Lu Yi hastily shoved Jade Toad aside and retreated.

Then with a thunderous crash, something human-shaped slammed into the spot where Lu Yi and Jade Toad had just been.