novel bin Page 380
Page 380
Who exactly are you?
The wandering swallow asked.
“Sabur Lerek, a ‘craftsman’.”
Jiang Bing gestured for the other party not to get agitated.
"For Geralt's and Vesemir's sake, you can rest here for a while before continuing your journey. Also, let Acatlanti teach you some time travel techniques."
Unicorns are born with the ability to travel through time and space. For them, time travel is more like an instinct rooted in their blood, but that doesn't mean that this ability doesn't require practice.
In fact, every adult unicorn is a master of spacetime techniques, and Queen Akataranti's abilities are naturally unparalleled among all her kind.
Her ability to manipulate space and time is unmatched even by the Unicorn King Sakadinath, whose strengths lie more in combat and destruction.
Compared to them, Ciri, who possesses the 'Ancient Blood', is as naive as a toddler wielding a sledgehammer, completely clueless about how to control the tool in her hand. She can neither accurately control which world the hammerhead will strike nor control the force of the hammer.
"No, I can't stay here any longer. The Wild Hunt will catch up with us."
Although Jiang Bing's suggestion was very appealing, Ciri ultimately hardened her heart and chose to refuse.
"The Wild Hunt is nothing but a pack of stray dogs." Jiang Bing expressed his disdain for these people, whom he could easily beat up during his internship.
"The real White Frost might be, as you said, a cataclysmic disaster, but it's just a few leaked aftershocks, not that powerful yet."
Jiang Bing patted one of Heimul's torsos beside him and continued to Ciri, "Stay put and relax. You'll be safe until the next wave of the Wild Hunt arrives."
"Next wave?"
Jiang Bing tapped the smooth bark of the tree branch, gesturing for the other person to look down.
Ciri did as instructed with some doubt, and then she saw her past nightmares.
That was a ship.
Or rather, it is a magical airship shaped like a ship.
The spaceship was a hundred meters in size and was made entirely of an unknown type of wood. Around the sides and deck, there were some kind of finger-like bone decorations. From a distance, these decorations did indeed look like countless human fingernails.
The entire ship was enveloped in a ghostly green magical light, while the white frost had caused ice crystals to form on every corner of the hull.
The ship's mast had been converted into some kind of lighthouse, and the figurehead was a skull horse's head. The head should have had a unicorn's horn, but it was removed when the ghost ship was captured by Heimul and returned to the unicorn tribe for burial.
"The ghost ship of the Wild Hunt?"
Ciri stared in disbelief at the enormous ship, which was tightly entangled by the roots of the giant tree beneath her feet.
"Where's the Wild Hunt up there?" Ciri asked anxiously.
Jiang Bing tapped Heimul, who was undergoing rapid growth due to being entangled with the World Stone, and felt the solid vibration from it. He simply smiled at Ciri without saying a word.
He couldn't very well tell them that these Ain El elves were being imprisoned and studied in the medical department's research center.
However, Ciri clearly believed that the Wild Hunt on the ship had been wiped out.
She suddenly let out a long sigh of relief, and her tense body immediately went limp, so much so that she was unsteady on her feet and had no choice but to sit on a bench woven from vines.
The removal of the Sword of Damocles from her head, even if only temporarily, brought a great sense of relief to the twenty-something princess of a fallen kingdom.
“Let’s go.” Aktalanti walked up to her, gazing at her with his two pure, amethyst-like eyes, at the enemy of his enemy.
"You can't rest yet. His Excellency Sabur entrusted me to give you systematic training so that you can get to know the great bloodline in your body. Now is not the time to waste time."
As Akataranti gently sliced through space with the pointed horn on his head, a spatial passage leading to the unicorns' habitat in 'Heimul' was torn open.
"Go, go."
The unicorn queen, who was over two meters tall, was the first to enter the passage.
Xili looked back at Jiang Bing and saw him smiling silently, so she could only follow closely behind, completely bewildered.
Jiang Bingze remained standing in the garden in the void, staring blankly as another wave of white frost spread from nothingness towards this world.
This is the aftershock of the White Frost, cleverly used by the Wild Hunt as a protective force to envelop their own fleet.
Jiang Bing had never encountered such a large-scale alien energy before, which aroused his curiosity as a 'craftsman'.
He had to get closer and study it carefully.
Patting Heimer beneath him, Jiang Bing flipped over the garden fence and leaped into the void.
After passing through the invisible barrier erected by Heiml, Jiang Bing's entire image underwent a dramatic transformation in an instant.
A giant hundreds of meters tall appeared in the cold void.
The Ether Furnace is burning fiercely, pumping out boundless waves of fire from the giant's body.
Faced with the frost-covered tide that resembled a tsunami, the etheric fire also danced like waves, surging forward with Jiang Bing's charge.
In the void that had remained silent for millennia, the yellow and white colors suddenly collided, creating a massive, silent reverberation that echoed throughout the universe.
Unfortunately, apart from Heiml, no one could hear it.
Chapter 782 Tokyo in 2077
The streets themselves are a flowing river of neon lights, with layers of colorful holographic advertisements, their outlines blurred in the heavy moisture and exhaust fumes.
A huge "Matsuo Sake" sign shone with an amber light in the darkness, while next to it, a brand-new luxury hovercar slowly flew by, casting a streamlined silhouette on the nearby buildings under the light.
Further away was a huge, scantily clad, and exaggeratedly cybernetically modified virtual idol holographic projection. She twisted her seductive figure, displaying an almost naked, artificially perfect body, but her eyes were indescribably empty.
She seemed to have lost her soul.
This is Tokyo.
The Cyber City That Never Sleeps.
Achoo!
In the cold acid rain, a pedestrian on the street suddenly sneezed, attracting the attention of pedestrians wearing cheap fiber raincoats.
"Can someone like you catch a cold?"
"I can't believe it!" exclaimed Klara, who was on vacation beside her.
She practically said that even gods catch colds.
As expected of a world-destroying calamity capable of freezing everything, Bai Shuang successfully froze Jiang Bing, causing him to catch a cold.
"I am human, Klara, and humans get sick."
Kragg, who was standing to the side with a cold face, couldn't help but slightly purse his lips.
"This is beautiful!" Clara the White Spider's cheerful voice came from a stall in the distance.
"Lucky cat?"
Jiang Bing spotted the item Clara was talking about at a glance.
It was a Japanese-style lucky cat figurine. The half-melted ceramic cat shell was clearly a defective product, but in the hands of the 'craftsman,' it was cleverly combined with the other half of the exposed gear-shaped cat body. The artist's exquisite craftsmanship made the combination of tradition and modernity very ingenious and harmonious, giving the entire lucky cat a postmodern malformation style.
The stall owner was an old man, his wrinkled face bearing the marks of time.
The stall was also an old thing; the sheet metal used to shield it from the sun and rain was covered with mottled rust, and the sandy rust spots were like God's random scribbles, irregularly distributed in random places on the stall.
"Sir, madam, you can take this little guy home for 15 yen. It's a fine work of art and would make a perfect souvenir."
To be honest, this price is not cheap. The euro, as the hard currency issued by the European Community, the world's "big brother," has an exchange rate of about 1:490 with the yen. Converted, this "artwork" costs a full 300 euros, which is an absolute premium for a crudely made handicraft.
But Clara's willingness is priceless.
As one of the three leaders of the 'Curse Legion', she enjoys a level of treatment that is unimaginable to ordinary people, making her a wealthy woman in herself.
The deal went smoothly, and Clara paid and left without even haggling over the price.
The four continued walking in the rain, browsing the streets of Shinjuku.
This area, located in the west-central part of Tokyo, is one of the most important transportation hubs on the western side of Tokyo. The JR Yamanote Line, JR Chuo Main Line, JR Sobu Line, and the private Arasaka Electric Railway all pass through Shinjuku. Underneath Shinjuku, there are also several high-speed vacuum railway lines running throughout the country.
More importantly, two adjacent black skyscrapers stand not far away, like two straight chopsticks piercing the sky. They are very close to each other, but they are not connected, only linked by a dozen sky bridges.
Aside from the color, the overall architectural style is exactly the same as the Aragaka Tower and the Azure Sky Building in Night City.
The huge cherry blossom-shaped corporate logo at the top of the building implicitly proclaims their identity—the true headquarters of the Arasaka Group.
“Zhuangkan ですよね (It’s spectacular, isn’t it)”
A pedestrian wearing a hooded sweatshirt suddenly spoke from under the eaves of a nearby building.
Her hood was unusually large, and when she looked up, a pale yellow prosthetic eye shone faintly in the darkness.
"We all call him the Black Boy, a Tokyo landmark."
The woman approached the group, her face, adorned with a Japanese Rakshasa mask, protruding into the darkness.
She was wearing a slightly worn old-fashioned raincoat, the words "Beihai Xianren" printed on it were blurred by the acid rain.
Tokyo is a rainy city, and especially with the current deteriorating environment, acid rain is as common as geishas dressed in revealing modern kimonos and baring their breasts to attract customers on the street.
Rain gear has become an indispensable part of daily life for Tokyo residents.
"It's so tall and eye-catching, occupying all the focus of the entire city, just like the Arasaka Group, making it impossible for anyone to ignore, isn't it?"
The woman seamlessly translated her words into English.
But none of the four spoke, and their strange looks made this experienced 'outsider' feel slightly uncomfortable.
“You’ve been targeted, by those ‘yakuza gangs.’ Look behind you, under the lantern at the street corner, those two ‘Hanafuda gang’ members are the ones keeping watch.”
"We just arrived in Tokyo, and we haven't provoked them for any reason. Surely not?" Jiang Bing acted exactly like a normal tourist at this moment.
The actor perfectly captured the panic and bewilderment, delivering a remarkably vivid and expressive performance.
"Are you young masters from some family who ran away from home? Is this your first day out? Don't you understand the principle of not flaunting your wealth?"
The woman turned her gaze to the lucky cat figurine in Clara's hand and revealed the real reason.
"what?"
Clara's somewhat socially awkward and naturally naive nature inadvertently brought out her complete bewilderment and helplessness.
"What do you mean 'ah'? If you don't want to be caught and sold to a brothel to be ridden by men, then hurry up and come with me."
The woman pointed to the two 'yakuza members' who were already walking towards the four of them, and led the way without turning her head.
Clara adjusted her hat brim and walked behind Jiang Bing, while Krag looked helplessly at Jiang Bing, who was gesturing for her to follow. In the end, he pulled his sister Clara along with him.
The naive witch uttered a complaint, but it melted away in the pattering rain.
The woman led four people through the streets and alleys, constantly moving through the crowded Shinjuku district.
After turning a dozen or so corners, the five of them arrived at a dilapidated and impoverished slum from the brightly lit and bustling streets of Shinjuku.
The abandoned cables, tangled like spider webs, resemble the city's useless, disused nerves, while the dilapidated pipes are like abandoned blood vessels, and the homeless people living inside are like viruses parasitizing the city's blood vessels.
The woman stopped.
Jiang Bing also turned the knob on his staff and sword, ready to unleash a massacre and give Tokyo a small shock from the "Anti-Entropy" phenomenon.
But after waiting for more than ten seconds, the dozen or so thugs entrenched in the alley across the street showed no intention of moving, and the homeless people in the cyber shacks built on both sides with scrap metal, stolen trash cans, and 'construction waste' dismantled from various places also showed no intention of getting up.
Everything was so calm and peaceful.
Amidst Clara's light laughter, Jiang Bing could only swirl his cane back into place with a dark expression.
This time, the 'Immortal of the North Sea' opposite them didn't jump high; instead, he actually looked like he was helping them.
Achoo!
Jiang Bing sneezed again.
But there aren't that many truly good people in this world.
Chapter 783 Refusal to Accept Advice
“I’ll pay you 50 euros,” the woman said.
Seeing Jiang Bing's puzzled expression, the other party explained it this way.
"Don't be naive. Don't really think there are good people here who will do things for free. I saved four of you for 50 euros, which is already a great deal."
Jiang Bingdun held his cane and looked at the other person.
Stop looking, hurry up.