Chapter 167 – Cyber Fox Spirit Beats Up Children’s Literature

Chapter 167 – Cyber Fox Spirit Beats Up Children’s Literature

After the two gunshots, the depths of the forest fell temporarily silent.

No wolf howls, no follow-up gunfire — even the wind seemed to have ceased for the moment. The entire forest sank into stillness, as though waiting for a “response” from the group on the path.

In that moment, those two gunshots felt almost like a guide, as if the hidden Hunter was trying to communicate with Yu Sheng’s party, pointing them toward the right direction.

Eileen glanced at the Squirrel sitting in Little Red Riding Hood’s hood. “The rules say not to be lured by temptations off the path into the forest depths. But do the rules say anything about what to do when gunshots ring out from beyond the path?”

The Squirrel froze for a good while before finally snapping out of its daze. Upon hearing Eileen’s words, it immediately began speaking in rapid, anxious bursts: “This has never happened before, never happened before… The Hunter only shows up when Grandmother Wolf appears… I — I don’t know, I’m just a squirrel!”

Yu Sheng furrowed his brow tightly. One hand had already taken down the fearsome Tetanus Staff from his shoulder, and he tapped it against the ground with a heavy thud. “It’s still a lure from beyond the path,” he said in a low voice.

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t catch his meaning at first. “What do you mean?”

“We’re here to find the Hunter,” Yu Sheng exhaled softly. After the initial confusion and hesitation, his thinking had quickly regained its clarity. “What could possibly lure purposeful explorers like us off the path better than ‘the Hunter’s gunshots’?”

Little Red Riding Hood froze for a moment. When she understood what Yu Sheng meant, a look of shock instantly surfaced in her eyes.

“Ignore the gunshots. We keep moving forward.” Yu Sheng spoke in a deep voice, then took the lead and strode ahead.

And just as he had predicted, the very instant the group continued forward, another gunshot came from the shadows of the Dark Forest — a single “bang,” and the distance even seemed to have closed considerably.

These gunshots were just like those illusions — they too were “flowers and mushrooms” beyond the path.

A chill of lingering fear suddenly rose in Little Red Riding Hood’s heart, because she knew that “being lured off the path” was the first and most dangerous prohibition in the Dark Forest. And just seconds ago, she had actually wavered slightly — this kind of wavering should have been impossible for a “veteran Little Red Riding Hood” who had already undergone an Awakening, yet she had fallen into a dangerous blind spot in her thinking—

She hadn’t considered that even the “Hunter” could be one of the Dark Forest’s methods of deception. Even less had she imagined that this forest could find the “optimal element” capable of simultaneously deceiving everyone present in such a short span of time.

“The Dark Forest seems quite ‘clever,'” Eileen said quietly. “Its methods are pretty impressive.”

“It doesn’t necessarily ‘think,'” Little Red Riding Hood, walking alongside, shook her head. “A higher form of blindness may be indistinguishable from ‘intelligence’ — perhaps even more efficient than what humans call ‘thinking.’ Things governed by rules… are always this unreasonable.”

“Doesn’t matter. Its lures are useless against us anyway,” Yu Sheng slowed his pace and looked up into the distance. “Listen — the gunshots have stopped. Nothing appeared.”

“I was expecting the ‘Hunter’ to show up nearby next, inviting us over for a chat,” Eileen pursed her lips. “Looks like this Dark Forest has its limitations after all — if the Hunter had actually appeared, we might really have fallen for it.”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment. “It could be a limitation of the Dark Forest, or it could be… because of the ‘Hunter’ itself being special.”

After that, he said nothing more and continued along the path.

Before long, the streetlamps lining the path began to dim gradually — just as the rules dictated, all shelter within the Dark Forest was only temporary. Light would fade, roads would vanish, the flames in fireplaces would slowly die out, and even those cabins would gradually be swallowed into the depths of the forest.

As the lamplight receded, the path grew indistinct. The boundary between the road and the forest was disappearing. The wolf howls that had previously subsided now returned, rising and falling, drawing ever closer.

Yu Sheng finally felt it — a gaze. The gaze of that “evil wolf,” directed squarely at him.

“The wolves are coming, the wolves are coming,” the Squirrel suddenly began muttering nervously. “Where’s the cabin… why hasn’t the cabin appeared yet…”

Yu Sheng raised his head and faintly glimpsed a sliver of light deep in the forest, but it was still far away. Meanwhile, many vague, formless shadows had already begun appearing in the surrounding dense woods.

The wolf pack had arrived — faster than last time — and was rapidly taking shape.

“It’s over, it’s over! Worst-case scenario! The cabin isn’t connected to the path — the road’s been cut off by the wolves!” The Squirrel spotted the wolf shadows appearing in the dense forest at a single glance, and instantly the fur on its tail bristled out in every direction. It whipped around to face Yu Sheng and spoke in a rapid, terrified voice, “We need to run in a moment! Run as fast as we can! Whatever you do, don’t stop, and don’t get bogged down fighting the wolves—” It paused. “What are you doing?”

The Squirrel stared at Yu Sheng in astonishment, only to see him casually hefting the terrifying “club” in his hand, then raising it to point in a certain direction.

“Hu Li,” Yu Sheng pointed toward the depths of the forest, toward the direction from which he sensed the “gaze.” “See over there? Range 3,500, spread 120, sixteen rounds rapid fire.”

“Copy!” A grin of excitement instantly broke across the fox girl’s face. Then, under the Squirrel’s stunned gaze, she flung both arms wide.

Silver-white fox tails burst into bloom amid the twilight forest. A haze of luminescence rose behind the demon fox, and then the Fox Fire detonated with a thunderous roar—

One after another, silver-white conical shapes rocketed skyward amid the flash of ethereal blue flames, rapidly adjusting their angles in midair. Then their flames surged a second time, erupting into a blinding flash that lit up nearly the entire woodland. A continuous shriek tore through the air, and amid that banshee-like wailing, the first salvo of eight Foxtail Missiles streaked toward the distance.

Even as the first volley of fox-tail missiles detached, Hu Li had already swiftly readjusted her breath. With a resonant hum, the second batch of tails sprouted forth, and another rapid-fire salvo launched skyward.

The ethereal blue propulsion trails arcing across the Dark Forest sky were like inverted shooting stars, bearing death as they plummeted from above.

With another hum, Hu Li’s tails regenerated once more. But this time she didn’t launch them. Instead, she maintained a cluster of blazing light at the tip of each tail, turning her gaze toward the shadowy tree line around them.

A deafening roar rolled in from the distance. The earth trembled. The air screamed. Trees shook violently from the shockwaves and toppled, as though the entire forest had been shaken to its foundations. The wolf howls in the shadows paused for only a moment before erupting again, as if thoroughly enraged, transforming into a cacophony of frenzied, chaotic roaring.

The wolf pack materialized from shadow into substance. Countless massive, savage wolves burst from the dense forest, charging toward the “uninvited guests” who had dared to challenge the Dark Forest’s rules.

The Fox Fire instantly transformed into several dense tongues of flame. Seven or eight torrential streams of fire lashed mercilessly into the wolf pack, sweeping everything in their path, shredding the newly materialized wolves to pieces and blasting the surrounding towering trees clean in half. The flames then ignited the dead branches and fallen leaves scattered everywhere, and the bewitching blue fox fire intertwined with crimson wildfire as they spiraled upward together.

“Da-da-da-da-da-da—”

Hu Li happily provided her own sound effects for her Fox Carrot Gatling gun, golden-red light shimmering in her eyes, her face alight with excitement.

Yu Sheng raised the blood-soaked “morning star” in his hand high and brought it crashing down on a massive wolf that had charged right up to him. The grotesque monster let out a single sharp, truncated howl before being smashed into a bloody pulp, collapsing to the ground.

He immediately swept the iron staff in a wide arc, sending another giant wolf flying — one that had tried to ambush Hu Li from behind.

Eileen gripped Yu Sheng’s hair tightly with one hand and was about to raise the other to summon her threads, but Yu Sheng cut her off: “Hold off for now! These are just ordinary wolves. Save it for when we run into something Hu Li and I can’t handle.”

“Got it!” Eileen answered swiftly.

Yu Sheng then swung his staff to knock down yet another giant wolf before pointing toward the distant glow of firelight ahead.

“That direction, Hu Li. Clear us a path.”

“On it!”

Hu Li shouted, then grabbed two of her tails and sprayed a barrage of fire in the direction Yu Sheng pointed. Three more Foxtail Missiles launched skyward immediately after, slamming into the depths of the dense forest.

Amid the carpet bombing and the wildly spreading demon-fire conflagration, the gathered wolf pack and the forest itself were forcibly torn apart, ripping open a path.

“Yes! This is what I wanted to see!” Yu Sheng broke into a wide grin, his smile radiant and exhilarated, like a child who had finally gotten his hands on a long-coveted toy. “This right here! Cyber Fox Spirit beats up children’s literature! Keep firing, keep clearing the way — we’re going to find Grandmother Wolf!”

He brandished that terrifying club and strode boldly down the forest avenue torn open by roaring flames and thundering artillery fire. More and more wolves spawned endlessly from the shadows — these monsters, acting entirely according to the rules, knowing nothing of fear or pain, threw themselves at Yu Sheng in fearless wave after wave. The vast majority were immediately gunned down by the sweeping barrage of concentrated fire, while the rest could not escape Yu Sheng’s club — but occasionally a few slipped through, only to be swarmed and torn to shreds by the Shadow Wolves that Little Red Riding Hood summoned.

The Squirrel watched all of this with its jaw hanging open.

Watched all of this while trembling from head to tail.

It shrieked hysterically, fainted dead away, then jolted awake again — as if plummeting from one absurd, bizarre nightmare straight into an even more absurd dream. It heard the entire Dark Forest reverberating with terrifying booms. It heard something deep within the forest screaming — the forest’s order was being challenged, mocked, trampled. And then the forest began its counterattack: the stronger the invaders, the more wolves appeared, countless wolves converging from every corner of the forest.

“No, no, this isn’t right…” the Squirrel shrieked, its voice nearly drowned out by the explosions and howls all around. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go!”

“But I think it’s wonderful!” Only Little Red Riding Hood caught the Squirrel’s thin, reedy voice. She turned her head slightly, and on her face was a kind of joy and release she had never shown before — as though a weight suppressed since childhood had finally been lifted. “Even if it’s just this once — I think it’s wonderful!”

(End of Chapter)