Crystal Palace from Infinite Anime

Chapter 20: The Spiritual Horse and the Girl

At night, the stars are shining and the full moon is in the sky.

Ionian Marshes, shore.

Busujima Saeko, covered in scars, lay motionless on the ground with her eyes closed, only her last weak breath left.

"Tick, tick, tick..."

The sound of horse hooves could be heard, and a man wrapped in a loose black robe sat sideways on a horse with two horns on its head. The man and the horse slowly came to Busujima Saeko.

Even though the man on horseback didn't stop.

The horse with two horns stopped on its own and lowered its head. It put its nose close to Saeko Busujima who was lying on the ground and sniffed the scent on her body.

Perhaps it sensed the scarlet corruption in Busujima Saeko's body through its sense of smell, or perhaps it didn't want to see Busujima Saeko die quietly, the horse became slightly agitated, and let out an irritable sound from its nose.

"...Don't worry, Torret, there's still hope."

Suddenly, the man sitting on the horse, covered in a black robe, whispered something to comfort the horse.

Her voice was soft yet a bit cold, and her pronunciation was so clear that the sound alone could make people imagine that she must be a lady from a wealthy family who had received a good education since childhood, otherwise how could her voice be so soft and her pronunciation so clear?

After this woman, whose entire body and even her face were covered by a hooded black robe, comforted the horse named "Torret" she was riding, the horse indeed calmed down.

Then, the woman dismounted and squatted beside the unconscious Busujima Saeko. She seemed to be talking to Torret, or perhaps to herself, and said:

"Although this person isn't a Fader, since Torret chose her..."

"Then this person must also be pursuing the Elden Ring."

"…even if doing so means going against the Golden Rule."

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When Busujima Saeko woke up from her coma, the night was still dark.

And just as Busujima Saeko got up from the ground in a daze.

"Shhhhh..."

A huge dragonfly, as big as an eagle, flapped its wings at high speed and flew towards Busujima Saeko.

This made Busujima Saeko instinctively raise one hand and swing out with a palm knife.

"Crack!"

Instantly, a layer of green light covered Busujima Saeko's palm. Although her palm blade didn't actually hit the dragonfly, it slashed out with a blade of air composed of highly toxic power, instantly slicing the dragonfly in half in mid-air.

"Zizi~"

After the big dragonfly broke into two sections and fell to the ground, the remaining body was quickly corroded by the "macro-devouring demon poison".

At this time, Busujima Saeko first looked at the large dragonfly on the ground that was quickly dissolved by the corrosive poison, then lowered her head in disbelief, looking at her outstretched palms that were trembling slightly.

"How come my strength has recovered a lot?" Busujima Saeko was surprised.

She clearly remembered that after the battle with the crazy red-haired woman, she spent the exchange coupons to buy attribute points and added a few points of endurance.

But that was just what supported her to walk out of the swamp nearby.

Her last memory was that she finally reached the shore, the tense string in her heart suddenly loosened, and then she lost all her strength in an instant, and her consciousness returned to darkness.

"How long was I unconscious? What happened during this period?" Busujima Saeko frowned and pondered.

What is certain is that although this area is full of dangers, she was lucky and was not attacked by any poisonous insects or monsters during her coma, otherwise she would not have woken up.

The question is why, after closing her eyes and opening them again, she felt that her condition was much better than before she fell into a coma?

"Strange, I'm clearly poisoned. Logically, my physical condition will only get worse with time." Thinking of this, Busujima Saeko took a deep breath and immediately felt a dull pain in her lungs.

"Cough, cough, cough, cough!" She suddenly started coughing, and felt an extremely dry and painful pain in her throat, as if something was stuck.

Amidst the continuous coughing, she suddenly spat out a pool of sticky dark red blood.

The pool of blood spilled onto the lifeless ground at Saeko Busujima's feet, and there were clearly some white fungal hyphae mixed in the blood.

"This……"

Unexpectedly, there were mycelium in the blood she coughed up. Busujima Saeko couldn't help but widen her eyes with horror.

The lingering dry pain in her throat made her even more terrified.

Could it be that something has grown in her throat...

"No! It's impossible. I'm just poisoned, not rotting. How could such a decaying organism grow in my body?" Busujima Saeko was unwilling to believe the fact. She felt that no poison could have such an effect.

But on second thought, was it really just "poison" that invaded her body?

She controls the ability of the giant demon poison and can control the power of poison. If it was just a simple poison, it would be impossible for her to almost take her life!

Unless, what was continuously depleting her vitality in her body was not poison at all, but something that was like poison but even worse than poison!

"I don't know why, but after waking up from the coma, my condition improved a lot."

"But my current condition is still far from what it was in my heyday."

"And I still have all sorts of discomforts in my body. It seems that the illness in my body is still continuing to wear down my condition."

With this in mind, Busujima Saeko immediately unzipped her clothes and took off her sportswear, which had been cut by a knife in the previous battle and had countless holes in it.

After casually throwing her gym clothes on the ground, Busujima Saeko was left with only a navel-baring sports vest. Her abdomen, with its waistline and faintly visible abdominal muscles, and her arms were now completely exposed to the air.

Just a few hours ago, these places were covered with scars and bleeding.

Now Busujima Saeko lowered her head and observed herself, only to find that all the scars on her body had scabbed over!

The only flaw was that beneath these scars, within her skin, countless bloodshot veins were visible, zigzagging all over the place. It looked as if someone had used a red pen to draw countless twisted lines around her scars.

What shocked Busujima Saeko the most was that when she observed carefully, she discovered from time to time that these blood vessels would occasionally wriggle slightly!

"Damn it! This isn't poison! It's some kind of parasite! Are these blood threads in my skin some kind of parasite similar to a wireworm? Or are they some kind of saprophyte like mycelium?"

Busujima Saeko made a judgment in her heart, and even considered whether she should cut open the skin and pick out the blood from under the skin.

But she was just thinking about it.

Because she has so many scars like this on her body, she can't possibly cut all her skin, right?

What's more, what is visible to the naked eye is not necessarily everything.

Just like in her throat, although she couldn't see it, she now dared to bet that there must be a similar situation in her throat.

Could she possibly slit her own throat, or reach down her throat and forcibly pull out the foreign object growing inside?

"Anyway, at least I still have some strength."

"We need to find someone for help before our strength is completely depleted again!"

Thinking of this, Busujima Saeko immediately bent down and picked up the weapon that had fallen on the ground.

However, after the fierce battle, the katana named Sinner Slash had a lot of cracks on the blade and was obviously curled.

"Damn it, I don't have any extra exchange coupons anymore. I can't even buy an ordinary samurai sword in the Infinite Mall."

Helplessly, Busujima Saeko had no choice but to hold the blade of the knife and walk away from the Ionian Swamp.

Just keep walking.

Slowly, Saeko came to a field full of dead and fallen trees, which were covered with a large amount of red and white saprophytes.

The view here is much wider than that on the low-lying Ionian Swamp.

Standing in the wilderness, Busujima Saeko looked up at the sky and saw a giant tree reaching up to the sky in the northwest horizon, emitting golden light, bringing a little light to the long dark night.

"Is that the Golden Tree mentioned in the system introduction for this world? It seems the system introduction said that the tree was originally the World Tree. Because the Elden Ring merged with it, it became what it is now, the so-called Golden Tree."

"The main mission of this world is to destroy or repair the Elden Ring, and the Elden Ring and the Golden Tree are one and the same."

"So no matter what the specific method is for destroying or repairing the Elden Ring, at least heading towards the Golden Tree is definitely the right idea, right? Maybe Ayu and the others are already on this road. If I leave quickly, I might have a chance to run into them along the way."

Although unlike Lin Zhiyu, who had never played "Elden Ring" and was not as familiar with the world background and storyline as Lin Zhiyu, Busujima Saeko still made a relatively correct judgment based on the little information she knew.

So she set the golden tree as her destination and began to walk northwest across the field. As she walked, she saw a flat road.

This avenue extends all the way north, which is the same direction that Busujima Saeko wants to go, so Busujima Saeko first came to this avenue and walked north along it.

Then, before she had walked far, she saw a dead dragon lying on the field on the other side of the road!

Around the giant dragon's corpse, there were many wild dogs that were bigger than elephants. These wild dogs were busy gnawing on the dragon's corpse. Busujima Saeko didn't get close to them and walked past them quietly, so she didn't cause any trouble.

"Wild dogs bigger than elephants, giant dragons that died for unknown reasons... This world is really too dangerous!" While sighing in her heart, Busujima Saeko did not slow down.

She knew that curiosity killed the cat, so she didn't even stop to observe the dragon corpse in the field. She walked a distance further and came to a ruined area filled with broken walls. She smelled the odor of a burning corpse and saw the remaining sparks of fire in the ruins.

"It looks like a battle took place here during the day, and the victorious side gathered all the bodies and burned them afterwards."

Standing outside the ruins, Busujima Saeko made a judgment after just a quick observation.

At the same time, she, who had "extraordinary eyesight", also saw from afar that just to the north of the ruins, which was also the direction she was going to go along the road, there was a canyon, and at the end of the canyon was a cliff.

And right on that cliff stood a fortress.

"Where there's a city, there's a high probability there are humans. I can try to go to that city and ask for help!"

Having made up her mind, Saeko continued to move forward.

Until she arrived at the intersection leading to the fortress.

At this time, she could see the tents set up at the intersection, and the soldiers standing guard outside the tents, holding weapons in one hand and torches in the other.

The soldiers holding torches and keeping watch seemed to have discovered Busujima Saeko as well. They all turned towards Busujima Saeko and observed her from a distance.

Busujima Saeko thought to herself, "As a soldier, if a stranger approaches our camp, the least they should do is yell at me, ask me to stop and identify myself, right?"

Feeling something was not right, Saeko took a closer look.

She has extraordinary eyesight, excellent vision and night vision, and when she took a closer look, she found that those soldiers did not look like normal people at all!

Because she had clearly seen those faces half-hidden by the helmets, which were as bloodless and stiff as mummies!

"There's no light in their eyes, just like robots, no, more like zombies... Could these people be mentally ill like that red-haired woman before?" Busujima Saeko thought to herself.

At this time, two thin soldiers wearing light red soft armor appeared in front of them, each holding a dagger in their hands, and slowly approached Busujima Saeko from the left and right.

Seeing these two men holding weapons and slowly approaching her with their backs bent, as if they were ready to attack at any time, Busujima Saeko's heart suddenly started to alarm.

"call!"

She swung the katana in her hand violently, making the sound of a weapon breaking through the air, and then held the katana horizontally and was about to say something to the people in front of her.

The people in front seemed to conclude that she was the enemy because of her action.

Thus, the conflict broke out instantly.

The two soldiers holding daggers no longer hesitated, and rushed towards Busujima Saeko, one on the left and one on the right, quickening their pace.

In the distance, several Red Lion soldiers, holding torches and wearing robes and armor with lion emblems, immediately entered combat mode, some charging towards Busujima Saeko, while others placed their hands on the flame pots hanging from their waists...

The author says:

Author's Note: Today is still a long chapter, with a beautiful picture of Melina attached~

Chapter 21: A Brief Battle Between Poison and Fire

At midnight, at the intersection of the avenue leading to Gale Fortress, the raging fire released by the explosion of the flame pot lit up the deep darkness.

A battle was inevitable.

Busujima Saeko's figure flashed among the fireworks, brandishing her katana with a bent blade, and with strength far beyond that of an ordinary person and a speed that the Red Lions could not react to, she chopped down the Red Lion warriors one by one.

As the red lions fell one after another.

However, more soldiers were coming to support from the fortress.

At the same time, although she had recovered for some reason, the scarlet corruption was still there, and Busujima Saeko was still slowly losing blood. She knew very well that her current condition was not suitable for a long battle, and there were so many enemies, so she began to think of retreating.

However, on the other side of the fortress, among the reinforcements that were rushing over, there was a man riding a warhorse, holding a broad-headed gun in his hand, and in the blink of an eye he had rushed to the intersection.

Listening to the rising and falling sound of horse hooves and looking at the knight charging towards her on horseback, Busujima Saeko knew that in her current condition she would definitely not be able to outrun the man with a horse, so even if she wanted to run, she had to at least kill the knight first.

With this in mind, Busujima Saeko no longer held back. She held the knife in her right hand, while her left hand emitted a green glow that symbolized the giant devouring demon poison. She stroked the blade, enchanting the weapon in her hand with poison properties.