"Cirrus... Cirrus... This is the good pawn you were talking about? You actually joined forces with these judges to scheme against me!"
Possessing Guinaifen, Huiyan glared furiously at Cirrus. It seemed this "little bro" Cirrus had mentioned was truly furious.
However, facing Huiyan's angry accusation, Cirrus merely let out a smug chuckle, "So what? You may be powerful, but that only matters if you can stay alive and keep your freedom.
"Without those two things, what's the use of having all that power?
"As an intelligent lifeform, knowing how to read the situation is a skill too. Look at me, then look at Uncle Tail. This is what it means to understand the times and act accordingly.
"Hehehe... Instead of questioning me here, you'd be better off thinking about how to deal with those muscular monster gourds."
Cirrus switched sides very quickly. Anyone with eyes could see she had completely surrendered.
Of course, as she said, knowing how to judge a situation was also a skill. There was no way she was going to charge headfirst against a mountain like Nero.
When she had asked that kid who was stronger, him or the Luofu General, his answer had been that he was stronger.
More importantly, neither the gray-haired Nameless, nor the little fox judge, nor Uncle Tail had objected or disagreed.
If only the kid himself had said it, there might still have been room for doubt.
But these people, who had seen plenty of the world and were locals of the Luofu, seemed to accept the answer without any reaction. That made it worth thinking about.
As the saying goes, wise birds choose good trees to nest in. Cirrus only wanted to live more comfortably in the future. What was wrong with that?
Latching onto a powerful backer wasn't embarrassing.
At least she wouldn't get pinned to the ground and sucked on by muscular gourds.
Watching from behind, Tail really wanted to mock Cirrus for throwing her weight around under someone else's protection. But when the words reached his mouth, he realized there wasn't much left to say.
He had already mocked everything worth mocking.
No matter how he put it, it would just be the same two lines over and over.
Cirrus clearly wasn't afraid of that sort of thing anyway. She was the type who didn't care once things reached that point.
While Cirrus was speaking, the animated Moon-Mad Gourds moved again. One by one, the gourd monsters strode forward aggressively and lined up behind Nero like a bunch of underlings.
At this moment, Nero had already changed back into his usual clothes.
If he were still wearing the outfit from the Belobog celebration...
Well then... good heavens, if that wasn't a boss, what was?
Seeing Cirrus's smug expression filled Huiyan with rage, but the gourd monsters made him wary, and he didn't dare rush forward recklessly.
He had already experienced their strength firsthand. Their power matched their terrifying physiques perfectly.
All the fragments he had scattered out had been collected, causing his strength to drop sharply. No matter how reckless Huiyan was, he had to start thinking now.
But...
When he realized he needed to use his brain, he found that it was already too late.
Huiyan was now a trapped beast in a cage, a spent arrow at the end of its flight. The gourd monsters had already reached this place. He had nowhere left to run.
At this point, he had no means of escape left.
All he could do was struggle like a cornered beast and fight everyone to the death, hoping to find a slim chance of survival amid impossible odds.
A furious roar escaped Huiyan.
A ball of spirit fire floated out of Guinaifen's body. Huiyan intended to use what remained of himself to possess the nearby judges and see if he could gather enough strength to break out.
It wasn't that he hadn't considered using Guinaifen as a hostage.
But even Cirrus had surrendered to the other side. Given her usual cunning and scheming nature, if even she couldn't handle them, Huiyan felt that tricks and schemes probably wouldn't work against these people.
At least he had used his brain a little.
Even if he hadn't found a way out, it wasn't completely useless.
At the very least, it helped him avoid being captured alive.
Huiyan knew that possessing new bodies would require him to split his strength.
If he kept one portion controlling Guinaifen, those gourds would definitely take her away while he was distracted, and he would end up wasting part of his fragments for nothing.
So this time, he directly abandoned Guinaifen.
As the ghostly fire completely flowed out of her body, Guinaifen closed her eyes and collapsed forward limply, clearly unconscious for the moment.
One animated Moon-Mad Gourd rushed forward in a single stride. Its muscular hands caught Guinaifen before she hit the ground.
At the same time, its powerful knees dropped to the ground, and it began sliding across the stone pavement of Fyxestroll Garden.
Fortunately, the animated Moon-Mad Gourd's physical abilities were extremely strong, and those bulging arms and legs were not ordinary flesh and blood.
If an ordinary person tried to save someone with a sliding kneel like that, getting the skin scraped off their knees would already count as a lucky minor injury.
While the gourd monster was rescuing someone, Huiyan succeeded in possessing new judges.
Large numbers of judges gathered together and stood opposite Nero and the gourd monsters.
The two sides faced each other, killing intent rising. The air was filled with tension.
It was like gathering your brothers for a fight on a rainy day, while "Into the Battlefield" happened to start playing.
Of course, that wasn't important.
What mattered was that battle was about to begin.
The animated Moon-Mad Gourds charged forward without hesitation and immediately began grabbing the possessed judges and sucking at them.
Even Huiyan, who loved fighting, was stunned.
How could someone be even more direct than him?
What he didn't understand was that to the animated Moon-Mad Gourds, the appearance of possessed judges meant the mission still wasn't finished.
And this wasn't a task given by just anyone.
It was a task given by Nero.
How could they tolerate that?
So they immediately sprang into action.
This battle was not an even contest.
It was a completely one-sided crushing defeat.
The judges possessed by Huiyan could not stop the advance of the gourd monsters and were all swallowed clean.
There was nothing surprising about that.
These Moon-Mad Gourds were originally magical tools made specifically to deal with heliobi.
Now, after being animated by Black Shears and blessed by Idrila, they had become half of Argenti's colleagues.
Whether or not the gourd army was truly amazing, dealing with the weak forces Huiyan had gathered in his heavily weakened state was no problem at all.
Meanwhile, in the real world, although Nero's interference had changed the boss of this battle, the overall situation remained largely the same.
The only difference was replacing Cirrus's name with Huiyan's.
It was worth mentioning that the gourd monsters had also been added to this battle.
The animated Moon-Mad Gourd icon would appear in the action order and act in a manner similar to the Lightning-Lord.
Whenever it was the gourd monsters' turn, players would receive their assistance.
Four gourds would appear each time, and each would randomly produce one of four effects, increasing allies' damage, healing allies, making enemies take more damage, or directly swallowing one enemy unit.
Huiyan was powerful, but he could do nothing against the gourd monsters.
Cirrus was cunning, but she couldn't outscheme the Immortal Who Uses Plunging Attacks.
Nero's appearance also spared Tail from having to jump into Cirrus's body and cause trouble.
The only thing visible was the gourd monsters punching, kicking, throwing, and wrestling the judges to the ground one after another, leaving them unable to accomplish much.
Seeing this, Huiyan immediately realized things were going badly.
Like a gust of wind, he charged straight toward the people standing behind the gourd monsters.
His eyes were fixed only on Nero, as though he had chosen him as his target.