My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 268 Fusion, the New Form of the Queen's Stone Statue (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
Xia Pingzhou opened his eyes and saw the floor of the express train carriage again, but it was no longer swaying like before.

The train stopped. The train whistle stopped, replaced by an announcement reminding passengers to take their belongings with them.

He turned his head and saw the girl in the kimono beside him staring at him without moving.

Looking back, all the passengers on the express train had already disembarked.

The train was empty except for him, who was still asleep and couldn't be woken up no matter what—he had just been focused on trading with the leader from the perspective of Unit 3.

"Kitty, what's wrong?" Origami Ayase asked.

"It's nothing... I'm just a little sleepy." Xia Pingzhou said as he got up, yawned lightly, and took his suitcase out of the overhead storage compartment.

He carried his suitcase and got off the train with Origami Ayase, stepping into the night-lit city of Hokkaido. The lights of the Sapporo Radio Tower shone down, illuminating their heads.

After a while, the two checked into a high-end five-star hotel near Datong Park, as arranged by the hacker.

It was late at night, close to midnight. The two of them didn't go out and stayed in their room to rest early.

Ayase Origami went to take a bath, while Xia Pingzhou sat by the window, turning his head to stare blankly at the scenery of Sapporo.

Suddenly, he remembered something, so he brought up the skill tree panel and took a look.

[Bridge between Human and Demon: Temporarily fuses one of your chess pieces with a demon chess piece (the fusion time depends on your "Mental Attribute") (Contracted demons are not chess pieces, so they cannot be fused).]

"Oh right, I haven't tried the effect of this skill yet." He then realized that several days had passed since he started learning this skill in Bergen, and he had completely forgotten about it.

However, this is thanks to the fact that Unit 1 was too busy, with one big thing after another, and they just couldn't stop. Now that my brother has joined Rainbow Wing, he can finally take a breather.

"What if my brother gets taken away by the spies of the Salvation Society in Rainbow Wings to be brainwashed by the mentor? If so, that would be troublesome... Black Chrysalis's whereabouts would be exposed in an instant." Xia Pingzhou thought, "But my brother runs so fast, even if he can't beat the Salvation Society's spies, he can at least get away, so I shouldn't worry."

Shortly after, Origami Ayase emerged from the bathroom, dressed in a brand-new kimono.

Her hair was damp, hanging down against her pale skin, and smelled of citrus shampoo. She usually used a sheet of paper to press against her hair to absorb the moisture, which dried it quickly without affecting its quality.

But she didn't do that today. She simply sat on the bed, glanced down at the hairdryer on the corner of the bed, and took it from the paper. Then she looked up, her dark eyes fixed on Xia Pingzhou, who was sitting on the windowsill.

Xia Pingzhou looked up from the book "The Dancing Girl of Izu" in his hand and met her gaze.

He seemed to understand her meaning in an instant. The long time they spent together made him understand the thoughts of this strange doll girl more and more, so he went over, sat down, picked up the hair dryer, plugged it in, and started blowing her hair.

He lowered his eyes and touched her hair, which was as smooth as snowflakes. Ji Minghuan suddenly recalled the scene of her parents blow-drying her hair when she was a child, but those memories were long ago, like faded yellowed photos.

"All right."

A moment later, Xia Pingzhou turned off the hair dryer and placed it on the bed.

"Helping its master blow-dry his hair makes it a good cat." The girl in the kimono opened her eyes, gently curled the corners of her lips, and reached out to stroke his hair.

"Could you do me a favor too?"

"what?"

Without a word, Xia Pingzhou released the Sky Chaser, which selected the "Queen Statue" and the one-time-use demon chess piece "Flame Demon" from the chess shadows flowing between black and white.

He summoned the Queen's statue beforehand, but held the "Flame Demon" chess piece between his fingers and did not summon it for a long time.

The magnificent, silver-white statue knelt on the floor of the room, bowing its head in anticipation.

"Can you prevent the room from catching fire or being damaged?" Xia Pingzhou looked at Ayase Origami. "I want to try out a new ability, but I'm too lazy to go out. I'm a bit tired after traveling all day."

The girl in the kimono nodded. The pale pages of paper fluttered up like a swirling snowflake, completely covering the window, leaving no gaps untouched, providing excellent soundproofing.

With a "crack," Xia Pingzhou shattered the Flame Demon's chess piece shadow. Immediately, a ball of menacing flames quickly materialized in mid-air, causing the room temperature to rise sharply, as if the air conditioner had been switched on to the wrong mode.

Its flames are divided into two parts: light and dark. The light flames form its body, while two small, dark flames are embedded deep inside, which are its eyes.

The fire demon exhaled, spewing out tiny flames like a circus performer, illuminating Xia Pingzhou and Ayase Origami's faces.

Origami Ayase used a piece of paper to catch the stray sparks that fell from the fire demon, preventing the hotel room floor from suddenly bursting into flames.

"The Bridge Between Humans and Demons," Xia Pingzhou murmured.

[Hint: Please select the target to release the "Bridge of Humans and Demons" (the condition is that it must contain one "Chess Piece" and one "Disposable Demon Piece").]

"The Queen's Statue and the Fire Demon."

As soon as the words were spoken, it seemed as if an invisible bridge stretched out in the room, with the Queen's statue and the fire demon's body connected at the two ends of the bridge.

The next moment, their bodies were suddenly pulled into the bridge, twisted and merged, and finally a dazzling red light spread outward.

After the light faded, a brand new figure appeared in the room.

From its general outline, it still retains the human structure of the Queen statue, but her twin daggers have vanished, replaced by a longsword forged in flames, its blade shimmering with flickering firelight like undulating waves. Simultaneously, a pair of enormous wings forged in fire slowly unfold from behind the Queen statue; each flap sends forth a shower of intensely hot fire, enough to leave a cratered mark on the floor.

The firelight outlined her heroic and noble expression, her swan-like long neck held high, and her breastplate was covered with cloud patterns formed by the scorching of flames.

[Hint: After the "Queen Statue" and "Flame Demon" merged through the Bridge between Humans and Demons, they have transformed into a brand new chess piece, the "Flame Queen."]

The "Flame Queen's" powers are: "Flame Transformation" (transforming her body into a flame form for a short period of time) and "Pillar of Flame" (raising her longsword and extending the flame-forged blade along the tip, creating a pillar of fire).

“‘Flame Transformation’ can only affect the Queen herself, unlike the original ‘Void Transformation’ which could affect others?” Xia Pingzhou wondered. “It seems that the fusion of chess types has both advantages and disadvantages. At least it looks like the combat ability has definitely become stronger.”

He scratched his forehead, becoming curious about more combinations, such as what would happen if he fused the knight statue and the fire demon, and whether the knight statue's powers would change into something like "fire charge".

As he was pondering, another panel popped up in front of him, interrupting his thoughts.

Based on your current "Spirit" attribute strength, the fusion process will last approximately 5 minutes. During this time, you can separate the Queen Statue and the Flame Demon at any time.

The queen, majestic and awe-inspiring, hovered in mid-air, her fiery wings flapping.

However, the girl in the kimono remained unfazed. While clapping softly, she quietly used a piece of paper to catch the flames falling from the Flame Queen, just like a pet owner, to prevent the hotel room from suddenly bursting into flames.

"Is it done?" she asked, turning her head.

"Alright, there's no need to try the other abilities." Xia Pingzhou nodded. From the moment he saw the description of the abilities, he knew how to properly use these moves in battle.

Therefore, the short-term goal is to hunt down more demons, complete the training progress tasks, collect more one-time demon chess pieces, try more "human-demon bridge" combination methods, and then smoothly apply these skills to the battle.

In this way, the combat power of Unit 2 can be significantly improved.

"Thanks a lot."

As Xia Pingzhou spoke, he retrieved the Flame Queen. The Flame Demon was a one-time use piece, so its figure disappeared from the chessboard, but the Queen's statue remained.

The good news is that Xia Pingzhou still has two "Flame Demons" left in his chess collection. He had used up all the other one-time use demon pieces when fighting against the Red Light, but he hadn't used the Flame Demons because they were too useless.

He then retracted the Möbius strip-shaped chessboard into his body, and the black and white light disappeared.

Xia Pingzhou thought to himself, "I should be able to put up a fight against mid-to-high-end near-disaster level opponents now. Of course, I'm still far from reaching the threshold of disaster level."

Unlike Unit 3 "Agubaru", Unit 2's three branches have not yet reached their end points. This unit is severely lacking in skill points, but at the same time, this also means that the unit has higher and more potential, and there is a lot of room for improvement.

"Do you want me to take you to fight demons?" As if sensing his thoughts, Ayase Origami suddenly asked.

Xia Pingzhou thought for a moment and said, "Actually, I can fight demons by myself without any problems, unless it's a demon of the level of Bai Tanlang, which is a bit troublesome. But... it's easy to get into troublesome things during a fight, such as one or two people from the Exorcist Association suddenly appearing. So it's better if you're here."

"Want to leave?"

"Get some rest, we'll talk about it tomorrow." Xia Pingzhou glanced at Ayase Origami's droopy eyelids. "You look like you're incredibly sleepy."

The girl in the kimono nodded, raised her hand to cover her mouth, looked down at the floor, and yawned.

Goodnight, little cat.

Goodnight, Caesar.

She paused for a moment, then slowly turned her head and stared at Xia Pingzhou without moving.

“…Caesar?” she asked softly.

Xia Pingzhou was also slightly taken aback.

When operating Unit 3, he always said goodnight to Caesar, that childish kid, which caused him to accidentally mix them up. Fortunately, both he and the young lady's phones were stored in the shoe cabinet at the entrance of the room, a consensus they had reached to prevent being harassed by hackers.

“Caesar is… the name of the Queen statue,” he said haltingly. “She is conscious and often exchanges a few words with me.”

The girl in the kimono rested her chin on her hand, silently observing him. After a while, her slightly furrowed brows suddenly relaxed. Too tired to think about certain things, she lay down on the soft bed and closed her eyes.

Xia Pingzhou breathed a sigh of relief, silently covered her with the blanket, and soon after, he lay down on the other bed. He placed his hands on his chest and closed his eyes.

A night of silence.

The next morning, when he awoke, it was just beginning to lighten. The Sapporo Radio Tower shone warmly in the dim blue light, and the sun was slowly rising, burning away the white mist above the distant mountains.

He took his phone out of the shoe cabinet and found that he had received a message from a hacker.

[Hacker: The leader has arrived in Hokkaido. You'll meet up with them today to discuss the prison break.]

Xia Pingzhou: Understood.

　Ask for monthly ticket orz
　　
　
(End of this chapter)