Chapter 97: Stelle: I'll Help You Wipe It With My Tongue
"!!!"
"What happened?"
"The Fragmentum monster turned into... what is that thing?"
The older Seele's mouth hung open, her azure eyes filled with bewilderment.
"It's candy."
The light particles from the shattered Fragmentum monster were still converging. Caelus stared at the several translucent, colored candies lying in his palm. He carefully sensed the state of the creation from his fruit's ability. It works!
He stood up leisurely and, to the older Seele's unprepared expression, raised his hand and put the colored candy into her mouth.
"Can... mmmph!?"
The older Seele was about to say something, but the moment the candy touched her tongue, she froze.
The fresh sweetness of fruit, the fragrance of cream, and a soft, gentle texture flooded her entire mouth, giving a dense, slightly cool mouthfeel that was impossible to resist.
She remembered when she was a child, Oleg had hidden her in his supply bag and taken her back to the Overworld via the cable car. That time, the older Seele had eaten delicious food she had never tasted before, and candy from the Overworld.
Compared to the candy in her mouth now, it paled in comparison.
Belobog had experienced such a long period of war and devastation that many crafts had long been lost. Even the better snacks in the Overworld were just syrup made from brown sugar, red sugar, and food coloring. How could they compare to the candy Caelus had carefully adjusted?
Maintaining a dazed expression, the older Seele lowered her eyes, silently and quietly savoring the sweetness in her mouth.
Sweetness represented sugar!
The Underworld had once experienced a period of extreme resource shortages. Sugar was reserved for the sick and injured, and alcohol was only used for medical purposes. Although the situation wasn't that bad now, sugar was still one of the resources the Underworld desperately needed.
And Caelus could...
"Turn Fragmentum creatures into sugar? How is that possible!?"
Bronya was also caught in an unprecedented state of astonishment.
"It is indeed edible sugar. And it doesn't just supplement the body with sugar."
Caelus popped a colored candy into Bronya's lips. He was a candy man now, so his hands were clean.
Bronya's movements froze abruptly, her pupils slightly contracting.
"And for March and Dan Heng, I've specially adjusted them to your tastes."
Little March's mouth was still hanging open. Hearing Caelus's words, she instinctively opened her mouth a little wider, as if waiting to be fed.
A colored candy was fed into her mouth. When the wonderful taste spread in her mouth, March 7th's eyes instantly sparkled with pleasant surprise, her eyes squinting into a line.
"I'll do it myself."
Dan Heng first raised his hand to block Caelus from feeding him, then held out his palm.
"Fine."
Caelus went with the flow and placed the candy in Dan Heng's palm.
Dan Heng didn't eat it immediately, but carefully examined the candy in his hand. The touch was no different from the candy snacks he usually ate. After examining it for a while and finding nothing special, Dan Heng raised his hand and put it in his mouth.
The taste was very good, but more importantly, a surge of energy dissolved in his body, although the wisp of energy was almost imperceptible.
"This..."
"Caelus, what on earth is going on?" March 7th gulped down the candy and asked the question everyone was concerned about.
"This is the ability of the candy man. I can create candy and turn living things into candy. It seems Fragmentum creatures are also included."
Creating candy directly consumes stamina, and the candy cannot exist for long. But candy made from living things can last for a long time.
"The candy from living things supplements not only sugar but also provides energy proportional to the strength of the living thing."
It should be noted that proportional is not equal. Less than one percent of the energy remains.
"Although it can't completely replace normal food, the energy supplemented by the living-thing candy can temporarily enhance a person's physique, immunity, stamina, and so on."
Caelus felt that this Lick-Lick Fruit seemed like something from an evil path, giving off the vibe of demonic cultivators in fantasy novels who use people to refine pills.
Hearing this, the older Seele and Bronya's eyes lit up simultaneously.
One was a core member of Wildfire, the other the heir to the Supreme Guardian. The two instantly thought of the same thing.
Resources!
They had both personally tasted the candy Caelus had made from Fragmentum creatures and confirmed that it was edible... as long as you didn't mind its origin. This was not a problem for the people of the Underworld. What hadn't they eaten during times of resource shortages?
Most importantly, it could be used as a medical resource!
"Using this method to eliminate Fragmentum creatures can also weaken the Fragmentum at its root."
Under normal circumstances, Fragmentum creatures that die in the Fragmentum will turn into energy and return to the Fragmentum. This energy will breed new monsters, making it a semi-perpetual motion machine. But Fragmentum creatures turned into candy by the fruit's ability, that part of the energy is equivalent to being completely stripped from the Fragmentum.
"You mean?" The older Seele's gaze towards Caelus immediately became fervent.
"Can you eliminate the Fragmentum?" Bronya froze, then her chest heaved noticeably, her breathing gradually quickening.
"Theoretically, yes. But I'm sorry, my candy man state is only temporary."
Caelus threw a lollipop forward. Stelle tilted her head and caught it in her mouth, then continued to swing her baseball bat to hammer a Fragmentum creature over.
Caelus looked at the others who wanted to speak but hesitated, including Dan Heng and March 7th.
"I know you still have some questions, but let's explain later. The important thing now is to take advantage of my candy man state to convert more Fragmentum creatures into energy candy."
"What do we do!?"
The older Seele's eyes widened abruptly, her azure pupils instantly turning blood-red, showing the girl's excitement at this moment.
"Just like Stelle, injure the Fragmentum creatures badly and throw them over to me. I'll perform the candy-fication."
Caelus himself could fight, but using the fruit's ability to fight would shorten its duration. Having others attack the Fragmentum creatures while he specialized in candy-fication was the most efficient use of it.
"I got it!"
The moment her voice fell, a flash of pale blue quantum light flickered violently in the darkness like a welding torch. The older Seele shot out like a cannonball, leaving only a swirling vortex of wind in her wake.
"Disperse with the butterflies, phantoms of the old days!"
Not even saying a catchphrase when using her ultimate, no martial virtue. The younger Seele voiced a line for 'herself', then took out the Black Abyss and White Flower and joined the battlefield.
"We'll help too."
March 7th summoned her pink and blue composite longbow, drew the string, and an arrow condensed from Six-Phased Ice flew out, freezing the Fragmentum creatures that had been brought to low health by the Seeles.
Dan Heng swung his long spear to attack while simultaneously flicking the frozen Fragmentum creatures in Caelus's direction.
"Bronya, use this for now."
Caelus handed Bronya the pistol he had requested from the space station's defense department. Its power was much stronger than Bronya's old-fashioned firearm that shot pellets. That gun had been left with Secondary Wings along with Bronya's blue and white uniform.
"Thank you!"
Bronya took the pistol with a word of thanks. Although she was a Pathstrider, having a weapon was better than being empty-handed.
By the way, the characters in reality were completely different from the game's Paths. Almost all of Belobog's Pathstriders followed the Path of Preservation.
Bronya didn't join the front-line battle. The lineup of the two Seeles, Dan Heng, March 7th, and Stelle was enough to deal with most Fragmentum creatures. Her job was to protect Caelus from being disturbed.
A continuous stream of various Fragmentum creatures was thrown to his side. Caelus became like a master chef in a kitchen, using his fruit's ability to turn the Fragmentum creatures into energy candy.
The colorful candies dazzled Bronya's eyes, and her heart surged. These are all resources!
Soon, the energy candy next to Caelus had piled up into small mountains.
Sometimes, an ordinary ability in one system can have a miraculous effect in another. This is mechanics!
The Lick-Lick Fruit's ability could be said to be a perfect counter to Fragmentum creatures—these creatures were not complete and powerful energy beings like the Suiyan, but just echoes of life and the scattered energy of the Fragmentum.
Not only did it counter them, but the consumption was much less than turning carbon-based life into candy!
However, no matter how much it countered them and how low the consumption, using the fruit's ability at this frequency couldn't possibly last for more than 3 hours.
As they went deeper into Rivet Town, the ability Caelus suddenly displayed was a pleasant surprise. The older Seele hadn't forgotten her original purpose for coming here: to find the core component to repair the mining machine.
"Gently knock on the sleeping heart..."
A very pleasant thud of a baseball bat colliding with a head. The curious object, a baseball bat imbued with the power of Destruction, knocked down the Fragmentum creature. Stelle cheerfully hummed a song from her 'subconscious'.
"Slowly close your eyes..."
With a kick of her long leg, she sent the Fragmentum creature over. Stelle first took advantage of Caelus being too busy to move, extended her tongue, and, to Bronya's renewed shock, licked his cheek, then smacked her lips and nodded in satisfaction.
"Caelus, how much time do you have left?" Stelle asked, rubbing her fists together.
"Wipe your face first."
The milky fragrance from the tip of his tongue was very addictive, but the feeling of being licked on the cheek was still a bit strange. Caelus couldn't see it, but he could feel the saliva left on his cheek.
"Then I'll help you wipe it with my tongue again."
Stelle said she had never heard such a request before and approached with her tongue lolling out.
Caelus felt like he was being licked in the face by a large husky, but he was too lazy to dodge.
"Can't you look at the system interface yourself?"
The disposable products in the system shop had no purchase limit before the big refresh, i.e., before the stall was rented out to other systems, but only one could be owned at a time. In other words, Stelle and Caelus couldn't buy the same product at the same time.
If Stelle wanted to experience what it was like to become a candy man, she could only buy it after Caelus's fruit's time limit was up.
"Oh, right. Mm-hmm~"
Stelle made a look of realization, then opened the system interface. The Lick-Lick Fruit was half dark and half bright. In just over ten minutes, she would become a candy man!
"Hmm?"
Just as Caelus was converting another Fragmentum creature into energy candy, he heard an explosion from far behind him.
He raised his hand, and a bridge made of candy lifted him and a yelping Stelle into the air. Caelus looked down from above and searched, then his gaze narrowed slightly.
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