My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 114 Xia Pingzhou's Second-Order Sky Chaser, A New Chess Piece (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
7 month 18 day.

That evening, Xia Pingzhou, the second unit, had nothing to do, so he sat in the coffee shop and played a few rounds of cards with the members of the White Raven Brigade.

Xia Pingzhou played with a completely absent-minded attitude and made one bad move after another—he threw almost all the bombs he could at his teammates.

Even the legendary British gambler, Anron, couldn't keep up with his gambling. He ended up losing two hands with him, breaking his undefeated record in card games within the guild overnight.

After losing all his savings, Ayase Origami, who was sitting next to Xia Pingzhou, naturally took his place and said to him expressionlessly, "I'll win it back for you. Kitten, go to sleep now."

So Xia Pingzhou patted his behind and naturally returned to the attic.

He thought to himself that it would be best to participate in fewer team-building activities in the future. As a model Young Pioneer, it wasn't that he didn't want to win, but even though he was in an international criminal organization, he kept his original aspiration in mind and didn't want to participate in gambling. He distanced himself from gambling, prostitution, and drugs.

Maneuvering the second unit towards the window, Xia Pingzhou stepped onto the windowsill and jumped onto the roof of the attic.

Incidentally, Xia Pingzhou's physical strength is only at the D level, which is vastly different from his other two attributes. He is at most a little stronger than an ordinary person.

Therefore, Xia Pingzhou dared not be careless. If he accidentally stepped into a hole and fell, he would have to rely on the Empress statue to save him. The Empress was different from other chess pieces; she had a mind of her own. Xia Pingzhou could not afford to lose face, as he would have to lead troops into battle in the future.

After climbing onto the roof, the evening breeze blew in his face, and the cars on the street looked like fireflies, forming a continuous stream of light. Xia Pingzhou found a place to sit down and stared blankly at the Tokyo night view for a while, while the air conditioner unit buzzed in his ears.

He thought of Kong Youling again. Every time he sat on the rooftop of the attic, he would think of the time he spent in the orphanage. He wished that Kong Youling could sit here with him, and the two of them could feel the evening breeze and look at the brightly lit Tokyo under the night sky.

If he weren't some kind of restricted-level superhuman, Kong Youling would just be an ordinary person. They could leave all those worries about the Salvation Society and destroying the world behind them, and simply sit here looking at the sky, simply watching the cars and people coming and going in the city...

A moment later, Xia Pingzhou came to his senses and brought up the "Sky Drive Progress" in the character panel.

The current advancement progress of the second character's Skyward "Chess" skill is 80%.

Looking at the red text on the panel, Xia Pingzhou thought to himself, "The second mech, Sky Drive, is about to be upgraded to Tier 2. I should upgrade it before the auction starts and see if I can get any valuable mechanisms from it."

So he lay down on the roof of the attic, tapped the skull icon on his phone, opened the Exorcist Association's internal app, and a map appeared on his phone screen.

He rested his right arm behind his head and closed his eyes for a while. About an hour later, a "beep beep beep" sound came from beside his ear, indicating that the exorcist association's instruments had detected a demon in the vicinity.

Xia Pingzhou opened his eyes, looked at the red dot on the map, then got up and fell off the roof, stepping onto the windowsill and landing in the attic.

Just then, Origami Ayase walked up from the first floor of the cafe. The kimono-clad girl had droopy eyelids, raised her ochre-red kimono sleeve to cover her mouth, and yawned softly.

Then, the yen she had just won from the other members slowly flew out from the sleeve of her kimono and into Xia Pingzhou's hoodie pocket—and surprisingly, she actually won back the money Xia Pingzhou had lost.

"A demon has appeared on the map."

As Xia Pingzhou spoke, he reached into his pocket and touched the thick wad of Japanese yen. Then, he raised his phone screen and pointed expressionlessly at the red dot displayed on it.

He couldn't help but think: I'm such a gigolo, I need a rich woman to help me win money at cards, and I need her to take me to fight demons, oh no, she's a rich loli, I should show her some respect.

"Playing cards, I'm sleepy..." Ayase Origami smacked her lips. "Takikage will take you."

After saying that, she slumped onto the bed, closed her eyes, and used her supernatural ability to tear apart the pages of a haiku collection on the windowsill, connecting them to form a paper blanket to cover herself.

Seeing how casual she was, Xia Pingzhou helplessly picked up a thin blanket from his own mattress and covered Ayase Origami with it. Then he removed her paper blanket and hung it on the shelf in the attic to dry.

That way, when Origami Ayase wants to read tomorrow, she can use her special ability to restore the paper blanket to that haiku collection.

Then he went downstairs and saw Oda Takikage tending to the café. He immediately asked, "Number 4, can you take me to kill two demons?"

His tone was as casual as asking, "Can you come play some mahjong with me?"

Oda Takikage lowered her head, glanced at him through her reading glasses, then went into the kitchen to take off her apron. She returned to the counter, removed her reading glasses, put them in their case, and then slowly asked:

Is it far from here?

Xia Pingzhou shook his head: "It's not very far, but we don't know what level of demon it is yet. The Exorcist Association's system needs to be delayed by half an hour to determine the level of the demon. By then, other exorcists will have already gotten there first."

“Okay, let’s go then.” Oda Takikage nodded. “Let me see the map first.”

Xia Pingzhou handed him his phone with the app open. Oda Takikage glanced at the location flashing red dot on the map, then put his right hand on Xia Pingzhou's shoulder.

At that moment, Xia Pingzhou felt as if the ground beneath his feet had suddenly turned into a swamp. A strange gravitational force pulled his entire body downwards uncontrollably, as if he were being swallowed by a shadow with gaping bloody maw.

Soon, the second unit, Xia Pingzhou, and Oda Takikage disappeared into the shadow lake beneath their feet.

The café was empty; there wasn't a soul in sight.

Because of the incredible speed of the movement, Xia Pingzhou could neither see nor hear anything clearly, and could only squint to barely glimpse a bizarre gray curtain of light.

Oda Takikage grabbed Xia Pingzhou's body and carried him at high speed through the world of shadows.

In less than a minute, the two had already arrived inside a large shopping mall.

After Xia Pingzhou broke free from the shadows, he leaned against the railing, hunched over, and took a breath. He thought to himself that the young lady's paper dragon experience was much better. The feeling of walking in the shadows was probably only something that a well-trained ninja like Uncle Takikage could accept.

"How many people can you take with you at most with this move?" Xia Pingzhou slowly raised his head and asked casually. "My current limit is one person at a time. Otherwise, everyone might get lost in the shadow world," Oda Takikage replied frankly.

Xia Pingzhou turned his head and looked around. At this time, there were no shops still open in the mall, and the lights in the aisles were all off.

Only one fashion boutique stood out, engulfed in a sizable fire. Bright flames pierced the aisles, their rays licking outwards. The blaze had reduced all the clothing and mannequins inside to charred remains. Occasionally, eerie laughter echoed from the heart of the flames.

"Number 12, wait for me here."

After saying that, Oda Takikage rolled up his sleeves, conjuring a shadowy katana in his right hand, and walked towards the fashion store first.

Xia Pingzhou then released the Sky Chaser, reaching out to touch the black and white rings surrounding him, summoning the Queen's statue.

Dressed in a luxurious silver-white queen statue, she followed Oda Takikage into the fashion store.

Inside the fashion store, a raging fire was raging, with three particularly bright red flames emitting eerie laughter.

Even more bizarrely, these three flames all had eyes and mouths, and they stuck their tongues out at Oda Takikage and the Queen's statue, which reminded Xia Pingzhou of Alcifa from "Howl's Moving Castle".

A battle was about to break out, with Oda Takikage and the three-headed fire demon locked in a stalemate.

His shadow-formed katana couldn't reach the three-headed demon's body; physical methods seemed useless against them.

The first fire demon could spew out a pillar of flames as soon as it opened its mouth;
The second demon swirled the flames into a vortex and swept towards Oda Takikage; the last demon, while devouring the flames, bared its fangs and claws as it charged toward Oda Takikage.

Oda Takikage was incredibly fast; he moved through the fashion store, repeatedly bouncing off the walls with his feet on the ground.

The fire demon's attacks couldn't reach his body, but the fire inside the fashion store burned brighter and brighter, and the three-headed fire demon's aura became more and more turbulent, its size constantly expanding.

If the fire they start spreads throughout the entire shopping mall, these three demons might turn into fire giants comparable to skyscrapers.

Xia Pingzhou silently touched the circular path, summoning three silver soldiers. He instructed the silver soldiers to quickly drop their heavy shields and then head to three different fire extinguisher boxes in the stairwell.

The soldiers smashed the glass with their greatswords with a "crack," and then, amidst the torrential rain of falling glass, they threw down their swords and grabbed fire extinguishers from the box.

Then, the three silver soldiers, carrying fire extinguishers, hurried towards the fashion store. However, their physiques were too cumbersome, and it would still take them some time to reach the store.

At that moment, the three fire demons inside the fashion store inhaled in unison and spewed out curtains of flames toward Oda Takikage.

Oda Takikage seemed to want to take a gamble and see if the Shadow Sword, imbued with flames, could harm the demon. So he mixed the Shadow Sword with the flames, creating a strange, flickering red and black substance that resembled both flames and shadows.

Immediately afterwards, a pair of long wings forged from shadow suddenly sprouted from Oda Takikage's back. He crouched slightly, then suddenly flapped his shadow wings, seemingly trying to break through the flame barrier head-on to meet the three-headed fire demon.

But at that very moment, the statue of the empress beside him suddenly placed its hand on his shoulder and released "invisibility." As a result, Oda Takikage and the statue of the empress simultaneously became transparent.

The fiery curtain spewed by the demons missed its target, striking the ground and leaving a charred mark.

Oda Takikage retracted the shadow wings on his back, raised an eyebrow slightly, and turned to look at the Queen statue. The Queen statue nodded gently to him, as if to say, "You don't need to take the risk," with cold blue flames burning in its slender eye sockets.

At that moment, Xia Pingzhou's three silver soldiers arrived at the scene with fire extinguishers.

The soldiers turned on the fire extinguishers, and white water mist sprayed forward from the nozzles like a handheld fountain, extinguishing the fire inside the store at a visible rate.

The three fire demons howled in unison, covering their faces in panic, as if trying to escape from the shop. However, Oda Takikage used his Shadow Sword to unleash a gust of wind, forcefully blowing their bodies back and exposing them to the water mist from the fire extinguisher.

Before long, the flames on their bodies were extinguished, revealing only a palm-sized demon head. The three dark heads drooped on the ground like withered seeds, at the mercy of their predators.

The queen statue bent down and lunged forward, using both short and long daggers in her hands, instantly slicing the three heads on the ground into countless pieces.

Immediately afterwards, a series of notification boxes popped up in front of Xia Pingzhou's eyes.

He leaned against the railing, quietly observing the spoils of the battle.

[Detected the killing of three demons of C rank or higher. The cumulative kill count for the "Winter of the Wild Hunt" system has been updated to 17/18 (only 1 kill needed to complete the task)]

The current advancement progress of the Sky Drive "Chess" skill on Unit 2 is: 80% → 100%.

[Congratulations! The second mech, Xia Pingzhou's Sky Drive "Chess" has advanced to Tier 2!]

[Advanced Reward 1: Gain a new skill: "Casting".]

[Advanced Reward 2: Obtain a new chess piece: "Bishop".]

[Advanced Reward 3: Obtain one Skyward Slot for contracting a demon.]

The current number of demons that can be contracted by this Skywalker is: 1 (Contracted demon: Shadow Demon)

Staring at the text on the panel, Xia Pingzhou thought with satisfaction, "Not only are there new skills, but also new chess pieces... Next, I should think about where to find a contracted demon."

　There will be two more updates later, please vote with your monthly tickets.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)