Xyrin Empire
Chapter 519: Complete Chaos, Utter Chaos

Chapter 519: Chapter 519: Complete Chaos, Utter Chaos

In the living room, you could hear a pin drop.

Only the giant grand-style clock opposite was making a "tick-tock" mechanical sound.

"Pandora, Visca, stop playing! Go notify Bubbles, the Empire needs her!"

The two small figures instantly packed up the arsenal that sprawled across the living room and vanished from everyone’s sight in a flash.

"You... say that again?" I pressed my left hand on the enormous, ornate suitcase and asked Ding Ling for confirmation with a serious expression.

"If I remember correctly, the doll in the suitcase referred to herself as such, smashing through the room’s window and landing next to me at half past midnight. She’s so aloof she wouldn’t spare extra words, and has quite the rotten temper."

Ding Ling knew the situation was bizarre, but she was more convinced that this odd group in front of her could handle any such matters; thus, with a face full of complaints, this missy who wouldn’t show up unless it was very important began to pour out her grievances to us.

"Also, she’s got severe paranoia, from the first day at my home she’s been trying to find her missing father who knows where, completely oblivious to how shocking it is for a doll to move on its own. I almost broke from stress trying to hide her. I thought I’d gotten a rare treasure that would make me a fortune, but I ended up paying for X.O.’s treatment after his hind leg was damaged by the Mercury Lamp... uh, forget I mentioned that last part, okay?"

No worries, compared to a certain missy who sustains her family’s finances by speculating on alien rent, your greed is hardly noteworthy.

And about X.O., if I’m not mistaken, he’s the family’s dog with mismatched legs shaped in an ’X’ upfront and an ’O’ behind at Ding Ling’s house, right? It’s surprising that the dumb dog who gets friendly with anyone hasn’t been snatched away to a dog meat restaurant yet.

Mercury Lamp—if I’m not mistaken, and if the setting of this world is correct, this should be the name of the first doll from "Rose Maiden."

"Rose Maiden," I never fully watched this anime initially, but after the hardcore otaku mom moved into our household, I was forced to digest roughly 40GB of related data. Excluding what I slept through, misunderstood, gulped down during meals, and ultimately forgot, I retained roughly 30% of the plot. It seems to recount the story of seven living dolls, under the divine guidance of Monarch Luo Zhen, fighting each other and collecting seven Dragon Balls to complete the doll’s completion plan, eventually giving birth to the perfect LEVEL 6 girl, a sad and touching post-modern urban superpower story filled with love and warmth...

I have this nagging feeling that if otaku mom knew about this brainstorming, by tomorrow I would find myself split up on every warship’s fuel reserves of the Imperial Fleet—is it just my imagination?

Okay, okay, I know I got something wrong, but there indeed is a doll named Mercury Lamp in the story of "Rose Maiden." She is the first doll created by the miraculous Doll Master, Luo Zhen, but because he lost interest midway, she never obtained a complete body. Despite this, she deeply adores and looks up to her creator and is willing to pay any price to win against her sisters in battle, striving to become the ultimate perfect individual: a human-incarnated divine entity called... cough, cough, a perfect girl named Alice, proving to her "father" that she is not inferior to any sister, that she is not a "defect." That’s the gist of it, so what Ding Ling mentioned...

"Searching the whole world for a father who’s God knows where," is probably referring to Mercury Lamp’s attempts to find Luo Zhen.

Having sisters who constantly want to plant Crystal Cross flags all over the globe and having to constantly soothe and suppress them, I can vaguely understand Ding Ling’s headaches.

Being able to keep Mercury Lamp in her room until now, Ding Ling, in a sense, you’ve won.

"Dad, were you looking for me?"

The sudden voice behind me interrupted my analysis of whether the Rose Maidens were collecting Dragon Balls or the Forty-two Chapter Sutra, as Bubbles, who had just slipped away to play games, had been dragged back by Pandora and others.

"We’ve got a suitcase; you have the lucky hands, you open it."

As I said that, I bent down, picked up the barely 1.1 meters tall otaku mom and placed her on the rather grand table for her.

"This chest seals a girl who travels through time and space, the Mercury Lamp."

The living room fell silent again—crap, the sequential narration led to my thoughts veering off track.

Bubbles was stunned for a moment, then adorably tilted his head with a puzzled "Huh?"

"Anyway, let’s open this suitcase first... Ding Ling, how do you open this thing?"

I had already noticed that the suitcase was different from what I remembered. In cartoons or comics, the suitcases where the Rose Maidens lived looked very similar to ordinary suitcases, and the locks seemed like any detainee could poke them open with a stick of celery. But the suitcase Ding Ling brought looked seamless. Besides its handle and the complex patterns on its surface, there wasn’t even a single gap. I guessed that a military knife could probably cut it open, but then there was the issue of being possibly chased down by a bad-tempered doll inside.

"Well, it can only be opened if the person inside is willing to," Ding Ling said, touching the suitcase. "You can’t open it from the outside. I had put the Mercury Lamp to sleep before coming, but she should be awake by now, right?"

Who could still sleep while being carried around in a suitcase!?

"Hey, hey, listen—" As our attention was all on the suitcase, Bubbles, who had been called over and then left aside, finally started protesting. Standing one meter and ten centimeters tall on the table, he held a significant altitude advantage, tapping on my head with pops, "Dad, are you saying the Mercury Lamp is inside this suitcase? A Rose Maiden?"

I saw in his eyes the same gleam that Little Baobao had when he courageously captured Golden Shining, and I immediately felt alarmed: Was the Xyrin Host’s obsession with belongings about to spiral out?

"She calls herself that, yes, a silver-haired girl in a black gothic dress," Ding Ling responded to Bubbles.

As this confirmation was given, the otaku girl’s eyes suddenly gleamed, and she abruptly hoisted the large black suitcase and turned to run, shouting, "Then I’ll help myself to it!"

"Hey! Stop right there, you crazy girl!" I reacted quickly, grabbing the edge of the suitcase and pulling it back, while Bubbles was still frantically running in place underneath it, screaming, "No, let go, Dad! This is a real, absolutely limited edition, truly realistic 1:1 scale collectible! I must keep it in my storeroom and worship it three times a day! The real Mercury Lamp! I feel like my Mercury Lamp will forever be conquered once Dad touches it! No need for anything else, Dad, just let Mercury Lamp go!!"

Give me a break with your crazy otaku nonsense!!

"Bang!" A huge flick landed on Bubbles’ head, sending the delirious otaku girl into a defensive crouch while clutching her head. Ha, trying to outsmart me, huh? Look who’s talking back now... Hey, why did I suddenly go along with this ’Dad’ role!? And even if the Mercury Lamp is a doll, she shouldn’t even be linked with model figures or any of those weird things!

"Click—"

As I was making a huge ruckus with my family, with everyone looking astonished, a faint clicking sound suddenly occurred. Everyone, whether it was me scolding ’Mom’ or Bubbles defensively crouching, turned towards the source of the sound:

The huge suitcase that had fallen onto the table from a height of one meter—with Alaya probably awake inside by now.

So, when a crack magically appeared on the magnificent black suitcase, slowly opening, what the 92.3cm tall doll first faced was a whole crowd of onlookers and a pair of particularly gleaming, fanatic eyes at the front of the crowd.

"Wow! Dad, it really is the Mercury Lamp! A 1:1 scale, movable! And can even blink... Oh my goodness, I absolutely must have it, absolutely must get it... Ow!"

A karate chop landed on the back of Bubbles’ head, sending her back into a defensive crouch, "Stop talking nonsense! She was already alive... So, Mercury Lamp, right? Nice to meet you..."

"Stay away from me!"

I thought I was being warm and friendly, but the doll girl, who had just regained composure from slight panic, pushed away my hand immediately and suddenly flew up into the air, watching us— a bunch of odd strangers—from a safe distance very cautiously.

Okay, she obviously isn’t easy to approach.

During the standoff, I also had the chance to thoroughly observe the doll girl floating in mid-air.

If one could overlook the 92.3cm height and the black feathers behind her, she looked just like a normal human girl from the surface.

Her silvery-white hair that cascaded like mercury flowed slightly as she floated in the air. She had a pair of gem-like purplish-red eyes, mirroring the hardness and detachment of gems. Her slightly pale skin and delicately cold features together formed the beautiful yet distant visage of the Mercury Lamp. She wore a black headband on her head and dressed in a black gothic dress adorned with crosses, roses, and bow ties at the hem.

Beautiful, noble, aloof, indifferent—these feelings interwove within a doll, and although I knew that the girl before me was a life created from alchemy (pending verification), I had to admit that the 92.3cm tall Mercury Lamp embodied a temperament so rich and vivid. You might have noticed that I’ve mentioned the number 92.3 multiple times—because Pandora and Visca next to it were already burning with envy: they had finally found a target that looked more mature but was shorter than themselves, and the giant force field of self-respect around them forced me to focus on Mercury Lamp’s height!

The doll named Mercury Lamp hovered mid-air, her purple-red eyes slightly narrowed, watching the crowd below warily, her face a mix of ice-cold distance, and, well, a bit of bewilderment.

The reason for the bewilderment was naturally due to the otaku girl constantly hopping and shouting below.

"Hey! Hey! Chairman! Come down! Come down and let me hug you! I’m a loyal fan, you know! Hey! Hey~~"

"Don’t come any closer!" As the strange little girl below jumped higher and higher, almost reaching her skirt hem at over two meters in the last leap, the already somewhat perplexed Mercury Lamp immediately ascended higher, "Damn, what are you guys! What do you want to do... wait, that human woman, is this your plot?! To deceive me into searching for my father, and then it’s a trap like this?!"

Hey, you can mess around with words but not with meals, have you ever seen an ambush with a bunch of doll heads!

Meanwhile, Bubbles was still tirelessly hopping around, and the Xyrin Host, whose soul was set ablaze, utterly forgot basic Xyrin Apostle skills including spatial jumping and anti-gravity flying, just mindlessly trying to catch the constantly flitting doll, denting the living room floor with her hops... Hey! Are you trying to demolish the house?

"Hmm, hmm, looks like today I finally found someone as misfortunate as me, even though it’s just a strange little creature, but this King is very pleased, very pleased!" Sister Jier, always bound as Little Baobao’s equipment and without a right to speak, also found an opportunity to chime in, watching the black-clad gothic loli flitting up and down the living room pursued by Bubbles, the blonde tragic flat-chested heroic spirit nodded repeatedly, even letting Little Baobao hug her waist habitually, "Indeed, worthy of being sisters, both having equally terrible tastes, tsk."

So this guy has always thought that Bubbles and Little Baobao were sisters?

"Damn it! Don’t get too carried away!"

The doll that had been chased half to death finally regained her composure from the initial panic, and with suppressed rage on her face, the high-and-mighty Mercury Lamp could not withstand such a predicament. She steadied herself briefly and locked her target onto—the only male in the room.

"So, you’re the commander—turn into trash!"

Accompanied by such a shout, a storm of black feathers came at me.

"Wow damn! I’m getting hurt even while laying low!"

God knows how Mercury Lamp discerned my special identity here, but regardless, even though Bubbles should have firmly held her aggro, the doll directly targeted me without any warning, showering this side with a storm-like flurry of black feathers.

The seemingly frail black feathers, however, carried edges sharper than knives and speeds rivaling bullets, Mercury Lamp’s attack power was like a full-blown metal storm. Before I could react, I was entirely enveloped by the black feathers.

Then there was a series of crackling breaking sounds.

Everyone was very calmly spectating, no one came up to rescue—hey, even if you’re just watching, don’t show that pitiful expression reserved for those accidentally caught in the crossfire! Qianqian, where is your Time Freeze? Big Sister, what about your Reverse Misfortune? At least, Sandora, give a swipe!

The fierce onslaught lasted about three seconds, but Mercury Lamp’s face gradually showed surprise: why weren’t the man’s companions around him panicked at all, and even in the place covered by her attack, there was no splatter of blood?

In such hesitation, Mercury Lamp’s attack slowly stopped, and the black feather storm dispersed, revealing the reality below.

Holding a now-bottomless teacup while still maintaining a seated posture, the guy was surrounded by remnants of a sofa reduced to wood pieces, with shattered wood chips and terrazzo fragments all over the floor, some from the sofa, some from the coffee table, making the whole scene look like a performance artist pondering amidst ruins.

Damn, I’m considered a performance artist now!

With a head full of "chicken feathers", the teacup originally filled with Anwina’s strong love now had a large hole, and as my fingers trembled slightly, the teacup with a large hole "crack" fell to the ground, leaving only a handle in my hand.

I don’t need a mirror to know how postmodern my look is right now.

"Ptui, ptui..." I spat out two mouthfuls of feathers that I’d accidentally swallowed when I looked up in shock, "Uncle can bear it, but auntie can’t! Grab that... Hey! You two, cut out the ground-to-air nonsense!"

"Don’t use your superpowers; don’t hurt her! Use hand-to-hand combat!"

"Sandora, put those claws away! One slap from you and I can see the drainpipe behind the wall!"

"Sister, please stop drawing circles, our house can’t handle a mammoth streaking group!"

"Anwina, don’t just run, use your agility... Jil! You idiot, put away the Deviation Sword! Watch your ancestor, and if she conjures up a rocket launcher, you’re sleeping on the streets tonight! Who’s going to block the windows and doors? Turn on the protective barrier; Imperial Headquarters is now in a state of martial law!"

Suddenly, the entire living room was in chaos, as if the earth itself were shaking.

I wasn’t sure if it was because of the many restrictions that hindered their movements, if it was because of Mercury Lamp’s high agility, or if Qianqian and the others simply found it fun to watch, but the small doll that was supposed to be easy to catch had caused quite the commotion.

Fortunately, since Pandora had reinforced the house with super interstellar alloy and ghost energy barriers after Anwina had scared Ding Ling into screaming and demolishing the living room during her first visit, the ongoing chaos had yet to destroy my unlucky house—at least not yet.

"Lord Brother! Step aside!"

As I was busy leaping high to grab the flying doll girl, a sudden shout from a dull cat angel came from behind. Surprised, I turned around just in time to see a barrage of pristine white feathers covering the sky headed my way.

...Idiot, don’t attack and then tell others to move!

Narrowly escaping the barrage created by Alaya, I landed with a thud.

The playful angel Sister, seeing Mercury Lamp’s attack of black feathers, copied the move with her own holy light feathers, excitedly firing back. The spacious living room immediately turned into a stage of barrages, with a storm of black and white feathers sweeping through the air. Alaya and Mercury Lamp, while unleashing massive attacks, continuously moved through the barrage—strictly speaking, Alaya’s ability to dodge was rather weak, relying purely on her bug-riddled angel envoy physique to withstand the attacks, while Mercury Lamp, with her nimble figure and the opponent’s rookie skills, dodged through the attacks effortlessly, making it seem like Alaya was a boss with high health and attack but low skills and Mercury Lamp resembled a player with low health and attack but cunning skills, energetically clearing what seemed to be the final boss named Alaya. If there was indeed a controller behind Mercury Lamp, there’s no doubt it would be a sadistic otaku at tentacle-level.

Bubbles, standing next to me, looked up at the two battling with the barrages mid-air, muttering to himself, "Nice barrage, nice dodging... The young hero has fine skills..."

Bubbles’ muttering snapped me back to my senses, and I immediately shouted skywards:

"Alaya you idiot! This isn’t the Red Demon Mansion, stop playing Touhou here!"

"Boom!!" Almost as soon as my shout ended, the house... finally leaked.

Lined with flagship-level super interstellar alloy and always protected by ghost energy, the roof, which was considered absolutely indestructible on Earth, finally leaked due to Alaya’s unrestrained attacks.

As the barrage ceased with Alaya’s lament of "I’ve caused trouble!", the dumb angel knew to hit the brakes in an emergency, while Mercury Lamp froze in shock on the spot.

Those seemingly harmless feathers... were actually that... powerful!

Even with all my strength, I could not leave a slightest trace on these peculiarly stubborn walls and ceiling, but she had blasted a huge hole directly through the roof!

While Mercury Lamp was still dazed, a group of violent characters finally found their chance and swarmed the little doll girl that had caused such great chaos, pinning her under a virtual Luohan Mountain.

(Note: Mercury Lamp’s chairman title: In Japanese, "light" from her name corresponds to "party" in Chinese, hence Mercury Lamp’s fans call themselves the Mercury Party, making our Lord Mercury Lamp naturally the chairman of the Mercury Party—actually this note is completely useless.) (To be continued, for more please visit www.qidian.com, more Chapters, support the author, support authorized reading!)