Invincible frame! And still charging money!

The loud crash and the ground shaking came without warning, so violently that Reg’s small body staggered.

Reg stabilized himself and cautiously looked towards the source of the vibration, which was not far behind and to his side. Smoke and dust were slowly dispersing, revealing a huge impact crater. At the bottom of the pit, a figure was painfully curled up, letting out suppressed, intermittent shrieks.

“Such fake acting, let me escape!” Reg started to run, but then glanced at the battered figure, quickly ducked behind a large tree. He observed the sky and other directions, and only cautiously emerged from behind the tree half an hour later.

It was neither an ordinary Youkai nor a human.

She had dazzling purple hair, the color of the purest amethyst, but it was currently dull and spread out in the dirt. She wore a complex, multi-colored gown that looked like it was made of the most tattered fabrics. Now, the clothes were covered in tears and charred burn marks, the vibrant colors stained and muddied by dirt and dark red blood.

Most striking was the strangely shaped crown hovering above her head, which looked like a balance scale or an archway and automatically changed color. But at the moment, this crown, a symbol of the market and transactions, was emitting an unstable hum, its light flickering as if about to go out at any moment.

An extremely chaotic and debilitating aura emanated from her. It wasn’t just simple physical trauma; it was more like a severe weakening after her foundation was violently shaken.

The purple-haired woman gasped with difficulty; every word seemed to exhaust her strength. “Ah, my contracts have collapsed! Save me! I am the strongest God in the world, the God of the Market!”

The next moment after speaking, she passed out completely, as if relieved of a heavy burden.

Reg recognized her: Tenkyuu Chimata, the Goddess of the Market and Transactions in Gensokyo. Yet, here the Market God lay battered at the bottom of the pit, tormented and near death by the backlash of her own power.

Isn’t this the Mad-Cotton-Quilt-Girl Chimata from the Touhou Project? Is she cosplaying as a padded jacket today?

“In that past era, Chimata, you never seemed to have been truly strong.” Reg spoke flatly, tracing the wounds on Chimata’s body.

Her wounds were shocking. A power discordant with divine authority was eroding her arm; divine power and the backlash force clashed and entangled within her body, causing the edges of the wounds to continuously twist like living things, necrosis and regeneration happening simultaneously, bringing endless pain and preventing normal healing.

Alright, she’s beyond saving. Hmm, wait, maybe there is a way to save her?

Reg wrinkled his small brow. He wasn’t overcome with medical compassion, but the sight was indeed miserable. More importantly, he instantly saw the core problem: the foul backlash power clinging to the wounds. Without severing it, even the strongest self-healing ability would be useless.

“Tch, what a bother. I hope I don’t get entangled. It’ll be great if I can get some payment.” Reg muttered under his breath, his tone irritable, but his steps did not stop. He walked to the edge of the pit and crouched down, his small figure insignificant next to the tall Chimata.

“Hey, are you still awake, Goddess of the Market? You’re badly hurt. If you move carelessly, you’ll die.” To prevent being outsmarted by a master strategist, Reg poked the Chimata in front of him with a wooden stick.

Chimata forced open her heavy eyelids, completely devoid of her usual optimism. She looked at the boy in front of her, who was dressed in rags, had a youthful face, yet had eyes unnervingly calm for a child. She weakly asked, “Who are you…?”

This guy feels like a mix of everything? He combines a lot of strange features, but his actual appearance is ordinary. Yet, he seems very, very familiar?

That’s him! Even if he changed his appearance! Tenkyuu Chimata wouldn’t forget. Relying on the scent of his soul, Chimata hid the calculations in her heart.

“Just a passing Kamen Rider!” Reg answered simply, his gaze sweeping over the most severe wounds on her body, especially the one on her shoulder blade. “You have a foreign substance inside you. Your divine power is contaminated and entangled, so the wounds can’t heal themselves. If you want to live, it has to be cut out.” He intentionally emphasized the word “cut.”

“Who exactly are you? How do you know so much about me?” A flicker of surprise crossed Chimata’s eyes.

Cut out the divine power backlash? That was easier said than done! That power was connected to her core essence. Forcefully stripping it away could result in her soul being scattered with the slightest mistake. But looking at the boy’s unwavering eyes, which didn’t seem to be joking, and feeling the uncontrollable pain and loss of life force within her, the instinct for survival overpowered everything else.

“Is there a way to solve my situation? I’m willing to give you the abilities I’ve acquired through transactions.” Tenkyuu Chimata grasped at a lifeline.

“I’ll give it a try.” Reg shrugged indifferently, his demeanor a strange contrast to his small stature. He extended his right hand, spread his fingers, and then brought them together like a knife. A faint but extremely pure and concentrated streak of white light silently appeared at his fingertip—it was his residual Flawless Sword Ki.

Oh no, I’m going to die. All my nutrition is going to be squeezed dry!

《Acquired Protection: Battlefield Doctor》

“Endure it. It might hurt a bit. My control is extremely weak right now.” Reg warned, but his hand moved without the slightest hesitation. His eyes instantly became incredibly focused, as if the entire world consisted only of the gruesome wound and the power tangled within it.

The white light at his fingertip, driven by his will, probed into the huge laceration as if it possessed a life of its own.

《Acquired Protection: Saint of Medicine》

The world instantly became transparent, and everything began to appear as it truly was in his vision.

Sizzle…

An almost inaudible soft sound, like a red-hot blade cutting through sand, quickly turning the sand into glass. Reg’s invisible blade precisely avoided Chimata’s crucial divine power channels and organs. Like the most skilled surgeon operating under a microscope, he precisely cut into the boundary where the divine power and the backlash force were tangled.

There were no unnecessary movements, no trace of trembling. His finger made extremely subtle movements inside the wound, scraping, peeling, and cutting. With every movement, tendrils of black, sludge-like backlash energy were sliced away from Chimata’s divine essence by the pure sword Ki.

《Acquired Protection: Divine Being Will Always Drop Loot》

As soon as this foul energy was separated, it was immediately consumed by the sharp aura contained within the sword Ki itself.

Chimata’s body trembled violently, and she let out a groan of pain she couldn’t suppress. The pain of stripping was far worse than a knife cut; it was agony reaching the soul’s core. But she also clearly felt that as the sludge was being cleared, the continuous corrosive sensation and the force blocking healing in the wound were suddenly greatly reduced! The previously wild, conflicting divine power within her seemed to find a moment to breathe and reorganize.

Reg’s movements were steady and swift. He was like a master sculptor, using sword Ki as a carving knife, meticulously cleaning the inside of the trauma.

《Acquired Protection: Fatigue Resistance》

Sweat beaded on his tender forehead. This delicate, microscopic operation was a considerable burden on his currently weak body and mind.

The huge laceration on the shoulder blade was cleaned, followed by a deep, bone-piercing puncture wound on her arm, and then a wound on her leg… time slowly passed.

After what felt like a long time, Reg finally withdrew his hand, and the white light at his fingertip dissipated. He took a slight breath, his small face pale, but his eyes remained clear.

Looking at Tenkyuu Chimata, although still utterly weak, covered in blood and grime, and pale as a sheet, the biggest change was in her aura: the chaotic sense of continuous decay and conflict was gone. Although her divine power was still faint, it was like a turbulent, muddy flood being channeled into a steady river, no longer fiercely backlashing against herself.

While the wounds were still gruesome, their edges finally stopped that eerie necrosis and twisting, beginning to take the shape of normal wounds, slowly but steadily healing themselves.

Chimata felt the changes in her body. Though the immense pain had nearly exhausted her, the removal of the fatal contamination was like a great weight being lifted from her chest. She sighed with a hint of relief, looking up at the mysterious little boy before her, her eyes filled with shock and the gratitude of survival. Her voice was still weak, but held a touch more vitality.

“You saved me… this kindness…”

“Let’s worry about kindness later. Just don’t say anything about offering yourself.” Reg interrupted her. He clapped his small, dirt-covered hands, his gaze sweeping over Chimata’s slender figure, instantly unfazed.

A thought, very simple and practical, became clear in his mind.

“Goddess of the Market, can you give me some money? Or give me some abilities?” Reg crouched by the edge of the pit, tilting his head, showing a calculating smile that was strangely mismatched with his age.

“Look, your injuries haven’t fully healed, right? It will probably take time for your divine power to fully recover. If something else happens during this time, or if the wounds get infected or worsen… someone has to take care of you, right?”

Chimata paused, momentarily failing to grasp what he was suggesting.

Reg pointed to himself. “I, just so happen to know a bit of surgical skill—emergency treatment, post-operative care, infection prevention, and so on… I can do it all. I’m what you call an all-knowing, all-capable talent. A talent absolutely necessary during a revolution.”

He paused, his dark eyes sparkling, his tone utterly candid. “So… Goddess of the Market, do you need to hire a private doctor? Fair price, no deception to young or old. Your life, after all, must be worth something, right? Conveniently, I’m… quite short on money lately.”

“Are you…?” Tenkyuu Chimata’s eyes widened. She seemed to be guessing who this person in front of her was. The beloved priest of the gods, the charming Youkai who captivated mortals and brought misfortune to the world.

“Me? I must really have been forgotten. My name is Flawless Swordsman! Shouldn’t you reward me for saving your little life with a roll? The kind with an invincibility frame!”

“Aren’t you the ‘Heavenly Purity Charm Lord’ known as the iron-blooded priest?”

“Huh? No, I’m Flawless! Formally! You naive Goddess! Shouldn’t you respectfully salute me when you meet me?”

《Acquired Temporary Protection: Anti-Divine Being Special Attack • Strong》

Reg was about to relax his guard when, suddenly, a binding contract power trapped him. In an instant, his finger moved slightly, and a massive force erupted with a violent flash, like a weapon being unsheathed. An area 20 meters in diameter was completely scorched black, but thankfully it avoided Chimata’s body.

Reg had mostly recovered due to the passage of time.

“Ah, my bad. If I relax my guard, and then tense up again, it can be deadly. Could you please remind me next time you use a contract?”

“Ah, understood.”

《Protection Cap Reached》

《Hero’s True Chapter Loading…》

《Failure. Current world unable to communicate for investment.》

How awful, I can’t get assistance from the world? Is this world entity unconscious?

Reg began to contemplate. He managed to sort out his memories.

《Removed Protection: Stamina Recovery》

《Acquired Protection: High Intelligence Deduction》

He mentally separated the two memories: one was Reg, the Ordinary Person, his fundamental nature. The other was the tragic Hero, the power gained from loading the group chat.

The group chat’s original purpose was only for chatting or mutually learning abilities, but for some reason, it now had strange additional functions. This puzzled Reg greatly.

And according to the description, the one called Dark Fairy Tale [Omniscient and Omnipotent] seemed terrifyingly strong. Not only was he designation number one, but he could cross worlds and influence the rules of other worlds, even changing some world fundamentals. This included, but was not limited to, the four fundamental forces, the world’s speed, and even transforming a no-magic world into an extreme-martial-arts world. His favorite thing to do was load systems onto other worlds, namely the “Automatic Life Strategy System.”

Although Reg was sharing his memory in some sense, that memory was boundless and layered with high-level encryption. To prevent his own brain from being polluted, that gentleman helped him eliminate the cost after sharing.

So, he could change his designation from Ordinary Person to Shared-Entity.

It seemed he had become a platform, capable of mutually transmitting the most basic, essential self-characteristic abilities with others through a value of tacit understanding.

But the number of people seemed very small right now…