As Pei Guang prepared to continue looting, he noticed Firefly and Sparkle staring eagerly from the side.
Feeling their gazes, Pei Guang urged impatiently: "What are you looking at? Help out already~ with this many bodies, how long do you think I'd take on my own?"
Firefly: "I can?"
Pei Guang: "Of course. You already said we're a team."
Sparkle didn't say much. She walked up to a Bloodhound, reached into their pocket, and her eyes widened when she pulled something out.
She had taken out seventy Clock Credits. Holding the stack, Sparkle stared at Pei Guang with wide eyes, biting her lip: "Is… this what you need?"
Not wanting to be outdone, Firefly also got to work, and successfully pulled a turret component from another enemy's pocket.
Seeing their success, Pei Guang couldn't help but praise them: "Perfect. With your help, we'll save tons of time. You two loot, I'll work on tower construction."
With the three of them working together, progress sped up quickly.
As Pei Guang considered where to place the towers, he glanced at the terrain, but nowhere seemed ideal.
Then his eyes fell on the trash cans around him.
Originally, he had planned to use the terrain for sniping positions.
But as he built, he realized: mounting the towers on the trash cans themselves worked better than putting them on the ground.
Trash cans could move. If you mounted a tower on them, they became mobile turrets.
With the cans' mobility and the towers' firepower, even an ordinary can could handle many enemies. And if it was the giant trash can…
Pei Guang's gaze burned as it fell on the giant can. Feeling his stare, the giant can flexed its muscles.
Pei Guang got to work, but the Bloodhound Family wasn't idle either. After realizing the enemy had backup, they quickly mobilized more hounds to surround them.
Chadwick's identity absolutely could not be exposed, so the Bloodhounds declared that they were "here to capture traitors to the family." With intelligence from earlier, this time they came heavily armed, bringing only elites—more than five hundred in total.
Last time, they were outnumbered and overwhelmed by the trash cans. But this time, the Bloodhounds felt certain they wouldn't lose.
The hounds advanced, crossing the Dreamweaver's path and reaching the rooftop where Pei Guang and the others hid. But when they arrived and saw the scene before them, every one of them swallowed hard.
The trash cans that had previously fought with their bodies alone now had turrets mounted on them.
Some cans had towers bolted onto their fronts, backs, and even their lids. The giant can, meanwhile, had become like a mobile fortress, bristling with weapons.
The unarmed cans exuded an icy aura from their seams as they glared at the Bloodhounds.
Damn it! They'd been targeted by trash cans!
Every can loved the gifts bestowed by the King of Trash. Especially after trying out these turrets, they all agreed they were the perfect tool for recycling garbage.
Next time they met anyone who refused to throw trash in the can, they could use the turrets to "encourage" proper disposal.
But! The King's gifts were too few. The cans understood why: there weren't enough materials.
So where would they get more? From the enemies' bodies, of course. With those, the King of Trash could arm them all.
For the King's gifts, and to ensure people properly threw trash away in the future, the cans burst forth with a powerful aura.
Though they were fewer in number, their morale and armaments gave them the edge. They struck first against the Bloodhounds.
As the battle raged, trash cans across Penacony's various dreams also felt the call of their King.
At the Golden Hour, the can beneath Sunday suddenly sensed something as it was communicating with him. It lifted its lid to see a message carried by a broken garbage bag.
[ At the Dream's Edge, our King of Trash is under attack. ]
In that instant, the can boiled with fury.
Someone dared to attack their revered King? They would show the offenders they had provoked the wrong trash can.
Without hesitation, the can turned away from Sunday and marched off.
Sunday blinked at the sudden departure and asked: "My friend~ may I ask what urgent matter has arisen? Do you require the family's assistance?"
The one before him was a proper Preservation Emanator. Such pure Preservation power demanded respect from the family.
That was why, ever since the can had arrived, Sunday had personally entertained it. It interfered with other duties, but if it meant gaining even a sliver of goodwill from a Preservation Emanator, it was worth it for Penacony.
At his question, the can simply waved and strode away.
Sunday could sense its response, but when he processed its abstract words, he didn't know what expression to make.
The can's answer was simple: "The King calls me. I must aid my King!"
A Preservation Emanator trash can… that pledged loyalty to a King? Wait, how could that be? It was already an Emanator of Preservation, yet it still served another? And if that "other" was also a trash can—did that mean there was a trash can Aeon? A trash can Aeon—what Path would that even be?
And at that moment, it wasn't just that one: every trash can in Penacony sensed the message carried by the garbage bag.
Even those not summoned by Pei Guang, upon feeling that their King had been insulted, rose up and began marching in the same direction.
Meanwhile, in the Astral Express family group chat…
March 7th: "Ah Guang~ Stelle, I found something you two will love. Look, the trash cans in Penacony grew legs! And not just legs: they're all marching in the same direction!"
March 7th: "Eh? Where are you guys? Normally you reply in seconds~"
March 7th: "Ah Guang! Stelle! Are you okay?!!!"
At first, March 7th just wanted to share a funny moment. But when she saw that neither Pei Guang nor Stelle replied in the chat, an uneasy feeling crept up on her.
As for Pei Guang and Stelle? They had no time to reply.
One was on the other side of the Dream's Edge, turning it into something like a Trailblazer's plaza of carnage, while the other was busy strapping turrets onto trash cans and fighting the Bloodhound Family.
Originally, the Bloodhounds still remembered what they were supposed to be doing. But as the fight dragged on and their numbers swelled, they themselves lost track of it.
All they knew was that they had to destroy every trash can in front of them.
The problem was: they couldn't. Not only could they not destroy them, but as time went on, more and more of their comrades were either forced out of the dream or captured alive.
And with every captured comrade, the trash cans' arsenal only grew stronger.
Damn it—they had never seen a world where trash cans got stronger the longer the fight went on. The more they fought, the more weapons and equipment those cans acquired.
At this point, they could no longer win against them...