"Aha stood up for you! After kicking his butt, I drew soap and a clown mask on his neck with an ink pen, haha!"
Adrian stayed silent. Aha had had its fun, doing whatever it pleased, but that damn trickster used his face! Now the blame was entirely on him!
"I was thoughtful enough to wipe all the surveillance data and even left behind the soap your church loves to use!"
"Filled a whole bathtub with it!" The mask let out a smug laugh, relentlessly pestering Adrian.
"Don't you think it's hilarious? Aha!"
Adrian shook his head. "Wait till Oswaldo Schneider wakes up. I'll disguise myself as an [Elation] follower and beat him again. That way, I can pin the blame back on you."
"Oh~ That'd be so much fun! Why don't we do it now? That human would give us plenty of laughs."
"Sigh, a fanatic of [Preservation], willing to do anything to achieve his goals. How could someone like that ever be a Nameless?"
"You're one to talk," Adrian said, his mouth twitching. Aha's antics didn't even need listing.
"Right? Aha's the worst Nameless! Waaah~ No, wait—you're the worst Nameless now, Aha! I've passed the blame to you!"
"Aha almost feels bad for you. Framed again yesterday—bet you're so mad you're crying, screaming, and rolling on the floor, waaah~ Poor thing!"
Adrian: …
"Get lost."
He swatted the mask away. He'd planned to slack off for a few days before the Antimatter Legion showed up, but Aha had stirred everything up.
Still… Oswaldo Schneider wouldn't wake anytime soon, so Adrian wasn't worried. He had an alibi, after all.
Knowing Aha's nature, it probably revealed its identity on the spot, telling Schneider to burn his face into his memory.
Oh, you damn aeon of shenanigans—if I ever catch you, I'll stuff a sock in your mouth and kick your butt!
He opened his phone, finding a contact with a centaur avatar.
[Adrian: Send me a Cloud-Piercing Arrow. Urgent.]
Five minutes later.
[Lan: Hold on.]
[System Prompt: Light Arrow charging…]
[Adrian: Stop!]
[System Prompt: Light Arrow charge halted.]
[Adrian: Use the teleport device I gave you. Don't blast through the entire star system.]
Another five minutes passed.
[Lan: Okay.]
Talk about peak NPC vibes.
A faint digital portal appeared, revealing only darkness within.
Whoosh!
A light arrow brimming with immense imaginary energy shot out. Adrian caught it just in time, keeping it under control.
Good grief—if he hadn't caught it, the space station would've gone boom.
As a thank-you, Adrian tossed a bar of soap into the portal.
[Adrian: Use it when you bathe.]
Ten minutes later.
[Lan: Mm.]
Conversation over. Adrian looked at the struggling light arrow in his hand. Its original target was supposed to be the [Abundance] Yaoshi, but now it was his.
He loved tinkering with others' weapons. If Cloud-Piercer had more than one spearhead, he'd have turned it into a rapid-fire machine gun by now.
Years ago, he'd upgraded Lan's weapon. With the power of [Finality], it didn't need coordinates—just belief—and it could lock onto enemies across space and time.
[Eternity] and [Finality] were such a perfect match. Shame Adrian hadn't seen the Terminus in millennia; he'd gotten that ability from the system.
[Eternity · Finality]: Allows the target to traverse any space or time, to any location.
Whether Lan's light arrow could originally chase targets across dimensions didn't matter to Adrian. He'd upgraded it anyway—before, it needed coordinates; now, a mere thought could rain meteors on someone.
But the skill Adrian was about to use wasn't that one.
Holding the arrow in one hand, he opened a video app with the other, selecting the Xianzhou Luofu channel and entering a livestream.
Livestream Assistant: Welcome annual member 口十彳氵亍 to the livestream!
In the stream, a girl with orange-red hair was stretching, a hammer placed nearby. A brown-haired girl had just dragged over a massive boulder.
"Come take a look! Little Gui's performing the long-lost Chest-Crush-Boulder act today! No mistakes this time, right, Shangshang?" She patted the girl beside her, who was taking deep breaths.
"Welcome Boss Adrian to the livestream!"
Guinaifen looked up, catching the assistant's message.
"Uncle Adrian? Isn't he off traveling?"
"Come on, Shangshang, who says you can't watch Little Gui's stream while traveling? What's Boss Ye wanna see this time? Name it, and Little Gui's got you!"
Livestream Assistant: 口十彳氵亍 sent Reignbow Light Arrow x999. You're now #1 on the popularity, hourly, and Xianzhou charts!
Livestream Assistant: Congratulations on breaking the record for fastest chart-topping! Keep it up!
"Wow, Boss Adrian, what's this?! So many Cloud-Piercing Arrows—you love Little Gui that much!"
口十彳氵亍: Look up for a once-in-a-century single meteor.
Guinaifen and Sushang did as told, gazing skyward.
"My old friend, ready to catch a Cloud-Piercing Arrow?"
Adrian surged with energy, channeling imaginary energy into the light arrow again.
[Eternity · The Hunt]: Designate a target as [The Hunt]'s prey. Attacks will auto-track and hit with absolute precision!
(System Prompt: I'm about to unleash an epic attack!)
"Here's our blood-pumping combo move!"
"Target: [Elation] Aha!"
"Here comes the Cloud-Piercing Arrow~"
He stepped back, hurling the light arrow into the digital portal. As it closed, a deafening sonic boom echoed through the cosmos.
He counted down in his mind:
"Ten… nine… eight…"
The arrow streaked across star systems at transcendent speed, zeroing in on its target.
...
Xianzhou Luofu, Golden Lane.
"Wow, Shangshang, look! A real meteor! But why's there only one?"
Guinaifen whipped out her telescope, but the meteor was too fast to catch.
"That… that didn't look like a meteor…"
Sushang swallowed hard, still reeling from the massive sound.
Who's got pure black meteors? That's kinda terrifying.
"Seven… six… five…"
The black light arrow leaped between planets, overflowing with imaginary energy.
...
Jarilo-VI, blanketed in snow, the next stop for the Astral Express after leaving the space station.
At Qlipoth Fort, Supreme Guardian Cocolia watched a black meteor streak across the sky, her eyes complex.
[Cocolia… Cocolia… Remember our plan… Rebuild this dying world…]
The eerie voice in her mind cut off abruptly. Her brain went blank, and she collapsed to her knees, gasping heavily, chest heaving.
In the sky, the scattered imaginary energy seemed to gain sentience, converging on Cocolia and seeping into her mind, bringing a wave of excruciating pain.
"What's happening…"
Unable to bear it, Cocolia's vision went dark, and she fainted.
...
"Four… three… two…"
Somewhere in the universe, an elf girl with a magic staff stood amid the wreckage of the Antimatter Legion, utterly unfazed.
"Boring." She kicked aside a Doomsday Beast's head. Even on vacation, she ran into the Antimatter Legion rushing in—hardly peaceful.
There was a Destruction Lord leading them, called Blaze or something?
Didn't matter. When he learned she was from the Eternity Church, he attacked without a word.
No wonder that lord despised them—violent, destruction-obsessed lunatics like these didn't deserve to join the Eternity Church.
After showing the Destruction Lord the gap in their strength, he ditched his legion and fled.
"I offered you a chance to join [Eternity], but you couldn't understand Elvish."
Funny thing—she'd planned to visit Belobog yesterday to spread the beauty of [Eternity], but something had already gone down there.
With a "the more chaos, the better" mindset, she looked into it. Apparently, some big shot from the Market Department got attacked.
To her, that guy must've been a nonbeliever in [Eternity] to get beaten. If he'd been a follower, would he have had so much trouble?
Reject [Eternity], and your life's doomed to failure.
"Why hasn't Ad… cough, Lord Ite, cast THEIR gaze in centuries? Is [Paradise] not being managed well?"
THEY had said not to blow THEIR cover.
Whoosh!
A black light arrow grazed her cheek, vanishing in a blink.
The girl froze, touching the warm blood on her face, closing her eyes to feel the lingering energy.
"Is it you calling me…?" She looked toward the arrow's origin, eyes brimming with excitement, recalling THEIR words:
[Little one, I love what the Galaxy Rangers say: The Reignbow strikes at light speed… Whoops, wrong line. One Cloud-Piercing Arrow, and a thousand armies will come!]
[Galaxy Rangers… Cloud-Piercing Arrow?]
Back then, the girl had an idea:
[Then let's use Cloud-Piercing Arrows to rally in the future!]
[Huh? No need for that… It's kinda cringe. Anyway, let's talk about another group, the Mask of Fools and the Mourning Actors…]
Even now, she remembered that moment vividly.
"A thousand years later, your message finally reaches my ears!" Her chuuni soul was ablaze!
...
"One…"
The countdown hit zero. Adrian snapped his fingers.
At that same moment, somewhere else in the universe:
"OWW~!!!"
A shadowy figure wearing an [Elation] mask clutched its butt, letting out a scream that echoed across the cosmos.