Living Planets—an anomaly so terrifying and spectacular that they were considered legends even within the Sea of Quanta.
In essence, they were ordinary planets operating under standard physical laws that, due to external interference, underwent a fundamental mutation.
No longer dead, easily exploited rocks waiting to be mined, they were bestowed with consciousness and life, transforming into planet-sized biological weapons.
[Simply put, it's a planetary-level cancer mutating the very foundation of its existence!] Yunli wrote rapidly in the Blood-Written Diary, her expression grim. [A complete, fundamental inversion from pure inorganic matter into an active biological lifeform!]
Compared to Fuli and the others who were born in the Proper World, the Master Artisan of the Zhuming, who had access to the Alliance's deepest classified archives, undoubtedly understood this kind of entity better than anyone else present.
The reason was simple. Cangcheng, one of the Alliance's most prosperous Xianzhou ships, had been completely devoured by a similar Living Planet known as the World-Devourer, Rahu. Less than one in ten thousand lives survived, dealing an incalculably devastating blow to the Alliance of that era.
[And the most fatal part is...] Yunli couldn't help but sigh, the strokes of her pen turning heavy. [Right now, we are sitting directly inside the belly of a planet that is currently undergoing activation!]
[Fortunately, judging from our current environment, the planet's activation is still a work in progress. It hasn't fully gestated into an independent lifeform yet. Otherwise, we—no, everything on this planet, including the Borisin army—would have already been digested and turned into nutrients to fuel its growth!]
Was that an exaggeration? Not at all.
When a celestial body was forcefully reformed into a Living Planet, the very first thing to collapse was its internal energy ecosystem. It would instantly devolve into a hyper-gargantuan predator.
To sustain its own massive vitals, it would greedily and efficiently siphon all available energy from its core, its surface, and the surrounding space—be it geothermal heat, tectonic kinetic energy, or ambient Quantum Tides.
Fueled by this astronomical influx of energy, the very matter constituting the planet would begin to rearrange itself. Mountains would calcify into bone structures, rivers would mutate into blood vessels, and subterranean minerals would weave into a nervous system.
The composition of the soil, atmosphere, and oceans would be violently warped, becoming completely incompatible with—or lethally toxic to—all previous lifeforms.
Continental plates would no longer be slowly drifting geological units, but the moving limbs of a planetary entity. A simple stretch of its "body" would trigger magnitude-ten earthquakes, hyper-tsunamis, and apocalyptic volcanic eruptions.
The crust itself would become so unstable that any civilization built upon it would be crushed like a child's sandcastle.
Even more terrifying was the crushing informational pollution emitted by the planet's newly birthed consciousness. Just the ambient psychic radiation of its existence was enough to drive lower lifeforms completely insane, physically mutating their bodies and twisting their minds.
Furthermore, the Living Planet would generate a horrifying, reality-warping domain that enveloped its entire atmosphere, governed entirely by its own will. Within this domain, its personal laws overrode standard physics.
Just like how the Borisin military array suppressed Yunli and the others' energy projection, the planet could simply decree that fire must freeze, light must bend, or gravity must invert. Anything that failed to adapt to its new laws would disintegrate on the spot.
And that was only a fraction of a Living Planet's true terror. It was a producer capable of absorbing energy on an astronomical scale, and a consumer that devoured all things to add to its own mass!
It was a moving, apocalyptic natural disaster!
"Master..."
Reading Yunli's description, Fuli suddenly recalled fragmented memories revealed by Jingliu during her descents into mara-struck madness between their sword training sessions.
I saw that crimson star they called 'Rahu' hanging high above the cloud-tops of Cangcheng, pulsating endlessly like a beating heart.
Then, its outer shell of rock, tendons, and vines slowly split open, spewing forth countless offspring. It looked both like an insatiable beast gorging itself, and a mother in the throes of labor.
[So, once the planet's activation is complete, whether it's us, the Borisin, or the local flora and fauna, we'll all just be reduced to nutrients or treated as parasites waiting to be purged. We'll lose all meaning and life,] Hyacine wrote, her small hands trembling slightly.
A moment later, she added in confusion: [But I don't understand. Why would the mastermind behind this activate a World Bubble if it means wiping out their own Borisin allies too—]
Halfway through writing, the girl suddenly recalled the terrifying, suicidal fervor of the Borisin soldiers they had just slaughtered. They had actively embraced death.
She shook her head, her expression hardening with resolve. [No matter what, we have to find a way to stop this planet from activating!]
There was a stable Ether Anchor inside the planet they were standing on, yet it was rising toward the Real Universe at a completely illogical speed.
That meant the Living Planet was actively steering itself. If it succeeded in reaching the Luofu, it would trigger a cataclysm no less devastating than the fall of Cangcheng!
"It's not like we have a choice," Fuli tapped his forehead helplessly. "We're trapped here. Our only starskiff capable of navigating the Sea of Quanta is busted. We can't exactly strip naked and swim back through the Quantum Tides with all those monsters out there. That's just elaborate suicide."
Besides...
His mind flashed back to the deeply buried regret in Jingliu's eyes when she described the apocalypse of her homeworld.
In the dark abyss of space, the demon star Rahu wailed and sang, hurling burning continents and mountains at us.
People screamed in the streets, thrashing and rolling in apocalyptic despair as golden vines sprouted uncontrollably from their mouths, noses, and ears.
I watched it all happen right in front of me, and I couldn't move!
I watched it destroy my home, and I could only run away like a coward!
Fuli closed his eyes, slowly letting out a breath of stale air.
I've been her disciple for so long, and I still haven't given my dear master a proper initiation gift. If I can shoot down a Living Planet, even with her astronomically high standards, that would be a hell of a flex, right?
(Illustration: Rebellious Disciple — "Master, I'm taking the front.")
"Everyone, I don't mean to dampen the mood, but since we've established it's a Living Planet, there's a question we can't ignore," Castorice's cool voice rang out softly.
She leaned in, her warm breath gently brushing his earlobe, sending a slight, numbing tingle down his spine. "Who planned and executed all of this?"
Fuli leaned his head away slightly, uncomfortable with the sudden proximity. "If you ask me, there's a 99.9% chance it's that son of a bitch, Shuhu."
That bastard Emanator of Abundance had publicly threatened to make major headlines during the Luminary Wardance. More importantly, at their current Sequence level, only Shuhu possessed the reality-warping authority necessary to activate an entire planet.
Naturally, the price for specializing in these twisted, apocalyptic parlor tricks was that their actual, personal combat strength was an absolute joke compared to other Emanators.
But a joke of an Emanator was still an Emanator. Even if all four of them teamed up right now, they wouldn't even amount to an appetizer for an entity of that caliber.
Thinking of this, Fuli asked: [Li-bao, any luck contacting the Luofu for backup?]
The young swordmaster's reply appeared quickly, the handwriting heavy with frustration: [I already tried the Divine Incantation of the Incense Offering before we even crashed. No dice.]
The Divine Incantation of the Incense Offering was one of the eight core Daoist mantras, specifically designed to bypass local interference and establish a direct, unblockable comm-link to the highest heavenly authorities—usually employed when operatives encountered an enemy they couldn't beat and needed immediate extraction.
Unfortunately, the Borisin forces must have set up extensive anti-divination jammers in advance. As of right now, the Taixu Frontline was entirely unresponsive.
Yunli continued writing: [My current plan is to find a way to repair the starskiff, or at least restore its ability to navigate the Sea of Quanta. We need a backup plan just in case.]
"While she does that, Lord Fuli and I will find a way to rendezvous with everyone."
Castorice raised her wrist. A beautiful, semi-transparent butterfly fluttered gracefully, landing gently on her fingertip.
Zero Red Butterfly. A special spiritual pet raised by the girl. Once it absorbed a drop of a target's blood, it could traverse vast distances to automatically track down the blood's owner.
Before the mission began, Castorice had politely asked her teammates for permission and collected a single drop of blood from each of them. Knowing their general environment didn't mean they knew their exact coordinates—especially in an uncharted world. This foresight was about to pay off massively.
"As expected, it always pays to be prepared," Fuli replied cheerfully, before adding a warning in the diary: [Hya, make sure you and little Ica stay safe out there.]
[Don't worry, Li-bao! I'm super tough!]
Seeing the genuine concern bleeding onto the page, a bright, energetic smile lit up Hyacine's face. She even subconsciously flexed her bicep at the empty air.
"That's for sure," Fuli couldn't resist teasing. "That brutal Heaven-Piercing Cannon uppercut you threw earlier scared the absolute hell out of me. My balls practically retracted back into my stomach."
Balls?
The girl didn't process the crude joke at first, but her extensive medical knowledge quickly caught up with the anatomical implications. Because of her short stature, her upward punch had swung directly at the height of Fuli's family jewels.
Her cheeks instantly burned crimson. [Li-bao! Don't make crude jokes like that!]
"My bad, my bad. But who told our Hya to be so cute even when she's mad? Just reading your text is giving me a serotonin boost."
Fuli put his hands together in a mock apology. Thanks to his crude banter, the suffocating dread brought on by the Living Planet had been significantly diluted.
After exchanging a few more reassurances and agreeing on a set time to sync intelligence every day, the group temporarily stowed their diaries.
"Phew—"
Standing on the beach, Hyacine gently brushed aside the pink hair whipped into her face by the ocean breeze.
She looked out at the endless horizon, a determined smile curling her lips. "From here on out, it really is just the two of us, little Ica!"
"Neigh!"
The chubby pegasus, who was currently splashing in the shallows to wash the dried Borisin blood out of its coat, vigorously shook its wet head, letting out an affectionate and resolute whinny to cheer its master on. It flapped its wings and nudged the Rider's Reins strapped to its back.
"Mhm, I know. Li-bao's strength is with us too." Hyacine pulled out a towel and began drying the pegasus, the vibrant light returning to her emerald eyes. "But we can't just wait around. We need to scout the area and gather some intel. At the very least, we need to map out this coastline."
"Neigh!" Ica whinnied in agreement.
Meanwhile, far away in the mountainous region...
"Fix the ship~ Gotta fix the ship~"
Yunli gave the tiny glass bottle containing the shrunken starskiff a little shake, planning to relocate just to be safe.
Unlike Hyacine, who lacked survival experience and had stayed put on the beach, Yunli had gone into hyper-mobility mode the second she touched down. She had already relocated to a swamp, decided her feet were getting entirely too damp, and was currently preparing to move to a more secure, hidden location to begin repairs.
However, the moment her bare foot took a single step forward—
BOOM—!
A deafening roar ripped through the air! A violent, localized shockwave blasted outward in all directions, throwing up a dense cloud of dust and smoke that eerily coalesced into the shape of a massive, hundred-meter-tall crimson rose!
"Tch!"
Yunli's reaction time was monstrous. The instant the blast triggered, she enveloped herself in a protective aura and violently dashed out of the smoke cloud, though a few traces of ash still clung to her temples.
She furrowed her delicate brows. As a seasoned warrior of the Xianzhou, she immediately recognized the trap.
Blood-Rose Plague Beast.
Upon detonation, not only did it instantly vaporize everything within an eighty-meter radius, but the resulting shockwave released a signature crimson smoke-rose. While its destructive yield seemed lower than a standard thermobaric bomb, the true danger lay in the smoke itself.
It contained a highly specialized pathogen designed specifically to corrode high-tier combatants. If an A-Rank powerhouse took a direct hit without their guard up, there was a massive chance of instant death.
Even if they survived, they would be plunged into a prolonged state of extreme weakness, their combat prowess forcibly suppressed to B-Rank.
It was a classic, dirty "God-Killer" trap.
Naturally, an S-Rank monster like Yunli wasn't going to be taken down by something like this. What she was truly concerned about was how she had been tracked, who the mastermind behind the ambush was, and whether the rest of the Crychic Squad was currently under attack.
Her questions were soon partially answered.
Towering and imposing, seated atop a floating lotus throne, possessing twelve overlapping faces and twelve pairs of jagged fangs.
Surrounded by a horde of terrifyingly elite Borisin warriors who looked at her with fanatical reverence, the figure was continuously praised by the chanting crowd as Seer Mangus.
Decades ago, Jingliu had single-handedly defeated and captured the reigning Borisin Warhead—the nigh-immortal Brood Lord Hoolay—handing him over to the Alliance High Command for eternal imprisonment.
Since that day, the Borisin had fallen into a steep decline, their numbers dwindling under the relentless pincer attacks of the Cloud Knights and other hostile factions.
But in their darkest, most desperate hour, Seer Mangus had appeared.
She commanded the scattered tribes to turn on each other, cannibalizing their weak to forge an even larger, more brutal hunting pack. Guided by Mangus's prophecies, the Borisin began to see hope. They believed she would usher in their grand resurgence.
And this time, Mangus hadn't just perfectly predicted the arrival of the Crychic Squad—deploying two hundred thousand troops to welcome them—she had flawlessly predicted exactly where Yunli would land and every subsequent route she would take.
This terrifying precognition pushed the surrounding Borisin's reverence for the Seer to absolute fanaticism, making their confidence in slaughtering this Xianzhou powerhouse soar to unprecedented heights.
Naturally, this was exactly the effect Mangus wanted.
"Go."
She raised a single finger.
Instantly, over a hundred elite Borisin warriors stepped out of the ranks without a shred of hesitation. Screaming for power and glory, they lunged at Yunli with fanatical grins, violently detonating the Blood-Rose Plague Beasts strapped to their own chests!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
An endless, deafening chain of explosions swallowed the young swordmaster once more.
This time, even someone as monstrously strong as Yunli couldn't help but pant slightly. She was already exhausted from carving through a two-hundred-thousand-man army, and tanking back-to-back suicidal bio-bombs was taking its toll.
But it didn't matter!
If this was the best they had, the young Master Artisan was completely confident she could forcefully endure the blasts until they ran out of suicide bombers, sever the so-called Seer Mangus's head from her shoulders, and walk away alive!
However, the Seer seemed to have anticipated this as well. Unhurried, she snapped her fingers and commanded in a raspy, eerily overlapping voice:
"Tole."
"Here." A voice as deep as muffled thunder replied.
"Stall her for thirty-seven seconds."
"Yes, Seer!"
A Borisin warrior, vastly larger and far more physically imposing than any of his kin, stepped forward. He hefted a massive, pitch-black greatsword that was as wide as a door, leaping high into the air.
With the terrifying momentum of a falling meteor threatening to cleave the mountains themselves, he brought the blade crashing down toward Yunli!
Initially, the young swordmaster felt nothing but disdain. Though the warrior's size was intimidating, his aura was only hovering around the Critical-Class level. Even in her current exhausted state, swatting him out of the sky would be effortless.
However, just as Yunli habitually raised Ol' Iron to violently bat the man away like the rest of his kin, her gaze accidentally caught the full shape of the pitch-black greatsword in Tole's hands.
In that fraction of a second!
The girl froze as if struck by lightning, her pupils violently dilating!
At the exact same moment, in World Bubble 0241...
"Ugh, it's such a shame Master Yunli couldn't make it. And A-Li too! I was really looking forward to them seeing how cool I look pulling the sword out."
Walking along the rugged mountain path leading up to the summit, Kiana pouted, clasping her hands behind her head.
"They have their own missions to deal with," Yanqing replied, acting as the designated witness and speaking up to defend his junior martial uncle and his unofficial adoptive sister. "Anyway, is this the place your mission mentioned? The altar where you have to prove your swordsmanship to draw the Zhuming Demonic Sword?"
He scanned the completely empty stone pedestal at the peak of the mountain, a look of utter confusion crossing his face. "Where's the sword?"
"Huh? Wait, that's not right! When I secretly snuck up here to try and pull it before, it was right there! A super cool, giant black broadsword!"
Kiana panicked. She rushed forward, frantically circling the painfully barren stone pedestal. "Who did this?! Which bastard stole my sword?!"
"Don't panic, let me check with the local garrison," Yanqing said, gesturing for the agitated white-haired girl to calm down. He raised his wrist, speaking softly into his Cloud Knight comms.
A moment later, he looked up, shaking his head helplessly under Kiana's expectant gaze. "The Cloud Knight brothers stationed nearby just reported that not long ago, Tole—one of the so-called Four Heavenly Kings of the Borisin vanguard—raided this World Bubble. During the pillaging, it seems he was the one who ripped the demonic sword from this altar."
"What?! What am I supposed to do now?!" Kiana looked like she was about to cry.
Failing the mission was one thing, but not being able to show off in front of Fuli and the others afterward was a total catastrophe!
"I'll ask the Divination Commission when we get back and see what we can do," Yanqing sighed, equally at a loss. "Since an unexpected external factor caused the mission to fail, maybe they'll let us make up for it somehow."
"Dammit! That bastard Tole better watch his back! Stealing my weapon? He's gonna pay for this! I'll make him wish he was never born!"
The girl angrily shook her small fists at the sky, grinding her teeth as she threw out the threat. Hissing in frustration, she turned on her heel and stomped aggressively back down the mountain path.
The young Sword Champion watched her stomp away, shrugging with a mixture of amusement and helplessness.
He was just about to follow her down, but as he turned, his eyes casually swept over the empty stone pedestal once more.
His footsteps hitched.
Perhaps it was his trained eye as a Sword Champion acting up, but Yanqing suddenly felt that the empty indentation left behind by the Zhuming Demonic Sword looked incredibly... familiar.
In fact, the indentation looked like it would perfectly, seamlessly fit the massive, door-sized heavy sword that Yunli carried with her everywhere—Ol' Iron?
(Illustration: "Give me a copy for 998!")