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"The investigation into Blade's whereabouts... the clues stopped at the Exalting Sanctum. I need to ask the Cloud Knights on duty there."
Yanqing had already tracked the breadcrumbs to the heart of the Sanctum. Eager to prove his worth and lift the burden from the General's shoulders, the boy had taken it upon himself to hunt the Stellaron Hunter.
"Hmm? Is this... Senior Uncle-Master Kenta and his group?"
While scouring the recording archives of the Exalting Sanctum, Yanqing's eyes widened. On the screen, he saw footage of the Astral Express crew's arrival. He saw Kenta, looking exactly as the General had described, walking alongside the gray-haired girl and the pink-haired one. He casually saved the file to his personal cloud—evidence of his diligent investigation.
Eventually, his search pointed to a single hijacked starskiff.
"It seems the docks are my next stop."
Without hesitation, Yanqing set off, soon arriving at the restricted wharf. Due to the Stellaron's corruption, the area was a ghost town. The Cloud Knights had long since evacuated the civilians, leaving behind only the low groans of the monsters lurking in the fog.
"Hmm?"
The young man knelt by a fallen monster. "These wounds... they aren't from a Cloud Knight's standard-issue saber. They're too precise, too clean."
A spark of excitement lit up his face. He was close. He followed the trail of fallen Abominations, but instead of finding the man in bandages, he found a woman surrounded by a pack of snarling beasts.
"!!!"
"How are there still civilians here? The local guards are truly incompetent," he muttered, unsheathing his flying swords with a sharp metallic ring. "Hey! Don't panic! I'll handle this!"
The swords danced through the air like silver lightning. In a flurry of steel and frost, the monsters were decimated before they could even turn their heads.
"Big sister, are you alright?" Yanqing jogged toward the woman. She stood with her back to him, her white hair and silken robes swaying gently in the salt-tinged breeze of the port.
"Thank you for your help, little brother," she said. Her voice was cool and clear, like water flowing over moonlight.
"Oh, it's just my duty. But the port is under blockade. Why are you here alone?"
The woman seemed to ponder the question for a moment. "I arrived on a merchant ship. Recently, the shadows of several old friends have been swirling in my mind. I wanted to meet them... to relive old times." She paused, a hint of dark amusement in her tone. "Who would have thought the Luofu would be this dangerous now?"
As she spoke, she turned around.
Yanqing's breath caught. Across her eyes was a black silk veil, contrasting sharply with her pale skin. "Ah? You... you can't see?"
The woman didn't confirm or deny it, which Yanqing took as a silent 'yes.'
"My name is Yanqing, an official Cloud Knight. May I ask for your name, big sister?" he asked, his tone softening out of respect for her "disability."
"My name is Jingliu."
She stood there like a celestial maiden descended from the stars. Her white hair was tinged with a faint, icy blue at the ends, and the black veil added a layer of lethal mystery to her delicate features.
"Sister Jingliu, I'll escort you," Yanqing offered. "It might be a detour, but I promise to get you safely to a Cloud Knight outpost."
Jingliu didn't object. As they walked, more Abominations and Disciples of Sanctus Medicus lunged from the shadows. Yanqing dispatched them all with a cocky, youthful flair.
"Little brother, your swordsmanship is quite good," Jingliu remarked after he struck down a particularly large foe.
Yanqing blinked. "You... can see?"
"I can hear," she replied simply. "The whistling of the blades, the sound of the air being sliced... these traces reveal the soul of your technique. You are among the best the Knights have to offer."
"Haha, you flatter me!"
"However," her tone shifted, becoming sharp as a razor. "You focus too much on the flash of the offense and do not know how to conceal your edge. Your swordplay is... messy."
Yanqing raised an eyebrow. No one had dared to call his technique "messy" since the General. They spent the next twenty minutes debating the finer points of the blade. Eventually, the conversation turned to his lineage. When Yanqing mentioned his master was Jing Yuan, Jingliu went noticeably still.
"What a pity," Yanqing continued, unaware of the shift. "General Jing Yuan told me that my Senior Uncle-Master's swordsmanship is peerless. I wanted to spar with him, to ask for guidance, but he's been so busy since he arrived today. I missed my chance."
His voice was full of genuine regret. He truly wanted to learn from the man the General respected so much.
If Kenta had heard this, he would have laughed and said: "Kid, I mostly just hit people with the scabbard because I'm too lazy to sharpen the blade."
But Kenta wasn't there. Jingliu was.
"..."
She stopped walking. Her aura, previously cool and calm, began to churn like a brewing storm.
"Little brother," she spoke, her voice carrying a faint, dangerous tremor. "This 'Senior Uncle-Master' you speak of..."
Yanqing looked at her, confused. "Hmm? Big sister, do you know him? That shouldn't be right. According to the General, he's over a thousand years old, and he only just returned to the Luofu today..."
Jingliu didn't let him finish. "Little brother! Your Uncle-Master—what is his name?!"
The urgency and the sudden spike of—was that irritation? No, it was something more intense—made Yanqing's skin crawl.
"Oh... his name is Kenta. He's a Trailblazer on the Astral Express."
Silence.
Jingliu bowed her head, her long eyelashes trembling beneath the black veil. Then, a sound escaped her.
"...Haha... hahahaha... HAHAHAHAHA!"
The laughter grew from a low simmer to a hysterical, bone-chilling roar. It wasn't the laughter of someone who had heard a joke; it was the laughter of someone whose heart had just been reignited by a thousand-year-old grudge.
Yanqing's hair stood on end. He sensed it—she was on the verge of falling into the Mara-Struck state. He instinctively drew his six flying swords, his expression turning deadly serious.
"...Kenta! This time, there is nowhere left for you to hide! Hahahaha!"
Jingliu's aura exploded. The temperature of the port plummeted, frost creeping over the jade containers.
"Little brother, I thank you for this news. This sword strike is my gratitude. How much you can survive... depends entirely on your own talent, Jing Yuan's little apprentice!"
Before Yanqing could even gasp, a magnificent wave of sword intent, cold and bright as a falling moon, slashed toward him.
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