Chapter 91: What is the Trailblazer's Secret Technique?
Jarilo-VI reappeared in the vast expanse of the universe just like that, looking as though nothing had ever threatened its existence. Well, of course, that was if one ignored the massive, shimmering aetherial crystal barrier now encasing the entire planet. With its previous destination secured, the Astral Express dissolved into a brilliant streak of starlight and initiated its Warp.
"Eh... so this is the Luofu." March 7th leaned over the railing, her vibrant pink hair catching the artificial sunlight as she gazed out at the sprawling, bustling port of the Xianzhou flagship.
"Yeah." Rekka popped his shoulders, stretching his arms high above his head with a lazy yawn. "Uncle Yang, Delta, and the rest of the crew will be here soon enough."
"—You there!"
A sudden, frantic voice snapped Rekka out of his stretch. He turned to see an entirely unremarkable woman rushing toward him. Her face was pale, her eyes darting around nervously, and her arms were wrapped tightly around a bulky package.
"—Could you please do me a huge favor?"
"Whatever. If I just hacked the port authority's mainframe, we wouldn't have to wait in this stupid line at all. We could just stroll straight through the Jade Gate." Silver Wolf blew a massive pink bubble, letting it pop with a sharp smack before reeling the gum back into her mouth. She leaned against a nearby pillar, her holographic screens hovering idly around her fingertips. "Do you seriously plan on waiting here forever? Besides, the script explicitly says my Aether Editing is required to get us inside."
"Well, that lady just now seemed in a terrible hurry," March 7th reasoned, her hands resting on her hips. "She must be facing some kind of emergency. Otherwise, why would she shove something so obviously important into the hands of complete strangers?"
The four of them—Rekka, March 7th, Stelle, and Silver Wolf—had disembarked from the Astral Express and were currently loitering in the arrivals plaza of the Xianzhou Luofu.
Rekka hefted the mysterious, securely wrapped box in his hands, tossing it lightly to gauge its weight. "But man, what exactly is in this thing? It feels surprisingly dense."
The anxious woman had begged them to wait right where they stood. Rekka, ever the accommodating and slightly chaotic Trailblazer, had deliberately positioned himself in the most open, conspicuous spot in the plaza so she wouldn't miss them upon her return.
"We've been lingering in this exact spot for forty-five minutes, you know," Silver Wolf pointed out, her tone dripping with dry teenage apathy. She raised a delicate eyebrow.
"Why don't we just open it and see what's inside?" Stelle suggested, raising a single finger with deadpan seriousness. Her golden eyes locked onto the package with trash-raccoon curiosity.
"Stelle, that is completely unethical!" March 7th immediately shot down the terrible idea, waving her hands in protest. "We can't just pry into other people's private property!"
"Eh... true." Stelle nodded slowly, lowering her hand, though her gaze never left the box.
"Unethical is unethical, sure," Silver Wolf drawled, her fingers tapping away at an invisible keyboard in the air. "But what if there's a time bomb inside?"
The cheerful atmosphere instantly evaporated. March 7th's expression visibly froze, her bright blue-and-pink eyes widening in horror.
"A-A time bomb?!" she stammered, taking a half-step back. "No way! That girl looked so genuinely panicked. She didn't seem like a bad person at all..."
"Newsflash: bad people don't usually have villain tattooed across their foreheads," Silver Wolf retorted with a dismissive shrug. "I'm just throwing out a hypothetical. Anyway, even if it really does blow up, you Trailblazers have that ridiculous cosmic constitution. It should keep you from instantly dying. You'll probably just have to lie down and take a nap for a while."
"You have a very unique, deeply concerning way of comforting people," Rekka deadpanned. He carefully lowered the heavy package, setting it gently by his boots. "But then again, forty-five minutes is pushing it. Could that girl have run into some actual trouble?"
"It's highly possible." March 7th leaned her back against a cool, metallic pillar, her brow furrowed in worry. "Should we go look for her ourselves?"
Silver Wolf paused her game, her magenta eyes glinting with sudden interest. "Want me to hack into the Luofu's central surveillance grid and track her down?"
"Isn't doing that... highly illegal?" March 7th eyed the petite hacker with deep suspicion.
"Illegal?" Silver Wolf scoffed, looking at March as if she had just grown a second head. "I'm a Stellaron Hunter. I have an astronomical bounty on my head and I'm wanted across the entire universe. Hacking a local security grid is literally like eating and drinking to me."
Rekka sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Fine, check it. Just... try not to trigger every alarm on the ship. Don't cause too much of a stir."
"Relax. I'm a professional. I know exactly what I'm doing."
"Halt right there!"
A stern, commanding voice shattered their huddle. A fully armored Cloud Knight marched up to their group, his hand resting firmly on the hilt of his polearm.
"Citizens, please cooperate with our immediate investigation," the guard demanded, his tone leaving no room for argument. "We received an anonymous tip that a suspicious group is carrying an antimatter bomb and attempting to infiltrate the... wait. You..."
The Cloud Knight's stern gaze drifted past Rekka and locked onto the petite, bubblegum-chewing hacker. His brow furrowed deeply beneath his helmet.
"Miss, you look exactly like..."
"This is my beloved younger sister, Bronya Zaychik!" Rekka interjected smoothly, stepping directly into the knight's line of sight. He threw a heavy arm around Silver Wolf's shoulders, subtly digging his elbow into her side. "Isn't that right, Bronya?"
"...Yes." Silver Wolf's eye twitched. She curled her lip in mild disgust at the physical contact, but her hands moved in a blur behind her back. With a spark of digital light, she used her Aether Editing to materialize a flawless, holographic Luofu identification card, casually holding it up for the guard to scan.
The Cloud Knight scrutinized the ID, then looked up. His gaze swept back and forth between the tall, chaotic Trailblazer and the short, punk-styled hacker.
"...Bronya Zaychik?" he repeated, his voice dripping with skepticism.
"Correct," Rekka nodded, his expression a mask of absolute, unshakeable sincerity.
Taking her cue, Silver Wolf forced the corners of her mouth upward. She managed to squeeze out a sickeningly sweet, bashful smile that looked entirely unnatural on her face.
Standing slightly behind them, Stelle's shoulders were violently shaking. She had her hand clamped over her mouth, her golden eyes squeezed shut as she fought a losing battle against a Light Yagami-style try not to laugh challenge.
"You two... do not look remotely alike," the Cloud Knight pointed out.
"Genetics are wild, man. I take after my dad," Rekka replied without missing a single beat. "And she takes after our mom. One gets the paternal genes, the other gets the maternal ones. Perfectly reasonable biological distribution, right?"
"Then her... hair?" The guard gestured to Silver Wolf's striking silver-and-magenta twintails.
"Dyed," Rekka answered smoothly, patting her head. "You know how it is. Rebellious adolescent girls are always pursuing their own edgy individuality."
"Hmm. I suppose..." The Cloud Knight muttered, seemingly placated by the sheer confidence of the lie.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick...
March 7th's ear twitched. She tilted her head, her bright eyes scanning the immediate area. "Rekka... do you hear something?"
"Yeah, I hear it," Rekka murmured, the easygoing smile finally slipping from his face. "It sounds like a tick-tock, tick-tock. Like the gears of a mechanical clock."
Slowly, in terrifying unison, all four pairs of eyes drifted downward.
They locked onto the heavy, securely wrapped package resting innocently by Rekka's boots.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
The rhythm was steady. Precise. Accelerating.
"Um..." Stelle took a slow, deliberate half-step backward, her trash-raccoon survival instincts finally kicking in. "Do you guys get the distinct feeling that this sound is coming directly from the package?"
Every alarm bell in Rekka's chaotic, battle-hardened mind began screaming at once.
He didn't hesitate. Pivoting on his heel, Rekka delivered a brutal, full-force flying kick straight into the box. The heavy package launched into the air like a cannonball, hurtling toward the open expanse of the port.
But it was too late.
Before the package could even clear the threshold of the Jade Gate, the space around it violently warped. A terrifying, gravity-crushing distortion phenomenon bloomed in mid-air.
"Get down!" Rekka roared. He lunged forward, slamming his hand onto the shoulder of Stelle, who was standing closest to the blast radius, and physically tackled her to the hard metallic floor.
March 7th's combat reflexes flared. She threw her arms over her head and executed a desperate dive-roll behind a thick cargo barricade.
Silver Wolf didn't even bother moving. In a flurry of digital pixels, she simply vanished from reality.
A deafening, apocalyptic roar shattered the tranquility of the Luofu.
An orb of pure, destructive antimatter detonated. A shockwave of jagged, purple-black energy violently expanded, ripping up the reinforced floorboards and vaporizing everything in its immediate path. The concussive force washed over them, rattling their bones and sending debris raining down like shrapnel.
Before the thick, choking dust cloud could even begin to settle, a cacophony of piercing red alarms began shrieking throughout the entire sector.
Rekka coughed, waving the smoke away from his face as he pushed himself up. He peered over the edge of their meager cover.
Half of the massive, sprawling port had been reduced to smoking, blackened rubble.
Literally half.
"Don't worry, this kind of situation is... well..." March 7th peeked out from behind her barricade, her voice trembling slightly as she surveyed the apocalyptic crater. She tapped her chin, trying desperately to find a silver lining. "Well, last time I went to the Taikiyan Arena, I accidentally smashed a massive hole right through the main stadium! So, you're just... uh, the new generation surpassing the old?"
"I really don't want to talk about generational property damage right now," Rekka deadpanned, brushing a chunk of scorched metal off his shoulder.
Through the clearing smoke, he could see dozens of heavily armed Cloud Knights converging on their position, their polearms drawn and their expressions furious.
"...I only know one thing," Rekka muttered, his eyes locking onto the approaching army. "If we don't run right this second, we are absolutely going to be eating the Xianzhou's premium bowl of prison food for the rest of our lives."
"So what do we do now?!" March 7th panicked, gripping her bow.
"What do we do? Have you already forgotten the absolute most powerful ability in a Trailblazer's arsenal?" Rekka threw a dramatic, side-long glance at Stelle.
Stelle blinked, dusting off her coat. "Most powerful ability? Why don't I remember us Trailblazers having a most powerful ability? Are you talking about the physical endurance from the Trailblaze Blessing?"
"Of course not!" Rekka scoffed, his eyes burning with chaotic determination. "This is our ultimate, ancestral secret technique! A maneuver passed down through generations, only to be unleashed in the most desperate of life-or-death situations!"
"Desperate situations..." Stelle's golden eyes suddenly widened in deep realization. "Ah! Could it be?!"
Rekka exchanged a rapid, deeply synchronized glance with Stelle, March 7th, and the newly rematerialized Silver Wolf.
He took a deep breath, his lungs expanding, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"—NIGERUNDAYO!"
The wind was high, the crime was framed, and it was time to absolutely bolt!
Silver Wolf rolled her eyes, her fingers dancing across her holographic keyboard. She activated her Aether Editing, enveloping Rekka, Stelle, and March 7th in a blinding flash of digital light.
A split second before the Cloud Knights could skewer them, the four of them vanished without a trace.
Thud!
"Ouch!"
"My butt!"
March 7th groaned, rubbing her backside as she clumsily climbed up from the cold metal floor. She dusted off her skirt, her bright eyes scanning their new, dimly lit surroundings. "Where even is this? It's just full of shipping crates... Hey, Silver Wolf! Couldn't your fancy teleportation tech be a bit more precise and send us somewhere softer?!"
High above them, Silver Wolf landed flawlessly on the edge of the tallest cargo container. She blew another bubble, letting it pop lazily.
"It was a tactical emergency," the hacker replied, completely unfazed. "Safety first, comfort second."
"What was the deal with that bomb?" Stelle asked, looking up at the hacker. Her golden eyes were clouded with genuine confusion. "Why did that random woman want us to hold it?"
Rekka clapped his hands together, the pieces of the chaotic puzzle finally clicking into place. "It was a setup. Someone intentionally handed us an active antimatter bomb and perfectly timed it to detonate while we were holding it. Now, in the eyes of the Luofu's Cloud Knights, we're the radical terrorists who just blew half their port to kingdom come."
"See? I told you," Silver Wolf smirked, crossing her arms. "We had to rely on my Aether Editing to get in from the start."
"Maybe," Rekka conceded, his expression turning unusually serious. "But think about it. If we hadn't come through the main entrance and taken that package... that antimatter bomb would have probably exploded right in the middle of a dense, civilian crowd."
"Yeah, you're right about that." Silver Wolf spread her hands in a nonchalant gesture. "So I'm just saying, you guys should really start believing me now, right?"
She looked down at the Trailblazers, her magenta eyes gleaming in the dim light of the cargo hold.
"The prophecies written in the script always come true."
"Fine," March 7th sighed, nodding reluctantly in defeat.
Stelle raised a hand. "Plus one."
Rekka crossed his arms, a wry grin returning to his face. "I've always believed it."
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