Attention all units, Condition Red!
All personnel report to stations immediately! Execute the highest-level combat contingency protocol!
The piercing wail of the sirens tore through every corner of the Moonseizer, instantly shattering the cozy atmosphere of the reception hall.
"Professor Yan? Dr. Bailu? What's going on?"
Fuli's hand immediately shot to the hilt of his katana. The sensory field of the Cold River Reflected Moon expanded rapidly, only to be forcefully stonewalled the moment it touched the cabin walls.
The ship's bulkheads were clearly reinforced with multi-layered encryption; standard perception techniques couldn't penetrate them at all.
"What's happening?"
"Hello? Hello?!"
Yanqing and Bailu reacted instantly, whipping out their terminals to demand a sitrep.
Meanwhile, Qingque let out a heart-wrenching wail. "Oh, my god! I just set up a perfect Dragon-Tail formation!"
The moment the sirens had blared, her hand had twitched, sending the meticulously stacked Mahjong tiles crashing across the table in a chaotic mess.
Yet, paradoxically, the sight of Qingque mourning her tiles like a salted fish actually put Fuli and the others at ease. No one doubted the divination prowess of a Luofu Diviner; if she wasn't currently sweating bullets, it meant the situation hadn't spiraled into an apocalyptic disaster just yet.
However, they had overlooked one critical detail:
Some situations genuinely weren't a big deal for Qingque. As a master of the Qimen Dunjia arts, she could easily find an excuse to warp out of danger using spatial-manipulation hexagrams and completely bail on them.
They, on the other hand, could not.
"Holy crap! General Feixiao is plastered!"
The intel coming through the terminal caused Yanqing's face to pale drastically, shattering his usual refined, easygoing demeanor.
"Again?!" Bailu's dragon tail slapped the floor with a loud smack. She stood frozen like a wooden chicken, staring blankly as if witnessing the end of the world.
"It's just some alcohol. Is it really that serious?" Fuli asked, completely out of the loop and feeling like they were overreacting. He gestured toward the dining table. "I mean, it's a banquet, right? People are supposed to share a few cups. Look, there's even—"
His voice abruptly cut off.
Wait. Why isn't there any alcohol on the table?
He looked around. The reception hall was lavishly stocked with mountain delicacies and exotic seafood, but there wasn't a single drop of combustible liquid in sight.
"..."
Fuli's expression turned grim.
In that moment, he finally grasped the sheer gravity of the situation.
"Well, in that case, I'll just be—"
BOOM!!!
Before Fuli could finish declaring his intention to grab his bucket and run, a deafening explosion ripped through the hall.
He looked toward the entrance just in time to see the reinforced metal bulkhead violently blown apart, leaving a terrifying, jagged hole. Countless shards of shrapnel sprayed into the room like a deadly meteor shower.
"Aaaargh..."
"General... please... a little lighter..."
The soldiers who had been blasted through the doorway were scattered everywhere. Some were collapsed on the floor, others were wedged into the sofas in a V-shape, and a few had half their bodies embedded into the opposite wall, vividly illustrating the concept of a total battlefield wipeout.
"Hahaha!"
The mastermind behind this absolute carnage stood in the center of the blasted wall, the corners of her lips curled into an unrestrained, boisterous grin.
Her cyan-patterned coat whipped wildly in the air. Due to the absurd velocity of her initial charge, violent cyclones were still swirling around her body, sending the tails of her coat billowing high into the air like the legendary cape of an ancient Hussar General straight out of a storyteller's epic.
Her silky, snow-white hair was tied back into a high, imposing ponytail that perfectly matched her soaring coat. Even the hem of her outfit had been swept up by the shockwave, completely exposing the dangerously rebellious black hot pants hugging her hips and thighs.
Objectively speaking, such an outfit was a massive liability on a battlefield. But no one had ever managed to exploit those so-called openings.
After all, the Heaven-Smiting General's reputation was well-earned. Her combat speed was so incomprehensibly fast that even specialized military sensors struggled to track her—which was even more absurd considering she regularly fought in a pair of stylish, knee-high stiletto boots.
Huh?
Prometheus, who was perpetually monitoring her Host, let out a surprised hum in his mind. [Her appearance... it bears a striking resemblance to the Host's outfit when wearing the God-King mask.]
She doesn't look like me. I look like her, Fuli pointed out the crucial distinction.
Unlike Kiana, who possessed a bizarre, self-taught genius for fashion design and constantly whipped up new outfits and battlesuit concepts for everyone, Fuli simply didn't have the time to brainstorm original fashion concepts. His battle against the Herrscher of Thunder had been too critical. Thus, he had simply picked a character that had left a deep impression on him and cosplayed her.
It wasn't that the Fuli from the previous loop had any personal connection with Feixiao. By the time he had made a name for himself on the Honkai side, she had long since retired and passed the torch.
But that hadn't stopped him from viewing this legendary, ever-victorious General as the ultimate goal of his lifelong struggle.
Without worry! Without regret! Without rival! It sounded incredibly hot-blooded and epic, didn't it?!
Moreover, she was a literal Ever-Victorious General. Even thousands of years later, people still sang the praises of ancient commanders like Wei Qing and Huo Qubing. And here she was, a peerless hero from his own era!
However, it seemed this peerless hero of his era was a terrible, terrible drunk.
Noticing the heavy stench of alcohol wafting off Feixiao and the mesmerizing, crimson flush on her cheeks, Dr. MEI offered her brief commentary before fading from Fuli's visual interface, ensuring she wouldn't obstruct his line of sight in the inevitable battle to come.
"Well, this is news to me," Fuli muttered.
He glanced to the side. Sure enough, Qingque had vanished without a trace.
She hadn't escaped using her Qimen Dunjia spatial arts. She had simply been snatched out of the air and was currently dangling from Feixiao's single hand.
"Hehe... General... look at me, so weak, pitiful, and helpless... Please spare my tiny, insignificant life?"
The dangling little sparrow pressed her hands together, begging with wide, puppy-dog eyes.
"Spare you? C-Can I?"
Can you or can't you?!
Wait, according to the hexagrams, what comes next should be—
"Aiyoo!"
Qingque was casually tossed behind the General like a sack of potatoes. It seemed magic-based casters weren't on Feixiao's Hunt list, allowing the little Diviner to successfully evacuate the premises.
With the sparrow discarded, the General locked her sights on Yanqing, who was standing with his sword drawn, on high alert.
"Yanqing, kid," she slurred, stumbling slightly but waving a dismissive hand. "The one I'm... I'm looking for... is my f-future h-husband!"
"Yanqing understands! Yanqing is leaving immediately!"
The young Sword Champion slammed his blade back into its sheath, hopped onto a flying sword, and bolted without looking back. Hesitating for even a single second would be a fatal disrespect to those watermelon-crushing thighs.
"Yanqing, what the hell are you doing?!" Bailu glared fiercely at the youth's retreating back, stomping her feet in absolute fury. "Without you, how are we supposed to fight the Heaven-Smiting General?!"
Thanks to the S-Rank Restriction Treaty, Yanqing—a borderline-Critical powerhouse—was the only person present who could even stall Feixiao for a few moments.
And he just greased his soles and ran?!
"How do you fight the Heaven-Smiting General? Simple. I just become the Arbiter-General instead."
The one who spoke wasn't Fuli, but Jiaoqiu, who had just arrived on the scene.
Fully prepared for this exact scenario, the foxian gave his feather fan a light wave. Pitch-black shadows rapidly expanded beneath everyone's feet.
In the blink of an eye, the entire group was teleported to the warship's sprawling main deck, which stretched over five thousand meters long and a thousand meters wide.
"General! This ends here!"
A massive battalion of heavily armed Foxian soldiers completely surrounded Feixiao, their eyes burning with the fanatic determination of fresh military recruits swearing their oaths.
"What's all this?" Fuli asked, highly intrigued.
"Heh. There are many conditions that can trigger the Moonseizer's Condition Red," Jiaoqiu said, his fox tail swishing lightly. "Imminent signs of war, extreme geopolitical tension, a direct military threat to the Yaoqing, or a solo deep-strike behind enemy lines. But there is one specific trigger that sounds utterly absurd to anyone hearing it for the first time."
"The General getting drunk and throwing a tantrum?" Fuli's mouth twitched.
"Exactly."
The moment Jiaoqiu's words fell, the vanguard of the military formation charged fearlessly.
"General! Repent!"
The soldiers' weapons flashed with spiritual light as a towering, ethereal Great Wall materialized out of thin air, heavily barricading Feixiao in the center.
Even the children on the Xianzhou knew that the Yaoqing's ultimate trump card was the Foxian-majority Qingqiu Guard. And the Dragon City Flying General was this elite unit's standard-issue armament.
This personal combat suit allowed the user to summon eighteen different types of Honkai-infused weaponry—longbows, halberds, great-axes, massive broadswords—along with a full set of armor and cavalry gear, comprehensively enhancing the user's combat capabilities.
Even more terrifyingly, every equipped soldier could manifest a psychokinetic Great Wall on any terrain. This barrier could drastically negate physical impacts, and the more soldiers equipped with the Dragon City armor, the sturdier the wall became.
Right now, there were over three hundred Qingqiu Guards on the deck alone. A Great Wall blockade formed by this many elites would take a standard Critical-Rank powerhouse a significant amount of time to break through.
"Cleave!"
The garrison troops followed up immediately. Two hundred forty-meter-long broadswords slashed wildly into the interior of the Great Wall. From the looks of it, they were fully intending to mince their own General into fine meat paste.
The inferior Soulium blades they wielded could extend their length by rearranging their nanite structures. Furthermore, after extending, the nanites would rearrange again to ensure the blade's durability, weight, and flexibility remained completely unchanged.
For a moment, the air was filled with the frantic, deafening roar of a hundred giant swords hacking away.
Watching this brutal, merciless execution, Fuli felt his heart skip a beat. He quickly grabbed Jiaoqiu's arm.
"Dude, is this appropriate?!"
"It's appropriate, brother. Very appropriate."
The foxian fanned himself, casually waving the fan near Fuli's face to help him cool down.
"Are you sure you aren't harboring some deep-seated 'I've been a strategist for decades, it's time for a coup' ambitions?" Fuli asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
"With my meager skills, I could never shoulder the burden of an Alliance General. Now... look over there."
Following Jiaoqiu's pointing fan, Fuli heard a single, heaven-shaking laugh.
Then, like the Monkey King bursting from his stone prison, the psychokinetic Great Wall forged by hundreds of elites shattered inch by inch before detonating violently. The shockwave swept up the dispersing debris, sending the Qingqiu Guards flying in every direction. More than a few unlucky souls were knocked unconscious on the spot.
"Looks like it's my turn!"
Bailu unhooked the Gourd of Salvation from her waist and splashed its liquid contents into the sky. "Make sure everyone gets a drop!"
The palm-sized gourd seemed to hold an infinite volume of liquid, transforming into a gentle, misty drizzle that blanketed the deck.
The moment the rain touched the fallen soldiers, their condition visibly recovered. They quickly snatched up their weapons, scrambled back to their feet, and seamlessly fell back into formation, their eyes burning with the readiness to charge again.
By this point, anyone could see what was really going on.
Before Fuli even needed to ask, Jiaoqiu chuckled again. "The drunken tantrum is real. The combat is real. The combat readiness is real. And the collateral damage is also very real."
"Despite the General always putting on a mask of supreme confidence, as the Supreme Commander, she bears more pressure than anyone. Seeking solace in a bottle... well, everyone understands."
"Her terrible alcohol tolerance is genetic, and throwing drunken tantrums is a terrible habit. With her brain numbed, she can't control her own strength. In the past, she'd usually find a secluded hunting ground to blow off steam alone."
"But I felt that was a tremendous waste. So, I simply ordered the subordinate troops to treat her drunken rampages as a sudden, catastrophic crisis and respond with full lethal force."
"Standard combat drills burn through massive amounts of funding anyway, and people still get hurt. We might as well use the good steel on the blade's edge. By using a living legend as their hypothetical enemy, the troops can see exactly what they're truly capable of, identify their flaws, and plug the gaps."
Of course, we can't do this too often. Once every two months is plenty.
Thinking of this, Jiaoqiu glanced at Fuli.
Logically speaking, since they had just returned from the frontlines, a massive live-fire combat drill shouldn't have been scheduled this soon. This was the source of Jiaoqiu's earlier shock; no one liked a sudden, unannounced crisis drill.
But thinking about it now, it was probably because she was about to meet the boy she liked. Feixiao had been incredibly nervous and had instinctively grabbed a drink to numb her nerves.
And naturally, she hadn't chugged cheap swill. Anything that could catch the eye of a Xianzhou General was undoubtedly a divine brew that rivaled the legendary Nectar of the Immortals.
This idiot usually acts as boisterous and rough as a lumberjack, but she actually gets shy like a little girl?
Jiaoqiu—who had served under the previous General and had practically watched Feixiao grow up—smiled to himself.
Whoosh!
"Hahahahaha! No! Not enough! You're not hitting hard enough, everyone! Again!"
No, I was wrong! Jiaoqiu's face darkened as he narrowly dodged a massive battleaxe that flew past his head at several times the speed of sound, nearly taking his head off. This bastard was just forced to stay sober on the frontlines for too long, and the moment she got back, she completely lost control of her cravings!
Compared to previous drills, this time, the Qingqiu Guards were literally getting their brains beaten out.
And it wasn't a metaphor about them being Foxians (which technically made them canines). They were actually getting their skulls cracked open—but they could afford to, because Bailu was here.
—The Long Path of the Healer's Salvation. It was the Dragon Lady's signature Cloudhymn healing magic.
She converted her internal Honkai energy into a restorative force known as Invigoration, condensing it and injecting it into her targets to continuously mend their physical trauma. Furthermore, if a target suffered a fatal blow, the Invigoration would instantly detonate, prioritizing the repair of the lethal wound and forcing the target to stay alive.
Just like how a hot-blooded commander inevitably trains a hot-blooded army, a General's personal style profoundly impacted her troops.
The Heaven-Smiting General's army was composed of absolute battle maniacs just like her. With Bailu working overtime to keep them all alive, they threw caution to the wind, executing every single tactical formation and combat doctrine they knew directly onto their own General, genuinely pushing Feixiao to the brink on several occasions.
Unfortunately, the Qingqiu Guards' enemy was ultimately a veteran S-Rank powerhouse who was only one step away from reaching the Critical threshold.
Even though she was restricted by the Treaty and couldn't go all out, after pulling off several borderline-cheating, hyper-precise maneuvers, the one standing atop the metaphorical mountain of corpses was, inevitably, the completely plastered Feixiao.
"Pwah! That hit the spot!"
Casually tossing aside an empty wine gourd, the drunk, bleary-eyed, white-haired beauty flashed a wild, untamed grin.
She looked down from her vantage point, pointing her massive battleaxe directly at Fuli.
"You're up next, darling!"
Girlish shyness? Coquettish charm?
Nonexistent.
In the past, Feixiao had heard someone say: If you like someone, give them the 'Anime Volume'.
She had never been in a relationship, and she had no idea what "Anime Volume" meant, so she simply interpreted it as "give them the absolute best."
And what was the absolute best thing the Heaven-Smiting General possessed?
A Great Victory! A Great Victory! A GREAT VICTORY!
Feixiao wasn't worried that her actions would piss Fuli off, nor did she hesitantly wonder if forcing him into a fight was going too far.
Her instincts told her that Fuli was exactly the same kind of person she was. They were two sides of the exact same coin.
So, they would fight!
They would fight to their heart's content! She would beat him until he couldn't stand, throw him over her shoulder, drag him back to the Yaoqing, and claim a massive, glorious victory! She would add another thrilling, blood-pumping hunt to the legend of her life!
Since ancient times, childhood friends have always lost to the 'girl who falls from the sky.'
And Feixiao was the Heaven-Smiting General.
With a title literally meaning "Striking from the Heavens," how could she not be considered the ultimate 'girl falling from the sky'?!