"Self-taught?" Jingliu repeated, clearly not fully convinced—yet she didn't press further.
"Decent talent," she said flatly. "But the style is messy, no systematic tempering. A waste."
Wei Qing smiled without answering.
Liu Ying had asked him more than once to teach her swordsmanship properly, but it always fizzled out.
Because to Wei Qing, "sword technique" in this universe was mostly decorative.
When numbers and mechanics came down like a hammer, "skill" was, at best, a ribbon tied on top.
At that moment, Liu Ying had already cleanly finished off the last few Voidrangers. She sheathed her blade and jogged back, cheeks lightly flushed from exertion.
She looked at Jingliu with a hint of provocation, as if to say: See? I did it.
In truth, she'd restrained herself heavily. Against a handful of trash mobs, if she weren't worried about exposing too much, she could've erased them with a flick.
Jingliu's gaze swept over her once.
"Acceptable efficiency. Too many unnecessary movements. Wasted stamina. Your use of the Path is crude—only the outline is there."
Liu Ying: "..."
This woman—!
In Liu Ying's mind, she'd fought beautifully.
She nearly snapped back, nearly wanted to transform into SAM on the spot and blow the whole place apart out of spite.
Wei Qing sighed and stepped in smoothly.
"Lady Jingliu's guidance is fair. My sister still has much to refine."
Yet Wei Qing couldn't help noticing: Jingliu wasn't only "reacting" to him.
She also seemed… oddly sharp toward Liu Ying.
Why?
He genuinely didn't understand.
Surely she wasn't already indiscriminately biased against all gray-haired people now… right?
Jingliu didn't elaborate. She turned and continued forward.
"Keep up. The rift activity ahead is stronger. Stay alert."
Liu Ying puffed her cheeks, glaring at Jingliu's back, but followed anyway—stomping just a little harder than necessary.
Wei Qing watched her and smiled silently.
The deeper they went into Everwinter Hill, the more the world felt wrong.
The sky was no longer merely gray—it bled with a sinister purple-red hue. Twisted bands of light crawled across the heavens like dying veins.
The cold wasn't just temperature now. It carried a mental bite, a creeping chill that pressed against the mind.
That was the rift.
The Stellaron's influence seeped into everything, whispering at the edges of perception.
Liu Ying frowned. She was particularly sensitive to this sort of spiritual pollution. Her body entered high alert instinctively.
Wei Qing, by contrast, felt nothing worth mentioning—though he made sure to look a bit unsteady.
After all, he was a Destruction Emanator in all but name; a Stellaron's "rank" wasn't low, but against a Destruction reserve, it was still a step short.
If he could be affected by it, then something would be deeply wrong.
Jingliu's pace never slowed. If anything, her aura sharpened.
A cold that wasn't mere weather spread out from her like a blade. The murmurs and mental pressure that tried to creep closer were cleanly severed—shattered into nothing by her presence alone.
Voidrangers appeared more frequently.
Jingliu still didn't lift a hand to fight. Instead, whenever Liu Ying pretended to struggle a little too much, Jingliu would drop a few words—brief and mercilessly efficient.
"Left flank. Three steps."
"Core's in the upper abdomen."
"Back. Avoid the edge."
Liu Ying clenched her teeth. She hated it. But she still followed the instructions—because they worked.
Wei Qing stayed quietly behind them, occasionally sweeping his gaze across the warped cracks in space.
The rift here was more active than expected.
The Stellaron's power was unstable, agitated—as if something had been poking it.
Wei Qing debated it.
Should he just take the Stellaron now and be done with it?
His usual style was efficiency-first.
If a mission could be completed quickly, he didn't do overtime.
But Elio had explicitly said: something "interesting" would happen on Jarilo-VI.
So far, Wei Qing hadn't seen anything that deserved the word interesting.
Unless meeting Jingliu was the "big event."
If so… her "card value" really was absurd.
At last, they passed through an ice canyon shaped like an enormous scar—and the terrain opened into something both vast and horrifying.
A basin, as if struck by a meteor.
At the center wasn't solid ground, but a massive rotating vortex.
Purple-black fissures opened and closed around its rim, leaking foul energy that crystallized everything nearby—snow, rock, even the air itself.
This was the heart of the rift.
The Stellaron's lair.
And there, suspended at the very center of the vortex, floated a many-faceted crystal the size of a fist.
The Stellaron.
The source of Jarilo's misery.
The ground around it was littered with corpses. Plenty of people had tried to reach it.
None had made it.
Jingliu stopped. Her crimson eyes fixed on the Stellaron with pure, cold killing intent.
A Destruction Stellaron.
Everything tied to Destruction disgusted her.
"Stay here," she ordered Wei Qing and Liu Ying, voice absolute. "No matter what happens—do not approach."
The moment the command left her lips, she vanished.
Voidrangers that tried to intercept her were shredded by her stray sword pressure before they could get close.
The rift's warped field, normally capable of twisting reality, looked like brittle glass before her will—forced open by sheer blade intent.
Her target was simple.
She was going to cut the Stellaron apart.
But just as her blade tip neared the crystal—
"ROAR—!!"
A brutal bellow detonated through the basin.
Jingliu kicked back and slid dozens of meters, landing light as frost. Her eyes narrowed as something enormous tore itself fully out of the fissure.
A monster—massive beyond reason.
A draconic head, horns like warped crowns burning with red light. Tattered wings that still blotted out the sky. And in its chest, a furnace-like core pulsed violently, resonating with the Stellaron's vortex below.
Wei Qing narrowed his eyes.
Three words left his lips, calm and precise.
"Doomsday Beast."
An Antimatter Legion star-killer forged from ancient dusk-beast fragments and a war furnace filled with countless wails.
Just one of these could nearly wipe Jarilo off the map.
But in this basin, the "fear factor" was strangely low.
All three of them had the ability to solo it.
Jingliu snapped back toward Wei Qing and Liu Ying.
"Get away. Now."
The Doomsday Beast attacked first.
Its furnace-core flared, and a Destruction beam tore across the basin straight for Jingliu.
Jingliu didn't retreat.
She stepped into it.
"Split."
Her voice was quiet.
Her sword was not.
No grand explosion—only the sound of absolute division, like reality itself being sliced.
The beam was cleaved into two uncontrolled torrents that missed her by a breath and detonated into the ice behind, blasting up a storm of shattered glacier.
That single cut was terrifying.
The Doomsday Beast surged forward, enraged.
Its vast bulk charged, turning the basin into a trembling drum.
Jingliu became a streak of moonlight and met it head-on.
No bloody mess, no crude exchange.
Her movement was impossibly precise—evading and carving in the same breath. Her strikes landed cleanly at the joints, the hinges, the exact points where a giant must bend.
Rip—
A tearing shriek.
The Doomsday Beast howled in pain. Its tail swept like a steel whip, but the outcome was already decided.
Against Jingliu's combat literacy, its "planet-killing" presence felt bloated—loud, but inefficient.
"Let moonlight cleanse the rivers," Jingliu declared.
A cold so pure it seemed to crystallize sound gathered on her blade.
The sword light poured down like a silver galaxy.
The charging beast froze.
Its roar died mid-throat.
The basin shook as the impact tore through space, and Jingliu had already withdrawn—landing atop a jagged ice pillar, hair and sleeves fluttering, not a speck of dust on her.
She watched the center, verifying the kill.
And then—
Something snapped.
The ice beneath her feet fractured without warning.
Vines erupted from the rock, thick with overwhelming vitality, lashing up and winding around her ankles and wrists.
"…What?"
For the first time, Jingliu's expression cracked.
She recognized that power instantly.
Abundance.
Instinct took over.
Her sword flared, and the vines were severed into fragments in a heartbeat.
But the delay—only that single heartbeat—was enough.
Jingliu's head snapped up.
Her crimson eyes locked onto the figure now standing beside the Stellaron.
Wei Qing.
He was still wearing the IPC uniform, still dressed like a harmless "employee," yet the aura around him had inverted completely.
The mask of meekness was gone.
The air around him felt wrong—not loud, not flashy, but heavy with authority.
He reached out—
and took the Stellaron into his hand.
Effortless.
As if plucking a ripe fruit from a branch.
He turned slightly, voice calm enough to be rude.
"This Stellaron…"
"…will be collected by me—Stellaron Hunter Asam."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter116)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 118
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 111
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 80
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 112
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 80
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 74
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 48
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 50
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 47
Uma Musume: From Beginner 42
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