"Wow~! Two whole hours trapped in an illusion — and I finally get a reliable Sister Sushang to the rescue~"
"Family, check out the sword-riding! Little Gui flying on a blade — do I look like a Sword Immortal? Sister Sushang's carrying me~!"
"Thanks for worrying, everyone! Someone like me, who makes a living braving wind and rain — I'm tough as nails..."
Black boots with gold trim planted on the flying sword, her streaming selfie stick having snapped when the Heliobus first dragged her into the illusion, Guinaifen hooked one arm around Moonscar's waist and thrust her phone skyward, hollering at full volume, energy completely undiminished.
"I'm plenty reliable in a fight too, you know!"
Her hair whipped wild in the wind. Shangshang, both arms wrapped around Moonscar's waist, craned her head over Moonscar's shoulder and argued back.
Compared to her sister she might be just a tiny bit worse — but she was still useful!
Moonscar felt the perky, springy softness pressing against her arm and thought privately: more than just a tiny bit, surely?
"You're right, you're right — Shangshang is the most reliable when she's awake!"
Guinaifen nodded with exaggerated sincerity, her expression theatrically earnest.
"Xiao Gui, if you keep making fun of me... I — I'll never be your 'breaking-rocks-on-the-chest' prop again!"
Her best friend's jabs made Shangshang puff out her cheeks. She thought for two seconds, then unleashed her most devastating threat.
"Hehe~ I'm being serious — Shangshang is the most useful!"
Guinaifen broke into a sheepish grin and rushed to smooth things over.
Shangshang was the single most important 'prop' in the rock-breaking-on-the-chest act. Rocks you could find anywhere. Shangshang was irreplaceable.
[Livestreaming — if this had existed in the era I come from, I imagine every hero and wanderer of the Jianghu could have exchanged sword techniques across the distance. But on a Xianzhou...]
Li Sushang, running in the background, caught a glimpse of the livestream chat through Moonscar's eyes. She felt simultaneously mortified and amused.
[Guinaifen's One True Fan: Black stockings with rips — even the immortals can't save me! Little Gui, those torn black stockings make your legs even more lickable, Prprprprp!!!]
[Tonight GuiGui Is Having Candy Filling: The guy above you — someone call the hair salon, you need a trim!]
[Failed Divination Commission Applicant: White stockings cutting into the flesh is the real Yyds!]
[Brother Chuan Points, I Strike: Doesn't matter — black stockings with rips or white ones leaving marks, I love them both equally, I'm equally obsessed!]
[Bro Vanilla Mud: Being obsessed with everything will be your downfall!]
Watching the chat scroll by, Moonscar couldn't help but marvel — the thirst truly was hardwired into the carbon-based genome.
Terrifying. Even a livestream could spiral into this?
Of course, there were sensible comments too.
[Milk Powder Milk Powder Drink Milk Powder: Streamer, aren't you confusing a Heliobus with a demon?]
[Enthusiastic Netizen Ma Dajie: What kind of nonsense vampire demon? I've heard of those — Thalassa has them, but not the Xianzhou!]
[Working to Clock Out: If Thalassa has them, why couldn't the Xianzhou? You're awfully narrow-minded!]
[Leg Hair Prince: Vampires have different names in different worlds — where I'm from, they're called Brulvor. I've said it before: you Xianzhou people really need to get out more.]
[Plastic Straight Talk: I can't find any record of that — you didn't just make it up, did you?]
"Don't worry, everyone — Sister Sushang has confirmed it."
Guinaifen had never seen a vampire demon in real life either. As for the 'experts' in the chat — as a veteran streamer, Little Gui could only say: anyone who believes them deserves what they get.
The three of them soared over Fyxestroll Garden's winding galleries on the flying sword. When they finally broke through the haze of the illusory mist, the livestream camera caught the scene unfolding at the heart of Fyxestroll Garden.
The sky had been replaced by a flawless dome of Six-Phased Ice. Pale pink-violet ice butterflies fluttered through the air — it was like stepping into the dreamscape of a fairy tale.
Guinaifen and Sushang both froze on the spot.
The radiant Sun-Moon Brilliance as Goss switched into Solar Eclipse Mode, Yue'er's adorable tilt-and-wink as she conjured an ice shield, and DanteMon's snarling rampage — every moment was captured live and delivered simultaneously to the full audience watching the stream.
DanteMon's four limbs churned at the ground, purple-black miasma blotting out the sky. The mouths at the tips of its tentacles spewed barrages of energy blasts.
A red-blue-silver giant leapt into the air. Moving so fast that afterimages surrounded it on all sides, it formed a 360-degree iron defence — batting away DanteMon's energy blasts with its palms.
Yue'er's pink-violet magical skirt billowed and spun. Her ice butterfly scythe swept upward from below. Pale blue crescent ice-blades ripped through spacetime, detonating the energy blasts — and the whole sky lit up like a shower of brilliant fireworks.
The chat went almost completely silent — a pause of several seconds — then erupted into an explosion of colour.
[HOLY SH*T!!!]
Countless viewers watching the livestream jolted upright, mouths open, eyes wide, unable to believe what they were seeing.
[A GIANT!! It's the legendary giant!!]
The battle at Scalegorge Waterscape had been enormous in scale. Suppressing all information about it completely wasn't remotely realistic.
Silver Wing, who had been playing a supporting role in the fight against Phantylia as backup, had captured footage of Caelus-Ace carving off Phantylia's limbs and Tiga-Stelle punching clean through Phantylia's core.
She was planning to post it to the Interastral Peace Network later to boost Phantylia's follower count — it just hadn't gone up yet.
The Vidyadhara living in the Scalegorge Ancient Sea and the Xianzhou people on the outer edges had all had opportunities to photograph the Ultraman, and the images had already made it online.
Jing Yuan had consulted the Express crew on whether to control the flow of information. The Express crew said they didn't mind, and so the Xianzhou's relevant departments hadn't pushed back on it.
"That is Goss Ultraman — a compassionate and courageous hero."
Moonscar smiled as she introduced him to the livestream audience.
[?]
One sentence, and the chat flooded with question marks.
[I just joined the stream and I walked straight into a giant hacking away at a demon. It's been going on since before I got here.]
[This guy is supposed to be a compassionate hero?]
['Quit love'? As in, quit having loved ones altogether?]
[Magical girl!! That's a magical girl!!]
A magical girl enthusiast had spotted Yue'er.
"That — !"
In the Seat of Divine Foresight, Jing Yuan, who had been keeping an eye on the livestream, shot to his feet, his expression baffled.
What in the —?!
What was going on?
The Ten-Lords Commission and the Seat of Divine Foresight were parallel supreme authorities — the Ten-Lords Commission didn't answer to the General. But Jing Yuan had read the reports on Fyxestroll Garden. The issue over there was just a Heliobus infestation, wasn't it?
What in the world was that demon — the one with a presence close to an Emanator-level entity, the one that had waved a single hand and reduced a section of Fyxestroll Garden to rubble?!
The Giant of Light with that unmistakable silhouette was without question the Express crew's doing.
And that stunning, adorable girl — even a specimen like Jing Yuan, over a thousand years old, felt a surge of vitality and warmth just looking at her. A healing magical girl.
Just what had happened over there?
Setting aside his unfinished paperwork and exhaustion, Jing Yuan immediately moved to head for Fyxestroll Garden.
He reached the door — then caught the image on the livestream feed: Goss in Solar Eclipse Mode, wielding a crescent energy blade, hacking away at the demon in a frenzy. His eyes fell on the golden earrings glinting at the adorable magical girl's earlobes.
A MANTIS fusion warrior?
Perhaps his intervention wasn't needed after all.
Still — there'd be no escaping the Express crew shaking him down for compensation afterward. He'd need to prepare some rewards. He already owed them a considerable amount of goodwill; one more debt wouldn't make much difference.
What struck Jing Yuan most deeply was this: every single time, the Express crew managed to pull the Xianzhou back from the brink.
Never mind how the Xianzhou had gotten to the brink in the first place.
"Stay here and keep safe — I'm going to help."
Moonscar landed the flying sword and set the two of them down in a safe spot, far from the battlefield, where the blood bats were sparse.
"This — this is way too insane!"
Guinaifen's fingertips were trembling. Oblivious Shangshang stared wide-eyed, her pure, unfiltered gaze round as saucers.
"That giant looks about the same as the one I saw at Scalegorge Waterscape earlier."
The livestream chat had completely spiralled out of control, with an extremely high concentration of expletives.
Moonscar had already taken hold of the Ruoshui God sword hilt — not a phantom blade this time, but a true Herrscher Key set with the Water God Pearl:
"I'm counting on you, my other self!"
"Leave it to me!"
Li Sushang planted her foot on a beam of sword-light. The gale whipped her robes into a fluttering dance, like a swallow taking flight.
"Contain heaven and earth, refine self and object — become Taixu!"
The Ruoshui God sword hummed and dissolved into a sky filled with uncountable sword-shadows — Taixu sword-shadows shimmering with gold and blue light, dancing across the heavens in a curtain of blades, a net of sword-intent, supremely sharp and magnificent to behold.
[Sushang (Sister) Solo Fan: So cool! So ethereal! Sister Sushang is this powerful?!]
[Immortal in the Cup: Even the Sword Champion couldn't do better than this, could they?]
[Hermit in Plain Sight: So then the question becomes — why is Shangshang so bad at it?]
That last comment was buried in the dense flood of chat. Pulled by the magnificent, transcendent sight of her 'own' figure in the air, Shangshang was busy daydreaming about the day she too might summon ten thousand swords with a single point of her fingers — Ten Thousand Swords Arrive from Heaven.
The simultaneous ten-thousand-blade release was undeniably spectacular — but Li Sushang was not Jingyueshang in the end. Her realm was there; her numbers fell far short.
DanteMon beat its vast demonic wings and the mouths at the ends of its tentacles spewed purple-black energy blasts, devouring and corroding the sword-intent and sword-shadows.
"This great demon is fearsome indeed."
Li Sushang rode her sword-light, weaving and dodging with nimble agility, slipping through the energy blasts.
"To deal it effective damage, we would likely need to combine our power and use Sword God."
[Right — we just need to draw a bit of its attention. StelleGoss and that girl are the main carries.]
Taking advantage of the moment DanteMon split its focus to attack Li Sushang, StelleGoss successfully grabbed the demon beast's tail — and swung it around again in a full arc.
In this boss fight, Li Sushang was merely the third off-carry.
StelleGoss's arms dropped hard to both sides, energy converging into her fists.
"Diamond Impact."
A Mach shockwave cloud, breaking through several times the speed of sound in an instant.
DanteMon, slammed into the ground, rose back up with unnatural speed — rearing up like a mantis, it lashed out with its blood-red claws.
Finishing move — Claws of Destruction!
The blood-red twin claws dragged crimson arcs of light through the air. The claw-wind split space open like tearing silk, colliding head-on with Diamond Impact — a violent shockwave expanding outward in all directions.
[Streamer, can you explain what's actually going on?]
[Is that thing a ghost? A demon?]
[Since when did demons get this strong?]
Her phone nearly ripped from her hands by the gale, Guinaifen pressed herself behind the pavilion railing like a dutiful, front-line war correspondent.
"Tch, tch — this is genuinely absurd!"
On Bronie's advice, Haxxor Bunny — currently using the mobs to practice her Aether Editing — grabbed her rabbit-eared hat before it could blow off, her gaze flicking back and forth between Goss and Yue'er.
Ultraman was a kind of being similar to Kamen Rider or mecha — it had an extraordinary pull on a certain type of person — and Haxxor Bunny counted herself a heavyweight in the ACG world.
On the other side, Yue'er was equally impossible to look away from.
"Maybe I should have Theresa come take a look — see what a real magical girl actually looks like."
She thought of her older sister's performance voice, all put-on sweetness: 'Mwah mwah mwah, TeRiRi has used up all her mana~ She needs a proper rest now~' — and Haxxor Bunny's eyes involuntarily went cat-shaped.
Now look at Yue'er!
How adorable!
Elegant and beautiful!
It was just that magic staff...
"Ugly demon, what are you staring at?! What if you make my Master cry?! Master, go beat the hell out of it!"
Ruby — the eye on the scythe blade — kept cursing and swearing even as she fought.
Jade-white feet treading on a rippling void, Yue'er swept her ice scythe in a wide arc.
The scythe blade blazed into a trail of pink-violet neon, butterflies surging in its wake, unleashing a tide of terrifying, overwhelming force!
BOOM——!
In the thunderous explosion, the energy tentacles and bats shattered all at once, dissolving into miasma and scattering on the wind.
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