After speaking, Clear Cold and Sleeping Snow's slender hands trembled slightly as they untied their waistbands.
Thin clothes slid down their skin to the ground, and then, their warm and soft bodies embraced Qi Zhimu.
The warmth transmitted to him caused a flame to gradually rise in his heart, which had been as still as dead water, becoming increasingly turbulent.
The answer no longer needed to be spoken.
Mandarin ducks with necks entwined, cloud-like hair winding; delicate red seeping into snow, the spring mountains fading into the distance.
Jingliu stood silently in front of the study door.
The familiar sounds, no longer suppressed, made her whole body go numb.
Ultimately, she gave up the idea of knocking to say goodbye, quietly and silently turning to leave... Inside the lead starship of the expeditionary force sent to subjugate Hoolay.
Bai Heng skillfully piloted the starship through the sea of stars, but her peripheral vision fell on Jingliu in the co-pilot seat.
She felt that after Jingliu went back to bid farewell to Qi Zhimu... her whole person seemed a bit off?
But she couldn't say exactly what was wrong.
She really wanted to ask, but... Bai Heng considered herself to have sharp intuition.
She had a premonition that if she spoke up at this moment, they might not even be friends anymore.
Forget it, forget it; unnecessary curiosity is too dangerous. Better to focus on clearing the path for the vast fleet behind.
The massive marching fleet was hidden within an imaginary energy concealment barrier, not attracting the attention of any Abominations as it advanced toward the designated coordinates in the sea of stars... "Report—!"
The scout's anxious Borisin tongue broke the silence within the Beastship.
The bowl of blood medicine in Hoolay's hand, freshly refined and still steaming with a fishy heat, shook slightly.
"Respected Hoolay Khan! The Luofu Cloud Knights army is pressing upon us! Their numbers... they blot out the sky, too many to count in a short time!"
"...How did the Xianzhou know we were here?!"
Hoolay was stunned. He tilted his head back to finish the blood medicine, a fierce light bursting from his eyes.
He made a prompt decision, having no desire to linger in battle.
"Order all the wolf cubs to abandon the base, board the Beastships, and evacuate at full speed!"
Unfortunately, it was too late.
As the Beastship clusters took flight, attempting to break through the star system's gravity, they found to their despair—
The outer perimeter of the star system, over eight hundred light-years in diameter, had already been completely blockaded by densely packed Xianzhou starships.
Hoolay chose a coordinate where the defense was relatively weak to break through, but he happened to run right into the pocket formation Jing Yuan had laid out by predicting his decision.
After paying the price of hundreds of Beastships being blown up, the Beastship Hoolay was on was heavily damaged by concentrated fire. Trailing a strange scent of roasted meat, it crashed toward a desolate planet on the edge of the star system.
"Roar—!"
Accompanied by a wolf howl that echoed for thousands of miles, lunar madness was fully triggered.
Near the crash site, the two Cloud Knight squads responsible for delaying them didn't even have time to form up before they were torn to pieces by that blood-red giant wolf.
Blood soaked the soil, and the metallic scent further triggered the frenzy of the remaining wolf pack, making their lunar madness state even more ferocious.
Just as Hoolay was preparing to lead the remnants to continue the breakout, the starship piloted by Bai Heng tore through the atmosphere, arriving in an instant with a piercing sonic boom.
The hatch opened, and a figure in military attire jumped down, landing silently not far from Hoolay.
Hoolay narrowed his eyes, sizing up the person standing alone in front of him.
Only one person?
Hoolay soon recognized her identity: the Luofu Sword Master, Jingliu.
The baleful star who had killed countless of his wolf cubs and made even the Borisin tremble with fear.
"Good, very good!"
Hoolay laughed instead of getting angry, muscles bulging under his fur, claws protruding menacingly.
"As long as I capture you, the Cloud Knights filling the sky will be wary of harming their own!"
Before his voice faded, Hoolay turned into a streak of blood-red lightning, his claws carrying a terrifying power to tear everything apart, aiming straight for Jingliu's throat.
Jingliu stood in place, unmoving.
The whistling wind blew her long hair, but it couldn't disperse the thick, inseparable gloom in her eyes.
Before the expedition, in the study, those gasps full of tenderness and complete devotion... it wasn't hard to imagine the figures entwined within.
Just imagining that scene was like a thorn piercing her heart, leaving a wound that would never heal.
Why do you treat me like this?
Why is it only you who can possess Master so unscrupulously, and want Master?
Since I can't have him... then let everything in this world hurt along with me.
The claws were already before her eyes.
Jingliu finally moved.
Instead of dodging, she lightly leaped toward the fishy wind.
Her crimson eyes suddenly lost all luster; there was no fighting intent, only a bone-chilling, pure tyranny.
A moon-like sword light slashed down with a roar, so fast that Hoolay could only barely catch a glimpse of that icy afterimage.
Boom—!
The earth let out a painful wail.
The moment the sword light hit the ground, a crack thousands of meters long spread instantly.
Hoolay, along with the hill beneath his feet, was actually split in two by this single strike!
A terrifying low temperature erupted, and the air within dozens of miles instantly froze into ice.
The wolf pack following the charge didn't even let out a scream before they turned into crystal-clear ice sculptures.
Hoolay let out a furious battle roar, his half-body writhing frantically on the ice. Granulation tissue grew wildly, and in just a breath, the two halves of his torso actually reattached and recovered.
Such terrifying regenerative ability was enough to make countless Cloud Knights tremble.
"You can't kill me!"
Hoolay roared and lunged at Jingliu again.
Jingliu was expressionless. Her wrist flicked, and the sword edge fell again.
Pfft!
Hoolay's right arm was severed at the root.
Another strike, and his left leg flew off.
Another strike, and the newly regrown right arm was lost again.
This wasn't a battle at all; it was a one-sided slaughter.
Jingliu was like an emotionless machine. Every strike precisely avoided Hoolay's torso, aiming only to lop off his limbs and sever his bones.
She was venting.
Pouring all her resentment for her unrequited love for her Master and her bone-deep jealousy of those two sisters onto this Abomination.
Hoolay's prideful regenerative ability had become his greatest curse at this moment.
Recovering again and again, only to be dismembered again and again.
Blood stained a hundred meters of permafrost, yet the military attire on Jingliu's body didn't have a single drop of blood on it, appearing so clean and tidy it was chilling.
"Enough! Jingliu!"
Hoolay was on the verge of a breakdown.
He had never seen such a demonic human. He roared while retreating.
"You will never kill me! As long as I have one breath left, I can..."
"Noisy."
Jingliu coldly spat out two words, her eyes releasing a soul-stirring red light.
In the next second, the world changed color.
Thousands of flying swords condensed from extreme cold ice energy appeared in mid-air, their tips all pointing at Hoolay.
If he couldn't be killed, then let him shut up forever.
A rain of swords fell like a violent hailstorm.
Pfft, pfft, pfft... the dense sound of flesh being pierced was enough to make one's scalp tingle.
Hoolay didn't even have time to scream before his body was completely impaled by thousands of ice swords, looking like a giant hedgehog.
Extreme cold energy erupted, and a towering ice mountain shimmering with a faint blue light rose from the ground, completely freezing his distorted face within.
When Dan Feng and Jing Yuan arrived with the main force, this was the scene they witnessed.
On the wasteland frozen as far as the eye could see, a massive ice prison stood tall.
Jingliu stood alone at the peak of the ice prison, her long hair dancing wildly in the wind, her back looking solitary and cold.
This... The battle-hardened Cloud Knights gasped, their hands holding their weapons unable to stop trembling.
Dan Feng looked at the ice prison, and the technique he had long since condensed at his fingertips, ready to be unleashed, quietly dissipated.
He shook his head.
Given the current situation, this Hunt expedition didn't need him at all.
Jing Yuan looked up at that familiar back, and for some reason, a wave of unprecedented coldness welled up in his heart.
Not because the surroundings were freezing, but because... his Master had changed.
The Master who, though strict, still had warmth in her eyes, was gone.
In her place was an unsheathed, lethal sword stained with hostility and madness.
"Master..."
Jing Yuan murmured to himself, not daring to step forward.
Beside him, Bai Heng rubbed the goosebumps on her arms and swallowed hard.
"Good grief... this isn't a war; it's practically a dismemberment torture scene. What on earth did Hoolay do to provoke this formidable lady?"