Chapter 460: 2.2 Main – Pinokangni (131)

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The Galloping Horse Rogue.

The campfire crackled over the pitch‑black desert, sparks leapt into the night sky and mingled with the train lights in the heavens. Jie Luo Qi Beilin bit open a wine bottle with his teeth and tossed it into the fire, sending up a burst of rising flames.

"Here." He handed the bottle to Qiaoni, "You drink first, warm your body up."

Qiaoni Qiaosida took the bottle and downed a gulp; the spicy liquid finally warmed his once‑frozen body. He stared unblinkingly at the heavens, assuming it must be far warmer than that damned American West.

"That woman named Huangquan—she intends to have the train conductor abandon his companions and flee? What kind of thing is that?"

"Qiaoni…" Jie Luo's golden tooth glittered in the firelight, "Have you ever seen a sane gambler stake his last capital on the table?"

"Yes—Shajin, isn't that it?"

"Uh… he doesn't count. His luck is probably even better than that Boke Luoke fellow; such an implausible creature is beyond our discussion scope."

"Fine… then there is none." Qiaoni spread his hands.

"Let me share my personal view," Jie Luo said, the campfire dancing in his green eyes. "Huangquan probably sensed something—I guess Pinokangni is about to undergo a world‑shaking event, and the Dream Master is brewing a massive plot behind the scenes—massive enough to cover the entire Asdena star system. Huangquan made the train swerve to divert the train crew's final 'capital' and avoid collateral damage; after all, a train and its conductor are unique across the galaxy."

"A conspiracy? What conspiracy?"

"How would I know? I'm not a worm in the Dream Master's gut… uh, if he even has a gut."

Jie Luo tipped his head back and chugged another mouthful, the overflow dripping down his chin onto the sand. "In short, my view is that only by diverting the Celestial Train can Dan Heng, Xing and the others throw themselves wholeheartedly into the upcoming battle."

"Jie Luo, you forgot something…" Qiaoni chuckled, "The Alliance Jade Omen. If we truly can't win, we can call General Jingyuan for help; even if the Dream Master summons the Harmony Envoy, the train crew still has a Hunt‑Patrol Envoy to assist, and the scene will instantly become spectacular."

"Makes sense; that is indeed the train crew's biggest trump card," Jie Luo nodded thoughtfully. "But moving Luo Fu's thousands of troops to Pinokangni… can the Daydream Hotel even accommodate them?"

——

"Mr. Boti O, you may have guessed… I have been waiting for your arrival. Sea‑rangers are elusive, and we rarely interact. Forgive me that I can only contact you this way."

"Only this way can I find the true sea‑ranger. And only thus can I fulfill an ancient promise…" Huangquan slowly closed his eyes, "Return 'his' relic to its original owner."

……

"Someone once told me… every rain is Heaven's mercy toward the world. Rain and dew are the gods' tears, shed because of mortal sorrow. Yet the fact that they still fall shows the gods have not lost hope in this world."

"So…"

The blood‑red canopy rustled in the fetid wind as Huangquan and the old man beside him gazed silently at the distant sea. Countless withered hands emerged from the foam, like the final struggles of those about to drown.

"How long has this rain been going on?"

"Once, I too hoped it would cease someday, and years, decades passed… in the end, 【Hope】 reached its end before this rain did." The old man's voice was like dry autumn leaves, hoarse and bleak, "It seems the god you speak of does not exist."

"Let me tell you a story…"

"Mortals walk their fates like a small boat crossing a water surface, leaving a winding trail that ripples countless possibilities. Compared with a human's fleeting life, these waves persist for ages. Among them are some whose traces are so strong that they cast their own reflections within the spray of waves."

Huangquan watched the withered hands reaching from the water, one after another, and said, "It's like… the shadows on the sea surface."

"【Blood‑Crime Spirit】… the obsession of fate‑walkers, born from the shadows of IX, seeing themselves as the masters, unknowingly reenacting the deeds of the departed."

"They are born from void, return to void, living a meaningless life. Yet this band of empty phantoms… were once my cherished companions, a group of sea‑rangers."

——

Assassin Wu Liuqi.

"Whoa! What the heck is this?"

Jida Bao's cigar clattered to the ground, his sunglasses slid to the tip of his beak, and he stared blankly at the eerie sea within the heavens, though the strangest sight was the black sun hanging in the sky, its gaze seemed to pierce you.

"Damn! Can't see the end of it; it must have killed thousands of sea‑rangers, right?"

"Thousands?" Lan Minghua pulled up his wobbling trousers, chuckled, "Perhaps a war involving sea‑rangers has broken out in the galaxy? Sea‑rangers have vanished… maybe it's related."

"War…"

Wu Liuqi muttered, lowering his head; with only two years of memory, war was undeniably a foreign term to him. In the Xuanwu Nation, each conquered region sees its strongest locals killed to force others to surrender—a common practice… but a war with casualties on this scale was the first Wu Liuqi had ever witnessed.

"Sea‑rangers are all quite skilled, right? In a war they join, who would be the opponent? The Primeval Doctor?" In Wu Liuqi's impression, the greatest foe of the sea‑rangers was probably that never‑appearing doctor.

"Probably yes," Lan Minghua said lightly, "The Zhishi geniuses likely forged many lethal weapons. Just look at Site Guo; they show no mercy when they kill."

——

"Are you watching over them?"

"Watch? No, I'm performing a rite for them," the old man said calmly. "It was a horrific war, a universe‑shaking crusade; the cosmos witnessed the downfall of the great annihilator, but the cost… aside from the participants, no one remembers the price."

"The hunt‑patrol's resolve to die never ceases even at life's end, so someone must guide these lost souls. They were heroes in life; they should not become void puppets after death."

"As for me… I also lost too much on that battlefield, cannot set out again, and thus became the most suitable person to accomplish this."

Huangquan said regretfully, "But you know, these Blood‑Crime Spirits… after all, are not them."

"In your view, is this pointless? Yet some things, even if meaningless, still must be done."