Chapter 7: Collapse Rail: The Astral Express General Won't Dream of Yandere Chapter 7 Xing Xiao's Strictest Father

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Protagonist:

Xuan Ge

The surface of Sila Bake Planet was now brutally split into two colors.

On one side lay the silent dark and cold metallic gray—the soldiers of the Shenwu Army Fifth Army relied on the massive landed ships to construct a circular defensive position.

The energy shield generator emitted a low hum, and a pale blue light curtain rippled slightly in the air, barely keeping out the strange, pungent odor mixed with sweet fishiness and rotting wood.

The soldiers gripped their standard weapons tightly, their eyes behind the face masks vigilantly scanning ahead, formation tight, silent, with only the occasional faint hydraulic sound from the joints of their powered armor.

Proving this was a steel torrent capable of erupting with terrifying power at any moment.

On the other side lay pure black and gray-white.

Countless "Void Soldiers" grew like ugly mushrooms from the shadows of the earth, densely spread out, extending all the way to the edge of sight.

At the center of this black-and-white confrontation stage, the colossal "Doomsday Beast" crouched like a mountain.

Dark golden lava light flowed through the cracks on its rough trunk, as if forcibly blended from countless concepts of destruction.

And on the platform formed by its giant claws, capable of crushing small starships, a point of pure white stood quietly.

Xing Xiao.

She still wore that spotless white bodysuit, forming a stark contrast with the surrounding scene of destruction.

Her long white hair fluttered slightly in the wind mixed with poison dust and energy disturbances, and the star rings around her eye sockets emitted a steady, soft light, concealing all emotion.

She simply stood there, as if appreciating a landscape unrelated to her, slightly noisy.

Just as the atmosphere of confrontation grew tense enough to almost burst into sparks—

The sky split open.

Without warning, without sound.

A pillar of light woven from blue-gold lightning, like a spear of judgment cast down by a god, plunged straight down from the top of the turbid heavens!

"Boom——!!!!!"

Not the deafening roar of an explosion, but a deeper, more shocking sound, as if the very structure of space had been dented by immense force.

The earth, centered on where the pillar landed, visibly rose in a circular wave of soil, mixed with instantly vaporized rock and twisted plant remains, violently pushing outward in a radial blast!

Even the massive Doomsday Beast in the distance seemed to tremble slightly in this terrifying shockwave.

Dust had not settled, lightning had not faded.

A figure slowly rose from the center of where the lightning struck.

Xuan Ge.

He had shed his usual black ancient robe, convenient for movement and bearing a touch of carefree swordsman casualness, and donned true general's armor.

The upper body was black armor fitted closely to the torso, material neither metal nor jade, flowing with a deep matte luster under the dim sky light.

Upon the armor, sharp blue-gold lines like living lightning erupted from the heart's position, spreading and wandering along the torso and limbs.

With every breath, those lines flickered in and out, as if a stormy ocean were sealed within his body.

The lower body was matching war skirt and leg guards, lines crisp and neat, without redundant decoration, only for ultimate protection and mobility.

Most eye-catching were the pauldrons. The left and right shoulders were not symmetrical, but cast in the ferocious "Ghost-faced Beast Devouring" style.

The left shoulder beast head grinned, brows and eyes curved, yet exuding a frivolous evil air;

The right shoulder beast head glared with wide eyes, fangs bared, as if ready to devour people, killing intent soaring to the sky.

One joy, one anger, contradictory yet harmoniously unified in him, fitting him perfectly.

Behind him, a narrow long cape slanted down from the right shoulder, its length only reaching the side of the waist.

The cape was not cloth, but composed of condensed dark purple energy, its edges constantly dissipating faint electric arcs, silently fluttering, like a shadow that tore space.

And behind him, the Void surged, a colossal half-body phantom toweringly emerged—Divine Lord, Chigui!

It held the spear, spear tip pointing to the earth, already locking onto the sole white figure ahead.

Xuan Ge slightly raised his head, golden pupils falling precisely on Xing Xiao in the palm of the Doomsday Beast through the not yet fully dissipated dust haze.

His gaze was calm, yet carried the pressure of a storm about to break.

Xing Xiao seemed finally interrupted from her "appreciation" by this forceful entrance.

Her pure white figure lightly rose, as if weightless, falling from the palm of the Doomsday Beast, slowly flying to before Xuan Ge, separated by no more than ten zhang, facing each other from afar.

Xuan Ge watched her float before him again, the corner of his mouth uncontrollably twitching once.

Again!

"Xing Xiao." He spoke, voice not loud, but clearly pressing over the wind and the hum of the distant energy shield, carrying obvious irritability.

"You really think I have no way to deal with your turtle shell?"

His gaze, habitually and with a touch of looking down, slightly lowered, falling on Xing Xiao's face obscured by the star rings.

Xing Xiao did not answer. She seemed to lack even the interest to speak.

Only on that face shrouded in star ring light, the corner of her mouth curved up an almost imperceptible arc.

That was a silent, determined answer: Yes.

Xuan Ge couldn't be bothered to play these riddles with her anymore.

His gaze shifted slightly, sweeping over the surrounding environment.

The earth beneath his feet was covered in a vegetation too deep green, even seeming greasy, and the sweet, fishy, rotten smell in the air lingered.

Among the twisted forests in the distance, strange-shaped creatures emitting Virtual Number Toxicity seemed to wriggle in the shadows.

Full of life, yet carrying a strange discomfort from the root.

"You came for this Stellaron?" Xuan Ge raised an eyebrow, as if a certain possibility had occurred to him.

Just then, a Shen Wu Corps officer wearing a field-grade officer's armor quickly jogged up from the rear positions, halted a few steps to Xuan Ge's side and rear, cupped his fist, and reported in a low voice:

"General! According to the latest records in the Xianzhou Alliance Star Chart database, Sila Bake Planet, during its last survey eighty standard years ago, had its surface environment assessed as:

a barren dead star with severe radiation pollution, soil desertification, and depleted water resources, lacking conditions for large-scale life survival.

The scene before our eyes..... severely contradicts the records!"

Xuan Ge gave a slight nod, a trace of realization flashing in his golden eyes.

As expected.

It was the people on this planet who, in despair, discovered an unactivated Stellaron and made a "wish" to it.

Wasteland turned lush, dead ground regained "vitality."

The Stellaron granted the wish, in a twisted, price-laden way.

This pervasive miasma, this mutated ecology, this pseudo-number toxicity that slowly erodes life everywhere in the air..... are all the price tags already marked on the reverse of the wish.

For the Xianzhou Celestials with their long lifespans and enhanced constitutions, these miasmas are at most like smelling burnt food — nauseating, dizzying, enervating — but not fatal in a short time.

But for the ordinary carbon-based or silicon-based life living here, this is undoubtedly a slow-burning purgatory.

"Go," Xuan Ge didn't look back, his order concise and clear, "Find the Stellaron, secure it. If there's resistance....."

He paused, his voice dropping a degree colder.

"Per Article 27 of the Provisional Convention on Pan-Universal Civilization Protection and Interstellar Resource Management.

Suspected illegal use and concealment of an unregistered high-risk cosmic relic, endangering the survival of the local civilization and interstellar public safety.

Necessary compulsory measures may be taken; ringleaders detained and handed over to the nearest Shen Wu Xian Zhou Alliance judicial office for processing."

"Yes!"

The field officer didn't hesitate, acknowledged the order, turned, and quickly assembled a squad of elite soldiers, galloping toward the area on the planet with the densest life-sign reactions.

From start to finish, Xing Xiao just hovered there, quietly watching Xuan Ge issue orders, watching the Shen Wu Corps squad depart, with no intention of stopping them, not even a ripple of energy fluctuation arising.

She knew Xuan Ge didn't care about this already-polluted, ominous-aura-emitting Stellaron itself at all.

What he cared about was her — Xing Xiao.

A Destruction Monarch, why would she appear here, why would she "need" a Stellaron.

This doesn't match the Destruction Legion's consistent, direct and pure destructive style.

Seeing Xing Xiao's impervious, fearless look, Xuan Ge was genuinely amused into a laugh by her.

He suddenly withdrew the awe-inspiring Chi Gui Divine Lord phantom behind him.

The massive energy body dispersed silently like a phantom, leaving only a faint scent of lightning in the air.

Then, in the moment Xing Xiao seemed somewhat puzzled, Xuan Ge moved.

His motion exceeded ordinary cognition in speed; his right hand shot out like lightning, and before Xing Xiao could make any effective reaction, his thumb and forefinger had already precisely pinched the two sides of her cheeks.

Applying slight force, he squeezed them toward the center.

Xing Xiao's lips, always tightly pressed or slightly hooked, were forced to puff up, forming a cute curve.

The light behind her star-ring seemed to flicker rapidly once.

Xing Xiao almost instinctively raised her hand, wanting to bat away this daring, offensive "lecherous hand."

However, her wrist was firmly seized by another even faster hand halfway there.

Xuan Ge's left hand was like an iron hoop, easily restraining her resistance.

"Hmph....."

A very soft, clearly angry cute cold snort spilled from Xing Xiao's forced-puffed lips.

Her right hand instantly rose, and in her palm, pure and violent Destruction Energy frantically gathered, compressed into a pitch-black light sphere that constantly twisted and tore the surrounding light, emitting a heart-palpitating Yin Mie aura.

Had this strike landed on the planet's surface, it would have been enough to blow up this planet..

But, that sphere of destruction light merely leaped violently in her palm for a moment, then dispersed silently like a popped bubble.

She gave up.

Not that she didn't want to, but that she knew it was useless.

Her attacks, whether Destruction or that thread of Harmony mixed within, landing on Xuan Ge, were like a clay ox entering the sea — they would be twisted, deflected, nullified into nothingness by the karma force coiling around him.

She could clearly perceive the "cause" of the attack, yet could never reach the "effect" of hitting and injuring him.

This is a despair-inducing counter.

So, she merely "hmph"ed coldly once more, and ceased her futile struggle.

Though pinched like this, wrist seized, posture humiliating, heart full of unwillingness and cold anger.

But she was equally certain — Xuan Ge wouldn't dare, and couldn't, truly strike a killing blow at her.

Therefore, she "rested assured"..... maintaining this awkward posture.

Before long, that departed field officer returned, an additional object confined in a special force field in his hand.

He stepped forward quickly, and upon seeing the "weird" interaction between his own General and that terrifying Destruction Monarch.....

His footsteps paused imperceptibly, but his face showed no superfluous expression; he swiftly lowered his eyelids.

The General's conduct has always been..... unexpected.

Not something subordinates like them should speculate on.

"General, the Stellaron has been located and secured. The holder has been temporarily detained; no fierce resistance occurred." The field officer presented the confinement force field.

Xuan Ge released the hand gripping her wrist.

He casually grabbed through the air, and the force-field-wrapped Stellaron left the field officer's control, drifting lightly into his palm.

The force field dispersed, revealing the Stellaron's true appearance.

A sphere two sizes smaller than an adult man's fist, its whole body circulating a warm and mysterious golden halo, inside as if a nebula slowly rotated, tranquil and beautiful.

Anyone seeing it at first glance would feel this was a treasure containing infinite mysteries and hope, not a scourge bringing distortion and calamity.

Xuan Ge weighed the small yet immensely heavy Stellaron in his palm.

His gaze returned to Xing Xiao, whose cheek he still held pinched before him.

"You want this?" He shook the Stellaron in his hand, golden light tracing broken arcs in the air before Xing Xiao's eyes.

He paused; the interest on his face deepened, even carrying a trace of utterly undisguised mockery.

"Could it be... our esteemed Monarch of Extinction, Miss Xing Xiao, has changed her interests?

Started chasing the scattered, ill-fated Stellaron trails across Huan Yu like some interstellar scavenger?"

Xing Xiao turned her head slightly away; she refused to make any sound.

It wasn't that she hadn't tried to resist or break free.

In fact, ever since being restrained, she had been constantly mobilizing the powers of Destruction and Harmony within her body, attempting to impact, erode, and dismantle the causal confinement Xuan Ge had imposed on her.

But she couldn't do it...

This feeling of having strength with nowhere to apply it, having cause with no effect — this stifling sensation — made her both angry and filled with an indescribable... strangeness.

"Just what..." Xuan Ge raised the Stellaron to eye level with Xing Xiao, fingertips lightly stroking the crystal's smooth surface.

The provocation in Xuan Ge's tone nearly overflowed, "What secret are you hiding? Or rather, what are you calculating?"

He dangled the Stellaron, like teasing a disobedient cat.

"This thing is scattered everywhere, and it can even grant wishes, damn it..."

Xuan Ge sneered, shook his head, golden eyes staring straight at Xing Xiao, voicing the greatest doubt in his heart, tone half serious, half absurd.

"Is this really something that Aeon of Destruction, who only wants to toll the death knell for the entire universe, would tinker together?"

The Stellaron at his fingertips quietly emitted an alluring yet dangerous golden glow.