Chapter 696: Decomposition

Unintelligible runes appeared on the path of light, circling the lapis‑blue beam in rings, each rune emitting a faint hum.

They formed a spiral, winding around her arm upward ring by ring.

The lapis‑blue laser shot out from her fingertips instantly.

The Light Pillar was straight, bearing the rune‑spiral tail, tearing a dazzling trail through the air.

Mid‑flight, the laser suddenly exploded.

The Light Pillar split into ten, those ten into a hundred, each becoming a lapis‑blue swimming fish.

The school of fish leapt from the laser's path, bearing a warm sheen, distinct scales, their fins rippling and swaying in the magical light like flowing water.

The leading fish opened its mouth, silently striking the long‑necked monster's chest, then piercing through.

The fish surged like a tide, Boom— crashing into the monster's massive surge at its very center.

The foremost long neck was knocked airborne, its neck knotting three times in midair before being devoured by the fish.

The spider‑leg creature's four legs were all sliced off by fish fins; its remaining torso spun twice on the spot before being swept away.

The detached upper and lower bodies were each seized by a fish and flung in opposite directions, the pink tether linking them snapped by a third fish's Tail swipe.

The monsters behind were shoved back by the whole fish tide, tumbling layer upon layer countless times, the fragments mingling into a dark‑red batter like overcooked porridge blended by a mixer.

Limb fragments flew, splashing water everywhere; the lapis‑blue fish surged through the corridor, the spectacle grand enough to seem as if the entire galaxy had been drawn down from the heavens to rinse this building.

Qingque withdrew her hand, curled a finger before her, watching the lingering lapis‑blue glimmer at her fingertip fade away.

At the far end of the corridor no monster could still stand; the floor was covered with water stains and wreckage turning into pixel fragments.

The distant TV Tower's red ripples still flickered, reflecting on her face in a faint, flickering glow.

Refreshing.

cool~

She brushed her chin, her emerald‑green eyes glowing with a certain Lingering Aftertaste of an immersive experience, "So I'm this strong in the dream. Well, it's a dream after all; the invincible‑type protagonist's Script should have been online long ago."

When her gaze returned from the corridor's far end, she suddenly noticed something: at the moment her fingertip had glowed, the surrounding walls had briefly shown a subtle change.

The sensation flashed by, but she remembered it.

In order there is chaos, and in chaos there is order.

She didn't know where she had heard the line, perhaps taught by the gray‑haired woman in the dream, perhaps a segment of the Great Void Sword Qi's core mantra,...

But at this moment it suddenly rose on its own, like a fish turning over at the bottom of the water, flashing its belly.

Qingque pressed her hand against the adjacent wall and closed her eyes.

The mind lacked a concrete manual, yet her body knew what to do, just as she had instinctively leapt onto the wall, stepped through the air, and traced an anti‑gravity path on the billboard moments ago.

In the dream, she could do whatever she wished.

Her thoughts shifted.

The wall began to decompose.

From solid wall it turned into countless water droplets, of various colors—azure, gold, emerald, and...

Each droplet retained a perfect sphere, its surface shimmering with a faint halo, as if the wall's entire substance had been broken down to its most basic units and reassembled into this form.

Not just the wall.

The whole building was decomposing.

All things simultaneously transformed into innumerable glowing droplets.

Yet the droplets did not fall; they hovered in place, precisely preserving the pre‑decomposition spatial relationships.

She could see the ceiling's outline still hanging there, only now it was no longer a single slab but a ceiling shape composed of countless fine pale‑gray droplets.

The walls likewise, the floor likewise; the entire spatial structure remained unchanged, merely the material swapped for floating droplets.

Qingque looked down; beneath her feet was not floor nor droplets, but a fish.

The fish was translucent, its blue scales each emitting lapis‑blue radiance, each edge inlaid with ultra‑fine Golden Thread, arranged unbelievably orderly...

The body was slender, bearing a streamlined beauty between realism and impression, like a koi that swam out of a classical ink painting.

The fins were broad and ethereal, edges like semi‑transparent mist; when they gently swayed they left trails of slowly...

The tail split into two long tendrils, each tip adorned with three rotating tiny droplets—azure, emerald, gold—forming a small...

"What's this— this is too—"

Qingque was choked off mid‑sentence, because she truly had no adjective that could match the fish before her.

She blinked, looked down at the fish, then raised her head to scan the surroundings.

All the droplets hovered in place, the corridor's outline still there, the monster wreckage she had swept away now turned into dark‑red droplets, starkly out of place among the glowing beautiful droplets, slowly sinking toward the ground.

Her thoughts moved again.

'Move forward'

The fish beneath her began to swim.

The fish swayed lightly in the air, passing through a wall of droplets; the wall automatically dispersed as she passed, opening a passage, then re‑coalesced after she went through.

The places the fish traversed caused the droplets to tremble slightly, generating minute ripples that spread through the air, striking other droplets and spawning farther ripples.

Qingque stood on the fish's back, her ash‑gray long hair fluttered by the flowing water, her skirt flared in the lapis‑blue light refracted by the droplets, her whole face beamed with a wash of moving light.

The tail flicked again, this time with greater upward thrust, the fish carrying her from the droplet‑built top layer into the sky, rising until she could see the whole cityscape.

The structures beneath her shattered in the dark‑red sky into fragments of ruin, the distant TV Tower's silhouette growing clearer.

Qingque stood on the fish's back, her ash‑gray long hair lifted by the breeze the fish's movement created, the tips drifting in the lapis‑blue light.

The asymmetrical hem and skirt also swayed lightly in the wind, the silver chain at her ankle jingling.

She glanced down at the fish beneath her, then raised her hand, casually drawing a line in the air with her finger.

Dozens of Imperial Wall Jade tiles sprang from her cuff, orbiting her; each emitted a lapis‑blue glimmer, slowly revolving around her and the fish, the engraved patterns flashing as they turned.

Some tiles bore fish, some birds, some depicted mountains and rivers, and some were simply the Imperial Wall Jade's score sheet.

Each one drew circles around her as the center, the circles intertwining to form a slowly rotating jade-colored halo.

"What is this?"

Qingque tilted her head, reached into the spinning tile formation and scooped out a jade tile, turned it over to look at the face—the fish pattern glowed, but surrounding it was a delicate pattern she had never seen before.

She examined the tile for a moment, then put it back in place, crossed her arms, and nodded thoughtfully, "Now I understand."

In fact, she didn't understand a bit of it.

But it was really handsome.