Chapter 698: Died

Qingque reached out, grabbed Star's shoulder, and gave a few hard pushes.

Pioneer was jostled by her push, his head rolled half a circle on the fish's back, but his expression stayed the same—dumb, vacant, serene, with the calm of "I've done everything I can; the rest is up to fate."

"Pioneer! Wake up!"

"What's wrong with you? Where the heck are we? What are those blooming things? What's happening on the TV Tower? How did you fly here to me?"

Qingque's questions burst out like a rapid‑fire gun, her voice rising higher and faster with each word.

By the end she felt a bit incoherent herself, but she couldn't worry about that now.

The person in front of her was the only normal character she'd met in this dream; if even she couldn't answer the questions, then this broken dream would truly be hers alone.

Star's eyelid twitched.

It was hard, as if several Qiongyu cards were pressing down on the eyelid.

His lips opened a bit more, this time barely speaking, just a faint vibration of breath from his throat.

Qingque quickly leaned down, pressed her ear to Star's mouth again, even quieting her own breathing for fear of missing a single word.

"Don't ask why—save this place—"

And then nothing.

The breath stopped.

The lips ceased moving.

The eyelid stopped moving.

The whole face froze in that half‑opened eye, slightly ajar mouth, upward‑curved corner—like an unfinished plaster statue left to dry in the wind.

Died.......

Qingque stared blankly for a moment, then jolted up, nearly toppling off the fish's back.

No, sister— you haven't said anything!

What song are you singing!

Save what!

Give me some crucial intel before you log off, okay!

She squeezed her own thigh, trying to force calm out of the panic, but the effort lasted only a fraction of a second before she gave up, since the squeeze didn't even hurt.

Great, even squeezing your thigh is useless in a dream.

Then Star's body began to emit light.

Golden flashes seeped out from under her skin—first the fingertips, then the arms, finally the whole body.

Layer by layer, she was enveloped in an ever‑brighter halo.

Huh?

Qingque stared dumbfounded at the scene, her mind completely blown.

"Pioneer! Are you the Salted Egg Light Superhuman of the M87 Nebula?! Why are you still flashing! Stop flashing! I've barely seen a Pioneer in my life—don't just ascend here in my dream!"

Qingque clutched her head, her voice shooting straight from her throat, the pitch so high even the fish beneath her flicked its Tail.

The light grew brighter, almost blinding her eyes.

She shielded her eyes with a hand, and through the gaps saw Star's body turning transparent piece by piece, the garment's edges blurred, hair and light mingling indistinguishably between gray and gold.

Star's expression never changed from start to finish.

The corner of his mouth lifted, as if saying something, yet also as if saying nothing, simply content that this was enough to finish his shift.

The radiance burst and then faded.

Golden specks drifted like dandelion fluff blown by wind, floating a few meters upward before dimming one by one.

On the fish's back only Qingque remained, arms wrapped around her head, mouth agape, eyes wide, staring at the empty space ahead.

The wind still blew, the distant TV Tower continued flashing red‑gold interwoven light, the fish beneath still swayed its Tail, and the surrounding Qiongyu cards kept spinning.

She slowly lowered her hands from either side of her head, letting them hang at her sides, then clenched her fists.

No rescue information at all.

It was exactly like a movie she'd seen, even the transformation move was spot‑on.

"What are you handing over to me—! I don't even know where this is—! Are all you Pioneers like this—!"

Not a single one of her questions was answered; instead, several new ones appeared.

The wind blew again, lifting the gray‑white strands at Qingque's temple to brush her mouth corner.

Her mouth corner twitched.

The surge erupting from the TV Tower's peak cut off her wail.

It wasn't the faint aftershock before; now the entire tower tip was trembling.

Golden light burst from the tower's apex, pouring outward like a floodgate opened.

The fish beneath reacted instantly, its Tail fin flicked hard, and the whole fish backed off several meters, head lifted into a defensive stance.

The Qiongyu cards surrounding her also reformed, shifting from casual spin to a three‑layer interlaced shield, each card glowing at its limit.

Qingque plopped back onto the fish's back, lifted her head, eyes tracking the upward‑rising aura from the tower's base to its tip, then into the sky.

Countless blood‑red branches squeezed outward from inside the tower's top, their thickness ranging from arm‑wide to waist‑wide, each wildly extending outward, cracking the tower's concrete and steel, the whole structure peeling from top to bottom like an orange rind torn from within by an invisible hand, layer after layer.

As the blood‑red branches stretched outward, they changed color—first light red, then orange, then gold, finally a blinding, eye‑painful golden hue.

The trunk had grown so massive it defied diameter measurement, resembling the horizon itself, spreading from the TV Tower's original spot in all directions, engulfing surrounding buildings within its ever‑expanding outline.

Branches forked, re‑forked, and forked again, each limb completing in moments the centuries‑long growth cycle ordinary trees need.

The golden canopy rose continuously under the dark‑red sky until the heavens themselves became a dense, overlapping dome.

Qingque's head kept tilting backward.

The backward angle shifted from fifteen to thirty to forty‑five to sixty degrees, her neck nearly a right angle, still unable to see the treetop, chin pointing skyward, mouth agape.

"Aaaahhh........"

From deep in her throat came an exclamation she hadn't even realized was so long.

She sat on the fish's back, her hands braced behind her, neck arched to the limit, her emerald‑green eyes looking upward, trying to pull the whole tree's outline into her view, but she couldn't, not at all.

It wasn't that her sight wasn't far enough; the tree had already exceeded the spatial scale she could comprehend.

It was no longer just a tree; it was an entire world, a world expanding in the form of a tree.

She felt like an ant crouching beneath a whale's toe, looking up and seeing not the whale's whole shape, but a swath that filled her entire vision, constantly writhing, a golden "something".

What made her scalp tingle even more were the tree's own details, the things only visible up close.

The tree trunk was covered with scarlet spots, each several meters in diameter, densely embedded in the golden bark.

Those spots moved, not blown by wind but of their own accord, turning slowly like eyeballs, the pupil area a darker, deeper blood‑red ring.