Chapter 797: Qingque Battle 5

Dozens of branches wildly struck the Bubbles cluster, but once a branch was inserted into the Bubbles it could not be pulled out; the Bubbles spread upward along the branch, crawling over its entire surface like ants, and then began to assimilate.

The golden hue turned into lapis, the wooden fibers became transparent bubble walls, and after the Bubbles enveloped the flowers at the branch tips, the petals transformed into Bubbles one by one and drifted away from the tips.

The eyes embedded in those flower cores finally left only a single pupil still rotating, and that pupil too turned into a Bubble.

Qingque leaned back against a Bubble.

Her body sank into the Bubble's soft curved surface, her ash‑white long hair fanned across the Bubble, her left leg's ultra‑thin mist‑gray thigh‑high socks were riddled with tears, golden pollen clung to the ankle of her right leg, and a corner of her skirt was missing.

Her breathing was still rapid, her chest rising sharply, yet the corners of her mouth were turned up to a great height.

She raised her right hand, fingers pointing upward, the tips still tinged with lapis‑colored light specks from the earlier card‑flipping.

The jade cards that had been shattered across the battlefield all responded at that instant.

Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, countless jade cards lit up simultaneously from every fold of the flesh wall, from every gap submerged by Bubbles, from every clump of lingering fragmented light!

They burst forth lapis‑colored radiance, the beams linking together to weave an immense, boundless web of light across this golden space.

Each strand of light was a spider silk, each precisely piercing a monster's body—the small creatures stirring on the flesh wall, the crimson eyes embedded in the flesh still turning, the half‑formed shells crawling outward from the flesh wall.

The light web tightened.

In an instant, every Abundance entity in the space that had not yet been assimilated by Bubbles was sliced into fragments by the light web.

Before the fragments could disperse, they were engulfed by Bubbles surging in from all directions, assimilated, and transformed into new Bubbles.

It was a thorough cleansing.

The monster's body became completely rigid.

Its left half was cut by the light web; three branches, an arm, half a shoulder peeled away from the torso, spun a few times in the air, then a swarm of Bubbles lunged to assimilate them.

Its body lost balance on the spot; the remaining right hand swung in the air, trying to grasp something for stability, but surrounded by Bubbles, its hand plunged into the cluster like sinking into a swamp, deeper each moment, unable to be pulled out.

Qingque rose from the Bubble.

She stood at the very top of the Bubble's curved surface, her body slightly leaning forward, eyes lowered toward the monster, its ragged silhouette reflected in her lapis‑colored pupils.

She extended her right hand, fingers splayed, palm up, and lingering lapis‑colored light threads still twirled in the air around her fingers.

Then she spoke.

"Pre‑emptive clarification—"

Qingque's voice was soft, even a little breathless, yet the certainty and elegance in her tone eclipsed all fatigue.

The corners of her mouth curled, part earnest, part nonchalant, her tone like announcing a busted hand to fellow players in a teahouse, "You are… the challenger!"

Then she snapped her fingers.

The Bubbles suspended throughout the space, at that instant, surged toward the monster!

Countless Bubbles converged from all directions—up, down, left, right, front, back—pressing the core monster into the very center.

The first Bubble adhered to its right leg, assimilation began, the golden wooden fibers breaking down into transparent bubble walls.

The second Bubble stuck to its abdomen, the third to its nape, the fourth to its still‑unclosed upturned snout.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands of Bubbles piled layer upon layer, encasing the core monster into a massive, writhing transparent sphere.

Inside the sphere, a hand thrashed, trying to emerge through a Bubble gap, but dozens of Bubbles rushed in to envelop it, finger by finger being assimilated—golden turning transparent, transparent turning into void.

The flesh wall behind Qingque, thick as tens of thousands of miles, shattered with a thunderous crack under the relentless high‑pressure wash of the Bubbles.

The golden flesh wall, upon touching a Bubble, was instantly assimilated, transformed into new Bubbles, which then moved on to the next layer of flesh.

The process accelerated to an unbelievable pace, the sea of Bubbles like a starving leviathan devouring a cake—each bite removing a layer, each subsequent bite another layer gone.

A flesh wall whole one second collapsed the next into a massive void; the surrounding flesh thrashed violently, trying to repair with Abundance energy, yet the Bubbles surged in far faster than the repair could keep up.

The void expanded outward, reaching the trunk of the Giant Tree, then the canopy, and all space tainted by Abundance began to crumble under the Bubble wash.

That sky‑obscuring, sun‑blocking Golden Giant Tree, whose age was unknown, began to collapse from within.

On the trunk, tens of millions of human faces simultaneously let out a final low sigh, eyes closing one after another, turning into Bubbles that peeled from the trunk's surface and floated toward the sky.

Qingque could feel the monster's aura waning rapidly.

The Abundance pressure that had earlier left people breathless now felt as light as a punctured balloon, shrinking ever smaller.

Encased in layer upon layer of Bubbles, the monster's outline shifted from solid to semi‑transparent, then to a vague silhouette of light.

It was about to end.

Qingque thought to herself.

She saw Fu Xuan.

?

In the Luofu Tai Bu Si's office.

Fu Xuan stood before her, her long pink‑purple hair fashioned into a soaring bun, the Divination Eye on her forehead reflecting the golden daylight streaming through the window.

She held a dossier in her hand.

"Qingque."

Fu Xuan's voice was crisp as the first breath of a winter morning, "Your attendance sheet this month shows fifteen days without a sign‑in."

Qingque scratched the back of her head, her brown‑tinted ponytail swaying, "Grand Diviner, I was there all fifteen days. I just didn't sign in."

"No sign‑in equals no arrival."

Fu Xuan slapped the dossier onto the desk with a 'Snap—', "You've spent plenty of time at Tai Bu Si, and you still don't grasp this simple rule?"

"Got it, got it."

Qingque tucked her neck in, using the tone best suited for dealing with a superior, "I'll definitely sign next month, definitely."

Fu Xuan gave her a glance.

In that glance were seven parts resignation and three parts an indefinable something, blending into a sigh, "You always say that. Every time, it's next month."

The scene shifted.

Same office, different time.

The sky outside the window had already shifted from daylight to evening, and the orange‑red afterglow dyed the entire Tai Bu Si in warm hues.

Fu Xuan sat at the desk reviewing the files, not lifting their head.

Qingque lay on the table beside her, a copy of the "Exhaustive Observation Formation Operation Algorithm Rules" spread before her, but her brush had slipped from her hand at some point, her face pressed to the paper, a glistening droplet of saliva at the corner of her mouth.

Fu Xuan set the pen down.

Fu Xuan stood up, walked to Qingque's side, and lowered their head to look at the Diviner who was sleeping like a dead pig.

After three seconds of silence, Fu Xuan removed their own outer robe and gently draped it over Qingque.

Then, instead of returning to their seat, Fu Xuan remained standing beside Qingque for a long while.

The edge of the purple outer robe hung over Qingque's fingers, and the sleeping Qingque unconsciously clenched it.

The scene changed again.

In the tea house, the sweet scent of osmanthus cake mingled with the crisp bitterness of Immortal Happy Tea.

Qingque sat in a corner booth, a game of Imperial Wall Jade spread before them, a card clenched in their hand as they hesitated whether to play it.

Then the tea house door was pushed open, and the wind chime at the entrance jingled a series of sounds.

Fu Xuan stood in the doorway, backlit, their expression unreadable.

But their steps were so swift that the cat kept by the tea house proprietress fled in fright.