Chapter 991: The Dispatch

"You hate Abundance, yet you have lived to this day using Abundance's body; you have slashed countless spawn, and even you have been tangled by demonic shadow into half a monster, Jing Liu, each day you live proves that the blessing you reject still flows in your veins."

Shuhuo's voice carried a strange gentleness, like a mother coaxing a child who refuses to take medicine by the sickbed.

But to Jing Liu's ears, each word felt like a blade's tip scraping old wounds.

Jing Liu drew his sword, and the blade brushed against Shuhuo's fingers, sparking a string of firefly‑like light points.

He stepped back several meters; his frost‑white long hair rose in the cold air.

She gave no reply, merely holding the sword horizontally before her, the tip pointing at Shuhuo.

The sword, formed from pure cold and without substance, now emitted a low hum.

The temperature around her dropped sharply, even the moisture in the air solidified into fine ice dust that swirled slowly around her.

"You talk too much." Jing Liu finally spoke, his voice sounding as if each word were being squeezed out between his teeth.

The words barely left his mouth when his figure had already arrived.

This time there was no sword light, only a white line that flashed past Shuhuo's throat.

The edge of Shuhuo's collar split open, a few golden flowers were sliced, and the eyes in the flower cores shattered one by one.

She lowered her head to glance at the collar, then looked at Jing Liu, a hint of lazy smile still lingering at the corner of her mouth.

"You're afraid, afraid that one day you'll become me."

Far away on the Star Chariot, Fu Xuan still stood at the bow's edge.

She could not hear their conversation, only saw on the ice field the sword light and golden flowers flashing repeatedly, like two storms that should never meet entwined together.

Each collision hurled shards of ice and light dust, carving deep fissures across the entire ice surface.

Fu Xuan's fingers gripping the rail were numb from the cold, yet she remained motionless.

"General." Yan Qing's voice sounded from beside her.

Fu Xuan did not turn.

Yan Qing stepped another half‑step forward, handing a tablet to her eyes.

The screen displayed an enlarged blurry image, precisely the moment the girl emerged from the light cocoon.

Yan Qing swallowed, his voice pressed down to a whisper: "This person, her face… when I look at it, it's a bit like Miss Qingque?"

Fu Xuan said nothing.

She, of course, knew.

The features, the contour—clearly Qingque.

But the Abundance aura surging around her was completely different from Qingque's.

She dared not reveal it publicly, only repeated in her mind: it's merely a resemblance.

"Set aside who she resembles." Fu Xuan released the rail, turned to face the crowd on deck.

"By the authority of Acting General, I issue the command: the entire Luofu realm enters wartime status; all Cloud Cavalry suspend their rotations, organized under Tier‑B alert; the blockade expands three li outward; mobilize every movable golden soldier and thunder crossbow battery to positions; Heavenly Ship Office immediately controls the airspace—no aircraft may enter or exit without permission; Ten Kings Office prepare the seal array of Imprisoned Prison, standing ready!"

Having finished, his gaze swept over Yan Qing and Xue Yi, then out toward several escort Star Chariots in the distance.

"Yan Qing, lead two squads to set up defenses along the southern line of the ice field, approach the battlefield but do not enter the core zone; Xue Yi, go meet Han Ya, guard the western passage; if that thing moves outward, your only task is to hold it back."

"Understood!" Yan Qing clasped his fists, turned and ran a few steps, then halted, glancing back at Fu Xuan.

Fu Xuan nodded at him, the gesture feather‑light yet steady enough to quell the whole ice field's turbulence.

"Yaoqing, keep urging over there."

Fu Xuan turned, looked again at the battlefield, "Tell them that an Abundance‑level Command‑bearer reaction has appeared within Luofu; if General Feixiao can move, ask her to come aid immediately; if not… also send the latest Patrol Hunt coordinates to me."

There was no tremor in her voice.

But when that girl in the distance raised her hand again, gently crushing the hundreds‑meter sword light Jing Liu had sliced, Fu Xuan's finger hanging at her side still trembled.

At the same time.

Heimu leaned against a crooked lamp post, her hat brim pulled low; a purple Magic Staff was slanted into the crack at her feet, its crystal tip flickering dimly.

She bowed her head, before her floated a panel only she could see, reflecting half of her face.

On the panel, the scene from Luofu was updating in real time.

Jing Liu and that girl were locked in a melee on the ice field, sword light and golden flowers interweaving.

Heimu's eyes stared, and after a while she let out a light hum.

"Fate is really tough."

She whispered, "Even after all that, it can still get up and live fully; this thing belongs to earthworms, cut into eight pieces and it can still dance a group dance."

While speaking, she swiped the panel down, pulling up the girl's live data.

The Abundance energy reading was frighteningly high, the curve twisting like a snake whose tail had been stepped on, erratic and irregular.

But Heimu stared at those rows of data, her expression gradually shifting from solemn to a subtle disdain.

She extended two fingers, enlarging the image; the girl was raising her hand to crush a hundreds‑meter sword light from Jing Liu, her movement graceful.

Heimu's mouth twitched, and in a low voice said, "It looks intimidating, but in reality it's terribly hollow; it's just a simulated consciousness, truly thinking it's a Command‑bearer."

She shook her head, flipping the panel to another page.

There were several system logs that only she could read, recording the initial generation parameters of this cluster of consciousness.

Heimu tapped one line with her fingertip, and a feeling of speechlessness rose again in her mind.

She had originally only wanted to give Qingque a general's dream, and casually see whether Patrol Hunt power could lift Qingque's lazy, Salted Fish demeanor a bit.

As the dream progressed, Imperial Bow indeed cast a glance, but some line got tangled; Aha also surfaced, and the simulated Shuhuo consciousness inexplicably grew limbs from the Script, then lingered inside Qingque's body refusing to leave.

This development is wilder than any fan‑fiction derivative.

"I guess this counts as a hand‑crafted Command‑bearer, right?"

Heimu muttered softly, her finger twirling a strand of hair hanging from her hat brim, "Although what I crafted is completely different from what I imagined, it's still a Command‑bearer‑level prototype; saying it's a failure would be false, yet this sense of achievement is mixed with a lot of trouble."

【61】 She closed the log, tilted her head and glanced sideways.

She closed the log, tilted her head, and glanced to the side.

Pa Duo is crouching at A Bo Ni Ya's feet, the tricolor cat's Tail sweeps the ground in fits and starts, its mismatched eyes constantly glancing toward her.

Heimu, look over here, Pa Duo immediately leans her head close to A Bo Ni Ya and, in a voice she thinks is low, asks: "Sister A Bo Ni Ya, the lady has been pointing at the air for a long time and talking to herself, we're a bit nervous; she couldn't have been possessed by some filthy thing in the haunted house, could she?"

A Bo Ni Ya lowered her gaze, her veil gently fluttered in the night wind, and her ice‑blue pupils reflected the few still‑lit haunted‑house lamps in the distance.

She gave a soft "hm", her tone calm enough to seem out of place in this eerie, ghost‑filled spot: "She's just watching what's outside. Those matters are somewhat connected to us, yet far away; she cares, so she watches intently."

"Outside?"

Pa Duo's ears twitched, her neck stretched long, and she glanced again toward Heimu, "Since we entered this rundown amusement park we haven't even seen a gate; where does 'outside' come from? Sister, you sound all mystical, the cat can't understand."