Chapter 213

Chapter 213: What Are You Doing Here?

Before long, Wang Jie was squatting in front of the vendor again.

“Huh? It’s you,” the vendor said. “Still haven’t found a squad? I’ve seen you wandering around for days. Want me to point you to an easy road?”

“No,” Wang Jie said. “I got my next mission.”

“Oh? Where to?”

“Han Hai.”

The vendor’s face changed instantly. He stared at Wang Jie with pure sympathy. “Then I hope you die peacefully.”

Wang Jie stared back. “Tell me about Han Hai.”

He tapped the dagger. “I’ll buy this.”

The vendor shook his head. “Don’t buy it. You won’t need it.”

Then, after a moment, he sighed. “But fine. Han Hai.”

“It’s simple. It’s a battlefield made of countless shattered planet fragments.”

“In a huge stretch of space, fragments float everywhere—big and small. Cultivators from three star clouds brawl there nonstop, fighting over territory.”

“It’s also closest to the nebula stream, so it’s the most important place.”

“Our goal is to move the Command Hub there. Second Star Cloud wants the same. Third Nebula won’t allow it.”

“So the slaughter never stops unless one side finally wins.”

Wang Jie’s expression hardened.

The vendor’s eyes looked haunted. “There’s no tactics there. No strategy. No formation.”

“Only filling.”

“Filling it with lives.”

“They throw in tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions. Survival rate is one in ten thousand.”

“They keep feeding it bodies. Batch after batch.”

He leaned closer. “I heard they’ve already gathered the next batch. You’re one of them, aren’t you? Should be a million people.”

Wang Jie left.

His terminal sent the assembly location and a countdown. Anyone who failed to arrive in time would be punished—punished brutally—and then still be forced into Han Hai.

No one dared refuse.

Wang Jie arrived at the assembly point.

A rest hall.

Packed.

Every person inside was headed for Han Hai. Most were sect disciples—starforce and lockforce cultivators mixed together.

The slaughterstone planet natives were kept elsewhere, under guard, treated like livestock waiting to be driven into the grinder.

“Brother, join our Will Gang!” someone shouted. “We’ve united over a thousand people. We’ll survive Han Hai together!”

“Our Old Boss is full-star realm starforce cultivator. He’s strong!”

“Over here!” another voice called. “Our Old Boss is peak full-star realm! He once held out for an incense stick against a roaming-star realm!”

“This is nothing—our—”

Recruitment pitches flew everywhere.

A few people approached Wang Jie. He declined politely.

The bigger the group, the bigger the target.

These people were desperate, but desperation didn’t make them smart.

Someone argued nearby. “You’re safer with numbers.”

“And you die faster with numbers,” another snapped. “One blast hits the crowd and you’re all gone.”

“I heard Han Hai has endless fragments. If you aren’t unlucky enough to get caught in the shockwaves, you can hide.”

“Hiding doesn’t get you out,” someone else said bitterly. “To leave Han Hai, you either become a Battle Trooper, or you survive a full year. Otherwise you’re trapped.”

“Enemies will find you.”

“Every hiding place has been searched.”

“The terrain changes.”

The arguments never stopped—heated, bleak, desperate.

Wang Jie listened without expression. He could have paid for a private room. He didn’t.

He wanted information. He wanted to hear how people who’d been here longer thought.

Even with roaming-star realm combat power, you could still die to bad luck.

Wang Jie had never believed he was guaranteed to live.

Otherwise, Zhi Qing and the others wouldn’t have worked so hard to throw him here.

He scanned the crowd—

And froze.

A face.

Familiar.

The man noticed his gaze and looked back.

For a moment, the noise of the hall fell away.

They stared at each other, both stunned.

Zhi Nan Xing.

What was he doing here?

Wang Jie walked over and sat beside him, studying him as if he needed to confirm the man was real.

Zhi Nan Xing’s eyes flashed with anger. “What are you doing here?”

Wang Jie gave him a curious look. “I was about to ask you. You’re a direct heir of the Zhi family, and you’re here?”

Zhi Nan Xing snorted. “Every generation’s inheritor walks through battlefields of life and death. I’m no exception.”

“Otherwise the family declines.”

He waved Wang Jie off. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Then his gaze sharpened. “But you—what are you doing here? Lockspace wasn’t comfortable enough, so you came here to die?”

“Zhi Qing and her people set me up,” Wang Jie said.

Zhi Nan Xing paused. “Old Ancestor Xing Xue didn’t help you?”

“My enemies were more cunning,” Wang Jie replied.

“Then you deserved to die,” Zhi Nan Xing said coldly.

Wang Jie laughed once. “Don’t be so vicious. We’re on the same ship now.”

“One big strike comes down, and we both die in the void.”

Zhi Nan Xing sneered. “I won’t die that easily.”

“Good,” Wang Jie said. “Then I’ll follow you.”

Zhi Nan Xing stared, then looked away in disgust.

Wang Jie wasn’t joking.

Zhi Nan Xing was Zhi family direct blood. The Zhi family wouldn’t let him die easily. There would be protection. Lifelines.

Following him was the safest option available.

Days passed. The assembly date arrived.

Everyone poured out of the hall and headed toward the warships.

Each ship could carry at least two hundred thousand people.

Wang Jie stayed right behind Zhi Nan Xing.

Zhi Nan Xing hissed, “Stay away from me.”

Wang Jie ignored him.

Zhi Nan Xing looked like he wanted to explode, but on the battlefield he couldn’t reveal who he was. If the enemy learned he was Zhi family, they would target him until he died.

He glared at Wang Jie and swallowed his fury.

If it weren’t for this bastard, he wouldn’t even be here.

The family had learned Zhi Nan Xing had been kidnapped by Wang Jie, used as a mask, dragged into the star-devourer struggle, and even involved in the ambush of Zhi Shu.

That was why he’d been punished and sent here.

In other words, Wang Jie was the root cause.

But it was too late for complaints.

They boarded.

Wang Jie sat directly beside Zhi Nan Xing.

Zhi Nan Xing’s jaw clenched. He didn’t bother fighting it.

The warship launched into the void.

“How long to Han Hai?” Wang Jie asked.

Zhi Nan Xing refused to answer.

Wang Jie glanced at him. “I met Zhi Shu.”

Zhi Nan Xing snapped his head around. “Where?”

Wang Jie looked away and didn’t answer.

Zhi Nan Xing’s face twitched. “Five days at most.”

“Great Chen Mountain,” Wang Jie said. “She wouldn’t let me cultivate chen art.”

Zhi Nan Xing’s eyes narrowed. “If you hadn’t used my identity to ambush her, you wouldn’t have won. On star-devourer, your methods were vile.”

“And a group of roaming-star realm ganging up on one star-breaking realm isn’t vile?” Wang Jie shot back.

Zhi Nan Xing didn’t have an answer for that.

Wang Jie asked, “Why are you fighting Old Ancestor Xing Xue? Isn’t she from the Zhi family?”

Zhi Nan Xing’s expression turned hard. “That’s Zhi family business. It has nothing to do with you.”

Wang Jie tried another angle. “Did you attend pill assembly?”

“What pill assembly?” Zhi Nan Xing demanded.

“A guy from First Star, Yun Lai—Milky Way Defense Corporation,” Wang Jie said casually. “He said Black-White Heaven might send people to First Nebula. There’s a chance to enter Jia Yi Sect.”

Zhi Nan Xing’s eyes widened. His breathing quickened. “When?”

Wang Jie didn’t answer.

Zhi Nan Xing gritted his teeth. “You…”

After a moment, Zhi Nan Xing spoke again, voice colder and heavier.

“The family poured everything into Old Ancestor Xing Xue back then. She was our hope. And then she abandoned the sect for an outsider—left when the family was at its weakest.”

“Old Ancestor Qing had to step up. He spent half his life stabilizing the family’s position.”

“Back then, Black-White Heaven was furious. The people Old Ancestor Xing Xue abandoned couldn’t touch her, so they poured their hatred onto the Zhi family instead.”

“That was our hardest period.”

His eyes stayed fixed on the void beyond the viewport. “The family never wronged Old Ancestor Xing Xue. She betrayed the family.”

“And now Shuang Hua Sect has fallen, and she comes back to fight Old Ancestor Qing for control.”

He turned slightly, voice sharp. “Why should she get it?”

Wang Jie raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t easy to argue with that.

Zhi Nan Xing continued, “If the sect didn’t need star-refining realm now, Old Ancestor Xing Xue would never have been allowed back.”

“To bring her in, even Old Ancestor Zhi Yu went into seclusion.”

Silence.

Then Zhi Nan Xing forced the topic back again. “When?”

“Don’t know,” Wang Jie said.

Zhi Nan Xing’s hand tightened into a fist.

Wang Jie added lightly, “But if it happens, you’ll be selected. You’re Zhi family direct blood.”

Zhi Nan Xing snorted. “You’re worse than she is.”

Wang Jie wanted to pry more out of him about Black-White Heaven, but Zhi Nan Xing shut down completely.

No matter what Wang Jie asked, he refused to engage.

A few days later, a pale line appeared in the distance—white light cutting across the starry dark, as if the universe itself had been split open.

Han Hai.

The warship accelerated.

Everyone went still. Faces turned pale. Breathing tightened.

No one spoke anymore. The ship was silent enough to hear a pin drop.

Even Zhi Nan Xing stared forward, tense.

The white glow grew nearer, swallowing the darkness. Terminals began screaming warnings as combat power spikes registered everywhere. The warship’s systems screamed too, dropping altitude rapidly.

Fragments of land floated in the void—small shards and colossal slabs. Some were larger than intact planets.

Farther out, hundreds of warships exchanged fire. Each collision shook the void hard enough to make their own vessel shudder.

A streak of freezing light stretched from somewhere distant, slicing toward them and freezing the void in its wake, forming a blade-shaped arc.

The floor beneath everyone’s feet suddenly opened.

A million people dropped.

Below was a planet fragment.

As they fell, the freezing blade light struck the warship above them. The hull flash-froze—then shattered into pieces.

Wang Jie didn’t even look up.

The battlefield was under his feet.

So this was Han Hai. No assignments. No organization.

Just thrown in.

Another blade light swept toward them.

Wang Jie moved to dodge—

But another attack intercepted it, blasting it apart.

A million bodies hit the ground across a broad spread.

In any other place it would have been a spectacle.

Here, it barely mattered.

Groups that had already allied instantly gathered and fled. Others scattered in panic, searching for any direction that didn’t look like death.

Zhi Nan Xing moved decisively. Before he even landed, he shot toward the side, aiming for another fragment where a river spilled from land into the void like a wound.

Wang Jie followed.

Zhi Nan Xing glanced back, saw him, and snapped, “Why are you still following me?”

“Safe,” Wang Jie answered.

Zhi Nan Xing’s face twisted. He couldn’t shake Wang Jie.

So he kept running.

Wang Jie stayed close.

Zhi family heirs knew more about this battlefield than he did. And Zhi Nan Xing didn’t even know about pill assembly—meaning he’d been away from the sect for a long time.

If Wang Jie wanted to survive, he needed him.

Overhead, warships continued to trade fire, flashes strobing the void.

Shockwaves rolled across the fragments like distant thunder.