Chapter 249

Chapter 249: Xiao Family Legitimate Daughter

Wang Jie left.

He wanted to test the kill-tracking function—and he wanted swords.

Fengmen’s people all used swords. When strong fighters died, their blades fell. On a battlefield like this, the odds of finding good swords were high.

And Wang Jie needed a lot of them.

Since he was here, he might as well adapt.

He stepped out of the Command Hub and found cultivators gathering along the star body’s edge, splitting off in teams and drifting into the fog in every direction.

The Command Hub was moving.

That was something Wang Jie only learned after arriving: Black-White Heaven’s Command Hub in the Cloudstream Domain never stayed in one place.

It didn’t wander randomly. Every so often, the Chief Huntsman set a route—one known only to the Chief Huntsman.

For everyone below, walking out of the Command Hub and into the fog meant stepping into unfamiliar territory.

You might walk straight into an enemy swarm.

Or you might find a lone enemy, wounded and crawling—and then stumble right into the enemy Command Hub by accident.

Bad luck like that happened.

Because of it, Command Hub cultivators formed teams to scout the surrounding region.

Many took long-term scouting missions and recruited constantly.

Wang Jie got pulled into a team.

No one asked his cultivation level. If you’d reached the Command Hub, you were either lucky or capable.

Cannon fodder died outside.

Riding a floating fragment of a star body, they drifted away from the Command Hub. Ahead, people fired techniques to thin the fog.

Wang Jie checked his terminal.

So that was how it worked.

Orbital Dust marked the Command Hub’s direction. That was how the woman had been able to guide him back to a moving hub.

But only those who had visited the Command Hub before could use it to return.

The group stayed alert.

Not long after, they ran into enemies.

“This fast?” someone muttered. “Then we’ll see who’s unlucky—us or them.”

“Brothers! Charge!”

The fragments collided.

On shattered ground, thousands slammed into each other.

Wang Jie’s team had over three thousand. The enemy had about the same.

Wang Jie was certain of one thing:

The enemy was unlucky.

Their strongest was only an ordinary Roaming-Star Realm cultivator.

With Sword Steps, Wang Jie swept past. The Roaming-Star Realm couldn’t even keep up.

Wang Jie caught the man’s blade with his bare hand and sent a burst of force through it.

The man’s fingers popped open.

Wang Jie swung once.

The enemy died.

The rest weren’t worth describing. Wang Jie crushed one sword in his grip and flung the fragments like shrapnel, clearing everything within a hundred meters.

His allies stared in disbelief.

They hadn’t just recruited a strong fighter.

They’d recruited a monster.

The skirmish ended quickly.

They’d planned to keep scouting, but Wang Jie wanted to return. No one dared object.

Their eyes followed him with respect—and fear.

Back at the Command Hub, Wang Jie checked his recorded kills.

The merit recorder blinked at the numbers, stunned.

“Two hundred and ninety-two kills? And one of them was a Roaming-Star Realm with one hundred and thirty thousand battle power?”

Wang Jie saw it too.

Merit: 3.17 million.

A lot.

At this pace, a few skirmishes could earn tens of millions. Reaching a hundred million didn’t feel impossible.

He also finally understood how Orbital Dust worked.

It didn’t record visuals.

It recorded life signs.

Orbital Dust detected all life signs within a hundred meters, estimated battle power, and when an enemy died, that life sign vanished.

If the enemy escaped, the life sign remained.

It didn’t spy on private matters. It only counted kills.

“Doesn’t that cause errors?” Wang Jie asked. “What if someone else kills them?”

The recorder shrugged. “There’s no better option. This is a battlefield.”

Wang Jie nodded. “Understood. Thank you.”

As Wang Jie walked away, the recorder watched him with envy.

His first outing from the Command Hub and he’d already earned that much merit.

That was what a Cloudstream Domain elite looked like. For someone like that, earning merit wasn’t hard.

For ordinary people, surviving a battle was already a victory. Merit had to be scraped together slowly.

The gap was enormous.

Over the next three months, Wang Jie kept scouting the surrounding area.

Any skirmish he joined ended fast. Almost no one could last more than a few exchanges against him.

In that short time, he accumulated more than ten million merit points.

His name began circulating inside the Command Hub.

But Wang Jie still felt it was slow.

Ten million in three months.

Wouldn’t a hundred million take half a year?

The starry-sky martial tournament was drawing closer. He still had to cultivate, break through, return to his sect, absorb lockforce from the star-devourer…

Even travel alone would eat time.

With that in mind, he returned to the mission board.

The Cloudstream Domain battlefield had missions too.

He’d checked them once and dismissed them.

Now he looked again.

These missions were nothing like the Ying Yang Battlefield.

On the Ying Yang Battlefield, many missions weren’t hard. Supply-cutting missions, in particular, felt like rehearsed drills—timings, ambush points, everything laid out.

Here, missions were death sentences.

Assassinate an enemy Hundred-Star Realm.

Break Fengmen’s Sword Dao Grand Array.

Map the enemy Command Hub.

Map Fengmen’s Cloudstream Domain deployment.

Any one of them was beyond ordinary cultivators.

They looked like missions meant for Hundred-Star Realm.

At minimum, only top-tier Roaming-Star Realm could attempt them.

Of course, the rewards matched.

Wang Jie stared at the list, unable to decide.

Every mission screamed, Don’t take me.

Then murmurs rippled through the crowd. Heads turned.

Wang Jie looked up.

A woman walked toward the mission desk.

She was beautiful, but cold to the bone. Her expression was distant, her gaze indifferent, as if the crowd didn’t exist.

“Xiao Luo Si… it’s really Xiao Luo Si.”

“Jia Yi Sect’s Xiao Family legitimate daughter. She actually came here.”

“I don’t even know what to say. You can see a genius like that here—someone you’d never see in the sect. But once you’re here, you can’t leave.”

“Don’t think about it. Just live one more day. Maybe someday your application gets approved.”

“If I could survive hardships with Xiao Luo Si, would I—”

“Stop dreaming. The battlefields she goes to aren’t ones you can enter. To her, you’re cannon fodder.”

Wang Jie’s brows lifted.

Xiao Luo Si?

Jia Yi Sect’s Xiao Family legitimate daughter?

He hadn’t expected to meet someone from Jia Yi Sect here.

Jia Yi Sect had three major surnames: Wen, Yun, and Xiao.

He’d met the first two.

He’d never met anyone from Madam Xiao’s line.

Xiao Luo Si reached the mission list, glanced once, and spoke in a clear, icy voice.

“I’ll take them all.”

The disciple managing the missions didn’t look surprised. He processed the requests as if it were routine, then watched her leave.

Wang Jie blinked.

You could do that?

“That’s smart,” someone said in awe. “Take them all. If your luck hits and you complete even one, it’s a huge profit. If you don’t, there’s no loss.”

“I want to do that too,” another person sighed. “But I’m not qualified. The mission desk checks people.”

Wang Jie’s gaze slid to the disciple.

He stepped forward.

“I want them all as well.”

The disciple looked him over. “Show identification.”

Wang Jie did.

The disciple checked the record, then looked up, visibly surprised.

Then he nodded.

Approved.

All missions accepted.

Wang Jie turned to leave.

More people surged forward to copy him—but they were scolded and driven back.

Not everyone was allowed.

Everyone had a record of sorties and kills. Wang Jie’s merit was glaring. Even compared to Xiao Luo Si, he didn’t fall short.

Most people couldn’t come close.

Half a month passed.

Wang Jie joined another skirmish and earned another million merit points. The enemy force wasn’t large enough for him to wipe clean.

During that time, he asked questions and listened.

He discovered something unexpected: the cultivators here knew far more than sect cultivators.

They knew Beidou Bridge-Pillar. They knew Jia Yi Sect. They even knew about disciples from Third Zen Heaven.

Those were things no one in his sect would know.

His sect was remote, stranded in the Fourth Nebula. People from the First Nebula rarely visited.

But many from the First Nebula came to this battlefield.

“I remember a few years ago, a whole group from Jia Yi Sect came,” someone said. “Not one or two—hundreds.”

“Inner sect disciples, too. Three great surnames among them.”

“They trained here for about a year, then left.”

“They took heavy losses, but the survivors… their aura was something else.”

“And there were Heaven-Insect People,” someone added with a shudder. “I’ll never forget them. I’m terrified of bugs.”

“They carried insects everywhere. It was horrifying.”

“Oh, speaking of Heaven-Insect People—Chong Xuan was terrifying.”

“Ten thousand insects overturn the sea. The sky went black.”

“His sister was cute, though.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd.

Wang Jie looked toward the Command Hub, thoughtful.

Chong Xuan.

It really had been a long time.

How long since the Blue Star Trial?

More than ten years.

Back then, they had been at the peak of Ten Seals, and the moment they returned they could reach Star-Breaking Realm.

For people with backgrounds like theirs, advancing from Star-Breaking to Full-Star wasn’t a problem. Their resources had been prepared long ago.

By now, they were probably all Roaming-Star Realm—just like Qi Xue Yin.

In the universe, Roaming-Star Realm was the beginning.

Without it, you barely counted as a true cosmic cultivator.

Then the Command Hub shook violently.

A voice rang out, carrying to every corner.

“All personnel, be advised—enemy Command Hub is approaching. Prepare for a major battle.”

“Repeat: prepare for a major battle. All personnel prepare.”

Wang Jie’s eyes widened.

So soon?

Black-White Heaven’s Command Hub moved.

The enemy Command Hub must move too.

Of course they would eventually collide.

He just hadn’t expected it this fast.

Cultivators surged to the edge of the Command Hub—more than a million of them, packed together like a sea of bodies.

Above, every warship powered up.

Ahead, fog boiled so thick nothing could be seen.

At the order, warships fired beams into the fog.

At the same moment, beams shot back out of the fog and struck them.

They’d found each other.

In the air above the cloudstream, beams collided in blinding bursts. The warships didn’t maneuver. They stayed fixed, pouring concentrated fire.

Some were hit. Some shattered. Flaming debris broke apart and fell.

Wang Jie watched the sky explode.

No wonder he’d never seen warships outside. They were stationed here as fixed attack points.

“They’re coming,” someone whispered.

Wang Jie stared into the fog.

A massive shape was approaching.

Then, overhead, a figure appeared.

An aura crashed down like a mountain, shaking everyone to the core.

A middle-aged woman.

Weathered. Battle-worn.

She was too far away to make out clearly.

But that presence—

That was the Chief Huntsman.