Chapter 272

Chapter 272: Xi Liu

Wang Jie tightened his grip, ready to press the advantage—

A sword light swept in and forced him back.

Luo Kui.

Luo Kui landed between Wang Jie and Dou Huo, blade drawn, gaze steady.

“You should go,” Luo Kui said without looking back. “If you’re discovered, you’re dead.”

Dou Huo rumbled, dissatisfied.

Luo Kui’s voice sank. “This is the enemy’s rear. You don’t want to be caught. There are plenty of hundred-star realm experts here.”

Dou Huo let out another unwilling growl, fixed Wang Jie with a taunting glance, then turned and slipped back through the breach in the tree wall, vanishing into the chaos.

Wang Jie’s eyes stayed on the gap. “What was that thing?”

Luo Kui answered with steel.

His sword slashed.

Wang Jie raised his own blade to block.

Clang!

The impact rocked them both, and the two of them crashed into a nearby meteor, sinking into the stone.

“Find out where Celestial Master Qi went,” Luo Kui said, voice low.

“He already ran,” Wang Jie shot back.

“It’s not that simple,” Luo Kui said. “Something’s off.”

His sword arced upward, cleaving open the meteor above them, and his palm slammed into Wang Jie’s shoulder.

Pain exploded.

Wang Jie was hurled out of the meteor and smashed into another one nearby.

Luo Kui sprang out as well and disappeared through the breach without another word.

Wang Jie pressed a hand to his shoulder, jaw tight. Luo Kui really didn’t hold back.

His terminal chimed.

His rest slot again.

This time, Wang Jie didn’t hesitate. In a battlefield this brutal, returning without wounds would only invite suspicion. He went straight to Flower Country’s healers.

Wei Ke Ke’s hand struck his shoulder.

The foreign starforce inside him froze instantly.

Then his flesh was cut open, the wound widened, and the frozen chunk was dug out and tossed aside.

It was a sensation he never wanted to repeat—painful enough to feel like bone-tempering.

When he returned to the battleship, he found people resting in silence. Some sat calmly in corners. Some had private rooms.

Those were roaming-star realm cultivators.

Wang Jie’s combat power was high, but he wasn’t roaming-star realm. No one went out of their way to arrange anything for him.

He spotted the elder again—the same old man who had tried to seize him.

The elder seemed to be stationed in the rear now.

A limping man returned, greeted the elder, and received a warm smile in return. The two chatted briefly before the man left.

Wang Jie watched him, eyes narrowing.

That man was a traitor.

One of the qi signatures Wang Jie had recorded back at Feng Men.

For the next stretch of time, Wang Jie quietly kept his attention on him and noticed something that didn’t sit right. The traitor kept asking about Milky Way Defense Corporation.

For a Black-White Heaven cultivator, being curious about First Nebula wasn’t strange.

But on a battlefield where survival was the only sensible priority, this man’s curiosity was too eager. Too persistent.

He wasn’t simply curious.

He was trying to find Celestial Master Qi.

Feng Men wouldn’t have questioned only Wang Jie about the man’s whereabouts. If it weren’t important, Luo Kui wouldn’t have bothered with it at all.

Then Wang Jie overheard a conversation nearby.

“Luan Dao got transferred too.”

“Seriously? He’s Milky Way Defense Corporation’s strong one. I heard he defeated Hanling in the sect tournament with One Blade.”

“Who knows where they took him.”

“I heard Hanling got moved too.”

“And Su Su from Singing Phoenix Hall.”

“Plenty of people got transferred.”

Wang Jie’s eyes flickered.

That explained it. He hadn’t seen those names in days.

Where had they gone?

The traitor’s expression shifted as he listened. He pressed for details, frantic. Before long, he seemed to get the answer he wanted and hurried away.

Wang Jie followed.

A traitor on the battlefield might not be able to tip the war alone, and he probably wouldn’t find Celestial Master Qi by himself—but “probably” wasn’t good enough.

Yet after a short chase, the man vanished into the sprawl of ships and drifting debris.

Wang Jie clicked his tongue.

He considered it for a moment, then quietly passed the information to the elder anyway—that the limping man was a traitor. Better to be safe.

After resting, Wang Jie returned to the battlefield.

Sword arrays kept coming.

Tree walls shattered and were replaced. Shattered again. Replaced again.

It was attrition so pure it felt meaningless—mass death with no visible progress.

But that was war.

A sword array suddenly punched through the tree defenses and tore through the battleship line behind them.

It pierced a ship in the rear—one that sat adjacent to the ship where Wang Jie had recently rested.

Wang Jie exhaled sharply, grateful he’d been out on the line. If a hundred-star realm was hidden inside that array, nearby ships would be wiped clean.

Now it depended on whether the hundred-star realm elder in the rear could stop it.

Inside the struck battleship, the five Feng Men disciples who had formed the array scattered at once.

At the center stood an old crone with more than a dozen swords strapped to her back.

She lifted her head.

With a casual wave, her swords flashed outward, weaving through the air and slaughtering everything nearby. In moments, the area was cleared.

Just as she raised her hand to destroy the battleship completely, a woman walked in and spoke in a gentle voice.

“Could you not disturb me?”

The old crone turned.

Her killing intent—so thick it seemed to stain the air—strangely softened when it met the woman’s calm smile.

The five Feng Men cultivators behind her went limp. Swords slipped from their fingers and clattered to the floor.

The woman walked toward the old crone, step by step.

The old crone stared back, starforce boiling around her like orbiting stars—an unmistakable sign of a hundred-star realm release.

But no matter how fiercely the starforce surged, nothing in the ship moved.

Not even the dust on the floor.

The woman stopped before the old crone, met her eyes, and smiled faintly.

“Thank you.”

Her pale fingers touched the old crone’s brow.

A flash of black light streaked like a meteor.

And then the old crone was gone—as if she had never existed.

A heartbeat later, the hundred-star realm elder rushed in, expression grim, prepared for a brutal fight.

Instead, he saw the five Feng Men cultivators.

Two were roaming-star realm.

Three were only full-star realm.

How had they broken through the tree wall and defense net?

And who was that woman?

The woman turned and offered a polite salute. “Jia Yi Sect, Xi Liu, greets Senior Elder of Black-White Heaven.”

The scene was surreal.

A woman surrounded by enemies, greeting with perfect composure—while the enemies stood dazed, slow to react.

As soon as Xi Liu finished her greeting, the five cultivators snapped out of their stupor, mouths opening—

Xi Liu blurred.

A white afterimage remained where she stood.

Then she was already in front of the elder.

Behind her, the five cultivators’ pupils trembled. Their bodies collapsed, lifeless.

The elder stared, stunned.

Such footwork. Such clean killing intent.

“Senior,” Xi Liu said with a soft smile, “it’s handled.”

The elder drew a slow breath, then nodded. “As expected of Jia Yi Sect’s disciples. Impressive.”

To his own surprise, the praise sounded sincere.

Xi Liu’s smile deepened. “To be praised by Senior is my honor. Thank you.”

The elder nodded stiffly and left.

As he walked, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow beneath her—that speaking to her made him feel small, as if he were looking up.

Yet she clearly wasn’t hundred-star realm.

So why did his instincts scream at him to keep his distance?

Xi Liu watched him go. Then her gaze slid toward the distant battlefield, where a familiar figure moved through the chaos.

Blue Star.

Wang Jie.

Long time no see.

So you really do know Myriad-Stars Finger.

Out on the battlefield, Wang Jie noticed something strange.

The fighting was still savage, but the pressure felt lighter—like a net had been lifted.

The roaming-star realm experts who had been darting through the void were suddenly scarce.

Even the sword arrays being thrown over were fewer.

His own side felt the same.

The famous names he’d been hearing for days were gone.

He remembered what he’d heard in the rear. Had the battlefield shifted?

Keeping that thought in mind, Wang Jie watched the rear ships closely while his Star Compass tracked the surrounding space.

Days passed.

Then everything changed.

The tree formation withdrew.

Unease prickled through Wang Jie. He immediately grabbed onto a trunk and let the retreating wall carry him back.

In the far distance, a thunderbolt flared—so massive it dwarfed anything like Lian Lei Huang. Thunder coiled around thunder, like two enormous serpents twisting from sky to earth.

Wang Jie stared, stunned.

What was that?

That direction was Thunder Well.

The colossal lightning swept in.

Everything in its path was erased.

Wang Jie’s scalp tightened. The thunder passed over him and slammed into Feng Men’s side instead.

If he hadn’t retreated with the trees, he would’ve been swallowed whole.

The strike carved massive losses into Feng Men’s line. Even hundred-star realm couldn’t withstand that kind of force.

All along the trees, survivors clung to bark and branches—people who had lived this long because they had brains.

The tree wall withdrew until it reached the rear battleships.

No one cared that cultivators had pulled back from the front. Staying out there meant dying.

No one had ordered them to retreat. It had been bait to lull the enemy, and they’d simply refused to be the bait.

On a battlefield, you needed strength and luck.

But you also needed a mind.

Above, figures appeared—hundred-star realm experts retreating at the last moment.

Wang Jie spotted someone he knew.

Han Domain Lord Zhu Cheng.

A Frostflower Sect traitor.

Zhu Cheng was staring into the distance when he suddenly sensed a gaze and looked down.

His eyes met Wang Jie.

His expression shifted.

Wang Jie didn’t flinch. He only raised a brow and looked away.

Zhu Cheng immediately moved toward him.

“Are you… Star-Refining Master Wang?” Zhu Cheng asked, as if still not daring to believe it.

Wang Jie turned. “Long time no see, Han Domain Lord.”

Zhu Cheng’s eyes widened. “It really is you? How are you here?”

Wang Jie shrugged. “Bad luck.

“But shouldn’t I be asking you? Weren’t you supposed to be living comfortably? Why are you reinforcing this place? This isn’t a pleasant battlefield.”

Zhu Cheng studied him. “You came as reinforcement too?”

“I’m just a lockforce cultivator,” Wang Jie said. “Do I look like reinforcement?”

Zhu Cheng was about to speak again, but the distant thunder finally began to fade.

He glanced toward the horizon, then back at Wang Jie, and leapt away.

At the same time, the tree wall surged forward again, carrying countless cultivators rushing into the enemy.

That thunder had rattled Feng Men badly. It was their chance to press.

And Celestial Master Qi—who had already withdrawn—returned.

In a blur, he slipped back into the battlefield.