Chapter 300

Chapter 300: Following

“Spread out and search,” Wu Yuan ordered. “See what you can find.”

Everyone fanned out.

Starforce could sweep over the ground, but plenty of things didn’t react to it at all. You could scan straight across an area and still miss everything. If you wanted a real haul, you had to go in person and hunt with your own eyes and hands.

They each had an assigned section. Once they dispersed, it didn’t take long to comb through their patch.

Wang Jie crossed a ridge. Ahead stretched a swath of blazing red earth. In heat like this, even blood would flash to vapor. If there was anything worth taking, it would stand out.

Minutes later, they regrouped.

“Nothing.”

“Move to the next patch.”

Under Wu Yuan’s lead, they headed for a nearby landmass tinted a dull yellow. The soil was loose and powdery. No life grew here, yet it had a bleak, withered beauty—like a forest of dead gold.

All around them, other factions were racing across the scattered land fragments. There were many, but not so many they couldn’t be cleared quickly.

Wang Jie found Wu Yuan and lowered his voice. “Elder, we should follow the Dao Yi Club.”

Wu Yuan frowned. “Why follow them?”

Wang Jie’s expression tightened. “I suspect there are still Nan family people hiding among them.”

Wu Yuan’s eyes widened. “How do you know that?”

Wang Jie couldn’t tell him the truth. The real descendants of the Nan family—and what he knew about them—touched the star vault vista.

Even Black-White Heaven couldn’t obtain intelligence that deep. If Wang Jie admitted he could, how would he explain it? The moment he opened his mouth, he’d trap himself.

But he couldn’t stay silent, either. If he tried to tail the Dao Yi Club alone, he’d be walking into a grave.

Shao Ling Er was not someone he could afford to provoke. And the roaming-star realm cultivators around her were no pushovers.

So he offered Wu Yuan a reason he could plausibly accept.

“When I cultivate the red moon method, I can feel a connection—like an echo—coming from the Dao Yi Club’s direction. It faded too fast for me to confirm who it was, but I’m certain someone among them has cultivated the red moon method far deeper than I have.”

Wu Yuan’s gaze darkened. Without another word, he called everyone in and moved.

The others didn’t need an explanation. If Wu Yuan decided, that was enough.

Besides, the train was enormous. Searching one direction or another didn’t change much. Wang Jie had spoken now because he was afraid they’d lose the Dao Yi Club’s trail.

As they made their way over, battles erupted on multiple nearby fragments.

On one, someone who’d found something laughed with wild excitement.

On another, people were being chased down—clearly they’d stumbled on something worth killing for.

Yun Que and the others grew anxious. They couldn’t understand why they weren’t searching every fragment they passed instead of rushing onward.

Wu Yuan didn’t explain. He only said, “Keep up.”

A cultivator suddenly sprinted in from afar. The instant he saw Wang Jie’s group, his face twisted. He wheeled around to flee.

Wu Yuan lifted a hand. Starforce churned like an overturning sea and yanked the man back.

He was only at roaming-star realm, and his strength was respectable—around three hundred thousand. Against Wu Yuan, it might as well have been nothing. He was dragged in without the slightest chance to resist.

Two cultivators arrived a heartbeat later from the same direction. They wore Dao Yi Club insignia.

Shao Ling Er wasn’t with them—only two roaming-star realm disciples.

Wu Yuan’s eyes flicked over them, then returned to the man he’d seized.

The two Dao Yi disciples exchanged a glance, bowed, and withdrew.

Wu Yuan didn’t stop them.

Everyone’s attention snapped back to the captured man.

He swallowed hard, then hurriedly produced a dim, dark-yellow striped key fragment. No one could tell what it was made of. It had been cleaved through the middle—half a key, or less.

“This is what you found?” Yu Zhi asked.

“Yes,” the man said quickly. “I don’t know what it does, but the Dao Yi Club definitely does. I overheard… it sounds like it can open something.”

Wu Yuan took the fragment. “There’s an old tale. The Nan family’s Four Seasons Train stored its collection in the void. Only a special method can draw it back out.”

His thumb brushed the jagged fracture line. “This is probably that method. A key.”

He looked up. “A complete key should open whatever’s hidden in the void.”

“And judging by the size…” He weighed it in his palm. “There should be many fragments like this.”

Zhi He, who rarely spoke, nodded once. “Then our guess was right. The Nan family’s backup plan was to pass down the lead car. Everything from the last three cars was transferred into it. When we mentioned it before, that Nan Ling didn’t deny it.”

Wu Yuan’s expression remained grim. “They didn’t expect their extermination to be so complete. Their descendants can’t even board the Four Seasons Train. That’s why we’re all fighting over scraps in here.”

He put the fragment away. “From now on, take every striped key fragment you see. Someone will eventually piece a whole one together. Then we’ll see what drops.”

“Now keep moving.”

“Where are we going?” Yun Que asked.

Wu Yuan didn’t answer.

Only when Shao Ling Er and her group finally came into view did Wu Yuan slow. He led his people toward nearby fragments that hadn’t been searched yet.

Black-White Heaven’s sudden appearance made Shao Ling Er glance their way. She’d seen them head off in another direction—why were they here now?

But she didn’t pursue it. In a place like this, everyone searched wherever they could. Whether the nearby group was Black-White Heaven or some other club didn’t matter.

So Shao Ling Er moved, and Wu Yuan’s group moved with her—always close enough to keep her in sight, never close enough to look like an open challenge.

Days passed like that.

Wang Jie managed to pick up another striped key fragment. Others made their own small gains.

They also found bodies—Nan family corpses, strewn across a land fragment like discarded husks.

The cause of death was identical each time: swordwork. The same swordwork.

The conclusion grew harder to avoid. The Nan family hadn’t fallen to a coalition. They had been wiped out by one person.

It was a terrifying thought.

The Nan family was no minor force. They controlled third nebula and had ambitions even higher. In first nebula, they would still rank among the top powers. If a family like that had been erased by a single blade, what kind of monster had swung it?

Shao Ling Er stared down at the bodies, her face tight. Again. The same technique.

And yet there was nothing flashy about it. It looked almost casual—as if the killer had simply cut and moved on.

“Senior Sister,” a female disciple murmured, “Black-White Heaven is still following us.”

Shao Ling Er lifted her gaze toward the distance.

If it had been coincidence before, it wasn’t now. Wherever they went, Black-White Heaven drifted after them.

Why?

“Senior Sister… could they have joined hands with the alliance club?” the disciple suggested. “Are they waiting for an opening to deal with us?”

Shao Ling Er’s eyes narrowed. “Possible.”

“When we went to the lakeside residence, Ke Mu Sheng and his people were already there,” the disciple continued. “No one knows what they discussed. Maybe they reached an agreement then.

“We assumed Ke Mu Sheng was targeting Wang Jie. But with so many powerful clubs present, even if they teamed up it wouldn’t have mattered. Ke Mu Sheng should have known that. If they did cooperate, it had to be after entering the Four Seasons Train.”

Shao Ling Er’s patience snapped. She strode straight toward Wu Yuan.

“Wu Yuan!” she barked.

Wu Yuan looked up from where he was searching. “Shao Ling Er?”

“Why are you following us?” Shao Ling Er demanded.

Wu Yuan’s tone stayed even. “The train is this big. Everyone searches where they can. What makes you think we’re following you?”

“Don’t play innocent,” Shao Ling Er said coldly. “You know what you’re doing. I’m warning you—keep tailing us and don’t blame me when I stop being polite.”

With that, she turned and left.

Wu Yuan watched her go, expression unreadable, then went back to searching.

They couldn’t stop.

If Wang Jie was right—if someone in the Dao Yi Club had cultivated the red moon method further than he had—then a Nan family descendant might truly be hiding there. The only way to gain anything was to keep eyes on them.

Shao Ling Er’s threat wasn’t enough to scare them off.

If a single warning could make Black-White Heaven retreat, they might as well not have entered the train at all.

Plenty of clubs without even a hundred-star realm expert had come in. People were dying in droves.

Some died by triggering array formations. Far more were slaughtered by other clubs.

Black-White Heaven had taken striped key fragments from weaker factions too.

By now, they had five fragments.

Days continued to pass.

Wang Jie stood before a group of cultivators and crooked a finger. “Hand it over. I saw it.”

The group gritted their teeth and surrendered their striped key fragment.

Wang Jie let them go. He wasn’t here to butcher the weak—he wanted fragments.

Far away on another land fragment, Yan Long and his people were running for their lives under a rain of sword qi.

Bodies burst apart in the void. Blood stained the darkness.

Lan Qi watched a streak of sword qi descend with despair—until a sliver of arrow force slammed into her and knocked her off-line, barely saving her.

Lan Ning.

“Sis!”

“Run!” Lan Ning shouted.

Lan Qi clenched her teeth and dropped hard, fleeing.

Above them, a roaming-star realm cultivator from the Nine Swords Club laughed and raised his blade.

Lan Ning fired an arrow. The sword qi shattered it with contemptuous ease, and the backlash nearly tore into her.

Xuan Gate and the others were being hunted because they’d found three striped key fragments at once—and the Nine Swords Club had seen it.

More than ten cultivators from Luo Kingdom charged into the sword qi and were ripped apart like paper.

Xia Zhong kept falling, faster and faster. Run. Run. Run.

Then frost swept across him. He froze solid in the void, fell, shattered on impact, and died.

A true disciple of Frostflower Sect couldn’t even beat an ordinary roaming-star realm cultivator from the Nine Swords Club in this place.

The gap was too large.

Yan Long finally threw the three striped key fragments away. Only then did Yuan Qiao Qiao relent.

This was still third nebula. When clubs fought for resources, they were expected to leave a way out. Push too hard, and Xuan Gate would fight to the death—and none of them would leave.

Huai Si panted, flanked by two survivors. One was Bao Lei, the young lord of the Bao family of Luo Kingdom. The other was Kuang Yu, a direct descendant of Kuang Xiao of the Eight Hells mad clan—someone who had been training in Xuan Gate for years and ranked among their top disciples.

Even so, he’d nearly died just now.

When the Nine Swords Club finally withdrew, the three of them slumped with relief.

“Find Senior Brother Yan,” someone rasped. “And stay away from these clubs.”

The train wasn’t large. Everywhere you turned, someone was killing someone else over a scrap.

In that chaos, Yun Jian became the first to complete a full striped key.

The moment the fragments clicked together, ripples spread through the air.

People nearby stared.

Yun Jian didn’t care.

As the ripples expanded, the void split open like an enormous storage ring—and starsea stones began to pour out.