Chapter 64

Chapter 64: Good Days

Wang Jie lifted his head, let out a long breath, and glanced back at the wrecked ship.

Si Yan had been right about one thing: this ship’s only real feature was that it was tough.

It had slammed through nets, machinery, and walls, and he’d still needed effort to kick the hatch off.

He turned back to the guns pointed at him and raised both hands.

“Sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t mean to enter. Where am I?”

Two figures surged in—one from the left, one from the right—attacking his head and legs with practiced coordination.

Wang Jie twisted, dodging cleanly, then struck. With two quick impacts, both attackers were flung backward into the crowd.

Seventh Seal.

Another figure leapt down from the second floor, wind cutting sharp with the attack.

Ninth Seal.

Wang Jie sidestepped. The floor split under the strike of One Blade. Wang Jie kicked the attacker away before the man could recover.

Weapons remained trained on him from all sides.

Wang Jie raised his hands again. “I’m not hostile.”

A voice rang out. “Ten Seals combat power. Everyone back.”

A middle-aged man pushed through the crowd.

He stood taller than most, broad as a beast, the pressure rolling off him in waves. He stared at Wang Jie with cold disdain.

“You’re wearing a Combat Power Detector,” he said. “So you’re not new to the universe.”

“I don’t care what your intentions are. Get down and surrender. If you don’t, I won’t be polite.”

Wang Jie held his gaze. “I really didn’t come here to be your enemy. It was an accident.”

“Doesn’t matter.” The man’s voice was flat. “I’m Bian Qi. Star-Breaking Realm.”

Wang Jie’s pupils tightened.

In the next instant, Bian Qi moved—so fast it felt like a blur. Wang Jie instinctively wanted to step into Jia Eight Steps, but he forced himself to wait. He needed to test the man’s power first.

Bian Qi swung an arm in a sweeping strike.

The Combat Power Detector locked onto a number:

3,900.

So low?

Bang.

Wang Jie was smashed sideways and slammed into the wall. The material was far stronger than steel. It didn’t shatter, but cracks spiderwebbed across it.

Bian Qi’s eyes gleamed. “Not bad. That strike was already beyond normal Ten Seals, and you can still stand. Again.”

The number jumped:

5,600.

It doubled.

Wang Jie drove his elbow in to meet Bian Qi’s fist.

He was thrown back again.

Bian Qi’s expression flickered with surprise. “You can block that too?”

He struck again.

The number climbed:

9,000.

Wang Jie narrowed his eyes.

Star-Breaking Realm.

The jump was immediate, the pressure suffocating. Bian Qi’s destructive power was already comparable to Shu Mu Ye’s eighty-nine times strength. Wang Jie couldn’t afford to take it head-on anymore.

Then the battleship shuddered.

Bian Qi stopped mid-motion, face changing sharply. “What’s happening?”

The alarms screamed.

People panicked.

The ship shook again and again, and explosions echoed somewhere deeper inside.

Bian Qi didn’t spare Wang Jie a second glance. He sprinted out.

Most of the crowd’s attention broke with the chaos.

Wang Jie didn’t hesitate.

He ran.

He followed the corridor until he saw a group of soldiers flooding in—uniforms different from the ship’s crew. The crew didn’t resist. They dropped to their knees, heads bowed.

Another thunderous impact rolled through the hull, as if something outside had struck the battleship.

Ahead, a blade-light cleaved through corridor and compartments alike.

Bian Qi slammed down hard, blood spraying from his mouth. His face was gray with shock and pain.

Wang Jie looked up.

An old man descended slowly, warblade in hand.

Explosions burst across the battleship.

The old man’s gaze was cold. “Where is Jun Tang?”

Bian Qi staggered upright and roared, fury and fear twisting together. “Old General! This has nothing to do with you! Why interfere?”

The old man lifted his blade and pressed it down.

Bian Qi didn’t even attempt to resist. The warblade settled onto his shoulder, forcing him to his knees.

“Little brat,” the old man said, voice calm and crushing. “When I was conquering the starry sky, you were still a child. You dare bark at me? Are you tired of living?”

Bian Qi’s body trembled as he lowered his head.

The old man turned toward the far end of the corridor.

A young man stepped out, expression calm, posture refined. “He serves me. Please don’t blame him, Old General.”

He saluted. “Jun Tang pays his respects.”

Around them, soldiers saluted in unison. “Greetings, Old General.”

Wang Jie followed a beat late. “Greetings, Old General.”

The old man withdrew his blade and looked at Jun Tang with a weary sigh. “I don’t want to get involved in royal affairs.”

“But an old friend’s dying request leaves me no choice. I’ll act once.”

His gaze sharpened. “You’ve been stripped of your inheritance rights. Why keep fighting that girl?”

Jun Tang’s expression didn’t change. “It’s not that I want to fight her. She won’t let me go.”

The old man shook his head. “I don’t care who’s right or wrong. Come.”

Jun Tang paused. “Old General will act only this one time?”

The old man met his eyes and nodded.

Jun Tang smiled faintly and saluted again. “Understood. Then I’ll go with Old General.”

Wang Jie was seized and shackled before he could decide whether to run or kneel.

To be honest, he’d known the moment the old man appeared that resistance was impossible. Bian Qi alone could suppress him, and there were too many cultivators and weapons on this battleship for him to handle.

Jun Tang, too, carried pressure—pressure that spoke of Star-Breaking Realm.

Were there truly so many Star-Breaking Realm experts in the universe?

For Wang Jie, the moment Si Yan failed to control how much propulsion he extracted, his unlucky days had begun.

Now he trudged across a barren world under heavy shackles, lumped in with a crowd of prisoners.

Mining.

He was being treated as a rebel.

Explanations didn’t matter. Somewhere far away, the empire celebrated someone inheriting the throne and becoming emperor.

Wang Jie, meanwhile, had been exiled alongside Jun Tang to a bleak planet to dig ore like a criminal.

If he had to describe it in one word, it would be: unlucky.

The wind on this planet was razor-cold. The air reeked with a strange stench that made his stomach twist. The ground was gray and hard as stone.

Their task was simple: dig a certain ore from the deep and turn it in. Mine enough, reduce your sentence.

Shackles varied by realm and combat power.

Wang Jie was Ten Seals. His shackles were easily ten times heavier than most.

To him, they were still manageable.

The Silver Radiance Empire clearly didn’t consider him important.

Bian Qi’s treatment was different.

Bian Qi’s shackles were another ten times heavier than Wang Jie’s. His Starforce had been removed, and he’d been injected with something that made his mind blur at random.

Star-Breaking Realm prisoners, it seemed, were handled with special care.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Thousands of picks struck stone in a steady, miserable rhythm.

They could build battleships and cross the universe, but punishment was still done with the most primitive labor possible.

Clearly, this wasn’t about mining.

It was about breaking people.

Wang Jie handed in his ore and quietly watched, memorizing patterns. He mined neither too little nor too much.

He needed to understand the rules before he moved.

Two days later, the rules found him.

“You. You. And you.” A voice snapped toward him. “Hand your ore over. All of it.”

It was Bian Qi.

The ore was to be collected and turned in under Jun Tang’s name.

Jun Tang’s status still carried weight. He was a prince of the Silver Radiance Empire. Even stripped of inheritance and marked a rebel, the guards didn’t dare offend him. They let him do what he wanted.

Wang Jie looked at the ore in his hands and handed it over.

He was in a strange place, surrounded by strangers. Enduring was safest.

Then it escalated.

“On your knees,” someone said. “Like everyone else.”

Kneel?

Wang Jie didn’t even pretend he’d heard.

Bian Qi strode up, grabbed him by the collar, and sneered. “Little kid. I remember you. If I hadn’t been chased that day, I would’ve killed you on the spot.”

Wang Jie looked at him steadily. “Let’s negotiate. I won’t kneel. I’ll hand over all the ore.”

Bian Qi laughed, contempt sharp as a blade. “You think you’re qualified to negotiate with us?”

Wang Jie studied him. “Star-Breaking Realm. With shackles on, how much combat power can you actually use?”

Bian Qi’s eyes narrowed. “Try me.”

Wang Jie glanced toward the guards around the mine. “They won’t interfere?”

“No one will,” Bian Qi said coldly.

Wang Jie nodded once. “Good.”

“Good what?”

“Good that I can beat you without worry.”

He drove his knee up into Bian Qi’s stomach—fast, vicious, timed perfectly. Bian Qi sensed it, but the shackles stole his mobility. The impact folded him.

Before Bian Qi could recover, Wang Jie kicked him hard.

Bian Qi tumbled down the slope, rolling over rock and dust.

The mine fell quiet.

Tens of thousands of prisoners turned to stare.

Wang Jie looked toward the guards again.

They watched.

They didn’t move.

Wang Jie blinked, startled.

They really weren’t going to interfere.

Jun Tang’s calm gaze fixed on him, faint surprise flickering beneath the surface.

Down the slope, Bian Qi dragged himself upright, eyes venomous. “You’re dead.”

He charged up and threw a punch.

Wang Jie met it with a punch of his own.

Both were restricted, but Bian Qi was restricted far more—and no one here knew what Wang Jie’s true strength was.

The result was brutal and simple.

Bian Qi got beaten again.

Wang Jie blocked, struck, and kicked him away.

Jun Tang’s gaze sharpened. The suppression should have been “fair” across realms.

But Star-Breaking Realm cultivators, even suppressed, had bodies tempered beyond Ten Seals. Their experience and instincts should have crushed any Ten Seals opponent.

And yet this man was winning.

Bian Qi roared and charged again.

Wang Jie smashed him aside, then stepped forward and planted his boot on Bian Qi’s face, grinding him into the dirt.

One of the materials for Sword Steps: step on a hundred people’s faces.

The first one was here.

Bian Qi howled and ordered the others to attack.

Wang Jie didn’t hesitate.

One after another, he knocked them down.

One after another, he stepped on faces.

All the while, he watched the guards, ready to retreat the instant they moved.

They never did.

And as Wang Jie’s gaze lifted across the mine, it settled on Jun Tang again.

Jun Tang remained calm, watching Wang Jie beat men down and stamp their faces into the dust as if he were observing weather.