The Demonblade - Annihilation Blade was a tachi-type weapon — perfect for Auntie Mei, the one-star Eidolon he'd just pulled.
And so, this woman who'd skipped straight past a peaceful childhood and parachuted in as a cooking auntie instantly rocketed to T0-tier status in Caelus's internal power rankings, all thanks to this six-star Demonblade.
"Ugh, the stats..."
Caelus let out a long sigh, watching the blade in Mei's hands — its purple-black light swirling, wrapped in an aura of Annihilation, as if beckoning him toward some desolate void.
A moment later, he remembered the absurdity of Sever Gods and Demons Alike.
"No wait, the mechanic itself is ridiculous too."
"Ugh, the mechanics..."
The grin tugging at his mouth was harder to suppress than an AK's kick, and with a touch of wistfulness Caelus swiped toward the four gray shooting stars.
[Lifeform: Newborn Wotan · Original Form]
[Rank: ★★★★]
[Description: A monster from the world of Snowbreak: Containment Zone that believes itself a god. This is its original form — the terrifying power symbolized by the "Dust of Awakening" still slumbers within.]
"Ah, good old Snowbreak — but who's this monster?"
Caelus rubbed his chin in confusion:
"Is this thing one of the Titans?"
He had played the game, sure, but he had zero memory of this monster's name.
Who actually pays attention to the names of the snarling background-fodder monsters in Snowbreak's stages?
There weren't even enough hours to admire the characters, let alone memorize monster names.
He glanced at his empty System inventory, then out the window — the Express was racing through the sea of stars at faster-than-light speed, billions of stars stretched into dazzling ribbons of rainbow light, like a flowing river of liquid color.
"A monster I don't recognize, huh."
A boundlessly merciful smile spread across Caelus's face as he pressed his palms together in devout prayer:
"In this vast universe... good luck to you."
He was becoming more and more convinced that rolling gacha while the Express was in transit was a fantastic idea.
Unless your luck was so catastrophically bad that you pulled some evil god capable of crossing the void unaided,
these poor carbon-based, silicon-based, or otherwise bizarre lifeforms would either die instantly in the vacuum of space,
or, even if they somehow clung to life, lack any capacity for interstellar travel and eventually turn into a brain-dead Kars-sama, drifting mindlessly forever.
[Lifeform: Blood Servant]
[Rank: ★★★]
[Description: An alien race from the world of Bloodline — the blood thrall of Last, the strongest and last Elder of the vampires, the sole survivor of the Millennium Holy War.]
"Uh..."
Caelus stared at the name Bloodline — familiar yet strange — tapping his temple lightly, trying to jog loose an old memory.
"Last... isn't that my former father-in-law?"
It had been a very, very long time since that divorce, but the name was distinctive enough that Caelus remembered it clearly.
Lolly Ai.
Oh wait, no — Lilo Ai.
Come to think of it, she'd also been one of the pioneers who'd triggered the silver-hair-red-eyes gene among his countrymen.
Such a shame, such a shame.
What he'd pulled was neither his elegant former father-in-law nor his tsundere ex-wife Lilo Ai — just some random extra off the street.
Well then, follow in Wotan's footsteps and go become a Kazu.
Caelus pressed his palms together again, launching another prayer of hope.
[Lifeform: Third-Generation Zombie]
[Rank: ★★★★]
[Description: A bizarre existence from the world of My Date with a Vampire. Born from a Second-Generation Zombie's bite, it feeds on blood yet fears neither sunlight nor holy relics. Its body is extraordinarily durable, able to withstand nearly all physical and supernatural attacks, and it can awaken multiple types of superpowers. Extremely rare.]
"Ah, um..."
The corner of Caelus's eye twitched twice, entirely against his will.
Vampires and now zombies too.
"Hey, System, are you smuggling invasive species into the Galaxy Universe or something?"
Caelus couldn't care less about some low-tier Blood Servant mook from Bloodline, but this zombie...
Born of the resentment and filth gathered from heaven and earth, it neither aged, nor died, nor perished — cast out from the Six Realms by the three domains of Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld, drifting through the mortal world with nowhere to belong, feeding on blood and drawing power from resentment, venting its endless loneliness through the blood of the living.
In theory, as long as it had a steady supply of blood and wasn't destroyed by outside force, this thing could seemingly... live forever?!
"Too bad the Dragon's already fallen — otherwise, for importing this kind of special talent, I'd at least be owed a finder's fee!"
A zombie's undying, indestructible nature could arguably extend all the way into the Path of Immortality.
Thankfully this was only a third-generation zombie — unless its luck was absurd enough to have awakened some broken superpower for surviving in space and making interstellar leaps.
In all likelihood, its final destiny was to join the ranks of Wotan and the Blood Servant, transforming in the frozen void into — a glorious Kars the Third!
"Guess luck really does balance out, huh?"
Caelus stared at the last gray shooting star and let out a helpless sigh.
He'd just pulled a Demonblade broken in both stats and mechanics, and now this off-banner round had immediately sent a parade of monsters and demons to balance things out.
"Heavenly Lord of Boundless Fortune, God above, bless me!"
He reached out with his mind toward that final dust-gray shooting star.
"Last one, pretty please~ I'm not even asking for something powerful, just give me an interesting toy!"
The star's glow faded, and the information appeared.
[Lifeform: Giant Sting]
[Rank: ★★★★★]
[Description: Once the supreme Emanator who commanded an endless Swarm and stood at the very peak of the Path of Propagation — the noble Swarm Commander himself. Surely the System doesn't need to introduce this old subordinate of yours in detail? Boss one celestial-scale Giant Sting, reserved seating and all]
"Not Cool, Man!, you can even pull stuff from my own world?"
Caelus's expression twisted, one eye wide, one eye narrowed in disbelief.
[Uh, did I never mention that?]
Without so much as a heads-up, buddy just showed up — the System had cut right in.
Caelus was about to grab this scam-artist System by the collar and demand to know exactly when it had ever mentioned this,
and whether it could just spell out all four of these buggy banner rules in one go — but he tossed the thought aside almost instantly. Now wasn't the time to worry about that.
Caelus obviously knew all about the celestial-scale Giant Sting. Per the crossover banner's rules, any lifeform the System couldn't contain would spawn randomly somewhere within a certain range of its host.
And right now, that host was on the stellar rail!
A celestial-scale Giant Sting...
Caelus blinked, then tossed control of the gorgeous, born-to-be-a-beauty body in his arms over to Stelle.
Stelle-Mei, wearing a faintly bewildered expression, strode quickly toward the front car — Auntie Mei, of course, was safely tucked away in Valkyrie Space, and the Demonblade had been stowed in his equipment space.
Meanwhile, inside the Express's cockpit.
"Hm... that's odd, pom? Pom-Pom just set the course a moment ago..."
Pom-Pom, fully focused on the controls, pricked up her fuzzy little ears in alertness, tapping the control panel with a puzzled paw.
"What's wrong, Pom-Pom?"
Himeko tilted her head at the sight and asked.
"There's a slight deviation in our current heading, let Pom-Pom take a look... The Conductor's control over navigation is always perfectly precise, so even a tiny deviation like this is already very strange, pom."
There was pride befitting a conductor in Pom-Pom's voice, along with a barely noticeable trace of worry:
"We need to stay alert! I wonder if there's some strange magnetic field nearby interfering with the Express's course... Himeko, will you come check the control room with Pom-Pom?"
"Sure, got it."
Himeko's picture-perfect brows knit for a moment as she rose to her feet, a trace of confusion swirling in her golden eyes.
Barring some special circumstance like a Stellaron manifesting, a stable stellar rail route almost never suffered this kind of anomalous interference.
"So..."
Seated on the sofa in the back, Welt Yang pushed up his glasses, just about to ask for the details.
BOOM!
A deafening roar tore through the air, and the entire Express shuddered violently, as if struck by some colossal hammer.
Thanks to years of experience and rock-solid balance, Welt only rocked in his seat, his glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose, but he didn't fall.
Himeko reacted instantly, bracing herself against the wall, but momentum still sent her stumbling forward — luckily, Caelus, coming from the opposite direction, caught her with quick reflexes.
"Eeek—!"
March 7th let out a shriek. She'd been deep in thought over a chess piece, her face scrunched up into a comically twisted expression.
Across from her, Dan Heng hadn't so much as glanced at the board — he'd been grinding Caelus's daily mobile game quests and the couple's-dungeon dailies instead.
The sudden violent shaking sent the entire chessboard, pieces and all, clattering to the floor — conveniently solving March 7th's stalemate for her.
"Ribbit, what's happening, pom!"
Amid a panicked shriek, Pom-Pom's round little body came tumbling all the way from the front car like a fuzzy bowling ball, rolling with a series of soft thumps!
It did, at least, give the polished cabin floor a thorough once-over.
"What was that? Stelle, did you see it — that huge black shadow just now?!"
March 7th smacked Stelle, who was standing beside her looking dazed.
The gray-haired girl had been practicing splitting her attention to control two bodies at once, though progress was slow going.
With all her focus over on Stelle-Mei, Stelle only snapped back to herself after March 7th's smack, staring blankly out the window.
"What's going on, why has it turned into... this outside the window? It's so red!"
March 7th pointed at the window in terror — the once-brilliant starry river was now soaked in a thick, eerie, unsettling blood-red.
Stelle's world-shaking intellect kicked into gear, arriving at a stunning conclusion:
"It's the third dimension — we fell into the third dimension!"
"What are you even talking about... you don't actually expect me to understand that, do you?"
Little March, well aware of her own limits, clutched her little head.
"No wait, we didn't fall into the third dimension — we might have sent someone to the second dimension instead."
Caelus's dead-serious tone left Little March momentarily stunned, her face a picture of total confusion.
"Huh?"
She had no idea what he was talking about either!
As the saying went, the Express had five seniors but only three brains between them, and Master Dan Heng was one of those three.
Through the Express's sensors and calm analysis, he'd swiftly Locked On to the root of the problem:
"...An unidentified vessel rear-ended the Express."
"Wait, what — the Express can get rear-ended?"
Haxxor Bunny had appeared in the cabin at some point, still clutching a game controller.
"There is indeed another vessel in the vicinity,"
Dan Heng added calmly, "the exact cause of the collision is still unclear. After the impact, two individuals... seem to be approaching the Express."
"Ooh!"
Haxxor Bunny arched an eyebrow, drawing on her experience, "Don't tell me it's an crash-for-cash scam. That's way too common back in Arc City."
"Doesn't... look like it."
Duck-Duck — big on the outside, small on the inside — steadied White Seele, who'd nearly fallen, while studying the external monitor feed.
"Hmph! We should be the ones calling traffic cops on them!"
Little March planted her hands on her hips:
"If they've come looking for trouble, This Young Lady will have to step in! Come on, Caelus, A-Xing!"
She waved her little hand with the air of a seasoned general,
"let's go meet them at the door!"
"Yes ma'am!"
The two Gray-hairs snapped into character as if they'd received an imperial decree. Stelle lunged forward first, bowing with exaggerated servility, carefully cradling March 7th's arm as though escorting a noble consort down from her palanquin.
Caelus hung back half a step, one hand hovering near his waist, eyes sweeping the surroundings warily, playing the dutiful bodyguard to the hilt.
Little March ate it up, lifting her chin with satisfaction.
Welt and Himeko didn't follow this troupe of drama queens off to "meet the enemy."
The Express's violent shaking might have been explained away by a rear-end collision, but that strange, boundless blood-red hue was an entirely different matter.
The two exchanged a grave look.
"Pom-Pom, let's go back to the control room and check things over thoroughly."
Himeko said, her voice low.
"Y-yes, pom!"
Pom-Pom scrambled up quickly and brushed off her fur.
"This red..."
Welt pushed up his glasses, eyes sharp behind the lenses. "What is it?"
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