For Caelus, who had pulled the six-star Demonblade - Annihilation Blade and had the Potara Earrings as a trump card—able to bring his fusion persona onto the stage at any moment—there was more than one way to break this deadlock.
Still, since Ruan Mei had given herself to him entirely, longing to merge with him and become him, Caelus didn't mind playing along with her.
Accepting Ruan Mei meant treating her as himself.
After all, if she was himself, then of course they'd think as one.
So whenever something came up, he needed to consider it from Ruan Mei's perspective.
Back during the Swarm Disaster over a hundred thousand years ago, Giant True Sting swarms had been everywhere, like a shadow cast across the universe.
But now, in this era of peace and tranquility, Giant True Sting swarms had become a relatively rare species.
Their reproductive capacity was nothing like it used to be—the fall of the Swarm King, and the swarm's trading away its right to reproduce in exchange for a chance to limp on and survive, had both drastically weakened their once-terrifying instinct to proliferate.
If not for that, forget the swarms under Caelus's command in the Simulated Universe—at the efficiency of the real swarm in its heyday alone, the Express would have long since been packed solid with writhing bugs.
Compared to other bugs, the celestial-body-scale Giant True Sting—which already had a harder time reproducing to begin with—was even rarer in the present universe.
To Ruan Mei, who was researching the secrets of [Propagation], it was undoubtedly a precious experimental sample.
So naturally, it had to be captured—for 'herself,' of course~
Watching Ruan Mei make her entrance with a kiss, March 7th's mouth twitched slightly.
But then, considering Ruan Mei had given Caelus even her body, this hardly seemed like a big deal anymore.
"Ms. Ruan Mei... what is she going to do?"
Little March's eyes went wide as she watched that cool, composed figure gracefully leave the cabin.
An energy barrier shimmering with a dark blue-green glow silently unfurled around her, sealing out the corrosive stomach acid that surged like raging waves.
Walking through the void with graceful, willowy steps, Ruan Mei moved as though each footfall landed on clear water, sending ripples outward.
Everyone watched, breath held, as she raised a slender, pale hand—and countless plum blossom petals condensed out of the void, drifting down.
The petals glowed with a strange light, like the most precise molecular scalpels, slicing gently into the dark red, writhing inner wall and cutting away a small piece of living tissue with pinpoint accuracy.
Another petal, like a nimble crystal spoon, scooped up a portion of that black-red sea's viscous fluid—the bug's stomach acid.
Carrying the tissue sample and the stomach acid, the two petals were drawn by an invisible force, drifting back before Ruan Mei.
Ruan Mei raised her jade-white hand and swept it lightly through the air before the petals.
The flesh and the acid, along with the petals, dissolved into countless faintly glimmering particles of information, like stars being deconstructed.
As Ruan Mei's hand danced gracefully, the streaming light particles swirled and reassembled before her, forming an intricate, dazzling double-helix chain of light.
"Type ISN-IV-324, is it."
Ruan Mei murmured coolly.
She extended a slender, pale index finger, a pink-and-blue glow curling around its tip, and touched it lightly to a key node on the double helix.
Hmmm~!
The chain of light seemed to be granted life.
The structure at the touched point fractured, shed, rearranged, and reconnected...
In the blink of an eye, an entirely new double helix, its structure utterly different from before, had taken shape.
Ruan Mei glanced back, her gaze cutting through space to meet Caelus's.
Caelus nodded. After Ruan Mei had awoken, Caelus's own spirit—the 'primary personality' of that body—had gone dormant, yet an extremely faint, inexplicable connection between them still lingered.
He turned to remind Pom-Pom, the conductor, who had been watching Ruan Mei from a distance:
"Pom-Pom, get the engine ready to start. Ruan Mei's about to make the bug open its mouth."
"Oh, oh, coming right up, Pom!"
Pom-Pom blinked, startled, then hurried to work the controls.
Meanwhile, seeing that Caelus had grasped her intent with just a glance, Ruan Mei smiled.
The smile was radiant and gentle—if Herta saw it, she'd never believe Ruan Mei was the one controlling the body right now!
This kind of understanding, this meeting of minds—even just a little of it—was an utterly novel, strange, and wonderful feeling for Ruan Mei, who had always advocated cutting off all social ties.
"To be trusted, and to never let that trust down... because it's 'myself.'"
Her hair swayed in the breeze. Ruan Mei smiled, her eyes rimmed faintly red—she was savoring every moment of this!
Giving herself to Caelus as an experiment had been the right choice!
She decided to push further.
Perhaps she should look for a way to merge her soul with him completely.
"Threading Fragrance."
Thinking it over, Ruan Mei pressed her hands together, gently compressing and refining the chain of light into a slender, translucent needle of light.
With a light flick of her pale hand, the needle—condensing the mysteries of life itself—shot forth like an arrow loosed from the string, carrying a quiet, deadly beauty, straight at the cavern wall.
Against the Giant True Sting's colossal, celestial-body-like bulk, the blue-green needle of light was as tiny as a speck of dust—perhaps not even a ten-thousandth the width of a human hair by comparison.
Yet the instant it touched the stomach wall, that patch of tissue reacted as though infected by some horrifically virulent pathogen.
The once-vibrant crimson flesh instantly lost all its life and luster, decaying, shriveling, and withering at an astonishing rate... crumbling into charred fragments that sloughed off in a shower.
"Shreee—!!!"
A shrill shriek mixing agony with the ebbing of life seemed to explode right at the back of everyone's eardrums in the cabin, shaking the Express with a faint tremor.
"Now's our chance!"
Caelus shouted.
"But what about Ms. Ruan Mei? Are we just leaving her?"
March 7th pointed anxiously out the window, where that cool, composed figure still stood alone atop the churning acid.
"Don't worry, she'll be fine."
Stelle gave a thumbs-up.
"All passengers, brace yourselves and hold on tight—we're breaking out at full speed, Pom!"
Pom-Pom's stubby little hands shoved the throttle valve all the way to its limit, and the engine let out a deafening, savage roar.
Sunk deep in the red-black stomach acid, sustained only by the power of Trailblaze, the Express surged like a serpent breaking free of a trap.
The Giant True Sting, its stomach dealt a lethal blow, convulsed and retched instinctively from the agony, its enormous mouthparts wrenching open involuntarily.
The Express seized the fleeting gap and burst violently out of the suffocating crimson cage.
But the intense pain and mortal threat sent the Giant True Sting into a frenzy, and the phosphorescent wing-dust on its wings kicked up like a sandstorm.
It drifted into the cabin through the not-yet-fully-sealed shield, plunging everyone aboard into a strange hallucination.
...
Stelle stood at the center of the Galaxy, atop a supreme throne built from billions of metallic, gleaming trash cans.
Above her floated a colossal trash can lid, radiating a holy light—like a god's halo, or an emperor's crown—illuminating every realm.
On her left she held Caelus-cub, who obediently called her big sister; on her right, an adoring Ah Qi. Countless breathtakingly beautiful girls and gleaming trash cans crowded beneath the throne like pilgrims, all crying out together in fervent worship that shook the cosmos:
They cried out even louder still:
"All hail the Garbage King!"
...
March 7th felt as though she'd stepped into paradise—everywhere she looked, a boundless riot of color stretched to the horizon, exotic flowers blooming in competition, their fragrance rich and intoxicating.
This was the homeland she'd always longed for in her dreams.
Caelus knelt before her on one knee, holding an open velvet box, inside which lay a breathtaking ring carved from never-melting Six-Phased Ice.
"Ah Qi, marry me."
Stelle picked up the ring with a grin and, without a word of explanation, slid it onto March 7th's ring finger—the cold touch of it somehow set her heart ablaze.
The three of them, hand in hand, vanished into the depths of the dazzling sea of flowers, off on their honeymoon.
When they tired of play, they'd return to the warm home that was the Express, and carry on their Trailblaze journey full of mystery and surprise.
...
Welt was sitting in a cozy study, across from him a well-behaved little boy—his son, Joffrey Joyce Yang.
Old Yang picked up a cup of hot tea and grumbled to his son:
"Ah, if [Schicksal] had chosen to stand with us, Anti-Entropy might have already worked out an effective way to get through the Honkai."
"What a shame... Otto has the super AI Void Archives at his disposal, yet he always lets emotion cloud his judgment, never knowing what matters most."
"I had no choice but to kill his father to save the world, and yet he's held a grudge ever since—decades on end, still leading [Schicksal] against Anti-Entropy."
"What am I supposed to say? Sure, he lost his father, but he still has me, doesn't he? I could easily be his guide through life—just like I'm raising you."
"Oh dear, listen to me—I'm letting my own emotions get the better of me now too. Not good, not good."
...
In Dan Heng's eyes, Blade stood before him.
That signature madness and killing intent were gone entirely, leaving only a near-tranquil weariness. He bowed at a full ninety degrees:
"...Dan Heng. For everything in the past—my obsession ran too deep. I'm sorry. I won't keep hunting you down anymore."
Haxxor Bunny punched Bronya, sent Silver Wolf flying with a slick spinning kick, and amid a burst of dazzling virtual fireworks, threw her arms open triumphantly to welcome a beaming Seele leaping into her embrace!
The only thing that gave her pause was finding herself and Seele tucked into Caelus's arms, one on each side.
Argenti saw himself being decorated with honors by the Goddess of Beauty.
In Himeko's dream, the Express's dining car had never been this lively!
Dan Heng cradled a coffee cup with a look of pure devotion; March 7th gnawed on a special Trailblaze meal, stars practically sparkling in her eyes; Stelle and Caelus were brawling over the last piece of Himeko's secret-recipe cake...
Everyone gazed at her with intense longing, almost like hungry chicks crying to be fed.
The air was thick with a powerful, collective conviction: a single day without Sister Himeko's coffee or cooking would leave them all miserable.
Unable to withstand all that attention, Himeko could only give a helpless, wry little smile, tie on an apron, and transform into the Express's tireless resident chef and barista.
White Seele dreamed that the Express arrived at Earth, and she introduced everyone, along with Brother Caelus, to Liliya, Rosaria, and Sister Bronya.
Caelus, borrowing the System's equipment space, had already transferred Fenghuang Down over from Moonscar beforehand—he'd anticipated exactly this, and was the only one who hadn't fallen into the hallucination.
Watching his companions grin foolishly, lost in bliss, or wear expressions of odd calm, the corner of Caelus's mouth curled into a mischievous smirk.
He twirled the illusory crimson feather between his fingers, a barely perceptible thread of spiritual force quietly reaching out.
"Oops, my hand slipped a little..."
Caelus muttered under his breath, though his eyes were sparkling.
"Let's see... what sweet dream is Hachi-Stelle having?"
"Making me call her big sister—yep, definitely a dream."
"Ah Qi..."
"That Haxxor Bunny..."
"Whoa! What is this, hell?!"
But it was Himeko's dream that actually scared him.
"Oh my living mother! That's one dream nobody should be having!"
Caelus quickly used Fenghuang Down to wake everyone up—mainly Himeko; the rest were just collateral.
If Himeko sank too deep into that dream and actually started brewing coffee and making Trailblaze meals for real, they'd be done for!
"What is it! What is it? What's happening?"
March 7th, just waking from her dream, glanced around—and accidentally locked eyes with Caelus. Gah, her little face visibly flushed bright red.
"It was the wing-dust. With that much commotion, we must have all inhaled it and gotten pulled into hallucinations."
The seasoned Welt quickly reasoned it out.
"Damn, ice! Such pure ice!"
Stelle opened her eyes and cheered loudly.
"All I can say is, more of that, please!"
She'd already become the cosmos's Garbage King!
"Huh? Was that bug really that—that huge? Was that a hallucination too!"
March 7th, blushing, forced herself not to look at Caelus.
What the hell?
Why had she ended up in a dream like that!
"Unfortunately, that part was probably real."
Little Duck stared out at the massive bug, whose size rivaled that of an Earth-like planet, too stunned to speak.
It was her first time ever seeing something so colossal!
Something like this definitely couldn't be seen back on Earth.
"I wonder how Ms. Ruan Mei is doing?"
Himeko's brows drew together with worry as she looked toward where the Giant True Sting was.
"Wait, look!"
Haxxor Bunny suddenly cried out.
As if a single night's spring wind had swept through, plum blossoms burst into bloom by the thousands across the cosmos, unfurling in brilliant profusion.
Pink petals swirled through the air, and the Giant True Sting visibly began to shrink.
"No, that's just a visual illusion of shrinking."
Dan Heng sensed something was off.
Then, under the astonished gazes of most everyone present, the Giant True Sting—now shrunk to a certain size—flickered with light and vanished.
With Ruan Mei's consciousness in control of the body, she could of course bring her innate power of Erudition to bear.
"So this is Heaven-Rank Dou Technique—the power of Master... er, Wife taking over the body!"
Taking down a Giant True Sting was almost effortless for her.
Actually, Old Yang could have handled it too—he just hadn't used a black hole earlier for fear of catching the Express in the blast while inside the stomach.
"Darling~ I'm back."
Ruan Mei returned to the Express, paying no mind to everyone's stares, and strolled up to Caelus, a small dark blue-green pouch in hand.
"What's this?"
Caelus was sure his 'own' body hadn't been carrying anything like this before.
"Just something I whipped up on the spot, to hold the experiment materials. Darling, could you deliver it to Herta Space Station for me?"
With that, Ruan Mei kissed the corner of Caelus's lips again, handed control of the body back to Caelus, and let her own consciousness fade into dormancy.
The next moment, 'Ruan Mei' blinked and reached to untie the tightly bound pouch for a peek.
Smack!
Her right hand slapped down on her left.
Everyone watched 'Ruan Mei' wrestling with herself, then turned their gaze toward Caelus.
Caelus pressed his fists against either side of the Stellaron spirit's head:
"What are you trying to do, you idiot?"
"I'm just having a look!"
March 7th chimed in with a jab of her own:
"Do you even know how to use it? What if you let the bug out?"
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