Jingliu would never forget that bleak, freezing night.
She withdrew alongside her comrades.
The Yaoqing fleet pulled back fast.
Mortals had no means of resisting an Emanator.
The best option available was a swift retreat, and then to wait for the Arbiter-General of the Xianzhou to decide what came next.
Warship after warship turned toward the open stars, and still Jingliu could not reach Felutina.
All she could do was stare at a single point in the void beyond the porthole, her red eyes empty.
The stars made no sound.
Around her the Cloud Knights murmured to one another in a ragged, restless babble, congratulating each other on surviving.
Jingliu listened in silence and felt as though she and they did not share the same world.
Then a hand settled on her shoulder.
“…Sis?”
Jingliu’s call came out tentative, her voice trembling slightly.
She turned her head, stiff as a hinge.
Standing behind her was her Master.
“…”
The woman in military dress wore a rigid, brittle look.
Her lips parted, but no words came.
“Felu…
she stayed behind alone at the front to cover the retreat.
She fought the Emanator of Abundance.
As of now…
her fate is unknown.”
Fate unknown.
The woman in military dress had chosen the gentler phrasing.
“If we petition the Arbiter-General now, Felutina may still have a sliver of a chance…”
She had not finished speaking when someone behind her cried out.
“What is that?!”
Through the porthole, far off, the planet they had fled blazed with an ocean of flowers, and the sharp, thorned vines seemed to frame a single silhouette.
Then a blade of light split the vault of the sky, leaving behind a strange, rainbow-hued trail.
Vast continental plates tore free of gravity’s hold and bloomed like brilliant fireworks across the star sea.
The feeling she had held back broke loose like a dam giving way.
Jingliu stared blankly at the wreckage drifting among the stars, weeping without a single sound.
…
An instant before the white light swallowed everything, a chime dropped abruptly into Felutina’s ears.
[Ding~]
[Sword Champion of the Luofu (Old): confirmed alive.
Quest failed.]
[Host has lost eligibility to appear in the Belobog main storyline.]
[Extra Event unlocked.]
[Extra Event: side story.
The host may use it to flesh out her backstory.]
Felutina blinked, then tapped the prompt without a moment’s hesitation — while still finding time to jeer at Shuhu, who was currently sprinting for his life:
“Ha!
Go die on your own, I’m heading out first!”
[Extra Event confirmed.]
Felutina’s figure vanished on the spot.
The world spun end over end, and then her body was hanging high in the air.
Weightlessness flooded through her.
She was falling.
“Oh, f—”
The white-haired girl clutched her chest.
The wound there was trying to close, but Shuhu had drained too much of her life force, and the healing crawled along at a fraction of its usual speed.
The more pressing problem right now was…
She still couldn’t fly.
Ha.
She was done for.
She tilted her head slightly and looked down at the city below.
Roaring vehicles tore along the skylanes, streaming points of light braiding together, while gaudy entertainment districts inhaled and exhaled luxury, appetite and greed.
What is this place?
Felutina had never seen a scene like this anywhere in the game.
Still, the living conditions didn’t look all that terrible.
Without a player’s foreknowledge, though, a huge chunk of her advantage was gone.
The ground was coming up fast.
Felutina drew a deep breath and twisted her body in midair with some difficulty, trying to pick a decent landing spot.
The ground rushed nearer and nearer.
She seized the moment—
And passed straight through it.
“Huh?”
Felutina’s eyes went wide.
She was still falling.
Then she slammed into a mountain built of electronic scrap and compacted refuse.
The mountain came down with a roar, tipping the white-haired girl’s body to one side, and she tumbled down through the debris in a clattering avalanche.
Pain screamed through every part of her.
Somewhere in that tumble she had probably collected a few more wounds.
“Ugh…”
Felutina struggled once and failed to get up.
So her injuries were a little more serious than she’d thought this time.
…She wasn’t going to have to spend a whole day in a garbage heap, was she?
Damn it, wasn’t she here to flesh out her backstory?
Or had the system already locked her into a tragic-but-strong-and-beautiful persona?
That would be way too annoying!
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch…
While Felutina was busy spiraling, an unhurried set of footsteps approached from not far off.
She turned her head with effort.
A small, slight girl in a hooded coat, silver-haired with a single spiral of a ponytail, came into her field of view.
One hand was jammed in her pocket, the other covering her nose and mouth, her brows drawn together — but the silver eyes above that hand stayed flat and untroubled.
She spotted Felutina quickly, and something in those eyes finally shifted.
“Hey.
Still alive down there?
Don’t tell me you’re a cyber-zombie that died with its eyes open.”
The girl’s voice was cool and clear, and rather nice to listen to.
“…Of course.”
Felutina paused a beat, then broke into a radiant smile.
She had recognized her.
A member of the Stellaron Hunters.
Silver Wolf.
More precisely, the Silver Wolf who hadn’t joined the Stellaron Hunters yet.
“Seriously?
You fall from that high up and you’re still lucid?
What kind of monster are you?”
Silver Wolf raised an eyebrow, a trace of genuine surprise on her face.
“You can’t judge everyone’s constitution by the same standard.
I’m a PE major, so, you know…
you get it, right?”
Felutina blinked at her.
“That joke’s terrible.”
Silver Wolf pulled a face.
She walked over to Felutina, crouched down, and prodded her cheek with one slender finger.
Soft, with a film of grime on it — picked up rolling down the trash mountain, most likely.
Judging by the state of her, she didn’t look like someone tossed down from the upper city either…
which made sense.
Anyone from Punklorde proper would’ve taken one look at her and curled their lip in disgust.
This was, after all, a garbage world where even a baby could be an illegal baby.
Looking at Felutina sprawled among the refuse, an image flashed through Silver Wolf’s mind: a small silver-haired girl in rags, curled up in the corner of a scrap heap.
It wasn’t pity.
She just figured this one had some use in her.
That was what Silver Wolf told herself.
“Hey.
Want to keep living?”
Silver Wolf tipped her head slightly to one side, watching her.
Felutina was still smiling, but given how much blood she was covered in, the expression came off less radiant than ghastly.
“Obviously.
Who ever looks forward to their own expiration date?”
Felutina nodded, taking the hint, and answered with every appearance of eagerness.
“Then come with me.”
Silver Wolf’s voice stayed just as cool as before.
She held out a hand to Felutina.
“It’s not like you’ve got anywhere else to go, right?”
Felutina lifted her arm with difficulty and closed her fingers around that small hand.
“Then I’ll be in your care, little one.”
“…Don’t call me that.
I have a name.
Call me Silver Wolf.”
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