Ye Shunguang stood in front of Miguel, and she could feel the trust and encouragement radiating from him, all of it genuine.
There was none of that careful, tiptoeing worry.
There was only the acknowledgment of a man laying an opportunity in front of her and letting her make her own choice.
It was a feeling both unfamiliar and sorely missed.
Ever since she had sealed the contract with the “Azure Empyrean Sword,” everyone around her had smothered her with care: her Master, her brother, her Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters.
All of them terrified that one day she would simply vanish for no reason at all.
As if she were porcelain that would shatter at a touch.
That attitude from the people closest to her had troubled her for years.
It wasn’t that Little Guang disliked being treated kindly.
It was only…
She was a person too.
She had the right to throw everything she had into something she had chosen for herself, just once.
And that was exactly why.
That was why she hadn’t hesitated for a heartbeat before refusing Miguel’s earlier proposal, the one where he would take her place and shoulder the duty of guarding the “Azure Empyrean Sword.” She felt no greed for this weapon that could carry her into Void Hunter tier strength with barely any effort.
All she wanted was to make a choice she would never regret.
“Big Bro Miguel, I understand!” The girl’s voice rang clear and bright, carrying a stubbornness that would not yield an inch.
“I’m going to pass the trial, and I’m going to make the ‘Azure Empyrean Sword’ recognize me as its Sword Master!” She paused, her gaze resting a moment on the Azure Empyrean Sword floating in midair.
Then she turned back and met Miguel’s eyes again.
“Besides, I could tell from the very start.
You’ve been rooting for me to try this trial the whole time.” “Which means, if I really can pass it by my own strength, together with that destined one, then I’ll walk away with something incredible.
Right?” Miguel raised an eyebrow, open approval surfacing in his eyes.
The girl’s instincts and her reasoning were genuinely sharp.
Fitting for a chosen Sword Master.
Her temperament ran far beyond the ordinary.
“But those benefits aren’t why I’m set on taking the trial.” Ye Shunguang pressed a hand over her chest, feeling the strong beat of her own heart, her voice more serious than it had ever been.
“There are things I can’t just keep running from.” “I don’t want to be a coward who hides behind other people the moment things get hard.” “Whether it’s to protect my Master, my brother, my Senior Sisters and Senior Brothers, or for that destined one I haven’t even met yet.” “I want to clear this hurdle standing on my own two feet.” The girl’s words landed with weight.
Yixuan, Ye Shiyuan and the others standing behind her listened to that declaration with a tangle of feelings.
They understood now, completely.
No amount of further persuasion would change a thing.
Ever since she was small, Little Guang had been strangely immovable about anything she set her mind on.
Where that mulish streak came from, nobody could say.
Fortunately, the two options Miguel had laid out earlier served as something of a tranquilizer for Yixuan and the rest.
If Little Guang could be pulled out and protected partway through the trial, then her life was guaranteed absolutely.
For Ye Shiyuan, as long as his sister came out alive, whether she passed meant nothing at all.
Even if the Azure Empyrean Sword dissolved the contract in the end, he would be content, so long as she was safe.
Yixuan, Ju Fufu and the others likewise weighed Little Guang’s life far heavier than that wretched sword.
And so, in the end, the matter was settled.
With the heavy subject behind them, the air inside the Tranquil Heart Pavilion finally eased.
The boulder that had sat on all their hearts for more than a decade at last had a chance of being rolled away.
Just as everyone was preparing to hash out the concrete plans, such as when to go collect that “destined one”…
Ju Fufu suddenly smacked her forehead, as though she had remembered something enormously important.
The “big orange cat,” her energy fully restored, padded over to Miguel’s side in a few light, bouncing steps.
Her thick yellow-and-white tail swished back and forth behind her, and her two fluffy ears leaned forward with curiosity.
In truth, back when Miguel had casually “physically soothed” the rampaging Azure Empyrean Sword, a huge question had already been bottled up inside her.
There had simply been too much information at once, and her little head hadn’t been able to work its way around it.
Only now, with the mood light again, had she found an opening.
“Um…
say, Miguel.” Ju Fufu tipped her face up, her big emerald eyes full of inquiry.
She rubbed her two small hands together and ventured a question.
“I get the feeling you know an awful lot about Void Hunter weapons.” “You even know the loopholes in the underlying rules of their trials.” “Could it be that…
you’ve actually got a Void Hunter weapon of your own?” The moment the words were out, everyone else’s ears twitched too.
Miguel’s earlier display had been staggering enough, and clearly it had done nothing to blunt their curiosity.
Before Miguel could answer, Yixuan, standing off to one side, shook her head first.
“Fufu, don’t talk nonsense.” Yixuan shot the guess down, an elder’s reproach in her voice.
“Mr.
Miguel said it himself just now.
He can step in and become the Azure Empyrean Sword’s Sword Master in Little Guang’s place at any time.” “That means he is not bound to any Void Hunter weapon at present.” “The sect’s ancient records are perfectly clear on this.
Weapons of that class are fiercely exclusive.
One person contracting two at once is impossible.” “It’s accepted common knowledge throughout New Eridu.” Since her own Master had said so, Ju Fufu nodded obediently.
But her head stayed tilted, and she went on staring, unblinking, at the handsome young man before her.
She couldn’t shake the sense that he was sitting on some colossal secret, that calling him a capable man barely scratched the surface.
Watching this Tiger Thiren brimming over with curiosity, Miguel let out a quiet laugh.
He shook his head and offhandedly dropped a bombshell.
“Your Master is right.
I really don’t have a Void Hunter weapon.” Miguel leaned back against his chair, posture loose, his tone as casual as small talk.
“My fiancee has one, though.” “When I’ve got nothing better to do, I run a bit of ‘maintenance’ on that blade of hers now and then.” At his words, the curiosity in the room, which had been guttering out, flared right back to life.
A heartbeat later, the fire of gossip was blazing in every pair of eyes present.
A fiancee?!
This man, so young, with strength no one could measure, who could manhandle a Void Hunter weapon on a whim, was already spoken for?!
Pan Yinhu’s small, guileless eyes went perfectly round.
He lifted a thick bear paw and rubbed his face, a smile of approval tugging at his mouth.
Naturally.
A man as good-looking and as capable as Mr.
Miguel had to have been taken long ago.
Ye Shiyuan’s mind was still on his sister, but even so, he hadn’t expected that Miguel, a young man who looked no older than himself, already had a fiancee.
Even Yixuan, who had kept her composure flawless until now, leaned forward a little.
The people in all of New Eridu who possessed a Void Hunter weapon could be counted on one hand.
“Miguel!
Who’s your fiancee?!” Ju Fufu was so worked up she nearly jumped, her tail whirling like a propeller.
“Anyone with a Void Hunter weapon has to be a huge deal!” “Tell us, tell us!
Have some mercy on our curiosity!” Looking at the pack of them thirsting for an answer, Miguel weighed it over.
Hadn’t Yixuan already made a trip to see Mayor Mayflower?
By rights, given what an old fox Mayor Mayflower was, he should have leaked Miguel’s background to her long ago.
And since everyone here counted as his own people now, Miguel saw no reason to keep it under wraps.
“There’s no harm in telling you.” Miguel spread his hands and, with complete ease, spoke a name that thundered through all of New Eridu.
“My fiancee is Hoshimi Miyabi.” Drip.
Outside the Tranquil Heart Pavilion, dew gathered on a bamboo leaf fell onto the bluestone paving with the faintest crisp sound.
Inside the room, that one sentence went off like a high-yield Ether bomb.
Ye Shunguang stayed exactly as she had been standing, frozen solid.
Disbelief filled her red eyes, and a murmur slipped out of her before she knew it.
“It’s actually her…
the youngest Lady Void Hunter in all of New Eridu…” [Author’s Note: In this book, the protagonist’s relationship with Hoshimi Miyabi is public knowledge.
However, people only know that Hoshimi Miyabi’s fiance is that “Savior”; his true identity is known only to those who took part in the “Lido War” back then.
Converted into the official story timeline, that would be the battle where Bringer turned into a Sacrificial Fiend, only on a far greater scale and far more brutal.] Over on the other side, Ye Shiyuan and Pan Yinhu reacted with uncanny synchrony.
The two fellow disciples whipped their heads around and locked eyes, unblinking.
In each other’s trembling pupils, both of them saw the same wildly absurd guess, the only one that could explain everything in front of them.
“Gulp.” The two of them swallowed hard at the same moment, cold sweat prickling out across their backs in a rush.
If Hoshimi Miyabi was his fiancee, then Mr.
Miguel’s true identity was…
Ju Fufu’s reaction was the most extreme of all.
The girl looked like she’d been hit with a binding spell, both ears standing bolt upright on top of her head.
Even the fur on her tail puffed out strand by strand until she’d swollen a whole size larger, a genuinely frazzled big orange cat.
Her head buzzed as she remembered how brazenly she had wanted her Master to take this man in as their little junior brother.
What if her Master had actually done it?!
The Savior of New Eridu as her junior brother?
That was a blessing she could never survive!
“Ho…
Hoshimi…
Miyabi?!” Ju Fufu thrust out one trembling finger, pointing at Miguel, stammering so badly she could hardly string words together.
“Y-your fiancee is Lady Hoshimi Miyabi?!” “Then that means…
you…
you’re actually…!!!” Yixuan, standing beside them, plainly could no longer hold on to her usual poise and steadiness.
This Sect Master of Yunkui Summit, a woman who had always spoken little, was breathing fast.
Her golden pupils contracted hard, her mind replaying the scene in the mayor’s office at frantic speed.
The way Mayor Mayflower had praised this young man to the skies.
The effortless method he had used to subdue the Azure Empyrean Sword moments ago.
And the way he had spoken, just as lightly, of reaching across the river of time to pull someone back.
In that instant, every clue closed into a perfect circle.
A man who could do all of that, and who stood that close to Hoshimi Miyabi, existed only once in the whole world!
Yixuan drew a deep breath, her expression turning grave beyond measure.
The next second.
The voices of Yunkui Summit’s master and her three disciples went off in perfect unison inside the Tranquil Heart Pavilion.
Loud enough to shake the dust loose from the rafters and send it drifting down.
“That means!!!” “Mr.
Miguel, you’re that ‘Savior’ from back then?!?!” Watching their jaws practically hit the floor, Miguel raised a hand in mild resignation and rubbed at his faintly aching temple.
He had assumed they’d all worked it out ages ago.
Turned out the whole thing had been one long misunderstanding.
He sighed, his gaze passing over the disciples to settle squarely on Yixuan.
The complaint got out before he could stop it.
“Hold on…” “When Mayor Mayflower sent you to find me, did that guy really not tell you a single thing about who I am?” [Author’s Note: Second chapter today.
The recommendation push is about to start!
Everyone, please keep reading and supporting the story!] ____ 👻🔥Walnut-chan — Patre*n🔥👻 🔥 New history: Zenless Zone Zero: