Aside from the Xianzhou Zhuming, which couldn't make it due to engine trouble, every ship of the Xianzhou Alliance had already arrived.
In the end, Shuhu was suppressed by the various generals, and with Xi's intervention, not even a scrap of residue remained.
It could be said that this time, Shuhu was dead beyond all doubt.
And in the middle of that chaos, the one who had undoubtedly stood out the most was Hoshigaki Sora, who had restored communications and then faced Shuhu alone.
Some of the generals had only heard his name before, never seen him in person. Now that they finally had, every one of them looked astonished.
The aura of the HUNT pouring off him was so dense it far surpassed even the Marshal's.
Rumors had even begun spreading within the Cloud Knights that he was the next general.
After all, with an aura of the HUNT this powerful, he was at the very least on the level of an Emanator.
"Jing Yuan, you seem to know him quite well. Could he be a newly born Emanator of the HUNT?"
Yao Guang went to Jing Yuan to pry for information.
If this group of generals were all made to stand beside Sora, anyone would think Sora was the one fit to hold the office of general.
And when his contributions during this whole incident were added on top of that, it was only natural that the Xianzhou Alliance would start thinking certain thoughts.
If he really was an Emanator of the HUNT, then no matter what, they had to kidna—invite him back.
The Xianzhou Alliance already held its place in the galaxy with several generals and the Marshal alone. If they could add one more Emanator of the HUNT, their strength might rise another level.
No one would willingly let a chance like that slip by.
But when faced with the question, Jing Yuan only gave a mysterious smile.
"He has never hidden who he is."
That only made Yao Guang more confused. "Stop being cryptic. Who is he, exactly?"
"It's that thing all of you used to think was a joke..."
Jing Yuan patted Yao Guang on the shoulder and gave her his only hint. "During the recent Swarm Disaster, he was quite something."
The Swarm Disaster?!
The moment that keyword hit her ears, Yao Guang couldn't help frown in confusion.
The Swarm Disaster that had swept through the universe not long ago was still fresh in everyone's memory.
Many places still hadn't lowered their defenses even now.
It could even be said that this Abundance unrest had been affected by that earlier disaster.
Because most people had focused all their attention on the horrifying cosmic calamity of the Swarm Disaster, they had grown lax in tracking the Denizens of the Abundance. That was how the Xianzhou Alliance had unknowingly let a breach point be found.
That Swarm Disaster had come quickly, and its ending had been just as strange.
Rumors had spread through the universe that a person with seven-colored wings had wiped out all the bugs.
Most people had reacted to that claim with complete disdain.
It sounded far too fake. Most people would never believe such a thing.
But now that Jing Yuan himself had brought it up, Yao Guang couldn't help analyzing the Swarm Disaster all over again.
The problem was, the information she had was limited.
All she really knew was that the disaster truly had ended, and that a brand-new force had risen in that part of the galaxy.
Under normal circumstances, when a new power like that appeared, the IPC would usually make some kind of move.
But this time, the IPC had gone strangely silent.
It neither spoke nor took a stance, leaving everyone completely unable to judge that new faction.
Was that faction strong or weak? The IPC should at least make a statement.
But the Company kept playing dead, making the whole situation impossible to get a read on.
If Yao Guang remembered correctly, that new faction was called...
"The Federation of Hope... Why does that sound so familiar?"
The moment something felt off, Yao Guang immediately searched the Xianzhou database for the term.
Very quickly, one piece of information after another appeared in front of her.
Most of them were promotional materials for films, and in the production credits was a clear line:
Produced jointly by the Federation of Hope / The Xianzhou Cangyan.
?!?!!
For a moment, it felt as if a switch had been flipped in Yao Guang's head. She started frantically digging through everything related to the Federation.
Before long, she found a specially encrypted file.
[TOP SECRET]:
[Identity Record of Hoshigaki Sora, One of the Leaders of the Federation of Hope]
The uploader was Jing Yuan.
The one who had sealed it was the Marshal.
This was the highest-classified file in the entire Xianzhou database—something on the same level as the coordinates of the great prison aboard the Xuling. It was not something that could be casually read.
Only with the Marshal's permission could anyone access it.
But right now the Marshal was stationed aboard the Xuling, keeping those extremely dangerous prisoners from getting out. How was she supposed to get in touch?
At once, Yao Guang's heart felt like it was being scratched nonstop by a cat.
It was like a mystery drama cutting off right before the real culprit was revealed.
The feeling was maddeningly addictive.
Jing Yuan had absolutely said only half of it on purpose because he wanted to see her like this.
"That jerk..."
But Yao Guang was not without options.
"Heh. You brought this on yourself!"
A gleam flashed through her eyes. Even without asking the Marshal for permission, she had a way to get at what was inside that top-secret file.
"Sigh..."
Jing Yuan let out a helpless breath, then looked at the woman beside him with pure resignation.
"General Yao Guang, is this really necessary? I wasn't the one who marked that file top secret."
Why come bother him instead of going to the Marshal?
Well... Yao Guang was currently sitting directly beside Jing Yuan.
She said nothing, made no request, and simply stared at him in silence.
They both knew exactly what the other wanted.
Which was why neither of them could say it openly. That was, after all, classified information.
So all she could do was pressure Jing Yuan into giving in through behavior like this.
Yao Guang's logic was simple, and highly effective.
If she wanted to know the contents of the file, then why not go straight to the person who had uploaded it?
And since this was the same man who had gotten her interested in the first place, she wasn't going to be polite.
So she simply kept staring at Jing Yuan, waiting for the moment he lost patience and told her everything.
In the end, she pestered him badly enough that he had no choice. He could only contact the man himself.
Not the Marshal, far away on the Xuling.
The one he contacted was Sora, who was currently resting.
"Huh? My glorious deeds? Go ahead and tell her whatever you want, Jail Jing!"
Barely anyone believed it anyway.
Sora had always known that.
"Hoho. I never would've guessed this one would address the Divine Foresight General so intimately."
Though why had he just called him "Jail Jing"? Normally shouldn't it have been "Old Jing"?
Yao Guang was puzzled by the nickname, but quickly dismissed it as one of his verbal quirks.
Now that she had the man's permission, that meant she could hear what was in the top-secret file.
Jing Yuan dismissed everyone else, then recounted all the contents of the file right there.
"General Yao Guang has surely already heard of the recent turmoil caused by the Swarm Disaster."
Yao Guang nodded and also brought up the strange relationship she had investigated between the Federation and the IPC.
"...The reason the IPC acted that way was because it didn't want to provoke him."
That sentence instantly piqued Yao Guang's curiosity.
The IPC, overlord of the galaxy, had something it feared?
Very quickly, Jing Yuan told her what she hadn't known.
For example, right after the Swarm Disaster had first broken out, the IPC had convened many factions from across the galaxy to discuss a solution.
Yao Guang naturally knew that much. "But I heard the IPC only needed five meetings to reach a solution this time. Surprisingly efficient."
Under normal circumstances, the Company would have to hold ten or twenty meetings first, calculating exactly what benefits each side would get before launching any rescue effort. Otherwise it wouldn't be the Company.
That was why Yao Guang had called its efficiency this time remarkable.
But the real situation had been...
"If the Company hadn't started the rescue soon," Jing Yuan said, "then no one would've kept working with them."
Yao Guang froze. "If they didn't keep working with the Company, then with who?"
Could there really be someone in the entire galaxy who could command the trust of so many factions the way the IPC did?
Jing Yuan only took out the first report he had kept hidden for a long time.
"These are the attendance numbers after the first meeting. The others are the numbers for the later meetings."
Yao Guang looked it over and discovered that the numbers had fallen at an alarming rate.
Especially by the third meeting, where more than half the participants were gone.
"Th-This... where did all these people go?"
Had they really chosen to sit back and let the Swarm Disaster rampage unchecked?
If that got out, would they still have any reputation left in the galaxy?
Jing Yuan handed her another report—a formal letter of thanks issued by the Federation of Hope.
And there, Yao Guang discovered that the names that had withdrawn from the meetings had appeared again.
Recalling that time, Jing Yuan suddenly said with a sigh of emotion, "When the rescue first began, the Federation hadn't even been established yet. Everyone was simply following one man."
Yao Guang had endured her fair share of worldly hard knocks. Naturally, she understood exactly what that meant.
"Could it be... the one they followed was this newly arisen Emanator of the HUNT?"
Jing Yuan neither nodded nor shook his head.
At that point, things had already been implied clearly enough.
"I see. So that's how it is."
Yao Guang believed she finally understood everything.
No wonder the IPC had kept its mouth shut about the Federation and refused to bring it up on its own.
So it was because the matter involved an Emanator.
Given the Company's nature, that did sound exactly like something it would do.
And no wonder this newly arisen Emanator of the HUNT had been placed in a classified file.
Seen that way, the Federation he belonged to and the Xianzhou could even be considered kindred powers in a certain sense.
No wonder Jing Yuan trusted him so much.
Yao Guang felt that she had figured everything out.
"Don't worry, Jing Yuan. I absolutely won't tell anyone about this!"
No matter what, it was still a secret buried within the Xianzhou's most secret files. Yao Guang knew what could and couldn't be treated lightly.
Having gotten the answer she wanted, she excitedly threw herself into the cleanup work after the unrest.
Jing Yuan finally let out a breath of relief.
The reason Sora's file had been classified as top secret was, of course, not merely because of his identity.
It was also because...
There was a hidden compartment in his drawer.
Inside that compartment was an extraordinarily confidential report.
What that report detailed was the total number of planets registered under the Federation of Hope after its founding, along with an overview of its population.
That was the real reason it had been classified as top secret.
"A man who can call countless lives back from death... outwardly he appears to be an Emanator of the HUNT, but what AEON lies beneath that surface?"
Jing Yuan sighed. It was all a mess, an absolute mess.
Since when had this universe become so impossible to understand?
This old man was tired. Who was going to take over for him already?
...
While Jing Yuan was lamenting how badly he wanted to retire, Sora was currently locked in a stare-down with Fu Xuan.
All he did was slap a wanted notice down onto the table.
"I suspect you're abusing your authority for personal revenge."
It was Longzhang's wanted notice.
And written clearly on it were the charges:
[Wielding the remnants of the Plague's Author, abducting Vidyadhara eggs, damaging Luofu property, harassing respectable women...]
Though that wanted notice was going to be erased sooner or later, anyone with eyes could tell that Longzhang was connected to him.
If someone dug that up someday and genuinely believed Hoshigaki Sora had gone around harassing respectable women, his reputation would be ruined.
So today, he absolutely had to come pick a fight with whoever had written that slanderous line onto the notice.
After digging around through multiple channels, he had finally landed on Fu Xuan as the prime suspect.
"What evidence do you have?!"
Fu Xuan argued forcefully, while Sora laid out his proof.
All information imports and edits had to go through the Divination Commission before they could be released.
Especially news involving undercover operations—that was considered a matter of the highest importance, and had to be personally drafted by the Master Diviner.
So there was no need to say where the "harassing respectable women" line had come from.
Sora had never imagined that just because his chunibyo self had called her "shorty" once, she would actually pull something like this.
If he had really harassed her, he didn't even dare imagine what Fu Xuan might've done to him!
"So today, you need to give me an explanation!"
"Exactly! He's the great hero who saved your Xianzhou—how could you do this to him?!"
"Seriously, even in my book he didn't harass respectable women. What you wrote is even wilder than what I come up with. Now I kind of want to study how your brain works!"
The moment Mitsutake heard that, several throbbing veins popped on her forehead.
With a wave of her hand, people rushed over and dragged Unkyō away.
Was now the time to discuss novel plots? Read the room!
Though once you finish writing it later, let me see whether it meets regulations.
That brief interruption did nothing to ease the tension in the room. Sora was still fighting for his reputation with perfect justification.
"I didn't just write it at random!"
Fu Xuan insisted stubbornly. Sora almost had to admire that spirit of hers.
Too bad that if he didn't wipe this stain off quickly, it might actually affect his chances of getting a girlfriend in the future.
"Then tell me—who exactly did I harass?"
"After I got to the Luofu, I barely even came into contact with anyone. So where would this 'harassment' have come from?"
The Divination Commission staff watching from the side all nodded when they heard that.
Before this, Sora and the others had been so busy promoting the movie at full blast that they had barely had a moment to breathe. Then the Abundance unrest broke out and martial law followed.
He simply hadn't had the time.
"No matter how you look at it, the Master Diviner's in the wrong here. She won't take the fall for this, will she?"
Among the Divination Commission staff, however, one person had a very different focus.
"Oh, come on. You just don't get it."
A strange gleam lit Qingque's eyes as she voiced a profound interpretation that even Fu Xuan herself didn't know existed.
"Because of this, the Divination Commission is definitely going to get audited from top to bottom. Wouldn't that mean we finally get a break?"
Right now, the unrest had only just ended, and the flood of complex information had made overtime the Divination Commission's new normal.
So in order to let her employees rest, the Master Diviner had chosen to sacrifice herself for their sake.
"As expected of the Master Diviner. She's really... I'm gonna cry."
The more Qingque thought about it, the more moved she became.
She decided that after work, she was going to drag Sora off for a few rounds of cards.
At the card table, she would make sure to fully explain the Master Diviner's deep intentions and how considerate she was toward her staff.
Sora's senses were sharp, so he naturally overheard that possibility too.
For a moment, he suddenly wasn't sure what Fu Xuan really meant anymore.
Could it be that Fu Xuan actually was that kind of considerate boss?
If that was the case, then he felt a little embarrassed.
Fu Xuan's face, meanwhile, was already completely red.
Not from shyness.
From rage.
Once I'm done dealing with this man, Qingque, I'm settling accounts with you.
"I naturally had evidence to back up what I wrote!"
Fu Xuan spoke again and produced her proof.
"If you insist over and over that you never harassed a woman, then where did this come from?"
The evidence she presented was actually a comment.
And the comment in full read:
[Is that Hoshigaki Sora? If he hadn't called out to me today, I might've missed him. He looks so handsome dressed like that—we're such a perfect match...]
He only had to read half of it.
It was obvious: this was the post of someone who had developed feelings for him after being approached by Sora and had kept talking from there.
"I don't go around accusing good people for no reason. You definitely did something like this!"
Fu Xuan folded her arms and huffed smugly.
Well? What could he possibly say now?
Sora suddenly found himself under the Iron Cavalry girls' stares.
That couldn't be right. Under their constant attention, when exactly could he have done something like that?
"That's slander! Slander!"
He ransacked his memory and still couldn't find any recollection of hitting on anyone else.
Whoever had done this was clearly trying to roast him alive. This person's intentions were downright sinister!
"In the entire Xianzhou, there is only one other person who shares your exact name—but that one is currently serving in the Cloud Knights and has no time to go flirting around."
Fu Xuan let out a small laugh. She refused to believe Sora could still talk his way out of this.
Hearing that, Sora staggered back two steps in disbelief.
Could it have been his chuunibyo self?
That was the only possibility he could think of.
"I want to know who this account belongs to."
He had to see for himself just who his chunibyo self had flirted with.
"Fine, then look. I'm only afraid you won't dare face it afterward!"
Now that she had the upper hand, Fu Xuan naturally intended to grant Sora's request.
This was the perfect chance to get revenge for him calling her short back then.
She wanted to see how Sora would explain what he had done.
So Fu Xuan pulled up the account owner's information.
"Now you can't deny it anymore!"
This victory belonged to her!
Fu Xuan displayed the result.
But the uneasy Sora gradually calmed down the moment he saw it.
Even the previously agitated Iron Cavalry girls showed looks of instant understanding.
So it was her.
Then that was fine.
That change made Fu Xuan freeze in confusion.
W-What just happened?
She checked the account ownership herself and discovered that the account had originally been logged in from another Xianzhou ship before being transferred here midway.
Account owner: Fangyuan High Elder Jin Xing.
Now it was Fu Xuan's turn to be confused.
After all, Jin Xing's temper was known throughout every Xianzhou ship.
Not to mention that she had personally come to the Luofu before to deal with Bailu's situation. Back then, once she started making trouble, she cared about no one.
When a Vidyadhara Preceptor had tried to throw his weight around, she had slapped him on the spot.
If the person who had been flirted with was her, then why hadn't she returned the favor with a full explosion of temper?
Faced with Fu Xuan's confusion, Shunji silently slipped something into her hand.
Fu Xuan looked down.
It was actually a physical copy of Sora's movie!
And not just any edition—a not-for-sale version.
"You..."
Fu Xuan had just started to speak when Shunji stopped her.
"Go watch the bonus footage at the end of the movie. Then you'll understand everything."
"And remember to erase that charge afterward."
After saying that, she patted Fu Xuan on the shoulder and left with Sora and the others.
Fu Xuan was left standing there alone, staring blankly at the disc in her hand, utterly baffled.
But after she watched its contents the next day, she only went silently to the Divination Commission.
"Erase that charge."
The diviner was puzzled, but still obeyed Fu Xuan's order and completely removed that accusation.
Fu Xuan then silently returned to her seat.
Even now, all kinds of images from the bonus footage were still echoing through her mind. She finally understood why that edition had been banned from sale.
Because what appeared in those extras was enough to send the Vidyadhara into a frenzy.
It was all footage from the movie set while Jin Xing, the film's director, was overseeing the shoot.
After watching it, Fu Xuan understood one thing.
When Jin Xing had posted that line on the Luofu, she had actually been holding back a lot.
"Sigh~~~"
...
Robin didn't involve herself too much in Sora's little farce with the Divination Commission, because she knew it really wasn't that serious.
What surprised her, however, was that Hotaru hadn't gotten involved either.
"I've had the feeling lately that you've been thinking about something all the time. Did something happen?"
Robin's question snapped Hotaru out of her thoughts.
"No. I'm just worried, that's all."
Then Hotaru spoke about what had been bothering her lately.
It was because of one person.
Titania.
"That girl was supposedly sent off to subdue an Abundance race before Sora finished dealing with things here."
At that point, Hotaru could only sigh helplessly. "But there's still no trace of her."
The Xianzhou Alliance had already completely sealed off all nearby star regions, intending to wipe out all those scattered remnants in one sweep.
But among all the information coming in, Hotaru still hadn't heard Titania's name once.
"I didn't expect you to be worried about her," Robin said. "I thought the two of you never got along."
From what she had observed before, Hotaru had always seemed to avoid Titania on purpose.
She had never expected that, other than Fenille, the one most worried about Titania would actually be her.
"I just... don't know how to face her."
Hotaru drank the tea in front of her.
Her feelings toward Titania were the most complicated of all, because she really had been one of the people who accepted Titania's orders and went to die.
She had watched her comrades die under the charge of the Swarm Disaster with her own eyes.
All she could do was search for signs of survivors among mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
And everything they had given their lives for had all been for Empress Titania.
Of course, back when she had undergone assimilation, she had also learned all the truths hidden behind it.
Including the fact that Titania herself had been deceived.
Including the fact that her true personality was really just that of an earnest-looking idiot.
But even so, Hotaru's feelings toward Titania remained complicated.
"I know that with her strength, there really aren't many in this universe who can threaten her."
Hotaru spoke in a helpless voice. "I'm just afraid she's gone and stirred up some kind of disaster again."
If nobody was there to keep an eye on Titania, what if she caused another enormous mess?
"That sounds exactly like worrying over a child."
Feeling the complexity in Hotaru's emotions, Robin couldn't help making that comment.
When Titania was nearby, Hotaru always seemed annoyed.
But the moment Titania was gone, she immediately started worrying.
That kind of openly dismissive but secretly concerned feeling was exactly like watching over a child.
"Maybe it's because..."
Hotaru's gaze grew a little unfocused.
"We're the only two left from that era."
Though both of them had tacitly chosen never to speak of how they had once been deceived by the Glamoth Republic—
They really were the only two survivors left from that time.
Whenever Hotaru looked at Titania, she could always see the shadows of those dead comrades in her.
Hotaru knew that was because Titania was the genetic origin point of all of them, and that resemblance in their faces mattered.
But whenever those dead girls' faces overlapped with Titania's, Hotaru always felt as though they were still alive in this era.
That was why she always found herself instinctively avoiding Titania face-to-face.
And yet when Titania disappeared, she couldn't help paying attention to her anyway.
"Maybe that's just the kind of person I am."
Hotaru shook her head and laughed at herself.
Robin said nothing more. She only quietly soothed Hotaru's emotions.
It wasn't until a message came in that Hotaru finally pulled herself completely out of that mood.
"Hotaru, come quick! We've found that idiot Titania!"
It was Sora.
He had already arrived at the front lines.
At the moment, the people there were discussing a group of routed Denizens of the Abundance.
After Shuhu's resurrection, they had chosen to desert that planet and flee.
But after being captured by the Xianzhou, they had brought back one clue.
"Our god, Lady Tyrande, will avenge us sooner or later!"
Though captured, these Denizens of the Abundance were still fanatically devout.
And the moment Sora heard that name, his eyelids started twitching nonstop.
For a second, he thought he'd transmigrated again.
The reason he was certain this meant Titania was because of the way they addressed her.
In this universe, amid all this Abundance unrest, there was no way a second person existed who would dare call herself a god.
The Denizens of the Abundance had already seen YAOSHI. They had witnessed the might of an AEON.
And precisely because of that, their understanding of divinity had been raised to an absurd degree.
That was why even Phantylia, when trying to gather them under her banner, had used the title Master of Immortality—a name that at least sounded like an Emanator of ABUNDANCE.
So other than Titania, that earnest idiot, Sora couldn't think of anyone else who would dare call herself a god here.
Like him, she had supposedly been sent here as an undercover operative, only to then go missing.
Now that they had finally found a lead on her, Sora naturally had to notify the people who cared about her.
By the time Hotaru arrived, the Xianzhou side had already found the hidden star region where "Tyrande" was hiding, and were preparing to launch a full assault.
Any Denizens of the Abundance who had appeared here had done so with the intention of stirring up unrest in the Xianzhou, so naturally the Xianzhou had no intention of holding back.
"The Xianzhou side plans to forcefully crush this band of remnants, but that idiot Titania..."
Sora spoke helplessly.
She had personally driven back every force the Xianzhou sent in.
Jing Yuan had been left with no choice but to come find Sora and ask how the situation should be handled.
"The Xianzhou Yaoqing, which is responsible for this sector, is waiting right now. So what do we do?"
Sora spread his hands helplessly. For once, even he had no idea why Titania had interfered.
The only good thing was that when she made her move, she hadn't hurt anyone. So there was still room to smooth things over.
And of course, that was also because of Sora's special standing with the Xianzhou.
Apparently Feixiao had been over there all this time, pushing to storm the place by force.
If Sora hadn't been here, Titania would probably have ended up "sparring" again before long.
"Let me go. Titania is my responsibility too, after all."
Fenille spoke up at that moment, wanting to take the matter onto herself.
But Robin pressed her down immediately.
"Fenille, it's too dangerous for you to go alone."
Titania wasn't the only one over there.
There were also countless Denizens of the Abundance.
So if anyone was going, it was better to send people who could protect themselves.
In the end, Sora and Hotaru could only look at each other.
It seemed that this time, the two of them would have to go together.
But just what was Titania trying to do?
Carrying that question with them, Sora and Hotaru shot through the universe side by side like twin streaks of silver radiance, heading straight for Titania's location.
And after they arrived, the crystalline cliff wall outside—the one that had held the Xianzhou at bay for so long—finally opened a narrow gap.
Inside this beastship, countless Denizens of the Abundance were living their lives. Sora's arrival drew every eye upward.
After stepping through, Sora and Hotaru were led through a crowd of Denizens of the Abundance until they finally saw Titania.
And the very first thing she did when she saw Sora was grab hold of him.
"Sora, you've absolutely got to help me!"
The cry in her voice was enough to make anyone who heard it feel heartbroken.
Had Titania really suffered some kind of grievance?!
---
T/N: let me know how the translation is!! around ~5k words btw