Over at the Divination Commission, even with the Ambrosial Arbor expanding across the horizon, the overall situation remained locked in a tense standoff. For those who needed rest, there was little choice but to sleep when the opportunity presented itself.
The Astral Express crew—March 7th, Caelus, and Welt—along with Tingyun, were utterly drained. They had spent the entire previous day rushing across the sector, clearing out hordes of Abominations of Abundance, dismantling ancient mechanisms, and ultimately clashing with Kafka.
Exhausted to their core, they had followed the Divination Commission's arrangements back to their lodging in Exalting Sanctum to turn in for the night.
Yet everyone knew the crisis was far from over. The moment dawn broke, they washed up, grabbed their gear, and prepared to head toward the Alchemy Commission.
"Honored benefactors, did you rest well last night?"
As the three Trailblazers stepped out of the inn's main archway, Tingyun was already waiting for them, her signature fan folded gracefully in her hands.
"Ha... it was comfortable enough, I guess," March 7th said, letting out a long yawn and rubbing her tired eyes. "I just didn't get nearly enough sleep."
Beside her, Caelus looked like a walking corpse, his eyes unfocused and his posture slouching heavily.
March 7th blinked, startled by his ghost-like appearance. "Did you stay up all night again?"
"Ah... I stumbled on a rare treasure map last night," Caelus muttered, rubbing his neck sheepishly. "I got a little carried away playing Pokémon on my phone and forgot to check the time."
"You really don't have a care in the world, do you?" March 7th sighed, throwing her hands up. "We still have a massive cosmic crisis to solve!"
Before Caelus could defend himself, a suffocating surge of spatial energy erupted in the plaza ahead.
The Express crew, Tingyun, and the surrounding Xianzhou citizens instantly turned toward the pressure.
Julian stood suspended in midair, dark purple wisps of spatial energy coiling around his eyes like rising smoke. He looked down at the courtyard, his gaze cold, sharp, and utterly devoid of its usual casual warmth.
"What's wrong with Boss Julian?" March 7th gasped, instinctively taking a step back. "Is he... is he about to attack us?"
Caelus shed his lingering grogginess in an instant, his hand flying to the hilt of his weapon as his expression turned deadly serious.
"No, he's not looking at us..." Welt interjected quietly.
With far more combat experience and refined spatial perception than the two youths, Welt recognized immediately that Julian's terrifying focus was locked on a very specific target. He turned his eyes toward the Foxian diplomat standing beside them.
Before anyone could register the motion, Julian vanished from the sky, reappearing directly in front of Tingyun.
He reached out with a single, fluid motion, clamping his hand tightly around her throat and lifting her clean off the ground.
Tingyun let out a strangled gasp, her small hands clawing frantically at his iron grip as her face twisted in agony.
As the head of the Amicables under the Sky-Faring Commission, Tingyun was a prominent, well-known figure across the Luofu. Seeing her seized so brutally in broad daylight sent a shockwave of outrage through the gathered crowd. Local citizens began shouting, some reaching for their jade-abacuses to call the Cloud Knights, while others rolled up their sleeves to rush forward.
Julian didn't even turn his head. With a single glance, a localized burst of Psychic force expanded outward, forming an invisible, impenetrable barrier that pinned the crowd in place.
"Lord Julian, is there some mistake here?" Welt called out, stepping forward to intervene. Tingyun had guided them faithfully since their arrival, and he wasn't about to watch her executed without cause.
Julian completely ignored the intercession.
"Since you chose to strike at the people close to me," Julian said softly, his voice echoing with a chilling, resonant aura, "you must have prepared yourself for this exact moment."
Before making his move, Julian had considered whether Phantylia might have abandoned her current disguise. The moment he arrived, he had activated See Through to analyze her spiritual signature, pairing it with Ghost-type perception to peer straight into her essence.
He had confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the body in front of him was nothing more than an empty shell possessed by a Heliobus.
Knowing this was merely a replaceable puppet, Julian showed zero mercy.
His fingers tightened with crushing force. Tingyun's physical form snapped and dissolved, her body unraveling into a writhing, crimson flame that attempted to dart into the surrounding shadows.
The surrounding crowd gasped in sheer horror, frozen by the sight.
They had assumed Julian was the villain, clouded as he was in dark, ominous mist. But no mortal Foxian dissolved into a burning spirit-fire when struck.
The real Tingyun had been replaced by a monster all along.
The Express crew exchanged shocked glances, their defensive stances relaxing slightly as the reality of the situation set in.
Julian ignored the onlookers entirely. With a flick of his wrist, his Psychic authority slammed down around the escaping flame, compressing the surrounding space into a dense, inescapable cage.
"How on earth did you track me down, human?!" Phantylia's voice echoed directly from the trapped fire, laced with disbelief.
She prided herself on flawless shapeshifting, capable of mimicking memories, physical traits, and spiritual signatures down to the finest detail—a disguise that even the Xianzhou's advanced diagnostic matrices had failed to pierce. Being exposed so effortlessly defied all logic.
"You don't need an answer," Julian said coldly, his eyes narrowing. "Just wait for me beneath the Ambrosial Arbor."
With a single thought, he collapsed the spatial cage, extinguishing the spirit-fire instantly.
"I truly should have erased you sooner..."
A lingering, resentful whisper drifted through the air before fading into nothingness.
Having destroyed the harbinger's primary proxy, Julian pulled out his communicator and dialed a direct line to the Seat of Divine Foresight.
"Jing Yuan," Julian said the moment the line connected. "Prepare to unseal the Scalegorge Waterscape. I'm heading to the Arbor to tear Phantylia out by her roots."
He kept his tone brief. Enough time had passed since Cai Xing's attack, and Sky-Faring Commission officials had undoubtedly reported the incident. The General was far too sharp not to know what had transpired.
As for the Scalegorge Waterscape, the ancient Vidyadhara seals blocking access to the roots were practically absolute. Approaching the area without the high elder's authority was like walking into an endless spatial illusion; no matter how far one marched forward, the distance to the Arbor never shrank.
Until Julian mastered the spatial authorities tied to Dialga, breaking through that seal by force would mean shattering the structural integrity of the entire world-ship—a destructive outcome he had no intention of causing.
"Consider it done," Jing Yuan's relaxed voice came through the receiver, though a trace of genuine relief underlay his words. "Thank you, Lord Julian, for rooting out the Lord Ravager's proxy. We shall manage the remaining logistics."
In truth, Jing Yuan was immensely relieved. With the revival of the Ambrosial Arbor, the surrounding Abundance energy had grown overwhelmingly dense, causing his own latent Mara to stir restlessly within his veins.
Under normal circumstances, he could suppress the affliction through sheer discipline. But if he were forced to unleash his full power in a drawn-out battle against a Lord Ravager, maintaining his sanity would become a dangerous gamble. He had already been contemplating how to share the burden of the upcoming fight, eyeing both Dan Heng and Julian as potential allies.
Dan Heng's connection to Dan Feng made his involvement likely, but relying on him alone felt far too precarious.
Julian, on the other hand, was an absolute powerhouse—a figure capable of standing toe-to-toe with cosmic threats and single-handedly saving Herta Space Station.
Jing Yuan had been pondering what diplomatic concessions or rare artifacts he could offer to request Julian's intervention, knowing full well that a force of his caliber could not simply be commanded. He had never expected Phantylia's foolish provocation to hand him the ultimate ally on a silver platter.
"However," Jing Yuan added, his tone taking on a subtly persuasive edge, "the remnants of the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus are still stirring up chaos across the lower decks, which may cause unwanted delays in unsealing the waters..."
"I'll wipe them out," Julian interrupted flatly.
"That is truly wonderful news," Jing Yuan replied, his tone smooth as silk. "With your personal involvement, the Sanctus Medicus threat will be resolved in no time."
Julian rolled his eyes at his phone screen. The old fox had subtly guided the conversation to dump the cultist cleanup on him, but since the Disciples were already at the top of his personal hit list, he didn't mind taking care of the trash himself.
Hanging up, Julian turned back to the three bewildered Trailblazers.
"My apologies for the sudden disturbance," Julian said, his expression softening slightly. "I have urgent business to settle. I'll make it up to you all later."
Before March 7th could ask a single question, space folded around him, and he vanished from the plaza.
"Wait... what just happened?!" March 7th blinked, staring at the empty air where Julian had been standing a second ago. She turned to Welt, completely bewildered. "Mr. Welt, can someone please explain what is going on?!"
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