"The Astral Express is involved in this as well?"
"That makes things exceptionally interesting." Jade's composed expression faltered for a fraction of a second, genuine surprise flickering across her elegant features.
"You're saying the Abundance vanguard couldn't stand against the Astral Express crew, so they summoned an avatar of an Emanator of Abundance? May I ask the specific name of that Emanator?"
It wasn't that Jade doubted their story, it was just so astronomically extraordinary that she found it hard to believe without hard data.
"Shuhu."
At the explicit mention of that ancient name, Jade's gray-blue pupils contracted slightly.
The Emanators of Abundance were many, and their power levels and methodologies varied wildly. Only the most openly zealous ones were widely known across the general galaxy.
But Shuhu was a terrifying legend. According to the IPC's most highly confidential hazard files, he was elusive, immortal, and fundamentally brutal. While most Abundance followers preferred to slowly assimilate civilizations and organically plunder resources in a colonial fashion, Shuhu's manifestations were different. He was known to violently devour entire planets, consuming whole civilizations as biomass nourishment. A true planet-eater.
Because IPC encounters with Shuhu's actual avatars were so rare and heavily classified outside of Xianzhou space, the fact that Marco and the others could name his specific methodology told Jade that their story was absolutely genuine.
"Could you take me to the site?"
Jade wanted to see it for herself—the exact place where an Emanator's avatar had fallen. She wanted to physically witness the miracle left behind by the unknown passenger aboard the Astral Express who had allegedly defeated an Emanator in a single strike.
"Of course."
Marco didn't refuse. He immediately led Jade and her elite security team to the northern wasteland battlefield.
Using the recovered teleportation devices, they arrived at the site in the blink of an eye.
The scorched area had since been cordoned off and turned into a makeshift memorial, heavily guarded by elite soldiers of the new Federation. Grateful civilians came and went, visiting the outer perimeter of the site in steady streams to pay their respects.
Jade looked around at the pristine golden flower petals and massive, unnatural wooden roots still scattered across the blasted ground. The air itself was thick and heavy with an almost suffocatingly vibrant life energy.
"No doubt about it," she murmured, her sharp eyes scanning the impossible flora. "Such immense, terrifying life force… such hyper-concentrated Abundance energy."
"Only an Emanator could leave a permanent biological footprint like this behind."
Just from the atmospheric density and the mutated surroundings, she could easily tell, this was undoubtedly the residual work of an Emanator's Path power.
Following the group, Jade soon arrived at a heavily cordoned-off inner area marked with IPC-grade warning signs of extreme spatial danger.
There, she saw it.
A jagged, pitch-black chasm stretching endlessly through the air, like a horrific scar carved into the very fabric of heaven and earth themselves.
Jade stared into the silent abyss, momentarily completely speechless.
She knew—this was the exact mark left by the man who had cut down the Emanator with a single sword stroke. The dimensional fissure was the permanent remnant of that impossible strike.
"Lady… Madam Jade, the immediate area around the anomaly is extremely dangerous…"
"The spatial fluctuation index is completely off the charts. Every measurable physical constant in there is behaving abnormally."
One of Jade's lead scientific subordinates approached the rift with a heavy measuring device, but as soon as he drew a few inches too close, the expensive instrument violently sparked and exploded in his hands.
Clearly, the ambient conceptual readings had far exceeded the device's absolute limit, causing its core to overheat and instantly combust.
Jade didn't respond to the technician. She simply stared into the dark rift carved through space, her usually steady heart beating with a deep, primal unease.
She couldn't even begin to calculate what lay in the abyss beyond that gash in reality.
But she understood one thing with absolute, terrifying clarity—the being capable of leaving such a permanent, physics-defying mark wielded power far beyond her corporate comprehension.
To eliminate a true Emanator so effortlessly… the raw strength required likely completely surpassed that of an Emanator.
And what conceptually lay above an Emanator? The answer was horrifyingly simple—an Aeon.
Was this mysterious new passenger aboard the Astral Express a literal Aeon walking in human guise? And if so, which one? She had absolutely no way of verifying it.
"Yuki… just who exactly are you?"
Jade murmured the name quietly under her breath, her gaze shifting to a row of newly carved stone statues erected behind her on the plaza.
There were four in total—honoring Yuki, Himeko, March 7th, and Jingliu.
Her eyes settled intently on the only male figure among them. Her gray-blue irises flickered with a spark of intense, calculating curiosity.
Already, she couldn't wait to return to Pier Point and personally report everything she had witnessed to Diamond. The corporation desperately needed to reassess the Astral Express's current universal threat level.
In the past, the IPC's official stance toward the Nameless had always been one of strict non-aggression and amicable public relations. That was largely because the Nameless were seen as harmless, idealistic explorers with absolutely no financial conflict of interest with the corporation. Backed by the legacy of Akivili—the Aeon of Trailblaze—and enjoying a stellar reputation across the universe, it was only natural for the IPC to maintain highly friendly ties.
But with Akivili now fallen, Jade had sensed a subtle, ruthless shift in the corporation's internal attitude toward the Astral Express in recent years. Compounding that was the ancient, complicated history that Qlipoth—the Aeon of Preservation whom the IPC revered—had once had profound ideological disagreements with Akivili. That ancient history had quietly caused some militant factions within the corporation to view the modern Nameless differently.
Jade felt it was incredibly urgent to inform those aggressive executives that they needed to permanently shelve any hostile plans and tread incredibly carefully in their dealings with the Astral Express from now on.
After finishing her intense tour of the memorial site, Jade returned with Marco and the others to the capital.
Back at the secure meeting hall, she smoothly proposed a highly lucrative corporate partnership.
The IPC would provide massive, zero-interest funding and infrastructure to help Planet Gokan rapidly rebuild and modernize. In return, Jade wanted a highly exclusive, long-term trade monopoly with the planet—and unconditional legal permission to permanently station elite IPC research specialists at the site of the sword mark, to meticulously study the remnants of that world-splitting strike.
Marco and the other two had absolutely no objections and gladly signed Jade's proposal.
Seeing how straightforward and cooperative they were, Jade also decided to show a rare display of corporate goodwill.
On behalf of the Interastral Peace Corporation, she officially offered to purchase the hundred thousand Abundance prisoners taken by Marco's forces as indentured corporate assets.
Marco and his companions were severely taken aback when they heard this. They hadn't expected the pristine IPC to openly trade in living prisoners of war.
Still, it was undeniably fantastic news for them. After all, keeping over a hundred thousand immortal, fanatic prisoners fed and heavily guarded was a massive, unsustainable drain on their fragile resources. It was infinitely better to sell the vast majority of them to the IPC for cold, hard credits, keeping only a small, manageable number as penal laborers for the worst reconstruction zones.
Marco and the others quickly agreed, formally signing the massive acquisition deal with Jade without a second of hesitation.
Jade, for her part, was incredibly satisfied with how smoothly the hostile-takeover-turned-lucrative-transaction had gone. After elegantly bidding farewell to Marco and the new government, she boarded her customized warship and the fleet returned to IPC territory.
Before leaving orbit, she thoughtfully left a massive contingent of heavily armed IPC personnel behind to permanently guard the planet against any future retaliation from the Abundance.
Not long after Jade's colossal fleet departed the system, another, much smaller spacecraft slipped completely undetected past the IPC's orbital watch and left Planet Gokan.
This was the stealth ship carrying Kafka, the Stellaron Hunter.
Onboard, Silver Wolf spun around in her gaming chair and gave Kafka a deeply curious, scrutinizing look.
"Kafka… something about your code feels completely different."
"Did something good happen down there?" Silver Wolf set the ship's navigation to autopilot, then crossed her arms, waiting for an explanation.
Kafka gave a small, highly satisfied nod as she took a seat.
"I did run into something."
"But… it's probably not something a little gamer girl like you would understand just yet, Silver Wolf." She smiled mysteriously, resting her chin on her hand.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Since when did you start talking in annoying riddles?" Silver Wolf only grew more irritated and confused by the evasion.
"Hehe… let's just say it's an experience only a true woman would understand."
Kafka's pink eyes shimmered with a dark, indescribable light as she smiled, her mind drifting back to the parlor car of the Express.
Silver Wolf was utterly baffled. She felt like Kafka had fundamentally changed after that brief encounter with the Astral Express crew—even her entire physical demeanor and aura seemed vastly, intoxicatingly different.