"We don't know!" someone yelled back over the wind. "But they are just children! Look at them!"
"Children?" a Star Emperor laughed, tears in his eyes as he watched Bai Wei's giant tree smash another million bats. "Their terrifying ability has already made them invincible!"
Everyone nodded. One by one, the injured powerhouses started to pull back. Star Lords carried Star Kings. Star Saints supported Star Emperors. They did not run in panic anymore. They retreated in order, looking back at the two white figures in the sky.
At that exact moment, the teleportation light from the tower flashed again and again.
The mercenaries who had followed Lin Feng and Bai Wei from the plaza arrived. Hundreds of them. The scar-faced man who had insulted them earlier was at the very front, his sword already drawn.
He saw the sky on fire with willow leaves on the east, and a world-tree smashing the heavens on the west. He saw the two boys standing alone in the middle of the swarm.
He roared, "FOR THE ETERNAL SECT! FOR HUMANITY!"
The armored woman beside him screamed, "We fight alongside our heroes today!"
The surge of motivation from the tower turned into real action. The new soldiers, the veterans, even the mercenaries who had been kneeling in fear minutes ago, charged into the gaps that Lin Feng and Bai Wei were creating, cleaning up the scattered bats that escaped the leaves and the branches.
Front Line Seven was no longer a rout. With two teenagers from a Holy sect at its center, it had become a counterattack.
When the 7th front line of Battlefield 0321 was in full action, back on Sword Star, Yan, alongside his master Shen Huai and Grand Elder Yan Wuhe, was already prepared to leave.
During their time here, the other Fourth-Tier forces of the Red Lotus Galaxy had also come to the Shadow Sword Sanctuary to offer their submission. Now, the whole Red Lotus Galaxy is under the protection of the Eternal Sect.
Huai had already dispatched powerful elders to each planet to save them from those filthy extraterrestrial races. He even set up a branch of the Eternal Academy on every existing planet. Now he is the sole overlord of the Red Lotus Galaxy.
Among the fourteen sovereigns of humanity, North Star Sovereign Li Beichen was the happiest, because a powerful person like Huai was now in his territory.
Huai, Wuhe, and Yan all left the Sword Planet with a single step. Their bodies vanished into thin air.
The people below kowtowed toward them, giving them the last respect they deserved. Without Huai, even these planets would not be here today.
No one was ordered to do it. It happened naturally.
Their heads stayed down. They did not look up even after the three figures had completely vanished into the air. The wind carried the sound of foreheads touching stone, again and again, as they kowtowed three times, then six times, then nine times — the highest rite of respect in the Red Lotus Galaxy, reserved only for ancestors and saviors.
Some were crying silently. Some were whispering the same words over and over: "Thank you, Senior Huai. Thank you for saving our planet our family."
The sharp and proud Sword Intent that normally filled the peak softened that day, as if even the mountain itself was bowing.
They stayed kneeling for a long time after he was gone, because in their hearts they knew, without him, their sky would have already fallen.
One of the Human Federation's Top 14 Core Planets.
It is not the biggest core planet, but it is called the most beautiful. From space, Jade Heart Star(Yuxin star) looks like a perfect sphere of pale green and white, wrapped in thin silver clouds that never fully disappear. The entire planet is covered in a soft spiritual mist, and when sunlight hits it, the mist refracts into faint rainbows that circle the world like rings.
There is no single ocean here. Instead, there are thousands of jade-colored seas connected by glowing rivers that flow uphill, defying gravity because of the planet's natural formation. The land is made of floating continents, each one held up by giant white lotus roots that grow from the core of the planet itself. Waterfalls fall from one continent to the next, thousands of meters high, and never stop.
Around Yuxin Star, countless smaller stars, moons, and cultivation planets orbit like pearls around a crown. More than three hundred life-bearing satellites surround it, all protected by its formation. Merchant ships, war fleets, and academy vessels are always coming and going, making the sky look like a river of lights at night.
This is the seat of a Galaxy Sovereign, so the spiritual energy here is so dense that even a mortal child can live for two hundred years just by breathing.
This planets are founded and ruled by Galaxy Sovereign Mei Ling.
Unlike the warlike Holy Sects, Jade Serenity Palace is known for beauty, order, and absolute control. Its disciples are almost all women, dressed in pale green and white silk robes embroidered with silver plum blossoms. They do not carry heavy swords. Their weapons are ribbons, jade flutes, mirrors, and flying needles. They are elegant, but capable of killing a Star Sovereign with a single note.
The main palace is built on the largest floating continent, right in the center of the biggest jade sea. It is made entirely of warm white jade that never gets cold. The palace has nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine pavilions connected by bridges of light.
In the very center grows a single ancient plum tree that blooms all year round, even in winter. It is said that Mei Ling herself planted it when she first broke through to Galaxy Sovereign.
Everyone in the Human Federation knows the rule: If you see the plum blossom flag, you kneel. Because Jade Serenity Palace watches over not just Jade Heart Star, but all the surrounding three hundred planets.
People call Mei Ling "The Jade Heart Sovereign" not just because of her planet, but because she is famous for being calm, merciless to the nether races, and protective of humans to the point of obsession.
This is the power that guards the heart of the federation.
On one of the three hundred small planets orbiting Jade Heart Star, known as Azure Kite Planet. The streets of the floating market were busy at dusk.
Lanterns made of spirit paper floated in the air, casting warm gold light over stalls selling ribbons, jade combs, and hot sugar treats.
Walking hand in hand through the crowd were two women from the Jade Serenity Palace.
The disciple was about thirteen, maybe fourteen. She wore the simple pale-green outer robe of a palace initiate, her long black hair tied up in two small buns with silver bells that tinkled with every step. Her cheeks were still round with childhood, and her eyes were bright and curious about everything.
Her master walked beside her, twenty-six or twenty-seven, devastatingly beautiful in the way Jade Serenity Palace disciples were trained to be . She is calm, elegant, with a plum blossom hairpin holding her hair up. She was not holding her disciple's hand like a child, but walking shoulder to shoulder, smiling the whole time.
They stopped at an old vendor selling candied hawthorn sticks, the red fruits glazed and shining.
"Master, master, look!" the girl bounced on her toes, pointing. "It's the shiny ones! Can I have two?"
Her master laughed, a soft sound. "Last time you had two, your teeth hurt all night and you came crying to my room, Xiao Yu. Do you remember?"
Xiao Yu pouted, then grinned. "But that was last time! I'm a Star Apprentice now. I'm stronger!"
"Oh? A Star Apprentice who can't handle sugar?" the master teased, but she was already handing one low grade spirit stone to the vendor. "Here. One for now, one for later. And you will brush your teeth properly tonight, understood?"
"Yes, Master Ling!" Xiao Yu took the stick with both hands like it was a treasure, taking a careful bite. The sweet and sour flavor made her eyes squint. "Mmm! It's so good!"
They walked further, and Xiao Yu stopped again, this time in front of a stall full of accessories . There are so many beautiful ornaments on the stall counter jade bracelets, silk ribbons, little silver bells, hairpins shaped like plum blossoms.
"Wow..." she whispered.
Master Ling stood behind her, hands folded in her sleeves, watching her disciple's face light up.
"Pick three," she said gently.
"Three? Really?" Xiao Yu turned around, shocked. "But last month you said I buy too many useless things!"
"I did," Master Ling smiled and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Xiao Yu's ear. "But you broke through to the star apprentice level 1last week without complaining once. A master should reward her diligent disciple, no?"
Xiao Yu beamed and immediately started choosing, holding up each item for approval.
"This one? The pink ribbon?"
"Mm, suits your robes." Master Ling said,
"This jade bell? It sounds like yours!"
"Good taste."She replied again,
"And... this hairpin! With the little plum flower! Just like yours, Master!"
Master Ling's smile softened. She took the plum blossom hairpin and carefully slid it into Xiao Yu's bun herself.
"There," she whispered. "Now you look like a proper young lady of Jade Serenity Palace."
Xiao Yu looked at her reflection in the vendor's bronze mirror, then looked up at her master, her mouth still sticky with sugar.
"Master, when I grow up, will I be as beautiful as you?"
Master Ling laughed out loud this time, drawing looks from passersby.
"Foolish girl. You will be far more beautiful. And far more troublesome, I'm sure."
Xiao Yu giggled and linked her arm through her master's, swinging the candied hawthorn in her other hand as they walked deeper into the lantern light.
Above them, the giant green shape of Jade Heart Star hung in the sky like a guardian moon, and for a moment, on a small peaceful planet under the protection of a Galaxy Sovereign, there was no war, no nether bats just a master and her disciple buying candy and walking leisurely.
This little girl Xiao Yu is no other than Lin Yu, the younger sister Lin Feng has been searching for across the stars.
And her master is not just any elder. She is Mei Ling herself, the Galaxy Sovereign and Palace Master of the Jade Serenity Palace.
It happened three years ago.
Mei Ling was traveling over a small mortal world in the Red Lotus Galaxy known as Blue Star Planet. She was not there for war, only to check some details at the forbidden area that appeared in this plant.
Below, she saw a devastated scene.
A small courtyard house burned. A whole family mother, father, grandparents lay slaughtered on the ground, their blood still warm. Standing in the middle of the corpses was a member of the Nether Shadow Clan, a Star Lord-level butcher, his claws dripping.
And in the corner, a little girl of ten or eleven, in a torn pink dress, was kneeling in the dirt, clutching her brother's broken wooden sword, crying until her voice was gone. She can't differentiate the corpses at all...
"Brother... mother... wake up... please wake up..."
The shadow clan powerhouse was not killing her. He was watching, giggling, leaning against the wall, enjoying the fear in her eyes.
" Cry louder, little human. Your despair tastes sweeter than your blood."
Mei Ling, who had lived for ten thousand years and rarely showed emotion, felt a cold fury rise in her chest that day.
She did not draw a weapon. She did not speak.
She simply descended and slapped once.
Pa!
A single slap from a Galaxy Sovereign. The Nether Shadow Clan Star Lord did not even have time to scream. His body, his soul, and the entire shadow behind him were erased into nothing.
The wind stopped. The fire went out.