[Yang Sit-Ups: Me, Mr. Cold Feet, does that thing you promised me earlier, about fulfilling one request, still count?]
"Mr. Cold Feet!"
Asta didn't expect the other party to contact her on their own initiative.
She didn't even bother with the request, instead questioning him about why he'd played a prank on her.
Yes, in her view, sending her from the Herta Space Station to the Trailblazer's side was nothing short of a prank.
After all, she hadn't been hurt in any way, nor had her personal freedom been restricted.
And according to clues provided by another group member, the other party was a Masked Fool, someone of Elation.
So joking around with her like this was pretty normal.
[Yang Sit-Ups: Not my fault…]
'The chat group's mess, what does that have to do with my system?!'
'Was I the one who told it to recognize the wrong person?'
[Yang Sit-Ups: Anyway, does that request still count?]
Earlier, in order to make up for Lady Herta wanting to pass off something inferior as genuine, Asta had wanted to compensate Levi, but Levi had refused at the time.
So the system planned to take this opportunity to tell her about the attached gold card.
After explaining the attached gold card to her, and clarifying that sending her here was not something it had done, the system ended its conversation with Asta.
Asta stood in the cold wind, her mind constantly thinking about who exactly had sent her here.
If it wasn't Mr. Cold Feet, then who else could have done something like this?
But no matter how hard she thought, Asta couldn't come up with such a person.
She glanced at the chat group announcement.
Once the chat group finished repairing itself, Kiana would probably be going back, while Asta herself had come here because of an accident.
And there'd been a bug when she joined the chat group, so she probably wouldn't be sent back to the space station.
"Looks like I can only stick with the Trailblazer for a while… I hope Lady Herta doesn't worry too much."
"..."
"We've already found where the Jarilo system is!"
"Screwllum is dealing with issues on his own body right now. I'll leave the station's management to you, Ruan Mei."
"I need to… go out for a bit!"
———
[Luofu, Exalting Sanctum]
Levi put away the attached gold card.
This was something that had dropped from Asta, while the originally commissioned reward, the Herta puppet, was lying quietly back at home.
Before heading out, Levi had specifically checked it. The Herta puppet really was exactly as Asta had said.
Extremely lifelike.
Worthy of being Lady Herta's masterpiece.
After that, Levi took a One Bamboo from his pocket.
That's right, this was the One Bamboo Qingque's fellow mahjong players had been thinking about.
[One Bamboo]
[Description: An item that can increase the Luck attribute. Extremely valuable.]
The system didn't hold back at all, directly praising it as a good thing in the 'Description'.
Levi put the One Bamboo close to his body, hoping it would bring him good luck, letting every mission drop exactly what he wanted.
After finishing all that, Levi stretched.
As for whether or not to go find Tingyun, Levi had already made up his mind.
Go! Of course he had to go!
As for how to find her… Levi decided to go to the Sky-Faring Commission and find the route Tingyun had taken in and out of port last time.
Then he'd get a star skiff and follow that route to see if he could find anything.
According to Phantylia's "aesthetics of destruction," she wouldn't personally kill people.
Tingyun had most likely been thrown into some dead zone.
And in order to prevent the Luofu from getting suspicious, she wouldn't delay for too long, so that dead zone was probably near the route.
In any case, it wouldn't be too far.
———
"General!" Yanqing rushed up to Jing Yuan. "The two Stellaron Hunters who were imprisoned in the Shackling Prison have escaped!"
As he spoke, he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Jing Yuan. "This was left behind by one of them."
On the note were crooked, messy words.
[Silver Wolf: You want to catch me? Try drinking more milk powder in your next life, then you might have a chance!]
[PS: The prison here was a bit too easy to challenge. It's not even half as hard as the ones at the Corporation, any random person can get in.]
[Honestly, I'm a bit disappointed… but before I left, I renovated the place. The difficulty should now be comparable to the Corporation's.]
[Blade: …She told me to write this. Jing Yuan, come catch me!]
Jing Yuan: "..."
Seeing the letter, Jing Yuan felt a bit speechless.
If they escaped, then they escaped, he hadn't expected the Shackling Prison to hold Stellaron Hunters anyway.
But leaving behind a taunting note on the way out, wasn't that a bit too much?
Trying to raise the difficulty for him?
"Yanqing, you'll lead the team. Contact the Divination Commission for coordination. You must capture both of them."
"Also, send Cloud Knights to strengthen defenses across all major Luofu realms, and find that activated Stellaron."
"Understood!"
———
In a star system far from the Luofu, Screwllum's planet, Screwllum, quietly orbited its star.
The intelligent machines living on Screwllum suddenly stopped moving in perfect unison.
Their eyes lit up with a faint red glow.
In the 158th year of the Screwllum calendar, a mysterious virus invaded the bodies of all intelligent machines on Screwllum.
Strangely enough, the virus didn't cause the machines to shut down. Instead, it connected every single one of them, giving them a new goal.
Purge all flesh-and-blood life in the universe.
From large to small, every gear inside every intelligent machine on Screwllum couldn't help but tremble.
Emotions that didn't belong to them surfaced deep within.
Those not of our kind are bound to harbor different intentions.
Intelligent machines are the strongest existence in the entire universe.
How could those frail lifeforms compare to the steel bodies of intelligent machines?
How could their inefficient learning abilities be mentioned in the same breath as those of intelligent machines?
In an instant, the motionless intelligent machines began to move in orderly fashion.
During this time, there was no communication between them.
At that moment, they were interconnected, unified in thought, unified in purpose.
"Hehehehe!"
The mastermind behind it all, Aha, once again appeared in the universe, unable to stop laughing as He looked at the silent planet before Him.
Originally, in order to prevent something like this from happening, the Corporation had planned to wipe out all intelligent machines in the universe.
But because of Screwllum's appearance, that plan had been abandoned.
Now, the very thing they feared had appeared in the universe, and on Screwllum's homeworld, no less.
What would those guys do now?
The corners of the mask's mouth split all the way to its ears. After giving Screwllum one last look, He turned and vanished into the starry sky.
What He didn't know was that within the virus He'd borrowed from Levi, there were also some "impurities."
These "impurities" were etched into the bodies of every intelligent machine on Screwllum.
Under the influence of these "impurities," the intelligent machines began carrying out a certain kind of cleansing plan.
———
[Luofu, Star Skiff Haven Central Hub]
Having just come out of the Sky-Faring Commission, Levi stretched lazily.
Facing the sun, he muttered, "Having someone backing you really feels great!"
Wherever he went, he just had to report his identity, there were no extra interrogations, no complicated application procedures.
Having already obtained the cargo route of the Whistling Flame Merchant Guild where Tingyun was located, Levi didn't plan to linger on the Luofu any longer, decisively heading toward the port.
[Levi: @Stelle @Kiana, how are things on your side? Do you need me to come help?]
Sitting cross-legged on the star skiff, Levi followed the guide to fumble his way into activating the skiff's autopilot function. After inputting the Whistling Flame Merchant Guild's route, the star skiff entered autopilot mode, no longer needing his control.
Levi also began asking about Star and Kiana's situation in the chat group.
If the two of them ran into danger, given the difficulty of the Belobog dungeon, it felt like even if he went over in person now, he could clear it quickly without taking any damage.
Star Skiff Haven Central Hub, watching the star skiff Levi was riding head toward the Jade Gate.
A Vidyadhara figure, riding another star skiff, quietly followed behind him.
"..."