Honkai Star Rail: Destiny Card System of the Multiverse — Chapter 60

Chapter 60: The Much-Anticipated Segment of Bullying Jing Yuan

Kazuki delivered a precise, gentle tap to the back of Bailu’s neck, catching the little dragon girl as she slumped forward unconscious. With a casual wave of his hand, a radiant golden lotus bloomed out of thin air beneath his feet, providing a soft resting place for her sleeping form.

Currently wearing the form of [Vidyadhara High Elder Baiheng], Kazuki looked thoroughly majestic. Translucent dragon horns crowned his head, a sleek dragon tail swayed lazily behind him, and his right hand loosely gripped the swirling, hydro-laced Orb of the Deep Abyss.

‘Quick, quick, quick, Kazuki!’the consciousness of the real [Vidyadhara High Elder Baiheng] urged excitedly in his mind.’Recite the lines we just came up with!”Alright, alright, hold your horses,’ Kazuki replied inwardly. He adjusted his posture, looking down at the gathered crowd with a mask of absolute, freezing indifference. Pitching his voice into a deep, echoing register, he declared to the heavens:

“I have crawled back from death!”

He leveled a finger directly at the white-haired general below. “Of five people, two must pay a price, and Jing Yuan, you are one of them!”

Jing Yuan pointed a finger at his own nose, his usual unflappable composure completely shattered.

The Divine Foresight, a general renowned across the galaxy for his peerless wit and flawless strategy, currently possessed a mind that resembled a tangled ball of yarn.

‘Who am I? Where am I? Is this actually Baiheng? Am I trapped in a dream?’Nothing made sense. The chronological order of reality felt entirely broken. Was “crawled back from death” meant to be taken literally? Did Master Jingliu know about this all along? Was that the real reason she had rushed back to the Luofu?’Fu Xuan! I need to verify the divination! There is something fundamentally wrong with the hexagrams!’ Jing Yuan screamed internally.

Regardless of the truth, his tactical instincts demanded one immediate action: this person had to be detained first.

Before he could issue a single command, a hysterical, blood-curdling roar erupted across the waterscape.

“Aaahhhhh!”

“Of five people, three must pay a price… and Jing Yuan, you are not one of them!”

Blade’s previous submissive attitude—the quiet apathy of a man willingly allowing himself to be captured—vanished into thin air. His eyes snapped open, glowing a feral, luminous blood-red.

“But… Jing Yuan, how can you be so malicious!” Blade snarled, his voice dripping with venom and raw agony. “Why must you use Baiheng’s face to humiliate me like this?!”

Sensing the sudden spike in murderous intent, the surrounding Cloud Knights did not wait for their general’s order. Jing Yuan had briefed them thoroughly beforehand: this criminal possessed a ridiculously tenacious vitality, and lethal force was authorized in an emergency.

Spears thrust forward in a synchronized blur of silver.

Several bloody holes were instantly punched straight through Blade’s torso. The Stellaron Hunter did not even flinch. He acted as if the fatal wounds were mere mosquito bites, his manic gaze remaining dead-locked on Jing Yuan.

“You… this, this isn’t… sigh…”

Hearing Blade falsely accuse him and shift the entirety of the blame onto his shoulders, Jing Yuan was struck dumb all over again. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, struggling for a long time before managing to squeeze out a weary sigh.

‘Isn’t this the doing of your own Stellaron Hunters?!’Watching the bloody spectacle unfold, the [Vidyadhara High Elder Baiheng] residing in Kazuki’s mind immediately felt a pang of distress.’Kazuki, quick, help him! Even if he’s tainted with Shuhu’s flesh and blood, getting stabbed that many times has to hurt! As expected, no matter which universe we are in, that black-hearted hypocrite Jing Yuan is always so despicable. Quick, beat him up!”Don’t, don’t, don’t… This is your home turf, Baiheng. My mission is already complete—to satisfy all your wishes,’ Kazuki replied with a helpless mental sigh.’Since you want to fight so badly, I will leave the rest to you.’

With a mere thought, he gripped the [Vidyadhara High Elder Baiheng] card in his mental space and silently chanted the activation command. At the exact same moment, he smoothly shifted his own form into that of [Master Smith Yingxing].

A brilliant flash of light swept over the area. When it faded, the real [Vidyadhara High Elder Baiheng] stood materialized in the physical world, while beside her stood [Master Smith Yingxing], flashing a radiant, predatory grin.

‘Another… Yingxing???’

Jing Yuan broke into a cold sweat. A phantom itch crawled over his skin, making him feel as though mara-struck leaves were about to sprout from his very flesh. When a situation spiraled this completely out of control, his super-brain provided only one viable solution: resolve it with super-force.

Meanwhile, Blade stared at Kazuki’s radiant smile. A familiar, mocking voice suddenly echoed directly into his mind.

‘Time to wake up, old man.’

The hysterical roaring died in Blade’s throat. The manic rage was instantly replaced by a low, vibrating fit of angry laughter. “Hehehe…” The dark, hollow sound made the surrounding Cloud Knights shiver in their armor.

Blade and Jing Yuan locked eyes at almost the exact same moment. With a single glance, the two former comrades instantly understood who their respective targets were.

Just then, [Vidyadhara High Elder Baiheng] blinked, a look of sudden realization washing over her face. She turned to look at Kazuki. “Right, according to the rules of our High-Cloud Quintet, when we encounter a problem we cannot resolve, we just beat the problem up first. Judging by their faces, it looks like they are about to beat us up.”

“I can tell. So the legendary High-Cloud Quintet is actually just a gang of violent street bullies, huh?” Kazuki muttered, feeling his rose-colored glasses regarding Xianzhou history shatter into a million pieces. He quickly whispered a tactical arrangement. “You go beat up Jing Yuan. I will handle Blade.”

“Hey! Do not put labels on us!” Baiheng retorted hotly, before pausing to consider the plan. Deciding the arrangement made perfect sense, she puffed out her chest and patted it confidently. “A mere Jing Yuan is nothing. Watch me make him squeal!”

‘[Master Smith Yingxing]’screamed frantically in Kazuki’s mind.’Kazuki! What the hell did you just do?! How did it turn out like this? You are letting Baiheng fight Jing Yuan?! Are you out of your mind? And why are you still roleplaying as me? Go find Herta quickly!’A brief pause followed, before the legendary craftsman changed his tone, sounding distinctly guilty.’But honestly… I kind of want to beat up Jing Yuan too. In my universe, he was the one who proposed burying the Shardsword and all my precious forging tools along with my body! Such a blockhead. A pure insult to my peerless craftsmanship!”So after all that complaining, you just want an excuse to beat up Jing Yuan, do you not?!’ Kazuki rolled his eyes inwardly.’The general is over eight hundred years old, and you two are teaming up to bully an elderly man. Do you have no shame?”Are you not doing the exact same thing to Yingxing?!’ the craftsman retorted righteously.

Kazuki chose to ignore that.

In an instant, the overwhelming, suffocating pressure emanating from the four combatants flooded the Scalegorge Waterscape. The surrounding Cloud Knights felt their legs turn to jelly, their knees buckling as they collapsed to the ground, entirely unable to withstand the sheer density of the killing intent.

Seeing the collateral damage, [Vidyadhara High Elder Baiheng] raised her hand. She chanted a fluid Cloud Hymn, summoning a vast, sweeping expanse of gentle, luminescent healing water. The currents wrapped around all the uninvolved personnel—including the unconscious Bailu on her golden lotus—and gently washed them far away from the epicenter of the battlefield.

She even split off a small, concentrated stream of water to quietly wash over Blade, instantly mending all the bloody, gaping holes in his torso. Blade did not utter a single word of protest, quietly accepting the healing magic like a feral cat allowing itself to be momentarily petted.

Jing Yuan stood rooted to his spot, making no move to interrupt the spell. He merely stared at the figure of [Vidyadhara High Elder Baiheng], his golden eyes dark and intensely thoughtful.

The next second…

The world shook violently as four colossal surges of Path energy erupted simultaneously.

The golden Lightning-Lord shattered the cloud cover above, ten thousand streaks of divine lightning tearing the sky into jagged fragments.

The azure dragon soul of the Imbibitor Lunae roared with its head held high, summoning an Imaginary deluge that threatened to drown the very stars.

A tidal wave of blood-colored malevolence swept outward, dyeing the heavens and the earth a sickening, visceral crimson.

Blazing, apocalyptic flames surged upward, the fiery glow painting the remaining half of the sky in brilliant hues of destruction.

As the four terrifying forces collided in the center of the arena, the entire Scalegorge Waterscape fell into a deafening, absolute silence. The sheer atmospheric pressure was so immense that even the sound of the crashing ocean waves was entirely annihilated.

Far away in the Divination Commission, Fu Xuan stared at the apocalyptic scene unfolding within the Matrix of Prescience, her mind completely numb.

“Oh, General, General… how am I supposed to be your secret trump card in a situation like this? Do not tell me you expect me to rush in there and take those hits for you? I would be vaporized on the spot!”

She paced frantically for a moment before a spark of desperate inspiration hit her. “Hehe, fortunately, this master diviner always prepares a backup plan.”

“Senior Sister, save me!”

She pulled out her sect’s highly classified, long-distance communication device, dialing for emergency off-world backup.

Before long, Yao Guang’s voice crackled through the receiver, laced with heavy confusion. “Junior Sister, what kind of hornet’s nest have you kicked this time? To think you are calling me all the way from the Yuque?”

Fu Xuan planted her hands firmly on her hips. With absolutely no time to explain the convoluted mess of resurrected legends and Stellaron Hunters, she summarized it as quickly as possible. “Senior Sister, hurry, help me cast a divination! I am trapped in a lethal game, and this deadlock is impossible to resolve. I need you to find the breaking point!”

“Very well. Then I shall cast a divination for you using the Ten-Directional Light-Reflecting Dharma-Realm. However, with the Luofu and the Yuque separated by such a vast sea of stars, I cannot guarantee its absolute accuracy.”

Back on the shattered battlefield.

Since his last brutal encounter with Blade, Kazuki had grown exponentially stronger. Now, relying on the physical parameters of [Master Smith Yingxing], he was actually trading blows with the Stellaron Hunter on perfectly equal footing—though he secretly suspected Blade might be holding back slightly.

He took a split second to glance up at the sky, his expression instantly dropping into a deadpan stare.

“Baiheng, can you actually do this or not?!” he roared over the sound of clashing metal.

High in the sky, [Vidyadhara High Elder Baiheng] was currently flying for her life, squealing in panic as Jing Yuan’s massive Lightning-Lord chased her down, swinging its colossal golden glaive in sweeping arcs. She found a desperate moment to glance down, her eyes wide with absolute betrayal.

“Kazuki, you set me up! You shameless bastard! How dare you make me fight an Emanator of The Hunt?!”

Standing safely below, controlling the Lightning-Lord with precise, sweeping gestures, Jing Yuan watched her frantic aerial acrobatics with a soft, genuine smile. His super-force had already delivered the final conclusion to his super-brain: the person flying above him was undeniably Baiheng. Although she was not the Foxian pilot from his cherished memories, her soul was identical. She would absolutely never harm the Luofu.

“Kid, you still have time to be distracted? You had better worry about your own neck first!”

Blade seized the momentary opening, his body blurring forward as he brought his cracked sword down in a bloodthirsty, two-handed cleave. The crimson sword qi, accompanied by a howling gale, charged straight for Kazuki’s face.

“Do you honestly think I have not made any progress at all? Old… forget it, Blade!”

Kazuki snorted coldly. With a sharp, practiced flick of his wrist, he brought the Shardsword up, precisely catching the lethal strike. Executing the flawless, flowing forms of the Zhuming Sword Style, he tangled his blade with the Stellaron Hunter’s once again. Blinding sword light clashed, and a shower of golden sparks illuminated the battlefield as the two warriors fought to a brutal, grinding standstill.