Honkai Star Rail: My Death Feeds Their Madness — Chapter 63

Chapter 63: What Exactly… Did Master Do to Me Last Night?

Five days.

That was the crucible. It took Jingliu exactly five days to acclimate to a crushing, two-hundred-pound burden strapped to her limbs, maintaining a relentless pace of forty miles per hour to finally conquer her first eighty-mile endurance run.

Every dawn heralded a new, predictable descent into torture. Crossing the finish line meant total physical collapse—blacking out as if half her life force had been severed from her body. Yet, upon waking the next morning, the agonizing fatigue would miraculously vanish, resetting the brutal cycle. With every step, every desperate pump of her arms, the Star-Iron Sand packed into her bracers exerted a gravitational pull that threatened to drag her straight into the earth.

Her swordplay drills had been suspended for a few days due to the sheer physical toll. She could barely comfort herself by calling it a blessing in disguise. A person’s ability to adapt and endure often grew most rapidly through cruelty.

Finally, on the fifth day, Jingliu crossed the invisible finish line… and remained conscious.

Chest heaving, sweat stinging her eyes, she looked up. She thought her master might offer a sliver of praise, a simple nod of acknowledgment. Instead, she received a command utterly devoid of warmth.

“Two minutes to rest. Then, begin three thousand sword swings. For this stage, you may remove the weights from your hands and feet.”

Jingliu’s expression stiffened.

Because she had failed to complete the weighted runs conscious in the previous days, she had naturally missed her sword drills. But the phrasing—for this stage… Did that mean she wouldn’t be allowed to take them off for future training?

A slight tremor ran through her small frame. It seemed she was destined to faint from exhaustion again tonight.

“Yes… Master.”

She swallowed the protest burning in her throat. She missed the old Guard Kagashi. The man from before the fall of Cangcheng—the one she had known during the traditional Cloud Knights camp tourney, who wore a cold exterior but harbored a warm, gentle heart. Compared to her current master, that man had been practically amiable. They were the same person, yet his demeanor was now worlds apart.

When it came to her training, the word ‘strict’was a severe understatement; even’harsh’ failed to capture the sheer brutality of his methods.

But… remembering the tragedies of the past, Jingliu’s heart twisted with a deep, conflicting ache. How agonizing must it have been for him to personally execute a family member who had fallen into mara affliction?

She could understand why he had become this way. Perhaps the kindness and tenderness deep within Kagashi’s soul had shattered the moment he drove his blade into his own mother. All that remained in the hollow void was an endless, freezing hatred for the Abominations of Abundance.

She shared that exact hatred. She absolutely could not disappoint him.

Jingliu tightened her fists. She gripped her longsword, gritted her teeth, and sank into an all-too-familiar stance.

“One… two… three…”

The outcome was inevitable. Her muscles gave out, her vision tunneled, and she collapsed into total darkness.

After that, it was Kagashi’s turn to take over. He was well-versed in this silent routine. Only in the quiet aftermath of her failure would he shed his merciless majesty, kneeling in the dirt to tenderly gather his unconscious disciple into his arms.

As dawn broke the following day, Jingliu sat on the edge of her bed, staring blankly at her fair, delicate palms.

Her strength had surged overnight. When she woke up, a simple stretch of her hand had accidentally crushed the solid wooden frame of her bed. It was only now she realized that if she were a Short-Life Species, these hands would have been ruined by thick, bloody calluses long ago. But for the natives of the Xianzhou—people who could regrow a shattered tooth without a second thought—such superficial skin damage was irrelevant.

She brushed her fingers against the silver moon jade pendant resting at her collarbone, lingering on the cool stone for a second before getting out of bed.

After a brief wash and a quiet breakfast in the main hall, the hellish regimen resumed. She grabbed the bottle of pills from the table, pocketed it, and jogged out toward the martial arts arena. The medicine was bitter, but she had grown accustomed to the taste of survival.

In the training grounds, Kagashi was already holding his horse stance.

But while her stance was meant for foundational sword training, his was a terrifying display of weight-bearing endurance. He stood as immovable as a mountain. Today, the burdens resting on his shoulders weren’t cylindrical steel beams. They were two deactivated Aurumaton Gatekeepers.

To see a human bearing the crushing tonnage of two massive mechanical constructs without shifting a single inch was a deeply unnerving sight. Whenever Jingliu witnessed Kagashi’s monstrous morning routine, she hypnotized herself into believing her own hardships were nothing but child’s play. This was the primary source of motivation that kept her gritting her teeth. Watching his unyielding figure allowed her to hold on just a little longer.

“Good morning, Master.”

Acknowledging his silent nod, Jingliu strapped on her arm and leg guards, took a deep breath, and launched into her sprint.

The morning sun shed its early shyness, cresting the horizon with a steady, golden grace. The warm light cast a dreamlike, ethereal filter over the master and disciple in the arena. Shadows stretched long beneath the verdant canopy surrounding the track, and the birds began to weave melodic tunes through the branches.

Amidst the tranquil sounds of nature, Jingliu’s rhythmic, hurried breathing became a steady drumbeat. The leaden weight on her limbs no longer felt like an unbearable anchor. In less than an hour, she completed the eighty-mile run that used to be pure torture without breaking her stride.

When she finally skidded to a halt, panting heavily, she felt dazed. It all felt a bit surreal.

“Rest for three minutes,” Kagashi’s voice snapped her back to reality instantly. “Starting today, your training will include the three thousand sword swings while wearing the weights.”

Jingliu’s face fell. She silently pulled the small vial from her pocket, tipped a pill into her mouth, and swallowed. The dry, parched burning in her throat quickly dissipated.

The weighted run was conquered, but weighted sword swings… holding a rigid posture under immense gravity was infinitely harder than maintaining continuous momentum. To be brutally honest, she didn’t have a shred of confidence. How could she possibly lift a hundred-pound blade three thousand consecutive times at a rapid pace?

As it turned out, her self-awareness was entirely accurate.

Throughout the morning, the sheer weight threw her off balance. She fell backward repeatedly, her spine and shoulders slamming into the dirt, leaving dark, ugly bruises. She pitched forward, scraping the skin off her forearms until the flesh showed a raw, dark red.

Finally—she fainted.

However, this time, Kagashi did not step in to treat her wounds. He did not carry her to a soothing medicinal bath. He simply waited for her to regain consciousness on the hard ground, tossed a nutritionally balanced lunch box at her feet, and ordered her to resume training after a fifteen-minute rest.

For the first time, Jingliu felt absolutely miserable upon waking.

Her entire body screamed in excruciating agony; taking a direct hit from a star skiff traveling at two hundred kilometers per hour might have been more merciful. Her hands shook violently as she gripped her chopsticks. The food she tried to bring to her mouth missed her trembling lips, tumbling back into the box.

In such a broken state, the outcome of the afternoon training was a foregone conclusion.

The fierce sun dipped below the horizon, and a pale crescent moon rose to claim the night.

The familiar evening breeze. The familiar wooden tub. And the familiar, half-dead Jingliu.

Over a dozen silver needles pierced the girl’s exposed, pale back. As Kagashi expertly twisted the slender metal pins, the tight lines of pain etched into her brow slowly smoothed out. Once the thick, emerald-green medicinal liquid in the tub was absorbed, turning completely clear, the silent routine concluded.

At dawn the next day, Jingliu stood before her full-length mirror, letting her pajamas slip to the floor.

She turned left, then right, inspecting her reflection. Her skin was supple, flawless, and glowing with a healthy, vibrant luster. Not a single scar remained. Not a phantom echo of the agonizing fatigue or the brutal bruises from yesterday.

“What exactly… did Master do to me last night?”

The biology texts at the Academy stated that Xianzhou natives possessed formidable restorative powers, but they were absolutely not this instantaneous. How could someone who had been beaten half to death become bursting with boundless vigor after a single night’s sleep?

Wait.

She froze, her eyes widening in the mirror as a chilling thought surfaced. Thinking about it carefully, there actually was a condition that granted such terrifying regeneration.

…The Mara-Struck…