Honkai Star Rail: My Death Feeds Their Madness — Chapter 88

Chapter 88: Distress Signal

When Mianxue returned to the estate, she happened to catch sight of Jingliu quietly arranging dishes on the dining table.

“Senior Mianxue.”

“Congratulations on your triumph. I… I am barely ten years older than you, there is no need to address me as your senior.”

Having lived on the Yaoqing for over a decade, Mianxue still occasionally slipped into the colloquial, grounded speech patterns of Cangcheng out of sheer habit.

The Yaoqing was vastly different from their fallen home. Deeply influenced by its close, ongoing cooperation with the Interstellar Peace Corporation, its spoken language and daily culture leaned far closer to modern vernacular than any other ship in the Xianzhou Alliance.

“Understood, Senior Mianxue,” Jingliu replied, offering a polite nod.

Mianxue felt a wave of helplessness wash over her. She glanced left and right down the quiet halls. Seeing neither Lord Kagashi nor Qinghan in the immediate vicinity, she already had a strong suspicion of what the two of them were doing.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, the pair emerged from around the corner of the corridor, walking one after the other.

Seeing her younger sister’s brilliantly smiling face, and the tender, deeply grateful gaze Qinghan directed at Lord Kagashi’s retreating back, the outcome of their private time was self-evident.

“Thank you for always taking such good care of my younger sister, Lord Kagashi.”

“It is better to be timely than early. Let us eat.” Kagashi did not dwell on the formalities, his voice calm and steady.

The absolute sincerity and unwavering loyalty Mianxue displayed through her daily actions were far more deeply felt than any verbal thanks she could offer.

As they gathered at the dinner table, Jingliu’s peripheral vision involuntarily stole sharp, quiet glances at Qinghan.

Even draped in loose, casual loungewear, Qinghan’s full, alluring curves could not be concealed. Her cheeks bore a lingering, delicate flush, and her eyes swam with a bright, spirited moisture. She was utterly radiant.

It was the unmistakable glow of a woman who had been thoroughly nourished not long ago.

Detailed information regarding ‘that’ particular aspect of adult relationships—knowledge she had discreetly searched for on her jade abacus late at night—floated unbidden through Jingliu’s mind. A sharp, sour ache twisted in her chest, burning like swallowed acid.

But she forced herself to swallow the feeling down, comforting her own heart with the lie that it meant nothing.

Eating in absolute silence had always been their unspoken agreement in this household.

Only after everyone had finally put down their chopsticks did Jingliu break the quiet.

“Master, I have accepted a new mission. I will be continuing my patrol tomorrow. This time the deployment is quite far, over eighty light-years from the Yaoqing Xianzhou.”

Kagashi’s quiet gaze fell upon Jingliu’s face. After observing her carefully for a long moment, a sudden, melancholic phrase spontaneously arose in his mind.

‘A young daughter of the family has grown up.’

Jingliu was certainly not his biological daughter, but ever since he had taken her in as his disciple, he had raised her with the exact same care and discipline as a true descendant of the Kagashi Family.

Now, she was no longer the frail, helpless girl who, when facing the Abominations of Abundance, could only squeeze her eyes shut to await death and pray for someone else to rescue her.

Although she had started her martial path late, she had persevered through hellish, bone-breaking training, exchanging countless drops of blood and sweat for her terrifyingly rapid progress.

Looking back at the long, blood-soaked history of the Kagashi Family, her talent and drive could absolutely be described as outstanding.

But how many equally outstanding descendants of the Kagashi Family had died young on the battlefield?

While there were frequent cases of complete, overwhelming triumph in small and medium-scale skirmishes, there had never been a single flawless victory in the history of large-scale expeditions.

Large-scale was a very broad military term, yet a few cruel truths remained constant across every era:

People who shared a warm meal at a table today might be reduced to cold ash tomorrow.

Fresh recruits who earned high praise in the morning might be torn apart by nightfall.

Officers who bickered with their adjutants over trivial logistics, the comrades who guarded your blind spots—all of them could vanish in the span of a single breath.

A large-scale battle, by its very nature, required throwing tens or even hundreds of times more lives into the meat grinder than a medium-scale conflict. The sheer cruelty within it, even after countless personal experiences, would always bring new, agonizing realizations to a soldier’s heart.

It was never the act of witnessing life and death that numbed a warrior’s emotions. It was the endless, suffocating weight of parting.

“You do not need to report every single movement to me. As long as you do not overexert yourself, you may go out and kill Abominations whenever you wish.”

Kagashi suppressed the complex, swirling thoughts in his heart, keeping his tone as flat and ordinary as usual.

Yet, immediately after speaking those words, he realized he had become selfish. The quiet, suffocating fear that had begun to fester deep within his soul ever since his mother first showed signs of the mara affliction suddenly resurfaced, gripping his lungs.

He was afraid. He was terrified of losing this one disciple, the girl he had painstakingly raised to be his successor.

When did his heart start to become so fragile again?

He had truly believed there was nothing left in the universe for him to lose after his mother’s death and the tragic fall of Cangcheng.

Kagashi fell into a heavy silence.

Jingliu did not mind her Master’s flat, seemingly indifferent tone. Instead, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touched the corners of her lips.

As long as you do not overexert yourself. Weren’t those words a quiet, obvious confession of his concern?

It was enough.

It did not matter if there was currently no place in her Master’s heart for romantic tenderness, so long as there was a permanent place for his concern.

As for anything else, she would not greedily demand it now. Time flew past them like a galloping white steed.

In the blink of an eye, it was Star Calendar 6318.

Jingliu had already participated in forty-nine medium-scale expeditionary battles, leaving her only one deployment short of the strict requirement Lord Kagashi had set for her years ago.

As for completing all of her grueling training programs in a single day, that was no longer an issue for her hardened physique.

At the various sprawling military ports of the Yaoqing, the deafening roar of expeditionary fleets taking off and landing was ceaseless, shaking the sky day and night.

Jingliu, clad in the Yaoqing’s standard light combat armor, stood tall on the observation deck of Zhen-class Port-88.

Her ice-colored long hair gently swayed with the violent airflow of the ascending and descending star skiffs. Her face had long been stripped of its youthful innocence, now deeply etched with the cold, lethal sharpness honed by years of relentless slaughter.

“Reporting, Captain, fleet resupply is ninety-seven percent complete.” Her adjutant’s crisp voice came through the encrypted communicator.

“Have all personnel board the ships and await my orders,” Jingliu commanded, her voice like cracking ice.

Over the years, her military achievements had been nothing short of remarkable, earning her a rapid promotion to Captain of the Cloud Knight Troop’s 1753rd Frontline Detachment.

This time, their target was a cluster of heavily entrenched Abominations of Abundance nests located in a distant star system.

Five thousand Cloud Knight detachment captains, each leading their own specialized teams, totaling over five million elite troops, were dispatched to suppress the threat.

Military intelligence indicated that the Abominations’ activity in that sector had been unusually high recently, showing a dangerous tendency to spread and infect neighboring worlds.

The mission was officially rated as medium-to-high difficulty, and the Divination Commission’s simulation results showed a significant level of risk.

She had seen similar grim assessment results many times before.

Unsurprisingly, she believed this outcome would be no different from the rest.

When the designated hour arrived, the General Captain ordered the mass departure.

The magnificent, sun-blotting fleet of battlecruisers detached from the port, sailed smoothly through the Yaoqing realm gate, and disappeared into the vast, unforging star sea.

For the next six months, the battle reports received by the high command every three days were mostly positive and full of steady progress.

While Jingliu was away on her distant expedition, Lord Kagashi was equally busy. He personally led a massive Cloud Knight army to completely eradicate hundreds of different Abominations of Abundance species across the frontier.

Unbeknownst to him at first, the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of surviving Cloud Knights from Cangcheng had naturally gravitated toward him, coming under his direct, unquestioned command.

Such prominent, overwhelming military achievements led to the widespread circulation of Lord Kagashi’s legendary deeds in recent years. His name echoed both among the common people of the Yaoqing and within the ranks of the Cloud Knights, which numbered in the hundreds of millions.

Many confidently asserted that he was destined to assume the revered position of Cloud Knight Sword Champion.

Unfortunately, the masses said the exact same thing every single year, and every year they were proven wrong.

The position of Sword Champion remained empty, and the General simply did not bestow the supreme command upon Lord Kagashi, a decision that left the public deeply perplexed.

“Welcome Lord Kagashi and your victorious army back in triumph!”

High above the central military port, countless battlecruisers streaked across the artificial sky, and the thunderous, earth-shaking cheers of the staff below echoed through the clouds.

Returning to the Cloud Knights’ main encampment within the explore, Kagashi held his helmet against his side. He offered a solemn, flawless salute to General Sha Feng, the entirety of his victorious army mirroring the gesture behind him.

“General, I have not failed my mission.”

“Thank you for bringing us such good news,” Sha Feng replied, his voice heavy and strained. “But… I have terrible news for you.”

“Please speak.”

“As your fleet was returning to the Yaoqing, a vanguard team engaged in a medium-scale suppression effort broadcasted an emergency distress signal.” Sha Feng paused, meeting the younger man’s gaze. “Jingliu is among them.”

At those words, the calm stillness in Kagashi’s eyes shattered into something infinitely sharper.