Mixed Double Team (4,000 Words, Seeking Recommendations, Monthly Votes, and Follow-Ups)

Wang Lei pointed his gun at Kafka. Combined with the fact that he had already crashed Silver Wolf's supercomputer through DDoS, it looked as though he had gained the overwhelming upper hand.

The Interstellar Peace Corporation had placed a bounty of 10.899 billion Credits on Kafka and 5.1 billion Credits on Silver Wolf. Catching the two of them would be more than enough to guarantee a carefree life in the Star Rail World.

But if these two had been so easy to deal with, they would have been caught long ago. Put plainly, Wang Lei had merely caught them off guard by striking first. His clash with Silver Wolf had taken place purely in the electronic domain; her reality-altering attacks had been completely useless.

As for Kafka, even with Wang Lei's gun pointed at her head, she did not look the least bit nervous. She slowly raised both hands and said, "Silver Wolf."

The moment Wang Lei heard Silver Wolf's name, he sensed that something was wrong. His Ether Scan instantly sounded an alarm—there was an abnormal change in the aether particles above his head.

Wang Lei looked up and saw a Second-Order Rubik's Cube made of quantum energy suddenly appear over his head. It was Silver Wolf's in-game skill, Allow Changes? It was about to drop.

Without knowing what effect implanting a weakness would have in reality, Wang Lei did not hesitate to dodge first. Looking over at Silver Wolf again, he saw that she had already equipped her Armored Gauntlet. Clearly, she was preparing to fight him in the three-dimensional world next.

When Silver Wolf saw Wang Lei's expression, she grinned smugly.

"Surprised? Who said I only brought one supercomputer? It's just that compared to your quantum computer, one or two devices couldn't bridge the gap, so I didn't bother using it. All right, get ready for round two."

With that, her gauntlet immediately switched into cannon mode and fired a Quantum Cannon at Wang Lei, carrying Path of Nihility energy that could guarantee a weakness break in the game.

What could Wang Lei even say? As expected, none of the Stellaron Hunters were easy to deal with. Still, now that he had recovered from the surprise, he had some experience dealing with quantum attacks.

Aether Encoding instantly completed the scan, and Wang Lei began adjusting the parameters. Reduce the quantum density of the beam. Reduce its Path energy. Reduce the beam's energy level. Reduce the beam's diameter. By the time the energy cannon, originally as thick as a thigh, reached Wang Lei, it was no thicker than a cigarette. He casually waved a hand and snuffed it out.

Silver Wolf was dumbfounded. Her Aether Edit could not do anything like that. She stared blankly and said, "Holy shit, are you cheating?!"

Wang Lei wanted to say that this was the power of technology, but he had no time to respond. Kafka had already raised her submachine gun and begun spraying him with bullets.

Logically speaking, bullets from a one-handed submachine gun should have been too weak even to scratch Wang Lei's current body. Yet he sensed danger from them.

Upon closer inspection, he realized that every bullet was imbued with dense Path power and elemental energy. The bullets were merely a medium—the true attacks were the power of Nihility and Electro Element energy attached to them. No wonder the Interstellar Peace Corporation's military Exoskeletons were as fragile as paper against them.

If he took those bullets head-on with his body, Wang Lei would be riddled with holes too.

So Wang Lei chose the simplest solution. He could still analyze the energy attached to individual bullets. Select all, Ether Teleportation—send them into outer space.

Seeing that her attack had failed, Kafka was not surprised at all. She even had the mood to tease Silver Wolf.

"Silver Wolf, it seems Wang Lei's mastery of Aether Encoding surpasses even yours. He can do what you can do, and he can do things you can't. He forcibly weakened your attack just now. The result was far stronger than anything you could achieve."

No matter how displeased Silver Wolf was, she could only admit that Wang Lei knew more Aether Encoding commands than she did. But her pride would not allow her to concede so easily.

"He only has a few more commands than I do. He probably inherited the legacy of some Punklorde legend who died somewhere in the universe. Maybe more than one. But when it comes to functional architecture, Wang Lei is nothing but a rookie. His teleportation ability is worth noting, though. That isn't an Aether Encoding technique, and I can't analyze what kind of energy it is for now. But it's most likely related to Imaginary Number Energy."

Kafka nodded and put away her submachine gun. It was useless now. Instead, she held a long blade in each hand, preparing for close combat. At the same time, she instructed Silver Wolf, "All right, let me finish him quickly. Silver Wolf, don't attack anymore. Focus entirely on interfering with him so he can't use Aether Encoding to alter reality. No problem?"

"Simple operations won't work. I can't interfere with something like that Ether Teleportation just now. The computational gap is too great. But complicated commands are no problem. He won't get another chance to directly weaken incoming attacks."

Kafka and Silver Wolf discussed how to deal with him right in front of Wang Lei because they had the confidence to do so. Wang Lei could no longer analyze their bodies and use Ether Teleportation on them. Both of them were now wrapped in thick layers of Path of Nihility power.

Wang Lei found that he could not break through that Path of Nihility protection for the moment, so naturally he could not calculate the people inside it. Moreover, that energy protection was effectively an Energy Shield. Until he shattered that layer of Path energy, he could not truly injure the people it protected.

Wang Lei kept thinking, Well, damn. So this was the proper way to use Path power. The way he only knew how to use the Path's passive Multiple Lock-On probably made him a complete rookie in the Star Rail World.

But it was never too late to mend the fold after the sheep were lost. Based on the flow of Path energy around Kafka and Silver Wolf, Wang Lei quickly figured out how to wrap himself in Path power and infuse it into his weapons.

While the two were talking, Wang Lei completed a full-body coating of Path power and reinforced his weapon. However, compared to Kafka and Silver Wolf's power, the difference was like wood compared to iron.

After all, Wang Lei had not traveled very far down the Path of Erudition. If he had not studied Gene Engine fluid and energy combinations to some extent, he probably would not even possess his current Path of Erudition energy.

Knowing that Silver Wolf would most likely interfere with his Aether Encoding from here on, Wang Lei stopped holding back. He took out all seven God's Eyes and immediately used Geo Element to form a shield around himself. One could never be too careful when facing Kafka.

Yet Kafka still looked as calm and composed as ever when facing Wang Lei under the protection of a shield. It was as though the shield made no difference to her.

Wang Lei did not dare let Kafka get any closer. The Path of Nihility power around her was far too terrifying. Though it had not reached Raiden Ei's level of energy, it was still vastly stronger than his own.

So Wang Lei decided to seize the initiative. He fused fire and lightning, turning them into a purple beam of searing light that shot toward Kafka. With the amplification of the Path of Erudition, the energy contained within it was something even an ordinary Second Generation Super Soldier could not withstand.

Kafka merely appeared to lightly swing one of her blades upward. Wang Lei's beam was cleaved apart by that single slash, splitting into two and blasting apart the warehouse walls on both sides. The rising dust also obscured Kafka's alluring purple figure.

Fortunately, Wang Lei had never relied solely on his eyes to determine an enemy's position. Silver Wolf's interference with Ether Scan was not too severe, and he could still confirm Kafka's location within the dust.

But he could not see what Kafka was doing with her hands, so Wang Lei used Hydro Element and Anemo Element to form a vortex. While launching an indiscriminate attack in all directions, it swept away all the dust.

However, once the dust cleared, Wang Lei discovered that there was no one at the position where he had located Kafka. There was only a humanoid figure pieced together from assorted junk. For a dummy to fool Ether Scan into believing it was a living person, Silver Wolf must have used Aether Encoding.

Wang Lei looked over. Silver Wolf was smiling as she pointed her thumb downward at him in a contemptuous gesture.

Wang Lei hurriedly tried to activate the Red Line to leave his current position. Since Kafka was not where his senses had located her, she had to be nearby, preparing to attack him. Leaving his current location was the wisest choice.

But when he tried to activate the Red Line, which had always worked without fail, Wang Lei felt as though his mind had suddenly frozen. The Red Line failed to activate. Only then did he realize that, at some unknown moment, a Red Line emerging from the void had already connected to his body. It was Kafka's spiritual suggestion.

However, the Red Line did not seem particularly strong. Wang Lei used the power of Erudition to struggle slightly and broke free.

But that instant of vulnerability was more than enough for Kafka. At some unknown moment, she had appeared behind Wang Lei. Her purple blade stabbed directly through his back, pierced out through his chest, and ran straight through his heart.

Wang Lei spat out a mouthful of blood. At the same time, the Stellaron energy within his body seemed to sense that its host had suffered a fatal injury and immediately went berserk.

Golden Imaginary Number Energy surged through his body before finally erupting from the wound in his chest, destroying everything around him.

Kafka felt that she had been shocked more today than in the entire previous year. As a Stellaron Hunter, she knew this berserk power all too well. She had even encountered it several times, and every time it had nearly taken her life. She did not even bother retrieving her blade and rapidly retreated from Wang Lei.

But Wang Lei desperately wanted to say to the Stellaron inside his body, I'm not dead! With Fleeting Blessing, even getting my heart pierced won't kill me!

But the Stellaron clearly did not care about Wang Lei's thoughts. It only knew that its host had suffered a fatal injury and urgently needed its power to save him.

However, the Stellaron's violent power had made it impossible for Wang Lei to use Aether Encoding on himself. Normally, even if his heart had been pierced, once Kafka pulled out the blade, he would recover immediately. He would not even need eighteen years to become a hero again—he could revive on the spot in eighteen seconds.

But now, with the Stellaron's energy acting up like this—could anyone imagine it? A knife was lodged in his heart while the heart rapidly healed. Every time it beat, the blade cut through it again. The rampaging Stellaron energy also prevented Wang Lei from using Aether Encoding to shut off his pain. Kafka had truly let Wang Lei experience what heartache felt like.

Moreover, the range of the Stellaron's rampaging energy was slowly expanding. If this continued, Herta Space Station would probably be destroyed.

Kafka was dumbfounded. If she had known Wang Lei had a Stellaron inside him, she would never have stabbed him, no matter what. Wasn't this completely screwed up? If Wang Lei's Stellaron kept rampaging, the entire space station would be gone, and Elio's plan would be utterly ruined.

But no one could help Wang Lei now. Neither Kafka's Spirit Whisper nor Silver Wolf's Aether Encoding could suppress the rampaging Stellaron energy again. Wang Lei could only save himself.

Fortunately, after Wang Lei got somewhat used to the agonizing pain, he forcibly pressed the blade protruding from his chest back in. In the end, battered by the impact of the Stellaron's energy, the ruined blade fell from behind Wang Lei.

Once the long blade had completely left Wang Lei's body, Fleeting Blessing swiftly took effect and repaired his heart. Only then did the rampaging Stellaron energy slowly begin to calm down, eventually shrinking back into Wang Lei's body.

Wang Lei picked up Kafka's damaged long blade. It was covered in his blood and had to be cleaned up; he could not let her take it back like that.

So Wang Lei used Aether Encoding to directly clear all of his blood from the storage compartment, which had already been reduced to a complete mess.

Neither Kafka nor Silver Wolf stopped Wang Lei. After he finished dealing with it, Kafka finally asked somewhat doubtfully.

"Wang Lei, that was the Stellaron's power just now, wasn't it? You... you have a Stellaron in your body too. And that recovery ability just now... it's very similar to one of my companions. Who exactly are you?"

Wang Lei was furious right now. Or rather, anyone would be angry after getting stabbed through the heart. Though he had expected to be attacked the moment he directly approached Kafka and Silver Wolf. After all, they were Stellaron Hunters, notorious villains in the universe.

But his fondness from his previous life was still there, so Wang Lei replied in extreme displeasure.

"Who am I? Heh heh, I'm your husband!!"

Wang Lei's answer completely caught the two women off guard. Silver Wolf's mouth fell open. She was just about to say something, but her hands moved faster than her mouth and directly covered it.

Kafka, meanwhile, froze for a moment. Given their current surroundings, she truly could not imagine that Wang Lei still had the mood to joke. So she asked in utter confusion.

"Wang Lei, are you sure you know what you're saying? Today is the first time I've ever met you. And I've never been in a relationship before."

Wang Lei was not about to admit that he had just been making a joke, so he still answered with an annoyed expression.

"Believe it or not, I've called you my wife plenty of times."

That was the truth. When Wang Lei played Star Rail in his previous life, he had called Kafka his wife more than a few times.

At that moment, Kafka could swear on her years of experience reading people that she had not seen the slightest sign of lying in Wang Lei's microexpressions.

So Kafka was thoroughly confused. Could Wang Lei have come from the future? But on second thought, that seemed possible. Wang Lei knew far too much about her and Silver Wolf's attack patterns. It was as if he had personally watched records of their battles. Yet Wang Lei clearly knew very little about how the two of them coordinated, which was why he had been tricked by a decoy.

But none of that was the key issue. The key issue was that Wang Lei had a Stellaron inside him—something that absolutely should not exist. Elio's script did not include a second Stellaron bearer.

And Wang Lei knew about Elio. He had even said Elio could not observe him. At the same time, he said he might cooperate with the plan, but might also destroy it. Could Wang Lei have come from another timeline—a timeline where the plan had failed? In that timeline, she had married him.

After all, Elio's prophecy was that her fate would become entangled with that of a Stellaron bearer.

Then, in that other timeline, Wang Lei had been the Stellaron bearer, and the one whose fate was intertwined with hers had been him. It would not be strange at all for her to marry him.

Wang Lei had no idea that Kafka had imagined so much. After calming down a little, he prepared to bid farewell to Kafka and Silver Wolf first. Today, they had become acquainted through a fight. Next time, they should be able to communicate properly. Right now, he needed to go raise his favorability with the protagonist group. If he did not hurry, they would be meeting up with Asta.