Old Star's End, Setting Sail for the New

The maglev train to the spaceport sped through the enclosed tracks, while the industrial wasteland outside the windows blurred into a flowing gray shadow.

Guo Hongtao's face overflowed with barely restrained excitement. He practically pressed his entire face against the reinforced glass.

"Brother Yuan, we're really leaving! For New Star! Haha, the place I've dreamed of going to! I heard the girls there are all more open than the ones here!"

Jiang Yuan leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed, paying no attention to his friend's chatter. He merely calmly sensed the endlessly surging blood and inner force within his body.

"Brother Yuan, do you think New Star Martial University is really like the promotional videos say? That even the cafeteria ladies serving meals are at the peak of the Body Tempering Realm? When we get there, will they treat us like country bumpkins?" Guo Hongtao finally pulled his face away from the window, leaned close to Jiang Yuan, and asked in a lowered voice.

Jiang Yuan did not even lift an eyelid.

"You'll know once you get there."

"Right!" Guo Hongtao slapped his thigh. "As long as I stick with you, Brother Yuan, I won't go hungry anywhere! Maybe I can even ride your coattails and pick up a New Star girl, bringing glory to my ancestors!"

Screech—

A piercing sound of friction rang out. The speeding train jolted violently, and every light in the carriage went out at once, leaving only the flashing red emergency lights.

"What happened? Did we hit a mutant beast?" Guo Hongtao was startled by the sudden change and instinctively assumed a defensive stance.

"Not mutant beasts." Jiang Yuan finally opened his eyes. His gaze pierced the darkness and settled on the slowly opening gate ahead of the carriage. "They're rats here to see us off."

A burst of static came through the loudspeakers. Then Chu He's smug, venomous voice echoed through the entire passageway.

"Jiang Yuan! Did you think you could just leave like that? Today, the No. 3 maintenance gate of this old freight loop will be your burial ground!"

"Your broken sword, your cultivation techniques, everything you have will belong to me!"

As his words fell, heavy alloy gates at both ends of the passageway dropped simultaneously, trapping the carriage tightly in the middle.

Dozens of powerful searchlights lit up, illuminating the area as brightly as day.

Three fully armed combat squads emerged from behind the barricades on both sides of the passageway, their black gun barrels all aimed at the carriage.

What made Guo Hongtao's scalp tingle even more was that two cyborgs over two meters tall, covered from head to toe in savage metal exoskeletons, dropped from above like two small mountains and smashed heavily onto the tracks, throwing up showers of sparks.

"M-Meridian Opening Realm!" Guo Hongtao's voice trembled.

The overwhelming pressure emanating from those two cyborgs was far beyond anything a Body Tempering Realm martial artist could match!

"Jiang Yuan, kneel and beg for mercy now, and I might consider leaving you an intact corpse!" Chu He's voice was filled with the pleasure of a cat toying with a mouse.

"Noisy."

Jiang Yuan merely uttered those two words. He pushed open the carriage door and walked out step by step, facing dozens of gun barrels and the pressure of two Meridian Opening Realm experts as though he were simply taking an after-dinner stroll.

Just as the two cyborgs locked onto Jiang Yuan and prepared to strike, two figures dropped like ghosts from the shadows at the top of the passageway.

"Hmph! Those little brats from Celestial Pivot Industries are getting more and more unruly. My student, Li Qingshan's student, isn't someone you can touch whenever you please!" Li Qingshan held a broad-backed saber, its blade pointed directly at one of the cyborgs. His blood and qi surged, and his fighting spirit soared.

On the other side, Uncle Zhou and Ling Feng appeared at the same time, blocking the other cyborg.

"Old Zhou, leave this big guy to me. I can test out the move I just learned!" Ling Feng looked excited, and at some point, a short sword as thin as a cicada's wing had appeared in his hand.

Uncle Zhou did not even glance at him. He only said coldly to the cyborg, "The Shen Family is handling business. If you don't want to die, get lost."

"Kill!" The cyborg clearly had no mind of its own. A cold electronic voice issued the attack command.

The four figures instantly clashed. Violent force scattered in every direction, battering the sturdy alloy walls into a pitted mess.

Chu He apparently had not expected Jiang Yuan to have helpers, but he quickly calmed down and issued a new order through the communicator. "Very good! Since you're here, then die together! Everyone, focus fire on Jiang Yuan! Kill without mercy!"

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

Dense streams of gunfire instantly sealed off every space Jiang Yuan could use to evade.

"Brother Yuan, watch out!" Guo Hongtao cried out.

Yet in the face of that bullet storm capable of tearing steel apart, Jiang Yuan's figure suddenly became elusive.

He seemed to turn into a wisp of insubstantial green smoke, strolling leisurely through the airtight barrage. Every sidestep and every shift of his footing was exquisite to the extreme, carrying him precisely through the gaps between bullets.

Wave-Treading Step!

"W-What kind of movement technique is that?" Chu He cried out from before the surveillance screen in the distance.

Before he could react, Jiang Yuan's figure had already trailed a series of afterimages as he charged into the armed squads' formation.

Profound Heaven · Shattering Bone Hand.

With the support of the Wave-Treading Step, this supreme close-combat art was brought to its fullest potential.

In less than ten seconds, all members of the three elite armed squads had been crippled. They lay scattered across the ground, stripped of their ability to fight.

The entire passageway fell quiet once more, leaving only the sounds of fierce combat from the two distant battlefields.

At that moment, a woman in a red cheongsam with a voluptuous figure slowly emerged from the shadows, swaying her waist like a water snake.

She carried no weapon, and a bewitching smile that seemed to seep into one's bones hung on her face.

"Little brother, such a temper won't do. Give big sister the sword in your hand, and I'll take you somewhere nice. I guarantee you'll feel like you're in paradise."

Her voice carried a strange charm. Along with a faint, elusive fragrance, it quietly entered Jiang Yuan's nostrils.

Even from far away, merely hearing her made Guo Hongtao's mouth go dry and his heartbeat quicken.

Jiang Yuan, however, did not even furrow his brow.

He could sense an invisible mental force trying to invade his mind and stir up the most primal desires in his heart.

Unfortunately, such a trivial trick could not raise even the slightest ripple before his Metal-Stone Body, which had reached mastery.

"Get lost." Jiang Yuan spat out a single word.

"Oh my, little brother, you really don't know how to appreciate a woman." The woman's smile deepened as she approached step by step. Beneath the high slit of her cheongsam, her fair, slender legs appeared and disappeared from view. "Since you won't take the initiative, big sister will have to take it herself."

Before her words had even faded, red light flashed in her eyes, and the strength of that mental assault increased tenfold in an instant!

At the same time, her nails abruptly lengthened, transforming into five black-glinting blades that shot straight for Jiang Yuan's heart.

Jiang Yuan finally moved.

He slowly drew the broken sword from his back.

"Bzzzz—"

Along with a clear sword cry, dark red flame patterns suddenly lit up across the rust-covered broken sword.

Thunderclap Vibration!

An invisible shockwave spread outward in an instant, centered on the sword tip.

The woman's smile froze.

She only felt an unstoppable, terrifying force of vibration pierce through every one of her defenses and strike directly at her internal organs.

"Pfft!"

She spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of organs.

The luxurious cheongsam on her body was also shredded inch by inch by the aftershock, turning into butterflies dancing through the air and revealing the body beneath, already stained red with blood.

The woman lowered her head to look at the empty cavity in her chest, then looked at Jiang Yuan. Her eyes were filled with confusion and disbelief. Then she collapsed limply, her life force completely extinguished.

"Madman! You're a madman!"

Chu He, watching from the other side of the surveillance feed, was scared out of his wits. All his previous arrogance vanished as he frantically activated the small spacecraft parked nearby and fled in panic.

"Young Master, should we pursue him?" Uncle Zhou's voice came through. He had already finished his battle, and the Meridian Opening Realm cyborg had become a pile of parts.

"No need." Jiang Yuan sheathed his sword and turned his gaze toward the spaceport. "See you on New Star."

Half an hour later, at the magnificent interstellar port.

Jiang Yuan and Guo Hongtao stepped onto the gangway leading to the interstellar ferry, the Voyager.

As the spacecraft slowly rose into the sky, Jiang Hai City beneath their feet, and even the entire Old Star, grew smaller and smaller until it finally became a blue planet giving off a faint glow in the dark universe.

At that moment, the system notification sounded in Jiang Yuan's mind.