"What do we do now?" Hanxing looked at Firefly. "Find a way to a spaceport and leave this place," Firefly suggested.
"Boom-" A shell exploded beside them. Then came battle cries drawing closer, accompanied by gunfire. "What's going on now?" Firefly looked around. "Never mind that. Get ready to fight!" A wave of heat swept over them, and the armor appeared. The embroidered spring saber was already out of its sheath, gleaming coldly.
Soon, more than a dozen armed soldiers charged at Hanxing and Firefly and surrounded them. "You lackeys of Order, raise your hands and surrender! The Kangbu Revolutionary Army treats its prisoners well!"
"Firefly, you take the front, I'll take the rear. Break through!" Hanxing's eyes had turned blue at some point. "During combat, please use my codename, Sam." Firefly's voice changed into a cold male voice. "Try to leave them alive. We still don't understand the situation here." The two stood back to back, ready to fight.
Seeing how determined they were to resist, several soldiers fired multiple shots at once. The bullets did nothing to Sam, of course, and Hanxing knocked the ones flying at him aside with a few swings of his saber before vanishing from where he stood. He knocked one soldier unconscious with his scabbard, then fixed his gaze on another and cast an illusion on him.
Firefly punched one soldier back and sent another flying with a kick. The two drew together again, ready to continue their counterattack.
"Cease fire!" came an urgent shout. The soldiers immediately lowered their weapons. "Medics, treat the wounded! Troops, keep advancing!"
Soon, an artistic-looking young man appeared before them. "Hello, my name is Yan Bai, political commissar of the Kangbu Revolutionary Army's 148th Regiment." The young man paused before speaking again. "As I see it, you aren't Pathstriders of Order, are you?"
Hanxing put away his weapon, hanging the saber on his back. Firefly disengaged her armor and returned to her form as a young woman. "One walks the path of Destruction, and one is an ordinary person." Yan Bai looked at them. "You're from beyond this world, aren't you?"
"How did you know?" Hanxing looked at Yan Bai, no less wary than before. "On Fansha Star, there are only Pathstriders of Order and Harmony. And I am one of Harmony's."
"A Pathstrider of Harmony. No wonder you could see our paths." Firefly and Hanxing let down their guard, and Firefly spoke. "But from what you're saying, the paths on this planet are far too limited."
"We don't know the details either. All we know is that if someone sets foot on another path, they soon die an unnatural death. We are 'the cursed people,'" Yan Bai said.
"A curse? Cursed by what?" Hanxing asked. "The curse of Order. It makes it impossible for Pathstriders of other paths to arise among us, and it also keeps us from contacting the outside world. What you call the universe has long been a myth here." Yan Bai gazed at the sky, a few tears streaming from his eyes, as though windblown sand had gotten into them. "But Ena, the Aeon of Order, fell long ago!" Firefly said in surprise.
"That's not strange." Hanxing looked at Firefly. He had spent his spare time studying the data bank. "Just as Akivili, the Aeon of Trailblaze, has fallen, yet the Astral Express still races through the cosmos. Idrila, the Aeon of Beauty, vanished without a trace, yet the Knights of Beauty still search for Idrila across the universe."
"Miracles left by fallen Aeons are not impossible in the universe," Yan Bai said, summing up Hanxing's words. "Still, to think this era is so strange that the Aeon of Order fell long ago."
"Then what of the Aeon of Harmony?" Yan Bai paused, then asked the question he most wanted answered. "Xipe absorbed Ena and is still practicing their own path in the cosmos."
"Is that so..." Even as an intellectual, Yan Bai was deeply shaken by the sheer amount of information in this conversation. "Han Chuan! Take them to headquarters to rest!" He then turned to the two of them. "Thank you both for sharing everything you know. I cannot thank you enough. But we must first take Wind Erosion Town. Please go to headquarters and rest for now. Han Chuan will explain the basic situation here."
A person in military uniform appeared, holding a rifle. "Come on, I'll take you to headquarters." The two followed Han Chuan to the makeshift frontline headquarters.
"Now, I'll tell you about this planet's past." Han Chuan looked at them, his eyes reflecting a cold, clear light.
"There are two powers on Fansha Star. One is the North Wind Government, which believes in Order. The other is us, the Kangbu Revolutionary Army, which believes in Harmony. We in the Kangbu Revolutionary Army have made it our duty to liberate Fansha Star and overthrow the North Wind Government."
"Oh, right," Firefly suddenly said. "Do you know about something called a Stellaron?" "A Stellaron?" Han Chuan listened to the unfamiliar term. "I don't know. You can wait for Commissar Yan to return. He might know."
"I'm very sorry, we need to discuss something." With that, Hanxing pulled Firefly aside. "Something's not right. According to the timeline, this world's curse existed before Ena fell, long before the Aeon of Destruction was born. How did Yan Bai know about Destruction?"
"From what Han Chuan said, the others don't seem to know about the Aeon of Destruction. Maybe there's only one possibility." Firefly's gaze slowly grew resolute. "Maybe he's also one of those so-called 'visitors from beyond the world.'"
"Salute the commissar!" The shout from outside soon reached Hanxing and Firefly. Yan Bai's back? Hanxing stared at the entrance to headquarters without a word.