KyokaSuigetsu
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Chapter 12: Stuck
🕑 Added 2025-04-21 07:18:30 +0000 UTCSomewhere in an unknown galaxy.
"Ahh!! I'll kill you! Kill you!!"
Jingliu shot up from the bed.
With her piercing scream filled with hatred, an overwhelming murderous intent erupted around her like a tidal wave.
In the next instant, her runaway power of moonlight surged wildly from within. Centered on her, icy thorns burst out in all directions. Within seconds, the frost spread for kilometers.
From the sky, it looked like a massive lotus of ice silently blooming beneath the night veil—its chilling aura was unmistakable.
Everything in the icy lotus's path froze instantly. The land within several kilometers became a frost-covered hellscape.
At the center, Jingliu gripped her face, panting heavily.
Her black blindfold had vanished somewhere. Her eyes now glowed with a terrifying crimson light, like a bloodthirsty beast on the hunt.
It took a long while before her breath began to steady.
Up close, her presence felt more ominous than ever.
The Jingliu before had been like a wildfire—fierce and uncontrollable. But now? She was like a dormant volcano, deceptively calm, yet constantly building up pressure. The moment it erupts, nothing would survive.
She condensed stolen moonlight into a massive sword of black ice, gripped it tightly, and muttered through clenched teeth—
"Solon… kill…"
[You sparred with Jingliu. She lost control and critically injured you.]
[You died.]
"Damn it! Failed again!"
Solon cursed under his breath.
Roughly an hour ago, thinking he had time to kill, Solon had casually launched a medium-difficulty simulation scenario.
Only after starting did he realize—although this simulation also involved Jingliu, the difficulty spike compared to beginner mode was absurd.
He couldn't even get through the first few scenes without dying.
Worse yet, every choice led to a dead end.
Only then did he understand why the system had warned him about the minimum Trait requirements for clearance.
Technically, the system didn't forbid him from trying higher-difficulty scenarios.
But without meeting the minimum Trait threshold, his chances of survival were practically zero.
And because he died too early in the story, he failed to meet the baseline progression required for any Trait rewards.
In short, no amount of grinding would help.
The difficulty increase was obvious:
He only had one white Trait and a C-rank rating—combined, barely equal to a single blue Trait.
The "Noble Background (Gold)" beginner perk had been removed in this mode.
Though it didn't boost combat, "Noble Background (Gold)" gave Solon a massive head start—an invaluable edge for any seasoned Earth OL player. Starting ahead in a game meant everything.
But the biggest problem wasn't that.
The biggest hidden difficulty of the intermediate scenario?
It used a completely new plot.
Solon's advantage of "knowing the script" had been wiped clean.
In this version, both he and Jingliu were survivors of the fallen Xianzhou Cangcheng and shared the same master.
Their relationship had shifted from master and disciple… to senior and junior apprentice siblings.
A refreshing, if inconvenient, change.
Exhausted from the grind and constant failure, Solon decided to call it a night. He'd try again tomorrow.
He drifted off into a deep sleep.
But while Solon was sleeping peacefully in one star system, Jingliu—somewhere else entirely—was very much awake.
Now teetering on the edge of full madness due to her demonic corruption, the shameful memories of being "trained" and toyed with by Solon in the simulation gnawed at her mind.
Her killing intent, with nowhere to go, erupted. She began slaughtering every Abundance aberration in sight.
No one knew how long it lasted.
Under a silver moon suspended in the heavens, the land below had transformed. Frozen spires of blue ice, like crystal thorns, blanketed the terrain.
More horrifyingly, countless dismembered remains of enemies—Cloud Knights with vines growing from their bodies, winged Constructs, and bipedal wolf-headed Beasts—hung pierced on those very spikes.
At the center of the bloodstained massacre, atop a hill made of corpses, stood a blindfolded swordswoman in blue light armor.
Her massive frostblade was planted in the ground beside her. She stood tall and cold.
After venting through sheer violence, Jingliu seemed… calmer.
But anyone who got near her would instantly be frozen stiff by the silent bloodlust leaking from her body.
Her "calm" was just a façade.
The fury in her heart had transformed into something colder, sharper, and more persistent.
Without sparing a glance at the corpses beneath her feet, Jingliu looked up at the hanging moonlight above. Her gaze seemed to pierce through countless galaxies… all the way to Luofu.
"Luofu… Hmph. I'm coming back. Wait for me, my 'dearest disciple.'"
Sleeping soundly, Solon had no idea that the deranged, blackened, and overwhelmingly powerful Jingliu had already marked him as her obsession.
Though the system had warned him that characters involved in simulation scenarios retain memories afterward…
He thought he was mentally prepared.
Clearly, he'd underestimated how bad this could get.
To Solon, Jingliu was wanted by the Xianzhou Alliance. She wouldn't dare step foot in Luofu so easily.
Besides, simulations were just dreams, weren't they?
No matter how twisted, it was still just a game.
Who takes dreams seriously?
Well… he was about to find out.
For a corrupted Jingliu, already spiraling into madness, the simulation wasn't just a nightmare.
It was a trauma—one now forever etched in her soul.
The demonic corruption may have confused her memories, blending dream and reality.
Long story short—Solon was fucked.
Still oblivious, Solon awoke the next morning feeling fantastic.
After a quick wash, he headed to Changle Heaven and grabbed a hearty breakfast at a small street diner.
A few slices of steamed flatbread with spicy lotus root cakes, and a warm can of fizzy soybean juice to finish—it was perfect.
Not in a rush to go home, Solon wandered around to digest.
As he passed what looked like an outdoor teahouse, a familiar sound reached his ears.
The sound of tiles colliding.
Mahjong—or as the Xianzhou called it: Imperial Jade of Dihuan.
"Pong! I win! Pay up! Come on, pay up!"
At one table, a green-robed girl jumped to her feet triumphantly, pointing at her stunned opponents and yelling with glee.
Solon raised an eyebrow.
That face… looked familiar.
A casual stroll, and he runs into an "acquaintance"?
What are the odds?
