When it came to Astral Sea travel, the Star Cruise was number one.

Interplanar teleportation was indeed a thing, but the sheer difficulty of that magecraft and its poor accessibility made it impossible to spread. Compounding the problem was the nature of the travel medium.

Contrary to its name, the Astral Sea wasn’t an ocean but a plane of possibilities separated by different existential bandwidths. Each region was a universe in itself, with stars and planets of its own. The concepts of lightspeed and distance weren't applicable here.

With most forms of transportation eliminated, entrepreneurs everywhere needed to reinvent the wheel. This birthed the Astral Liner, a ship designed to move across realities themselves.

Ignoring the hundred years of plagiarism, trade secrets, and interdimensional court warfare, the Astral Liner was one of the few technologies that were widely spread for commercial and military uses.

And like anything with commercial uses, there was a high-end version catered to the top of the social hierarchy.

The Star Cruise was a series of luxury Astral Liners. Each ship was an exercise in opulence. Stairs decorated with jewels and gold. The finest-designed rooms and chandeliers were arranged tidily with opaque glass walls that doubled as the advertisement board on either side. Even the entertainment wasn’t skimped on. Be it stage shows, buffets, or brothels, the Star Cruise offered quality that was only matched by its exorbitant price tag.

As the esteemed granddaughter of Qin the Phoenix, Chandra could easily get two VIP rooms for the trips. The fact that Tai didn’t like traveling on Astral Liner was only a bonus point to make her foster sister uncomfortable.

But in a development that neither Tai nor Chandra could imagine, only one room ended up being used.

The reason was because Chandra was having a nightmare.

Tai, feeling Chandra might be hatching a scheme, spied on her neighbor, only to see the girl squirm and whimper. Seeing such a powerless sight, something in Tai seeped out—the final proof that the heart of stone wasn’t beyond saving.

Ever since she regained her past life’s memory, the forever aloof reincarnated genius kept everyone at arm's length, striving to accomplish her past goal while paying no heed to the transient present. Around Tai’s heart was a fortress of steel, holding the bastion of pride and tempered emotion worthy of the Immortal Xian. Such a heavenly heart should be unbreakable.

And yet that scathing words remained

I have never seen someone with such a large chip on her spine, and I am not going to feed the immature five-year-old panda wielding a sword. 

That statement was a taunt but an accurate one. Defeated in her own home, punched in the eye, and proven dead wrong on multiple points over the course of the entire day, Tai found herself needing spiritual guidance.

Lost in the sea of doubt, Tai Nova—the prodigy of this era—found herself invading her little sister's room and trying to dispel her nightmare.

As Chandra trembled, Tai carefully considered the best course of action to end the problem

“A simple dream-walking magecraft will do,” Tai said, completely oblivious to the devastation she was about to witness.

…

Chandra swore her mind was repeating this vision as torture.

She recognized her home in the Phoenix Realm—the land of crimson trees and mountains. In her memory, the castle of the Phoenix Clan would gleam bright, shining as a beacon among the beautiful stone garden and showing the blue sky its splendor.

None of those glories existed in this dream. Depression dropped a curtain over the castle of Chandra’s birth. Officers and soldiers of the Phoenix Clan rushed and carried supplies hurriedly across the stone garden.

In the middle of the courtyard, the mighty Qin the Phoenix, a clean-shaved elder in a crimson robe, watched the parade of shame and despair occurring around him. He turned toward his aide.

“How is the evacuation going?”

The aide cupped his hand.

“We are on schedule.”

Qin sighed.

“You mean we cannot outrun them?"

Normally, the mere suggestion of running away would be a blasphemy against the dignity of the divine, but no one on the ground took offense to that.

As far as they were concerned, it was perfectly reasonable to run from a walking natural disaster.

“Milord,” said the aide, who couldn’t hide his curiosity. “I heard the Atsui have fallen.”

“No,” Qin swiftly corrected. “They are perfectly fine—as fine as prisoners in line to be meat shields can be.”

The aide gulped. “There are no escapees?"

“Do you think that elf will let them run?” Qin replied with a question. Suddenly, he felt another [Resonance] entering this region. 

“He’s here,” Qin said.

Panic immediately erupted. Men ran for cover. Siege engines and weapons of mass destruction were primed. Everyone knew they were in a battle for survival and that the mighty legacy of the Phoenix Clan—their divine glory—could crumble today. 

Qin—the overlord of this region—the rulers whose even king needed to bow looked into the sky at a creature who represented the height of fame and power.

It had many names…

The Herald of Hope

The Sword of Symphony

The Final Fortress

Cytortia’s Consilgre

True’s Primus Commander—Remus Breaker

Seeing the incarnation of invincibility sent to deliver them all to the wringer, Qin’s aide fell to his knees in despair.

“Of all the people they could have sent, why him?” cried the man, who had lost all hope of survival.

The hero spoke of in reverence by the powerless mass drifting down from the sky, garbed in a jet-black armored skin-tight suit fanned underneath the flowing white jacket that matched his whitened hair. The sharp edge of the glass glinted in the sunlight, obscuring the eyes on that sauv face.

Rem greeted his panicking victim with uncharacteristic cordiality.

“Hello…“

“Fire!” A voice commanded from the despairing army—not even wasting time for the menace to finish a proper sentence. “Use everything!”

A bolt of high-yield warheads hit Rem, followed by a couple thousand more chain explosions that tore the cloud apart. Before the smoke was clear, every sacred weapons was thrown at him

Nothing in the Pheonix Clan was spared—be it a lance of divine-metal-melting acid, a fork that summoned lightning, or an axe that increased its weight to a billion tons. Even a live chicken that could cause spontaneous organ failure with its cucking was wheeled out to combat Mr. Invincible.

The force of the desperate attacks cracked the planet's crust like eggshells, but the Phoenix Clan wasn’t done torching their planet on an off chance to make Rem bleed.

“Deploy the [Constellation Killing Array]!” Qin’s aide screamed from the top of his lungs.

The array, representing the security of the Phoenix Realm itself, lit up. To deal with this single breath of danger, agonizing preparation time and countless precious resources were tossed into the furnace.

Boundaries of burning light shot up, building a box with the smoking cloud where Rem was in the middle. The array shut its lone target inside a kill range meant to murder the army, accompanied by a god, and unleashed a disintegration wave that could burn the target down to the Astral Body.

The array shone with the light of a thousand stars, pouring out thermal energy at a quantity and rate beyond mental calculation. A massive soul-killing mechanism layered within the array was activated in conjunction with the sweltering eruption that shot into space, ensuring not even a soul would be left behind.

The aide’s desire to empty the coffer wasn’t satisfied just yet. He still had more to spend.

“Open every killing array on the planet and fire it here!”

Fellow clansmen stared at the shrilling man and proceeded as told.

All 2098 arrays around the planet went to work, pouring out a beam of thermal power to one location.

Snaking tributaries of heat shone gold as they traveled through the atmosphere. Temperatures in Phoenix Realm hiked from over 2000 heat sources of unimaginable power. Trees burned and wildlife vaporized alongside the long evacuated cities.

Had the planet not already been vacated in preparation for True’s agent, this maneuver would have cost every citizen of the realm outside the castle’s protective barrier. By sheer quantity, the heat output effectively turned the lush green surface of the Phoenix Realm into an inferno. Any invader from space would have been appalled at how the blue green planet transformed into a glowing orange.

Under such circumstances, the target location was even more annihilated than the rest of the plane. Energy concentrations of gargantuan amounts blasted a hole into a space-time continuum and created a pseudo singularity, converging the air into a ring of plasma orbiting the hole in the fabric of reality. Gravity itself was altered, causing gravel and debris to float in defiance of nature.

No one could have survived against all of the destruction offered, but Qin could still sense him.

“He is still here,” Qin said, confirming the aide’s worst fear. “Tell our men to leave. I will stall him.”

The aide was aghast.

“Milord, that is suicide.”

Qin simply drew his sword.

“I know,” said the old man. “Tell Chandra the rest is in her hand. Now go!”

The aide closed his eyes and squeezed out an anguished parting.

“It has been an honor, Milord. Thank you.”

The aide left, and one-by-one the clan head’s final order was distributed. The soldiers collectively gazed upon their glorious leader one last time and left for the evacuation ship.

Qin solemnly watched his opponent emerge from the singularity and once again affirmed that this coming battle would be his last.

Rem descended from the gap in space-time. He was completely spotless. The planetary-destroying measures they deployed to hurt him failed to leave a wrinkle on his shirt. In front of the ring of fire and the disturbing halo of the space-time singularity, he could have been mistaken for a god.

The atmosphere before the castle had already transformed into an alien vacuum, but Rem’s voice still defied physics to be audible.

“Do you have anything else, or can I have my turn now?”