You Really Like Full Annihilation?

The rose petal rain fell, and Xu Lingqu picked a few petals from her clothes, holding them in her palm as she stood up to leave.

Jinfang Taibai looked at her with slight surprise. "Aren't you going to comfort Yun Yao and Ye Yu?"

"Lieutenant General Jia Deli is there." Xu Lingqu gave him an odd look. "Do you really take me for a psychiatrist?"

Jinfang Taibai was caught off guard, muttering under his breath, "I mean, you did kind of talk me through things back then..."

Xu Lingqu had already left, not hearing a word he said.

But Guan Chuanjun, sitting next to Jinfang Taibai, had sharp ears. "What did you say? Xu Lingqu talked you through something?"

Back during the Shaji versus Qingjun quarterfinals, Xu Lingqu hadn't even bothered to show up. Only Jin and Shen Shouli had come to taunt him.

Guan Chuanjun was so irritated his teeth ached—how was it that this dull hacker was closer to Xu Lingqu than he was?

Jinfang Taibai shot him a glare. "What do you know? I've told you a hundred times, Du'e and Moye are sister academies. Sister academies, got it?!"

Beside him, Li Muyi didn't call him out on it. In truth, Jinfang Taibai had been the one crouching outside the Moye commander's lounge, and Xu Lingqu's "talk" had been nothing more than a sarcastic remark about how he'd finally started acting like a human being.

Jinfang Taibai had let that slip himself.

Cimei's league journey had drawn to a close, but the other academies' campaigns were still ongoing.

The next day, Long Yuan faced Zhicheng, and just as Jinfang Taibai had predicted, Xu Lingqu didn't show up.

"See, I told you she's biased toward you—she only watches your matches," Jinfang Taibai complained quietly to Yun Yao and Ye Yu.

The two had been mired in lingering gloom over yesterday's defeat, but Jinfang Taibai's antics coaxed a laugh out of both of them.

Yun Yao blinked. "I'm sure Xu Lingqu will beat Tansen Meilin within an inch of his life."

Xu Lingqu was currently in the star simulation room, beating a meteor swarm within an inch of its life.

Luminous watched as she piloted the battleship through space with effortless freedom, each volley striking true—every shot a perfect hit.

"Stop training," Luminous said earnestly. "Keep this up, and once you join the Imperial Military, the fleet commanders will look like green recruits next to you."

Xu Lingqu shattered the last meteor, then promptly logged out, leaving Luminous to handle the aftermath.

"You do wipe all the information completely every time, right?"

Luminous, transformed into a white butterfly busily flickering across the screen, froze mid-motion at her words.

That was its tell for guilt.

"I deleted the information, but I kept the scores," Luminous replied, before retreating into her ring and not moving again.

"You're keeping those scores..." Xu Lingqu walked out of the star simulation room, trailing off when she saw it had gone into full "I can't hear you, I can't hear you, I can't hear you" mode.

The military personnel monitoring the star simulation data were probably starting to think the place was haunted.

And in fact, that was exactly the case.

The staff member at the Military Department in charge of the star simulation room had been tearing his hair out for a long time now.

Ever since an unidentified individual had blown through the Wanderer's beginner-to-master driving course in a single day, an avalanche of terrifying records had been popping up like ghosts.

He'd suspected it might be some top-tier hacker's prank and had petitioned his superior to investigate Jinfang Taibai again, thoroughly.

Jinfang Taibai was indeed a top-tier hacker, and the timing of these records coincided suspiciously with the league's rest periods.

The superior had promised to look into the matter—but in the end, they found these records kept appearing even after Jinfang Taibai was eliminated. It couldn't be him, and Jinfang Taibai was finally vindicated.

"Who is this? Who in the world is this?" The staff member was frantic now, because yet another absurd data point had appeared today.

This one had broken the original record for the most dangerous flight route in space.

For any normal person, at any normal time, this would have been cause for a grand celebration with drums and gongs!

Because that route record had been held for decades by the Merlin Family of the Federation.

First of all, the track itself had been designed by a Federation starship engineer back in the day—plainly put, it sent pilots weaving through a chaotic, life-threatening meteor cluster.

One misstep along the way meant a quick death, which was why it had come to be hailed as the most dangerous flight route in space.

The Merlin Family, meanwhile, boasted of having mastered the route's mechanics, keeping their own proprietary set of driving rules and paths.

Essentially, every generation of Merlins would learn and master it, and the most outstanding among them would always shave a bit off the previous generation's time.

Tansen Meilin had earned his reputation as the Merlin Family's new-generation standard-bearer precisely because he currently held that record: two hours, thirty minutes, five-point-seven seconds.

He'd sooner tattoo that string of numbers onto his body.

But today, the record from Military Department staff monitoring the star simulation room came out to one hour and forty minutes.

A massive cut from Tansen Meilin's time! It was a resounding slap to the Merlin family's face!

The Empire had produced a starship prodigy, yet the prodigy refused to show themselves—the staff member was half tempted to crawl into the system and drag the person out.

Even the Long Yuan versus Zhicheng victory didn't feel worth celebrating. He glued himself to the system day and night, and sure enough, over the next few days, that person set new records on the most dangerous flight route several more times.

The final time settled at one hour and twenty minutes.

The staff member sat hunched before the system, and his colleague dropped by to check on him. "It's the league semifinals today—Long Yuan versus Qingjun, Moye versus Lianda. We're drawing the match maps. You're not coming to watch?"

He shook his head emphatically. "I'm not letting this genius out of my sight!"

The genius herself was currently plugging into the competition cocoon to draw the lots amid cheers and screams.

Gu Tingzhi glanced at Xu Lingqu. "What have you been preparing these past few days?"

"A bit of everything—mechs, starships, ground warfare, and oh, hand-to-hand." Xu Lingqu answered honestly. In truth, she'd spent the least time on starships; those record runs were all squeezed into spare moments.

"Quite thorough." Gu Tingzhi looked at Jia Xianglan and Tansen Meilin approaching with battle-ready poise on the opposite side. "I hope we meet in the finals."

"Mm."

Jia Xianglan and Tansen Meilin didn't dare pull any costume-change theatrics this time. Facing Gu Tingzhi and Xu Lingqu, neither dared to provoke them openly.

Tansen Meilin simply walked up to Xu Lingqu. "I hope we can settle the score this time."

He still refused to admit they'd lost to Moye in the qualifiers.

Xu Lingqu looked at him. "You really like full annihilation?"

Tansen Meilin narrowed his eyes.

"Today, I'll make sure I'm the last to kill you."

That was what she said to him.