Chapter 288: The Wandering Blade of the Avenger, A Brand-new Main Storyline
With her level increasing, and after mastering the advanced knowledge from Limit of the Mind which granted the passive skill 【Apostle’s Heart】, Bai Fu’s capacity to control psionic summons increased drastically.
Even though her Prayer Card bonus cap was still at +11, the Psionic Legion she now commanded could already fight several times stronger than the one she had before.
And once her Prayer Card bonus cap was raised to +13, coupled with several new passives that boosted legion output and recovery, the combat power of her Psionic Legion surged to more than ten times what it once was!
That was the nature of a summoner.
The limit of combat strength depended on how many units one could summon, and on the quality of those summoned troops.
Of course, while summoners’ maximum combat strength far surpassed other psionicists of the same rank, their greatest weakness lay in their low defenses—sometimes even frailer than mages, who were notorious for their “fragility.”
Professions of the “summoning stream” such as Psionic Illustrator, Legion Mechanic, or Mental Envoy were all like this.
Not that psionicists of these classes had no way of toughening their physique. In the vast starry sea, there were many physical training methods that offered modest improvements. Even without training, relying on technology could also enhance defenses to some degree.
But the problem was, summoning classes had far too many things to study and create. Most had barely enough time to fulfill their main roles, let alone diverting energy to strengthen their own bodies.
In short, every profession had its advantages and disadvantages.
The process of psionicist advancement was one of excavating more strengths and overcoming more weaknesses.
Battles between psionicists were usually about using one’s strengths to exploit the opponent’s weaknesses.
Even Bai Fu, despite having a Player panel, could not claim to be without flaws. For instance, after all her advancements, her HP recovery rate in battle was still far inferior to that of body-refinement psionicists.
However, she had cleverly concealed this weakness by relying on out-of-combat recovery and resurrection mechanics.
If she couldn’t heal back, then she wouldn’t!
Fight head-on and see whose HP bar emptied first!
At worst, she could die—so long as the Ark of Paradise wasn’t lost, a few months or years later she would be a good Fu again!
“Something’s off. Bai Fu’s aura is different!”
The Painter originally thought that as long as she stalled Aldrich Dimitri, her summoned beast would swiftly finish off Bai Fu. But the battle turned out completely different from what she imagined.
Against the ferocious assault of the summoned beast, Bai Fu did not flee. Instead, she counterattacked with even greater ferocity!
Her massive Psionic Legion, like a spearhead, charged straight at the beast. Everything in its way—even illusions condensed of psionic energy—was torn apart under the overwhelming clash of psionic power.
To outsiders, it looked as though Bai Fu’s legion had broken through an entire world just to strike the beast.
The clash between the two sides was brutal, without the slightest restraint.
Psionic force surged, collided, and exploded.
A whole planet was shattered within moments, torn into dust too small for the naked eye to see, scattered within the howling interstellar storm.
At the edge of the battlefield, Bai Fu calmly commanded her legion to encircle, recover, and merge.
Several times the summoned beast broke free from the encirclement, attempting a decapitation strike.
Most of the time Bai Fu relied on Void Shuttle to reopen distance. On the rare occasion she couldn’t evade, she simply endured, activating her shield to block the blow head-on.
This summoned beast could shatter stars with ease. It roared and struck with nearly all its trump cards, yet it still failed to kill Bai Fu.
It wasn’t like the first time when hitting her provoked no reaction at all, but judging from the current situation—unless Bai Fu stood still and let it pummel her for a minute or two—it could not kill her.
Clearly, Bai Fu would never give it that chance.
Even if she really did stand there motionless, the summoned beast wouldn’t dare recklessly rush in.
While it struck Bai Fu, her Psionic Legion was also striking it.
After a minute or two of mutual blows, the one to die first might not be Bai Fu—it could very well be the beast itself!
“When did Bai Fu’s strength become this terrifying?”
Dimitri and the Painter both turned pale.
Before coming to Basin Star, Dimitri had already learned from Bai Fu that she had reached the Domination peak. He knew her strength was extraordinary, yet he had not expected it to be extraordinary enough to withstand a Transcendent-level summoned beast without faltering.
No—this wasn’t just “not faltering.” She was faintly taking the upper hand!
Dimitri was shaken to the core.
The Painter’s shock was several times greater.
She had been secretly observing Bai Fu for a long time. When she saw Bai Fu escape even under the pursuit of the Apostle Holy City, she concluded that Bai Fu’s power was already at the top tier of the Domination rank.
To ensure Bai Fu’s death, she had painstakingly obtained a Transcendent-level summoned beast.
But she had never imagined—even this summoned beast could not kill Bai Fu!
If only she could redo it all over again…
Redoing was useless!
The Painter clenched her teeth.
She had already been cautious enough to use Transcendent power. Unless she could open the Skyeye Alliance’s vision to foresee Bai Fu’s true strength in advance, how could she have been more cautious?
“Monster. These Apostles are all monsters!”
Her heart trembled again and again, her killing intent surging even stronger with every tremor.
She could not simply admit defeat and retreat. Precisely because the situation had slipped out of her control, she had to give her all to kill Bai Fu here. Otherwise, once Bai Fu advanced to Transcendent, killing her would be even harder.
“Since Bai Fu is fine, then it’s time for us to settle our own account.”
Just as the Painter prepared to act, Dimitri’s cold laughter sounded in her ear.
The situation was dire.
Her face alternated between pale and dark.
Annihilation was an extremely special psionic power. It dismantled matter at the most fundamental particle level—obliterating its target.
Its destructive potential was terrifying. Against opponents with abilities like “rebirth from a drop of blood,” it was the ultimate nemesis. Its drawback, however, was that it was hard to control and limited in range.
In simple terms, Dimitri was not well-suited for massive interstellar warfare. But in one-on-one duels, even psionicists with more Divine Metamorphoses than him found him troublesome. This was one of the reasons he held such a high position in the Empire.
The Painter had only managed to stall him earlier by shrouding the battlefield in endless illusions, blinding his senses so that he could not lock onto her true self.
But such tricks could not last forever.
Dimitri could miss countless times, but the instant he hit her once, she would be gravely injured.
“It seems I have no choice but to use that trump card!”
Her gaze wavered in struggle.
She had been reluctant to use it, for it would place immense psychological pressure on her. But at this point, she had no choice.
The Painter hurled out all the illusion cards she had saved up.
After weaving a dozen layers of illusionary cages around Dimitri, a faint white radiance suddenly spread across her body.
“!”
Bai Fu snapped her head around.
As a fellow Psionic Illustrator, she instantly noticed that the psionic flow within the Painter’s body was off.
Using Spiritual Vision, she saw torrents of psionic energy pouring into the Painter from the void.
【Apostle’s Blessing】
A new status appeared above the Painter’s head. With its enhancement, her stats, resistances, and more surged upward.
Bai Fu wasn’t surprised that the Painter had some secret method to strengthen herself. What caught her completely off guard was that this method was called 【Apostle’s Blessing】.
“???”
Bai Fu was full of question marks.
“Didn’t you say Apostles should not exist in this world? And yet in the end, you resort to borrowing the power of an Apostle to deal with me—who is not even an Apostle?”
Her voice, carried through psionic waves, traversed the cosmic storm and landed in the Painter’s ears.
It was as if the world froze. The Painter’s body shook, then stiffened entirely.
How had Bai Fu discerned that she was drawing on an Apostle’s power?
Even Apostles themselves couldn’t tell where a psionic current originated from. Psionic energy didn’t come with names written on it.
A surge of unease filled her, but stronger still was the pain of being exposed.
Indeed, her lifelong dream was to eliminate all Apostles and make psionic energy—this power that had caused her endless trauma—vanish from the world.
But the cruel contradiction was this: in order to achieve that goal, she had to use psionic energy, even reach out to Apostles and borrow their power to grow stronger. Otherwise, even with another lifetime of training, she might never realize her goal.
This clash between reality and her ideals often left her heart in agony.
She had thought more than once that, if it had been Mary in her place, she definitely would not have had such troubles. Mary was the type who, once she set her mind on something, would pursue it unwaveringly. But her own character, forged in a far-too-smooth first half of life, lacked resilience and was always prone to hesitation and doubt.
Just like this time.
Because Bai Fu had seen through her, she paused for quite a while, long enough for Dimitri to shatter many layers of illusion cages.
With the time left, there was no way she could kill Bai Fu and still escape from Dimitri.
She had to retreat.
Once caught by Dimitri, even if she didn’t die at his hands, she would still be surrounded by the Empire’s reinforcements that would arrive shortly after.
“Next time we meet will be the day of your death!”
The Painter fixed her gaze on Bai Fu for a long moment, then her entire figure dissolved into a mass of white energy, vanishing into the illusion cage.
With her departure, the summoned beast’s power plummeted. Already at a disadvantage under the Psionic Legion’s siege, it weakened further. Soon, under the unending, crashing waves of attacks, its flesh and blood were torn apart until, with one final wail, it collapsed into a storm of psionic energy.
“Are you alright?”
Dimitri hurried over, face full of embarrassment.
Bai Fu shook her head. “I’m fine. Lord Annihilation, you’d better hurry and report what happened here to the Empire.”
Seeing no discontent on Bai Fu’s face, Dimitri secretly let out a sigh.
What a mess. If Bai Fu weren’t so overwhelmingly strong herself, then his role as her protector this time would have been utterly meaningless.
While Dimitri stepped aside to report, Bai Fu opened her game prompt interface.
During her fight with the Painter, she had received several notifications, but the urgency of the battle left her no time to check them.
The first prompt told her she had triggered an Emergency Assassination Quest.
The second said she had triggered a new Main Storyline Quest, 【Subvert the World】. The objective was to uncover the Painter’s origins and true faction. The reward was 500 million XP and a Psionic Construct Blueprint Evolution Card.
“A main storyline quest?”
Bai Fu raised an eyebrow slightly. She thought of what the Painter had said earlier. This suggested that the Painter wasn’t acting alone—there was a massive organization behind her.
Which organization could it be?
Could the story the Painter had just told also have been a lie?
With the threats of the Apostle Holy City and the Ten Saints Council looming close, yet another mysterious faction had suddenly emerged. Truly a headache.
Bai Fu skipped over that prompt for now and looked at the next.
The third said she had slain a Transcendent-level summoned beast, gaining 930 million XP.
What could she say? That beast really wasn’t worth much—it only gave just over 900 million despite being Transcendent-level.
The fourth said she had completed the Emergency Assassination Quest, receiving 1.5 billion XP and a skill card from the Painter, 【Wonderful Moment】.
【Wonderful Moment】 was an illusion-type skill, but unlike ordinary illusion skills, it carried a potent brainwashing effect, able to directly twist the target’s perception, blurring reality and illusion.
“Not much in terms of damage, but if used in situations where large-scale chaos must be avoided, this skill card would be pretty powerful.”
Bai Fu was quite satisfied with this reward.
Still, the biggest gain from this trip to Basin Star was that she had truly acquired a rare-quality Prayer Card Blueprint from the Painter.
Now she was only short of one more rare-quality Prayer Card Blueprint and a 7.9 Racial Potential Rating before advancing to Transcendent.
“No matter how slow it goes, I should be able to advance to Transcendent by Version 2.3.”
If she couldn’t obtain a rare-quality Prayer Card Blueprint through quests or trades, she could always gamble with a massive amount of XP. With enough investment, a card would eventually come out.
Happily, Bai Fu closed the game prompts.
After a while, Dimitri returned, saying the Empire was already arranging investigations into the Painter’s background.
The two left the battlefield and went first to the Empire’s homeworld.
The Empire didn’t make public the Painter’s attempt to assassinate Bai Fu, but the news that she had defeated a Transcendent-level summoned beast still caused quite a stir within certain circles.
Good grief—so fierce?
Upon arrival at the homeworld, Bai Fu could truly feel how absurdly popular she had become.
Crowds of citizens thronged outside the starport, forcing the Empire to deploy masses of mechanical guards to maintain order and prevent accidents.
It was one thing for her popularity to soar among ordinary people, but now even among psionicists her fame had skyrocketed to absurd levels.
“Lord Dark Master, rest assured—if the Painter dares disrespect you, that is the same as disrespecting me. If I run into her, I’ll make sure she pays dearly!”
Whether those who had once received her guidance, or even those who hadn’t, one by one, the Transcendents all stepped up to speak harsh words on her behalf.
Bai Fu could tell some of them were only putting on a show.
Words could lie, but Favorability could not.
Still, regardless of their sincerity, just by standing up they were building her momentum. And momentum, once built, brought great benefits—
“I’m going to get rich again!”
Bai Fu only stayed two days on the Empire’s homeworld, but during that time she received a flood of cooperation invitations. Even the investment giant Eternal Investment, with headquarters in Titan Industries, approached her.
Eternal Investment remained fairly restrained—they didn’t propose business contracts for employment. Instead, they wanted authorization to use Bai Fu’s likeness for Cosmic Web character cards.
As Bai Fu’s popularity surged, her Cosmic Web character card sales had also soared.
Eternal Investment hoped to obtain full rights to create various versions of Bai Fu character cards, such as 【Dark Master·Bai Fu】, 【Twin·Bai Fu】, 【Saintess·Bai Fu】, and so on.
Believing one would be a fool not to take the money, Bai Fu cheerfully signed a contract with Eternal Investment.
“What a pity. No one’s hiring me for commercials anymore. Otherwise, with my current fame, just sending Hei Fu out nonstop for ads would make me a fortune.”
Bai Fu sighed regretfully.
Since advertising no longer promised big profits, she had to rely on selling resources instead.
And speaking of resource sales—this meant further squeezing Players, pushing them to explore faster. Only then could she seize territories in advance, monopolizing rare minerals. Whether she mined them herself or resold them to the Empire, she could profit hugely.
Otherwise, once the version update came and she lost her Player labor force, her progress in Dark Zone exploration would inevitably lag far behind other factions.
After signing a mountain of contracts, Bai Fu had planned to stay a few more days on the homeworld, but news arrived from Origin Star: a Player-led exploration fleet had suddenly gone missing. She immediately gave up her plans to linger and prepared to return.
This time Dimitri did not accompany her. The Empire was now preoccupied, in turmoil over the Painter’s words.
The Painter sought to overthrow the Empire. Was she alone—or backed by an organization?
That question had to be answered quickly.
The Empire was likely to clash with the Apostle Holy City soon. At such a critical moment, if the Painter suddenly struck, the Empire could suffer massive losses.
“According to the Painter’s words, we traced her real identity. She should be the daughter of the owner of a starship rental company in the Tacri Republic of the Seaberry Galaxy Cluster. Her full name is Selena Raily Golden Ocean. Public investigation records say she died during that Summoning Ritual.”
“But since she is still alive, there are two possibilities: first, she lied, and she is not Selena at all. Second, she tampered with the Calamity Investigation records.”
“Whatever the truth, one thing is certain now—we cannot find any further information on her. To catch her, we can only wait for her to show herself.”
All the members in the conference room looked grim.
A Transcendent II-ranked Avenger was no easy opponent. In terms of danger, the Painter might even be above a Saint.
If not for the colossal presence of the Apostle Holy City, the Empire would not have feared even if the Ten Saints Council and the Painter joined forces. But now… the Empire could only remain stuck in this dilemma.
It was truly a troubled season.