Honkai Star Rail: I must live a peaceful life

The massive blade shattered, its fragments surging into the pursuers' bodies at incredible speed. Though there was no kinetic impact or physical cutting, the raging alien energy penetrated deep within them.

The experienced Trailblazer who had first warned others and taken cover wore a bitter expression. In the instinctive despair that welled up inside him, only one thought remained:

"We've fallen into an ambush. It's a trap."

As someone who had personally fought that madwoman and managed to escape with his life, the Trailblazer knew this tactic all too well—first, unleash a burst technique at an unexpected time and place to eliminate the weakest member of the enemy team. Then, the crimson dandelion's energy burst would briefly inflict negative status effects to slow their reaction speed. Finally, she would overdraw her body's power to achieve burst-level combat ability and strike while they were vulnerable.

This combination could typically eliminate a standard four-person squad. Though it would leave her severely injured, the enemy's losses would be far greater, preventing any effective counterattack.

An extremely aggravating and unstoppable opening salvo.

Slade gritted his teeth as he raised his shield, thinking this through. He was already prepared to retreat.

Though that madwoman Fatima could only take out four at a time, since this was an ambush, there had to be more than one person hiding!

Indeed, though Milo and Eureka hiding in the shadows didn't fully understand what was happening, they instinctively seized the opportunity to launch their own opening salvos.

Milo raised his hand, and scattered points of white-hot light crackling with electricity spread in a rotating pattern across the entire battlefield, both paralyzing the Arbitrators and serving as sensory probes.

To test the enemy's defensive strength, nothing beats a wide-area weak AOE attack.

Azure lightning coiled around Milo, dancing and flickering to illuminate the surroundings. Under his mental guidance, liquid metal took shape, floating between his hands.

The electric field contracted and detonated. The azure lightning surged before condensing into a silent spear in Milo's hands.

Lightning flowed silently like water along the spear's shaft, while thunder wreathed its tip, concealing the dark flames concentrated at a single point.

Milo raised the thunder spear, assuming a throwing stance. In the next instant, the lightning spear vanished, piercing through a Trailblazer and a Knight who stood in line with him. Thunder's remnants lingered at the edges of the holes in their bodies. The metal, showing signs of melting from the high temperature, maintained its momentum as it penetrated two walls before embedding itself in the ground.

Dark purple lightning slithered like snakes along the ground from beneath Eureka's feet, surging upward upon contact with people and leaving charred marks. Thanks to Milo's earlier rotating electric field, this attack's speed and power exceeded her usual average.

The newly repaired mechanical greatsword unfolded from its mechanical cube form, its surface patterns lighting up as Eureka swung it.

Dash, upward slash, smash down! Dark purple lightning rode the kinetic impact to bore into the enemy's body, ravaging flesh. Their close-fitting armor shattered under the immense force before it could even be cut, proving sufficiently hard but lacking in toughness.

The blade severed flesh, thunder extinguished life, and blood had no chance to flow before being vaporized at the charred wounds. In the blink of an eye, the elite pursuit team of four times normal strength lost two Trailblazers and five Knights, leaving only nine survivors.

Resistance, protection, damage reflection—layers of visual effects appeared, revealing the psychological trauma of the remaining pursuers.

A third-rank Trailblazer furthest from the battlefield immediately activated a fixed transfer arte using their companions as coordinates, drawing the surviving Knights toward his position.

Meanwhile, Slade remained extremely calm as he shouldered his still-salvageable comrades, executing a burst sprint that kicked up howling winds as he flew into the distance.

They had arrived with overwhelming force but fled with clean efficiency—that's the Stellaron Hunters' way!

Stellaron Hunters' Assassin Rule #1: When encountering insurmountable factors, operatives may abandon the mission at their discretion, but must report the situation to Central afterward.

Clearly, this rule would now be invoked. The battered but orderly retreat force instantly reached consensus, unanimously cursing the brain-dead wastes in the Intelligence Department a hundred times over, or maybe ninety, in various languages in their hearts.

Damn it, their sensory abilities weren't disabled, and three solo-squad-wiping monsters showed up to surround them, one of them even being that old nemesis's signature operative—who would believe this was coincidence?!

"They ran away," Milo remarked with an odd tone, looking at the now-empty battlefield.

"They really did run," Eureka stared absently in the direction where that red light had fled.

"So this is over, right?" Milo's tone was confused yet certain. Obviously, he hadn't fully anticipated that person's appearance either. "The Stellaron Hunters' response protocols don't include higher-level pursuit. Besides, with that person present, the Court of Void should help take the blame."

There's a famous formula for runners in the Chaotic Zone: If you offend the Court of Void, the Cosmic Chant can shelter you, since more than half their leadership broke away from the Court. If you offend the Cosmic Chant, seek refuge with the Stellaron Hunters, as they've served as stepping stones for too many upstarts. If you offend the Stellaron Hunters, the Court of Void is happy to help you—ideological conflicts combined with clashing interests have bred blood feuds that make decision-makers eager to cause trouble for their opponents at low cost.

These patterns are as reliable as physics in the Chaotic Zone, and even Eureka understood this. Yet everything before her felt anticlimactic.

"It should be over." Eureka raised her hand to her forehead, struggling to accept this. "So tell me, are all stealth techniques in your Chaotic Zone this ridiculous?"

It had happened twice now—first with this mysterious person beside her, then with that sudden crimson figure. Her normal perception had failed completely twice!

Though they couldn't hide from her once she activated detection skills, that was based on the overwhelming gap between rank four and rank three mysticism. If she were only rank three, she might have actually fallen for this.

"Not really. You've just seen the top few percent." Milo quietly observed the person beside him. "Besides, someone like you who warrants this level of pursuit has no right to question others."

"Fine, maybe it is my fault," Eureka nodded. Because she worried that excessive force would reveal her rank, she could only fight with limited output now.

The same went for Milo—his originally instant-kill thunder spear was forced to use metal as a core, which stabilized it but also reduced its power and wasted energy.

Their sighs overlapped. "This fight really was down to luck."

End of Chapter