In the vastness of space, the colossal True Sting, large enough to devour an entire planet-crushing battleship, let out a pained roar. Its cry echoed like a doomsday trumpet to all life nearby.
As the beast let out its final agonized scream, the Astral Express, glowing with dazzling, multicolored light and still spinning wildly, burst forth from its brain, accompanied by a strangely fitting musical cue.
Onboard the train, the moment the Express shot out of the True Sting's body, fireworks burst across the cosmos. Were they celebrating the Trailblazers' victory… or was it just a collective hallucination caused by the beast?
Staring at the mesmerizing fireworks, March 7th cheered excitedly, "We did it! We really did it: we got out of that monster!"
As her excited voice rang out, the Express stopped spinning and gradually began to decelerate.
Once it came to a complete stop, Pei Guang returned inside. As soon as he stepped in, March ran up to him. "That was amazing, Ah Guang! We actually took that thing down!"
Thanks to the spinning train, the rest of the battle had gone a lot smoother. The energy core in the True Sting's abdomen, along with most of its internal organs, had been smashed to pieces by the train.
Pei Guang had originally expected to find some sort of final boss—maybe even something like a cool dude sitting on a plastic chair—waiting in the head for him to enjoy fighting.
But when he got there? Nothing. Just a brain. Completely empty.
So the Astral Express just plowed right through its head and burst out of the body. Normally, this train wouldn't have had the firepower to wreck something that size.
But the trick was: the train had been spinning.
Pei Guang was slinging skills outside while the others launched all kinds of weapons and special moves. Under that kind of combined assault, there was no way the True Sting could hold up.
This wasn't a Propagation Emanator, and it hadn't even been blessed by Abundance. It was just a big, tough, hungry bug. In fact, it ranked near the bottom among all the True Stings: its only advantage was its massive size, which it used to bully others.
That's why the spinning Express was able to bash through its skull and get everyone out safely.
Even though they ended things with a full-on charge, everyone analyzed the situation and agreed: even without the spinning train, killing that thing would've just been a matter of time. And not much more time, either.
Welt said, "That was one unforgettable battle…"
Dan Heng nodded. "Yeah. Without any one of us, the difficulty would've skyrocketed."
It was true. Without Pei Guang, the only real plan they could've come up with was to flee.
Without either Welt or Dan Heng, no one could say for sure how the wing-slicing strategy would've played out.
It looked like March 7th and the others hadn't contributed much: after all, they didn't kill a ton of bugs. But their presence allowed Dan Heng and Welt to focus entirely. Argenti and Velite's interference also significantly reduced pressure on the two main squads.
At this pace, even if the Astral Express hadn't started spinning, they would've taken the giant bug down steadily and safely.
Pom-Pom chimed in, "Congratulations to all passengers on defeating a powerful foe! Now that the creature interfering with our route has been eliminated, let's continue our journey to Washtopia! Our train—"
Looking at the current state of the train, Pom-Pom was clearly distressed. The entire outer shell was caked with insect guts and fluids, making the Astral Express look filthy.
Pei Guang said, "That's a good thing! It means our train just got a new skin. What should we name it? 'Battle-Hardened Bug Smasher'?"
March 7th raised an eyebrow. "What kind of name is that?!"
Pei Guang grinned. "Because we literally fought our way out of a bug, duh. Hey, Pom-Pom, mind helping me with something? Now that the bug's dead, I need a favor. Get us a little closer."
Pom-Pom replied, "Hmm? Passenger Pei Guang? What do you plan to do?"
Pei Guang answered, "Something big~"
Pom-Pom said, "Understood~"
Returning to the control room, Pom-Pom steered the train closer to the massive corpse. Pei Guang climbed back onto the outside of the train and, once they were near the True Sting, attempted to store it into his inventory.
As he approached, the entire giant creature vanished in an instant—and along with it, a large number of still-living regular True Stings were exposed to open space.
In the vacuum of the universe, many of them died instantly. They had no blessing from the Path of Propagation, nor were they under the protection of an Emanator. Most were wiped out the moment they were exposed.
Some of the stronger ones survived the initial vacuum, but it was clear their bodies couldn't handle traversing planetary atmospheres.
What's more, the battle had already exposed the True Sting's location, and the inhabitants of nearby planets had long prepared for enemies falling from the sky.
The IPC and the Xianzhou Luofu even sent wide-area broadcasts to the surrounding star systems, telling everyone to prepare in advance.
The IPC also dispatched a professional extermination team. They were no match for the giant True Sting, but clearing out the smaller bugs was no problem at all.
This giant True Sting was essentially the mothership for the smaller ones: with the ship destroyed, there was no way the crew inside could survive either.
Pei Guang, satisfied, stored away this spoils of war. The storage space couldn't hold living things, so the fact that he could store this massive insect meant it was indeed dead and counted as a player reward.
Looking at the huge creature now sitting in his inventory, Pei Guang felt the battle had been worthwhile.
But when he returned, he was met with a round of silent stares. Everyone knew that silence wasn't good, so March 7th was the first to break it: "Ah Guang… something that big… you can fit it in?"
Pei Guang replied, "When you play games, do your inventory slots ever restrict the size of the items?"
Silver Wolf chimed in sarcastically, "See? There really isn't a size limit. And there's no weight limit either. In the craziest game I've played, players could pick up an entire galaxy-crafted artifact—and hold 99 of them at once."
Pei Guang said, "Exactly, exactly! I only know there's usually a quantity limit, but there's never a size limit. No matter how big the item, as long as you can pick it up, you can stuff it in."
Welt said, "But… oh, never mind… This is your game world, after all. I shouldn't apply my own experience to it."
Welt had given up trying to make sense of it. Pei Guang wasn't wrong. Even back when he helped make games, inventory systems never actually limited item size. Some games had weight mechanics, sure—but many didn't.
Maybe Pei Guang's inventory system simply didn't include that mechanic?
To a player, how big something can be in their bag depends on the game designers. But clearly, in Pei Guang's case, he lived in a completely open-ended world. Whether he could pick something up didn't depend on the developers, but on whether he wanted to.
After all, every game compromises for the sake of player experience.
Looking at the massive loot inside his inventory, Pei Guang nodded with satisfaction and said, "As the saying goes, bosses are full of treasure. Once this arc is completely over, I'll figure out how to turn this loot into a new set of gear so we can be ready for Penacony."
Stelle lit up with excitement. "You're turning that giant bug into gear? Won't we be invincible then?"
Pei Guang nodded. "Of course! Even if not invincible, I doubt any early-stage mobs will dare mess with us anymore."
March 7th, however, raised a point thoughtfully: "But there's a problem… Turning something that big into gear… how long would that take? Even just breaking it down into usable materials would take ages, wouldn't it?"
That shut Pei Guang up instantly. He looked again at the huge creature in his inventory, and suddenly felt like rain drops were falling over his head.
"Nooooooo!!!"