Chapter 44: Pure Destruction, Maximum Satisfaction
"Dan Heng, why do you think Yaoshi responded to all prayers in the beginning?"
The cabin of the Astral Express was quiet, bathed only in the faint, shifting starlight that filtered through the reinforced glass.
"I don't know." Dan Heng's voice was flat, betraying nothing in the dark.
"Did They really want to save everyone, or was it just... that They couldn't stop?"
"I... am not sure."
A soft rustle of fabric sounded from the other side of the room. "Dan Heng, do you hate me?"
Dan Heng turned his face toward the wall, his jaw tightening. "Why would you think that?"
"Because you hate the Abundance."
The silence stretched, heavy with unspoken histories and the weight of the Xianzhou Luofu. Dan Heng closed his eyes. "...You are different." He shook his head against the pillow.
"So you don't hate me?"
"I don't hate you."
On the opposite bed, the small, vibrant blade of grass sprouting from the top of Rekka's head swayed gently in the recycled air of the cabin.
Rekka's eyes were half-closed, his gaze unfocused, staring at a ceiling he did not seem to see. "Mm... mm... okay..." he murmured, his voice drifting into a strange, detached cadence. It no longer sounded like he was talking to Dan Heng at all. "You are very lonely, aren't you..."
They felt no sorrow, yet They were sorrowful. Possessing eternal life had not helped Them accumulate wisdom; instead, the things They once regarded as treasures began to fade into dust, never to return.
"Huhu mm... dear?" Rekka mumbled, the philosophical weight of the Aeon dissolving into sleepy, incoherent hums as he finally drifted off.
The next morning, the sharp beep of an alarm cut through the quiet. Dan Heng woke up exactly on time, reaching out to silence the clock.
"Good morning, Dan Heng."
Dan Heng sat up and immediately noticed Rekka's posture. Rekka was already awake, sitting on the edge of his bed, his left hand subconsciously gripping his own chest. A jagged, glowing golden crack flickered at the edge of his collar, pulsing with a dangerous, volatile heat like a freshly forged brand.
"Today?" Dan Heng asked, his eyes narrowing at the light.
"Destruction." Rekka stated.
Dan Heng scrutinized him. "...Are you sure? You haven't turned into a miniature Nanook today."
In response, Rekka simply grabbed the fabric of his collar and pulled it down. Dan Heng's breath caught slightly. A terrifying, jagged golden wound tore across Rekka's chest, extending all the way from his collarbone down to his abdomen. It was not bleeding crimson, but rather flowing with a thick, molten golden energy that hissed softly against the air.
It was not a physical injury. It was a pure, unfiltered manifestation of the Path of Destruction anchoring itself into a mortal vessel.
"Does it hurt?" Dan Heng asked.
"It hurts, but it's not fatal." Rekka's voice was noticeably deeper today, rougher around the edges, carrying a low, gravelly vibration. "It's like someone tearing me apart and stitching me back together, then tearing me apart again, over and over. But I'm used to it."
Dan Heng nodded silently. It was exactly as he had observed. As long as Rekka adapted to a certain Path once, the next time the universe forced him into that same Path, his body and mind wouldn't be nearly as clumsy or overwhelmed as the first time.
According to Rekka's own casual admissions, this absurd power to randomly switch Paths was a recent acquisition. He had never possessed this ability before boarding the Express.
So, who exactly was Rekka?
The question remained buried deep within Dan Heng's chest. He did not voice it. He carried his own heavy secrets, shadows of a past life he refused to speak of. If Rekka chose to keep his origins quiet, Dan Heng would respect that boundary.
Staring at the blinding golden light spilling from the phantom wound for one more second, Dan Heng withdrew his gaze and stood up to prepare for the day.
A short while later, Rekka sat on the plush sofa in the main parlor car of the Astral Express.
His fingers twitched. His foot tapped a rapid, erratic rhythm against the floorboards. He wanted, very badly, with every fiber of his being, to smash something into a thousand unrecognizable pieces.
Across the room, March 7th hummed a cheerful tune. She had placed a rusted, heavy iron lockbox on the table—salvage from a half-destroyed ship they had explored days ago—and was currently wrestling with the latch, trying to pry it open with a small tool.
Rekka's eyes locked onto the box.
He moved instantly. He crossed the room in a blur, shoved March's hands out of the way, and brought his fist down.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three deafening, brutal strikes echoed through the parlor car. The iron box completely caved in, warping and shattering into jagged metal shrapnel. Rekka did not even glance at the contents spilling out from the wreckage. He simply exhaled a long, deep breath, his shoulders dropping in absolute relief, wearing an expression that practically screamed, 'Oh, that hits the spot.'
He turned and walked away, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
March 7th stood frozen. She looked down at the violently flattened scrap metal on the table, then watched a pristine gemstone hairpin roll off the edge and clatter onto the floor. She stared at the hairpin for several long seconds, her mouth opening and closing, completely at a loss for words.
Rekka's Destruction was incredibly pure.
He did not harbor any malice. He simply possessed an overwhelming, biological urge to break things. There was no grand philosophy behind it, no specific target that drew his ire. He just needed to smash.
What was inside the box did not matter. Why the box needed to be smashed did not matter.
The visceral, bone-deep comfort that washed over him after the act of smashing was the only thing that mattered.
Rekka paced back out from the corridor, his eyes darting around the parlor car. The golden crack on his chest pulsed brighter with his elevated heart rate, glowing faintly through his shirt.
He looked at the sofa. 'No, too soft. The kinetic feedback would be terrible. No satisfaction there.'He eyed the coffee table.'Glass. It would shatter into dust with a single tap. Too fragile. Boring.'He stared up at the ornate wall clock.'Not really worth the effort.'
"Want to take something apart?"
The calm, elegant voice came from behind him. Rekka whipped his head around, a dangerous, feral light flickering in his eyes.
Himeko stood there, holding a steaming cup of coffee, completely unfazed by the aura of pure violence radiating from him.
"Where?" Rekka demanded, his voice tight.
"An abandoned industrial space station belonging to the Interstellar Peace Corporation," Himeko explained casually, taking a sip from her cup. "It is entirely filled with scrapped heavy machinery and high-strength alloy structures. The Corporation originally planned to hire demolition crews to clean it up, but those structures proved far too sturdy. The cost of conventional demolition exceeded their budget, so the project was shelved indefinitely. If you are willing to help clear it out, you can earn a rather generous..."
"Heavy machinery? High-strength alloy?" Rekka interrupted, his posture straightening instantly. The feral light in his eyes ignited into a blazing inferno of excitement.
"Yes. Alloy armor plates over half a meter thick, and reactor shells weighing thousands of tons." Himeko lowered her cup and met his gaze. "Smash it however you want. The more shattered it is, the better. Absolutely no one will stop you."
"Good! Let's go there right now! Are we leaving immediately? I can jump out the airlock right now!"
"Of course." Himeko smiled, pulling out her navigation terminal and tapping a few commands. "The Astral Express happens to be passing directly through that star sector as we speak."
It did not take long. The Astral Express slowed its cosmic trajectory, arriving at a massive graveyard of metal.
Colossal structures, resembling the decaying corpses of mechanical leviathans, floated aimlessly in the vacuum of space. Their surfaces were heavily scarred by the passage of time and cosmic dust, yet the sheer thickness of the plating made it obvious just how indestructible they had once been.
"Go on, go on. Just be careful not to smash yourself in the process," Himeko called out from the airlock controls. "No need to rush back. The entire day is yours."
Rekka did not even bother equipping a protective space suit. The Path of Destruction surged through his veins, rendering the freezing vacuum and lack of oxygen completely irrelevant. He launched himself out of the Express like a missile.
Inside the parlor car, Himeko walked over to the windows. "March, what are you doing?"
"Live streaming!" March 7th replied instantly, adjusting a floating camera drone from her terminal.
"A daily live stream of Rekka's weird phases. I feel like my followers will find this incredibly interesting."
"Did you actually talk to him about this?" Himeko asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We discussed it before! He doesn't mind!"
On the holographic projection floating above March's terminal, the silent vacuum of space played out in high definition. Although there was no sound, the sheer visual impact was staggering. A solid metal plate, easily the size of a standard stadium, buckled and folded entirely in half as Rekka drove a single, bare fist into its center.
March 7th subconsciously shrank her neck back, wincing at the phantom impact.
Raw, unadulterated numerical values. That was the only truth of a king!
Rekka was not even using his Path energy to disintegrate the metal. He was simply running wild, acting like an unleashed dog in a field of bones, tearing the station apart with pure, terrifying physical strength.
If he used the actual cosmic power of Destruction, he would vaporize the entire space station in a single blast, and the fun would be over instantly. He would be left with nothing else to break.
It was a mindset perfectly mirroring the Antimatter Legion. Even though their bodies vibrated with genuine, world-ending antimatter, and they possessed the direct blessing of Nanook alongside devastating heavy weapon technology, countless members of the Legion were hopelessly addicted to the visceral thrill of primitive, cold-weapon combat. Voidrangers literally implanted antimatter field generators directly into their arms just so they could form indestructible blades and hack their enemies apart up close.
Fighting was just too satisfying!
Punch after punch, Rekka could not stop. He refused to stop. The kinetic vibration feeding back from his knuckles as they collided with the ultra-dense metal traveled up his arms, making the golden crack on his chest flare brighter and brighter until he looked like a miniature sun.
He drove his fist straight into a half-meter-thick alloy armor plate. The metal shrieked silently in the vacuum as his arm pierced entirely through it. Using his embedded arm as an anchor point, the entire massive plate spiderwebbed with deep, jagged fissures in every direction.
Rekka grabbed the cracked edge with his free hand, planted his boots against the hull, and pulled with everything he had.
Creak.
The colossal armor plate was forcibly ripped away from the main structural frame, the jagged metal edges tearing like wet paper. Rekka casually tossed the stadium-sized scrap metal over his shoulder into the void and immediately turned his hungry gaze toward a massive, abandoned reactor shell.
He spotted a primary cooling pipe jutting from the side. He grabbed it, braced his legs, and uprooted the massive cylinder entirely from its housing.
Wielding the heavy pipe like a giant baseball bat, Rekka swung it wildly, battering the reactor shell with relentless, heavy blows that caved the reinforced exterior inward with every strike.
Himeko walked up behind March 7th, leaning over her shoulder to watch the chaotic broadcast on the screen.
"It seems your audience is very interested in this kind of pure, stress-relieving activity," Himeko noted, watching the viewer count skyrocket.
"People nowadays are just so stressed out. Watching someone else completely demolish things is super satisfying," March said, her eyes glued to the screen as Rekka suplexed a piece of machinery. "And it's just such a visually impactful way of smashing things! Sister Himeko, seriously, how many Credit Points do you think he could earn in a single day if he just went to work at a construction site with those hands?"
On the screen, Rekka brought the pipe down again. The impact sent a visible shockwave warping the space around the reactor.
"I don't know exactly how much he would earn," Himeko said, taking another slow sip of her coffee. "But looking at this... I think we should just be very thankful that he is actually quite restrained in his daily impulses for Destruction."
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