Chapter 40: When She Turns Pure, She’s 30% Weaker; When She Turns Dark, She’s Three Times Stronger

Chapter 40: When She Turns Pure, She’s 30% Weaker; When She Turns Dark, She’s Three Times Stronger

Out of trust for Caroline—and a very clear understanding of his own utter lack of combat ability—Chen Kong obediently retreated to what looked like a relatively safe distance.

Unfortunately, his display of “obedience” left the dimensional viewers watching from outside the screen completely speechless.

“Bro, you’re hiding again?”

“I swear I’ve said this a hundred times already—Chen Kong, can you please show at least a hint of that final assessment energy? Be a man for once!”

“He might have some strength, but he also kinda doesn’t. You get me?”

“‘About Me Getting Stronger But Remaining a Total Coward’—coming soon to theaters near you.”

As the audience bombarded him with a flood of ridicule, Caroline—who had been closely monitoring the movement within the mist—suddenly shifted into a rare combat stance.

With a sharp flick of both wrists, two data daggers glowing faintly blue slid smoothly from her sleeves, landing perfectly in her hands.

Caroline gripped the daggers tightly, her emerald cat-like eyes locked onto the mist before her, every muscle poised and ready.

Even though the strange fog distorted all vision, making it impossible to see inside directly, Caroline could still read the flow—the unnatural ripple of the outer mist, the faint footsteps echoing within.

In her mind, she was already constructing a mental map of her enemy’s movement.

No one knew how much time passed before she finally spoke, her voice calm and sharp as ice:

“Be grateful Tendou isn’t here right now. Otherwise, trash like you wouldn’t even have the right to stand before me.”

The words had barely fallen when a monstrous crab-like beast lunged out from the mist—its body hulking, purple coral sprouting grotesquely from its head.

But before it could even get close, a data dagger laced with crackling, distorted lightning tore through the air and struck precisely into the coral growth atop its skull.

With a single hit, the crab-beast convulsed violently, stumbled a few steps forward, and collapsed face-first into the dirt, twitching once before going still.

Caroline didn’t spare it a glance. She turned toward another section of the mist, raising her second dagger in silence.

From that direction, two more crab-beasts emerged—eyes glowing with bloodlust as they locked onto Caroline and Chen Kong.

They had no idea who this “Tendou” she mentioned was, nor did they didn’t care.

Their primal instincts had long overridden all thought, leaving only one command echoing in their hollow minds:

Kill everything that moves.

A thunderous roar erupted—and both beasts charged at once.

Yet, just like their fallen kin, one of them didn’t even make it halfway before Caroline’s dagger flew out, splitting through the mist and slamming straight into the coral on its head.

Even when the creature raised its massive iron claws to swat the dagger down, Caroline’s weapon curved mid-air—as if guided by a built-in GPS—weaving past the claws and hitting the target dead-on.

With that one finished, she shifted her gaze toward the last remaining beast.

Using the precious seconds its comrades had bought it with their lives, the final crab-beast surged forward, trampling over their corpses until it loomed right in front of Caroline.

Staring down at the seemingly fragile first-order Starbearer before it, the beast lifted its heavy claws high, ready to crush her into paste.

But Caroline didn’t even flinch.

If anything, a faint smirk tugged at her lips—cold, disdainful, and just a little cruel.

A sharp whistle split the air.

A dagger came flying—from behind the crab-beast.

It pierced clean through the back of its skull, embedding itself deep into the coral growth.

The massive creature froze mid-motion, trembled once, and fell with a resounding thud.

That dagger, of course, was the first one she had thrown.

Because Caroline’s data daggers weren’t just sharp.

They obeyed her will, and as long as they remained within fifteen meters of her, she could command them as freely as her own hands.

Boom!

The last crab-beast, its core of purple coral shattered, collapsed with a dull thud and lay still—dead beyond any doubt.

Seeing that all enemies had been dealt with, Caroline turned on her heel and started walking toward Chen Kong without even glancing back.

But before she could take more than a few steps, the “dead” crab behind her twitched. A faint, almost inaudible rustle came from the pile of corpses.

“Watch out!”

Chen Kong’s eyes widened in horror as he sprinted forward, desperately trying to activate his Star Origin.

Yet before he could even reach her—

Shhk!

A concealed data dagger suddenly materialized out of nowhere, stabbing clean through the smaller crab that had been clinging to the corpse of its larger kin. The blade drove straight into its brain core, pinning it firmly against the ground.

Chen Kong froze in mid-step.

Caroline, without even turning to look, spoke calmly,

“A mother-and-child crab. I noticed it from the start.”

Then she approached him, expression unshaken, and added flatly,

“Save your precious Star Origin power. Aside from Tendou, I don’t need protection from anyone.”

As her words faded, she lifted her hand.

In the next instant, both of her data daggers—like drones responding to a master’s command—whirled back through the air and stopped neatly at her sides.

Caroline drew out a small handkerchief, wiping the green blood from each blade with meticulous care. After confirming that neither dagger had sustained a scratch, she slid them back into the hidden slots sewn into her sleeves.

Once everything was in order, she looked up at Chen Kong with an expression as blank as a glass screen.

“Let’s go. Your ‘Void Mark’ can help me temporarily clear away the mist. With you around, I’m sure we’ll find Tendou soon.”

Her tone was calm—but absolute. It left no room for refusal.

It was painfully obvious that she didn’t care what Chen Kong thought.

To her, this world seemed to contain only one person worth caring about—Tendou. Everyone else might as well be background noise.

And as for Chen Kong—who had never been one to resist orders—he naturally followed along without question.

He moved ahead of her, using the Void Mark to disperse the surrounding fog, perfectly fulfilling his role as a one-man mist-clearing device.

From outside the dimensional screen, the comment section exploded again—though this time for a very different reason.

“Main heroine alert. This has to be the main heroine!”

“Official ship confirmed! Tendou × Caroline stock’s to the moon!”

“This is basically My Robotic Girlfriend, Galactic Edition.”

“Sigh~ guess us TenXing fans are never getting our happy ending.”

Guided by Chen Kong’s “Void Mark,” the two quickly found Chen Xing, who had already taken down her own crab-beasts elsewhere in the parking lot.

Once she rejoined the team, the trio managed to push their way out of the dense fog—only to come face-to-face with a scene that froze all three in place.

For a moment, time itself seemed to stop.

Chen Kong’s eyes went wide with terror, disbelief twisting his face.

Chen Xing’s expression darkened; the Bloodflame in her hand erupted with searing demonic fire, a reflection of the crushing pressure inside her.

And Caroline—the always composed, always logical Caroline—was trembling.

“Tendou…?”

It was the first time her voice had ever shaken. Her entire body began to quiver uncontrollably.

There’s a saying: when a pure girl is redeemed, she grows weak; but when she falls into darkness, her power triples.

As she stared at Tendou’s body lying motionless in a pool of blood—life and death uncertain—Caroline’s calm mask shattered.

Her silver hair lifted without wind, static coursing through the air around her. Strange circuit-like patterns spread rapidly across her pale skin, glowing faintly beneath the surface.

Moments later—

Zzzzzzttt!!

A violent surge of white electricity burst from her body, arcing wildly through the air.

Stellar Technique—Power Surge Overload!

“Die.”

There was no hesitation, no thought.

Driven by pure fury, Caroline became a streak of silver lightning, all logic and calculation erased from her mind.

Her data daggers shot from her hands, tracing lethal arcs of light through the air—each one locked precisely onto the vitals of the Coral Knight standing in her way.

At this moment, the calm and composed Caroline was nowhere to be found.

What replaced her was pure, unrestrained madness and rage.

Lightning arced wildly around her body as she charged, every movement dripping with murderous intent.

Cromwell, watching her sudden burst of power, felt a flicker of surprise flash across his eyes.

According to Tachibana’s report, the one wielding the blade—Chen Xing—was supposed to be the strongest among the “Children of the Stars,” second only to Tendou himself.

But seeing this Machina Type Starbearer now… that information suddenly felt very unreliable.

The danger she radiated—raw, chaotic, and utterly focused—was leagues beyond Chen Xing’s measured aggression.

‘Had she been hiding her true strength? Or had this fury awakened something dormant within her?’

As those thoughts ran through his head, Cromwell raised one hand almost lazily.

Caroline’s data daggers, each wreathed in lightning fierce enough to kill a crab-beast in an instant, struck against his armor—and stopped.

With a casual flick of his wrist, he parried both blades aside as though they were nothing but toys.

Unlike when he fought Tendou earlier—when he’d gone all out, serious and sharp—Cromwellnow remained perfectly composed.

Against the blackened, berserk Caroline, he didn’t even bother to attack.

Every move he made was effortless defense—his posture relaxed, his movements clean.

The power gap between them was painfully clear.

Fortunately, Caroline wasn’t fighting alone.

A sudden flare of red ignited across the battlefield.

Chen Xing, face dark and fierce, joined the fight—her demonic blade Bloodflame roaring to life, its edge burning with otherworldly fire.

Now facing not one, but two top-ranked “Twin Stars,” Cromwell could no longer maintain his air of nonchalance.

He finally straightened his stance, taking them seriously.

After all, Tachibana and Tendou had given him strict orders:

In this artificial “desperate scenario,” he was to win—but never go easy.

If he held back even a little, there’d be no real danger, no pressure—and certainly no awakening of hidden potential.

But what neither Tachibana nor Tendou had expected—was that this little “scripted crisis” might have gone a bit too far.

Because judging from Caroline’s current state—her eyes blazing, reason shattered, power spiraling out of control—they might’ve just created a real disaster.

‘Uh-oh, how are we supposed to end this without dying?’

At the edge of the parking lot, behind a half-burned car, Tendou—who’d been secretly observing everything through the dimensional feed—was drenched in cold sweat.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of Caroline losing it completely.

‘She’s going to kill me when she finds out,’ he thought, face pale. ‘She’s definitely going to kill me.’

And the worst part? He couldn’t even fight back.

Even if she couldn’t beat him in strength, he knew full well he was the one at fault.

Punching back would just make him look like an even bigger jerk.

His brain kicked into overdrive, scrambling to find a way—any way—to smooth things over before she inevitably found out the truth.

Because if he couldn’t give Caroline a very, very good explanation… he could kiss his peaceful days goodbye for a long, long time.

Perhaps the production team sensed his panic—or maybe they just found his current expression too entertaining—because in the middle of the high-speed, explosive battle between Caroline, Chen Xing, and Cromwell, they actually cut away for a close-up shot of Tendou.

The camera zoomed in toward Tendou, whose eyes squeezed shut, lips trembling uncontrollably, sweat beading down his forehead.

The very picture of a man who knew he’d just dug his own grave.

The contrast between this nervous wreck—and the usual Tendou who strutted around all arrogant and untouchable—was hilarious.

The comment section immediately exploded in laughter.

“HAHAHA—Tendou’s scared! Look at him panic!”

“‘About the Director Who Wrote a Crisis Scene and Accidentally Wrote Himself Into It’—up next on Saturday nights!”

“Tendou: ‘I said to give Caroline a desperate trial, not to give me one!!’”

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