Dreamwalking

Quill returned to the starship carrying the heavily injured and unconscious Valkyrie, but instead of heroic cheers, he was greeted by curses and abuse.

The Ravagers who knew him especially cursed him the most viciously. They knew Quill best and had the clearest understanding of his combat ability, so when placing their bets at the casino, they had all bet on Quill losing.

The result was that everyone lost everything, while the house raked in a fortune.

If they hadn’t been wary of Quill’s suddenly overwhelming strength, which made him someone they absolutely couldn’t afford to provoke, they might have swarmed him and devoured him alive.

"Hey, hey, don’t be like that!"

After Quill figured out the reason, he didn’t care about the curses at all. Instead, he smugly reveled in his victory.

"It’s entirely your own fault that you lost!"

"Who told you not to trust me?"

"Next time you run into a bet like this, keep your eyes open. Bet on me to win, and you’ll naturally win back everything you lost this time!"

"Ha-ha…"

Quill handed Valkyrie to a Kree warrior and had him take her to the infirmary, then smugly returned to his quarters.

As soon as he opened the door, Rocket lunged at him.

"Yo! Companions really are the best!" Quill smugly raised a hand to greet everyone.

"You’re so eager to welcome me… What’s with that look on your face?"

Rocket climbed onto Quill’s neck, hugged his head, and struck him with Turtle Fists, pounding both sides of his ears.

"Stop!"

"Quit it!"

"What the hell’s gotten into you?"

Quill grabbed Rocket by the neck and pulled him down, shouting furiously.

Drax sat nearby watching the two roughhouse, clutching his chest with both hands as he laughed uproariously.

"He bet on you!"

"And he bet several times!"

"Ha-ha…"

Quill rolled his eyes and flung Rocket aside. "Who told you not to bet on me winning?"

Rocket landed with a somersault, then angrily shouted at the people inside the room:

"Did you see that?"

"My claws couldn’t even scratch him just now!"

"His skin is harder than steel plating now!"

Drax had only just stopped laughing, but when he heard that, he burst out laughing again.

"I am Groot!" Groot waved his branches, though no one knew what he was saying.

Only Rocket could understand Groot. He shook his head and said, "Quill’s skin was thick before, but my claws could still scratch it. Now his skin has worn down my claws!"

As he spoke, Rocket held out his small paws. Sure enough, the tips of his claws had been completely worn smooth.

"I know. You’re just jealous!" Quill said with a smug grin. "What do you think? Want to join the Nova Corps too?"

"Once you become a Nova warrior, your strength can become incredibly powerful too!"

"Strong like you?" Rocket was tempted.

"How could that be?" Quill shook his head. "WM said my bloodline is rather special. I can withstand almost limitless Nova Energy, but ordinary warriors can’t do that."

"Then can I scratch through your thick skin?" Rocket asked again.

Quill’s face darkened as he shouted:

"It’s a naturally generated energy shield, not thick skin!"

"Even the main cannon of the starship can’t penetrate my energy shield. With your pitiful attack power, there’s even less chance of you injuring my body."

"But becoming an ordinary Nova warrior or a Nova Corps centurion is still possible."

"Tch!" Rocket had completely lost interest in the whole thing. "A thick skin that even the starship’s main cannon can’t hurt? Boring!"

He shook his paws, wagged his enormous tail, and ran off to the side.

"Thick skin that even the starship’s main cannon can’t hurt… Ha-ha…" Drax started laughing wildly again.

Quill sighed and completely gave up on these unreliable companions. He turned and went back to his room, leaving only Groot behind. Groot looked from side to side, then pointed a branch at his own nose, seemingly asking, "Why didn’t you ask what I wanted?"

Zhan Liu had watched the entire battle between Valkyrie and Quill. At a glance, he could tell that once the real fight began, the one controlling Quill’s body had been the supercomputer Worldmind of Xandar.

Although he looked down on the power of the Nova Force, after combining with Quill’s demigod body, Nova Energy could be output to its maximum potential. It had to be said that with Worldmind’s assistance, Quill had now become one of the few truly powerful beings in the universe.

Infinite energy was already an extraordinary thing. From the perspective of infinite energy alone, it was enough to place it on the same level as dimensional lords such as Dormammu. The only differences were that this dimension had no master, and its size and total energy reserves were different.

Although the Nova Force still fell short of the six Infinity Stones, it was unquestionably a cosmic-level supreme treasure. It was simply a supreme treasure that was rather picky about its host.

Now that Worldmind had found a suitable host, it meant that he wouldn’t be staying on the starship much longer. Perhaps he needed to find the starship a backup source of Nova power.

Sovereign seemed to have a super battery whose explosions could even kill the planetary life-form Ego. Bringing back more of it to use as backup energy should work nicely.

As for the critically injured Valkyrie who was supposedly on the verge of death, that wasn’t a problem. The vitality of powerful beings was extraordinarily tenacious. Besides, with Zhan Liu, a super healer, present, it would be difficult for Valkyrie to die even if she wanted to.

During the final strike, Zhan Liu had seen that Valkyrie had broken free of the psychological shadow cast by the God of Death, Hela, and achieved a spiritual transformation of her own. Therefore, he decided to give Valkyrie a chance.

He rose and went to the infirmary. Valkyrie was lying inside a medical pod. Her body was submerged in restorative fluid, with bones twisted and bent all over, large areas of her skin burned by extreme heat, and traces of deep radiation damage.

Kree medical technology leaned toward the technological side, so the ones setting Valkyrie’s bones and treating her injuries were tiny nanobots floating in the restorative fluid.

Zhan Liu took a casual look and felt that they were far inferior to Tony’s nanobots. They weren’t even on the same technological level. He had no idea how the so-called Three Great Empires had developed their technology trees, but their progress was truly unimpressive.

Now that he was here, there was no need to use such backward Kree medical technology.

Zhan Liu reached out and opened the medical pod’s cover, then used the power of Magnetic Field Rotation to reorganize Valkyrie’s cells. In less than a second, Valkyrie had completely recovered.

Valkyrie abruptly opened her eyes and sat up inside the medical pod. Pale green restorative fluid streamed down her powerful body before flowing back into the pod.

Valkyrie drew a deep breath. Remembering the final moment before she lost consciousness, she wiped her face and jumped out of the medical pod.

She didn’t care that Zhan Liu had seen her entire body. She openly took a towel from the cabinet beside her, dried herself, then let divine power surge through her. A standard Asgardian Valkyrie battle robe appeared on her body.

"Did you save me?" she asked with a smile as she stood in front of Zhan Liu and looked up at him. Her smile carried a vitality that had never been there before.

"To be precise, Quill brought you back. I merely accelerated the recovery of your injuries." Zhan Liu had no interest in claiming credit for someone else’s work.

"Is that so? Then I suppose I’ll have to thank him later?" Valkyrie’s tone was rather displeased.

"Congratulations. You’ve broken free of your mental shackles and successfully defeated yourself."

Valkyrie rolled her eyes at Zhan Liu. "Are you very familiar with my past? How did you know I defeated myself?"

"Your essence, energy, and spirit." Zhan Liu pointed at Valkyrie’s eyes. "A warrior’s essence, energy, and spirit can reveal many things."

Valkyrie stretched, wrapped her arms around Zhan Liu’s arm, and said lazily, "I only figured out a few things."

"That alone is no small achievement. Many people spend their entire lives unable to figure things out." Zhan Liu put an arm around her and walked back with her. He asked casually, "I’m the leader of the Ultimate Limit Sect. I have a technique called the Ultimate Yuan Magnetic Limitless Lightning Method that’s very suitable for you and can make you stronger. Do you want to learn it?"

"No." Valkyrie rejected him without hesitation. "You can’t bite off more than you can chew."

"Divine power alone is enough for someone to study for an entire lifetime."

"Odin became invincible throughout the universe with divine power alone and ruled the Nine Realms."

"As a warrior of Asgard, I actually don’t need to pursue power from other systems."

"I’ve only realized it now, but when I abandoned Asgard’s power and pursued something like Nova Energy, I had already been utterly defeated."

"No matter how infinite or powerful that energy is, it still can’t help me defeat my enemy."

"Only Asgardian divine power can do that, because it’s the power that truly belongs to my soul!"

"But fortunately, I awakened before it was too late."

"That’s how it is. Thank you for your kindness, but I don’t want to distract myself with other power systems anymore."

After her awakening, Valkyrie had become much more confident, and her understanding of divine power had deepened considerably. Naturally, her strength had also advanced by a large margin.

"All right. Since you’re not interested, I’ll save myself some time. Otherwise, merely explaining the Daoist Canon, lightning arts, and so on to you would be quite troublesome."

Since Valkyrie had already reached her own realization, Zhan Liu naturally wouldn’t keep insisting that she learn. His attempt to take an alien disciple ended there.

During space travel, there was no distinction between day and night, but the human biological clock was still affected. Therefore, the starship continued to arrange daytime and nighttime according to a schedule.

After a full day of commotion, everyone’s energy gradually ran out. Carrying drunkenness and fatigue, they entered their dreams.

Quill suddenly opened his eyes and sat up. With an expressionless face, he got dressed and left.

Rocket warily opened his eyes and glanced at Quill. He muttered something, then lay back down and went to sleep.

After a long while, before the morning lights came on, Quill pushed open the door and returned. He took off his clothes again and lay back down to sleep.

After daybreak, the starship gradually regained the vitality and energy of daytime, becoming noisy once more.

"Hey, Quill, where did you go last night? You didn’t come back until almost dawn?" Rocket jumped onto the washstand, brushed his teeth at the mirror, and kicked Quill while mumbling indistinctly.

Quill tilted his head back and gargled for a while. After spitting out the water, he said strangely, "What? I was sleeping the whole time. I didn’t go anywhere."

"Oh, come on. I saw you with my own eyes!" After brushing his teeth, Rocket began grooming the fur on his head.

Quill shrugged and said casually, "Then you must have been dreaming."

"I am Groot!" Groot suddenly cut in. Rocket immediately beamed and said, "See? Even Groot saw you. Just admit it! Were you secretly practicing Nova Energy last night? It’s not embarrassing for a good-for-nothing like you to suddenly develop some ambition."

"Ha!" Quill only laughed halfway. "No one can understand what Groot says. You just translate it however you want, don’t you?"

"What?" Rocket became angry and tossed the wooden comb into the toiletries rack. "I, Rocket, have never stooped to lying!"

"Yes, yes. And I wonder who tricked us last time and then secretly drank all the alcohol himself?" Quill exposed Rocket’s boast without the slightest mercy.

"That was only once!" Rocket stubbornly insisted.

"And the time before that… and the time before that…" Quill began counting the minor offenses on his fingers. Rocket guiltily turned away, picked up the wooden comb, and continued combing his fur.

Seeing that Rocket had fallen silent, Quill continued pressing his advantage as though he had won a great victory. "Drax, did you see me go out yesterday?"

Drax shook his head. "No."

"See?" Quill spread both hands. "You were clearly half-asleep."

Rocket was unhappy with that and shrieked, "Drax sleeps like a dead pig every night. You could set off a cannon beside his ear and he might not even wake up!"

"Sleep like a dead pig? Ha-ha…" Drax’s laugh was inexplicably triggered again, and he threw his head back and laughed loudly.

Quill and Rocket looked at each other, then at the inexplicably laughing Drax. They each sighed and muttered in unison, "Why do I have such an unreliable group of companions?"

The two of them lost interest and stopped arguing over whether Quill had gone out the previous night. After seeing this, Drax laughed even louder.

That night, in the dead of night, Quill opened his eyes again and walked out.

After Rocket noticed, his drowsiness vanished instantly. He bounced gleefully onto Drax’s bed and shook him awake.

"Heh-heh, wake up, big guy!"

"Look, Quill went out again in the middle of the night!"

Drax, bleary-eyed with sleep, looked up once, then rolled over and continued sleeping.

"Hey, you saw him. Quill’s lying!"

"He must be secretly training his Nova Energy."

Rocket spoke with envy, jealousy, and resentment.

"I am Groot!" Groot suddenly cut in.

"Huh? What you said makes sense too." Rocket slapped his forehead, suddenly enlightened.

"At this hour, maybe he really went out on a date."

Rocket folded one arm across his chest and rested his chin on the other hand, tapping the floor lightly with his toe as he pondered carefully.

"Which girl has this womanizer picked up now?"

"Or did he and Gamora get back together?"

"I am Groot!" Groot waved his branches, his large eyes blinking as he joined in the gossip.

"You’re right. If it were Gamora, he wouldn’t need to hide it from us."

"Then who could it be?"

"Could it be Nebula?"

Rocket snapped his fingers and gave a lecherous grin.

"His big sister dumped him, so he went after his little sister instead. That really is something Quill would do!"

"We’ll interrogate him properly tomorrow."

The next day, during the morning wash, Rocket sidled over sneakily and slapped Quill hard on the butt.

"Hey, Quill, how was your date last night?"

Quill glanced down, spat out his mouthwash, and complained:

"Oh, Rocket, enough already. Isn’t this over yet?"

"Drink less before you go to sleep next time. It’s bad for your health and can cause hallucinations."

"Don’t change the subject!" Rocket wasn’t about to let him off so easily. He jumped onto the washstand, crouched in front of Quill, and looked him in the eyes. "Come clean. Who was it? Nebula or Valkyrie?"

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Quill grabbed Rocket and set him down, then continued washing.

"Drax, did Quill go out last night? You saw him too!" Rocket turned and shouted loudly.

"Yes, I saw it too. Quill went out last night." Drax, still half-asleep, nodded and answered in a daze.

"See? Big guy never lies. He saw it too." Rocket smugly circled Quill. "So, Quill, you’d better come clean. Even if you failed to pick anyone up, we won’t laugh at you!"

Though Rocket said that, his eyes had already narrowed into slits, and the corners of his mouth were raised high.

Quill put down his toiletries and glanced back at Drax. Seeing Drax nod at him with an utterly serious expression, he paused for a moment, then immediately understood. Smiling, he pointed at them one by one.

"Ho-ho, so you’ve teamed up to play a prank on me!"

"I’m not falling for it!"

After washing up, Quill turned and left, ignoring Rocket, who followed behind him and kept chattering.

Rocket was furious. He folded his arms across his chest. "What a stubborn guy! Still, I’m more interested in who he went to meet in secret at midnight."

"I am Groot!" Groot had appeared behind Rocket at some point. He watched Quill walk away, tilting his head in confusion.

"That’s acting! It’s acting, Groot!" Rocket rolled his eyes adorably and patted Groot’s long leg. "He can’t possibly not know where he went. He isn’t sleepwalking!"

"I am Groot!"

"If he really is sleepwalking, then we need to figure it out even more. He couldn’t suddenly develop sleepwalking out of nowhere!"

"I am Groot!"

"This isn’t gossip. I’m concerned about my companion. That’s right, I’m concerned about my companion!"

"I am Groot!"

"Eh? Is it really that obvious?" Rocket hurriedly pulled out a small mirror and, sure enough, saw his own beaming face reflected in it.

"Ahem." He quickly covered his mouth with one hand and coughed twice, making himself look a little more composed.

"In any case, if he goes out again tonight—no, I mean, if he sleepwalks again—we’ll secretly follow him and see what he’s been up to."

That night, Rocket didn’t sleep at all. He pricked up his ears and listened carefully for any movement from Quill’s bed.

When Quill got up and went out again, Rocket immediately leaped up in a panic and shook Drax awake.

"Hey, Drax, wake up!"

"Quill is sleepwalking. We have to follow him and find out who’s pulling the strings."

"Quill is our companion. We can’t let him get taken advantage of."

Rocket struggled to hold back his laughter as he egged Drax on.

The moment Drax heard that Quill was in danger of being taken advantage of, he woke up completely. He rolled over and sat up, got dressed, grabbed his weapons, and prepared for battle.

"Who’s hurting Quill?"

"I’ll kill him!"

Rocket hurriedly hugged him, afraid that Drax’s recklessness would ruin the show.

"Wait, don’t rush. We can’t be sure yet that this isn’t some mess Quill caused by fooling around with women and then abandoning them. Don’t attack just yet. We’ll talk after we figure out what’s going on."

The three of them then followed behind Quill sneakily, watching as he twisted and turned through the corridors of the starship, clearly heading toward a specific destination.

Rocket became increasingly certain that Quill had been sneaking off to meet a woman these past few nights. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have navigated the route so smoothly.

After winding through several turns, Quill finally stopped and knocked on a door. He then stood outside and began chatting with the person inside.

Although they couldn’t hear what was being said, the person in that room was clearly their target. Now that they had found the target, there was no need to keep hiding.

Rocket split his mouth into a wide grin, wagged his big tail, and swaggered toward them with the other two.

"Heh heh heh, Quill, we finally caught you in the act, didn’t we?"

"Let’s see what kind of gorgeous beauty you’ve been secretly meeting for three nights straight… Ah!"

When they finally reached the door, Rocket poked his head inside and suddenly let out a shriek, his body springing backward. Drax and Groot were startled and hurriedly leaned over to look. They discovered that there was no great beauty inside at all, but a completely blue Kree warrior.

"Quill…" Rocket’s voice changed pitch. "Has your orientation changed?"

"Oh my god, Quill’s gone gay!"

Rocket spun around and leaped onto Groot, wrapping all four limbs around him like a monkey climbing a tree.

"This is bad. We’re in danger, Groot!"

"I am Groot!" Groot swung a branch, his eyebrows curving with laughter.

"Oh, right, you’re safe!" Rocket’s face stiffened. He climbed down from Groot, turned around, and hugged Drax’s thick leg instead. "Then we’re in danger, Drax!"

Drax had also seen the Kree warrior inside. Realizing that this was yet another misunderstanding caused by the unreliable Rocket and that Quill was in no danger, he relaxed and threw his head back, roaring with laughter once again.

However, before their laughter and horseplay had ended, the instant "Quill" turned to look at them, every sound of laughter vanished.

All the fur on Rocket’s body stood straight up with a sudden whoosh. He hunched over and assumed a fighting stance.

Drax whipped out his twin blades and shouted, "Who exactly are you?"

Groot also swung a branch and lifted the enormous table beside him.

Under the dim lights, those eyes were cold and emotionless. They definitely did not belong to Quill.

P.S.

Happy New Year’s Eve!