Legend of the Supreme Soldier - Chapter 431

e Chong carefully inspected every part of Han Jia. The prelude of war was haunting the atmosphere within the ship. Being a cargo vessel, because of its lack of proper defense mechanism, it would be a gamble whether if they could even pass the pathway. All forces had already been sent to the frontline, so nobody would be saving them, only they could save themselves.

The plan was to blast off with maximum firepower at one point and zap through the pathway before things happened. That would be far riskier since a defenseless vessel like Darvill might be crashing into clusters of Crustalades in the course. But they had no other option. The forces of the three aristocrats were subsiding drastically, the families could no longer disperse their military forces to escort the vessels.

Meanwhile, the crew members of Darrell were rather relieved of having a super fighter in their ship since that would simply translate as a likelihood to survive.

The entrance to the pathway was a narrow one. So, the ships must travel in almost like a queue, where one tailed the other. If it was not Xue Lai’s achievement in the battle before, this massive evacuation would never happen. Xue Lai clan was far ahead of the other aristocrats, they had already hit the center of the pathway, yet countless Crustalades raided them and they were helpless, eventually succumbed to requesting help.

It took about 5 days for the giant fleet consisted of the 3 aristocrats to travel through the entrance entirely. Darvill was currently at the core of the fleet and passed through the tiny gap on the third day of the course.

Unlike the tiny opening before, the interior of the pathway was rather spacious, so the fleet could finally breathe.

It felt like another world inside…

The leading ship of the fleet was on full fire, as shower of beams clashed densely with the opposite.

A war had already happened!

The fleet was traveling sluggishly, as Xue Lai clan and Xi Feng tribe had teamed up to fight back on full force. Beams of different colors slashed through the wave of aggressive Crustalades.

The happening ahead was transmitted to the hologram projections of all ships behind. It was a stunning visual which people would stumble upon.

And now they finally could understand the reason the squad of each family had fallen, as they recognized the seriousness of the attack.

Xue Lai clan and Xi Feng tribe shone on this stage, for they had great technologies specialized in ranged attacks. The lasers sliced through darkness like a meteor shower, as they seared the purplish dark cloud of Crustalades.

The joint attack of two families might be impeccable but the number of Crutalades was overwhelming, that a handful of them survived even under the dense net of fired beams. Of course, they would not last when they reached the second defense line, where the Ye family was standing. The mechs of Ye family wielded a pair of iron fists, shredding the remaining arthropods.

Han Jia was hovering near Darvill. He did not advance forward, since he knew the frontline had already become a slaughterhouse. An additional man or two would not change a thing.

Han Jia, the skeleton mech was invisible in most detection systems, so no other ships had actually noticed its existence in the dark.

Looking at the fireworks ahead, Ye Chong could not help but to sigh, as finding his strength insignificant in this galactic battle.

HNNNNGGGG!

Suddenly, a Crustalade flew by, seemingly unaware of Han Jia.

It was heading towards Darvill rapidly!

Ye Chong could even see its jaw flapping excitingly.

Wait, it did not come for me?

Ye Chong was confused, but somehow the insect ignored him in fact.

Wait… does that mean…

Ye Chong had an idea. He wanted to test something.

Han Jia remained static like a piece of meteorite in the space, anticipating the arriving arthropod.

500 meters.

The course of Crustalade unchanged.

300 meters.

Unchanged.

100 meters.

Unchanged?

Ye Chong’s speculation was getting verified. The truth was revealing.

3 meters…

HHNNNNNNNGGG…

Han Jia was completely ignored. The daggers were drawn, the shadow danced, then the insect was bisected as it passed the unseen. Do-Kun stone was still the hardest. Thought Ye Chong as he looked at the sliced phylum.

The wave of Crustalades looked endless. There were simply too many of them that casualties started to be heard of mechs from both Xue Lai clan and Xi Feng tribe ahead.

The force was weakening. The Crustalades within the fleet were increasing as manically they pounced upon the giant spaceships.

Their jaws were destructive as the metallic armors of the ship were scrapped like polystyrene. One ship was rather unfortunate to have been raided by over hundreds Crustalades, a nightmarish scene it was. A spaceship’s armor was dense by nature, but it would only be a matter of time till every layer was torn and a rupture would occur.

Ye Chong could not help the other ships as Darvill was also surrounded by a huge flock of Crustalades.

His test had proven the fact that Han Jia was undetected by these hungry pests. That would be perfect as Ye Chong would truly be an invisible hunter. It would be assassination all over again.

The pathway was getting chaotic. The fleet had ceased, the spaceships were trying to catch up with each other, yet covered by the gnawing insects. The space had already been flooded with pieces of shattered mech and carcasses.

Boom! One ship had blown up as the space suddenly turned bright. The fleet panicked as the ships started clogging the course.

Crustalades were innately small arthropods but the fact they fed on metals was simply a horror. A few spaceships exploded next.

And there Ye Chong was, feeling sentimental of his helpless insignificance again. The only he could do was to protect Darvill at all costs. He might be able to walk past those vicious insects undetected, but that did not mean he would be safe at all time.

?!

And there he almost got hit by one of the debris from the spaceship explosion. The debris was visibly 1 kilometer long, Ye Chong could be crushed just because of the momentum conserved.

The place was chaotic, could be almost the chaos itself, that Ye Chong spent most of his attention span on the incoming pieces.

…(Darvill’s Main Control Room)…

The members were alarmed as they scurried in the room, from one control panel to another, even Ye Pang the unshakable one began shaking a little.

Who cares about that magic mech out there anymore! We have an invasion to handle!

People were trying to minimize crashes with the other spaceships as the course had been utterly disrupted. They were fully attentive because a slip of the finger, a careless mistake simple could have killed the entire crew.

Well Ye Chong was relatively calm as he took cover within the giant Darvill under the heavy debris shower.

Tick!

The gate of Darvill opened out of sudden, soon a golden silhouette tumbled its way out.

Rui Bing?

Why did she…

Ye Chong was surprised. The Guardian was formidable but also limited in a space war like this, so why?

“Why did you come out?” asked Ye Chong grimly in the communicator channel prompted.

“I want to fight with you!” said Rui Bing firmly.

Ye Chong wanted to convince her by saying how the Guardian was simply not made for such environment but Rui Bing did something…

She demonstrated martial arts.

Rui Bing hopped onto on one pole sticking out on the deck and transformed into a beam of golden light bouncing off on another pole. Ye Chong was seeing Rui Bing becoming a kind of golden reflection moving from one pole or handle to another.

And because of the lack of gravity, it did not take Rui Bing much effort to main her momentum. She was literally zapping like electricity, but the consumption was not as dramatic as it looked.

This idea’s not bad…

Ye Chong was impressed of Rui Bing’s adaptability, although he did perceive one weakness immediately. The movement allowed Rui Bing’s mobility but it would be highly dependent on the objects around, Rui Bing would need to always find something to hold in order to make another leap. Moreover, it was always possible for her to bounce off at a wrong angle, that she might send herself into deep space. It would be a tragedy by then…

“Rui Bing, I think-” She seemed to know what Ye Chong was thinking as she made a tap on the ship and bounced off Darvill.

What was she doing?! The Guardian had only miniature engines, there’s no engine that promoted a directive aerial travel! You can’t find any handle in the boundless space!

Ye Chong was hurrying his way to Rui Bing but Rui Bing was undisturbed, as she leisurely tapped a button on her waist, a rope was released and fired upon the body of the ship behind. There was a sucker at the end of the rope which helped fixing the rope on the ship firmly. Rui Bing stretched forward a little, then like a Yo-yo she was pulled back to the ship.

Ye Chong then noticed the additional rectangular metallic box at Guardian’s waist.

“Ye, Pang got me this,” said Rui Bing, with slight joy in her chilly voice.

“Be careful,” said the indifferent voice. Rui Bing felt the 3 syllables warming her inside up nevertheless, “Alright,” she said.

Rui Bing then had a stroll across the body of the ship. Her skill picked up as she grew familiar of the layout of the ship. She began brisk-walking. It was not far-fetched to say the Guardian was made for Rui Bing. The dagger of the Guardian was greatly honed and unstoppable even in the raining attack of the hard Crustalades. Rui Bing also had the sense to aid her on performing critical attacks efficiently. Crustalades might be fast but they were there to be slaughtered once they touched Darvill. Rui Bing was getting better on her moonwalking.

Thanks to Rui Bing, Ye Chong had more liberty in the space.

There was one ship of Xue Lai clan next to Darvill.

“Holy Xue Lai, what the heck was that?” one observer screamed exhilaratingly.

The crew members then quickly shifted the camera to that “something”.

“What’s wrong? Hey… Fei She’er! Talk to your captain!” said the captain loudly.

What the hell is my sailor talking? Stop making this into a cruise of a horror movie.

“Fei She’er!” Intense anger could be heard in the elevated volume of the captain.

“Ah!” Fei She’er lifted his head, turned his head only to see the horrifying face of the captain in anger, “No sir! I mean, yes captain, sir, mister, I-I don’t know, please take a look…” And he instantly sent the visual of his camera to the giant screen in front of the captain’s seat.

The boundless space.

The chaotic walkway to the world outside.

“What is there, Fei She’er, do you think it is funny to trick your crew? Would you like to work at the-”

“Captain!”

A few Crustalades showed up in the screen. They became restless upon seeing the ship as quickly they charged towards it.

“Ah!” The crew member could not help but to scream. The captain’s hope sank, they would be soon good-as-done once these disgusting insects touched the ship.

The shell of the arthropods shone in purplish dark metallic glow, reflecting the fireworks afar. The jaws were opening and closing in belligerent pace of hunger, as their purple brown eyes covetously projected in a high definition zoom-in on the screen.

Hope had sunken. The ship would be blowing up. And there was nothing they could do. A few members decided to lay back and close their eyes.

“Captain!”

Something was flashing in the dark. A blade seemed to have swayed across the closest arthropod which then turned into two pieces with countless droplets of purplish black fluid hovering in the space.

That was the first.

Then second… third… forth…

The Crustalades had all died?

“D-d-d-did a miracle happen? Did god decide to help us?” muttered one man.

“Quick!” The captain seemed to have thought of something, “Turn on Photon-mode, now!”

Under photon mode they might have a limited vision, but the colors were richer. As the explosion had become a seeming firework upon regaining its colors. Beams were crossing and forming a colorful net engulfing the world ahead.

But no crew member had the attention on the scenery. They were all staring at that petite beauty at one corner.

It was a mech gorgeous as the butterfly, with a spread of rainbow wings adorned by glittering stars of liquid gold. It hovered in pride within the void, as it set its eyes upon the floating carcasses.

Two days.

Chaos itself had visited for two days, which caused several explosions across different ships. The pathway was almost clogged with all sorts of rubbles, be them from the spaceships or the mechs.

The progression was nearly zero on their course within the last two days, as they literally inched their way ahead. The beams of light remained dancing and Ye Chong had lost count of the number of Crustalades he had sliced.

It was the third day of visit by chaos itself.

Ye Chong started seeing a decrease in the number of Crustalades in the space.

Has it ended?

Wait, no!

He realized something… as goosebumps ran over his skin.

Instinct told him that the crucial moment which would determine the outcome of the war had arrived!

He waved at Rui Bing and zoomed ahead.

It would depend on all of you,” said Brahmara.

Ye Yin’s expression was somber, with the little flicker of light remaining in his soulless eyes.

He had witnessed everything in the past three days. Xue Lai clan and Xi Feng tribe suffered the greatest loss as they lost at least half of their men being at the frontmost line. It was also known as the highest amount of casualty in the record of history in the past few years.

Non-combat units in the fleet also suffered a considerable amount of damage due to limited energy supply. These ships were not assigned a combative role in the evacuation, so they were only given the energy amount for basic flights. In their plan, most of the batteries had been given to the mechs of frontline. They had to, or the frontmost defense line would never last beyond three days. The only saving grace was, most of the goals of the evacuation had been achieved this time, though with a great cost.

The clouds of Crustalades had slowly faded away, as the giant ones had probably been wiped out. Their minions were still everything nevertheless. Ye Yin had a much important mission to carry out thus they decided to treat these pests with ignorance.

There was one last obstacle in their course.

The mollusc bristleworm, 6000 of them or so.

These bristleworms had gathered up and formed into a gigantic conglomeration, which wriggled like a dragon of darkness as it stood in the way of the fleet.

Ye Yin’s eyes were dimmed as he looked upon the giant monstrosity. How many people would he have to lose in order to get home? How many people could survive in this ever-going fight? It took a few moments of silence for him to muster that inner voice of his, his eyes sharpened, “Go as planned. Attack!” shouted the ultimate order.

The mechs retreated and the fleet reformed as the ships accelerated.

The ships hovered across the pathway at the front.

These ships were empty and were moving under pre-programmed piloting.

The ships sped up dramatically.

Mach 8

Mach 10

Mach 12!

The empty ships were leading their own parade as they hurriedly charged towards the wriggling ugly monster.

These vessels had been modified with additional engines to give him stronger thrust, thus the ability to hit Mach 12 effortlessly.

It was not easy to defeat the conglomerated worms. Ye Yin and the rest had cracked their head thinking up a plan. The conglomeration was imaginably massive. One bristleworm would be about 40 meters in length, 6 to 7 meters in breadth. Now, multiply the figures by 6000 to get the estimated size of the monstrosity. It was simply horribly giant that mechs felt like the ants before the anteater. It would be impossible to slash through the monster with insufficient momentum. Things would only work if the fleet drilled its way through.

All the ships were travelling at maximum speed. Ye Chong was a little astonished by the grand view as he saw the distance decreasing between the fleet of empty ships and the monster.

The bristleworms seemed to have noticed the incoming fleet as the surface of the monster was quivering. The monster turned restless as it began thrashing.

The 50 empty ships then sank into the body of the monster.

Boom!

The monster had been pierced at its weak spot, as it began squirming in immense pain.

The bristleworms leaked out of the conglomeration upon contact, as they began scurrying around in panic. The empty ships continued “drilling”, to the deepest of the monster.

And at the next moment, the monster collapsed, as a wave of bristleworms engulfed the pathway.

The bristleworms were writhing everywhere frantically, where clouds of green smoke escaped from their bodies and cloaked the entire place.

The fleet could only see the green sea ahead while making out the shape of those little squirmy silhouettes.

“A-all units ahead!” Ye Yin’s calm voice cracked a little, as he launched the final gambit of entire fleet. His mech had first initiated the move, as it travelled ahead at full speed.

No doubt it was a final gambit for them, as the release of those green gases had an effect that promoted disintegration of metals. The metal would gradually lose its particle cohesion upon contact, resulting a highly brittle structure that eventually would break down on its own due to the overwhelming artificial air pressure controlled inside the ship. In simpler terms, Brahmara had expected the effect to go on full swing in a duration of about 3 days, that would mean they would be a goner if they did not arrive at He Yue galaxy within the period.

It was just natural to die without the protection of any spaceship or mech.

But, that was not all. According to calculation, they would need 4 days to fully walk through the entire pathway and they had just hit the middle. Halving that and they still needed 2 more days to completely exit the place, given that nothing happened that is. Nonetheless, the green worms were still there, at worst case scenario Ye Yin and the army must finish the battle in less than a day!

Time was no longer money, rather it was solely life to them at the moment. They must leave the pathway in 3 days, by hook or by crook, or else!

The main force of the second phase would be Ye family this time. Both Xue Lai clan and Xi Feng tribe had fully consumed their military forces. They had to take a break from battle also because of how bristleworms were completely immune towards energy-based firings, like those beams. So, they started clearing up the course instead. The remnants of Crustalades were everywhere. A cleanup would be needed.

Ye Yin had only 852 war machines left and they had to clear a way out in the midst of those green waving madness at the very least.

It would be either dead or alive! They were ready!

The 852 units took a cone-shaped formation, with Ye Yin, the strongest pilot of the family leading at the tip of the cone.

Ye Yin’s mech was once a rare sight even hidden from his own family, and now it had made its debut to every ally. The 12 Spikedrops were circulating around its body, the afterimages of the momentary travel had veiled the mech in faint darkness.

Ye Yin led the army and advanced forward.

“Wait, he came too?” Huang Jiming was shocked as he got up from his seat, staring at that petite silhouette gracefully hovering in the projection.

The pilot’s hands fluttered over the control panel. Han Jia’s wings spread and silently flew behind the battle units.

Huang Jiming had kept photon mode on the whole time, since he at first intended to observe how Ye Yin would look in action, never once he would expect Han Jia would be coming. Back on the staring contest in Risserd, this skeleton mech had impressed well enough. Sadly he never had the chance to have a duel with the pilot due to the sudden change of events.

Feng Su was right next to Huang Jiming, as her expressive eyes set upon that butterfly in the projection. Her lethargic face before had suddenly turned lively, as she reminisced those times she challenged this indifferent young man.

“DETECTION.” Beeped the mechanical eyes of Brahmara, as prompted the projection of Han Jia.

“Ah! Brother Ye…”

Little Ye Chong knew that, the moment he hit the stage he had become the center of attention among these legends.

Ye Yin stared upon the misty world. Without hesitation, he had advanced forward, with the other mechs tailing after.

Inside the green mist, one could barely discern a thing. The detection system had become almost good-for-nothing thanks to the interferences caused by these mists. The scope of detection had been squeezed into a negligible range, and their vision had been limited.

With such limited vision, one could hardly perform any dodging in a traveling mech. But well, Ye Yin never planned to try dodging anything anyway. Thus, he maintained his velocity and drove along.

One bristleworm came out of nowhere and slammed upon Ye Yin’s face.

The circulating Spikedrops suddenly charged themselves, drilling into the body of the worm. One could see the worm vibrating because of the intensiveness of the drilling which the immense pain had caused the worm to try curling itself at countless failed attempts.

And it exploded, becoming the bits of fleshes hovering in the space. The Spikedrops had shredded the bristleworm into countless pieces.

Ye Yin did not stop, as he kept up with his speed. These worms were vulnerable against his mech, not even their spikes could break the mech’s armor.

The alarm had been wailing in the mech however, as the processor constantly prompting an alert illustrating the damage the mech received.

It must be those gases! The emission of bristleworms could break the mech of a top pilot in the galaxy, let alone those folks’ mechs behind him. Ye Yin started suspecting the validity of Brahmara’s calculation… wondering if they could even last for 3 complete days.

But they had no other choice. They only could charge on.

They would have a likelihood to survive as long as they left this nightmarish place as soon as possible.

He looked at the approaching sea of worms rumbling ahead. The battle will burned up high in his eyes, while his hands danced upon the interface. His mech then zoomed into the sea!

It is time! Time to fight, fight for your destiny!

Ye Chong stepped into the green mist. No doubt he turned blind like Ye Yin, he had far inferior detection system compared to Ye Yin’s mech. Looking at the white buzzing screen, Ye Chong could not help but to switch to Photon detection mode.

The camera was flooded with an overflowing green, from which a bristleworm suddenly jumped at Han Jia. Ye Chong was slightly shocked as he tapped the control panel promptly and lifted two slashes with his daggers. A secreting cross was seen on the body of bristleworm. That was not the final blow. The body of that worm was about 40 to 50 meters, so the tiny cross would not kill, even though the worm was already wriggling in pain, emitting more green gases to the surrounding, during which its tail slammed upon Han Jia.

Ye Chong responded quickly as Han Jia covered up itself with its wings.

The strength of this slam was beyond his expectation as Han Jia was sent far away like a whipped badminton.

That thing was sure huge for a reason… Thought Ye Chong, he did not intend to waste more time on this random enemy. A wounded beast would be far more dangerous than a normal beast, according to his experiences dealing with these wild lifeforms.

Han Jia gracefully turned away from the wounded caterpillar and flew forward. And then it jerked, as Ye Chong realized a major issue without a functioning detection system – he had lost his direction.

Ye Chong was at an awkward situation, knowing that these bristleworms were forceful by nature since those strong spaceships could get stuck, completely immobilized within their embrace.

Han Jia was at least far more agile than the gigantic spacecrafts. It could easily swim through the sea of worms. It did not take long for Ye Chong to notice the hidden system behind the sea of worms. Apparently, the appearance of the worm determined a certain kind of rank in its own hierarchy. The greener the worm, the higher rank it would be… since only the dark green bristleworms could emit those gases. The paler ones were seemingly younger so they were unable to perform such defense mechanism.

The hierarchy was justifiable as Ye Chong saw the unnoticed grouping where a dark green bristleworm would always lead three to four paler ones at a spot.

Ye Chong piloted Han Jia carefully, dodging one bristleworm to another, realizing he had possibly ventured too deep into the sea of worms, as the surrounding grew denser. He also noticed that he was practically invisible too, assuming he did not open fire at these worms.

Hmm…

Wait, could it be these bristleworms have the same sensibility of metal as the Crustalades?

Ye Chong had something else in mind… but he could not put it together somehow… He tried harder, recollecting his thoughts as waving the handle over these pests, to the center of the sea.

ot only Ye Chong, Ye Yin and the others were facing trouble in the mean time. At first, they assumed these worms knew no other defense mechanism than the emission of green gas, at least none of other possible defense mechanisms could wound their armor of machinery. But then, like Ye Chong, they started to recognize the strength of these worms as amplified by sizes. These pests were peskier than the men imagined, especially when these pests were highly sensitive of mechs, that these bristleworms would notice upon approaching.

Team Ye Yin was severely outnumbered. This fight would not be cake walk, even though so far there had not been any visible casualty in his team. Ironically, there had not been any visible progress in their travel as well.

The bristleworms were apparently unaffected by their own emission, their sensibility and mobility were still the same capable, unlike the mechs which had been completely slowed down due to the waves of these entities. A mech without speed would lose a large portion of its offensive capacity.

Yes, speed is what made a mech the fast and furious, the core of its existence!

Well, probably only Ye Yin’s mech remained the same fast and furious as before, as luckily he had his Spikedrops guarding him with their efficient penetration which cleared out all bristleworms within the vicinity, making Ye Yin the sweeping pilot among his team.

The other mechs of Ye family were not as strong however, as they were swarmed by the bristleworms and that prevented them from accelerating freely as their will. Certainly, a mech’s weaponry could harm these fleshy worms easily, but only to the extent before size became a matter. Once they faced a larger entity of the pests, the attack would no longer be fatal, only would anger the entity, causing uncontrollable havoc instead.

Ye Yin could not help but to feel powerless at the sight of the endless worm waves ahead. It was as if he was stuck in a bog of depression when he thought of their plan of making a clear-out in less than a day for the fleet.

His hope was sinking but not his hands on the control panel.

The fight must go on.

Ye Yin’s mech had a stronger engine than other mechs and was armed with those unpredictable Spikedrops, that was why he was far ahead of his team especially when he programmed the Spikedrops to directly destroy the insides of bristleworm upon contact.

Soon he realized he had lost his teammates.

But there was something else that caught his attention, as he saw a tiny conglomeration of about 50 bristleworms on the projection. It was peculiar because the empty fleet before had penetrated the giant conglomeration, yet there was still this lump before him, that was unseen before in the last few hours.

The conglomeration sluggishly crawled to the front, with the neighboring pale bristleworms letting the way out, as its size increased when the greener ones joined it gradually.

This is not right…

Ye Yin’s heart quivered.

Was that a new cycle?

Did the gigantic conglomeration they spent 50 ships to defeat start its formation this way?

Assuming Ye Yin was not making a wild guess, then this small lump would very likely be the seed, the beginning of it. A sense of crisis rose in Ye Yin’s mind as he imagined the happening if the lump continued the process.

A new giant might be forming very soon!

They no longer had the leisure to modify empty ships to perform another drill attack! The conglomeration must not happen again!

In 3 days their shelter, the mechs would be disintegrated, they would die!

Ye Yin discarded the plan of heading back to his team. Instead, he had something in mind, regarding this growing lump of madness.

Ye Yin carefully followed the wriggling lump, his mind rapidly formed a basic plan on an attack. All he needed would be a good timin-

Something happened!

The lump seemed to have been stimulated by something as it began wriggling vigorously. In the space without air, Ye Yin could hardly hear a thing but somehow he imagined the monster was shrieking…

How?

The visual on his projection turned fuzzier over time. Ye Yin realized that the closer he approached the monster, the stronger the interference his detection system received. He could barely make out the shape of the worms around now.

As expected, this blob monster was not a simple task.

Thought Ye Yin, as his will to destroy it became firmer.

…(Meanwhile)…

Ye Chong was not doing great as well.

In short terms, he was finding chores for himself. The green mist was ineffective on his Han Jia, which gave him the freedom to do anything in the sea of green worms, as long as he behaved.

But the scene before him, and his thoughts, there seemed to be a direct connection between each other.

Strange… be it bristleworm or Crustalades, why are they so sensitive over metallic objects? Especially when bristleworms favored objects that contain high amount of energy activity. These worms were truly the natural enemy of humanity! Be it metal or the energy, those are the natural necessity of humanity today. A complete contradiction, both these worms and humanity could never co-exist!

But that has not much to do with me… I should be thinking a way to escape here. If it was not because I could not accommodate both Old Jalopy and Fei Si in Han Jia, I would have just headed back to the fleet and pick up both of them, then leave this place with Rui Bing. It would not be hard when these worms could not see Han Jia at all.

Oh well…

Thought Ye Chong as he shifted his focus back to reality.

Back on Trash Planet, Ye Chong had several occasions with different mutated lifeforms and of course in Archipelago he had tasted beast stampede, the century event before, so he was practically an experienced monster hunter himself.

From his observation this far, he noticed the hierarchy among the worms, so technically there should be a leader, or a mother queen somewhere. From the premise, if Ye Chong could find out the leader, maybe things would change.

Hmmm…

?

That was when he discerned a silhouette flashing by through his eyes’ corners.

Silhouette? He searched the camera immediately.

No way Ye Chong was seeing things. The sea of worms was green, and a black silhouette had just passed by, Ye Chong was not color blind to have mistaken a random piece of meteorite.

It did not take long before Ye Chong discovered that silhouette. The darkish shape was traveling forward, much faster than the bristleworms. Without hesitation, Han Jia prompted its engine and chased after that silhouette disappearing in the deeper sea.

The distance was decreasing and Ye Chong began discerning the details of the silhouette.

It was … Wait, what!

A large bristleworm… a large greenish black bristleworm!

The leader? Is this the leader?

Such thought popped up in Ye Chong’s mind, his heart raced, according to his observation, the greener the worm, the darker the green was, the higher in rank, probably. And now this worm was much more greener and darker than all other minions he had ever seen, so it must be!

Ye Chong carefully piloted Han Jia. He must retain his stealth, he must not alert the leader worm.

While he was speculating if he was too lucky, the next scene had proven his theory.

The bristleworms around were opening a way for this sludgy-colored bristleworm.

Then, Ye Chong saw one random dark green bristleworm crawled out of the wave and followed the leader which seemed to be purposely slowing down, allowing contact with the follower. Soon, they made contact, and they had merged!

As Ye Chong hovered his way, he spotted more and more worms joined the leader, as if a magnetic force pulling them.

In no time the greenish black worm had been enveloped by the minions.

A conglomeration!

The fact was starkly clear! It was the miniature conglomeration of the gigantic mess Ye family’s fleet had cleared before.

That would mean… the worm must be the queen!

Ye Chong decided to make a move, right away! Or he would only miss the golden opportunity to assassinate the queen.

Han Jia accelerated and emerged right behind the moving chunk.

The tentacles of Han Jia turned alive and sprung up.

On Ye Chong’s projection, he could perceive a tiny gap in between the lump of dark green bristleworms.

Without hesitation, Ye Chong’s skeleton tentacle made a stab!

He got it!

Yes! It wor-

Before Ye Chong managed to celebrate, a strong force sent Han Jia far, faraway.

Ye Chong did not panic as he tried to regain control of Han Jia.

The worms on the queen began squirming frantically. The living sea of worms turned dead out of sudden.

…

… …

The bristleworms around Han Jia started moving rapidly, all towards Han Jia they hopped and pounced!

Oh no…

t looked like Ye Chong had poked the wrong beehive.

The waves were tumbling! Millions of bristleworms flooded towards Han Jia. The green mists were rolling as restless the sea had gotten, becoming a whirlpool as attracting countless bristleworms from all corners to the center where Ye Chong was standing.

The sudden change of the sea had alerted the others.

Ye Yin could not control his emotion despite being the top pilot of Ye family, as astonishment was overflowing in his mind. The sea was struggling, the tiny conglomeration was seemingly shrieking somehow… Before he could realize, he began seeing scratches over the body of the dark green bristleworm.

Huh? Ye Yin flinched, what’s going on?

The bristleworm covering the conglomeration somehow started cracking, as the number of scratches increased dramatically over its body.

The bristleworm was squirming in a more frantic manner, but its struggle was pointless, the cuts were still increasing like the engraving of curses haunting its entire entity.

In less than a second, the dark green bristleworm had gained about 21 new cuts. Ye Yin knew it was a nasty amount of cuts in such a brief window, it was a typical quick attack that was a chore to get rid of.

But who? Who was making such dramatic attack?

Ye Yin felt confused as he observed the projection carefully to see nothing else around the conglomeration.

At last, the bristleworm had a full convulsion and jerked twice before it collapsed into immobility.

Before Ye Yin could regain from his astonishment, the second, the third worm got attacked. The invisible killer was so efficient that even Ye Yin felt a little underwhelmed of himself. Also, clearly the target of the invisible killer had always been the conglomeration itself as he or she seemed to be slashing through the bristleworms-crowd outer layer.

Could it be?

Ye Yin had something in mind, as he turned on photon mode.

A petite and gorgeous skeleton mech was attacking the tiny conglomeration continuously.

It was him the whole time?

Ye Yin remembered that indifferent young man he had seen before. Certainly he was shocked, he might not have spoken to this young man personally before, but the bloodthirsty charm, the unspoken violence of this young man could never be forgotten upon glance!

Throughout the history, Ye family had conducted various researches on producing a full skeleton mech but they had never made any observable progress thus far. And now Ye Yin, the top pilot, was seeing a flawlessly crafted, fully functional skeleton mech with a splendid design and a unique set of weapon. No doubt, this must be a masterpiece!

Skeletons were perfect against the traditional detection system, that it was an eye-opener even to Ye Yin who had been to various battlegrounds.

Why is he here? Who exactly is he?

He could not help but to think about it.

But obviously it was not the time to be pondering these now.

The skeleton mech was spending all its strength attacking the lump.

Could it be….

Ye Yin saw the entire wave swirling over the skeleton mech aggressively. It was such a horrifying sight to see those larvae crawling every seeable space and engulfing the mech. Ye Yin remained calm, as he was still a brave and bold pilot after all.

If it was not for the sluggishness of those larvae, both of them might have been crushed into pieces.

The sea was waving, slowly but steadily.

Judging from the change of event, Ye Yin no longer had time and was left with two choices. One would be to leave the sea before the bristleworms blew up in hostility upon the combat order of the queen; another would be to kill that forming conglomeration before all bristleworms had arrived. The first plan was feasible as he could escape safely in time with his speed. The second plan would kill that chance for him as the place would turn imaginably inescapable when all bristleworms had clogged the entire course here.

Ye Yin made up his mind in a brief while!

The Spikedrops connected themselves from one end to another, forming a chain like a dark lightning and zapped into the conglomeration ahead.

In the meantime, Ye Chong was watching the lump before him.

The queen was completely embraced within the layer of bristleworms. Ye Chong could only see the fleshes of those dark green worms, the sight of the queen was imperceptible at the moment.

Ye Chong was almost certain however, that the greenish black silhouette was the queen in fact. It was no longer a hypothesis, the queen must be the queen.

Ye Chong had no better plan than killing the queen. That was the only thing he could do being all alone, though he could not imagine the outcome. Still, who cares! What other choices he had anyway?

Without hesitation, Han Jia raised its “lance” like the mythical paladin and charged towards the foe!

Well, Ye Chong did not really perceive medieval terms like “lance” or “paladin”, even if he had been once exposed to history before, thanks to Shang. He was not sure if people had done this before, if he was the paladin, but it was all for survival!

It was not only for his survival, but also for Rui Bing, Old Jalopy, and Fei Si! They were the reason for his reckless-looking action! They were the one thing worth risking for!

His slightly hollow face was looking colder than usual, like a statue made out of ice, as he stared upon the projection in the dark, with his hands dancing into stack of afterimages above the interface.

All tentacles of Han Jia started swaying, with the the pair of daggers brandishing quickly.

The body of the bristleworms were generally 6 to 7 meters in diameter. Yes, they were rather too large to take critical damages by a tiny dagger.

Only if these bristleworms never had immunity towards energy-based firings or Ye Chong would just toss a few compressive bombs and blow them up.

The vitality of these bristleworms was great, that they did not seem hurt despite the dense cuts over the body.

Ye Chong was agitated, as the barrage intensified!

If 10 cuts did not work, I’ll just do few tens more!

Ye Chong’s hands sped up.

That was what happened on the other side when Ye Yin watched the cracking action on the covering bristleworms.

Han Jia made a fancy swing and pulled distance away from the conglomeration to perform a speedy thrust!

Han Jia could not accelerate to the maximum due to the limited space that allowed travel, but the attack was significant as it made a giant dent on the covering bristleworm. The bristleworm fell off in pain.

Ye Chong was inspired, as the instinct of the battleground had given him an idea. He pulled the lever and lifted Han Jia in the air again. Thup! It crashed into another bristleworm.

There was a little twist this time, Han Jia was holding the dagger and had stabbed it deep into the body of this bristleworm. Before the worm could take any action, Han Jia made a rapid flight across its body, making a clear cut from the head all the way to the tail. If only Han Jia’s dagger was longer, Ye Chong could have make a deeper slice of ham out of this thing.

Due to the deep wound, the bristleworm could not help but to curl up and fell off tumbling in pain at the side.

Everything went as expected.

That was practically what happened when Ye Yin watched the diamond cuts over that bristleworm on the other side. Ye Yin was stunned and could not help but to compliment the agility of the boy.

But efficiency-wise, in reality, Ye Chong might not be as great as Ye Yin assumed since Ye Yin was the one with a mech enveloped in floating Spikedrops which seemed to penetrate anything while providing seamless control. Those were something Han Jia could never compete. To defeat a bristleworm, all Ye Yin needed to do was to make those Spikedrops pierced into the body and cause destruction inside, unlike Ye Chong’s Han Jia which required all the momentum and brute-force he could muster. Ye Yin was able to kill the bristleworm so, but Ye Chong could only injure it at most. It was undeniable as Ye Yin’s Spikedrops were literally a meat-shredder, no worm could have ever survived that!

Throughout the whole process Ye Chong had never noticed the one extra mech at the opposite, since his vision was limited by the scope of photon mode detection. If it was not for unique entities like Ye Chong’s skeleton mechs, the photon mode visual would have been long terminated in use.

Ye Chong’s hands did not stop. He knew there was not much time left. He must eliminate the queen before the larvae arrived as backup. He did not even have the time to take a glance at the coming larvae behind.

His brain was surprisingly calm as he calculated the angle and direction of his every slash and stab. Another bristleworm had fallen! Then the next! The next after!

Ye Chong began perceiving a thin darkness within the layers of bristleworms. He knew it was working as his hands accelerated.

Meanwhile, Ye Yin noticed the acceleration and reinforcement of the skeleton mech’s attack. Without hesitation, he also jumped into intense action. Wise people do think alike, after all. They always would catch on something upon a simple glance or gesture.

Ye Yin presumed a discovery made by the boy.

The row of two dark green bristleworms was revealing a clear lining of darkness.

Han Jia backed out, which Ye Yin went stupefied of.

He’s planning to run? At this point?

In the midst of Ye Yin’s bewilderment, the butterfly had reappeared once more as Han Jia spread its colorful pair of wings. Before Ye Yin could react, like a launched arrow, Han Jia zoomed towards the conglomeration.

It was like a rainbow.

A twilight of the aurora.

It was so glaring that Ye Yin covered his eyes a little.

Meanwhile Ye Chong was staring at that thin lining between the bristleworms on the projection. He got to focus and act fast! His hands moved vigorously, at a threatening speed that the air inside the cabin was vibrating along with his fingers! Ye Chong opened his eyes wide, as adrenaline tinted crimson on his pale cheeks.

Now!

The afterimages ended as his hands returned to the control panel. One last button!

Han Jia the petite had somehow transformed into a bomber as suicidally it performed an epic dive towards the amalgamation.

Right before contact, the petite mech finally revealed its deadly torn, the dagger it trusted that stabbed right into the thin gap between bristleworms.

Thump.

Ye Yin somehow could hear the sound despite the lack of air in the space.

Han Jia skimmed quickly over the two bristleworms.

And after Han Jia had moved away, the gap was squirting the dark fluids of the entity within!

here were carcasses everywhere in the pathway.

The occurrence just now was too bizarre to even be reminisced, as the expression of people froze when viewing the green sea. The last scene was haunting them, as if imprinted in their head, as they felt their thumping heart still at their throat.

The thrashing sea of worms had turned lifeless all of a sudden.

Things always look bizarre to people if there seems to be a lack of transition between the move and still. And certainly the event a moment ago was more than comprehensibly bizarre to their senses. Their heart was cold as blood seemed to have stomped the brake heavily in the bloodstream. The bizarreness of the scene was one-of-a-kind, never-before-seen in their life.

A dead sea of worms was absolutely more horrifying.

People stayed bewildered till the first carcass flowed out of the green mist, then they realized all bristleworms had been dead.

How did they die? Nobody knew!

What exactly happened in the sea? Nobody knew!

Those were the mysteries that remained unexplained in the mind of the people, not even those pilots of Ye family who managed to escape the dying sea could give a proper explanation as confused they looked as well. They did see more things than most people in the sea and no way they could forget it for the rest of their life – an entire space of worms died in wave at once, it was a grand mass suicide.

Rui Bing was standing on top of Darvill and nearly collapsed upon seeing Han Jia returning in one piece. She finally got to relax. Darvill was well taken care of, not even a scratch could be seen.

Among the entire fleet, only Ye Yin and Ye Chong knew the context of the death of bristleworm sea. It was a very brief war, that Ye Chong actually presumed that he had done a good job being low and unnoticed, yet in actuality Ye Yin had seen his every action.

Ye Chong never wanted to be given the attention, especially under a period like this.

So he withdrew himself quickly after that, before Ye Yin could catch up with him. Ye Yin would love to know at which ship the mysterious skeleton mech was hiding but he discarded the thought soon after, since the amalgamated army of the three aristocrats was simply too gigantic to perform a search. Moreover, such action would only trigger the hostility in the other families. Most importantly, he did not have the time. The journey must go on, before his ride melted into void.

The fleet had regained its liveliness as the crewmembers started moving on with the next phase of their plan. Unlike before, fear and panic were no longer visible on their faces, instead there were joy and laughter.

Ye Yin was ridiculously busy at the moment, being the top commander of Ye Family, he had to communicate with representatives of the other families to coordinate from time to time. Then there were tasks to be assigned to his crew, there was also a report to be written that he would need to calculate the casualties occurred in the process. He could have asked others to handle these trivialities, but well, the report would go to him for compilation in the end anyway.

Only when he could catch his breath, he would remember that beautiful skeleton mech, performing those impeccable and accurate strikes, calmly yet ferociously in an impaling force. And thinking of it would give him shivers of excitement coming deep from his heart all the time.

The excitement did not last however, as soon he would be engulfed by the large piles of documents and inquiries from his crewmen asking for permission.

Meanwhile, both Ye Chong and Rui Bing were sort of having a honeymoon on Darvill, with Old Jalopy and Fei Si. It was only natural when Ye Pang was the leader of the logistics department. They might no longer have any battery in the storage, but they at least could afford the finest wine from the last century and premium tea leaves from the other corner of galaxy. Old Jalopy and Ye Luo were hogging on the bottles of Chateau Lafite at night, while slurping Tieguanyin in the afternoon.

Sailors of the Darvill were overjoyed upon the sight of the exit, as they hugged each other celebrating their survival.

Once they passed the exit, they would arrive at He Yue.

The entire fleet was over the moon.

The sailors had been thinking of their home, especially after such a cruel war they had witnessed. They missed home, their families, the warm and cozy bed.

Shrieks of joy were heard in the ship the moment Darvill travelled past the exit.

Ye Chong, Rui Bing, Old Jalopy and Fei Si were all in one room. Well, Ye Chong called them there.

“We are leaving,” said Ye Chong concisely.

The room was silent.

Fei Si opened her mouth… and she shut it back up.

There was no other timing better than now. Once they entered He Yue, the fleet would face another reformation, which meant a likelihood of commotion happening. It would be perfect to leave.

“W-w-whatever. hiccup You saved our lives after all hiccup,” muttered Old Jalopy who was a little drunk he after that epic drinking with Ye Luo last night.

Ye Chong and Rui Bing both left the room after giving a glance at Old Jalopy and Fei Si.

“Grandpa…,” Fei Si insisted expressing something but Old Jalopy opened his eyes wide, he was pretending the whole time. Old Jalopy looked at Fei Su’s slightly sunken cheeks, sighed, “Girl, stop thinking. The world is no longer peaceful. It’ll only get messier over time… Just go with him… You still have years to come by, it’s more important to survive.”

Fei Si’s eyes reddened upon his words as she burst into tears within Old Jalopy’s embrace.

“Sigh…” Old Jalopy gave a gentle pat on Fei Si’s back.

… (At the other spot) …

“So, you’re leaving?” asked Ye Luo softly.

Ye Chong nodded.

“Right, it is a good timing to leave in fact,” nodded Ye Pang approvingly.

Ye Luo remained silent for a moment, “Let me show you something.” And he suddenly prompted the hologram projection in the room.

It was an intergalactic layout of He Yue galaxy, with a few red spots on it.

“It just came from our family. Did you see those red spots? Something happened…” His voice got low, “Spatial distortion.”

Ye Chong looked at the projection in blank dismay.

“It’s just a friendly reminder from me,” elaborated Ye Luo, assuming that Ye Chong received a shock of his news. “You should not be traveling at these spots, it would be too dangerous. You probably didn’t know, before the pathway was raided, we have already received several notifications on spatial distortion at different places. We wanted to send our experts to investigate but things changed, the pathway got attacked. Our family was suspecting if these anomalies were somehow related with these unknown creatures…”

Ye Luo then walked to Ye Chong, with a sharp glare into his eyes, as word by word the warning went, “You can go wherever you want, I would not care less. But, never, ever, hit, your, path, to, these, places. They. Are. Dangerous.”

Ye Chong stared at the projection.

And as mentioned before, reformation of fleet happened and it was truly a commotion. The galaxy was Xue Lai clan’s territory after all. They did not intend to fight however, as they had received orders to shift all the military forces away from the zone, to show their respect towards the return of the formidable warriors and a sign of wanting peace.

That was when one gate of Darvill opened, as a small ship flew out quietly.

The reformation involved shuffling of spaceships. So in the midst of the commotion, no one noticed the departure of the little ship.

The ship weaved in and out of the moving spaceship and soon disappeared in the boundless space. The other ships were too busy heading back to their own family to take notice of the ship.

The little ship then accelerated, all according to plan. Surely, both Ye Luo and Ye Pang had already planned an escape path for Ye Chong’s references. The path was one cleared out by the Xue Lai clan as a returning route for Ye family and Xi Feng tribe after the reformation, but well Ye Chong treaded it first.

The ship was supplied with sufficient batteries. Those were part of the supplies sent by the Xue Lai clan for Darvill that Ye Pang generously took a large box of them to Ye Chong.

Ye Chong once imagined the entrance to the pathway leading to free space zone would be a remote zone as well. He never expected the three entrances to the pathway were surrounded by a lively space zone.

The few planets near Xue Lai’s pathway were a collection of well-developed business zones where flocks of vessels would come for trades all the time. Ye Chong got to admit that Xue Lai clan had a pretty tight mouth on this. No one had really heard of it.

…(Meanwhile)…

“Captain, we received an SOS signal from a lifeboat nearby,” said one sailor on Risson the intergalactic long travel cruise.

“SOS signal?” frowned Captain Airi. All these years he had been working on the cruise, yet he had never heard of an actual accident of spaceship in this zone. He seriously wondered which greenhorn was leading the unlucky ship, that an SOS signal eventually arrived to his ears.

“Try contacting them. Ask them what is happening,” ordered Captain Airi.

“They claimed to be traveling at long distance the first time and seemed to have lost contact with their mothership on an unattended control.”

I knew it. Greenhorns these days… Sigh…

“Escort them into the ship. But, remind them, they would have to pay if they broke anything in the process,” said Captain Airi helplessly.

The captain would not be low on guard if he was receiving the same signal at other space zone. But really, the space zone he was traveling now was indeed a secure one, that it sounded strange to him to have received an actual SOS signal from an accident. He had been traveling at this course for 10 years, and had heard of the same story a few times, that the newbies could not handle their ship well and requested assistance.

Ships today… sigh… what happened to standards?

But I can’t be merciless and turn them down, can I?

Thought the kind captain.

hang Yu looked out the window into the starry sky, feeling a little bored. Long space travels were dry and uninteresting, especially to someone like him, who had lost interest in a great deal of things.

The ship’s broadcast system suddenly came online. “Attention all passengers! Attention all passengers! Due to unforeseen circumstances, we will be redirecting our flight to Planet Yi Ju. We apologize for the inconvenience!” The broadcast went silent after that.

Zhang Yu’s face twitched. They were hijacked! That idea immediately came to him, and he activated the comms device on his wrist almost instinctively.

The ship went silent for a moment, and then all hell broke loose! The passengers looked furious. Some of them even demanded to see the Captain. However, Zhang Yu noticed that a few people in the crowd kept their calm, with wary looking eyes.

Zhang Yu felt a vibration from his comms device. He lifted his wrist to have a look, and felt even more troubled. His comms device registered nothing. All communication signals onboard the ship were disabled! However, he was slightly comforted by the fact that his distress message had been sent out. Now, he could only hope that his all-powerful friend could help him.

Without being obvious about it, he deleted the distress message from his comms device as he sat quietly on his seat. Any overreactions right now could potentially invite trouble.

In the captain’s cabin, Ye Chong was with Rui Bing, Old Jalopy and Fei Si. Beside them, an innocent looking alloy chair laid broken on the floor. Everyone in the ship looked shaken. They looked at the four of them with terrified eyes, especially at Rui Bing. With her icy beauty, she was like as terrifying as a cannibal to the crew. A moment ago, Rui Bing had lashed out with a kick without warning, breaking the alloy chair into its current sorry state.

Captain Airi coughed. “Cough, cough. Everyone, let me remind you that while you are strong enough to force us to reroute our flight, I urge you to reconsider. This flight route is under the protection of the Xue Lai Clan. If we really reroute our flight, I believe that the Xue Lai Clan will react accordingly.” His words were meant as a warning – they should really reconsider!

“Thank you for your warning,” Ye Chong answered politely. It must be said that Ye Luo and Ye Pang’s plan was quite effective.

Looking at the young man’s indifference, Captain Airi knew that he would not change his mind. Without any other choice, the Captain gave his orders to the crew members, “Reroute our flight. Our destination – Planet Yi Ju!”

Ye Chong went to the control panel, and immediately shut down all external communications. Since they were still in Xue Lai Clan territory, news of the ship being hijacked would have devastating consequences.

“Please arrange for accommodation for my companions, thank you.” Ye Chong spoked politely to the Captain.

Little Rock entered the virtual world as he usually did.

Now, his daily job was to get intel through the virtual world. As the virtual world node laboratory was built, his power increased tremendously. He was now the main source of intel for their group. Little Rock’s abilities improved quickly. His extraordinary computational skills allowed him to explore freely in the world of mathematics as he learned more and more. He was not a true super duper Maverick! Even Mu and Shang mostly left this matter to him.

Huh?

Little Rock looked at the distress message he had just received in surprise. Skytreader was one of his few friends in the Maverick circle. He was a well established Maverick, and one of the few Mavericks in the He Yue Galaxy who worked solo.

What happened to him?

Little Rock quickly opened the message.

He can see that the message was pre-crafted. There was no other information. This meant that his situation must be dire. The man must have thought of him when in whatever critical situation he found himself in. Somehow, Little Rock felt touched by this knowledge.

However, he quickly dismissed the sentiment. As a Maverick, he must first and foremost be calm.

He must move quickly!

First, he must find where the message was sent from. Five minutes later, he was able to locate the sender.

Sender location: the Long Distance Travel Starship, Victoria. Message origin location: near Sol Latitude.

Three minutes later, everything there was to know about Victoria was displayed before Little Rock, including its internal schematics, which Little Rock dug out from the Starship Management Office.

“There must be some accident,” Little Rock thought quietly.

Sol Latitude’s virtual world was particularly well defended, and this surprised Little Rock! He was no longer the amateur of old, and he knew what this special kind of defense meant.

Could it be …

However, this was obviously not the time to explore Sol Latitude’s mysteries. Sol Latitude might be well guarded, but that could not stop a Maverick like Little Rock.

The landing dock did not have records of Victoria’s landing. According to their schedule, the ship should have docked at the planet by now. This meant that something had happened to Victoria.

Was the ship hijacked?

Little Rock frowned.

Victoria’s external communications were cut off. Little Rock tried to reach the ship in vain.

This did not discourage Little Rock. On the contrary, he was feeling excited about the fight ahead! Not giving up was one of the main reasons he had become a powerful Maverick. He was rigid, but strong and determined, never one to cower before obstacles.

“Then, a battle it is!” Little Rock’s tiny frame radiated with a strong battle intent!

“Boss … Boss …” A young man stumbled into the room, speaking panickedly.

“What is it?” The one called Boss was a middle aged man, and he frowned at the interruption.

“Someone … Someone hacked into our regional network. We lost all our holographic feeds!” The young man gulped repeatedly as he stuttered out his words.

“What?!” The middle aged man could no longer stay calm. He pushed away his desk and abruptly stood up, flabbergasted.

On the holographic screen, one could see that a Maverick was making every move with speed and calmness. Like most traditional swordsman, every move was clear but unbeatable!

“Dragon-Tiger Match, what are you up to?” The middle aged man muttered to himself.

In Xue Lai Clan’s virtual world control center.

The air was thick with tension. Every working staff wore a grim expression.

“First defense node failed …”

“Second defense node failed …”

“Enemy is hacking the third defense node… Third defense node failed …”

A beautiful feminine voice delivered the words that sounded like they came from a nightmare. Every one of them in the center looked pale.

“Surveillance system is lost!” This sentence hammered down heavily on their hearts!

On the holographic screen, a handsome tiger-man and a lovely dragon-lady were intimately clinging onto each other in an intensely suggestive way, but everyone looked at the image with nothing but fear in their eyes.

“Dragon-Tiger Match, what are you up to?”

On that day, a powerful Maverick called Dragon-Tiger Match shocked the entire He Yue Galaxy. In just three hours, 35 planets including Sol Latitude at the center lost their surveillance systems.

The arousing image of the handsome tiger-man and dragon-lady entwined together spread across the entire He Yue Galaxy.

Dragon-Tiger Match was actually Little Rock, but the symbol was designed by someone else.

According to tradition, every Maverick would have their own symbol. Once, when Little Rock, Mu and Shang discussed about it, Shang had volunteered to design his.

In this respect, Little Rock was remarkably similar to Ye Chong – he left it all to Shang.

Hence, by drawing inspiration from “Fiery Battle of between Dragon and Tiger” and “Playboy”, Shang presented his design of the symbol in all its glory, and called it the Dragon-Tiger Match. When Zhu Ling saw the symbol, she had blushed deeply for a whole 30 seconds. The beautiful dragon-lady looked very much like Zhu Ling, while the handsome tiger-man looked like Little Rock.

Little Rock was satisfied with the design. He may not know much about aesthetics, but he did know that this symbol would only take up a bare minimum of resources from the photon processor.

From then on, the enticing Dragon-Tiger March had become Little Rock’s very own symbol.

Little Rock did not have time to think about how impressive his work was. He alone controlled many, many holographic feeds, all the while fending off waves of counter attacks from the other side. There was no time to think about anything else.

The counter attacks were strong!

Little Rock was sweating all over. The neverending waves of counter attacks exhausted him, but he held on.

An event of such a huge scale had caught the attention of all the Mavericks in the He Yue Galaxy! Many of them were keeping a close eye on the proceedings. However, every Maverick was astonished by the power of Dragon-Tiger Match. Little Rock’s strength was deeply etched into their hearts.

Found it!

Little Rock felt encouraged. One of the holographic feeds had Victoria in it.

Little Rock quickly accessed his star chart, and began to analyze Victoria’s trajectory to deduce its destination.

Just when everyone was trembling in excitement at this unprecedented war in the virtual world, Dragon-Tiger Match did something else that once again demonstrated his prowess!

Suddenly, Dragon-Tiger Match vanished into thin air, gone from the virtual world in an instant. No matter how hard they looked, no one could find him. When the control center staff members regained control of the surveillance system, they found to their surprise that all their information, including voice passcodes, were unaltered from before. Dragon-Tiger Match had left without leaving a single trace!

The incident that sparked a lively conversation all around had started without warning, and ended without just as abruptly! People began to guess the identity of this Dragon-Tiger Match, but more were talking about the alluring symbol of the dragon-tiger couple.

It was said that long after the incident, He Yue Galaxy’s many large pornographic magazine publishers tried hard to find out who the mysterious Maverick was. They hoped to obtain the rights to use the symbol. From a professional point of view, using the symbol as the cover of a porn magazine was absolutely classic!

However, the perpetrator behind it all, Little Rock, was now staring fixedly on the holographic screen that displayed the flying starship, Victoria!

he atmosphere onboard the starship, Victoria, was filled with fear, but aside from the initial announcement, no one else had appeared to explain the situation. The passengers and crew members were completely separated, and all external communications were blocked.

Zhang Yu smiled bitterly at himself. To think that he was unlucky enough to be involved in an incident like this in one of his very rare outings! As a Maverick, he rarely stepped outdoors. When was the last time he ventured outside? A year ago? Or was it a year and a half? He could not tell.

Looking at the panicking crowd around him, Zhang Yu twitched his mouth. He did not look as ordinary in the virtual world as he did now. While he was not exactly as powerful as that friend of his, he still had a reputation of his own. He had his own share of experience in danger, so it was not too hard to remain calm at this point.

He thought of his mysterious friend, his only hope in this situation. The truth was, he knew that it was futile. Who knew when his friend would be in the virtual world? That person had always appeared and vanished without warning, never giving any indication of the time and place to meet. Perhaps his wait would continue on forever. Moreover, even if his friend saw his message, what could his friend do? No matter how strong he was, he was only a Maverick!

Mavericks were often described as almost invincible beings, but as a professional himself, Zhang Yu understood the limits of a Maverick’s powers.

Mavericks are not Gods!

Little Rock bit on his lip as he stared at Victoria on the holographic screen. Zhang Yu was right. Mavericks are not Gods. At the moment, Little Rock had no idea of what to do. Should he ask Mu or Shang for help? Mu or Shang would be able to deal with the ship, but given where it was right now, even the mech would be powerless to do a thing.

Just when Little Rock was feeling hopeless, the photon processor began to beep.

A message? Little Rock felt encouraged. If there was a message, then it would be possible to hack into the starship’s photon processor. Once he hacked into Victoria’s systems, he would know what was happening there.

Finally, they were far away from Sol Longitude. According to the information from E Pang, the dominant force in this area was not the Three Aristocratic Families. The journey was smoother than expected, but Ye Chong was not happy because of it. On the contrary, he looked perturbed.

Ye Chong stared at the star chart on the holographic screen, lost in thought. He had been at it for some time now.

Rui Bing quietly stayed by his side, looking at him with concern. Finally, she asked, “What’s the matter? You’ve been staring at it for so long.”

Rui Bing interrupted Ye Chong. He broke off his thoughts and turned to Rui Bing, saw the concern in her eyes, and found himself moved by it. He quickly replied, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me.”

“Who’s worrying about you?” Rui Bing looked abashed, but she quickly reverted back to her cold self, asking plainly, “I’m just curious, about why you’re staring at the star chart these few days.”

Captain Airi immediately became alert.

These four people were unlike other normal pirates. They did not give off the aura that pirates normally would.

While their leader, the cold young man, had always showed calmness, Captain Airi could tell that he was worried about something.

The young man and the woman in the white training garb had stayed in the bridge most of the time. The young man was acting weirdly, always staring off into the star chart on the holographic screen.

Rui Bing was overjoyed to see Ye Chong back to his old self, but she kept her expression guarded as she asked intentionally, “You still haven’t tell me where planet Yi Ju is.”

The change in topic by the young lady disappointed the Captain.

“Planet Yi Ju … It’s here!” Ye Chong pointed on a spot on the star chart.

“So it’s here,” Rui Bing followed Ye Chong’s finger and looked. Abruptly, she gasped in surprise, and turned to look at Ye Chong with disbelief in her eyes.

Ye Chong unusually shrugged and said, “You know now.”

Captain Airi looked at planet Yi Ju, wondering what was special about it. Yi Ju was far from its neighbours, and economically stagnant. The Captain had never been there before.

“That’s the place they talked about …” Rui Bing’s voice was trembling.

“Yes.” Ye Chong nodded.

“Then let’s not go there!” Rui Bing suddenly raised her voice, sounding anxious.

Captain Airi watched in surprise at the young lady in training garb. The young lady had showed tremendous self control these few days. When she first demonstrated her abilities, Captain Airi felt certain that a powerful combat expert like her must be equipped with an equally strong mind as well. What could possibly startle such a powerful combat expert?

However, after staring at planet Yi Ju for a long time, he could not figure it out.

“I’ll explain to you when we get there.” Ye Chong felt that it was difficult to explain to Rui Bing for now, and could only tell her so plainly. Rui Bing bit her lips and did not say anything further.

She finally understood what Ye Chong was thinking about these few days.

When Ye Chong pointed out Yi Ju’s general whereabouts, she realized that he was actually referring to one of the places with spatial instability that Ye Luo and Ye Pang had warned them against.

However, she said nothing of it. She knew Ye Chong. He would never go there without good reason.

Ye Chong suddenly turned to Captain Airi and asked, “Where are we now?”

Captain Airi pointed on the star chart, “Here.”

They had successfully left Xue Lai Clan’s territory. Ye Chong heaved a sigh of relief. He then turned to the photon processor, accessing the ship’s comms system and tuned to a communications channel.

Sang Pu stood by the docking zone, watching the starships go by, his heart filled with pride. The base was no longer what it used to be, having been expanded both in size and scale. The starships that were docked here were either flying goods in to the base or preparing their journeys to Archipelago. The latter were all the Tribe’s transport ships.

The Sang Tribe had began its slow move outwards, but this was a very long process. The Sang Tribe had lived in the Archipelago for far too long that it was difficult to fit in to modern society. This transition period was unavoidable, but Sang Pu believed that the Sang Tribe would most definitely be returning to He Yue Galaxy in the near future.

As it was, there was internal debate on whether the Tribe should join the outside world. With the Collision mechs, the Sang Tribe would be undefeatable in Archipelago. In fact, Archipelago would be completely under their power. If they stayed in Archipelago, the Sang Tribe members would be able to live a decent life.

However, the debate did not last long. Their saviour’s plans were quickly executed stage by stage until the end. On this matter, the Sang Tribe was undivided.

Just then, Sang Pu’s comms device rang.

He lifted his wrist to have a look, and found that it was a number he had not seen before. Sang Pu thought it odd. He may be the person in charge at the base, but he seldom showed himself in the outside world. Few knew of his existence. His comms device only had a few of the Tribe members’ numbers.

The connection was made.

“Pu, it’s me!”

Sang Pu stared at the familiar figure on the holographic screen displayed from his comms device, very much astounded!

“Sir …” Sang Pu no longer looked so steady. He was so excited that words would not form.

Suddenly, Sang Pu broke off his trance. He leapt high up like an arrow unleashed, reaching the highest point in the base.

“Sir is back!!”

His loud, excited voice reverberated in the entire base!

People rushed out of their houses, running towards him. From high above, Sang Pu was like the center of a whirlpool, where all the water flowed to and converged.

Ye Chong did not offer pleasantries, but instead said, “Prepare for battle!”

Little Rock went through the motions calmly, his expression rigid.

He had learned how to stay calm from Mu/Shang. His manipulations were flawless. As expected, he used only three minutes to hack into Victoria’s control systems.

“Ah!” An exclamation of surprise alerted everyone onboard Coxcomb.

They all stopped what they were doing and headed looked towards Little Rock. Little Rock always give people an eponymous first impression of being as silent as a rock. He rarely spoke a word unless it was necessary. No one had ever seen Little Rock lost his composure.

Zhu Ling panicked as she quickly went to Little Rock and asked, “What is it … What is it?” She looked anxious, unlike her usual cold and arrogant self.

Little Rock pointed at the holographic screen, unable to say a word.

Everyone’s eyes followed to where he was pointing.

Bzzt bzzt!

The holographic screen before Ye Chong suddenly rippled violently. Sang Pu’s image became blurry and unrecognizable.

“Who is it?” Ye Chong asked in a low and cold voice. He knew what was happening. Someone had hacked into the ship’s control system! When Mu/Shang were with him, they had always used this trick to get them out of danger.

“Ye, it’s me!”

n that moment, Ye Chong felt thunderstruck. He froze for while, but this momentary calmness was immediately broken by a surging warmth from deep down, that spread out to every inch of his skin.

“Mu … Shang …” Ye Chong still sounded calm, but everyone in the Captain’s cabin noticed the unusually strong emotions in his voice. Captain Airi looked at the young man with disbelief. He never imagined that the apathetic young man could actually speak with such rich emotions.

The holographic screen was silent for half a minute, then a one-armed mech came into view. Even when missing an arm, the blue and white alternating lines on the mech were gorgeous and elegant.

“It’s me!” Mu and Shang’s electronic voice made it hard to discern the emotions behind it. His blue, bionic eyes flashed excitedly. Of course, a mech’s emotions was a tricky subject.

“I finally found you!” Ye Chong breathed a long exhale in relief.

The reunion with Mu and Shang brightened his mood from thinking about the problems at planet Yi Ju. He, Mu and Shang were much more than just normal friends.

However, be it Mu, Shang or Ye Chong, they did not like to waste time reminiscing on the past. Ye Chong quickly described his current situation to the mech.

“Understood. We will meet up with you as soon as possible. Estimated time of arrival is 15 days later, with an error margin of seven days.” Mu or Shang did not give Ye Chong any advice, only briefly stating his time of arrival. Even so, Ye Chong was overjoyed. After being separated with the mech for so long, he had truly missed them.

Rui Bing stared at the one-armed mech on the holographic screen, and thought it looked familiar.

Mu suddenly spoke up, “Oh, Shang has asked to speak to you. It’s not his time to surface yet, but given the circumstances, I have agreed to his request!”

In the next moment, the mech’s voice changed abruptly. “Little Ye, hee, it’s been too long! You’re looking more and more handsome. Aha, so you’ve actually won over Bing Bing so quickly!” Shang’s voice sounded just as naughty as he remembered.

Rui Bing’s face instantly reddened.

Her blush made Shang even more excited. “Bing Bing, my dear, what stage are you at with our little Ye? How’s it going so far? Err, I say, Bing Bing dear, you gotta be more proactive in some matters, our little Ye is just clueless all the time. Ah, you’ve gotten so huge, it’s different from the numbers in my database, looks like it’s time for an update. I gotta say, Bing Bing’s maturing quite splendidly …”

Shang was just blabbering at Rui Bing with so much excitement that Ye Chong was basically ignored.

Rui Bing was now blushing even more intensely.

Everyone in the Captain’s cabin stared at the holographic screen in astonishment. They did not expect the mech’s cold, mechanical attitude to undergo a complete shift!

Listening to Shang’s constant blabbering, Ye Chong did not feel impatient at all. Instead, he felt a warmness enveloping him. Yes, very warm indeed.

On Yi Ju, the Papatte Mech Squad had become the dominating force in the area. Ever since the Papatte Mech Squad arrived in Yi Ju, the pirates nearby all vanished without a trace. Unlike other mech squads, the Papatte Mech Squad had never welcomed visitors. Even when Yi Ju’s Governing Officer, Torres had asked for a visit, they had firmly refused the man.

However, no one expressed any dissatisfaction in this matter, since the fact was that the Squad was just too powerful!

All their external affairs were handled by a man called Old Chief Guo.

All residents on Yi Ju knew that any mission given to the Papatte Mech Squad would be completed without a hitch. From the beginning, the Papatte Mech Squad had achieved an average success rate of 98 percent. Besides, it was rumored that the Papatte Mech Squad had strict discipline. Even locals in Terry City had never seen the mech pilots leave their base, much less interfere with local affairs.

The only thing that puzzled them was why a mid sized mech squad as strong as Papatte would choose to stay so far out in the universe. What’s stranger was the fact that they only ever accepted missions in the vicinity. No matter how large the reward offered, they would always refuse missions far from Yi Ju.

Every once in awhile, there would be many resources shipped to the base. The large commercial fleets had given Terry City’s economy a strong push.

The isolated mech squad was a mystery to all the local residents.

However, on this day, things changed!

The door that led to the Papatte Mech Squad’s base had opened without warning. Countless odd looking mechs flew out to the skies. The peaceful base was suddenly filled with activity.

All the areas around Yi Ju came under control of the mech squad. All starships and mechs were ordered to stay aground. In one day, Yi Ju was plunged into a state of emergency.

Torres had been sweating nervously since 8 o’clock that morning. The cool autumn weather suddenly felt annoyingly hot. He was already drenched in sweat all over. Sweat beads covered his fair, chubby face. His tiny eyes were filled with terror and panic.

“What are they doing?” Torres gritted his teeth. When he first heard of the odd movements of the Papatte Mech Squad, he had immediately flew on his own starship to Terry City. After all, while the Papatte Mech Squad had remained low key during they stay, their dominance in the area was already established among the locals on Yi Ju.

The presence of a towering force in his area of governance was a huge problem for him. However, there was nothing he could do about it. Planet Yi Ju was secluded and economically backwards, with a low population. As a Governing Officer chosen by his people, Torres did not have much military power at his disposal. Besides, his job was mostly an empty title, without much to do.

Unexpectedly, the arrival of Papatte Mech Squad had made his life easier. Since their arrival, the pirates that appeared occasionally in the area had all gone without a trace. Besides, the Papatte Mech Squad seemed to practice tight discipline. Their members had never created trouble, and even helped maintain peace in the neighborhood. He had always thought well of them.

However, he had received a report from his subordinate today that the Papatte Mech Squad was performing a large scale operation. This shook him very much, since the mech squad become grown to become a local power that could no longer be ignored. Their every move would affect planet Yi Ju greatly.

Even so, he was not too worried. No one understood Yi Ju better than him. This place had nothing to offer, and besides, the Papatte Mech Squad had a clean track record.

He had wanted to meet the person in charge of external affairs, Old Chief Guo, for a chat to understand the situation. However, halfway through his flight, he had encountered the mechs from Papatte Mech Squad, despite his holographic screen showing nothing around his ship.

He was ordered to land immediately!

“The Squad has taken control over the airspace around planet Yi Ju! All flight vessels please land immediately! All flight vessels please land immediately! In five minutes, all aerial targets will be attacked! The five minute countdown begins now!” The cold voice of a man came through the comms, his emotionless delivery convincing Torres that should he failed to land his ship in time, the other party would attack him without hesitation! Given his position, of course Torres was able to grasp the gravity of the situation.

“Sir! Our holographic scanning systems show no targets!” A crew member reported with a voice that betrayed his fear. Torres could almost hear the man’s teeth clattering together.

“In three minutes!” The cold and flat voice came through the comms once again.

The crew member shuddered.

Torres gritted his teeth, and forced his next words out, “Land immediately!”

The crew member seemed relieved to hear that. He maneuvered the ship to land as soon as possible, almost wishing they could just teleport themselves there!

Torres and his ship landed safely. Torres had wanted to speak with the Papatte Mech Squad pilots, but the man had left in his flying vessel immediately after another warning.

“If you go airborne again, we will shoot to kill without further warning! Please value your lives and cooperate! Thank you!”

Torres watched as the mech turned smaller and smaller in sight, until it finally vanished in the sky. He looked grim as he gave the order, “Prepare our land transport, we must reached Terry City as soon as possible.” Torres was no longer angry, but felt deeply troubled instead. What were they trying to do?

In just a short span of time, the entire airspace around planet Yi Ju was cleared of all but Papatte Mech Squad’s mechs.

Papatte Mech Squad’s unusual behavior had incited all kinds of rumors on Yi Ju. People were panicking. However, no one dared to step out and protest, since rumor had it that a starship was shot down for refusing their orders. Even though the Papatte Mech Squad had always maintained a low profile, the locals never doubted their strength.

Every resident of Yi Ju knew that something big must have happened. Or else, why would the low key Papatte Mech Squad suddenly behaved so aggressively?

What was going to happen next? Everyone waited with dread! Whatever large event that was about to occur, how would it affect the locals? Would their lives be changed forever?

quot;You are Zhang Yu?” Ye Chong studied the man in front of him.

Zhang Yu was also giving Ye Chong the same look of assesment. He was a little perturbed. He was asked to the bridge alone, and this special treatment unsettled him. However, he believed that he had managed to maintain a calm impression. He nodded and said, “I am.”

“Alright. From now on, you will be under our protection,” Ye Chong stated plainly.

Zhang Yu stared in shock at the young man. The first thought that came to him was, had he encountered the legendary organization called the cartel?

Torres rushed to Terry City, just in time to see a starship making its landing. Around this starship were no less than a thousand of those weird flying vessels as its escorts.

Looking above from the ground, the fleet felt immense and powerful.

What an incredible show of power! Torres turned solemn. From the looks of it, the new arrival must be someone extraordinary. However, the starship did not seem to fit the story. Logically speaking, any person of status would have flown in a large high class starship, and not an average long distance starship like this one. This civilian starship would not have been enough to satisfy anyone of status, be it in terms of safety or comfort.

The scene was odd indeed. It was like seeing a large group of bodyguards in tuxedos carefully escorting a poorly dressed beggar.

As expected, the starship landed in the base of the Papatte Mech Squad. Torres no longer hesitated. He ordered his subordinates to drive him to the base.

Sang Pu, Sang Tie and Sang Ling all looked at Ye Chong, filled with emotions.

“Sir …” “Sir!” “… Sir …” The three of them spoke up simultaneously.

Ye Chong looked at them, and felt a surge of emotions from within. Sang Pu was beginning to have the bearings of a leader. He stood there before him with a grace that befitted a man of power. Sang Ling had grown even more beautiful. Sang Tie looked just the same as before, but with a more mature composure.

“I’m back,” Ye Chong said softly.

“Sir is back!” “Sir is back!” The base was filled with roaring cheers of joy. This man had taught them how to build Collision mechs, survive the Beast Stampede, and leave Archipelago. Everyone of the Sang Tribe loved him from the bottom of their hearts.

When he began to introduce the others in his company, there was a bit of an issue. Most of them were fine, but Ye Chong had no idea how to introduce Rui Bing.

“She is …” Ye Chong tilted his head, unable to continue the sentence. A friend? He rejected the notion immediately.

“Welcome, Ma’am!” The sympathetic Sang Ling stepped up to give him a hand. The rest of the Sang Tribe realized the situation then. So it was Ye Chong’s wife. No wonder he was embarrassed. They had all learned under Ye Chong, and since they called Ye Chong “Sir”, it was only natural to call his wife “Ma’am”.

Even with Rui Bing’s steady character, she blushed deeply at the greeting.

Everyone’s attention was focused on Rui Bing. They were all curious about the wife of their young teacher. Their intense gazes were directed instantly to Rui Bing, leaving Ye Chong completely ignored.

Sang Pu noticed Rui Bing’s dilemma. He stole a glance at Ye Chong, smiled, and came forward to help Ye Chong and Rui Bing out of their awkwardness. He raised his voice to the crowd, “What’re you all standing here? Get to your jobs now. Sir is finally back, and he’ll need his rest. Go on now, go on.” It seemed that Sang Pu had won the confidence of the people. They all left with reluctance.

Sang Ling smiled at Rui Bing and said, “Young Ma’am, let’s go.”

News of the young teacher bringing back a lady as beautiful as a Goddess spread like wildfire throughout the entire base.

Before them, the area around Yi Ju was shown on a holographic screen, suspended in midair. A bright red dot glowed on the projection.

“This is one of the areas that is spatially unstable, and the closest one to us. It’s not clear yet if these areas of spatial instability were the first signs before those creatures appeared.” Ye Chong explained the situation briefly.

Everyone who heard Ye Chong describe the war at the Gateway entrance were horrified. They had heard of the Three Aristocratic Families. Their mech fleets were recognized as the strongest in the entire He Yue Galaxy. They even had the Three Aces leading the assault. Even so, the war had cost a staggering number of casualties. At the end of the war, only less than 20 percent of the combat force survived.

It was not hard to imagine the devastating aftermath.

Sang Pu and the rest looked grim, but none of them showed fear. Before meeting Ye Chong, they had all lived very dangerous lives, and were far more mentally resilient than the people in the He Yue Galaxy. Besides, no matter how strong this unknown lifeform was, it was only an animal, and the Sang Tribe had more than enough experience dealing with strange and unknown animals in Archipelago.

“That’s a very dangerous area!” Sang Pu smiled bitterly, pointing at the holographic screen as he said, “Look, if those unknown lifeforms really appear here as Sir said, then our communications with the Tribe back home will be affected. If the creatures move towards the Calamitous Asteroid Belt, then our communications with the Tribe will be severed entirely!”

On the holographic screen, the red dot expanded rapidly, soon becoming a red zone. The red zone was like a red colored barrier, blocking the route between Archipelago and Yi Ju.

“War it is!” Sang Tie declared roughly. He looked at Ye Chong with fervent eyes. For someone as battle hungry as him, the recent peace was getting dull.

“War it is!” Sang Ling nodded in agreement. No matter what, they could not afford to have their communications with the rest of the Tribe severed. She looked at Ye Chong inquiringly.

Sang Pu said calmly, “I agree with them. War it is!” He looked to Ye Chong.

The three of them looked to Ye Chong.

“War it is!” Ye Chong said with determination.

Tores did not see Ye Chong, but was greeted by Old Chief Guo. Old Chief Guo himself was unclear of the situation, about how to explain things to Torres, so he chose to delay the man. Torres was getting anxious, but there was nothing he could do.

If the base looked busy in the short moment before Ye Chong’s arrival, it was now positively crazy with activity.

Ye Chong called for Zhang Yu. The man’s main duty was to establish contact with Mu and Shang’s side. Yi Ju was technologically backward. The virtual world infrastructure here was almost nonexistent. Sang Pu and the others knew nothing about technology, and so never thought of working on it.

Nevertheless, Zhang Yu was knowledgeable enough in the basics to build a signal emitter that could be connected to the virtual world from scratch, using bits of odds and ends. The equipment was still quite primitive, but since Mu and Shang would only arrive in about two weeks, it would not be an issue.

Ever since he knew of Ye Chong’s relationship with Dragon-Tiger Match, Zhang Yu agreed to cooperate without delay. Besides, once he found that his job was to establish contact with Dragon-Tiger Match, he felt even more excited.

Sang Tie was sent to Archipelago. Since Yi Ju’s combat force was not enough, his task was to bring back at least another 10 thousand men and resources for the war.

Old Jalopy was quick to dive into the work of improving the Collision mechs. He was a true expert in mechanics. His extreme working hours were shocking. On the third day, with his eyes red and bleary, Old Jalopy presented his first schematics with improvements. Everyone was impressed by his dedication.

Only people like Ye Chong and Rui Bing, who had seen the war up close, would understand why Old Jalopy would work so desperately.

In the end, Old Jalopy’s experience in mechanics was worth far more than Ye Chong’s amateur knowledge. His modifications were simple but efficient. After some computations by the photon processor, the maneuverability of the Collision mech was improved by 17 percent, and the energy efficiency increased by 9 percent. The statistics were trustworthy, having been provided by Mu himself. Even Ye Chong was impressed by the modifications. More importantly, the modifications to Collision mechs were not too extensive, and could be done in a relatively short time.

Ye Chong waited no longer. He gave the order to modify all the Collision mechs.

Monitoring work on the spatially unstable area never ceased. The entire monitoring equipment setup was obtained from a school laboratory by Torres. Ye Chong began to like the man because of his assistance.

In fact, Torres had guessed the gist of the situation when he knew of the monitoring equipment, so he cooperated without delay. With Yi Ju’s highest official cooperating, Ye Chong and his group could work more efficiently.

For example, the passengers onboard Victoria were left for Torres to handle. They were swiftly dispatched to the appropriate facilities on the planet.

War is money consuming.

Ye Chong could finally appreciate this expression. In just a few days, Sang Pu and the rest had used up a good part of their savings after so long. All the resources and equipment they used had to be bought. More importantly, all the many different kinds of high quality long range weapons were so expensive that Ye Chong balked at the price tags. The war was also going to happen in wide, open space, unlike the tightly confined battlefield at the Gateway entrance before.

Yi Ju was economically lacking, with nothing to spare. Torres could not offer much help in this regard.

Ye Chong watched as their savings depleted rapidly. It was a vexing problem, and he would have to figure out a way to overcome it.

t must be said that earning money had become a most difficult problem for Ye Chong right now. He was not ready with a solution for the problem, and could only wait for Mu, Shang and the others to arrive in the meantime.

Right now, he focused mostly on monitoring the area with spatial instability. Since they had no specialized devices to measure spatial stability, they could only use the simplest method of having patrol units monitor the area at all times.

Ye Chong had been there himself, but since he did not have any specialized measurement device with him, he could not find warning before the instability onset.

Planet Yi Ju’s external communications were now under the control of the Papatte Mech Squad, and this was largely thanks to Zhang Yu. Communications between the other planets and Yi Ju were severed, and Yi Ju became isolated.

Due to the lack of natural resources, Yi Ju had never been under the scrutiny of the Three Aristocratic Families. This was a planet that even pirates would not care to plunder from.

Aside from that, the Three Aristocratic Families themselves were fully occupied. In fact, there were seven areas with spatial instability in the He Yue Galaxy. The Three Aristocratic Families had four within their territories. The Ye Family had one, and so did the Xue Lai Clan. The Xi Feng Tribe was unfortunate enough to have two within their territory. The other three areas with spatial instability were scattered around the He Yue Galaxy, and one of them was near Yi Ju.

The Three Aristocratic Families were now fully prepared for war. The Xi Feng Tribe had reacted the strongest, gathering nearly all their military personnel back to headquarters for defense. The war strategies deployed by the Three Aristocratic Families had alerted the entire He Yue Galaxy instantly. The Three Aristocratic Families had kept the incident at the Gateways under wraps, so the outside world had no idea of the terrible war that they had just survived. Hence, the rumor mill began to churn out all kinds of theories. None of the Families spoke up. They offered no explanation of their behavior.

“Have you figured out what happened?” Xiao Wan stared at the man in front of her, asking with a stern voice. A black and smooth damask wrapped around her silhouette, showing her perfect curves. She had a silent quality about her that spelled power. The woman was like a black colored lily in full bloom, invoking a sense of dignity and elegance.

The middle aged man before her answered respectfully, “Not yet. The Three Aristocratic Families kept a tight lid on things. We have yet to uncover any useful intel.” The man’s looks were not look particularly outstanding, but his peaceful expression was soothing. His hands were huge and strong, covered with old calluses. It was Gray Valley’s elite, Bei Guang.

Beside Bei Guang was a younger man in a simple outfit. He had thick eyebrows, and his shoulders were wide. His short hair was as rigid as steel rods. A short stubble made him look even more manly.

Xiao Wan turned to the younger man and asked, “Arwa, what do you think?”

The down-to-earth looking man was Gray Valley’s famous genius tactician, Arwa!

Arwa pondered silently for a while before replying, “Recent activities of the Three Aristocratic Families are indeed strange. From their latest overall military formation, they are probably not trying to start a war with us, but defending themselves against someone else. Right now, we know nothing about their situation, and it’s hard to figure out the truth behind their actions.”

Xiao Wan turned on the photon processor in the room. Her fair and slender fingers pointed elegantly on the image that was projected onto the holographic screen. “This just came in from the Research Consortium. There’s something interesting in the report, you can have a look at them.” Xiao Wan smiled gently and invited them to view the report.

Bei Guang and Arwa exchanged glances. Interesting? The Young Miss rarely described anything as “interesting”. The two of them quickly turned their attention towards the report.

The report was done professionally, but also in a straightforward manner. They finished reading the report quickly. After they were done with the report, they looked to each other again and noticed the fear in each other’s eyes.

“In this report, areas seen with spatial instability in the He Yue Galaxy were identified. Coincidentally, four of these areas are where the Three Aristocratic Families have concentrated their forces. For now, we do not know if this is purely coincidental or otherwise. Unfortunately, Gray Valley also has an area with spatial instability.

By then, Xiao Wan was no longer smiling. The other two men also looked grim. They had finished the report. They had also noticed the coincidence that the Young Miss spoke of.

Xiao Wan looked faintly concerned. “If this is not a coincidence, the situation would be very serious. The Three Aristocratic Families must know something, or they would not be so nervous. The area with spatial instability is within the territory of the Koure Mech Squad. However, I doubt they can keep the situation under control. We need to start making preparations. Sigh, Gray Valley is too disordered. Many years of conflicts has damaged our own strength. I’m afraid that this time …”

Xiao Wan did not finish her sentence, but both Bei Guang and Arwa understood her. Gray Valley’s internal strife was unknown to the outside world. Throughout history, only the invasion of the Three Aristocratic Families managed to bring everyone together. Xiao Wan and they only represented one of the many powers in Gray Valley. It would be hard enough to keep themselves safe from the impending threat.

In fact, Gray Valley’s power structure was quite strange. Of all the organizations in the area, the Research Consortium was the most peculiar.

The Research Consortium treated every power and every mech pilot in Gray Valley equally. It was an entirely independent organization, not belonging to any other force in Gray Valley. The Research Consortium had set up a comprehensive set of exchange rules. Everyday, the Research Consortium would commission a good number of missions, such as finding some unique raw ingredient or obtaining classified information from some organization or aristocratic family. They did not care about the methods used to achieve these missions. As long as you can accomplish the mission, you will be rewarded with an appropriate number of credits.

These precious credits can be exchanged for knowledge of certain skills, or, for individuals, they could be exchanged for a top class mech that could not be found in the market. Any true resident of Gray Valley would know that the technology offered by the Research Consortium was at least on par with that of the Three Aristocratic Families!

Bei Guang’s Sentry and Hua’s Graycrawler were both from the Research Consortium. The Consortium was truly capable in technological matters.

In Gray Valley, the Research Consortium was the ultimate power, and no one would dare to cross them.

Xiao Wan pondered on the issue for awhile, then resolutely declared, “Order Hua to return immediately. Order all our men who are stationed outside Gray Valley to return. We are now in the highest state of emergency.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Bei Guang and Arwa replied in unison. They knew that the Young Miss may look weak, but she was in fact quick to decide, with a mind of her own. Besides, she understood the bigger picture better than the two of them. The orders from the Young Miss had greatly surprised them, since they did not think the situation was so serious. Nonetheless, they obeyed without hesitation.

The reason for this was simple – the Young Miss was never wrong in her decisions. Her astuteness and wisdom had long impressed both of them.

As the two of them began to leave, Xiao Wan called on Arwa. She smiled and said, “Arwa, if everything went well, your new mech, Pioneer, should be in your room now. It’s the latest product by the Research Consortium!”

Arwa was surprised and overjoyed to hear that. He kept his emotions hidden as he replied respectfully to Xiao Wan, “Arwa will definitely repay this favor, Young Miss!”

Any mech pilot would have probably dreamed of piloting a first class mech, much less a tactician prodigy like Arwa. As a normal citizen, Arwa had always flown in average mechs. No one would have thought that the prodigious Arwa was not born talented. In fact, he could not afford better mechs due to his financial situation. Hence, he could only use normal mechs to fight against others. There was nothing he could do but figure out tricks to win. As he spent more and more time strategizing, he slowly developed his reputation as an ingenious tactician.

Although he was proud of his reputation, any mech pilot would yearn to own a first class mech! However, the amount of credits required to exchange for a mech of that class from the Research Consortium was nearly impossible to achieve by any single individual.

To think that this dream of his all these years was finally realized! On the other hand, he was touched by the importance the Young Miss had placed on him. Of all the mechs offered by the Research Consortium, Pioneer was ranked at number nine in terms of the number of credits required to exchange for it! Compared to this, Bei Guang’s Sentry was only at the 45th, while Graycrawler was at 67th.

It was evident how powerful this mech was. How could he not be touched by the Young Miss?

Bei Guang had been in his position before, and understood Arwa’s emotions right now. He patted the man’s shoulders and smiled. “Why’re you still standing around here? Go have a look at your new mech!”

Arwa chuckled out loud at that, and quickly rushed out of the room.

Bei Guang watched as Arwa disappeared from view, and could not help but laughed quietly himself. He turned to the Young Miss and bowed. He then left the room, closing the door behind him.

Now that she was the only one left in the meeting room, Xiao Wan sighed deeply and sat back down, massaging her temples with her fair hands. She did not look as calm or capable as she was just now. Now, she only looked tired.