“What are you doing?!”
The burly man couldn’t help shouting.
This woman! How could she be so shameless?!
She must be trying to seduce His Eminence Ellros!
“Don’t bother wasting your efforts! How could His Eminence possibly be interested in someone like you… His Eminence?!”
Qian Li tilted her head and pointed at Ellros’s face, which had turned an even deeper shade of red.
“Hmm? What were you saying just now?”
She waved the strip of fabric in her hand. “I’m just trying to bandage Ellros’s wound.”
…
“Steady! Steady!”
The aircar shook violently from time to time. The slimmer man seemed to suffer from motion sickness, his face so pale that not a trace of color remained. Every now and then, he muttered something under his breath.
Qian Li felt as though she were riding a roller coaster. She could only grip the handle above her seat tightly to keep herself from being thrown out.
Low level mutated creatures had no intelligence. Whenever they saw something different from themselves, they would instinctively charge at it and attack.
There were also far too many of them, making it difficult to break through their encirclement in a short time.
Fortunately, the aircar was made from a special mineral. It was sturdy yet flexible, so even when the creatures rammed into it, they left behind only small dents.
But if this continued for too long, the aircar would eventually be destroyed.
Without it, escaping the encirclement would be almost impossible for them alone.
Just as Qian Li was about to throw up everything she had eaten that morning, the burly man made a desperate decision. He grabbed the control lever and said in a low voice, “Buckle up!”
Qian Li heard a tremendous roar. Immediately afterward, smoke poured from the aircar’s thrusters, and the densely packed mutated creatures clinging to the windows were flung backward, leaving streaks of afterimages.
Five minutes later, the burly man released the thruster control and raised a hand to wipe the sweat from the tip of his nose.
The aircar gradually steadied. He tapped several times on the control panel, pulled off his gloves, and walked into the cabin.
Seeing this, the slimmer man hurriedly took out a tube of nutritional fluid and approached him.
“How is it? How much longer can we fly?”
“Ten minutes at most.” The burly man took a deep breath and reached for the nutritional fluid. “I’ve already switched to autopilot and low energy consumption mode. We should be able to cover several dozen kilometers without any problems for now…”
“Hah… Hah…”
The burly man clutched his carotid artery with his right hand.
The glass tube of nutritional fluid slipped from his left hand and struck the floor with a sharp crack.
Shards of glass scattered everywhere. Reflected in them were the slimmer man’s eyes, filled with compassion for all living things. His low voice was as devout as someone offering a prayer.
“I’m sorry. For the glory of my Lord, I have no choice but to ask you to die…”
Bang!
Qian Li took a deep breath and raised the energy gun. She watched as the man made no attempt to dodge, taking the shot directly in the chest.
Flames roared. A hole was burned through his red robe, revealing a blood red eye enclosed within a triangle on his chest.
Qian Li pressed her lips together. Her gun hand remained perfectly steady as she watched the blood red eye on his chest stare motionlessly at her.
A bone chilling sensation rose through her body, as though she were being watched by some inhuman creature. Qian Li gritted her teeth as she watched him approach step by step.
The man leaned closer, lowering his head slightly to sniff at her neck. He murmured to himself,
“My Lord likes your scent very much.”
What scent? What was he even talking about?!
This man and his Lord were both perverts!
Qian Li flicked her wrist and fired a rapid burst from the energy gun, forcing him back half a meter. She then turned her wrist, and the dagger hidden in her sleeve followed the movement, plunging precisely into his heart.
Something was wrong. Why did the dagger feel as though it had been stabbed into soft mud?
Realizing she had been tricked, Qian Li tried to pull her hand back. The man grabbed her wrist with his right hand, and fine red threads began emerging from his chest.
His eyes gazed at Qian Li with intoxicated delight.
“Become one of us, and serve our Lord together!”
Seeing that the red threads were about to consume her entire arm, Qian Li pointed the energy gun at her own wrist.
In her previous life, she had been a mercenary. She knew perfectly well that when faced with a desperate situation, she would have to sacrifice even her own hand to save her life!
Besides, this was already the interstellar era. At worst, she could simply get a mechanical hand…
Just as Qian Li was about to fire, an enormous surge of energy suddenly burst from her wrist.
The man’s previously arrogant expression turned deathly pale. Clutching his severed, blood red hand, he cried out in shock.
“A mark! How can you have the mark of the God of Light?! No! This isn’t an ordinary mark! You… You…”
Huh? Wasn’t it the Holy Son’s mark?
The thought flashed through Qian Li’s mind.
The man’s face gradually twisted out of shape. Before he could finish speaking, his body began turning into a cloud of ashes amid the dazzling white light that filled the aircar.
However, a thin red thread still managed to slip through the wound on Qian Li’s hand and burrow into her skin.
Her body shuddered with an indescribable sensation, as though an eye were constantly watching her.
Fortunately, the feeling disappeared after a dozen or so seconds.
With no way to deal with it for the time being, Qian Li let the aircar continue along its programmed route. She collapsed onto the floor like a lifeless fish and lay there for a while before finally picking up the burly man’s optical brain.
She didn’t dare use the heretic’s optical brain. What if it contained a tracking device? That would be trouble.
The burly man’s optical brain had already entered emergency mode, so no unlocking was required.
The original owner had never used an optical brain before, but the publicity on Planet Kroll had been so effective that even three or four year old children knew to follow the map displayed by an optical brain in emergency mode.
However, the red dot was a full five hundred li away. Even if the aircar remained in low energy mode, it could cover only a quarter of the distance at most.
Shelter
A hovering aircar arrived at the entrance of the shelter.
The two metal gates slowly opened to either side, and an attendant dressed in white opened the aircar door.
An elderly man holding a platinum scepter embedded with rubies slowly stepped out.
Several young men carrying guns placed their hands over their chests, bowed slightly, and respectfully lowered their heads.
“Your Holiness.”
The elderly Pope of the Empire’s Temple of the God of Light had a kindly face and azure eyes. He looked at the young men before him and extended his hand to Fang Ze, the person in charge of the base, who had come forward to support him.
Just as he was about to speak, he suddenly seemed to sense something. He turned around, his expression solemn.
A beam of white light shot into the sky.
Fang Ze glanced in that direction, then devoutly clasped his hands together.
“That is the direction where His Eminence the Holy Son is fighting…”
The Pope placed his right hand over his chest, feeling the suddenly intensified power of light gathering around his scepter.
His face could no longer conceal his excitement.
“Such concentrated, such boundless power of light…”
“No! No!”
“That is the power of my Lord!”
“My Lord! He has responded to someone!”
Fang Ze was stunned, unable to believe what he had heard.
He rubbed his eyes, but he couldn’t see anything.
“Your Holiness…” Are you sure you’re not mistaken?
In the age of interstellar gods, human lifespans had increased dramatically.
The previous Pope had lived for three hundred years.
As for the current Pope, he was already three hundred and seventy years old.
Although he remained vigorous and energetic in his daily life, he had nevertheless entered the twilight of his years.
Besides, in all these centuries, the current Pope had never experienced a divine descent from the God of Light.
There were only rumors that the Pope enjoyed the God of Light’s favor, which was why his life had been so long.
Fang Ze wasn’t sure whether the Pope’s judgment was mistaken.
Just as he hesitated, a young man wearing black framed glasses came running over, clutching a sheet of paper.
“Boss! Boss Fang! It’s SSS… SSS rank energy!”
“Could the energy detector be malfunctioning?” Fang Ze asked again, a trace of uncertainty appearing on his face.
“Ab… Absolutely not!” The young man gasped for breath as he waved the paper in his hand.
The Pope struck the ground with his scepter and urged them, “Quickly, send people to the east! No matter what it takes, bring that person back!”