Damn it, so uncomfortable—I couldn’t fall asleep at all last night.
Li Qing’s Escort Ship was affected by the Interception Field and Interference Field immediately, but neither affected his retreat.
The Interception Field’s function was only to prevent the target from using its Hyperspace Engine to Jump away, while the Interference Field laid down a barrier to prevent anyone else from Jumping into this area.
Neither had any slowing capability.
Only the Entangling Stasis Beam had a slowing function, but it had not been used on him.
At this moment, Xia Qi and the others also came to their senses and, like him, quickly turned around to retreat.
Seeing this, Li Yuan, commander of the Burning Wraith Squadron in the distance, merely sneered and paid them no attention, focusing entirely on commanding his subordinates to capture the chaotic orb of light.
Under the control of three Tractor Beams, the chaotic orb was firmly pinned in the void, trembling violently.
As if sensing the threat, the hideous malevolent souls inside bit and tore at each other even more fiercely—visible to the naked eye, one hideous malevolent soul after another was being torn apart and devoured.
The number of malevolent souls dwindled rapidly, but the survivors grew stronger and stronger.
Even with his preparations, Li Yuan could feel the Psychic Shock growing ever more intense.
Yet instead of worry, his face showed only fanaticism as he gazed at the orb, which was gradually turning from chaos to clarity, muttering to himself:
“Fight, devour. Hundreds of thousands of souls tainted by the Immaterium merging into one—a Psionic Lifeform is certain to be born.”
“Buzz!”
Another powerful Psionic Shock exploded outward, and every Warship shuddered violently, coming to a halt.
Li Yuan’s expression changed slightly.
At that moment, a robot floating in midair behind him, its eyes flickering with red light, spoke in a mechanical voice:
“Warning: Warships detected to be affected by Psionic Shock. Electronic transmission malfunction in the stern section. Logistics supervisor, please prepare repairs.”
“Warning: The fourth Psionic Shock has been detected to have reached the critical threshold of a Psionic Storm. It is expected to rise to Quasi-Psionic Storm Grade intensity on the next shock. Commander, please take evasive precautions!”
“Warning: The fifth Psionic Shock is predicted to reach Quasi-Psionic Storm Grade intensity, at which point all automated systems across the fleet will temporarily shut down for an estimated duration of 60 seconds. Commander, please take evasive precautions!”
The three consecutive warnings made Li Yuan’s expression shift slightly, his eyes flickering as his mind raced.
He quickly made his decision:
“I order all Warships to switch to manual combat systems and activate Overload Mode before the next Psionic Storm arrives.”
“Commander, Overload Mode can only last for one round at most. Based on the Psionic Shock intensity calculations, the shock intensity will officially enter Psionic Storm level at the sixth round.”
“That’s enough. Follow my orders.”
“Yes, Commander!”
The robot’s electronic eyes flickered with red light.
Li Yuan clenched his fists.
On the surface he appeared expressionless and unworried, but in truth he felt a trace of unease inside.
“Buzz!”
The fifth Psionic Shock swept through, and the massive Warship shuddered violently.
Its surface shields rippled like water waves, and a tangible spatial fluctuation swept past right before his eyes.
Countless lights inside the Warship turned red, and alarms blared without cease.
But after Overload Mode was activated, the shock resistance of the vast majority of the Warship’s systems was greatly enhanced, and it forcibly withstood the blow.
At this moment, the captain robot of the Cruiser came over again with a warning, but Li Yuan simply raised a hand to stop it, his gaze fixed firmly on the sphere of light that had already decided a winner, a hint of a smile appearing on his face:
“It’s over. There won’t be a sixth round of Psionic Storm.”
The sphere of light had transformed from its previous chaos into a clear transparency.
The countless ferocious faces that had been mixed inside could no longer be seen—only a single soul-body remained, suspended within the clear sphere of light as if in a deep sleep.
“A Psionic Lifeform. Once fused with, it can forcibly awaken psychic power and turn one into a Psionic!”
Li Yuan recalled what he had done to obtain this.
He had deliberately built a large base, spent hundreds of billions to relocate several hundred thousand people there, then lured an evil entity from the Immaterium to descend—and the moment a wisp of its power arrived, he had swiftly closed the Immaterium Rift.
The souls of several hundred thousand humans had been corrupted and mutated by the entity’s power, slaughtering and devouring one another, until at last the strongest soul devoured all the rest.
Quantitative change had led to qualitative change, becoming a Psionic Lifeform.
Building a base capable of housing several hundred thousand people and relocating them there had cost over forty billion Star Credits in total—nearly his entire fortune.
And now, at last, he was on the verge of success.
Li Yuan was thrilled.
He quickly ordered the Tractor Beam to pull the sphere of light over.
He could hardly wait.
Three Industrial Ships worked in unison, and the sphere of light rapidly approached the Cruiser.
An opening opened on the Cruiser, and the sphere of light floated inside.
The moment the crystal touched the sphere of light, it emitted a powerful attractive force, swallowing the clear radiance like a waterspout.
The humanoid soul-body inside the sphere of light also rapidly twisted and deformed, hurling itself toward the prismatic crystal, on the verge of being devoured.
In that instant, the soul-body suddenly snapped its eyes open, blood-flame spewing from its pupils as it roared:
“Don’t even think about it!”
The soul-body exploded with a bang, a surge of violent psychic power rushing toward Li Yuan—but it was blocked by a layer of Light Armor that appeared over his body.
Expressionless, he said coldly:
“I knew you wouldn’t go down without a fight. I was prepared!”
Another prismatic crystal had appeared in his right hand at some point.
He crushed it in his grip, and a figure of light with an indiscernible face materialized, reaching out to grab—the collapsing psychic power was firmly bound by a mighty force.
“You can’t escape. Just obediently become—”
The face of the re-aggregated soul-body was no longer what it had been before, but another face full of evil, wearing an eerie smile.
Li Yuan immediately felt a sense of foreboding.
He instinctively tried to do something, but in that very moment, he could no longer sense his own existence.
At the same time, the evil face spoke:
“I have seen countless butchers, but one who could cold-bloodedly slaughter several hundred thousand of his own kind is exceedingly rare. I admire you greatly. Work for me!”
Then, Li Yuan could sense his own existence again.
His first reaction was to communicate mentally with the robot captain under his command.
But the evil face, as if it could read his thoughts, shook its head and said:
“That won’t do. Since you’re not interested, I never force anyone.”
It raised its head to look in a certain direction, the corner of its mouth curling up:
“Hmm, let me see… there are two of your kind more interesting than you.”
Li Yuan seemed to sense something, a trace of terror appearing in his eyes as he shouted:
“I agree! I agree!”
“Too late!”
The next second, his protective Light Armor collapsed, and countless streaks of red-and-black light burrowed into his body.
The light in Li Yuan’s eyes rapidly dimmed, turning gray, and soon his entire body crumbled into ash and dispersed.
A stream of red-and-black light rose from the scattered dust, flashed through the air, and vanished.
“Your soul has been devoured by an unknown evil entity from the Immaterium. Rebuilding your body and soul will consume 50 years of your lifespan. Remaining lifespan: 6 years.”
With Li Yuan’s death, the unknown Immaterium entity vanished, and Li Qing immediately sensed the chaos erupting on the Burning Ghost fleet’s side.
At that moment, Xia Qi’s voice came through the channel:
“Something seems to have happened over there—they’re in chaos. We—”
The words cut off abruptly.
Everyone froze and sent communications to Xia Qi asking what was wrong—all except Li Qing.
Because he had been about to send a message himself, but before he could act, he saw countless black-and-red lights converging before the Bridge, condensing into a humanoid figure whose features could not be made out.
It was watching him with great interest, and it spoke words that left both him and Xia Qi utterly shocked:
“Human, I can sense the immense psionic potential within you. With just a wisp of my power, you could successfully awaken as a Psionic right now. But there is a saying in your human civilization: there is no such thing as a free lunch. All you need to pay is a trivial price, and you can become a powerful Psionic.”
Xia Qi said nothing, instead watching this unknown lifeform that had somehow appeared inside his Warship with full vigilance.
The unknown lifeform seemed to guess what he was thinking and said in a voice full of temptation:
“Perhaps I should introduce myself first. I come from the Void Realm—in your human terms, the Psionic Realm. In human eyes, we may seem evil, but we do not see ourselves that way. What we love most is trade—an exchange of what each party needs—not forcible seizure.”
“If you know anything about us, you should know that we have never forced you humans, and that remains true now. If you are unwilling, I can leave right now.”
“But before I go, I have a small proposal. You may not know this yourself, but you possess a psionic talent—you are only one step away from awakening. Under normal circumstances, it might take you decades to awaken, or you might never awaken in your entire life. But if you make a small deal with me, paying a trivial price that will absolutely pose no threat to your life, you can awaken your psionic powers immediately and become a powerful Psionic.”
The entity appeared in no hurry at all.
It raised its left wrist as if checking the time, lifted its right hand in an orchid-finger gesture, and said:
“You have fifteen seconds to decide. If you have not made your choice after fifteen seconds, I will assume you have given up this opportunity to change your fate.”
“Fifteen.”
“Fourteen.”
Compared to Xia Qi, whose brows furrowed and relaxed, whose eyes darted about, and who wore an expression of obvious hesitation, Li Qing’s expression was far more composed.
He was even curiously sizing up this unknown lifeform that claimed to come from the Psionic Realm.
He knew of the Psionic Realm—it was famously renowned.
It was a powerful otherworldly domain located within the Immaterium on the reverse side of the Material Universe, and the place all Psionics most yearned to enter.
It was home to countless powerful psionic beings, the most famous of which were the Four Great Chaos Evil Gods, also known as the Four Peddlers, namely:
World Eater.
Vessel of Longing.
Weft of Life.
But these were merely their former titles.
Across different eras and civilizations, They bore different names.
God of Courage and Strength.
God of Knowledge and Wisdom.
God of Life and Prosperity.
God of Art and Beauty.
Of course, this unknown lifeform was certainly none of those four supremely powerful Chaos evil gods, for those four beings never concealed their existence, and no other entity from the Psionic Realm would dare impersonate them—so it was definitely not one of them.
But whoever it was, any being that emerged from the Psionic Realm was necessarily extremely powerful, and Its words carried a very high degree of credibility.
If It said It could help you awaken psionics, then It could certainly help you awaken psionics.
But how It would do it, and what price you would have to pay—that was another matter entirely.
To be honest, Li Qing wasn’t particularly interested.
It wasn’t that he had no interest in psionics—quite the opposite, he was very interested in awakening psionic powers.
The three common ascensions of the star sea were Psionic Ascension, Genetic Ascension, and Mechanical Ascension, and the strongest among them was Psionic Ascension, a full tier above Genetic Ascension and Mechanical Ascension.
But correspondingly, Psionic Ascension was also far more difficult.
Awakening psionics on your own was the hurdle that stumped the vast majority of people.
Once you successfully awakened psionics, you would gain the psionic power of Spirit influencing matter, as well as a powerful skill that only Psionics could obtain.
With benefits that great, the reason he wasn’t interested was mainly fear that the price required would be more than he could afford.
What beings of the Psionic Realm loved most were souls, and the most common price was taking your soul after your death.
If they were greedier, they would demand you provide even more souls.
In plain terms, they’d have you stirring up trouble everywhere.
Just imagine: once you signed the contract, every so often you’d be sent to kill a batch of people, each batch larger than the last.
Even if it started with just one, it would slowly accumulate until, at a certain point, the souls required would grow ever more numerous—until you could no longer bear the burden and couldn’t provide them.
At that point, your own soul would be used to fill the gap.
The elite education of the Warlord Clans had seen his teachers warn them more than once: never make deals with any being within the Immaterium.
Ordinary players could never outplay them.
They were monsters that had lived for tens of thousands of years.
In terms of cunning, he could never be Their match.
But—
Li Qing was, in fact, quite interested.
Not out of a death wish, of course, but because of a subtle intuition from the Palm Universe: awakening psionics was critically important to repairing the Palm Universe.
So although he knew full well how dangerous it was to bargain with creatures of the Immaterium, considering this was an intuition granted by the Palm Universe itself, he decided to take the risk.
Thus he spoke:
“Could you first tell me what price I’ll have to pay?”
He could clearly sense the Immaterium creature’s delight.
It said:
“Very simple. Within one year after I awaken your psionics, provide me with one hundred souls brimming with intelligence. Clones and biopunks are not needed—humans and other intelligent races will do.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all!”
The Immaterium creature folded its arms, gazing with full confidence at the young man before it.
After a moment of silence, the hesitation on Xia Qi’s face finally ended.
He gritted his teeth, made up his mind, and said in a low voice:
“I am willing to sign the contract with you!”
“Very good. You will soon realize this is an extremely wise decision. It will let you swiftly surpass your kin and become the foremost among your kind!”
“So, how do I awaken?”
“Accept my power!”
The two identical Immaterium creatures extended their fingers at the same time, pressing them against the foreheads of Li Qing and Xia Qi.
In an instant, light blazed forth as the Immaterium creatures burst apart, transforming into a Psionic Tide that engulfed them, quickly churning into a surging sphere of light like the rolling tide.
Streams of psionic radiance split into countless tiny filaments of light that burrowed into their bodies.