On the ruins of a desolate planet.
Xavier sat there, motionless, like a miniature sculpture.
The wind stirred his slightly curly silver hair, brushed across his pale little face, and swept past his pair of rose-gold-thin eyes that had just opened and were still filled with confusion.
He recalled the loud explosion when he awoke.
Xavier opened his mouth, his voice carrying a sense of disbelief.
“……Who bombed me?”
He, Xavier Vantrue, the亲王 (Prince) at the head of the Thirteen Clans of the Blood Tribe, a pure-blood aristocrat who had lived for thousands of years, had actually been bombed awake from his slumber.
The ancient castle had turned into ruins, and the coffin into wreckage.
Even his physique had changed from the adult state of a blood tribe member to something resembling a fist-sized little doll.
The tiny Prince now wore only a burgundy silk sleeping robe, with exquisite dark embroidery sewn on the tailored collar and cuffs.
Fortunately, the self-cleaning and self-adjusting spell attached to it saved him from a dusty plight.
Aside from that, the only thing on his body was a magic necklace.
Ah, it seemed it was this.
Xavier tapped the magic necklace worn around his neck, which was embedded with a purple-blue sapphire sent to him by the immortal Lich Celine, and the pendant still flickered with the residual glow of magical propulsion.
It must have been the blessing spell on this gem that protected him during the explosion while also causing his physique to undergo a drastic change!
His Highness the Prince couldn’t help baring his fangs.
“This fellow, why is she always designing such bizarre things.”
Before he fell into slumber, Celine had given him this necklace, warning him that a very powerful blessing spell was cast upon it, and at the same time, it might bring about “unforeseeable and terrible consequences.”
His high confidence in his own power made Xavier firmly believe that this gem would merely become one of his luxurious accessories and would never have a chance to play a role.
Unexpectedly, Celine’s warning had come true!
Xavier’s pale face tightened, and he tried to change back to his original appearance, but all attempts ended in failure. In the end, he could only jump down expressionlessly from the coffin wreckage to look for some shade.
The change in his body’s power made Xavier realize that this period of slumber had been sufficiently long.
Even as a third-generation pure-blood Prince second only to the Blood Tribe’s progenitor, after experiencing a prolonged state of fasting, he inevitably ushered in an unprecedented feeling of weakness at this moment, and could not resist the instinctual aversion to sunlight in the shade.
In the shadow, memories gradually returned, and an unfamiliar sense of weakness clamored; it had been a very, very long time since he last fed.
So hungry. So hungry.
However, the silver-haired, golden-eyed Prince bared his fangs once more, perceiving with hard-to-conceal irritability that the curse inflicted by that Holy See running dog was still taking effect.
He, a third-generation blood prince bearing the surname Vantrue, a pure-blood aristocrat, was unable to feed normally like an ordinary blood tribe member.
The curse, led by bloodline secret arts, sealed his instinct as a blood tribe to acquire power through blood. The fresh blood that his fellow clansmen craved became extremely foul-smelling to Xavier; unless he bowed his head to that sanctimonious Holy See Saint Son, Xavier wouldn’t even think of drinking a drop of blood again.
Precisely because of this, he had chosen to enter a long period of slumber.
—Until he was bombed awake today.
Xavier suppressed the habitual feeling of hunger, shielding most of his sense of smell as usual.
Since he could not recover his power through feeding, he could only search for things like magic stones and replenish external magic power to see if it could resolve the side effects caused by the protection spell.
However……
The blood prince, whose stature had become extremely short, tried hard to look around, and was surprised to find that everywhere was a monotonous, desolate scene, and even the undamaged buildings in the distance had been eroded into remnants by the wind.
There were almost no magical fluctuations, nor any signs of life.
Could it be…
Xavier’s spiritual tentacles spread out, carefully searching for fluctuations in life aura.
Ha, could it be that he slept until humans became extinct? In that case, that Holy See running dog must be dead too.
The vengeful Prince felt inexplicably annoyed; rather than letting his enemy die when he couldn’t see, he preferred to personally resolve the fellow who dared to offend him.
Just then, he perceived a disturbance accompanied by footsteps.
Very light, but couldn’t escape a blood vampire’s hearing.
Two people, one on the left and one on the right, approached from another direction of the ruins. Their steps were steady and unhurried, absolutely having received training.
Xavier didn’t move.
He still stood in the shadow of the coffin wreckage, the wind passing through the ruins, blowing up a few strands of silver hair on his forehead before letting them fall gently.
When the two bypassed the remnants of the ancient buildings, even though they were far apart, his acute combat awareness allowed Xavier to lock onto the other’s position in the first moment.
—Two humans.
On the left was a tall female with clean-cut silver-gray short hair, her amber pupils coldly sizing him up. She wore a black tactical suit, with weapons tucked at her waist, standing half-blocking another person in a protective posture like a taut wolf.
On the right was a male with messy brown hair, his left eye shining too brightly, looking at Xavier with undisguised confusion.
They wore different styles but identically styled combat uniforms, and on the left shoulder was a black-bottomed badge of a downward-hanging thorn sword surrounded by winding flames.
The wind on the barren plain brought their conversation over word for word; it was a language completely unfamiliar to Xavier.
However, the massive dark steel behemoth hovering behind the two had already indicated everything.
It seemed these people were the ones who blew up his home and his precious coffin?
The petite yet still arrogant Prince gracefully tidied up his sleeping robe, tightened his face, raised his chin slightly, and waited quietly for the two to step forward and plead to him, begging for his forgiveness.
He was accustomed to humans’ flattery and fervent pursuit in front of him.
After a brief moment of eye contact, contrary to Xavier’s expectation, the messy-haired man began to blink frantically, and then his lower limbs suddenly covered up with metal-like bone-frame equipment, propelling himself forward with a start and rushing right in front of Xavier, quickly grabbing him.
！！！
The small prince, restricted by his size, was caught off guard.
After a brief dizziness, Xavier found that his two arms were firmly clamped to his sides by the other’s hands, unable to move.
To actually be grabbed and held in mid-air by a human…！
Facing the burning gaze of surprise mixed with inquiry and the completely incomprehensible foreign language pouring out, Xavier’s heart skipped a beat, and then flames of anger burned up.
“You rude and stupid human!”
How dare he so offend him!!!
The inviolable aristocratic consciousness caused Xavier’s combat instincts to instantly suppress rational thinking, the center of his thin golden iris flushing with a layer of blood mist, rich like deep crimson roses, gradually spreading outward.
He must teach this person a good lesson!
Invisible mental power shrouded the youth like a spiderweb; with just a thought from Xavier, he could make the other party tortured to tears in deep fear.
Just as Xavier’s spiritual tentacles were about to probe into the other’s consciousness, his chest grew hot.
As if pricked by something.
Xavier looked down.
The purple-blue sapphire at his neck was glowing, very faint, but indeed actively glowing.
That light passed through the fabric of his chest, carrying a familiar warmth, like an invisible hand gently holding down his soon-to-be runaway combat impulses.
A familiar voice rang in his ear, “Don’t use your ability, just follow them away first.”
Xavier paused his movements; it was Celine.
As an immortal lich belonging to an extremely scarce population, she possessed peerless wisdom due to the shared abilities inherent in her bloodline.
Xavier always trusted her choices.
The ready-to-go spiritual tentacles abruptly stopped moving, and Xavier’s eyes still held the residual flame of anger, coldly staring at the chattering human before him.
Gu Shen’s left prosthetic eye captured the image of the tiny figure in his palm, zooming in and analyzing, but it continuously popped up prompts of 「Analysis Failed」.
Although there was no life sign, the entity in his hand showed very significant mobility and emotional expression, looking just like an anthropomorphic intelligent body matched with a high-freedom emotion module.
“Did you hear what he said just now, what language is set? I couldn’t understand it at all, eh, can’t open the voice setting permission.”
Gu Shen spoke at a rapid pace, his face unable to hide his eagerness, “Grisha, are there any translators on the Shadow Shuttle?”
Grisha heard his subtext and said rigidly, “The Boss won’t let you bring it back.”
After fighting the Frenzied Hunter Star Pirate Group last time, Gu Shen secretly fished back the Mecha of their Commander Koin to study, which resulted in a monitoring device leaking into the Blood Blade. Although it was discovered very timely, he also suffered a severe lesson.
“……Well, it’s, it’s hard to say.”
Grisha ignored him, and Gu Shen, accustomed to it, continued to examine this seemingly unregistered intelligent body.
Although small in size, this doll-like intelligent body undoubtedly adopted an exquisite appearance hard for humans to match. If magnified proportionally, it was hard to imagine what kind of peerless beauty it would be.
The little doll held the necklace in front of his chest, the gemstone pendant flickering with brilliance like breathing.
Under Gu Shen’s curious observation, Xavier also looked back at Gu Shen and Grisha.
His gaze shifted from their combat uniforms to the various equipment at Gu Shen’s waist, and finally to the auxiliary exosuit on his lower limbs.
Especially that metal-like external bone frame that allowed the frail human to leap in front of him instantly.
The exquisite alchemy of this era made Xavier rarely give rise to some curiosity.
He tightly grasped the gemstone, but Celine did not respond for the moment.
Instead, his gaze made Gu Shen increasingly eager, and he muttered to himself: “Such a vivid emotional expression! And it’s actually an intelligent body I can’t analyze. If the Boss hadn’t accidentally bombed this area, I wouldn’t have run into it.”
The language of the two was completely unfamiliar to Xavier. He listened with boredom, wondering why Celine stopped him, when suddenly his back tingled and his spiritual tentacles tightened abruptly.
The combat talent of a top predator in his bloodline made him aware that some dangerous existence was approaching.
Yet the two people in front of him seemed unaware, and Gu Shen, who was holding Xavier, kept talking nonstop.
“Speaking of which, the Boss is really furious this time. I knew nothing good would come of running into the Holy See. A whole ship of magical creatures were sickly yet still hunted down to extermination, not to mention the Boss, even I’m angry. It’s just that the Boss’s NSI value (Neural Stability Index) was almost flashing red just now, I wonder when this psychological sea riot will ease.”
Grisha said concisely: “Waste planet, many.”
Amidst the slightly relaxed conversation between the two, Xavier felt that sense of threat getting closer and closer. He couldn’t help moving his body, his gaze shifting to another direction, and the glowing gemstone in front of him suddenly went out.
Gu Shen let out a soft “eh”, thinking he had accidentally triggered some command, and subconsciously wanted to fiddle with it, his mouth still not stopping.
“You can’t put it like that, always relying on bombing waste planets to vent emotions is completely treating the symptoms and not the cu—”
His voice cut off abruptly.
Familiar footsteps came from behind.
Those footsteps were unhurried, belonging to the composure of a top predator, the soles grinding against gravel to make a subtle frictional sound, every step stirring a few loose stones and making them roll with a lighter and farther collision.
The sound was drawn very long in the empty wasteland, like some behemoth approaching, radiating a stress that chilled the spine.
Grisha turned around first.
Gu Shen, who had been talking endlessly, instantly fell silent, his hand subconsciously hiding toward the shadow.
Xavier tried to turn his head, but was swiftly stuffed into the tool box hanging on Gu Shen’s waist by Gu Shen’s quick hand and eye.
Gu Shen didn’t dare to delay any longer, and turned back to greet with a flattering smile.
“Bo… Boss…”
Before the box was completely closed, through that narrow slit, Xavier saw a tall figure coming against the light.
The man had broad shoulders and a back, wearing a set of hard-toned tactical uniform that even sunlight couldn’t warm, with a black-bottomed badge on his left shoulder, a downward-hanging thorn sword surrounded by winding flames.
Going further up, there were sternly-lined contours, deep black short hair, and beneath towering brow ridges, gray-blue eyes like winter’s ice sea flashed past Xavier’s line of sight.
Before the light was completely deprived, the wind sent in a voice, cold and hard with a smell of gunpowder smoke.
“Throw it.”