Su Cha wasn’t sure if it was because his gaze at the cake was too intense, but the Shiyuan clansman questioning him raised an eyebrow. “You want it?”
Before he could answer, the clansman sneered on the spot, “A cake? Do you think you deserve it?”
“…”
As he spoke, the Shiyuan clansman handed Lien a vial of medicine to apply to the red marks left by the electronic shackles.
His skin was too delicate—he had to apply the medicine quickly to avoid leaving traces. They didn’t want the hostage video to make the Zerg mistakenly think they were abusing the royal insect.
Seeing Su Cha’s cold reception, Lien quietly put down the cake he had just picked up. The leader immediately noticed and asked with concern, “What’s wrong?”
Lien forced a weak smile. “Suddenly, I feel like maybe I don’t deserve it.”
Neither he, nor Su Cha, nor anyone else on this ship mentioned that Fog Star was truly the one known for extreme spoiling.
In the Zerg, there is only one royal insect per generation. If the royal insect dies, it takes a hundred years for the hive to breed another. So even if they captured a royal insect, whether they could use it to bargain was uncertain—but what was certain was that the Shiyuan clan would know no peace for a century.
Su Cha was different. He also held the identity of a royal heir. Once that was revealed, he might get the same privileged treatment as Lien, or it could backfire—the Shiyuan clan might try to use him to threaten Fog Star.
After all, from a rational perspective, no empire would go to extreme lengths over a child.
After carefully thinking it through and confirming the Shiyuan clan truly knew nothing, Su Cha stopped caring about special treatment and decided to wait and see.
“Blind fools,” he muttered under his breath, eyes fixed on the heavy electronic shackles.
Ji Tianjin: “Don’t be mad. Have some water—it’s not poisoned.”
Su Cha glanced up and said quietly, “Even you got a bottle of mineral water.”
He had nothing at all. How humiliating.
The shackles made his wrists hurt with the slightest movement. Su Cha pressed his lips together. “Forget it.”
Ji Tianjin stabilized the bottle with one hand and twisted it open using the other. Around the same time, the Shiyuan clansmen were busy confiscating all the players’ storage items and detectors.
After a moment’s thought, the leader gave another order: “Let the royal insect go.”
The empires in the Federation would definitely not retaliate immediately. The Zerg were different—this would delay the Shiyuan clan’s retreat.
“Give him a flyer too. Get him out of this dimension.”
Lien’s ears perked up. “Wait, you’re only releasing me?”
The other captured players also looked puzzled.
The Shiyuan clansmen reconsidered and released one more—a player from Jialu Planet.
Lien: “…”
Nice move. He almost wanted to applaud.
The Jialu boy had already started clapping.
In a sighing tone, Lien asked, “Can I take someone with me? To attend to me on the way?”
A win-win for everyone.
Unfortunately, though the Shiyuan clan feared the Zerg, that didn’t mean they would obediently comply. The leader frowned in displeasure and warned, “This isn’t a vacation resort.”
Lien shrugged.
Fine, just don’t regret it.
Before boarding the flyer, Lien suddenly extended his hand. The leader instinctively took a step back, highly alert. But Lien did nothing—just patted his shoulder. “Buddy, times have changed.”
With that, he hopped onto the flyer and left.
To be honest, no one knew what would work best for Su Cha. Fog Star wasn’t like Jialu Planet with its extensive trade relationships, nor was it fearsome like the Zerg. It was so low-key that no one thought much of it.
After considering everything, it seemed the best outcome would be for Fog Star to directly send troops to wipe out the Shiyuan clan, giving them no time to react—this would increase Su Cha’s chances of survival.
On the ship, Su Cha leaned back. He didn’t like sitting around waiting to die. Once they reached the Shiyuan base, they would be deep in enemy territory.
Ji Tianjin was probably the same—he liked to keep the initiative in his own hands. Just then, Ji Tianjin glanced at him, and in that exchange, Su Cha understood. He raised his thumb in the direction of the cockpit.
Ji Tianjin nodded slightly.
On the way here, Cyril had explained that the fastest way to deal with a warship was to seize control of it. The same applied to a spaceship. The Shiyuan clansmen, no matter how powerful, couldn’t maintain spatial slicing indefinitely. The moment they exited this dimensional space would be the perfect opportunity to counterattack.
For now, the players all remained silent. The Shiyuan clansmen openly discussed their plans in front of them, without holding back.
They were mostly talking about old rhetoric—how the base was ready to release a video claiming responsibility for the attack, how they would again promote their anti-empire ideology, and how they would deal a heavy blow to the Federation and its powers.
Still, when it came time to be cautious, they were cautious.
At regular intervals, they came to check the electronic shackles. One even said to his companion, “With looks like this, after a bit of training, he’ll help us win over plenty of people.”
Meanwhile, Ji Tianjin lowered his eyes, his gaze icy.
The others watched them run their mouths and thought: Oh boy, after the hand-pushing incident, now you’re saying his tongue’s going to go too.
Just imagine what the Fog Star people would do when they heard this. Cut out his tongue? Dismemberment? Or repay them in their own way?
One of the joys of extremists is showing off their own strength. They carefully watched the proud students’ expressions, hoping to see fear.
Instead, they saw a flicker of sympathy.
That expression triggered their violent impulses—they wanted to do something.
Su Cha noticed the change immediately and quickly pretended to choke back sobs. “I want to go home.”
His timid appearance made the Shiyuan clansmen, who had been about to teach them a lesson, withdraw their fists.
Mockery aside, everyone knew the Shiyuan clan had kicked an iron wall this time and would meet a tragic end. But the players didn’t want to go down with them. They put away their sarcastic expressions and seriously began thinking about how to escape.
The surrounding windows were painted black, and the biggest problem now was they couldn’t tell if they were still in the other space dimension.
As long as they exited the unstable space, they would have a chance to seize control of the ship.
Among those present, besides the Shiyuan clansmen, only Su Cha could sense space—but he’d never studied it.
At this point, he could only rely on instinct.
Su Cha released his spirit power. The Shiyuan clansmen were highly alert, and even his naturally low-presence spirit power was immediately noticed.
Su Cha quickly retracted it. Though they hadn’t identified the source, the Shiyuan clansmen issued a cold warning: “If anyone tries anything again, I’ll shoot someone at random.”
The players all had their own thoughts. Su Cha’s expression didn’t change, but his fingers curled slightly.
This was getting troublesome. Without using his spirit power, he couldn’t extend his senses further.
[We haven’t returned to the original dimension yet.]
A strange voice suddenly sounded in his mind. Su Cha’s first reaction was to think of his system—his system had always been the one to speak in his head. But this lazy-sounding voice was completely different from the system’s mechanical tone.
His fists clenched tight in an instant.
Is it you? My mute spirit form?
There had been countless times when he suspected it, but he didn’t expect that there really could be such an oddity, so lazy it would go its entire life without speaking.
The spirit form didn’t speak again for a while.
Su Cha took a quiet breath and told himself now wasn’t the time to fuss about this. It was a good thing the spirit form could make judgments.
He blinked at Ji Tianjin, signaling that they could consider hijacking the ship.
There was just one remaining issue: if Ji Tianjin tried to control the pilot’s mind, it would immediately provoke an attack. With their hands and feet bound and facing so many guns, how could they block all the bullets?
There were nearly a hundred Shiyuan clan members on the ship.
Ji Tianjin asked, “What are you thinking about?”
“Shen Ningze.”
They had barely exchanged three sentences when guns were already pressed to their heads.
Su Cha shrugged, putting on a look of “let’s talk this out,” while thinking that Shen Ningze was really born into the wrong life. Look at these Shiyuan clan people—without relying on any spatial folding device, they could already travel freely.
Maybe because he had been making too many small movements, the Shiyuan clansmen gave him a harsh warning: “If you’re not obedient, you’ll be the first one we use as an example.”
Su Cha looked up, puzzled.
“Yes, we’re talking about you, orphan.”
“…”
***
While this ship was fleeing at maximum speed, on the other side, the arena had already been surrounded by heavy troops.
So-called spatial overlapping is a wave-like distortion formed when space becomes extremely unstable. The Shiyuan clan had sliced this distorted layer into several separate spaces. Two people who were originally standing face to face could now be trapped in different dimensions—truly worlds apart.
Faced with this sudden assault, everyone was in a bad mood, and the people on the field consciously kept their distance from Cyril. The king of Fog Star stood silently at the edge of the arena, his telekinesis spreading like sharp wind blades, making it impossible for anyone to approach.
Complex patterns appeared in his pupils. Cyril’s lips moved, but no one heard what he said. They only knew things had escalated beyond control.
“Shiyuan clan…”
The signal was patchy, but they could still barely see footage of the contestants being taken away.
As the host of the event, the Federation was handling the aftermath, sending a large fleet to Dawn-Dusk Star. At that moment, the soldiers outside unexpectedly allowed a small aircraft to approach.
The aircraft landed in the main arena. When the door opened, two unexpected figures stepped out.
Lien’s distinctive red hair was eye-catching, and behind him was the young man from Jialu Star.
The Federation president’s expression changed as he hurried over, arriving even faster than the Zerg: “Where are the others? How did you get back?”
Lien waved his hand to signal the approaching high-ranking royals not to speak yet. He vividly recounted everything that had happened and finally said: “Can you believe it? They chose to release me, but not Su Cha.”
“I was completely shocked.”
The usually quiet Jialu Star youth also nodded vigorously. Shocked? He had watched the Shiyuan clan perfectly miss the right answer with his own eyes.
After Lien returned, the arena became even more silent. None of the contestants had been evacuated. They were all gathered in one area, instructed to keep quiet.
The rulers of the various planets were in an emergency meeting.
The Federation president briefly expressed his anger at the Shiyuan clan’s actions and then went straight to the point: “The top priority is the rescue. Does anyone have any ideas?”
“Direct tracking,” Cyril said in a light tone, leaving no room for negotiation. “Send warnings to surrounding planets. For the next three days, no warships or spacecraft are allowed to depart. Violators will bear the consequences.”
Hearing this, many people frowned. This was far too domineering. No one wanted to go this far over a single hostage situation.
At the same time, no one wanted to be the first to object. Almost everyone glanced toward the Federation president, hoping he would step up to argue.
The Federation president: “…”
A crisp clapping sound drew everyone’s attention. Lien smiled cheerfully: “All these butcher’s knives, yet you can’t kill a chicken. Don’t you know why?”
He leaned back: “My Zerg has no objections. It’s just three days without going out—it’s not like we’re asking these planets to die.”
The Federation president quickly weighed his options. Fog Star seemed determined to go to war with the Shiyuan clan. Since they wouldn’t need to commit much effort themselves, and the competition had already been ruined, making a symbolic gesture was acceptable. He finally nodded.
Fog Star’s public announcement was even more overbearing than expected: all warships and spacecraft currently traveling within the galaxy must immediately return or find a place to land to avoid interfering with their tracking operation.
Compared to the hijackers, the Federation was more interested in Fog Star’s technology—how they could pinpoint another country’s spacecraft within a galaxy. But now wasn’t the time for tech talks.
Soon, new problems arose.
Someone rushed in to report urgently: “Space pirates are broadcasting interference signals.”
The Federation president sneered to himself. The Shiyuan clan was clever enough to partner with space pirates for cover.
“Jushui Star, Gutianluo Star…” The Federation president’s secretary, trying to reduce suspicion while also relishing a bit of schadenfreude, spread a vast map on the table and marked each location in red.
“Along the route, at least sixteen desolate stars and thirty-two waste stars could be hiding pirate strongholds. If the space pirates and Shiyuan clan coordinate, it could seriously delay rescue efforts.”
Cyril, sealing sound waves with telekinesis, did not show the expected fury. Instead, he briefly exchanged words with Sanses. The Federation president tried to analyze their conversation but failed.
The two men left the arena one after the other, with others curiously following.
They went straight to the docking bay. Cyril wasted no time. A storm began to silently form around him.
The hurricane grew stronger, causing nearby interstellar wormholes to tremble. People instinctively stepped back. At the same time, Sanses unleashed his spirit form—a golden dragon—which swept toward a specific direction.
In just a few breaths, it had crossed several planets. The first to suffer was the closest—Jushui Star, a desolate world with complex terrain, a well-known haven for space pirates.
Two forces rushed into the star’s core, colliding fiercely. The already fragile core shattered like ripples and finally exploded.
Jushui Star was notorious as a pirate hub, rarely visited by outsiders. With this explosion, the few remaining beasts and countless pirates instantly turned to cosmic dust.
In the sound of the explosion, nearby rulers felt a deep sense of dread.
Cyril and Sanses, working together, could actually achieve this level of devastation.
Many people immediately looked at Lien. He was also a king, but this one—who was captured and then released—seemed to be completely useless.
Sensing what people were thinking, Lien clicked his tongue. It wasn’t that he was useless—he just hadn’t reached that stage yet. With pride, he unfurled his wings: “I can fly.”
Then he gave a demonstration by taking off right on the spot.
