There was a moment when a buzzing sound filled Ryann’s ears, and all other sounds disappeared from his hearing.
The blood that meandered on the ground was so dark red that it seemed to scorch the vision.
He stared at it for a long time, finally shifting his gaze back to the bleeding body with delayed and rigid movements.
What was endured to bleed so much?
“Your Highness the Crown Prince,” Laurent smiled, “Please retract your crystal bone, let the fleet extinguish its fire, and then we can talk.”
At some point, the starships of the Crystal Cult had surrounded them. Each one had its gun ports fully open, aiming cautiously at the heir to the empire.
But Ryann seemed as if he hadn’t seen it. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
In an instant, those violent emotions that had accumulated to the extreme exploded into sparks in his brain.
The world turned blank, the flames were burning fiercely, all rational thinking was swept away like a cloud, leaving nothing behind.
Why…
“Actually, you’re a bit late.”
Seeing that Ryann made no move, Laurent spoke again. His words were like daggers, slowly provoking the one across from him.
“His Excellency Jiang suffered severe blood loss and has been running a high fever. We hardly gave him any medicine or water, and the cabin of the starship was cold. These few hours must have been quite uncomfortable for him.”
“I really admire him. Our cult members said that he has been struggling not to faint, probably waiting for you.”
Inside M-SlashComet, the monitoring system of the crystal particles suddenly started to alarm.
“…”
Ryann’s figure suddenly stooped, his eyes were bloodshot, his breathing was heavy, and he clutched the control panel of the mecha in front of him like a madman.
Under the skin of the back of the hand, the joints protruded and trembled violently, and tiny shards of crystal emerged.
Why…
A lingering pain came from the depths of his throbbing heart, making him dizzy.
At the same time, he felt a burning sensation, as if a force was furiously slamming against his soul, wishing to tear through his body in a bloody mess.
“But fortunately, you’re finally here, and it’s not too late to save the situation.”
Laurent’s voice still drifted over. On the distant bridge across from him, the Bishop of Chaos looked at the prisoner who had been brought over and made a pretentious hesitant expression. “Should I wake him up?”
“Don’t… touch him…”
Inside the mecha, the Crown Prince’s face was grim and frightening, but upon closer inspection, he seemed somewhat lost. The green depths of his eyes gradually dispersed, and a faint golden flame began to flicker!
Behind him, the crystal bone that had not yet been retracted was spontaneously and rapidly heating up, and the golden color at the tip seemed to be flowing.
He himself was already unconscious, the only thought filling his mind was teetering.
—Why aren’t these people across from him dead yet?
The reaction of the Crown Prince of the Empire was far greater than he had imagined, and Laurent quietly made a gesture behind his back, his heart couldn’t help but settle.
He had originally planned to use Jiang Jianming to threaten Ryann Kaios to retreat, but now it seemed that perhaps more could be done.
The followers of the Crystal Cult behind him received the order and immediately conveyed the bishop’s command to the starship surrounding Ryann.
Prepare for attack!
If they could take advantage of the Crown Prince’s confusion and kill him directly here, it would be a shocking feat!
Laurent slowly hooked up the corner of his mouth, he saw the gun ports of the starships around him start to gather light, and his eyes sparkled.
Even if, as His Excellency the Archbishop had speculated before, the Crown Prince was a spiritual projection of the founding great emperor, so what?
Two consciousness projections had already exceeded the limit of a human race, as long as this base body died again, Kaios’s consciousness would inevitably be annihilated, and it would be impossible to make a third projection!
The provocation of words was still to continue, Laurent squinted his eyes and said softly, “Your Highness, let me repeat. Please retract your crystal bone and let the fleet extinguish its fire.”
“This is good for both of us. If Your Highness is unwilling, I can only ask His Excellency Jiang to persuade you.”
After saying this, the bishop sighed again. “I just don’t know if he can still talk to you. He has fainted too many times from pain, even our wake-up needles have become ineffective.”
“But anyway, let’s give it a try,” Laurent instructed the followers of the Crystal Cult behind him in a gentle voice, “First bring some ice cubes and three doses of wake-up needles.”
But at this moment, the prisoner who was barely breathing and being propped up, actually gasped lightly twice, and then struggled to lift his head.
Jiang Jianming’s face was pale, but under the messy black hair wet with cold sweat, there was still a faint light of clarity in the depths of his eyes.
He even smiled faintly, hoarsely saying, “…No need to bother, I’m awake.”
“!” Laurent’s face suddenly darkened, he had thought that given Jiang Jianming’s physical condition, he should have fainted by now in this environment, he never expected…
This man’s willpower could be so resilient?
He saw the blood-soaked imperial officer close his eyes slightly again, his thin chest rose and fell under the unbearable burden, as if he could pass away at any moment without taking another breath.
But each time, he managed to hold on. His mind remained clear, even giving the illusion that he was still in control.
Because he could still look across the starry sky and speak weakly but calmly, “Your Highness, you should also sober up a bit, I’m still okay.”
Lauren’s face turned completely cold.
When he saw the composure in Jiang Jianming’s demeanor, the Bishop of Chaos suddenly realized that he was doing something far more dangerous than he had anticipated.
The other party was by no means a prisoner at his mercy, he had to firmly hold the initiative in his own hands.
Laurent immediately flashed the crystal bone on his right arm.
…But before he could do anything, everything happened.
No matter who it was, what happened next was so bizarre, beyond all existing human knowledge, more like some kind of magical phenomenon descending.
The first flame bloomed on the opposite side without warning, M-Slash Comet exploded.
At the same time, an invisible ripple spread in all directions from its center. The crystal particles trembled violently, they began to become disordered, but unlike the pure disorder during a crystal chaos, it was mixed with more emotions unique to humans!
Rage, violence, bloodlust, madness… If the crystal chaos only caused the human body to mutate, this wave was tormenting the human spirit.
That was not the will of the crystal particles—
It was the will of a human!
At this moment, the will of a human actually overrode the will of the crystal particles at the spiritual level, and then polluted the consciousness induction between the crystal particles.
At this moment, the enslaved race forced the invading race to kneel on the ground and enslaved them in return!
In an instant, both the interior of the Crystal Cult fleet and the imperial fleet were engulfed in this psychic storm.
“Ugh—”
“Cough cough cough cough!!”
A large number of crew members fell to the ground, their minds muddled by the frenzied consciousness, some began to vomit, some had splitting headaches, and some even fainted directly.
Inside the starship of the Crystal Cult, the alarm was buzzing, mixed with the fearful screams and collisions of the crew.
“Look quickly!!”
“What is that—”
Laurent’s pupils suddenly contracted to a point.
Everyone saw a sea of golden flames, it was “burned” out from the inside of the Slash Comet, spreading its violent claws in all directions.
At first, no one knew what it was, but gradually they saw clearly, it was a crystal bone—larger than a mecha, even longer than a small starship!
“Bi…Bishop…”
The Crystal Cult member who had been pressing down on Jiang Jianming turned pale, his body swaying, “Our…our…starship…”
Jiang Jianming’s lips were also trembling, his gaze as stunned as the others.
He almost doubted that he had dreamed in his daze, the dozens of starships that had originally surrounded Ryann at the closest distance, had clearly all been pierced by the flame-like crystal bone.
Explosions rose, sparks fell, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
They were all annihilated in less than a second.
“Your… ” Jiang Jianming couldn’t believe it, his voice hoarse, “Your Highness?”
Everyone looked at the Slash Comet.
They looked at the source of the huge golden crystal bone.
Sizzle… After the gray-black smoke with sparks dissipated, a white mist rose again, briefly blurring the wreckage of the Slash Comet mecha.
That was the moisture in the air inside the mecha evaporating due to the sudden increase in temperature. This bit of white mist quickly dissipated in the universe, revealing the scene inside.
Ryann’s body hung in the middle, his head drooping, the red-gold crystal-like substance growing wildly, wrapping the human body and the damaged steel mecha together.
The crystal bone behind him unfolded into a huge wheel, dazzling to the point of being unbearable to look at, reminding people of the halo that ancient people would inevitably depict when painting gods and Buddhas. But this halo was so large that it made his body seem small.
Further away, that was the boundless deep universe blinking.
He was an awakened demon in the universe.
A sharp scream broke the silence.
“Monster…Monster…”
“He’s not human, he’s a monster!!!”
Laurent roared, “Fire!!”
Just behind the wreckage of their party’s ships, the starship’s guns, fully charged, fired in unison, illuminating the coldly beautiful cheek of the Crown Prince.
Under the scattered platinum curls, Ryann’s eyes were lightless, but the madness and killing intent were palpable.
His Adam’s apple moved, blood gushed from the corner of his mouth, he hoarsely said, “…Give me…”
“Give him… back to me…”
The Crown Prince at this moment was like a scrapped marionette, his movements strange, his joints stiff, he lightly extended his hand towards the other side.
The movement was indeed very gentle, very careful, as if he wanted to pull back a person covered in scars from the pool of blood.
But the countless extended crystal bones around the Crown Prince emitted an even more terrifying aura, each tip was sharpened and hot with killing intent.
The crystal bone met the starship’s gunfire, without even a second of stalemate, the former easily tore through the gathered energy, and fiercely smashed into the alloy hull behind.
The explosion lit up again, like fireworks.
Soon, the Crystal Cult starships located on the second layer, except for Laurent’s, the rest of the nearly hundred starships were once again reduced to ashes!
This was not without cost. With the movement of the crystal bone, Ryann’s body was torn open.
Blood gushed out violently, but the crystal particles filled those cracks madly, crackling… crackling! He became even less human-like.
This also meant that he was getting closer and closer to the cliff of no return for humans –acute crystal chaos!
A bead of sweat the size of a bean fell from Laurent’s forehead, “Retreat the starship, turn the defense shield to maximum power!”
For the first time, he felt a fear of crystal chaos that welled up from the bottom of his heart.
If Ryann were to have acute crystal chaos in this state, he was certain that this damned imperial monster would blast him to pieces before he completely ran out of breath, along with hundreds of Crystal Cult starships around him!
Laurent’s eyes were cold, he stood up and roared, “Crown Prince, don’t you care about Colonel Jiang’s life or death!? He’s in my hands now, if you continue…”
But his voice could no longer reach Ryann’s ears.
Ryann’s consciousness was completely disordered. He seemed to be trapped in a chaotic abyss, where the world was upside down, and colors were mixed. Apart from the pain and killing intent that were about to burst his chest, he could no longer feel anything else.
He wanted to vent, he wanted to kill. But what if he killed everyone?
His thoughts uncontrollably slid into the dark mire in the chaos…The damage had been done, how much pain had Jiang Jianming suffered, and how long had he been tossing and turning in a state of high fever and blood loss?
He was still suffering from a terminal illness, his constitution was very weak, occasionally when he was tired he would have a low fever all day, and any time he forgot to take his medicine he would feel dizzy and short of breath, he simply couldn’t… couldn’t suffer those.
In a daze, the Crown Prince even began to despair, he felt that he couldn’t bring Jiang Jianming back. Such a fragile disabled human, how could he possibly withstand the torment of hell, he must be dying, he was bound to die.
It might be better to just die together under the starry sky, he would hold him, and they would be together in the end.
Negative emotions grew wildly, and the heavy darkness was about to swallow him up. In the second before that, he vaguely heard someone calling him.
“Your Highness.”
“——Your Highness!”
The voice was very weak, but it was like a small hammer shattering the heavy darkness. His senses and consciousness were stimulated to wake up, struggling out of the mire!
Ryann suddenly opened his eyes, panting and lifted his head—
All around were the wreckage of the Crystal Cult starships, turned into pieces of charred things floating in the universe.
Nearby, on the bridge of the only remaining starship, Jiang Jianming had somehow stood up in front…he could actually stand up on his own strength.
“Don’t…like this.” The black-haired young man was enduring pain between his brows, he was leaning against the glass, his hands first propped on the machinery next to him, then he simply pressed them tightly on the porthole, struggling to support himself.
His expression seemed calm, but his demeanor contained restrained sadness, and some self-blame and regret.
“I don’t want…to see you like this.”
