Free Web NovelIn the laboratory, no matter how powerful a Saint Clan was, they were nothing more than experimental subjects at their mercy.
At first, the male researcher had been just like the young assistant. Faced with such a huge, terrifying monster, his first reaction had been fear so intense his hands could barely hold the syringe steady.
But very quickly, he realized those monsters simply could not break free of the chains. On the contrary, he could pick up a scalpel and carry out all kinds of experiments on them.
That reversal in status between the strong and the weak gradually made him stop taking the danger of those experimental subjects seriously.
In his eyes, the savage and violent Saint Clan of rumor did not seem all that frightening after all.
Once they were locked in a cage and bound in chains, didn’t they still have to submit obediently?
And although Milne had stressed that Wen Yuzhi was royal blood, his appearance was simply far too deceptive.
A delicate, beautiful young boy, he looked like some pampered little heir who had been spoiled since childhood—fragile, harmless, without the slightest hint of danger about him.
When No. 1 had brought him back, there had even been people on the warship who suspected they had captured the wrong target.
No matter how they looked at him, that young boy did not seem like a Saint Clan member at all, much less the strongest of the Saint Clan—the royal bloodline.
But that head of silver hair, the mark of the Salilaino, could not be faked, and No. 1 could not possibly have taken the wrong target.
So Milne had made the decision to put him into the hibernation pod.
At that moment, the male researcher also happened to walk over to the pod.
Through the viewing window above it, he could see the young boy lying inside with his eyes shut tight. He looked even more frail than an ordinary person, and in the stillness of sleep, he seemed quiet and almost gentle.
No one would ever imagine that a boy like that could hurt anyone.
And the male researcher was clearly the type to judge by appearances.
Looking at the sleeping figure, he even mocked Milne inwardly for warning him to be more careful.
He was just a minor cub. No matter how formidable he was, how formidable could he really be?
With that same dismissive attitude, the male researcher opened the hibernation pod while no second person was there beside him—
The young boy soaking in the cryofluid still showed no sign of waking.
The male researcher waited a bit, and when the other party still showed no signs of coming to, he inwardly sighed that even he had been bluffed by Milne. He had prepared the cryofluid himself. There was no way this Saint Clan cub could possibly wake before they reached their destination.
...So what was he even worried about?
At that thought, the male researcher completely relaxed and bent down, preparing to inspect the place where the pod had just made a noise.
Yet at the exact moment his guard dropped, his gaze suddenly collided with a pair of pale gold eyes.
Those eyes were beautiful beyond words, clear and bright, like flawless gemstones.
The male researcher froze for a second.
And in that second, a soft stream of mental power invaded his brain.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but though his lips moved, not a single sound came out. His body went out of his control and toppled backward.
Even after he hit the floor, he still did not understand what had happened.
And he no longer needed to.
Because what Wen Yuzhi had invaded just now was his mental sea.
He had combed through the mental seas of so many Saint Clan that finding a mental sea inside someone else’s brain was already second nature to him.
If it came to a direct attack, there was no way he could beat an adult male with a larger build than his own. And any sounds from a struggle would attract the others.
So the best method was a mental-power attack.
Mu Luo had once taught him that the mental sea was the most fragile part of the brain. If it suffered an attack from outside mental power, it could very likely cause unconsciousness or damage to the mental sea. In severe cases, it could even lead to brain death.
Mu Luo’s original intent had been to make sure the cub protected his own mental sea no matter what.
Wen Yuzhi had put that lesson to immediate use, and at this critical moment, he used what Mu Luo taught him to take down the male researcher.
With his mental sea heavily damaged, the other party had clearly lost all ability to act. He lay collapsed on the floor, and though his eyes were still open, his pupils were vacant, leaving him looking dazed and witless.
This was also Wen Yuzhi’s first time using mental power to attack someone.
He had been afraid a single strike would not be enough to bring the other party down, so this time, that mental power which was usually soft and gentle had hit especially hard.
But looking at it now...
It seemed he might have gone a little too hard.
The man looked like he had been turned stupid on the spot.
And yet when Wen Yuzhi thought of the Saint Clan bound in chains, he did not feel the slightest pity.
There was no way all those wounds on that Saint Clan’s body had appeared for no reason. Most likely, they had been caused by people like these...
With that thought, Wen Yuzhi stopped paying attention to the man on the floor.
He climbed out of the hibernation pod, and the moment his feet touched the ground, he shifted into beast form.
Compared to his human form, his beast form was even smaller.
More importantly, compared to his human appearance, a tiny little thing no bigger than a kitten was much less likely to put the other party on guard.
As long as the other party failed to react immediately, Wen Yuzhi would have a chance to release his mental power.
The fluffy little ball took a deep breath. He padded carefully toward the doorway, his paw pads making no sound at all. His tail stood high, swaying lazily behind him.
If Mansendis had been here, he likely would have recognized at a glance that the cub’s current posture was an imitation of the hunting stance he had once taught him.
Though the aura behind it could not be replicated perfectly, it was still fairly convincing.
In almost the blink of an eye, the snow-white cub had reached the doorway.
Milne had just stepped out, but there was no way she had gone far. Most likely, she was still somewhere nearby.
If Wen Yuzhi wanted to escape from here, he needed to deal with her first—and he also had to get that ID badge from her.
Considering that Milne was more vigilant than the male researcher, Wen Yuzhi had to be even more careful.
Just before stepping out, he first released a butterfly to search for Milne.
The butterfly settled on the doorframe and quietly peered outside. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
That one glance nearly scared Wen Yuzhi half to death.
At some point, Milne had already ended her call. She was walking back.
If Wen Yuzhi had not chosen to send the butterfly first to check outside and had instead just rashly walked out, then by now he probably would have run straight into Milne on her way back.
—That was close!
But the current situation was still dangerous. Milne was already nearly at the doorway, less than three meters away from Wen Yuzhi.
He only had one chance.
Otherwise, the moment she came inside, she would see the male researcher collapsed on the floor.
And Milne, too, came to a stop just as she was about to reach the door.
She glanced around instinctively.
Nothing looked unusual, and yet she still felt as though something was off.
...It was a little too quiet.
With Eri inside the room, there should not have been absolutely no sound at all.
But now it was this quiet...
Milne frowned and called out tentatively, “Eri?”
The instant the words fell, a butterfly came wobbling toward her.
A butterfly?
Where would a butterfly even come from on a warship?
That question had only just surfaced in Milne’s mind when her expression instantly darkened.
No!
That butterfly was clearly—!
In the span of a single thought, Milne realized it.
But by the time she understood, Wen Yuzhi’s mental power had already quietly enveloped her.
The same method. The same result.
Milne collapsed to the floor without even managing to make a sound.
Wen Yuzhi found the badge on her. Written on it were the words Beth Milne, A-Level Researcher, and beneath that, in smaller print—
Polaris Life Research Institute
Wen Yuzhi had not even had time to think about what exactly the Polaris Life Research Institute was when a shrill alarm rang out above his head, red lights flashing nonstop.
And the alarm was not limited to this area alone. Even farther off, alarms were sounding too.
It seemed the entire warship had gone into alarm.
...What was going on?
Wen Yuzhi was certain Milne had not had time to do anything just now.
Or was it that Professor Milne had been carrying something on her body that could monitor her physical condition, so that the moment something happened to her, the warship would immediately sound an alarm?
The situation was urgent. Wen Yuzhi had no time to keep thinking about it. Before the others on the warship could find him, he grabbed the badge and hurried toward the compartment where the Saint Clan had been imprisoned.
There had never been many people on this side to begin with. Perhaps because a monster was being held here, the people on the warship rarely came near this area. And now that the alarm had gone off, the researchers and the guards protecting them were all rushing toward the room Wen Yuzhi had just come from.
Which instead left this place completely empty.
Wen Yuzhi used Milne’s badge to open the multiple metal doors.
That giant beast was still being held here.
Perhaps because the sedatives had taken effect, it had already quieted down.
When Wen Yuzhi went in, it was lying on the ground.
But the sudden intrusion of an unfamiliar presence still made the giant beast instinctively wary.
Wen Yuzhi knew it had noticed him.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to save you.”
As he spoke, Wen Yuzhi walked over to the control console and placed Milne’s badge on it.
Clack, clack—
Along with the sound of metal striking metal, the chains wrapped around the giant beast gradually loosened.
Milne had said before that without her clearance, the giant beast would not be able to break free of the chains.
At the time, Wen Yuzhi had been thinking that Milne held the highest status on this warship. Her clearance worked everywhere here, so maybe it could release the chains on the giant beast too.
The facts proved that A-level clearance really was useful.
The chains withdrew, and the giant beast struggled to its feet.
The wounds on its body were still bleeding. Wen Yuzhi released a large number of butterflies, and they landed over those wounds. In no time, the bleeding was stopped.
This was also the first time Wen Yuzhi had ever summoned so many butterflies. Using his mental power again and again had already turned his face pale.
There were simply too many wounds on the giant beast’s body. Wen Yuzhi could only attend to the more serious ones.
“Can you understand me? We need to leave right away. Can you turn human?”
All Saint Clan beast forms looked more or less alike, and Wen Yuzhi could not tell what kind the other party was.
If it was a Heimo or a Ge De, then changing into human form would obviously make escaping easier. But if it was a Tas, things might get more troublesome.
Fortunately, the other party seemed to be a Heimo.
The moment Wen Yuzhi finished speaking, the giant beast turned into a... cloaked man.
The cloak wrapped him up tightly from head to toe. Wen Yuzhi could not make out his appearance, only gather from the general outline that he was probably male.
Though Wen Yuzhi thought the man’s outfit was a little strange, they had already wasted too much time here. There was no telling when those people would come looking for them. They had to go find the escape pods immediately.
As Wen Yuzhi was telling all this to the Saint Clan in front of him, he did not notice that the other party’s hand had emerged from beneath the cloak as well.
The neck was a weak point for nearly every living thing.
And that hand was clearly aimed at Wen Yuzhi’s neck.
Only halfway there, the hand suddenly stopped.
A warm, soft touch had fallen into his palm.
The figure beneath the cloak gave the faintest, almost imperceptible pause.
But Wen Yuzhi did not notice anything strange about him at all. He took hold of the other party’s hand, and without waiting for the Saint Clan in front of him to react, he said, “Come with me.”
Wen Yuzhi walked in front, leading the Saint Clan by the hand as they went out.
The other party still seemed not to have fully recovered, yet followed after Wen Yuzhi almost instinctively.
It was just that Wen Yuzhi’s good luck for the day seemed to run out right then. The moment they stepped outside, he heard hurried, chaotic footsteps coming from not far away.
“Over here!”
Leading the group was Milne. It seemed she had recovered from the mental-power attack just now and was now bringing people to capture the fleeing Wen Yuzhi.
—Damn it, they’d been spotted!
Without a second word, Wen Yuzhi grabbed that Saint Clan and ran for the bottom deck of the warship.
He had already checked earlier. That was where the escape pods were stored!
When Milne saw this, fury flashed across her face. “Don’t let him get away! Bring him back!”
There were guards on the warship.
At Milne’s command, those guards, wrapped head to toe in combat suits, immediately took off after Wen Yuzhi and the other Saint Clan.
The footsteps behind them were drawing closer and closer, and the distance between them kept shrinking.
When it came to pure stamina, there was no way Wen Yuzhi could outrun trained guards like them.
It probably would not be long before they were caught.
But even so, Wen Yuzhi had no intention of abandoning the Saint Clan behind him. He held tight to the other party’s hand as he rapidly judged directions in the corridor.
The other party lowered his head, and with the cloak covering him, no one could make out the expression on his face.
Only that his gaze seemed to rest on the hand linking the two of them.
And after quite a while, just as Wen Yuzhi was clearly starting to run out of strength, he heard a hoarse, icy voice rise from behind him.
As though he rarely spoke, the voice carried a slight awkwardness.
“I... can kill... them.”
Wen Yuzhi turned back in surprise. “Was that you talking?”
The cloaked man gave a slight nod.
“Command... me to kill.”
If it had been anyone else hearing such a fragmentary statement out of nowhere, they probably would have been confused for a moment.
But Wen Yuzhi was not just anyone.
He had interacted with plenty of Saint Clan before, and with Yiluo and Feier, those two Ge De personal guards, always around him, he knew that most Saint Clan spoke in exactly this kind of concise way.
If they could say it in one word, they would absolutely never waste a second.
The other party was probably the same. He did not interact with others often, which made the way he spoke sound especially cold and clipped.
But the meaning was obvious enough: he wanted Wen Yuzhi to give the order. The moment Wen Yuzhi spoke, he would kill the people chasing them.
It was a very tempting option.
But when Wen Yuzhi thought of the injuries all over this Saint Clan’s body, there was no way he would let him turn back.
There were not a few guards chasing them, and they even had laser guns in hand. Only because they had strict orders from above to bring Wen Yuzhi back unharmed did they not dare open fire even with guns on them.
But Wen Yuzhi had already seen them switch to a different kind of gun.
And that kind of gun was...
A tranquilizer gun!
Seeing the tranquilizer darts flying toward them, Wen Yuzhi hurriedly pulled the Saint Clan aside behind a pillar.
The tranquilizers barely scraped past them before striking the floor.
That had ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) been dangerously close.
Panting, Wen Yuzhi could feel his body already nearing its limit.
And there were still two corridors left before they reached the escape pods.
They had to find some way to block these people.
He glanced around. Not far ahead was the command room, and through the nearby porthole, he caught sight of asteroids streaking past.
A bold, almost insane thought formed in Wen Yuzhi’s mind.
“Can you help me hold them off for one minute?”
The cloaked Saint Clan answered without hesitation, “Yes.”
At that, Wen Yuzhi’s eyes lit up. “Then hold them off for me. Don’t fight head-on if you can help it. Protecting yourself is the most important thing.”
Under the cloak, the Saint Clan pressed his lips together. There was a trace of confusion in his expression.
...Protect himself?
An unfamiliar command.
Obey it, or...
Before he could think it through, those people had already caught up.
And the cloaked Saint Clan moved to stop them.
The moment the guards saw him, their expressions all changed.
“You—”
Before the word could finish, that guard’s neck was twisted cleanly apart.
The cloaked Saint Clan had somehow appeared behind them like a ghost.
A cat hunting mice—the roles had now completely reversed.
Wen Yuzhi had no idea what was happening behind him. He had told the other party to hold back the guards, while he himself rushed into the command room.
There were still people inside.
But the instant they turned their heads, a stabbing pain hit their brains.
In the few seconds before they lost consciousness, Wen Yuzhi seized control.
Back on Esoris, during the process of introducing them to the warship, the ship designers had explained how to operate one.
Now Wen Yuzhi used what he had learned back then to drive the warship straight toward the asteroid ahead at full speed.
At the very instant before they collided, Wen Yuzhi activated the warship’s defensive mode.
A layer of pale blue protective barrier spread before it.
The violent jolt hit instantly.
The warship was not smashed to pieces, but under that tremendous impact, huge sections of the hull were badly damaged.
The alarm sounded once again.
But this time, the alarm meant the warship was about to crash.
The moment the evacuation alarm rang out, everyone aboard the warship turned deathly pale.
The pilot in the command room, who had only just regained consciousness, looked at the console awash in red light and felt despair crash over him.
And by then, Wen Yuzhi had already led the Saint Clan to the place where the escape pods were stored.
Only to find that someone had arrived there before them.
Milne.
At the sight of Wen Yuzhi arriving, there was no surprise at all on her face.
“I knew you would come here. You’re very smart, little royal-blooded prince. It’s just a pity you still—”
She never finished.
The cloaked Saint Clan suddenly appeared behind her.
At the same time, his hand drove straight through Milne’s chest and crushed her heart.
“You... you trai—!”
Crack.
Milne’s neck was twisted as well, and the rest of her unfinished words ended there, leaving behind only eyes full of shock and unwillingness.
Wen Yuzhi had not expected the other party to strike so decisively.
Looking at Milne’s corpse, he blinked, but felt no fear at all.
He stepped around the body and came to the Saint Clan’s side.
The other party was standing there.
As though quietly waiting for his next order.
“Let’s go.”
Wen Yuzhi had no interest in dwelling on why the other party had suddenly acted.
Before the warship could crash, he grabbed the other party and hurried onto the escape pod.
