Free Web NovelOn Dark Tower Star, the atmosphere at the port was tense and solemn.
The Thanatos was racing back at top speed, forcibly cutting what should have been about a two-day journey in half through spatial jumps.
The hatch slowly opened.
Mansendis was the first to step down the gangway.
His stride and figure both carried a trace of haste, and even the hem of the clothes that had previously been kept immaculate now held faint wrinkles.
Several consecutive spatial jumps in such a short time put severe strain on the body. In order to get back sooner, the Thanatos had almost been jumping nonstop through the sea of stars.
Even with the Saint Clan’s physique, that kind of relentless high-intensity spatial travel left them feeling drained.
Mansendis’s expression remained cold and calm, as though those earlier reports had not affected him at all.
And yet the tightly pressed line of his lips, the cold and heavy aura around him, all gave away that the silver-haired sovereign was in a very bad mood right now.
It could even be said that his mood was utterly terrible.
Mond, Alvin, and a group of other high-ranking Saint Clan had all received word early and were already waiting at the port.
The moment they saw Mansendis, they immediately dropped to one knee.
“We failed in our duty. We did not protect the young prince.”
Mansendis already knew the cub had gone missing. He looked toward Mond at the very front.
All affairs within the palace were handled by the old chief affairs officer. With the young prince disappearing inside the palace, the one most gravely at fault was also Mond.
The usual gentleness had vanished from Mond’s face, replaced by stern coldness.
Mond did not try to make a single excuse, and instead reported everything that had happened that day exactly as it was.
“After breakfast that day, the young prince said he was going to water the saplings.”
Wen Yuzhi cared a great deal about those trees he had planted together with everyone else. He went to check on them and water them almost every day. It had practically become part of the cub’s regular routine.
So when Wen Yuzhi went out carrying his little watering can that day, Mond and the others had not been overly worried.
That patch of woods was located inside the palace. It could be said to be practically under their noses.
Ever since the Padar people incident, Mansendis had sealed off the Ninth Star Sector and made major adjustments to Dark Tower Star’s security.
After those adjustments, Dark Tower Star could be called heavily guarded, with extremely tight defenses.
The palace in particular was the core area under reinforced protection, and under normal circumstances, high-ranking Saint Clan like Mond, Merita, and Kasha were all present there.
Mond and the others had been confident in the palace’s safety.
If any outsider appeared, their mental power would have detected it immediately.
Because of that, when the cub went to the woods as usual, Mond and the others had not accompanied him.
One reason was that the cub was still inside the palace. Another was that Yiluo and Feier, two Ge De personal guards, were with Wen Yuzhi.
Even if danger arose, with Yiluo and Feier there, they would have been able to hold out until Mond and the others arrived.
And yet, precisely when they believed nothing could possibly happen, Wen Yuzhi vanished right under their noses.
And there had been no signs of a struggle at the scene whatsoever.
The young prince had simply disappeared into thin air.
Mond and the others had searched all over Dark Tower Star and still failed to find the cub. They did not even know who had taken the young prince away.
“This is the young prince’s light-brain. I found it not far from where the young prince disappeared.”
Mond handed the light-brain to Mansendis.
Looking at the light-brain the cub always wore on him, Mansendis pressed his lips together. “Where are those two Ge De personal guards?”
Mond replied, “I’ve already had them temporarily locked up. These are the interrogation records, and I’ve also retrieved the palace surveillance.”
The Saint Clan had no shortage of money. The palace was covered in an intelligent surveillance system that reached every corner. If any outsider had intruded, the system would have automatically identified it and sounded an alarm.
That was another reason Mond and the others had felt reassured. The palace’s security measures were absolutely airtight.
And because daily-life footage had to be recorded, a little bee robot had also been following Wen Yuzhi around. The process of the cub’s disappearance had happened to be captured in full by that robot as well.
Mansendis first checked the interrogation records of Yiluo and Feier. It was clear the two Ge De personal guards were deeply blaming themselves.
They said that at the time, the young prince had felt thirsty, which was why they had gone to fetch water from the other side.
And before leaving the young prince’s side, they had confirmed that there was nothing unusual in the surrounding area.
“You didn’t discover any outsider intrusion?”
“No.”
“You didn’t see how the young prince disappeared?”
“No. We turned around, and the young prince was gone.”
That was Yiluo and Feier’s own testimony.
Under the suppression of higher bloodlines, low-tier Saint Clan like them would not lie. They did not even possess the concept of lying.
It was the truth.
And from the surveillance and the little robot’s recording, the scene of the disappearance was equally abrupt.
In the footage, the cub was squinting as he enjoyed the cool breeze, but very quickly, it seemed as though he sensed something and opened his eyes in alertness.
But in the very next instant, Wen Yu—
Mond and the others had watched this section over and over, but unfortunately they had found no clues at all.
Mansendis, however, as he watched that fragment, saw his gaze darken noticeably.
The cub was clever and alert. He should have sensed the danger, but he had not been given the chance to cry out.
That clearly meant that at the moment the incident occurred, the other party had stopped him in time from making a sound.
—An outsider had infiltrated Dark Tower Star.
Alvin had thought of the same thing. “I sealed off the temporary palace. All the Pachi people are still inside.”
The moment the incident happened, Alvin had ordered soldiers to surround the temporary palace. Since the Saint Clan had sealed the Ninth Star Sector, the only outsiders who had come to Dark Tower Star were the Pachi people. After the young prince went missing, those Pachi people had naturally become the most likely suspects. freewēbnoveℓ.com
In response, the Pachi president had been trembling with fear, but still cooperated fully with the Saint Clan’s investigation. Over the past few days, those Pachi people had all remained obediently inside the temporary palace, accepting the inquiry.
Mansendis fell silent for a moment. “We’re going back to the palace first.”
He needed to personally inspect the place where the cub had disappeared.
The palace had already been searched countless times from top to bottom, and the patch of forest where Wen Yuzhi had vanished had been searched more than anywhere else.
When Mansendis arrived there, he released his mental power.
Powerful, icy mental power spread rapidly outward from the silver-haired sovereign like a center point.
From the woods to the grass to the soil, Mansendis overlooked not a single inch, not even the finest detail.
He had no need to open his eyes, and yet everything around him had already been reflected in his mind.
Beneath that tree, just like Mond and the others, Mansendis found no abnormalities.
The other party had clearly been cautious as well. Knowing the Saint Clan would focus their search here, they had left no trace at the scene.
Mansendis did not look disappointed. He continued extending his mental power outward, nearly covering the entire palace.
All the Saint Clan inside the palace felt that overwhelmingly oppressive mental power.
Mansendis rarely used his mental power on such a large scale.
His mental sea was unstable. The more mental power he consumed, the more dangerous his mental sea became.
Yet in order to get the cub back, Mansendis did not care about the state of his own mental sea at all.
He swept the palace over and over with his mental power.
Finally, at the place where Wen Yuzhi’s light-brain had been lost, Mansendis found a faint residual trace of mental power on a blade of grass.
The aura on that strand of mental power did not belong to Mond or the others. It was an unfamiliar mental power.
It was just that...
Mansendis frowned.
That aura...
There was no way he could mistake it.
That mental power belonged to a Saint Clan.
Everything suddenly seemed to have an explanation.
There had been nothing wrong with the Ninth Star Sector’s security defenses. If an outside enemy had invaded, they could not possibly have failed to notice.
Unless...
The one who had infiltrated was not an outsider at all, but a Saint Clan.
There were so many Saint Clan living on Dark Tower Star that if the other party was Saint Clan, blending in would not have been difficult.
What the Saint Clan guarded against were outside enemies. When it came to their own kind, Mond and the others had never been suspicious.
After all, unlike other races, the Saint Clan’s loyalty to their people ran extremely deep. They would never betray their own race, much less do anything that would endanger the group.
And the suppression of bloodline rank also gave all Saint Clan an innate loyalty and obedience toward the Salilaino line.
After Mansendis took the throne, he became the sole sovereign. Over twenty years of rule, he had long since purged every hidden danger, and the Saint Clan beneath him were all loyal from the bottom of their hearts to this powerful ruler.
Under such circumstances, it had never once occurred to Mond and the others that there might be a “traitor” within the clan.
“To slip in without a sound, an ordinary Saint Clan would not have that ability.”
Mansendis lowered his eyes. The expression on his face had gone completely cold by now.
If his guess was right...
Then the Saint Clan who had infiltrated was a Salilaino.
Only royal blood—or rather, only the innate gift of royal blood—could hide something like this from even high-ranking Saint Clan like Mond and the others.
But when Mond heard that, the first reaction was denial. “That’s impossible!”
At present, only two royal-blooded Saint Clan remained: Mansendis and Wen Yuzhi. All the other royal-blooded ones were dead, and Mansendis himself had killed them.
How could a brand-new royal-blooded one suddenly appear out of nowhere?!
Mansendis, however, did not look nearly as shocked as Mond and the others.
He could be certain that the royal-blooded ones back then had indeed died, killed by his own hand.
But the residual mental power was also unmistakably identical to the traces left behind when a Salilaino used their innate ability.
Thinking of that, Mansendis looked toward Selet.
Selet happened to look back at the same moment. The instant their eyes met, Selet knew the king had most likely already formed a guess.
During the investigation into the Padar people incident, Selet had once mentioned in a meeting that the warship receiving the Padar people had been very strange, as though it could hide itself within the sea of stars and appear and vanish like a ghost.
A lot of the details from that situation were very similar to the young prince’s disappearance now. In both cases, something had appeared suddenly and vanished just as suddenly.
Back then, they had suspected spatial jumping, but the fluctuations from spatial jumping were extremely obvious.
And yet at the time, they had not found any signs of a spatial jump.
Even then, Selet had already harbored a faint suspicion.
Without question, the only ones capable of that kind of special ability were the Salilaino, through the innate gifts they were born with.
This time, the young prince’s disappearance had only confirmed Selet’s suspicion.
The one who had infiltrated the Saint Clan was a royal-blooded one, and there was a high probability that the other party’s innate ability was related to space.
Only that would explain how the other party had managed to silently take the young prince away from inside the heavily guarded palace.
—A new royal-blooded one.
That revelation plunged every Saint Clan present into silence.
Mansendis turned and strode away.
He did not care whether the other party was an ordinary Saint Clan or a Salilaino.
So what if it was royal blood?
Hadn’t he already killed enough royal-blooded ones?
Whoever it was, if they dared to lay a hand on his child, he would not let them off!
..........
Meanwhile, the escape pod had only just pulled away from the warship when, in the next instant, the warship finally ground to a complete halt from the severity of the damage to its hull.
Even worse, it was only at that point that the people aboard realized Milne was missing, and the male researcher with B-rank clearance was dumbfounded too.
With no one left capable of taking charge, the entire warship fell into total chaos.
But Wen Yuzhi had already set the escape pod to autopilot and steered it away from that asteroid field.
While he was operating the vessel, the cloaked Saint Clan had been sitting obediently in the seat behind him the whole time.
He looked as though he were spacing out, but in truth all his attention was fixed on Wen Yuzhi.
So when Wen Yuzhi finally finished and turned around, what he saw was someone who looked, at that moment, like a tame and well-behaved large dog.
He could not help asking curiously, “What’s your name?”
“......”
The other party did not answer.
“Do you not have one?”
When the Saint Clan in front of him did not respond, Wen Yuzhi thought maybe this Saint Clan simply had no name.
Just as he was about to ask whether the other party had forgotten, the Saint Clan finally said, “No. 1.”
His voice was very soft.
If Wen Yuzhi had not been paying close attention to him the whole time, he might have missed it.
No. 1?
That name sounded a little familiar.
Wen Yuzhi remembered what Milne had said in the command room earlier. She had mentioned No. 1 back then too.
So...
The No. 1 they had been talking about at the time was the Saint Clan sitting in front of him.
“How did you end up locked in there by them?” ƒrēewebnovel.com
After learning his name, Wen Yuzhi asked a second question.
Things had been too urgent aboard the warship just now, and he had not had time to ask about the other party’s situation. Now that they were temporarily safe, Wen Yuzhi could not help being curious why No. 1, as a Saint Clan, had been imprisoned there by those people.
...Had they captured him?
And yet in response to that question, No. 1 remained silent the whole time.
He did not seem willing to talk about those things.
Seeing that, Wen Yuzhi did not force him to say it.
Just thinking about it was enough to know that none of it could have been a good experience.
Since the other party was unwilling to bring it up, there was no reason for Wen Yuzhi to force him to tear open the wound.
Wen Yuzhi only said comfortingly, “It’s okay. We already escaped. Those people won’t catch you and drag you back anymore. Once Dad and the others find me, I’ll take you back to Dark Tower Star with me.”
No. 1 still said nothing.
Wen Yuzhi did not mind. He found the basic survival supplies inside the escape pod.
There were four tubes of nutrient solution in total among the food, along with some drinking water and crackers.
He split half of it with No. 1.
As for himself, he tore open the bag of crackers and started eating.
He had woken up from the hibernation pod, spent so much mental power, and then nearly run for his life aboard that warship just now. Wen Yuzhi had already been starving.
He bit into the dry crackers, and No. 1 glanced at the crackers in his hand. Soon after, as though losing interest, he went back ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) to staring at Wen Yuzhi instead.
Feeling the other party’s gaze fixed on him the whole time, Wen Yuzhi swallowed the crackers in his mouth and asked, “You’re not hungry?”
No. 1 shook his head. He was not hungry yet and did not need to eat.
A little envious, Wen Yuzhi said, “That’s nice. I get hungry really easily these days. Every time, I need a lot before it’s enough. Mond keeps saying I should put on a little more weight too, but I already feel like I’m eating plenty.”
No. 1 listened silently to Wen Yuzhi’s words. He did not know who this Mond was, but deep down, he instinctively felt the same way—that Wen Yuzhi ought to gain a little more weight.
He was still too thin.
Thinking that, No. 1 opened his own pack of crackers, then held them out to Wen Yuzhi’s mouth.
When Wen Yuzhi looked over in confusion, No. 1 said in a flat voice, “Eat.”
Was this... supposed to mean he was feeding him crackers?
Faced with that somewhat stiff, direct attempt at feeding him, Wen Yuzhi blinked, caught somewhere between laughter and helplessness.
But he still accepted the crackers.
“Thank you.”
Thank you?
No. 1 pressed his lips together without a word.
That was another unfamiliar phrase.
Wen Yuzhi, however, did not notice No. 1’s silent confusion. He finished both packs of crackers and drank some water too.
Once he felt reasonably full, he stopped eating. Wen Yuzhi put away all four remaining tubes of nutrient solution.
They still did not know when they would be able to get back, so if they saved those nutrient tubes for later, they would at least still have something to eat.
Wen Yuzhi walked over to the control console. Looking at the panel, their escape pod appeared as only a tiny dot on the coordinates, while everything around them was a pitch-black star sector.
Wen Yuzhi had no idea where this was, or whether they were still inside the Ninth Star Sector.
He tried sending out a distress signal, but after waiting a good while, there was still no response.
It looked like the only ones around were them...
Wen Yuzhi had just been about to send another distress call when an alarm suddenly rang out inside the escape pod.
【Warning! Warning! An interstellar storm has been detected ahead. Pilot, evade immediately!】
【Warning—!】
【Ten seconds until contact with the storm—!】
Ten seconds was far too short.
Wen Yuzhi stared at the control console flashing red all over and realized there was already no time left to dodge.
An escape pod, by design, could not be made too large or too heavy if it was meant to flee danger quickly.
So when it encountered a raging interstellar storm, the tiny escape pod was like a weightless leaf. In front of that enormous storm mass, it was pitifully small.
The instant it drew near, the escape pod was swept straight into the terrifying pull at the center of the storm.
A violent lurch ran through the pod. Wen Yuzhi could barely even stay on his feet inside it.
The force brought by an interstellar storm was far beyond anything asteroids could compare to.
His vision spun wildly, and for a moment he could no longer make out the scene ahead. He could only rely on instinct as he struggled to control the direction at the console.
But the enormous pull still dragged them in.
The console on the escape pod failed completely.
Everything turned chaotic and utterly without warning.
At the very last moment before Wen Yuzhi lost consciousness, he saw No. 1 rush up and wrap him in his arms.
Without a single hesitation, No. 1 shielded him beneath his body.
