Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 128

Chapter 128 – The Heartbeat Behind

“The natural wormhole area isn’t like an artificial transfer portal and is extremely unstable, and we don’t have enough research on it yet. I’ve looked over your reports — there are no issues with the theoretical framework and logic behind the hypothesis, but remember that theory doesn’t always equate to the result of your experiments. Even the tiniest variable in these mathematical formulas can cost a life in practice.”

“According to the hypothesis provided here, you all can either stabilize this area or cause it to go even more haywire and create the breakdown of spacetime. Perhaps some of you will lose your lives here or enter an unknown state of life; are you all prepared?”

Lu Bixing’s warnings were taken to heart by the entire expedition team right before they entered the wormhole area.

This grand parade of the expedition team and their escort ships was like a group of unarmed bugs inside this unknown territory of space. They were like an army of ants using a small leaf as a boat to embark on a dangerous adventure into the vast sea.

“Equipment energy level is on the higher side–”

“Got it,” Mint responded, “activate the pre-cooling system.”

“Cooling pipe preparation…6%….45%…99%….pre-cooling completed.”

“My friends, I can tell that this is much different from the first time.” The captain of the Expedition Team spoke into the internal channel, “We had no preparation last time when we jumped into the wormhole without thinking too much about the consequences. This time, even after knowing that we arrived more prepared than last time, did years of research, and upgraded our equipment, I can still feel the anxiety in my heart.”

Another team member responded: “That’s normal, the ignorant are fearless.”

“Start the 120 second countdown before entering the wormhole area.” The captain paused slightly before asking, “Did everyone prepare their wills?”

“Just a simple goodbye; it’s not like I have any assets left, why do I need a will? To get creative?”

“My family only has one mouth to feed, that’s me. I even saved time on the farewell.”

Mint was a quiet girl and didn’t join in the conversation as she checked her terminal equipment one last time. Her will was left inside the research lab of the Expedition Team; if anything were to happen to her, the letter would be automatically sent to the personal devices of Lu Bixing and her other three classmates ten months from today. They were the only family she had left.

Her will was only one line: I can’t go back anymore, sorry.

This “sorry” was a word that she kept in her heart for many years; it was a phrase that followed her day and night from adolescence to adulthood.

The four students had gone through a lot over the last years. Huang Jingshu threw herself into the seemingly endless research of planetary anti-missile systems, the young Rickhead joined the military, and White worked his way into the Engineering Department. Only Mint chose the niche and dangerous field of Galactic Expedition. She wanted to walk out further, explore the depths of the universe, and hope the boundless night sky could wash away her mortal struggles.

That day, Saturday had contacted the Engineering Department before it all happened. For years, Mint had thought if only she had been more patient with him, paid a little more attention to him, perhaps she would’ve noticed something was wrong.

Perhaps…if that person hadn’t been Saturday, she might’ve actually asked what was wrong. But as a young girl with a responsible guardian that she could hide behind, she was more inclined to give the young man with a romantic interest in her a dirty look. She liked to give him attitude and liked to shoo him off.

If she was a little more mature and stopped bringing personal feelings into work, would she have been able to stop everything by noticing something was wrong and warned Saturday before it all happened?

Before the Expedition Team left, Lu Bixing even called her to the side to tell her that she could still back out of the team if she wanted to. She hesitated but didn’t respond, so Lu Bixing only went over a few more safety instructions with her before she left.

Nobody had ever scolded her for the past, but she had not been able to let go of her guilty conscience for many years.

Her colleague gasped loudly beside her. Mint collected her thoughts and looked up to see the space around them began to warp, almost as if they were passing through a giant freeform magnifying glass. Very soon after, the world felt as if it was being forced into slow motion. The lights on the mech signifying strong energy waves flashed but no sound came out; the network connections were all cut off, and even the gravity system malfunctioned as Mint noticed she was floating inside the mech. The safety belt connected to the walls of the mech kept her from flying out; Mint’s eyes widened as she heard the slowed heartbeat in her chest–

When they’d entered the wormhole last time, due to the lack of preparation everyone knocked out the moment they went in and woke up to find themselves sailing towards the corpse of a mech. Thankfully, they were all wearing protective space suits that saved them from the deadly cosmic rays and air pressure inside the mechs.

This time was much better, at least Mint was still conscious during the passing.

She couldn’t feel her body and felt like the mech was also breaking apart. She looked up to see an ecopod quickly fly by her towards the opposite direction. Mint’s gaze followed it as she subconsciously noted down the ID number on the pod.

The next instant, the space around her expanded infinitely until it all gathered into a small point as if a blackhole had sucked up the world. Mint’s eyes looked past the point into a distance, only to see the world beyond the blackhole filled with countless convex mirrors that flashed familiar scenes before her eyes–the explosion of Beijing-β, the scary base the Freedom Corps hid in near the Eighth Galaxy…and herself in the past.

The young girl in the mirror glanced out to herself a decade into the future before her gaze left the young explorer on the ship. She turned her head back towards the communication screen and said something towards Saturday.

“Stop him!” Mint screamed at the young girl inside the mirror, “Tell him General Turan is going to blow up the portals immediately so don’t touch anything and don’t pick up any communication request. Tell him he’ll regret it! Tell him he’ll kill many people if he does!”

Yet the unstable flow of timespace inside the wormhole couldn’t actually affect causality; she could see herself in the past through the warped time, but even if timespace intersected in the wormhole, the world wouldn’t allow her to change the past.

“Don’t hang up! Please!”

The point of interception in spacetime finally left her as that ‘convex mirror’ disappeared into the void.

That was the harsh reality. While time and space could warp, human life was still a one-way street.

Nothing could change the past.

A large thump and bright light exploded out of the mech; Mint’s feet landed on the ground inside the mech as the safety belt pulled her back to her position.

Mint stood dumbfounded as she realized they’d made it through the wormhole alive. Yet her vision was blurry; tears had filled her face before she even realized what happened.

She wasn’t the only one that was crying, everyone that remained conscious during the passage were all staring blankly off into the distance.

Mint thought for a split second that everyone lived with pain and burdens, and they would all cry their hearts out upon the crossroad of spacetime. They carried the curiosity of mankind, walked down a passionate path carrying the spirit of exploration from their ancestors, and shone in optimism; but at the end of the day, they were all still human.

They were still inside an active wormhole area and had no time to spare for reminiscing. The disconnected channel was still filled with noise for a while until the captain’s hoarse voice frantically did a roll call only to notice that the size of his team had shrunk significantly through his mental network.

“What happened?” Mint took off her suit’s helmet and wiped her face, “Why are we the only ones left?”

“Timespace warped,” her colleague answered, “they must’ve come out a different exit but it shouldn’t be too far…can we fix the communication channel? Is there a way to try and contact them?”

“Funny joke, there’s no transfer portals here so we can’t set up any long-distance connection…beep…the signal’s been unstable…”

“Captain,” Mint said, “the wormhole tunnel we passed through earlier didn’t disappear immediately, and the energy level around the area is still stable…does that mean we succeeded? Should we try sending out a signal back to Qiming’s base?”

The captain didn’t have time to respond.

“Wait, wait! My mech seems to be sending off an alert,” a pilot inside a mech next to the captain interrupted the chatter inside the channel, “check it out, what’s that?”

The Expedition Team sailed out carefully and discovered a remnant of a large starship surrounded by countless pieces of small mechs around the starship like a giant stellar graveyard.

Mint swiftly pulled up the military camera and locked the lenses onto the remnants in order to collect data. A few seconds later, a large photo popped up on-screen and zoomed in clearly enough for a line on the starship to be seen: “Starship…Jing…yuan…?”

The Command Post on Qiming was also filled with anxiety as they lost contact with the Expedition Team for a whole week. Then, they finally received a broken signal message from the team that they could barely make out. Different voices spoke at different times while a whole section of the message couldn’t even be decoded.

The Engineering Department exploded into a mess.

“Let Zhanlu handle this.” Lu Bixing received the news in the middle of the night and quickly made his way over. He scanned the screen filled with garbled text and said, “It seems like multiple messages were jumbled up together, maybe from the warped spacetime in the wormhole. It could also be possible that the Expedition Team was split up after they passed through the wormhole.”

“Received.” Zhanlu’s robotic hand controlled a whole room of supercomputers in an instant and quickly delivered a result. “According to the decoding pattern of the message, there seems to be three different messages being jumbled up together. The content is very similar, all of them have reported that they safely passed through the wormhole but were separated from their teammates. There seems to be a little bit more extra information in the third message, which is currently being decoded right now, please wait…”

Lu Bixing’s eyes widened.

The unstable signal sent out a loud siren after it disconnected. Zhanlu fell silent for a few seconds before saying, “Decoding completed–Miss Mint reported that they discovered the remnants of Starship Jingyuan near the place they landed.”

Starship Jingyuan was the ship that Lin Jingheng took that year when he ran into space pirates in the Heart of the Rose, while on his way back from the Silver Fortress to Wolto.

And even if an unarmed starship was forced to detour into the no-man’s land, it would never have sailed deep into that territory.

Zhanlu’s calm voice rang inside the command post: “If we can rule out the possibility of unknown gravitational forces affecting their landing, this could possibly mean that Miss Mint and her team are very close to the First Galaxy.”

In the Sixth Galaxy, the galactic prison was slowly closing in on their destination. The artificial energy tower orbiting the small planet had entered a temporary sleep mode.

“You know that we’re not the only ones paying attention to the orbit; Jingshu is looking too, right?” Doctor Hardin asked.

Lin Jingheng held the blueprint of the galactic prison in his hand as he made marks on it and answered without even batting a lash: “I’d be more concerned if she didn’t come.”

Lin Jingshu had not dared to walk close to him within the last fourteen years. On one hand, perhaps she didn’t know how to face him; on the other, she was fearful of him. Lin Jingheng was someone who could survive a transfer portal explosion; it was impossible to say what he would do next. If there was a chance that he ‘regained his memories’ and used that as a crutch to stand back on his feet, he could climb his way out of the well. Therefore, the person who imprisoned him had to completely isolate him and not give him any chances.

“If she doesn’t come, who am I going to send my signal to? Pray that it gets randomly sent to a kind person’s personal device and ask them to call the cops for me?” Lin Jingheng sneered, “I don’t have much luck to speak of.”

Doctor Hardin swallowed his words.

Lin Jingheng closed up the blueprint and placed it back inside his personal device: “As long as your time-stopper program works.”

The core ecosystem of the galactic prison was located in a mountain range 500 kilometers away from the main laboratory, which was being maintained by mechanics once every ten days. The mechanics would go to and from the mountain ranges via a special train system in order to perform the periodic maintenance.

One end of the train tracks stopped near a platform not too far from the main lab. The door leading to the tracks opened slightly as Lin Jingheng took a peek through the small opening, holding the signal blocker in his hands. The signal blocker was a product of Doctor Hardin’s five years of research that was disguised as a necklace on him–of course, with questionable aesthetics. Despite its look, the signal blocker was powerful enough to intercept opium biochip signals for five whole seconds within a twenty meter radius. With the advancement of opium technology, human senses grew exponentially stronger than before; a third generation chip could even allow a person to feel infrared rays with their own bodies, so Lin Jingheng needed something that could block himself from the sight of these people. Five seconds was more than enough for him to do his job.

The surveillance went completely blind temporarily as Lin Jingheng snuck out from behind the door, cranked open the backdoor of the train and rolled inside. A group of mechanics walked onto the train the moment he got on and chatted amongst themselves like normal people. They walked past the restrooms near the back of the train as they made their way to the front.

At that moment, one of the mechanics from the group waved at their colleagues and walked back toward the restroom.

Lin Jingheng held his breath behind the restroom door as he watched the five second countdown on his personal device end, watched the signal blockade turn ineffective–

The mechanic heard a heartbeat that didn’t belong the moment they opened up the door and stood shocked for a second. The mechanic looked around in confusion until they finally realized the sound of those heartbeats was coming from behind them.

Before the mechanic could turn their head, a cold object pressed against the back of their neck. The instinct to cry out was forcefully stopped as they realized no sound came out of their mouth; their body fell out of their control as a special type of radiation passed through their skin and suppressed the chip inside. The biochip reacted to the radiation and intercepted the mechanic’s brain waves until the mechanic fell unconscious like a skinless frog, their limbs still twitching as Lin Jingheng dragged them to a corner.

Lin Jingheng pulled out a laser gun from his waist, pressed it against the mechanic’s nape and made three consecutive shots that were carefully calculated to avoid damaging the chip inside. The flesh on the mechanic’s neck, strengthened by the chip, burned and melted under the laser while Lin Jingheng pulled out a nanoknife from the dead mechanic’s body and stabbed right into the corpse’s neck where the chip was injected. A square burn appeared on the remaining visible skin on the corpse as a chip covered in flesh and blood fell to the ground. At that moment, the flesh of the corpse deflated like a balloon as Lin Jingheng tossed it into the restroom next door.

He scanned the biochip with his personal device–a second generation chip; this person might be the leader of this group of mechanics.

Lin Jingheng turned his head slightly to look at the corpse he had tossed onto the side, placed the biochip inside a special sterilizing container, and quickly pulled the clothes off the corpse to put on himself. The mechanic conveniently had a hat on that could cover his face when it was pressed down.

After cleaning up the biochip, Lin Jingheng placed the chip inside a syringe filled with a special type of liquid that surrounded the chip like a gel cover. He shook the syringe in his hand around for a bit before he injected it into his body the next second without hesitation.

“The opium biochip is highly addictive, especially for people who have a high human-mech sync rate. Unless you’re a vaccuocerebral, don’t ever try it.” Doctor Hardin had once warned him, “If you run into an emergency situation, here’s a gel stopper for you–remember, this is still an experimental item even if it can temporarily intercept the effects of the biochip on your physical body. This will essentially turn you temporarily into a vaccuocerebral, but I suspect that you will be able to metabolize the stopper gel within 90 minutes, so you must take the chip out before that happens.”

It would take approximately 40 minutes to reach their destination; there was more than enough time.

Lin Jingheng turned to lock the door to the restroom with the corpse, then walked back into the car of the train and sat down in a corner with his hat covering his face.

Even with the gel stopper, he could still feel the uncontrollable power growing inside of him. His senses grew much sharper as the sounds of people’s heartbeats around him turned into background noise. For a split second, Lin Jingheng even had the delusion of feeling like a terminally ill patient suddenly cured of all diseases the minute the chip was injected into his body.

Another mechanic carefully walked towards him; Lin Jingheng heard the footsteps coming near him and thought: “Scram!”

Due to the suppression of a second generation biochip, the mechanic left him along before they could speak and walked away quietly, creating an invisible fortress around Lin Jingheng.

Lin Jingheng opened up his palm and gently clenched his fist, only to see that his personal device indicated that this power of this grip had already reached over 400 kilograms.

An unknown source of power and control was like an addictive drug that was supposed to fascinate anyone; yet perhaps the stopper’s effects were still active, as Lin Jingheng only felt anxiety and unease in his heart.

He remembered the two times Lu Bixing injected the chip into himself… was this how he felt back then?

The chip that Lu Bixing injected into himself had been destroyed, but after the multiple attempts of the Freedom Corps sailing into the Eighth Galaxy, they also brought in new biochips. He couldn’t remember if all of the chips had been cleaned up.

Lin Jingheng clenched his fist harder and thought, Hope that old Persian Cat still knows how to deal with that child.

The mechanics who came in to do the periodic maintenance were the lowest class on the planet and were mostly first generation opium users. Lin Jingheng snuck in without much problem and quickly found the core ecosystem of the planet–the artificial control of the climate, temperature, and gravity.

Lin Jingheng placed a few small black packages near the central operating system of the artificial gravity controller, then glanced at his personal device to see that the small planet was moving closer to the sun. His mouth lifted up as the solar storm warning appeared and left the area quietly.

Half an hour later, the solar storm on the dwarf planet reached its peak as the signal blockade on the planet was intercepted. At the same time, a series of explosions from the central ecosystem of the planet stunned the world; the artificial gravity suddenly malfunctioned as the gravitational force on land decreased to one-tenth of its regular force. Everyone on land was suddenly stepping on air as their bodies floated off the ground; in addition to the loss of gravity, the artificial atmosphere was also on the brink of breakdown under this low-gravitational situation.

The ecosystem on the planet broke down immediately as sirens rang across the planet, sending out a desperate call for help that passed through the damaged signal blocker out to the universe.

The special kind of SOS signal sent out by a planetary or station ecosystem would be captured by the nearest galaxy, which would prompt the government or a related organization to send out people to inspect the planet or station.

At the same time, sixteen sailing days away, a mech that had been patrolling the planet for the last decade also received the same SOS signal.

“Contact our master immediately, planet Treasure Chest’s ecosystem has severely malfunctioned, the artificial atmosphere is at risk of breaking down–”

Ch 129 – Resummon the Silver Ten

Doctor Hardin was shoved inside an ecopod while everyone else grabbed the nearest spacesuit to put on. After the artificial gravity got destroyed, the atmosphere also began to disappear as the deadly change in air pressure and lack of oxygen began to sweep the planet. Of course, there wouldn’t be enough spacesuits for everyone inside this isolated galactic prison, so a portion of people were doomed to die.

Spacesuits and ecopods were reserved for the highest-ranking chip carriers; the only fourth generation and the handful of third generations took the ecopods inside the lab. Ecopods were designed to let people survive for years in space and block off a certain level of stellar storm effects and mech attacks, making them the ideal method of escape. In contrast, a spacesuit could provide up to 48 hours of protection and would almost be highly dependent on luck to survive if they could wait for rescue to arrive.

As for the first generation chip carriers, a portion were sent off to search for the missing hostage Lin Jingheng while the others were sent to make emergency repairs for the already doomed ecosystem. If someone among them could accomplish their task and prove themselves ‘useful,’ they may be granted a chance to survive if there were extra spacesuits left after all the second generation carriers got their suits.

Fear consumed the minds of the first generation as they frantically ran to carry out their orders under these difficult conditions. They cried in despair as their limbs swam through the air but even the most basic survival instinct couldn’t disobey the biochip’s absolute hierarchical system. No matter how much they feared or how much they hated their higher-ups, their bodies were forced to carry out the orders given to them.

Doctor Hardin laid inside the ecopod and heard the signal interception caused by the stellar storm from outside, causing the voices of the people to be cut off by the disturbance.

“We still haven’t found anything…Commander Lin….buzz…the surveillance couldn’t…”

The ecopod’s alarm went off: “Alert, the environment outside is facing a dramatic change, air pressure continuously dropping–”

“Check the last camera that caught him….buzz….it’ll be too late if we can’t find him!”

Doctor Hardin took in a breath of the precious oxygen inside the pod and closed his eyes.

Perhaps Lin Jingheng was a man born with a sword in his heart that had been polished by the harsh world for many years. He always flashed the side of the sharpened blade against the world based on habit, therefore he never felt pain from the injuries caused by the harsh world. Instead, he used these wounds and scars to further polish his blade and created a unique cycle that consumed his life.

Every grind of the blade sharpened it even more.

It would be a devastating tragedy if that blade was to break one day.

Suddenly, the ground shook violently while the communication signals inside the ecopod completely cut off. Immediately after, a strange noise came out of the speakers as a mysterious channel without a passcode engulfed the land.

Sixteen sailing days away, a mech that had been watching the galactic prison was reporting the situation to Lin Jingshu. They didn’t have time to wait for backup and warped near the dwarf planet as the mech passed through the dispersing atmosphere. This time, the sounds from the channel were much clearer: “Director of the security team, please confirm the safety of the target and prepare to board the rescue mech!”

“Reporting in, Doctor Hardin has entered the ecopod but we’ve lost track of Commander Lin!”

The mech pilot’s cold voice rang out from the channel: “The air pressure is already at its limit, if we cannot ensure the safety of Commander Lin, I’m afraid we cannot carry on the rescue mission.”

“Reporting in, first generation chip carriers are dying–”

The first generations that were exposed to the dangerous environment while working to carry out their orders no longer had the energy to cry. Some people could barely muster enough energy to take another step and fell onto the ground, then floated into the air after a few seconds of twitching until their bodies stopped moving.

Along with the dispersing of the artificial atmosphere, the lights indicating the first generation chip carriers also dimmed down one by one as they died in despair. Who knew if they regretted letting their greed for power get the best of them in these times of crisis when their lungs blew up, when they accepted and voluntarily put on the shackles of the Freedom Corps on themselves.

The same things that once protected people would turn around one day and rip out the necks of those people they once guarded.

Someone inside the rescue mech said: “Send Doctor Hardin over to me, I’ll report to our master immediately.”

Two men who seemed like medics dressed in spacesuits barged in and placed the doctor’s ecopod on a temporary railing pointed towards the mech. One of the men knocked on the cover kindly and reassured the old doctor: “Don’t worry Doctor, we’ll take care of you.”

Very quickly after, Doctor Hardin felt his ecopod move slightly as it slid out on the railings, its speed accelerating as it got further away from the backdoor of the lab. Two medics held onto both sides of the ecopod as they escorted him through the automatically built tracks that led towards the capturing net of the mech.

The person on the mech asked frantically: “Doctor Hardin, where did Commander Lin go?”

The doctor really didn’t know. Everyone outside was in complete chaos, he couldn’t even guess where the Commander would go at a time like this.

He’d spent fourteen years but still couldn’t manage to gain Lin Jingheng’s trust and even suspected that the concept of ‘trust’ never even had a chance to grow and nurture inside this man. Lin Jingheng had always been cooperative on the surface when they planned their escape. Yet even if the commander had been kind and even caring to the old doctor, he never once asked the doctor for anything nor revealed any extra information on his plans to escape.

Doctor Hardin: “I…”

At this moment, an armed mech fleet suddenly sailed near the dwarf planet. Then, a message signal connected onto the planet through the flow of the particles in the storm as the voice inside the channel spoke out in a professional manner: “We’re the Patrol Team of the Sixth Galaxy; we’ve received an emergency signal earlier from this planet, did the artificial ecosystem send out an SOS alert? We’ve discovered that this dwarf planet had not been officially registered with the Sixth Galaxy government, please have the people on this planet show their resident IDs for the Sixth Galaxy so that we…”

Oh no–the rescue team from the Freedom Corps held in their breaths.

They weren’t able to intercept the signal due to the solar storm and had hoped it would be lost in space, only to find out that someone actually caught the signal and came over. If Lin Jingshu were to find out that the location of this secret galactic prison was exposed, they would all be offering their heads to her!

Lin Jingshu had assigned two important orders to the man inside the mech: First, the patrol must always ensure the safety of Lin Jingheng. Second, the patrol must make sure Lin Jingheng shall never get in touch with the outside world.

If the two orders ever conflicted, the patrol must place the second order as priority–

In other words, even if Lin Jingheng were to die on the planet, nobody shall know.

The rescue mech of the Freedom Corps detected a small flashing dot on its communication channel–it was their backup.

The rescuer inside the mech bit his lips and fired a missile at the Sixth Galaxy patrol fleet that was sailing over. The leading mech of the patrol team didn’t expect to be attacked and ran head-on to the missile as the mech fell onto the dwarf planet like a comet. The remaining atmosphere sparked fire against the mech body as it dropped onto the ground right in the middle of the train tracks leading to the core ecosystem.

The train that barely parked safely at the platform was unmanned and fell off the tracks.

“This planet is a pirate base!”

“Call for backup from the Sixth Galaxy Military bases!”

“High-energy alert, a pirate fleet is closing in…”

A single missile fired through the atmosphere of the planet right into the patrol team. The patrol team didn’t back down and fired back as they contacted the military bases near the border of the Sixth Galaxy.

The two forces that were summoned by the SOS signal of the dwarf planet were now fully engaged in combat.

Doctor Hardin’s ecopod shook violently for a second as the pod crashed into the capture net of the rescue mech. At this point, the rescue mech couldn’t afford to wait for everyone else on the ground and dragged the ecopod back inside as it sailed up the atmosphere to join the battle.

The capture net also pulled the two medics escorting the pod along with them, almost knocking the medics into the line of fire as the net was reeled in. They were like little bugs trudging through a wildfire in the forest, hiding behind leaves and stones in a desperate attempt to survive.

A large sound outside shook the ecopod; the Doctor inside skipped a heartbeat and felt as if the pod had been shattered into pieces. The shock from outside knocked the old doctor out temporarily and made him think he was going to die.

The next moment, the cover of the pod opened up and Doctor Hardin’s eyes opened. He discovered he had already boarded the mech safely and noticed the tail of the pod had been blown away. The nutrient solution inside was leaking out of the pod, but thankfully he was saved before any fatal damage could be dealt.

The two medics that were dragged into the mess were also on the mech; one of them had been hurled into a corner, unconscious, while the other who had opened up the cover of the pod was already covered in blood–the broken pieces of the ecopod pierced through his spacesuit into his lower abdomen.

Doctor Hardin was shocked: “You…”

The medic covered in blood gestured for the doctor to remain calm; a strange feeling surged inside the doctor as he attempted to look through the oxygen mask to see the face of the person behind it.

The door on the side of the mech opened up as a pirate from the Freedom Corps came in to check if the rescued men were still alive. A row of medical capsules followed behind them and pulled Doctor Hardin out of the ecopod; the capsules turned to the blood-covered medic only to be interrupted by a bright light the next moment.

Everyone was blinded temporarily by the light as someone yelled: “We’ve been hit by a missile!”

“Run!”

“Wait, the mech didn’t send out an alert….”

The blinding white light quickly disappeared as the pirates who had almost lost their vision crawled up from the ground and opened their eyes. They looked around dumbly until they realized after a whole minute that the bloodied ‘medic’ from earlier had disappeared from sight.

The pirate who had been standing closest to the medic earlier was the first to realize something as he looked down at his wrist and screamed–the entire hand that carried his personal device had been cut off from the wrist and had disappeared along with the medic.

Doctor Hardin’s eyes widened in disbelief.

The mysterious ‘medic’–Lin Jingheng, quickly decoded the personal device on that bloodied hand with a small decoding device between his fingers. He used that unfortunate pirate’s identity to hack directly into the core of the mech’s control system without issues, then ran directly into a pirate guard on the mech.

The guard stared in shock at the blood on him and ran up to Lin Jingheng: “Wait, you…hey!”

The bloodied medic fell upon the guard before the guard could finish; the guard quickly caught his colleague and heard the bloodied man mumble something into his ears.

“What’s that?” The guard turned his head and leaned in closer to hear the words. The next instant, a cold object stuck to the back of the guard’s neck as a special signal interceptor shot through his skin. The guard didn’t even have time to respond before he fell onto the ground, twitching in pain.

Lin Jingheng dragged the man to the side and repeated his offense of stealing clothing from the unconscious as he quickly removed the bloodied spacesuit. Cold sweat rolled from his fringe and down the bridge of his nose while he carefully put on the guard’s clothes; the clear pain and smell of blood served to pump his adrenaline.

He was like a beast stuck inside a lightless cage; when he finally managed to break the metal bars, he would run out even if it meant he would be crushed along the way.

Lin Jingheng ripped up a piece of cloth and pressed it onto his wound without looking, covering it up with the jacket and lowering the hat on his head. He temporarily hid the smell of blood on himself as he once again turned on the signal blocker on his neck.

He had five seconds to block off the sense of chip carriers.

Inside the main control room, the pilots and back-up pilots of the mech all had their attentions locked on the battle with the Sixth Galaxy patrol fleet ahead of them.

Five–

Lin Jingheng walked effortlessly in between them and quickly made his way into the main control room, even sparing time to nod at a pirate passing by.

Four–

He scanned the surroundings; for the first time in fourteen years, he felt the intimidating power of a mech’s mental network.

Three–

Lin Jingheng made his way towards the human-mech port of the mental network, lowered his voice and said to a pirate that looked at him in confusion: “It’s an emergency.”

Two–

“Wha……” The person looked like a back-up pirate and grabbed onto Lin Jingheng’s arm.

One–

Lin Jingheng sneered lightly and shot out a small coin-like object from his fingers; it was the secret weapon Doctor Hardin gave him: a biochip signal blocker.

Zero.

The heavy smell of blood engulfed the entire central control room of the mech as everyone turned to the source of the smell. The signal blocker and mental network of the mech created a unique reaction: all pilots and back-up pilots of the mech were stunned for an instant, which allowed Lin Jingheng to force himself into the human-mech port of the mech’s mental network.

These mech pilots stunned by the blocker would never have imagined that a super-soldier like them who had been injected with biochips would have their mech’s mental network stolen within an instant. They didn’t even have time to react when they were all knocked unconscious.

Lin Jingheng turned off the artificial gravity system inside the mech and accelerated the speed of the mech. Other than himself, he tossed all the unsuspecting pirates inside the mech out of the room. Soon after, he utilized the signal blocker inside the mech and amplified the disruption waves to the maximum, causing all chip carriers inside the mech to twitch in pain.

Doctor Hardin watched as these pirates crawled on the ground in an attempt to run outside, leaving the old man on his own inside this mech. The pirates ran out of the door and were immediately locked out of the room. Almost immediately after, Lin Jingheng’s voice broadcasted inside the mech: “Hello Doctor, if you’re not injured, please rest inside an ecopod or medical capsule; we’re preparing to make an emergency warp.”

Doctor Hardin asked frantically: “Jingheng, how did you get in here? Did you inject…”

A medical capsule rolled out before he could finish and shoved the old man inside.

This mech suddenly blocked off all communication from its ‘comrades’ during the battle in the air and snuck out of the battlefield in silence. Before anyone noticed, the mech activated its emergency warp and escaped without any trouble as the Sixth Galaxy patrols and Freedom Corps fleet were still busy exchanging fire.

It took a while before the mech finally settled after passing through a number of transfer portals. Doctor Hardin pushed open the cover of the medical capsule and noticed the door outside that was locked earlier had opened back up. He rolled the medical capsule inside in a frenzy to see a room full of corpses–all the pirates on the mech were locked up in enclosed spaces and had suffered through a festival of poisonous gas.

Lin Jingheng leaned on a tall chair with his shirt unbuttoned while a medical capsule created a small sterilized area on his lower abdomen, treating his gory wound with care.

Lin Jingheng wiped off the cold sweat on his forehead with a hand and gave a victorious smile at Doctor Hardin: “Long live freedom, Doctor.”

The doctor was speechless.

Lin Jingshu’s plan proved to be right; this man could completely destroy the galactic prison with the smallest opportunity.

“Do you think the Silver Ten still remembers the passcode I used sixteen years ago to contact them?” Lin Jingheng asked as he flipped through the database on the mech, “Hm…looks like they’ve been having fun fighting off the Freedom Corps over the last few years. Thanks to these pirates I can deduce the general coordinates of the fleet.”

Doctor Hardin: “You want to…”

“Resummon the Silver Ten.”

Lin Jingheng sent out the long-distance signal. Within an instant, a voice that could stun the whole world passed through the transfer portals within the universe. The signal expanded into every corner of the existing galaxies with one simple order–go to the Heart of the Rose in the First Galaxy.

“Do you think they’ll be scared?”

Doctor Hardin looked at him as his lips trembled: “You…the stopper gel’s effect only lasts 90 minutes…”

Lin Jingheng lifted an eyebrow: “Hm? The chip? Don’t worry. Yous should have the ability to upgrade the chips, right Doctor? Upgrade my chip to the highest level; I bet it’ll be useful if I ever want to beat up Freedom Corps pirates in the future.”

Doctor Hardin’s expression turned grave immediately. He wasn’t disabled, only too old to walk on his own so he had been using wheelchairs to move around. At this moment, he managed to struggle out of the medical capsule on whis own and said: “Lin Jingheng! Do you know what the biochip is? How could you…”

Lin Jingheng lifted his head and cut him off: “Doctor, you’re the one that hasn’t been telling the truth.”

Doctor Hardin stared at him blankly.