Chapter 177
Chapter 177: ‘Grim Reaper’s’ Star Net [Part 1]
Logically speaking, the energy storage room should be pretty well defended. Other than the interior of the prison and the main defense system, the energy storage room also had a separate defense system and was specially built to prevent energy leakage. This was because its potential threat value was higher. After all, if certain unstable factors caused large amounts of energy blocks to become destabilised, then the explosion they caused would be big enough to destroy more than half of the prison.
However, they did not encounter any robot guards along the pa.s.sage towards the energy storage room. The energy storage room was categorised as high radiation area, so normally there should be certain robot sentries guarding the paths leading towards it. However, other than a number of convicts lying dead on the ground, they did not find even one robot sentry.
Lung checked the display of his life scanner and shook his head at Cillin, indicating that no life forms had been detected in this area as of now.
No other life forms?
The way these convicts died didn’t look like a robot’s work.
After looking at his surroundings carefully, Cillin crouched down and put his hand on a convict who had no wounds on the surface of his body even though he was dead.
"His heart is crushed." Cillin said in a heavy tone.
He then checked a couple more convicts with no wounds on their skin and found that their conditions were the same as this convict. The large majority of the convicts inside this pa.s.sage had died this way.
A human had done this and not a robot, but both Cillin and Lung were puzzled. Just who on earth had the ability to easily crush these convicts’ hearts without wounding their skin?
Was it someone from ‘Grim Reaper’? Or was it someone else?
Cillin and Lung walked towards the energy storage room with even greater caution than before. They did not dare to overly rely on the life scanner since machines sometimes would ‘lie’ too.
The energy storage room’s door was open, and there were no signs of any forced entry. The thick custom made cabin door was obediently opened, and some energy fluctuations were emanating from inside the energy storage room at the same time.
These energy fluctuations weren’t big. You could even say that it was very docile. But this was exactly why Cillin and Lung had become even more nervous.
The were only docile energy fluctuations coming from inside the energy storage room. There was nothing else in there; not even the breathing sounds of a human. Was it really a robot?
Cillin and Lung arrived near the door, but did enter immediately. Lung released a small, ball-shaped detector, and the object flew towards the entrance of the energy storage room. However, when detector reached the front of the door, its program instantly became disrupted and ran away about as fast as one could imagine.
Lung: "&h.e.l.lip;"
Cillin made a hand gesture. He was going to go in and check things out first.
When he shuffled carefully to the entrance, Cillin could obviously sense the change in magnetic field surrounding the storage room’s door. No wonder Lung’s scanner had experienced a disruption in its program. This was probably why there were no robot sentries around here.
However, when Cillin saw the person inside the room, he no longer had the mood or thought to consider the robot sentries and the change in magnetic field.
It was actually a human being!
Lung swiftly moved over to Cillin when he saw him standing there with a taut body, but had not suffered any kind of attack. He looked towards the storage room. When he saw the person inside, Lung’s pupils also shrank in an instant.
The boxes containing the energy blocks had already been opened, and the man’s back was facing towards them. One of his hands was placed directly on the energy ores. Unlike the energy blocks inside small-sized home-use electrical appliances, these energy blocks were one meter tall and stacked in a bunch. However, Cillin could see clearly that the energy blocks beside the man had already been depleted.
The man was absorbing energy!
He could actually absorb energy directly from the energy blocks without any mediums at all?!
That being said, Cillin recalled that he himself seemed to have done something similar.
The man never moved or turned around, maintaining his body posture and appearing as if he hadn’t noticed Cillin and Lung’s arrival at all. However, Cillin dared wager a bet that that man had absolutely noticed the two of them since a long time ago.
This person could not be detected before he was seen since he lacked too much presence. However, those who really saw him they would experience a feeling of absurdity instead. He was like the amalgam of contradictions.
Cillin and Lung tacitly understood each other and did not disturb the man from absorbing energy. They did not attempt to attack and rob the energy blocks while he was busy either. However, if they left this place immediately, there was no telling if they would be killed right away. At the very least, Cillin had a feeling that the man would murder them to the last if they tried to do so. There wouldn’t be so many dead convicts around the area otherwise.
Cillin gave Lung a look, indicating that it would be best if they didn’t act recklessly.
It wasn’t long before there were other convicts who came over to this place. When they saw the energy blocks, they all wore greedy looks on their faces.
Cillin and Lung had ducked into a corner of the storage room and avoided meeting the convicts in a head on conflict. Meanwhile, the convicts who made their way over obviously painted the man absorbing the energy blocks as their primary target.
Several convicts raised their guns and fired rapidly at the man. The guns were all forcefully taken from the prison guards. The prison guard’s sign on the guns proved this. It would seem that the prison guards were doing extremely poorly too.
Bang bang bang!
However, the fired bullets looked like they were met with great resistance when they approached the vicinity of that man. When they reached half a meter away from that man, their velocity dropped down to zero directly.
After a few gunshots, the convicts understood that this man wasn’t someone they could deal with. There was a person who got ready to take out a booster type high energy weapon, but had collapsed immediately before he could do anything with it. Cillin could feel that the person’s heart was crushed just like the convicts at the pa.s.sage.
No one saw how he killed the person. In fact, he never made any extra movements at all. But the convict more than twenty meters away was killed all the same.
The rest of the convicts wanted to escape, but they collapsed directly just when they had escaped to the entrance.
Lung gulped and looked at Cillin. What are we going to do next?
Let’s maintain this deadlock for now, Cillin thought.
More people came in the middle of the deadlock, but the outcome was always the same. By now, there were more than twenty people lying dead at the entrance from the same cause.
Five minutes later, the energy fluctuation slowly subsided calmly, collectedly and unhurriedly. By now, the energy blocks inside the box were already dim and lightless. The man withdrew his hand, turned around and looked towards Cillin and Lung.
There was no killing intent of displayed malice. In fact, the man was even wearing a faint smile on his face. He gave off a gentle and cultivated feeling, but it was this person who had killed so many without a sound at all.
Both Cillin and Lung could only feel every hair on their body standing at the back of their end when they were gazed upon by the man wearing a faint smile that was somewhat polite and cordial. The more he acted this way, the more dangerous he was in their eyes.
In his mind, Lung had already thrown this man into the freak category directly. Those people whose outside and inside were joined by an absolutely twisted nature were all freaks among freaks, not to mention that this freak was the kind who killed with a smile on his face. When the convicts had died, they probably didn’t even sense any killing
Jiada glanced at the two little boys standing not far away from him. That was what he thought of twenty year olds from his standpoint.
He had discovered Cillin and Lung since a long time ago. A layer of electrical charge had been imbued to the top, bottom and side walls of the pa.s.sages stretching outward from the storage room. Jiada was capable of sensing anyone who entered into this area. He could even determine how powerful the intruder was from these electrical charges.
Jiada was curious when Cillin and Lung had entered his domain. He hadn’t killed them immediately and instead, watched their reactions while he was absorbing the energy. Obviously, the duo’s reactions hadn’t incited his killing intent.
"Who are you, little boys?" Jiada asked. Even his voice was gentle.
Little boys&h.e.l.lip;
Cillin and Lung wanted to roar: Is this guy a super old freak or something?
Translator’s Notes: You guys were expecting an epic battle, but no, it was just a lecturing session by your grandpa&h.e.l.lip;
Chapter 177: Grim Reaper’s ‘Star Net’ [Part 2]
In reality, Jiada looked like he was just approaching middle age. Therefore, when he suddenly called them ‘little boys’ both Cillin and Lung felt a muscle cramp on their faces.
Suddenly, Cillin recalled his awkward teacher. Sir Mo had even called him a ‘child’ back then. Now that he thought about it, this person before him was probably over around a hundred years old, wasn’t he?
"Ahem. h.e.l.lo, I am called Lung." Lung bowed and saluted him. His usage of the etiquette Berzett taught him was pretty impressive; the form of his salutation was perfectly standard. He did not give out his surname directly since there were plenty of people who disliked a member of the Andrea Family.
"Judging from your salutation, you’re probably a member of a certain big family, aren’t you?" Jiada said. At the same time, he returned a corresponding salutation of his own, looking much more like a gentleman than Lung was.
Lung’s face cramped yet again. A single salutation had exposed his ident.i.ty.
"Er, yeah. My full name is Andrea Lung." he did not lie. Lung thought that he would absolutely be found out if he attempted to lie with his own abilities. The man before him was an old freak after all.
"Oh, so you’re the descendant of that old fox."
Lung lamented inside his heart: Ah, my beloved grandfather, your t.i.tle as a fox truly is widespread!
However, Lung did let out a sigh of relief on the inside when he heard Jiada’s answer. At the very least, Lung had not sensed any malice during the instant the other party heard the name Andrea.
"You’re okay. You have better prospects than your father." Jiada commented before looking at Cillin.
"I am called Cillin Gen." he did not salute like Lung did. He simply performed a very commonly seen salutation done when a junior Hunter encountered his elders.
Lung cast a glance and thought on the inside: since when are you called Gen again?
"You are a Hunter?" Jiada knew that Cillin was a Hunter the moment he saw the salutation he performed.
"Yes, I am."
"Are you a solo Hunter? Or are you with a Hunter regiment?"
"I’m with a Hunter regiment; the Hunter regiment Vanguard."
Jiada nodded. Nothing else could be seen from his countenance.
Jiada’s reaction made Cillin felt a small twinge of disappointment. He had purposed given out the surname ‘Gen’ to see if the man before him would react to it. The results however, were a little disappointing.
After looking at Cillin and Lung, Jiada waved a hand and s.h.i.+fted two large boxes containing energy blocks inside several meters away before Cillin and Lung. He said, "Take these two boxes with you. The rest is mine."
Both Cillin and Lung sighed seeing that the other party did not plan to look into their intrusion any further. The fact that he gave them two boxes of energy blocks was respectful of him already.
After thanking Jiada, Lung then withdrew the two boxes of energy ores into the subs.p.a.ce container on his hand. Energy blocks could not be put inside subs.p.a.ce for a prolonged period of time, so he had to take them out the moment they returned to the stars.h.i.+p to prevent the conflict between energies causing the subs.p.a.ce to destabilise and collapse.
"When you go back, do greet that old fox Fergus and that old man Ji Feng for me." Jiada said.
Lung’s grandfather Fergus wielded great influence within GAL, his sphere of influence extending over to business, politics, military and so on. As for Ji Feng, he was the leader of Vanguard and one of the Six Stars of Hunt – a Star Rank Hunter!
If Jiada had only mentioned Fergus, Cillin and Lung would not have been as surprised. After all, Fergus’ activities span over to quite a number of places, not to mention that there were plenty of people who knew and dealt with Fergus. Ji Feng was different, however. If this man was able to say Ji Feng’s name directly and talk about a Star Rank Hunter with such a tone, then&h.e.l.lip;
Jiada!
Cillin looked towards Jiada, "Are you the Hunting Blade Jiada, senior?"
The honorific used among Hunters was ‘senior’, and Jiada did not deny it either. He waved his hands and beckoned Cillin and Lung to leave, "You have one full hour of time left. ‘Grim Reaper’s’ ‘Star Net’ would be activated in one hour, and with your current level of strength, you won’t be able to survive it when that happens."
"Star net?" they knew that the Grim Reapers are here, but what on earth was a ‘Star Net’?
Jiada did not give any additional explanation, "You will know when the time comes. This is an experiment to ‘Grim Reaper’."
When he was finished, Jiada turned around and did not bother with Cillin and Lung any longer. He continued to open a new box and absorb the energy inside.
Cillin shot a glance at Lung to transmit the message that they should leave first before doing anything else.
After leaving the energy storage room, Cillin and Lung did not waste time entangling themselves with the unsolved mysteries and instead, rushed to where the gray cat was. According to their calculations, they should reach that warehouse in ten minutes time. After they had collected the food, they would then leave this place and return to the stars.h.i.+p. If there were no mishaps, then they should have ample time.
This time, Cillin and Lung did not conceal their presences on purpose. Instead, they moved faster and hurried along the way. There weren’t many people left in the pa.s.sage leading towards the food warehouse, and if Cillin and Lung were to spend time conducting an in-depth scan they would discover that there weren’t much people left inside the prison. Most of them had ran outside.
When they pa.s.sed by a junction, Cillin saw a person leaning at that junction. Yes, he had definitely seen them. Cillin could see them him even though that person was obviously in a state of invisibility.
He couldn’t identify their face. There was just a blurry approximation where the face should be at.
The person simply looked at them and did not attack when Cillin and Lung ran past him. Even though they knew that Cillin could see them, they did not move and simply watched Cillin and Lung run right past him.
When Cillin and Lung had ran far away, that person let out a soft laugh, "This generation’s youngsters sure are interesting."
As compared to that Ghost b.u.t.terfly Seventeen they encountered earlier, the person actually thought that these two young men were more interesting. Even though they obviously could see him, neither of them had actively attacked him like Ghost b.u.t.terfly Seventeen did. Their guards were pretty high too. They were guarding against them even though they had ran far, far away from them.
After they had gone far away from that junction, Lung said while running, "There was a person in that junction just now."
"I know, but they did not look like they intended to attack us."
"The person who wounded Ghost b.u.t.terfly Seventeen is them, isn’t it?"
"Even if they’re not, they are not allies."
"A ‘Grim Reaper’. Thank goodness they did not have any intentions of attacking us, or neither of us would be having a good time now."
Cillin and Lung were in a hurry right now, and leaving aside whether they could win against that person if they had actually fought, even if they could they would have wasted a lot of time. After listening to Jiada’s words, the duo simply wanted to get to the warehouse, store up some food and leave as soon as possible.
They did not know what the ‘Star Net’ was, but since the word came from Jiada both Cillin and Lung believed that it existed.
Along the way, they ran into convicts in groups of twos and threes. They were basically all in a confused state, and the second they saw Cillin and Lung they charged right at them. However, they were all quickly taken out by the duo.
When they arrived at the warehouse, they saw the gray cat hugging a fish and making loud crunching noises as it bit the fish head. The fish that was almost a hundred times bigger than the gray cat was eaten to the point where all that was left were bones.
Beside the gray cat, Scarlet Wind was chewing a beef jerky. The gray cat had told him to eat as much as he wanted, so he wasn’t giving any quarters either.
Cillin and Lung selectively collected some food supplies from the warehouse. They still had plenty of food on the stars.h.i.+p, so their main priority right now was to find some fresh food supplies. The fresh food supplies around several other connected warehouses around here were all taken away by Cillin and Lung.
Cillin looked at the emptied warehouses and checked the time, "We still have forty minutes."
"Let’s leave. We should hurry up." Lung said.
"Time to go, gluttons!" Cillin turned around and called out to Scarlet Wind and the gray cat.
Seeing that Cillin, Lung and Scarlet Wind were heading outside, the gray cat held the fish head it had half consumed in its mouth and ran out. Even though half of the fish head had been consumed by the gray cat, it was still a lot larger than the gray cat’s current body size. In fact, the fish’s pharynx and the sharp teeth inside its mouth were all exposed because half its head had been chewed off. It was a rather ugly sight as the teeth swayed rhythmically as the gray cat held it in its mouth and ran.
There was nothing that impressed Cillin more than the glutton’s ability to eat while running. It ran and ran, and the half eaten fish head went into its stomach just like that.
Since Scarlet Wind wasn’t too familiar with running on two legs just yet, he dropped back on all four after taking for a few steps forward. He would not be able to catch up to the others otherwise.
The amount of people outside the prison had increased by a lot. When Cillin’s group ran out of the prison, they were met with a sizable amount of resistance. Some came from the prison guards, and some came from the convicts. When Scarlet Wind encountered these men who were obviously harboring malice and killing intent towards them, he had instantly transformed from an obedient darling into a wild animal just like how he originally was when he was hunting preys on his origin planet. The way his claws plunged deep into the enemies’ bodies and tore them apart directly with impressive brute force caused Lung’s stomach to churn.
The gray cat’s behavior was a lot more moderate, however. It had simply kicked and left deep hind claw marks on those people’s faces. After all, Cillin said that they were in a race against time, and it was feeling sleepy after eating till it was full.
Thankfully, the resistance hadn’t persisted the whole way. The firefights were mainly concentrated at the port where transports and s.p.a.ceplanes were parked. The convicts wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h a s.h.i.+p and escaped this place, and the prison guards absolutely refused to let them succeed. Therefore, both parties were engaged in intense combat at that location.
The place Cillin’s group chose was far away from the port. After arriving at a temporarily empty location, Lung lifted his hand and popped out a dashboard from his wrist, performing a remote control. At the same time, the robots piloted the stars.h.i.+p and flew it towards them. After the stars.h.i.+p had locked onto their position, Cillin’s group then teleported back to the stars.h.i.+p.
After returning to the stars.h.i.+p, the stars.h.i.+p did not depart from the planet immediately. Instead, it maintained its invisibility and watched from a nearby spot.
After putting the energy blocks into the storage room and the food into the warehouse, Cillin and Lung then watched the scenes unfolding on the control room’s displays.
Two minutes was left on the clock when they checked the time.
The lucky convicts managed to grab a s.p.a.ceplane and flew out of the planet. The satellite defense network at the perimeter of the planet was paralysed since a long time ago, so these s.p.a.ceplanes were able to leave as they pleased.
Perhaps these lucky convicts could not have imagined what was going to happen next on the planet?
When one hour was up, a web that looked very much like the light rays of electricity suddenly appeared outside the planet. It had enveloped the entire planet.
"Is this, ‘Star Net’?"