Chu Zhixiao was greatly alarmed.
There were too many ghouls.
Although the main warship of the Light Pursuit was an antique, it had been modified more than thirty years ago to further improve its automation. Therefore, there were not many operators in the engine compartment.
Most of the operators had become food for the ghouls. The outside world was guarded and evacuated by the purifiers and cleaners. The few hundred ghouls that were still active inside the engine compartment were only a few hundred at best.
But there were at least a thousand ghouls in her vision.
Besides, the speed and hardness of the ghouls were far higher than those of the ordinary people of the Star Glory Federation and the low-level warriors. Some of them could even dodge her lightning-like attack.
Even her crystal suit had been ripped open by her bloody, long fingers, which crawled into her skin like maggots and leeches. They were slippery, greasy, and extremely cold.
It was impossible.
Chu Zhixiao immediately realized that it was an illusion.
What an impressive mental illusion. Had the strength of the puppet king improved again? It could invade her brain without her knowing and create such a vivid illusion.
“Black dream, black dream?”
Chu Zhixiao shouted, only to find that there was no response behind him. He assumed that the hearing system of himself or ‘Black Dream’ Yun Haixin had been compromised, too.
She stopped shouting and condensed her soul to the maximum. She sent a powerful brainwave to ‘Red Pig’, the spider tank next to her, through which she shot out of the engine compartment.
“Seven Star, can you hear me? It is very likely that the puppet king has hacked into the crystal suit system, optical nerves, and auditory nerves of Black Dream and me at the same time, which will be a major interference for our battle.
Chu Zhixiao was very calm. He sent out telepathic thoughts unhurriedly. “Don’t bother about me. Just pretend that you are in a hurry and let him continue the invasion. You can take the opportunity to find out the source of the invasion.
“Remember, don’t alarm them. The ‘minor sacrifice’ that turns into a ghoul is not our target. Our target is the puppet king. Even if we can’t capture him, we must at least figure out his methods. Therefore, don’t destroy everything yet. Do you understand?”
“…Understood.”
After a while, ‘Seven Star’, the crystal processor and the tracking expert in the team, who was using the spider tank as a platform, said hesitantly, “However, the Titan has gone in. I don’t know whether or not his mental defenses have been compromised by the puppet king. If he is hallucinating, I don’t think he is as patient as you are and will solve the problem in one way or another.
“What? He—”
Chu Zhixiao’s pupils constricted violently.
Then, she heard an earsplitting explosion that smashed her eardrums like a tsunami.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
In the depths of the bloody mist, flames were raging. All the real-life and illusionary ghouls had been blown into pieces and burnt to ash with twisted screams. Judging from the destructive posture, even the engine compartment was about to be blown apart.
The mountains of corpses and seas of blood in front of Chu Zhixiao’s eyes suddenly vanished. She fell out of the illusion and returned to the grey engine compartment in the real world.
But there was not the slightest joy on her face. On the contrary, her face was filled with anger that her plan had been disrupted.
Coldly, Chu Zhixiao strode forward.
There was not a single intact ghoul in front of him. There were not even many pieces of meat the size of fingernails.
The tubes were full of bumps and hollows. Even the strengthened shell of the reactor, which was almost half a meter thick, had almost a hundred shocking fist marks on it. Centered at the fist marks, the blood was spreading out in the shape of a laser, as if he would be ‘gone’ after one punch.
The mist in front of him dispersed, and his vision became clearer.
The smell of steam and blood seemed to have been absorbed by the muscular man who was at least five meters tall and covered in wounds and iron armor.
Sensing Chu Zhixiao’s passionate eyes, Yuan Kuo, the giant, turned around and opened his bloody mouth, giving his major an innocent smile.
It was true that the puppet king had broken through his defense wall and invaded his brain, hijacking his optic and auditory nerves and creating a terrifying illusion.
The way to get rid of the illusions of ‘Titan’ Yuankou was simple, too—to blow everything up.
If an illusion created a thousand ghouls, a thousand would be blown up.
If the illusion created ten thousand ghouls, ten thousand would be blown up.
It did not matter if there were a hundred thousand or a million of them. In Yuan Kou’s eyes, they were all the same.
Chu Zhixiao glared at Yuankou.
Yun Haixin appeared from the side and observed the scene that had almost been destroyed by Yuan Kou. Her lips twitched, but she did not say anything, with an ‘I knew it’ expression on her face.
“Well…”
The ‘seven-star’ tried to smooth things over through the spider tank. “Even if the Titan did not destroy everything, with the abundant anti-tracking experience of the ‘Puppet King’, I wouldn’t have been able to lock onto him easily, would I?
Chu Zhixiao sniffed and looked at Yuan Kou’s feet.
Under Yuan Kou’s specially-made iron boots was an old man in a grey robe whose chest was painted with thorns.
The old man’s face, which should’ve been kind and holy, was now covered in blood. His sharp teeth looked like two daggers, but they had been broken.
He was the priest who had turned into a zombie.
Chu Zhixiao squatted and stared at the extraordinary zombie.
“Hungry, hungry!”
The pupils of the priest melted in his blood-red eyeballs. He seemed to have lost his vision and could only distinguish his prey with his developed sense of smell. Smelling Chu Zhixiao’s scent, thick saliva flowed out of his mouth again.
“Why do you want to eat people?”
Chu Zhiyun asked casually, wondering how much intelligence the priest had left after being infected by the Taotie Virus.
Although ordinary ghouls were animals without any intelligence, they had been like this before they were infected by the Taotie Virus. There was no telling whether or not the Kindly Ones could still think after they turned into ghouls.
“Hungry, hungry!”
The priest licked his tongue, which had sharp thorns, while he was still shouting.
“Why did you eat your boss, the only ritual on the starship? Was there… some voice that asked you to do that?”
Chu Zhixiao continued asking patiently.
“The higher one’s Cultivation is, the purer one’s mind is, and the firmer one’s beliefs are, and the more delicious they are.”
The eyes of the young priest suddenly became clear. He made a very logical response and extended his nose to Chu Zhixiao. “You taste so good. You must be delicious. Let me eat you. Eat you…”
“Did you know that you were infected by the Taotie Virus and controlled by someone else?”
There was no expression on Chu Zhixiao’s face. He was not even interested in leaning back. He was still gazing at the eyes of the priest at a close distance.
“I know.”
Ripples spread out from the blood-red eyeball of the little priest, forming countless concentric circles that looked like some kind of weird pupils. He suddenly became clear-headed, so clear-headed that it made one’s hair stand on end. He looked deeply at Chu Zhixiao and said, “What about you, Major Chu? Do you know that you have been controlled by someone?”
Chu Zhixiao blinked. Suddenly, the lightning tentacles grabbed the head of the priest.
“Seven-star, track him now. The puppet king is here!”
She shouted.
However, the puppet king was fleeing faster than she was. Before her fingers pierced into the skull of Little Sacrifice, a smile that was gradually fading appeared on his face. The crimson ripples in the bottom of his eyes froze, too, before he turned into a ghoul that had been completely controlled by his appetite.
A vague laughter seemed to have escaped from Xiao Ji and drifted into the darkness.
Chu Zhixiao stood up with a gloomy face, deep in thought.
“The strength of the puppet king seems to have improved again.”
The casual mockery on ‘Black Dream’ Yun Haixin’s face was gone, too. She narrowed her eyes and sensed the brainwaves that were left in the darkness. She mumbled, “Not many people in the Imperium of True Human Beings can do such a long-range infiltration. Only the Meditation Healers with the highest Cultivation, with the help of magical equipment from the primeval era, or the super experts who are above the Divinity Transformation Stage…
“Damn. This ‘Puppet King’ can’t be an expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage, can he? Are you kidding me? Even the Imperium of True Human Beings does not have any expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage. Is this guy from heaven?”
“It is quite possible that he fell from the sky.”
The voice of the ‘seven-star’ came over again. “Otherwise, why would we not be able to find any intelligence about him when he rose to fame one or two years ago? Besides, he is growing very fast. He seems to be using the innocent people of the Star Glory Federation for some kind of… training. He is absorbing the strength of the soul with mental drugs such as the ‘Taotie Virus’ to strengthen himself.
“I have a vague feeling that, if we cannot capture the puppet king in the near future and he trains us for another year or so, we will never be able to capture him. No. We will be invaded and swallowed by him instead!
“I will catch him.”
Yuan Kuo said, “Crush him into dust and blow him into the vacuum.”
“What I’m more concerned about is his motive for another ‘ghoul incident’.
Chu Zhixiao was still gazing at Xiao Ji, who was drooling and struggling hard. “This incident of the ghouls is different from the previous infections and outbreaks. No. It is not the number of the ghouls, nor is it the problem that all the priests of the Omnipresent Good Clan have been infected, but… I feel that he is very close to us. He is even holding his breath in the darkness and observing us.
“It is very risky. He can hack into our brains, which means that we might be able to trace his source and hack into his brain.
“What is he trying to achieve by taking such a huge risk? Is it just to prove that the Kindest Beings and even the priests can be infected?”.
