After the count, the three of them prepared to leave. The prisoners were still yelling and cursing. Albert paused before turning around and saying to everyone, “I know, you all think you’re someone important. In reality, your positions in the Shattered Star Ring are not even worth mentioning in my eyes. In a few days, I will freeze you and send you out of the Shattered Star Ring. You will be determined as lost forever. You will never see your organizations or your families again. Fate is waiting for you ahead.”
All the prisoners quietened down, furious and frustrated. If what Albert said was true, it would really be the end of them.
Many were despairing, anxious, and afraid of what was going to happen in the future. No one knew what the goal of this organization was.
Lagi sighed and said, “Sigh, I’m guessing they’re going to make us experimental subjects and study our bodies. When we lose our value to them, they will then anatomize us; tear apart our bones, muscles, and organs; and place them in containers as specimens. Our name and life experience might be written somewhere on these containers. We will then become a collection to be displayed to others. ‘Look, this is the very developed brain of the Calamity Grade Kernid’ and so on…”
The others felt a chill run down their spines.
Kernid’s face was filled with question marks. Why didn’t you use your own name?
Albert stayed silent for a while, thought about it, and decided not to explain. He then said calmly, “Anyway, enjoy your last few days of clarity. The next time you wake up, you will be in another Star Field…”
The moment his words sounded…
Boom!
A loud bang!
The entire prison suddenly started shaking violently!
Albert staggered and almost bit his tongue. Shocked, he asked, “What’s happening?”
“Something’s happened above!” Eliot said with surprise.
The three of them hastily left the prison and closed the gate after them. The prisoners looked at each other.
“Could it be that someone is here to save us?”
They were instantly energized and saw hope again.
With his usual long face, Lagi slowly said, “Even if there’s someone here to rescue us, they might not be a match for the enemies. They will be killed in an instant. All of them will be wiped out. Their fleets will shatter, and the people inside will all be crushed and burnt into pieces. Your comrades, subordinates, and families might be among them. You will then be forced to eat those shattered parts of them, demolishing your spirit before anatomizing your body…”
“Shut the hell up!”
…
The shaking continued. Albert and the others returned to the main hall and met with the other three colleagues.
“What’s going on?”
“Enemies!”
Albert’s face turned grave. He then took the others out of the headquarters. When they got out, they discovered that an enormous amount of power was digging their headquarters out of the ground.
Two people were floating in the sky. When they saw who those two people were, Albert and the others were stunned and stupefied!
Black Star!
Dragon Emperor!
Ames was using her Esper ability to tear the ground apart, pulling their base right out of the ground.
“How can he be here?” Albert opened his eyes wide.
They had attacked Black Star not long ago, and now he was here. Their location was very well hidden, so how did Black Star find them?
Eliot could not believe it. He had never thought that Black Star would appear.
A thought suddenly appeared in his mind. He had just returned, and now Black Star had found this place—could it be that he had exposed them somehow?
The last time they attacked Black Star, he could only cautiously wait for the next attack. However, after his failure, Black Star was now able to come right for them. Even though he could not understand how Black Star had done it, he could only be the one to blame for it. There was no other explanation.
Could it be that letting him escape was part of Black Star’s plan?
Eliot was befuddled, feeling ashamed. Thinking back to when he escaped from Black Star’s ambush, he felt that he was an idiot for not realizing that something was wrong and that Black Star had bigger plans.
Shana was extremely upset. She felt that this was all because of her failure when she attacked Black Star the first time. If she did not act alone but worked together with her partner, they would have been able to capture him, and Black Star would have become their prisoner.
Albert forced himself to calm down. He knew that Black Star was dangerous, but he never expected Black Star’s counterattack to come so fast, bringing them so much danger.
Dragon Emperor was clearly helping Black Star. He had no confidence facing a Beyond Grade A at all, but he did not despair.
“Don’t panic. Although the opponent is Beyond Grade A, we still have a tiny bit of hope. Although we’re no match for the Dragon Emperor, we can at least stall her for a few moments. Eliot, whether we can escape or not all depends on you. We will create an opportunity for you to cast your spell.” Albert clenched his teeth.
At this point, he could not care about the prisoners anymore. They were in extreme danger, so they had no choice but to stand the pain of letting go what they had been working on for so many years.
Ensure their own safety first, explain to the people above later!
“Understood!” Eliot replied.
At this time, Han Xiao took a deep inhale and said with a deep voice, “Everyone, come here!”
Hum!
The next moment, countless streams of light slashed across the sky and hovered above Han Xiao.
The fleets covered the sky, and countless cannons aimed at the six of them. The Calamity Grades arrived and sealed all their escape routes, surrounding the six of them.
Albert and the others were petrified. They could not believe it.
How did Black Star… gather so many people ?
“Do it!”
Without saying much, Han Xiao told everyone else to attack altogether.
Villains always died for talking too much. He had no intention of speaking with the enemies. After they captured all of them, there would be plenty of time to have conversations with them.
“Run!” Albert screamed.
Seeing so many enemies, his last bit of hope shattered, leaving him only despair.
Covered in sweat, Eliot hastily tried to cast his teleportation spell. However, when he had only created a space vortex, it suddenly became extremely unstable. The teleportation gate that had always worked perfectly suddenly disappeared before it could even form.
Not far away, the eyes of a Grade A mage wearing a red robe was shining in the blue light of magic, and the staff in his hand was illuminating.
Spell Counter!
This time, only one thought was in the minds of Eliot, Shana, Albert, and the other three.
It’s over!
[1] The name ‘Lagi’ has the same pronunciation in Mandarin as the word ‘trash’ or ‘rubbish’.
Chapter 643 - Crushed
The battle erupted in an instant.
Albert and the others were surrounded but did not give up resisting; they did everything they could to escape.
Indeed, all of them were very strong. However, the superiority of their individual strength could not overcome the collective strength of dozens of Calamity Grades. They were barely holding on.
Only Beyond Grade As could deal with a situation like this. Despite them being stronger individually, they were still in the Grade A range.
Boom!
The battle was intense, and the battlefield stretched across hundreds of miles. The earth was split open, and the ground was trembling. All sorts of abilities were flying all over the place; even the terrain was tremendously changed.
Following Han Xiao’s information, a few Mages kept their eyes on Eliot at all times. As soon as he showe
d any signs of trying to cast a teleportation spell, they would use all sorts of abilities to prevent him from doing so.
Eliot was completely restrained. He was furious and had nowhere to run.
He regretted using his teleportation spell to escape from Han Xiao’s ‘ambush’ not long ago. Clearly, that was why the enemies were so prepared.
Among the six of them, Albert was the strongest. He was a Psychic; his powerful psychic waves covered an extremely large area. He took on many people alone, hoping to create an opportunity for Eliot to cast a spell. However, his effort was wasted.
Black Star had gathered more people than he could ever have expected. Albert was filled with despair. Just the tens of Calamity Grades would be more than enough to cause them a lot of trouble, yet there were still tens of thousands of battleships in the sky and the Beyond Grade A Dragon Emperor.
This force that he had gathered would be more than enough to challenge the official army of a Star Cluster Civilization!
He had known that Black Star was dangerous but not this terrifying!
On the spaceship, the players that Han Xiao had brought along were having an exciting time doing nothing.
They had never seen anything like this. The excitement and awe of this battle between dozens of Grade As could even match up to the video where Dragon Emperor crushed the mothership in the previous version. Furthermore, in terms of thrill, this was even more exhilarating.
The players were all looking down from above. They could see the entire battle on the surface clearly. They all recorded videos of it and felt that their recordings might become the most astonishing videos on the forums.
On the way there, the players had all come to discover that Han Xiao had staged this. They felt like they were watching a cut scene of the storyline.
Han Xiao watched at the side. With so many helpers, there was no need for him to join the battle-he would have to repair his machinery if any of them got damaged.
It was completely one-sided.
He had planned to only receive the reward for the second round of the mission after he touched Feidin, but he had thought that attacking the enemies’ base might be the third round of the mission, so he had completed the second round long ago, hoping to receive the next round of the mission. However, the third round did not appear; attacking their base did not become a mission requirement.
Han Xiao was not surprised by this. He could not decide the mission requirements. Even though this was not a mission, he would still attack their base. The fact that the third round did not appear meant that there were more enemies—he had to find out the true identity of this organization.
Without touching Feidin for luck, the abilities that he had drawn from the second round were very ordinary. Han Xiao had selected one of Adrian’s normal talents (Bones of Steel), which gave him thirty Strength and twenty Endurance. This was already the most practical choice among the rest; it increased his maximum health by around three thousand points.
Bang bang bang!
The battle was one-sided from start to end and only lasted a while. The six’s resistance was meaningless; they had no chance of escaping. They were all captured and thrashed without any hiccups.
After capturing the six of them, the organizations all sent people into the prison to find the person that was missing from their organization.
Albert and the others were heavily injured and taken to Han Xiao. All their masks were taken off, showing their furious faces. There was still shock in their eyes; they still could not believe that they had been defeated by Black Star so easily.
Black Star’s counterattack came so quick and strong, easily defeating all of them. This was too difficult for the six of them to accept.
Han Xiao scanned through them and nodded.
Finally, all these people had been captured, and no one had escaped. He had achieved his goal.
“Who are you?”
Albert kept silent and glared at Han Xiao.
“No reply? Then let me change a question.” Han Xiao took out the hunting list and coldly demanded, “Who ordered you to capture these people in the Shattered Star Ring? Where did this list come from?”
Albert was shocked. “Why do you have this list?”
“You really think I don’t know about it? I’ve known about you people for a long time. Who’s the mastermind behind you?”
Shana could not believe it. She had thought that her failure had alerted Black Star, but it turned out Black Star had known about them long ago. Where did he get that information?
Albert still kept silent. It seemed like he had decided not to sell out the people behind him no matter what.
Han Xiao crossed his arms and said, “Do you think you’re able to stay silent after falling into my hands? I have plenty of ways to make you talk.”
Behind Han Xiao stood the Calamity Grades of many organizations, staring at Albert and the others. They were definitely not going to let the people behind this go easily. If Albert and the others were not going to talk, they were clearly going to be painfully tortured. These organizations would think of every way to get information from them.
Albert looked at these people then spoke slowly. “The end is death anyway; there’s no difference between talking or not talking. Unless you can let us live.”
“You’re not in a position to make requests,” Han Xiao said. “I can only ensure that you will be tortured less.”
“Okay… I will tell you.” Albert seemed to have made up his mind. “The Klent Kingdom ordered us to do this.”
Han Xiao frowned.
“I need proof.”
“I can prove our relationship with Klent. Our intelligence came from an intelligence organization under the Bloodshed Land; there are records for it. The hunting list was given to us by the Klent upper echelons. They want the Shattered Star Ring to be more chaotic, so they hired us to get rid of enemies and capture stronger individuals,” Albert slowly said.
No, it’s not Klent. Han Xiao frowned even more. It sounded like things were all connected, but the mission introduction clearly suggested otherwise. The truth was definitely not this simple.
He felt that Klent was most likely not the mastermind behind this mysterious group-there were contradictions in both their method and motive. Albert might be deliberately putting the blame on Klent.
Albert was done for; he had no choice but to give out some information. He might be lying to cover the truth and protect the real mastermind behind this, letting Klent take the blame.
As for why he chose Klent, it might be because Klent really was connected to this mysterious organization in some way. It might also be because Klent was the best choice to push the blame onto in the Shattered Star Ring.
Han Xiao stared at Albert’s eyes but could not see anything but sincerity. He squinted but did not continue to question Albert.
“I see.” Han Xiao suddenly smiled. “So, Klent is the mastermind. I believe you.”
“That’s right. If you want any evidence, I can provide it. I hope that you can keep your promise and not torture me.” Albert insisted that it was Klent.
The emissaries of the other organizations felt an immense sense of hostility toward Klent. They were furious.
“Is Klent out of their mind? How dare they do something like this? Do they think we’re easy to mess with?”
After Klent joined the Crimson Dynasty, they had become more and more imperious. Many organizations knew that Klent was ambitious, so they believed most of the ‘truth’ that Albert revealed.
The Purple Crystal Civilization emissary’s eyes sparkled, and he was secretly delighted. If Klent ended up taking the blame, they were willing to believe it regardless of whether it was the truth or not. This would make these organizations hostile toward Klent.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Albert and the others clearly wanted to hide the real mastermind, but Han Xiao was not planning to expose them and went with the flow of letting Klent take the blame.
le
He could search for the truth privately. After all, these people were now in his hands. He could do anything he wanted. Letting Klent take the blame was most profitable for him at the moment. This way, he could indirectly get more allies to help with the pressure during the secret war.
After so many organizations found out about this ‘truth’, the news would definitely spread across the entire Shattered Star Ring. By then, Klent’s reputation would be heavily damaged. Even if it was not the truth, it would become the truth for many people. There was no way Klent would be able to come clean from this.
Han Xiao initially only wanted these organizations to owe him a favor and build partnership relationships with them; letting Klent take the blame for this was a pleasant surprise. Furthermore, he would not be responsible for it.
This time, the team that had gone to find the prisoners brought all of them back. These unlucky people got rid of the constraints over their bodies and finally started to recover.
“Haha, people really have come to rescue us!”
“There are so many people here.”
Kernid and the others looked around with joyful faces. Many of them saw their organizations and returned to chat with their friends. Very soon, they got to know that it was Black Star who had provided the information that saved them.
They approached Han Xiao one after another to show their appreciation excitedly.
“If not for you, we would be done for.”
“Thanks, we owe you one. If there’s anything you need our help for in the future, be sure to tell us.”
“Black Star, from now on, you’re my brother.”
Han Xiao replied friendlily one by one. Notifications kept popping up on his interface; the relationship with these organizations rocketed and all jumped right to ‘Friendly’. For people that were saved such as Kernid, their Favorability increased the most.
He expressed his intention to keep this partnership going. Of course, the others were not going to reject. Not mentioning this favor, the Black Star Army itself was an organization that they were willing to work together with. This incident had become the bridge of their partnership.
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