Extra 4 : Embrace
At the critical moment, Wan Tong was still obedient. Almost the instant Su Ming’s voice rang out, she shrank back into the escape pod.
But just as the hatch was about to close, she saw wisps of green light suddenly enveloping the pod. Then, she felt the escape pod violently tremble a few times. The alarm in her ears signaled one thing: the escape pod was damaged.
Wan Tong heard the screeching and crackling of the hatch, accompanied by the sizzle of sparks, as if some immense force was prying it open.
Her heartbeat almost stopped, but she still remembered to extend her mental tendrils, carefully probing outward.
The figure she had seen earlier was indeed not from the Kroll Empire. By focusing her mental perception, she pierced through the illusion and truly sensed… them?
These extraterrestrials possessed highly developed mental domains, yet their physical structures were utterly bizarre.
Perhaps, to them, her body structure was just as strange.
In just a few seconds, the hatch of the escape pod was flung away.
Several oddly shaped extraterrestrials appeared before her. They were communicating amongst themselves, but when addressing her, they spoke in the language of the Kroll Empire.
It seemed they had already replicated their language.
“Hello, female,” one of them extended a limb—was it a hand or a leg?—toward Wan Tong. The ten or so mouths on its head opened and closed in unison, its voice sounding like a human deliberately distorting their tone.
Wan Tong : “……”
Another alien beside it corrected, “Hello, woman.”
Wan Tong didn’t sense any hostility from them.
They seemed to approach her with a research-oriented mindset.
Would she become their test subject?
“General, there’s no movement in any of the channels.” An Xi lowered his voice.
The terminal of Escape Channel 1 was directly linked to the general’s starship. The other three sentinels had not transferred over but had gone to different channels. Currently, they had been captured and were being held under watch.
Earlier, the signal light here had flickered on briefly before dimming again, suggesting that something had gone wrong with the escape pod.
Whether it was destroyed by the extraterrestrials or not, Wan Tong’s situation was looking grim.
In the distance, the silver, circular spacecraft remained, but the black hole it had emerged from was slowly shrinking, as if about to disappear.
“That’s an interstellar migration ship.” Su Ming’s thin lips parted as his icy gaze locked onto the observation platform.
An Xi was slightly shocked. “So all those previous harassment actions… were just the aliens scouting the area?”
After so many operations, this spacecraft had finally arrived. Perhaps they had already assessed the civilization level here. They might have even replicated their language and culture.
Now that the circular spaceship had appeared, and the black hole was vanishing, the aliens’ home planet might be gone. Their new target seemed to be the Kroll Empire.
“Prepare the reconnaissance ships,” Su Ming ordered as he stepped away from the control panel.
An Xi wanted to dissuade him but ultimately refrained from speaking at this critical moment, fearing he might anger the general.
No one could question the General’s decisions.
Meanwhile, Wan Tong had made some discoveries of her own.
These aliens had no concept of Sentinels or Guides. Their brains were highly developed, but they lacked mental power. She spent some effort breaking into their mental network and extracted the information she needed.
They came from a planet more advanced than the Kroll Empire, called Lala Planet. However, under the strain of rapid development, Lala Planet had reached its breaking point and was on the verge of destruction. The planet’s leaders dispatched numerous fleets to explore the galaxy in search of a new habitable world. One such fleet discovered the galaxy of the Kroll Empire.
After observing for a while, the Lala people decided to migrate here. Through a rigorous selection process, the thousand most genetically superior Lala people boarded an escape vessel and traveled via folded space to this location. Not long ago, they had personally witnessed the explosion of their home planet.
The ones before her, only a dozen or so, were merely ordinary guards. They held no significant information.
Now that the starship was damaged, they posed no immediate harm to her. Lala society placed great importance on protecting females, even those from alien species.
Wan Tong attempted to attack their mental network but discovered that they were immune to her assault. She had no choice but to withdraw her external mental tendrils. The grotesque creatures before her immediately shifted, transforming into the appearance of Kroll Empire soldiers. Only then did the nauseating feeling in her chest subside.
They were inherently capable of inducing hallucinations. Since they weren’t willing to reveal their true forms to her, it likely meant they wanted to lower her defenses and extract more information about the Kroll Empire.
Wan Tong was taken to a place resembling a laboratory.
Her suspicions were confirmed when she was fitted with a helmet. Almost instantly, she felt a force probing her mental barriers, attempting to infiltrate her mind.
Fortunately, she possessed an SSS-ranked Guide ability. To avoid arousing suspicion, she completely sealed off her mental domain, then deliberately opened a single passage, one that led to the darkest corner of her mind.
That corner contained all the memories she had sealed away after emerging from the awakening system, data she had yet to fully process.
She had consulted Blair about it, and he had told her that all those memories were simply experiences from within the awakening system, without much real significance. Given her current capabilities, keeping them sealed was actually beneficial, reducing her mental burden. So, she had never bothered to touch them.
Now, by presenting those to the aliens, she ensured that whatever information they obtained would be completely fragmented.
Before long, Wan Tong was released unharmed into a private chamber, where she was provided with ample food and drink.
Extending her mental perception, she confirmed that the Lala people’s internal ranks were already in chaos.
She extended her mental powers outward and discovered that the Lala aliens were indeed in chaos.
They were disguising themselves as Kroll people, so from time to time, they spoke in a language she could understand.
“They can resurrect— their revival methods are far more advanced than ours!”
“That female has come back to life over a dozen times!”
“The immigration plan must change!”
“The Kroll Empire is not to be underestimated!”
“They have many planets— we just need to seize one!”
…
Wan Tong : “…”
She suddenly became curious about what she had experienced in the awakening system that had frightened these arrogant Lala aliens so badly.
But she would have to wait until she grew stronger, strong enough to withstand those memories.
Wan Tong could no longer perceive the passage of time. It seemed as if time was expanding inside this spaceship. She felt it moving painfully slowly.
Of course, it could also just be her illusion.
Under such conditions, a restless frustration gradually built up within her.
Then, she felt the entire spaceship tremble slightly. Immediately after, all the Lala aliens seemed to gather together, leaving no one to guard her.
Someone had invaded the ship.
The ship’s metallic structure was unfamiliar to Wan Tong, but now it had been breached. There were only a thousand Lala aliens aboard, and after being misled by Wan Tong’s memories, they were already in a state of panic.
This gave the invaders an even greater advantage.
Wan Tong stepped out of her room. The spaceship was massive, almost the entire civilization of the Lala planet was preserved here. They had even built a complete ecological system within it. Through the glass barriers, Wan Tong could see plants and creatures that did not exist in Kroll Empire.
She wandered through the ship for an unknown length of time before finally arriving at the scene of the battle between the Lala aliens and the intruders.
The ones who had broken in were Su Ming’s people.
Wan Tong was slightly surprised. Given that this was an unknown alien vessel, Su Ming should never have launched such a reckless attack.
She had studied the battle strategies circulating online, every one of his operations was executed with absolute precision, striking down the enemy in one decisive move, leaving no room for error. He was never impulsive.
The Lala aliens were not strong in direct combat, but they had dangerous close-range mind tricks. However, Su Ming’s forces were prepared. His soldiers wore red ribbons to distinguish themselves from the disguised Lala aliens.
Additionally, sentinels possessed powerful combat abilities and heightened senses, making it easy for them to detect whether they were facing an illusion.
By the time Wan Tong arrived, most of the Lala aliens had already been ambushed, with only a few still resisting.
An Xi had originally planned to blast them all away, but before he could, more people entered through the hatch. Among them, a middle-aged man: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chang Zhi.
“General Su Ming! How can you be so ruthless? These are an alien civilization! How could you bear to destroy them?!” Chang Zhi accused angrily, standing in staunch defense of the three grotesque aliens that had revealed their true forms.
This was not the first time Chang Zhi had done something like this.
The entire star system now belonged to the Kroll Empire, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs had become a largely ceremonial role. To maintain his relevance, Chang Zhi repeatedly intervened to ‘protect’ newly discovered alien species, claiming it was for the sake of research and understanding interstellar civilizations.
Su Ming usually had no patience for such matters, but this time, he couldn’t be bothered to argue.
Upon receiving his orders, An Xi simply tossed the captured alien to Chang Zhi’s men.
Green slime covered the floor—presumably the alien’s blood—but Su Ming’s uniform remained pristine, untouched by any filth. Even the space at his feet was spotless, unlike the surrounding battlefield littered with alien remains.
It was as if all corruption instinctively avoided him.
He was clearly cold and indifferent, yet there was an untouchable clarity about him, like a moonlit breeze that made people want to reach out.
Wan Tong had seen his figure countless times on the battlefield, always striding forward with unwavering confidence.
But this was the first time he walked toward her like that.
She stood frozen in place as he approached, stopping just a few steps away.
She was in a narrow, low corridor, darkness looming behind her. But she herself was radiant, standing out at a glance.
And at some point, Shi Ming had appeared beside her.
“Come out,” Su Ming said, his gaze lowered slightly, his voice as calm as ever.
“General…” Wan Tong obeyed, stepping toward him.
She had barely taken two steps when his arm reached out and pulled her in.
Unprepared, she stumbled into his firm, solid chest.
The arm around her waist tightened, pressing her closer to him.
Wan Tong’s heartbeat quickened, but her mind filled with confusion. What’s going on?
She wanted to look up, but a large hand pressed gently against the back of her head.
Su Ming bent slightly, his head lowering to the side of her neck.
Even through her soft hair, she could feel his warm breath against her skin, his sharp nose lightly grazing her.
Was it because of their high sentinel-guide compatibility? The trembling sensation in her heart intensified the moment he embraced her.
But she dared not move.
She sensed the subtle ripples in his mental sea, assuming he needed post-battle soothing, so she instinctively extended her mental threads toward him.
Bai Bai appeared at her feet, but before it could react, Shi Ming had already grabbed it.
*Meow~*
Bai Bai, too, dared not move.
A few meters away, An Xi swallowed hard.
No one dared move.
Days without rest. Sleepless nights developing weapons to breach the ship. Through it all, their General had remained composed.
But now, for the first time, in front of this young guide, his suppressed emotions had finally begun to show.