CHAPTER 311: CHAPTER 311: FANATIC’S END

The darkness shattered silently, the last memories of the dead returned to eternal peace, and the scene before his eyes wavered a few times before gradually reverting to the appearance of the Holy Coffin Room—the long life memories in reality had only passed in an instant. When Yu Sheng once again saw clearly his surroundings, a drop of "blood" had just fallen from the cheek of the Artificial Saintess onto the ground.

Yu Sheng blinked, taking a few seconds to regain his clarity and return to the present reality from those all-too-real memories. Then he lowered his gaze, looking at the Iron Puppet still pressing down on him.

This cold killing machine remained motionless, and now even the slight noises from within had disappeared.

The weakness from excessive bleeding and severe damage to his vital organs was rising, Yu Sheng felt like his brief life was drawing to an end again. Next, he could quietly lie here and wait for death, then, as planned, send the remaining members of the secret society on this ship over to the Special Service Bureau.

But he sat leaning against the pillar for half a minute, suddenly pulling the corner of his mouth, then spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva to the side.

"Damn, what a mess."

He still had some strength left.

Yu Sheng exerted himself again and finally managed to push the shell of the Artificial Saintess onto the ground. Then he slowly stood up, bent down, and from the armpit, lifted the heavy body of the Iron Puppet. After attempting two or three times, he finally with a burst of strength pulled her up.

He dragged this cold steel slowly toward the center of the room, several times running out of strength but never stopping to rest even once. The symptoms of death gradually showed on his body, only to be forcibly suppressed back. With great effort, he finally brought the Iron Puppet to the device connected to the many pipes and cables. Using his shoulder to hold her, he stuffed her into the "iron coffin."

"I don’t know if this thing can still serve a purpose, nor do I know if my subsequent actions will be effective to you," Yu Sheng leaned on the outer shell of the iron coffin, looking at the beautiful yet cold and hollow face before him, "I’m a person who mainly acts by contemplating—just now you reached out to me, although I didn’t hear clearly what you were saying, it felt like you were asking for help."

He took a deep breath, raised his hand to adjust the Artificial Saintess’s arm position, then forcefully pulled up the heavy "coffin lid" beside him and slowly closed it.

"You killed me twice, and I ’killed’ those friends who left your homeland with you; we do have quite a bit of enmity between us. But looking at it from another angle, personally, I don’t care much about life and death, and those ’friends’ of yours... were no longer themselves many years ago, so I feel we can let go of this," Yu Sheng muttered to keep himself awake, while carefully smearing the remaining blood from his chest on the Holy Coffin with his fingers, "More than that... those damn members of the secret society—they’re truly useless—I guess you agree on this."

He took two steps back, stepping down from the device platform, observing the environment within the Holy Coffin Room as well as the tightly sealed iron coffin before him.

"Alright, just like that, next I’ll set up an Alchemy Array for you, and then leave the rest to destiny—I’m out of here."

Finishing his words, he then fell backward facing the sky.

Before hitting the ground, his body rapidly turned to dust, finally falling silently like a handful of loose ash on the floor, then vanishing in the air in an instant.

The Holy Coffin Room fell silent, with only the low hums of some equipment running resonating in the air.

The corpses of the secret society members quietly lay around the Holy Coffin, gradually cooling.

Then, after another two seconds, a faint sound of friction and writhing suddenly emanated from the ground around the Holy Coffin.

Just like invisible chisels scraping across the floor, circular grooves instantly appeared all over the room, swiftly expanding and connecting to construct the basic Spirit Injection Magic Technique, with the center of this Alchemy Array being the dark iron coffin itself.

Next to the Holy Coffin device, the ducts and controllers that the cultists had severed began to self-repair, and the "iron coffin," dormant for so long, suddenly emitted a low humming sound again.

...

A quiet had settled in the ship.

But this is not "peace"—rather, it’s an eerily unsettling silence that permeates all the channels.

Now, the Control Hall has lost contact with all areas; communications were cut off a few minutes ago, followed by the surveillance—all of them knew that the surveillance footage had long ceased to be reliable, but the invader clearly didn’t even bother to pretend anymore. The surveillance footage that originally displayed "All Clear" was all simultaneously cut off in an instant, and across the blackened screens flashed a single line: "I’m coming for you."

Finally, the ship’s perception system went offline.

Engineering Bay, Power Plant, Storage Room, Living Quarters, Life Support System, Reactor... the most basic equipment signals from all areas disappeared from the control interface, turning the entire Control Hall into a secluded cage. Outside the cage, the massive "Order Pillar" spaceship seemed to have vanished from this world without a trace.

The secret society members trapped in the Control Hall felt as though they were drifting alone in the cosmic void with this hall, as if there was never any Order Pillar, no robust starship armor or layered defense systems, only this one hall, and a group of rats within it—that deadly and cold space stood just beyond a thin metal shell from them, with death whispering outside that shell, slowly seeping through every ventilation point into the hall.

Perhaps, ’it’ had already seeped in.

The "Sage" still sat high on his chair, his face dark as a cloud. He said nothing, but everyone in the hall already knew their impending fate.

The members of the Hidden Order began to check their weapons, and even those who were not combatants prepared for battle.

The staff started to distribute the final combat potions to everyone—including basic drugs to enhance sharpness, strength, and neural reflexes, as well as alchemical elixirs to block negative emotions and resist spiritual contamination.

The only three sets of backup Power Armor in the Control Hall were given to three cultivators with combat experience.

"The time for martyrdom has come, compatriots," the Sage finally stood up, his deep voice breaking the death-like oppression in the hall, "we all know our fate.

"There is a ghost that has infiltrated this ship—it chased us from the Boundary Land to here, using desecrated means to taint this sacred Order Pillar, and devoured many of our compatriots by unknown methods. Now we have lost contact with all the cabins, and though we cannot ascertain the specific situation of those disconnected areas... it’s undoubtedly grim.

"The people in this hall may already be the last survivors on the entire ship.

"Now, all the facilities outside the hall are already out of control, including the ship’s self-destruct function. We can no longer stop the ghost’s infiltration of this ship, but the good news is, at least we completely deleted the star map from the navigation system before the core system was breached.

"Take a leap of faith, compatriots. Our bodies will perish today, but our souls will ascend to the Path of Venerate Saint. On those lofty steps leading to order and perfection, the souls of martyrs will continue to climb with the sages and eventually welcome a glorious sunrise on the terrace of the highest temple.

"For the Path of Venerate Saint, for the way of order and perfection!"

"For the Path of Venerate Saint, for the way of order and perfection!"

The members of the Hidden Order raised their arms and shouted, their blood boiling from the Sage’s encouragement. The loyalty and fanaticism engraved deep in their genes were ignited at this moment, and with the assistance of the potions, they even momentarily forgot the pressure and terror they felt a moment ago, forgot the bizarre changes occurring on the ship, the creepy gazes, and the whispers that once came from the listening channel—a frenzied illusion capable of conquering all spurred the believers, making them believe that even if the ghost appeared in the hall now, they could overcome it with their loyalty and faith in the Path of Venerate Saint.

But when the ghost arrived, they realized it was not a "battle" at all.

A member of the Hidden Order’s gasp first broke the frenzy in the hall, awakening those compatriots entrapped in ecstasy and confidence—

"It’s alive... ah! Help me!!"

The gasping cultivator struggled in his seat, emitting blood-curdling screams, desperately stabbing at something beside him with the protective Short Sword in his hand, and as everyone watched, he was gradually enveloped by a layer of metal shell.

The seat beneath him melted, countless binding branches extended from below the nearby console, and the floor at his feet seemed to come alive, writhing and surging, a metallic substance instantly piling into a thick shell, confining him firmly.

Soon after, similar cries echoed throughout the hall—

"The floor is melting!"

"I’m locked! I’m locked!"

"The wall... there’s something flowing on the wall!"

"This ship is alive! It’s screaming in my head!"

The Sage rose from his position, his face showing no fear, only staring at a direction in the hall intently.

He saw the alloy wall flowing like molten, several members of the Hidden Order near the hall’s edge now stuck in the wall, not dead, just firmly trapped within, still struggling and writhing desperately.

And at the center of the flowing, writhing wall, a face gradually emerged.

That face took up nearly a third of the wall’s surface, silently overlooking the chaotic hall from above.

"Your speech was quite impassioned," the face spoke, the voice like steel grinding and clashing, "but what about those whose brains you extracted and memories you took?"

The Sage seemed slightly surprised, but soon as if understanding something, he calmly walked toward the face, his tone filled with righteousness: "That was a noble sacrifice—"

Before he could finish, a metal beam as thick as a rafter crashed down from the ceiling.

"Sacrifice, my ass!"