CHAPTER 313: CHAPTER 313: SPOILS OF WAR!

To be honest, Yu Sheng was quite surprised at this moment.

After all, he had seen people pretending to be submissive, and those who remained defiant even in the face of doom, but such an exuberant submissive grandson was indeed a first for him.

The flash of light suddenly disappeared in the distance, evidently using some kind of teleportation technology—perhaps to a pre-prepared safe hideout or randomly transported to an unknown nook in space, anyway, it vanished from Yu Sheng’s perception.

This left him somewhat regretful—he should have spent more time studying the ship’s structure, at least trying to find out what offensive weapons it had, so he could have fired a shot before the flash accelerated.

Of course, it’s too late to think about that now, and although he’s a bit regretful, Yu Sheng didn’t leave himself with no backup plan—while battling that sage, he had already infused his blood into the steel and left a "mark" on him.

Now, it doesn’t matter if he can’t track it, for the fear of blood and death will grow by itself, and when fate arrives, the prey will return to the Hunter.

Therefore, Yu Sheng quickly adjusted his mindset and refocused on the interior of the spaceship.

The sage got away, but there were still those who hadn’t escaped—a plethora of secrets could be extracted from the mouths of the surviving cultists.

In the devastated Control Hall, surviving members of the Monastery were still trapped in steel cages, the solid sealing of Activated Metal making it hard for them to even move a finger, but compared to this layer upon layer of captivity, the vile betrayal of the "sage" evidently caused them more harm.

Everyone had witnessed the scene of that flash accelerating and teleporting to escape in the universe.

Therefore, when Yu Sheng’s face appeared again on the spaceship wall, these cultists showed hardly any reaction.

"Clearly, you’ve been abandoned by your ’sage’," the voice of steel grinding against steel echoed in the hall, Yu Sheng’s face addressed the cultists, "those so-called ’Path of Venerate Saint’ and ’noble sacrifice’ he told you about, he probably didn’t even believe them himself—what about you? How long are you going to keep resisting?"

There was a moment of silence in the hall, someone finally spoke up, but it was an operator still stubbornly holding his head high: "Don’t, don’t think about deceiving us! A scoundrel is a scoundrel, and we are us! We will never bow down to a monster like you!"

Yu Sheng was momentarily speechless: "...Well, you guys are cultists, I’m just a well-meaning civilian, that statement seems like the positions are reversed."

A room full of cultists instantly turned their anger beyond fear, even resorting to cursing.

Yu Sheng, however, couldn’t be bothered with them.

He simply tightened the steel cages suddenly, and after quieting them down, spoke once more: "Before sending you to your ’new home’, I have some questions to ask—of course, you’re free to refuse to answer, as there will be more ’professionals’ to interrogate you later, though the process might not be that comfortable then.

"My question is simple, are the ’Artificial Saintess’ and ’Knight’ both transformed from living people? Where did you catch these people from?"

There was only silence in response to him.

Yu Sheng wasn’t surprised by this, he knew it was impossible to get that information so easily, so he directly switched to a new topic: "Then let’s talk about something else, what exactly are you doing in Boundary Land? What purpose do you have for putting such a large spaceship there? What’s with that ’Mist City’?"

Another bout of uncomfortable silence ensued, and finally, a member of the Monastery spoke, with sarcasm and curse: "That place, brimming with errors and full of defects, missed its chance for correction and salvation from us, and inevitable disaster will come upon it sooner or later! You will know nothing—you will die with them! Everyone who rejects the Path of Venerate Saint will eventually die together with this flawed world!"

"Alright, I roughly understand your attitude," Yu Sheng said casually, he realized he couldn’t glean any useful information from these people, so he decided not to waste his breath, "Given my current mood, I’m actually not inclined to leave you all a way out, but once I knew the truth about the Artificial Saintess, I found that just killing you wasn’t nearly enough—let’s go, I’ll send you to a ’nice place’ where professionals will work on you, and you’ll eventually ’open your mouths’."

The door of the Control Hall opened, and opposite the gaping door was not a corridor inside the spaceship, but a hall in the Containment Zone at Special Service Bureau headquarters.

Fully armed Special Service Bureau Officers and deep divers stood at the entrance, with Baili Qing and Song Cheng beside them—the former still wearing that cold demeanor, while the latter was as happy as a fisherman who just caught eighty pounds of fish and happened to be surrounded by over two thousand citizens and was caught on film by a nearby TV channel broadcasting live throughout the Universe.

Now the surviving Monastery members finally knew where their missing comrades went.

The activated floors began to wriggle, and amid frightened cries, the last batch of ’prisoners’ were also bundled off to the other side of the door.

Then, the ship laden with secrets and conspiracies finally quieted down.

The twisted and distorted walls and ceiling in the Hall from the battle process began to gradually restore, Yu Sheng’s face also disappeared from the walls, and after a while, a phantom door appeared suddenly in a corner of the Hall, Yu Sheng pushed the door and walked out from inside.

"...Finally done," he gasped for breath, tugging at the corners of his mouth, "dying twice in a row, Erin’s mouth really was a jinx."

As he spoke, he casually pulled out his phone from his pocket and made a call to Baili Qing: "Hey, I’m Yu Sheng, is everything settled on your end? Are all the people controlled?"

"Everything went smoothly," Baili Qing’s calm and detached voice reached his ears, "Their will to resist is very weak."

"Of course, it’s weak. After all, after their boss got all worked up, he ran away right in front of them, and before leaving, he killed more than a dozen of his own for fighting me," Yu Sheng’s tone turned somewhat dissatisfied when mentioning this, "Ah, well, let that guy escape... really careless."

"The Special Service Bureau has dealt with the Venerate Saints Monastery many times, capturing such a large number of cultists at once is already a rare major victory," Baili Qing’s voice remained bland, but it sounded like she was trying to console Yu Sheng, "Do not concern yourself too much with the boss who got away—you’ve brought back enough cultists to piece together the truth of this action."

"Mm, hopefully," Yu Sheng muttered, and then seemed a bit distracted, after a moment, he suddenly said, "By the way, about what I said earlier about delivering the Artificial Saintess and the matching Holy Coffin to the Special Service Bureau, I might have to go back on that."

"What happened?"

"There’s been a bit of an incident, the Artificial Saintess is dead, and the Holy Coffin is damaged, I’m not sure if it can be repaired," Yu Sheng paused for a moment as he said this, "and... the Artificial Saintess’s situation is a bit special, I’ll tell you more when I get back."

"Okay," Erin’s response was quite straightforward, "When are you coming back?"

"In a bit," Yu Sheng said, looking around, "I have an idea."

A sound of a gentle inhalation came through on the other end of the line.

Yu Sheng was rather helpless: "Is my fresh idea that scary?"

"... Go ahead and tell me your idea," Erin said, maintaining her calm.

Yu Sheng thought for a moment: "I want to try ’piloting’ this ship back."

This time, Erin’s voice finally showed a hint of panic: "You can pilot a monastery ship?! Their navigation and control systems are notoriously peculiar..."

"Nope," Yu Sheng responded outright, interrupting before she could finish, "I don’t need to ’pilot’ it now—just need to spend some time to ’understand’ it."

Erin was silent for several seconds, seemingly processing the underlying meaning of Yu Sheng’s words, and clearly, she began to realize.

"... Like that valley?" she asked tentatively.

"Pretty similar."

"You ’ate’ that ship..."

"Ate it," Yu Sheng said bluntly, "Otherwise how could I deliver packed-up cultists to you batch by batch? With my combat power, how could I fight against them?"

Erin took a deep breath.

"Alright, I understand—since you have a better plan over there, the Special Service Bureau won’t intervene. Good luck with everything."

"Thanks," Yu Sheng chuckled, but before hanging up he remembered something, raising his tone, "Oh right, one more thing! I almost forgot!"

Erin’s tone became tense too, "Go ahead."

"I’m currently making interstellar calls to Boundary Land," Yu Sheng said, feeling the sting, because he had already checked the "Star Alliance Communications" rates while idly roaming around the spaceship after his resurrection, and the number nearly blinded him, "Can the bureau cover this?"

The silence from the other end of the phone spanned the stars, deafening.

Half a minute later, Erin practically spit out the word, "Yes."

"Oh, that’s good, I have no more questions, I’m off to study the spaceship. Goodbye."

Hanging up the phone, Yu Sheng felt quite cheerful.

The phase of settling spoils always brings joy.

In the Control Hall, the chaotic scene from the battle was visibly recovering at a rapid pace.

Yu Sheng actually didn’t know how to repair those apparently high-tech gadgets—he simply restored the damaged areas to the state they were in when he just ’took over,’ and if one had to examine the process, it was somewhat akin to his ’resurrection’ after death.

Destruction would be reverted, and damage erased.

This was why Yu Sheng had to throw the ’Sage,’ who intended to self-detonate (though eventually he didn’t), out.

Because at that time, he hadn’t completed the ’takeover’ of the entire upper area, and if the blast range exceeded the hall, the exterior damage would be beyond his repair capabilities.

He had promised Erin to bring back ’local specialties.’

Now, the ’takeover’ of the entire spaceship was nearing completion.

With a leisurely and relaxed mood, Yu Sheng walked past the rows of seats and consoles.

The metal squirmed under his feet, pipelines reformed beside him, dangling wires coiled back like living creatures, returning to grooves in the walls and ceiling, accompanied by the humming of equipment, power supplies throughout the hall swiftly restored.

Behind him, the previously dimmed consoles lit up one by one again, with various holographic projections and screens leaping with secrets about the Universe, stars, and distant deep space.

Yu Sheng approached the broad porthole, squinting slightly.

He basked in the distant starlight, expressing a satisfied sigh amidst the stars’ radiation—

This local specialty will surely surprise Erin.