43 The Savior Will First Take Everything From You [Please keep reading!]

Lu Chen was utterly stunned.

For a long moment, he could not recover his wits. Staring at the traveler's hat and the gray crow he had seen just ten days before, he felt as if he were seeing a ghost.

He cast his gaze around.

The cockpit was empty, steeped in the scent of a hundred thousand years’ worth of dust and the aging of spirit-etched membranes.

He had guessed that she was the apprentice of the True Person of the Lamp.

But he had never expected that this female disciple would turn out to be the very one who issued his first quest bounty—the Lady Fariel, the Gray Crow!

Twenty years ago, she had visited the True Spirit Continent; twenty years later, she posted a bounty at the Adventurers’ Guild for a lost, demonized cat.

Twenty years—yet for Lu Chen, it all seemed to have happened back-to-back…

He was curious: how had an interstellar traveler managed to linger within two neighboring star systems for twenty years?

Was the missing, demonized cat somehow connected to the demon-slaying potion from a hundred millennia ago?

Were the toxic essence and the demon-slaying potion truly the same thing?

He had to admit, this woman was shrouded in mystery. Rather than dispelling Lu Chen’s confusion, she only stirred up more questions in his heart.

Lu Chen shook his head and shut off the navigation log.

His mind was filled with images of the traveler's hat and the gray crow, persistent and unshakable.

What he could be sure of was that the power of Resonance with the Myriad Phenomena allowed this woman to stand at a loftier vantage point, surveying all things and beings.

She had acquired the heart of a saint.

This woman, he realized, was likely unaware of the existence of someone like himself, a latecomer.

But if, one day, some outsider could break through the black mist, enter the True Spirit Continent, unlock and activate this starship—such a feat would require the favor of destiny itself. For that reason, her leaving a message in the log was hardly far-fetched.

She had not solved humanity’s demon scourge; perhaps the True Person of the Lamp had left the "Annotations on All Things" precisely to let the natives of the True Spirit Continent resolve their own problems.

For now, this was all Lu Chen could surmise.

He couldn’t very well assume this woman could predict the future, could he?

As for solving the demon scourge…

Lu Chen thought, “You, a native of this realm, leave the demon problem for me, a transmigrator, to solve?”

“Can I put an end to the demons? That’s a tall order!”

Lu Chen felt he was being overestimated.

He was only here for the treasure!

Things had come to the point where he could no longer pilot this ancient starship out of the system intact.

The ship’s size was colossal, the fuel near depleted, the warp engines decrepit with age, and there was always the threat of an attack from the lizardfolk…

The outcome was all too predictable.

Before playing the hero, he might as well reap some benefits first!

He drew the captain’s sword-key from the helm—a fabled demon-bane sword in the game.

“A fine blade. I won’t have to worry about the Netherworld anymore.”

Next, the engines and weapon systems were far too massive to dismantle or carry off; even if he did, the ship could no longer be piloted or used in battle.

Lu Chen had to make do with scavenging some spirit artifacts from a hundred thousand years past.

Refrigerators, air conditioners, microwave ovens—relics, all of them, true treasures of history!

He stuffed the cargo hold to the brim.

Now, should he pilot the ship to directly confront the demons?

No!

Lu Chen chose instead to activate the radar and transmit a distress signal.

He knew that, back in the day, without a wide-area spiritual network, each ship’s radar functioned much like a modern stellar relay station—with immense power, even capable of broadcasting warp signals.

This was evident from the raised spinal radar of a dragon-class battleship.

The Angel’s signal could pierce the black mist and storms, reaching the boundless stars beyond.

The question now was: whom should he call for help?

If he called the Adventurers’ Guild, or appealed to the nearest Uncrowned Nations, he would only attract a swarm of adventurers eager to snatch his prize.

After much deliberation, Lu Chen decided to call for help from the Empire.

To appeal to the legitimate heirs of human civilization.

He could list many benefits to this course…

The only possible risk was that, to prevent the dark history of the demon-slaying potion from leaking, the Empire might destroy the Blue-Eye Star System.

But in truth, the Empire had always opposed the old Federation of humanity from the Pioneer Era, branding it as a symbol of bloody conquest.

The modern Empire preferred a policy of appeasement toward other powers, specializing in a more civilized and efficient form of financial predation.

Such a risk was unlikely.

Even if there was danger, Lu Chen had his hazard alerts and could make his escape in time—and in any case, he had already secured plenty of treasure.

He cranked the spirit engine to the max.

Consulting the ship’s starmap and comparing it with the latest map on his wristband’s screen, he pinpointed several imperial outposts along the Aurora Route and sent a dozen targeted distress signals.

Now, it was time to play the hero.

Though he was a transmigrator, he was still human; his stance could not waver.

Even if the lizardfolk’s anti-colonial struggle was tragic and stirring, it was too late—their fate was sealed. They would be crushed beneath the advance of human civilization.

What happened in the Blue-Eye System was merely a tale of a human feeling sympathy for the ants beneath his feet, only to be bitten in return.

Humanity demonstrated morality; the ants, solidarity. Both faced a bleak future.

Lu Chen hesitated no longer.

He fired up the ship’s engines.

With a thunderous roar, the ship shuddered violently!

A howling blast erupted.

The massive engine vents spewed pale blue fire, carrying with it blackened flakes of ancient plating, burning red-hot and illuminating the entire forbidden zone.

Sensing the starship’s activation, the forbidden zone’s formation automatically opened.

The mountain summit split apart.

A circular exit, five hundred meters across, slowly emerged.

As the mountain’s summit opened, the lizardfolk in the sky immediately shifted their attack, surging toward the formation at the peak.

They even organized giant stone airships, launching wave after wave of attacks to prevent the starship from leaving the restricted zone!

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

The sound of boulders striking the formation was deep and resonant.

Again and again, it echoed between the mountains.

Ripples quivered, as both the stone airships and the formation’s spiritual power collapsed in tandem, whipping up gales.

Just as the barrier was about to break, the Angel thundered and lurched, barely making it out atop the mountain.

Everyone was dumbstruck.

Suddenly, a colossal shape, dragon-like and sky-shrouding, soared above the peaks, dwarfing all beneath it.

Disciples from the Five Sects craned their necks at the vessel, struck speechless by shock.

None of them had imagined that the forbidden mountain, the abode of Ancestor Lola of the True Spirit, harbored within it such a gigantic flying artifact.

Did this mean the ancestor was also from beyond this world?

The sect leaders frowned deeply.

They only knew that the forbidden mountain concealed a weapon of apocalyptic power—never did they expect it to be a starship.

Moreover, only a true, chosen savior could open the gates and activate its demon-slaying arsenal.

The leader of Azure Mist Sect recalled the most ordinary, least talented youth among the three outsiders.

“So he really is…”

Goliath, too, was staring, dumbfounded, at the great ship atop the mountain.

She thought to herself, “How much must a starship like that be worth!”

“Captain Lu, is that you piloting the ship? Please respond—I need to be sure I’m not dreaming.”

Lu Chen was speechless.

“Mm, it’s your old man.”

“As long as I get that ship, I’ll call you anything you want!”

Goliath, excited, sprinted up the mountain, leaping onto the ship’s arched back, ready to serve as its guardian.

But the ship was unsteady—a stumble nearly sent her tumbling off.

“Hey, stop shaking me!”

“I’m not shaking you—the ship’s just old. The flight controls are outdated. It’s not easy to fly.”

“You get out, I’ll take manual control.”

“This is a sixty-class ancient ship. Do you know how to fly it?”

“I could, but there’s no need. You’re the captain.”

Lu Chen thought, letting Goliath stand guard atop the ship wasn’t a bad idea—if the ship got destroyed, it wouldn’t be his fault.

The Angel was as good as doomed.

Even if he abandoned all heroics, maxed the engines, and forced his way through the lizardfolk’s encirclement and out of the black mist and storm, the warp engines and spirit fuel reserves would never hold.

But that didn’t matter; he already had enough valuable gear. Now, he had to protect the Leonine.

“Aili, pilot the Leonine away from the battle. Keep the ship safe, and be ready to pick up me and Goliath at a moment’s notice.”

“Aye aye, Captain!”

Sirius immediately entered the cabin, piloting the Leonine as it lifted off and withdrew from the battlefield.

No lizardfolk gave chase.

Instead, they pulled back the detachments attacking the Five Sects and concentrated all their forces on the mountain’s barrier and the ancient starship, Angel.

The sect leaders and their disciples gathered on the summit as well, joining Goliath to defend the Angel.

Suddenly!

A breach exploded open at the summit of the great protective formation.

A stone airship, as massive as the Angel itself, plummeted toward the mountain peak.