Chapter 54: The 54th Day of Livestream Selling
Near the Milky Way, aboard the Calamity Goddess, inside the observation room of the medical bay.
Diplomat Wyatt was pacing back and forth in agitation. In the spotless, empty corridor, the only sound was the rhythm of his leather shoes striking the floor.
His friend, the commander of the Second Legion and royal brother of the Yasa Empire, Reinhardt, was currently lying inside a treatment pod filled with pale golden life-support fluid. His eyes were closed. His solid chest rose and fell steadily with the aid of the pod’s respiratory system. He looked as if he had merely fallen into a deep sleep.
That was, if one ignored the glaring red light that had never stopped flashing around the treatment pod, as well as the mental-power decline warning on the holographic screen, constantly jumping as if it were about to leap right into everyone’s faces.
Machaon, the healer known as the “Shield of the Empire,” had immediately arrived on the Calamity Goddess through a space jump. Beneath the white robe that represented his status as chief healer, his hands were trembling so badly that he had only barely managed to stop them.
Grand Duchess Elowen arrived with Machaon. Her beautiful face now looked awful to the extreme. “Status.”
Carlos, the executive adjutant, was comparatively calm—or rather, he could only force himself to be calm. He opened a floating light screen for the grand duchess. Displayed upon it was a tangled residual image of a mental-power map, like an exploding nebula.
“His Highness’s physical vital signs are all stable…” Adjutant Carlos’s voice was very low, carrying a rigid coldness that came from forcibly suppressing emotion. Only by doing this could he speak normally. “All physical injuries have been repaired. The light marrow is stable. However, judging from the monitoring chart, ninety-nine point seven percent of the core consciousness source of his mental power has disappeared. The remaining portion can only maintain basic life circulation. It cannot form any thought activity.”
Simply put, Carlos and the others currently could not detect any form of consciousness response, mental fluctuation, or even the most primitive neural reflex signal from Reinhardt—apart from the instinct that maintained his heartbeat and breathing.
“Disappeared?” Grand Duchess Elowen’s eyes, utterly different from her youngest brother’s, contracted sharply. Her throat tightened. “Leni’s mental power was destroyed?”
Who could destroy her brother’s mental power?
First, there was the racial trait of the Yasa people: the “light marrow” spread throughout their entire neural network. It was not only the source of their strength, but also an important core that carried their emotions and fate. It determined whether they became a lunatic with ridiculously high combat power or a lunatic with a destined partner. This alone gave them a greater mental-power advantage than people from other galaxies.
And that was not even mentioning that Reinhardt possessed SSS-level mental power.
Even if Reinhardt had recently entered the tide period of mental instability and had to merge with his mental body from time to time to stabilize his mental power, that was because of the transitional phase destined to occur after he found his fated partner. The special light marrow in the Yasa body would not make him weak. It would only make him stronger due to the instinct to protect his partner.
He was like a powder keg that could go berserk anytime, anywhere. There was absolutely no problem with his power. How could anyone possibly harm her brother?
“No. It was not destroyed by an external force.” Machaon was examining Reinhardt’s mental power while bringing up another set of comparative data. It was the historical record of Reinhardt’s unique mental-power waves from childhood to adulthood, always full of robust strength. “It is more like… it was forcibly stripped away. Or transferred. It carries obvious signs of self-convergence. Please look here—”
On the light screen, Reinhardt’s extremely unstable mental-power map from the recent period—one that looked as if it were about to form a heart shape—suddenly underwent an even more violent expansion at a certain critical point, presenting a terrifying berserk peak. But just when it was about to break through the upper limit of the chart, it collapsed at an unbelievable speed within an extremely brief instant. Or rather, it converged inward. In the end, it gathered into a “point” infinitely close to zero. Only then did the signal cut off.
“What does that mean?” Grand Duchess Elowen, who was a genius in mecha but not in this field, now only wanted someone to tell her exactly what the chart meant. Was her brother all right or not?
She did not want nonsense. She only wanted the result.
“His Highness sealed himself,” Machaon said, also well aware of how a patient’s family felt, and directly gave the conclusion.
Only then did he explain further. “He compressed and sealed away a mental storm that was on the verge of losing control and powerful enough to annihilate a small star system, within one billionth of a second.” Even Machaon’s voice carried a rare trace of awe. “I have never seen a self-seal of this scale and mental-power level. It required not only power, but also absolute control over the essence of one’s own existence, as well as… an almost cruel determination.”
“His Highness Reinhardt stopped a disaster that could have spread across several star domains at the very last moment.”
Grand Duchess Elowen tried to understand. “Meaning, my brother encountered danger, his mental power went berserk, and at the critical moment, afraid of endangering his surroundings, he chose to seal himself?”
Machaon nodded. That was more or less how it could be understood. More accurately, he had first separated his mental power from his body, then used his self-awareness to seal that mental power.
But the details were not important. What mattered was that they could not find Prince Reinhardt’s mental power.
It was not that they could not find it at all. On the light screen brought up by the mothership’s AI, Adjutant Carlos quickly swiped with his finger and pulled up a vast star map. Countless light points glittered, representing known star domains and routes. A glaring red mark was drawn at the edge of the star map, dragging out a long trajectory.
“This is the final activity range of His Highness’s detectable mental power.”
At the end of the red trajectory was a sparse star domain marked by the Cosmic Alliance as an “evolutionary zone.” Among it, an inconspicuous light point labeled “Third Planet of the Solar System” was trying its best to give off a soft azure glow.
Viewed like this, the place where Reinhardt’s mental power might have fallen was quite obvious. Almost everyone present, including Carlos and Wyatt, unanimously looked toward the magnificent nebula outside the imperial mothership.
Blue Star.
Without a doubt.
“The starlight of the light marrow will guide us toward our destined fate.”
Emperor Anderich, still on his way and only connected through communication, finally spoke. Among everyone present, he could almost be considered the calmest.
Although Elowen, like Reinhardt, used to think their imperial brother was a little mystical, she had to admit that this sentence, at this moment, served a powerful calming effect. This was not Reinhardt encountering danger. This was him moving toward his fate.
However, with Blue Star’s current protected-zone characteristics and the many restrictions of the Cosmic Alliance, unless Reinhardt released the seal himself or the seal loosened due to external causes, it would be almost impossible for Carlos and the others to accurately locate Reinhardt’s coordinates, let alone safely retrieve him.
Grand Duchess Elowen, with her long silver curls, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The strict education of the imperial family since childhood finally helped her suppress her surging emotions. She only calmly bade temporary farewell to her imperial brother, who was preparing to enter a black hole for long-distance space jump. “You do not need to worry too much either. Everything here is under my control. We will see you in thirty standard hours.”
Emperor Anderich nodded with great relief. His quick-tempered sister had finally grown up. As for his missing younger brother, he was not that anxious, because he would always have a way to find him. That was also why he was rushing over so urgently.
But what gave him an even bigger headache was the possibility that, before his younger brother was found, his younger sister might go berserk first.
As soon as the communication ended, however, Grand Duchess Elowen’s next sentence to everyone was, “Would anyone be kind enough to tell me why my brother suddenly suffered a mental-power rampage?”
“Everything is under my control” meant that by the time her imperial brother arrived, the matter would already have been settled, with everything investigated clearly.
As for why Reinhardt had such a spirit of self-sacrifice, there was no need to ask. If their roles were reversed, Elowen would not go berserk at the edge of the star system where her lover was located. She could not guarantee she would make the same perfect choice as her brother, but if she had to choose between her lover and herself, she would choose herself without hesitation.
This was the instinct in the nature of the Yasa people. Or rather, it would have been stranger if Reinhardt had not made that choice.
After confirming that Blue Star, where Lin Zhao was, was fine, Elowen let out a long breath of relief and transferred all her anger to the cause of her youngest brother’s mental-power rampage.
Even if she did not understand her brother, she knew that his rampage could not have been an accident.
Or rather, no Yasa person could possibly have such an accident while watching over their lover and the star system where their lover lived.
Carlos and Wyatt, however, fell silent, because they did not know what had happened either. Right up until the incident, they had been investigating the Pantheonic Divine Nation’s interference in the evolutionary zone together with Reinhardt.
But after investigating, they still had not found much evidence of the Pantheonic Divine Nation interfering with evolution.
If they had to say anything, it was probably that the Pantheonic Divine Nation might have secretly delivered more energy into some evolutionary zones. But that was helping evolution, completely opposite from their initial assumption.
They should have rotated their garrison position as scheduled, but because of this investigation, Reinhardt had submitted an application to remain stationed.
Because of this matter, the representative of the Pantheonic Divine Nation and Diplomat Wyatt had argued at length in the Cosmic Alliance. The Cosmic Alliance had already issued its final warning. If the Yasa Second Legion could not give a reasonable explanation for remaining stationed, or even provide evidence that was somewhat relevant, the Yasa imperial mothership had to rotate out immediately.
But under these circumstances, there was absolutely no way Reinhardt would leave. Although they still had not figured out what exactly the Pantheonic Divine Nation was up to, asking Reinhardt to leave Blue Star when they already knew there was a problem was simply delusional.
“So, the Pantheonic Divine Nation did this.”
“Suspected. We only suspect.” Adjutant Carlos and the others had no evidence in hand. In fact, all current signs showed that the Pantheonic Divine Nation was also promoting evolution.
Grand Duchess Elowen gave him an unquestionable look. “Since when have I needed evidence?”
Did she look like someone who reasoned with others?
No one dared to advise the grand duchess, who was already on the verge of rage, to let go of hatred and be rational. They could only say, “The most urgent thing right now is still to find Prince Reinhardt first.”
And right at that moment, Grand Duchess Elowen’s communicator rang.
She had already set up priority shielding. Ordinary people could not call in at a time like this. There were only a few exceptions, such as her lover, her imperial brother, and also…
“Good day, Ms. Elowen. I’m very sorry to disturb you at this time.” The overly familiar voice of Lin Zhao, which often appeared by Carlos and the others’ ears, once again rang beside everyone.
“I told you, call me El. You don’t need to be so polite.” The grand duchess known as the Light of Tara truly had a gift for acting. Just moments ago, she had been ready to go to war with the Pantheonic Divine Nation. Yet in this moment, facing the future family member on the other side of the communication, she could display a smile gentler than anything, even carrying a softness as if she were afraid of scaring a small animal. “Did something happen, Lin? What made you contact me so urgently?”
Lin Zhao was someone with a strong sense of boundaries. Or rather, he himself did not like calling people casually. If he absolutely had to call, he would usually send a message first to ask whether the other person was free.
In other words, if he was calling directly like this, something unexpected must have happened.
Her younger brother had already gotten into trouble. The person her brother liked could not get into trouble too.
At this moment, Lin Zhao was sitting at home, holding a silver tabby cat that kept puffing up its fur but also refused to leave him, trying very hard to rub against him enthusiastically. Lin Zhao worked hard to aim the big cat’s face at the camera. “Can you contact Leni? I sent him messages and called him, but he hasn’t answered. I wanted to ask, is this his cat?”
More accurately, had his cat gotten lost?
In the video, the tabby cat’s originally elegant, fluffy tail was now like an electrified cable, standing straight and puffed up behind him. The tip of the tail unconsciously swished back and forth rapidly, making a faint rustling sound. But the sound scared the big cat first. His ears instantly flattened into airplane ears, pressed against his round head.
He looked like a thoroughly silly cat. When he saw Grand Duchess Elowen in the camera, he even hissed at her for quite a while, looking extremely displeased that any outsider was attracting Lin Zhao’s attention.
And Grand Duchess Elowen’s only thought was: with that cheap, worthless behavior, who else could it be if not her brother?
Author’s Note:
Nonsense Mini Theater:
Bad news: younger brother is missing.
Good news: found in one second.
P.S. In case it wasn’t clear, here’s a bit of extra explanation. Reinhardt’s mental power has been unstable recently, so he has often needed to transform into his mental body—this animal—to stabilize it. Then he encountered something and completely went berserk. But since his rampage risked affecting nearby Earth—Carlos: “So those of us on the starship aren’t people?”—he chose the self-sealing strategy of separating his mental body from his physical body. Currently, his physical body is still on the starship, but his consciousness became the big-cat mental body and fell to Earth, arriving at Lin Zhao’s house.
His cognition is a little off right now, but he’ll get better, so don’t worry. The love-brain currently only has one thought in his head: wife smells so good~ cuddle~ (not really).
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