Chapter 312: Noble Sacrifice

A deafening boom echoed through the entire hall, and the members of the Hidden Cultivation Society trapped by the walls, floor, and control console saw in terror that part of the control hall fell from the ceiling, smashing directly onto the head of the Sage.

The trapped cultists struggled violently, trying to break free from the steel covering them, but only felt the restraints upon them grow heavier; a rage—directly emanating from this living ship, as if soaking every wall, every pipe, and every circuit here—was rising from all directions.

Then, the pipe that had fallen from the sky was slowly lifted up by people.

The Sage, clad in white robes, stood up; with every tiny movement, his body grew taller and stronger. When he first crawled out from under the pipe, he was merely a tall, thin old man, but when he straightened his body, he had become a dignified warrior over two meters tall, his physique so perfectly robust it resembled a heroic statue.

The wrinkles representing old age faded, sunken cheeks became plump and lustrous, and the white robes that once looked too loose now became a fitted short robe. He looked up at the face cast in steel on the wall, bright blue lightning crackling between his beard and hair, his expression dignified and fearless, even seeming to carry the aura of a god of the mortal realm.

He took a step forward, and thunder burst from beneath his feet: "How can you understand the greatness and necessity of the Path of the Most Holy!"

A cultist trapped in a steel cage suddenly grew excited, and despite being bound all over, shouted loudly: "The Sage has completed the final transformation! We are saved!"

The other members of the Hidden Cultivation Society in the hall also grew excited upon seeing the Sage's current form, as if they had seen the savior descend before their eyes; even though they could not imagine how the Sage at this moment could fight a living ship that was turning against everyone, they still cheered, feeling hope reignite.

Yu Sheng spoke not a word, but directly tore two strips of steel from the hall's walls, hurling them like cannonballs at the burly old man in white robes, while simultaneously softening the ground around the opponent, disrupting the gravity in the hall, and turning everything he could control into means of attack and entanglement, launching an assault head-on.

Thunder burst through the hall, steel raining down like a storm; the burly old man in white robes rose into the air amidst the chaotic gravity field, manipulating the thunder to face the steel filled with rage. A rock-like texture had appeared on his seemingly flesh-and-blood body at some point, and he actually endured the iron chunks smashing onto him, releasing a powerful bolt of thunder toward the face on the opposite wall of the hall.

However, this was utterly meaningless to Yu Sheng.

His current body was the entire ship, and the face appearing in the hall was merely an "interface" for speaking.

The power of thunder exploded on the walls, spreading across the metal surface as vast sheets of electric light and scorching molten marks; Yu Sheng's face melted, deformed, and then vanished in the thunder, but in the blink of an eye, the ceiling of the hall opened its eyes, looking down upon the Sage floating in mid-air.

"You don't seem to care that much about the lives of your own 'compatriots'," Yu Sheng said leisurely.

Several members of the Hidden Cultivation Society previously trapped in the hall walls were struck by the aftershocks of the thunder power and had now turned into piles of charcoal, still emitting puffs of smoke within the metal-formed cages.

The cheers in the hall gradually quieted down.

The burly old man, wrapped entirely in thunder, merely turned around and looked fearlessly at the face on the ceiling, which was even larger than before: "This too is a noble sacrifice—"

The next second, his body, which was already enlarged, expanded violently once more, lit up again by even more fierce thunder!

The burly body crossed the boundary of "robustness"; muscles bulged, becoming grotesque and terrifying massive chunks of flesh, limbs extended and deformed, and even the skin cracked inch by inch. Blinding electric light burned away the flesh beneath the skin, flowing and dripping outward like some liquid; the white robes representing dignity and status turned directly to ash. In just a few breaths, the Sage had transformed into a mutated beast filled with electric light, its human form unrecognizable. Thick bolts of thunder erupted from its limbs, and merely sweeping across the hall floor turned a dozen members of the Hidden Cultivation Society into charcoal in the aftershocks.

"These are all noble sacrifices!"

Yu Sheng's ventilation fan instantly sucked in a mouthful of reactor exhaust: "Holy crap, you're killing your own people even more ruthlessly than me?!"

While exclaiming, he was not idle; a series of deafening booms rang out in the hall again. The ship structure connected to this compartment changed rapidly; metal was extracted, transferred, and shaped. Two giant hands instantly formed from the walls on both sides, clapping together toward the mutated beast floating in mid-air!

He had to find a way to deal with this old man who was getting stronger and stronger and acting crazy, otherwise all the cultists here would be killed by him!

The giant metal hands slammed shut.

However, just a second later, blinding electric light erupted from the palms again. Under Yu Sheng's astonished gaze, he saw those two hands being slowly pried open from the middle. Glaring white hot material dripped from the air like blood, and the thunder-wreathed mutated beast appeared before him once more—the beast had completely lost its original shape, even appearing as if it had been flattened by that palm strike just now, and had now forcibly reshaped its form.

Seven or eight arms rose from the swollen, writhing flesh chunks, prying open the closed giant metal hands bit by bit.

A roar-like sound rose from the electric light—

"They are all unstable ones after multiple iterations, not yet promoted into noble individuals loyal and firm enough. Rather than letting them reveal secrets to the enemy and lose their glory, I will send them to stand alongside the sages while their souls are still pure!"

Yu Sheng: "...?!"

However, what surprised him even more was that the surviving members of the Hidden Cultivation Society in the hall, upon hearing the Sage's declaration that was almost a death sentence and a betrayal, did not become angry or shaken; instead, they all shouted out—

"Step onto the Path of the Most Holy!"

"Martyrdom! Martyrdom! Martyrdom!"

"Salute to you—witnessed by the Way of Perfection!"

A fanatical, ecstatic, chaotic atmosphere, leaving Yu Sheng utterly stunned, filled the hall. He had never seen such a crazy and chaotic scene before; this "belief" with no reason whatsoever, walking the path of crazy destruction yet carrying high morale, opened his eyes. And in the next second, he noticed that even more fierce electric light erupted beside the mutated beast that had pried open the giant hands.

"It" was expanding rapidly in size; something was about to burst from within it.

"This too is a noble sacrifice!"

Yu Sheng: "Holy crap!?"

Although he couldn't figure out how much black technology the Cult of the Most Holy Hidden Society actually had, or how a living person could transform into such a form in such a short time, Yu Sheng was certain of one thing: if this Sage-ball exploded here, not only would none of the cultists in the hall survive, but the central structure of this ship might even be blown to pieces!

He had no confidence that he could repair this place after suffering such massive damage—this was not the same concept as reconnecting a few pipes or wiring a few cables.

So he unhesitatingly chose the backup plan's backup plan.

At the end of the control hall, the thick polymer porthole emitted a sharp trembling sound, then suddenly burst open a large hole.

Accompanied by the piercing alarm of gas leakage and a sudden gale sweeping through the entire hall, the interior space faced the vacuum of space; a terrifying suction force came from the hole. At the same time, a huge pipe fell from the ceiling, and halfway down, swept horizontally like a club, smashing with incredible force onto the rapidly expanding mutated beast.

"Go!"

The Sage let out a roar that was already off-key in the gale. Due to the drastic change in air pressure, his final roar sounded strange and terrifying, but in the face of uncontrolled gravity, powerful impact, and the terrifying suction of the vacuum of space, this monster could no longer stabilize itself and was directly flung out of the "Pillar of Order" like a cannonball.

The next second, the broken porthole quickly repaired itself. Before the surviving Hidden Cultivation Society cultists in the hall died from vacuum and hypothermia, Yu Sheng had timely plugged the hole in the ship.

And his gaze immediately turned to the window.

The mutated beast flung into space continued to move away from the Pillar of Order at high speed in the vacuum environment, its body's blinding electric light expanding and contracting like a violently beating heart. Yu Sheng watched him fly further and further away, while already preparing to meet an explosion impact—although there should be no shockwave in the space environment, the impact generated by this tremendous energy exploding at close range should not be small.

He tensed his nerves.

The mutated beast formed by the Sage expanded and contracted violently a few times, then continued to fly further and further away, further and further away...

It really just flew further and further away.

And it kept accelerating—until finally, it directly became a streak of light darting through the stars.

Yu Sheng: "...?"

"Noble sacrifice, noble sacrifice... bearing infamy is also a sacrifice..."

In the depths of space, the mutated beast thought angrily. The intense radiation and low temperature of the cosmic environment brought him immense pain, but he knew he had survived from the hands of that terrible ghost.

A tiny limb differentiated from the inhuman flesh lump, its end tightly grasping a talisman: a ruby set in the center of double rings, shining brightly.

He injected his will into this beacon.

"This, this is Babar-3, requesting... requesting to consume one Graceful Protection, any coordinates will do, I, I'm dying... I'm carrying important intelligence!"

A flash of light cut through the pitch-black deep space, and the Sage, Babar-3, disappeared into the vast emptiness of space.

(End of Chapter)