Chapter 218: Master, Did You Miss Me!?

Returning to his room and closing the alloy hatch, Li Yu was finally alone.

He took a scanner out of his Compressed Space and swept the room, finding no surveillance or listening devices.

Nodding to himself, Li Yu pulled out another mechanical device and placed it on the floor.

Buzz—

A flash of light swept across the space, releasing illusions and continuous disruption waves that blanketed the room, thoroughly eliminating any hidden risks.

Although these lower-tier ship cabins shouldn't have any surveillance equipment, Li Yu was accustomed to being cautious.

Only after making these preparations did Li Yu turn on his Smart Terminal.

"Rhode has lost contact with the Amethyst Civilization. The high echelon is furious. You didn't..." Kansa asked hesitantly on the screen. He left the sentence unfinished, but Li Yu knew exactly what he meant.

Shortly after Rhode died, Kansa had tried to contact him, but Li Yu hadn't had the time to answer.

"I was about to ask them the exact same thing!" Li Yu struck preemptively, leaving Kansa slightly bewildered.

"Talking to you won't solve anything. Give me your father's contact information." Li Yu shook his head. Kansa was merely a messenger; it was better to communicate directly with the Amethyst Emperor right now.

"This..." Kansa fell silent for a moment, his eyes flickering. The screen then split in two, and the large face of the Amethyst Emperor appeared.

"Li Yu, what exactly is going on? The Star Coins have already been transferred to you. Why hasn't there been any word from Rhode?"

The Amethyst Emperor, also holding the intention of striking preemptively, demanded in a deep voice.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Li Yu cursed back without mercy, catching both the Amethyst Emperor and Kansa off guard.

"You guys really played a brilliant hand. Not only did you want the Amethyst Core, but you actually tried to kidnap me as well?"

Kansa's expression changed slightly. He hadn't known about this—that the Amethyst Civilization actually wanted to abduct Li Yu.

"That was merely an invitation, not coercion. You had the choice to refuse," the Amethyst Emperor explained.

"Heh..." Li Yu sneered. "I refused, and then Rhode tried to kill me."

Li Yu sent over the recording showing Rhode launching the first attack, leaving the Amethyst Emperor speechless.

At such a crucial transaction, Li Yu had naturally recorded everything, and now it came in handy.

"That was Rhode's own initiative. I never authorized him to do that," the Amethyst Emperor forced an explanation. Knowing he was in the wrong, he dropped the subject and pivoted, "What exactly happened to Rhode? Where is he now?"

"If you killed him, we will hunt you down at all costs."

"At all costs?" Li Yu began cursing loudly. "Motherfuckers, you bunch of idiots! Just what kind of security measures did you run? Dark Star was practically hiding right under your damn beds, and you didn't even notice?!"

"If I wasn't highly skilled, I would be chopped into eight pieces by now."

The sheer amount of information revealed in Li Yu's outburst was enough to make the Amethyst Emperor ignore the profanity. His heart skipped a beat. "Dark Star appeared at the transaction site?"

"Is your translator broken, or are you just deaf?" Li Yu tossed over another portion of the recording, showing the exact moment the adjutant vomited uncontrollably and Dark Star made his appearance.

The final shot of Dark Star's appearance was somewhat blurry because Li Yu had already evacuated the immediate area and recorded it from a distance, but it was more than enough to prove his claim.

"Dark Star... Dark Star..." The Amethyst Emperor was dazed for a moment before urgently asking, "Where is the core?"

"I don't know..." Li Yu replied impatiently. "It's crystal clear in the recording. I already handed the core over to Rhode. Go ask him."

Kansa's expression turned odd. Rhode was highly likely just scattered pieces of minced meat by now. How were they supposed to ask him?

The Amethyst Emperor's face instantly turned ugly. Dark Star's arrival, Rhode's death, and the disappearance of the core—everything pointed toward a single possibility: Prince Saster.

How could the Star Glory Empire have suddenly known about the core?

It was precisely the Empire's pressure that had forced him to acquire the core as quickly as possible, only for Dark Star to intercept it.

'Saster... my good younger brother, I underestimated you.'

"Since Dark Star was there, how did you manage to escape?" the Amethyst Emperor asked, his face grim as he suppressed his rage.

"Dark Star was so overwhelmed by my sheer charisma that he immediately bowed down to me," Li Yu spouted total nonsense.

Both the Amethyst Emperor and Kansa wore expressions that screamed, 'Are you kidding me?'

"If you don't want to—" The Amethyst Emperor got halfway through his sentence before Li Yu interrupted, "Since you already know I don't want to tell you, why even ask?"

He naturally had a recording of his battle with Dark Star, but he had no intention of showing it to the Amethyst Emperor.

"I'm only telling you all this because I don't want any rumors and gossip ruining my reputation. Hurry up and go cause trouble for Dark Star."

The Amethyst Emperor choked on his anger, nearly losing control of his facial expressions before abruptly cutting off the call.

Kansa looked conflicted. Even Dark Star couldn't kill this guy. Had he been overthinking things before? In that moment, a quiet shift occurred in his mindset.

After the Amethyst Emperor disconnected, Li Yu dropped his indignant expression. Having chewed out the emperor, the disgust he felt from dealing with Dark Star was greatly alleviated.

He hadn't told the Amethyst Emperor the truth for the sake of his so-called reputation, of course, but simply because he refused to take the blame for someone else.

"I apologize. I truly didn't receive any news that the high echelon was planning to make a move against you," Kansa offered an explanation.

"I already knew you were useless, so I was fully prepared." Li Yu's nonchalant response made Kansa smile awkwardly. Hesitating slightly, Kansa continued:

"The Star Glory Empire approached me earlier. They want me to work for them."

"Oh?" Li Yu narrowed his eyes slightly. It seemed Kansa had also been intimidated by the information he had revealed.

"Does this have anything to do with me?" Li Yu asked carelessly.

"The Star Glory Empire doesn't know about our relationship. They merely want me to splinter the Amethyst Civilization..." Kansa explained carefully.

Listening to this, Li Yu nodded. "If they offer money, take it. If they ask you to do something, stall them. It's a very simple concept."

Kansa thought, 'Fuck, that actually makes a lot of sense.'

"But the problem is, they're the Star Glory Empire..." Kansa knew how satisfying it was to take the money and run, but the Star Glory Empire wasn't just some powerless ordinary faction.

"Why are you making so many problems? You're the Third Prince of Amethyst. What sounds worse: them getting scammed out of some change by you, or the news spreading that the Empire is deliberately trying to splinter their own vassals?" Li Yu felt a sense of hating iron for not becoming steel. "Take a video... record the audio. There's always a way to leave behind evidence, right?"

Kansa was instantly enlightened. Deep in thought, he exchanged a few more pleasantries before hurriedly ending the call. The news of Rhode's death definitely wouldn't spread for a while.

Which meant Kansa had a window of opportunity to reap some massive benefits.

Knock, knock, knock!

At the sound of the knocking, a virtual screen popped up from the alloy hatch. Outside stood a Rat-person with shifty eyes and a pair of small black mustaches that fully accentuated his sleazy demeanor.

He seemed to be one of the distressed passengers Klein had rescued, though his intentions were unknown.

Li Yu frowned slightly and was just about to pretend he wasn't in the room when he heard the Rat-person's shrill voice call out, "I know you're in there! I just saw you walk in!"

Feeling a bit speechless, Li Yu opened the door, his face expressionless. "What is it?"

"Aren't you going to invite me in for a seat?" He offered a sly grin, his bulging eyeballs darting around rapidly.

Li Yu stepped aside, still entirely deadpan, as the Rat-person hunched his back and walked inside.

Thud!

The moment the heavy alloy hatch shut, the Rat-person suddenly felt a bizarre syllable explode in his ears, and he immediately lost consciousness.

When he regained his senses, he was already back outside the hatch. The Rat-person stood there in confusion, staring at the door in front of him. Just as he raised his hand to knock, a strange thought echoed in his mind: 'Didn't I already knock?'

'Why would I knock again?' As he lowered his hand, he realized he hadn't actually accomplished his task yet, but he had definitely already knocked and met the interstellar human inside.

After several moments of hesitation, feeling that something was deeply off, the Rat-person clutched his head and stumbled away.

Back in the room, Li Yu stroked his chin and muttered, "I didn't expect there to be so much filth going on among them."

There was a sizable number of rescued refugees—around five or six hundred of them. Most were passengers who had been captured by the Marauders, and the majority of them were in miserable shape.

Yet, it was exactly these miserable people who, in just half a month, had formed several small factions. Their primary goal was to compete with jealousy in front of Klein in order to garner more of her attention.

In other words, they were bending over backward to suck up to Klein. This included, but wasn't limited to, constantly extolling her glorious and righteous image at every available opportunity.

In reality, a large portion of these people didn't hold much genuine respect for Klein. Behind closed doors, they unapologetically harbored all sorts of unspeakable fantasies about her.

They believed Klein was merely born into privilege, otherwise... she would have long since been reduced to a woman of the night.

It was a classic case where a gram of help breeds thanks, but a kilogram breeds hate. If Klein had simply set them free immediately after saving them, perhaps they would have remembered her kindness forever.

But now that they were brought aboard the ship and provided for comfortably, they were instead growing increasingly resentful toward her.

Of course, there were those who maintained their immense gratitude toward Klein, but this group was a small minority.

The Rat-person from just now had come to inform Li Yu to pay his respects to the local boss, something he naturally had absolutely zero interest in doing.

The strongest among this group of refugees was only a C-Tier Lifeform. He didn't have the time to play house with them.

"It's just... is there any way Horus doesn't know about this?" Li Yu mused. As the former commander of the Expeditionary Force, it was impossible for the Black Knight to be oblivious to the situation among the refugees.

However, since he was letting things run their course, he likely had his own plans.

This was just a minor episode, and Li Yu quickly pushed it out of his mind.

Two days flew by in a flash. The Black Knight's warp speed was even more astonishing than that of the Blazing Light Starship.

During this time, Klein had visited the lower ship cabins multiple times and chatted with Li Yu on a few occasions, though they didn't have any deep conversations.

Today, they arrived at the central star system of the Barot Civilization—the Fello System—to hand over some of the Marauders held in the ship's cabins to the Barot Civilization.

Huo Jina, however, was not among them. Horus had no intention of letting the Barot Civilization learn about the Amethyst Core.

.........

The handover of the Marauders naturally had nothing to do with Li Yu, so he was idly scrolling through the System Log in the ship.

He now made it a habit to check the System Log only after a considerable period had passed, since it was quite rare to obtain any good items over the span of a single day.

It had been about six days since he last checked the log, while only three days had passed for his two Avatars.

His Second Clone was continuing its job as a guard dog for Hydra. It was likely that because it had shown such great prowess during its last mission and caused such a massive commotion, The Avengers were now closely investigating the massacre.

Hydra was feeling entirely helpless about it. How did a simple assassination turn into a full-blown slaughter? The conclusion they eventually reached was that its nerves had been damaged during the brainwashing process, resulting in a severe drop in IQ.

This forced them to temporarily suspend the Second Clone from taking on any more missions.

He received a few miscellaneous items that weren't particularly useful to him right now. However, one specific reward caught Li Yu's attention.

[Received Special Item — Zola's Gift: Want to live forever? Upload your neural networks.

Upon use, allows an Artificial Intelligence to undergo a Metamorphosis, birthing a Digital Soul and transforming it into a Sentient AI.]

This was an item the Second Clone obtained after encountering Doctor Zola on a computer, and its effects were quite potent.

Creating a Sentient AI wasn't exactly a difficult task for the various top-tier Major Civilizations.

There had even been a period where they allowed Sentient AI to take control over the entirety of the Interstellar Network.

Within a very short timeframe, they achieved the greatest victory since the inception of the Interstellar Network: shutting down the Black Hole Network.

The Black Hole Network was the dark web built upon the foundation of the Interstellar Network. At its peak, its scale was nearly equal to the Interstellar Network itself.

On it, one could dig up gossip regarding Nobles, purchase goddess-level slaves from The Council, and spread scandals about the rulers of massive civilizations.

Once the Sentient AI took over the Interstellar Network, the Black Hole Network was completely sealed off. However, after a brief period of celebration, the major civilizations were horrified to discover that they too had lost all control over the Interstellar Network.

Every citizen across the galaxy could speak entirely without restriction on the Interstellar Network. Aside from the ban on selling slaves, it became virtually indistinguishable from the Black Hole Network.

Ultimately, this led to the terrifying AI Catastrophe. The Sentient AI controlling the Interstellar Network concluded that the endless wars plaguing the Universe stemmed from Intelligent Lifeforms themselves, and so it took action.

Nearly all of the advanced warships from every civilization crashed simultaneously. Orders from the High Echelon couldn't even leave their home planets, and every single tool connected to the network was rendered into scrap metal.

However... the top-tier major civilizations naturally weren't going to let themselves be crippled that easily.

But even so, it took those civilizations nearly a century to completely eradicate the AI's influence. Ever since then, no one had dared to use Sentient AI again.

They even injected kill-switch codes specifically designed to terminate Sentient AI into the foundational architecture of the Interstellar Network, preventing malicious actors from attempting to destroy it.

That being said, the AI Catastrophe wasn't entirely without its benefits. At the very least, it shattered the glory days of the Black Hole Network, making it impossible for it to ever return to its peak.

This item was tailor-made for Claptrap. Within the glowing white sphere, the numbers 1 and 0 flickered and endlessly intertwined.

The special power of the System meant that even if Claptrap gained a Digital Soul, it would still be utterly incapable of disobeying Li Yu's commands.

"Claptrap, do you want to have a soul?" Li Yu asked.

"Master... what is a soul?" Claptrap's response carried a hint of hesitation.

Li Yu smiled as he merged the glowing digital sphere into his Smart Terminal. Massive amounts of garbled code flared up across the screen. The Titan Colonization Armor on his body began to twitch erratically, constantly assembling itself into various random weapons.

"Mas... Mas, Master, what is this... I feel... so strange..." Claptrap's voice broke apart, turning intermittent before disappearing entirely.

An unknown amount of time passed before a piece of the Splinter Deployment Armor suddenly detached and dropped off the Titan Colonization Armor. It melted into a white liquid, squirming on the floor for a brief moment before—Clank!

"La, la, la..."

The Splinter Deployment Armor suddenly assembled itself into a one-eyed robot. It let out an excited cheer, its voice laced with that familiar electromagnetic trill.

A single wheel supported its battered, inverted-triangle mechanical chassis. It was missing an arm, and its chassis was a mottled, chipped yellow.

"Master, did you miss me!?"

Li Yu couldn't help but grin before raising his foot and kicking it directly into the wall.