The cold, dead, pitch-black Star Sea.
Thousands of standard frigates of the Saints’ hand society spread like a swarm of ants densely outside the sapphire-blue planet.
Dazzling clusters of multicolored light bloomed, firing countless high-energy rays in all directions.
Spaceships were blown up, orange-red fireballs flickering continuously.
Dozens of huge Star Beasts with pale skin roared silently, the sounds reaching ears through the transmission of star energy.
Several small humanoid creatures stood on the Star Beasts’ heads, seemingly their controllers.
Star energy users of the Saints’ hand society were cut in half at the waist, their corpses floating in space with ash-gray skin.
But even more were members of the Saints’ hand society’s Mission department, one after another ejecting from spaceships in Jet Modules, charging at the giant Star Beasts at extreme speed.
***
Outside the spaceship, what awaited the girl was actually a battlefield.
It was a meat grinder formed by the clash between the Saints’ hand society and unknown forces of the Negative Universe!
whoosh!
A high-energy ray blooming from a light cluster shot over, grazing past the left and right opened bulkhead of the battleship.
For an instant, it illuminated two small characters on the front of the steel battle armor.
[Dark Dust]
The girl, breathing heavily, jerked her head up.
Two scarlet cold lights suddenly flared up at the eyes of the black helmet, completely dispersing the darkness.
The next second.
In the ears of all Saints’ hand society star energy users, an icy AI voice instantly resounded across the battlefield through the chat channel.
Red alarms flashed nonstop inside the frigates forming the encirclement.
[Third-Class weapon: Dark Dust, has been deployed!]
The huge black battle armor fell forward, opening its arms as if pulled by gravity, plummeting straight down below the battleship.
One kilometer, two kilometers… The armor’s speed increased.
At that moment, the AI’s second sentence rang out in the chat channel.
[Warning! All star energy users below Level 4, exit the current battlefield within five seconds immediately.]
swish!
The black armor’s descent came to a halt.
Like a puppet controlled by a giant hand, it abruptly rotated ninety degrees on its waist axis, now facing the battlefield directly.
She raised both hands left and right, gently exhaled, and the black armor’s arms were instantly eroded by fiery red.
[Battle armor charged 90%, Ability: Fire]
[Repeating: Exit immediately…]
The warning from the main control AI of the Saints’ hand society warship once again sounded in the ears of the battlefield members.
And at this moment, these star energy users below Level 4 from the Mission department, as if they had anticipated it, forcibly stopped their current actions and desperately scattered in all directions.
But… they were still half a beat too slow.
It was as if someone had pressed a switch in a pitch-black room.
In an instant, the entire Star Sea was illuminated. Fifteen giant fireballs, each over a hundred meters in diameter, appeared simultaneously at the center of the battlefield.
The frigates closest to the battlefield were instantly blasted away by the shockwave, and the spaceship wrecks inside exploded on the spot.
The Saints’ hand society star energy users who couldn’t evacuate in time each outputted star energy at full force, relying on the triple protection of supernatural powers, Starforce Battlesuits, and Colony Armor to desperately resist the terrifying power of the explosion.
Even so, many were severely injured by the blast, and some even turned into black ash on the spot, floating in space.
crack!
The armor lowered its hands.
At 90% output, the armor’s arms were already glowing red-hot, making one feel they would melt into molten iron at any moment.
The black armor coldly watched the giant fireballs beginning to dissipate without star energy supply. The scarlet cold light in its eyes gradually dimmed, and the girl’s breathing inside calmed down accordingly.
[Emotion Coolant: Excitement, remaining 10%]
A blue repulsion ring lit up underfoot, propelling the armor at extreme speed back into the opened hangar of the battleship.
The armor slowly landed on the cold deck.
It turned its back to the battlefield, not moving at all, seemingly unconcerned whether the explosion had successfully eliminated the enemy.
Far away, at the center of the battlefield, the fireballs had just completely dissipated.
All Mission department members still conscious turned their gaze to the center of the explosion—the location of those nineteen giant Star Beasts.
But countless eyes swept back and forth over the explosion center… yet found nothing.
Those giant Star Beasts had vanished without a trace.
No, perhaps it wasn’t that they escaped or disappeared, but that they… had been vaporized in the explosion.
So, this was the strongest achievement of the Research Department in the past two years?
That Third-Class humanoid weapon that easily defeated all Level 3 star energy users of the Saints’ hand society, with a mission completion rate of 100% to date…
Dark Dust?
The Mission department members on duty couldn’t help but dazedly turn their heads toward the direction of the battleship, trying to catch a glimpse of that terrifying figure.
Those who had only heard of the legend of Dark Dust but were fighting alongside her for the first time were even more shaken.
But the opened bulkhead of the battleship was quickly closing, finally slamming shut in front of everyone’s eyes.
…Denying all attempts to look inside.
This vessel custom-built for Dark Dust, or rather, a cage…
What it left for everyone was only that brief glimpse of a broad, sturdy back.
After the bulkhead closed, the ring-shaped loading platform activated and moved toward the bulky black armor.
Tap, tap, tap… footsteps sounded.
Shi Linglin walked over lightly, stood on tiptoe, and as the loading platform’s mechanical arm removed the armor’s helmet, she said softly with a smile:
“You’ve worked hard, Big Sister. Welcome back again.”
The gray-haired girl inside the armor lowered her eyelids, the corners of her eyes still bearing a trace of redness from the emotional fluctuations just now.
She slowly raised her head, her eyes slightly wavering under the effect of the remaining emotion coolant.
Shi Linglin took out a handkerchief, stood on tiptoe, and wiped the non-existent sweat and dust from the girl’s forehead.
The next second, the armor plates on the back of the battle armor suddenly opened, spewing out a sweetish, pale red mist.
The gray-haired girl suddenly spoke, and Shi Linglin’s movements froze.
“I want…”
[Combat ended. Now expelling emotion coolant.]
The pale red mist dissolved upon contact with air, disappearing instantly.
An icy AI voice suddenly rang out, interrupting the girl’s words.
The girl lowered her head again, but her eyes had become as lifeless as a doll’s, and she mechanically spoke the last three words that surfaced in her mind:
“Eat cake.”
The mechanical arms quickly disassembled the armor from the girl, retracting it into the loading platform, hiding it away.
[Third-Class weapon: Dark Dust, has been shut down. Now recycling.]
The girl stared blankly at her own toes.
Suddenly she lifted her leg and walked step by step, with constant stride length, to the huge iron seat.
Turned around, sat down, closed her eyes.
[Weapon recycled. Mission ended. Now uploading weapon mission log to server.]
[Now formulating weapon mission reward.]
The mission footage recorded by the armor’s built-in camera, along with the girl’s related data collected by sensors during the mission, were sent back to the secret laboratory on Sacred Fist Star through the special information transmission channel installed on the warship.
A pair of large hands with prominent knuckles holding coffee pressed the open key on the virtual keyboard.
The log of this mission instantly appeared on the screen.
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