The occurrence just now was too bizarre to even be reminisced, as the expression of people froze when viewing the green sea. The last scene was haunting them, as if imprinted in their head, as they felt their thumping heart still at their throat.
The thrashing sea of worms had turned lifeless all of a sudden.
Things always look bizarre to people if there seems to be a lack of transition between the move and still. And certainly the event a moment ago was more than comprehensibly bizarre to their senses. Their heart was cold as blood seemed to have stomped the brake heavily in the bloodstream. The bizarreness of the scene was one-of-kind, never-before-seen in their life.
A dead sea of worms was absolutely more horrifying.
People stayed bewildered till the first carcass flowed out of the green mist, then they realized all bristleworms had been dead.
How did they die? Nobody knew!
What exactly happened in the sea? Nobody knew!
Those were the mysteries that remained unexplained in the mind of the people, not even those pilots of Ye family who managed to escape the dying sea could give a proper explanation as confused they looked as well. They did see more things than most people in the sea and no way they could forget it for the rest of their life - an entire space of worms died in wave at once, it was a grand mass suicide.
Rui Bing was standing on top of Darvill and nearly collapsed upon seeing Han Jia returning in one piece. She finally got to relax. Darvill was well taken care of, not even a scratch could be seen.
Among the entire fleet, only Ye Yin and Ye Chong knew the context of the death of bristleworm sea. It was a very brief war, that Ye Chong actually presumed that he had done a good job being low and unnoticed, yet in actuality Ye Yin had seen his every action.
Ye Chong never wanted to be given the attention, especially under a period like this.
So he withdrew himself quickly after that, before Ye Yin could catch up with him. Ye Yin would love to know at which ship the mysterious skeleton mech was hiding but he discarded the thought soon after, since the amalgamated army of the three aristocrats was simply too gigantic to perform a search. Moreover, such action would only trigger the hostility in the other families. Most importantly, he did not have the time. The journey must go on, before his ride melted into void.
The fleet had regained its liveliness as the crewmembers started moving on with the next phase of their plan. Unlike before, fear and panic were no longer visible on their faces, instead there were joy and laughter.
Ye Yin was ridiculously busy at the moment, being the top commander of Ye Family, he had to communicate with representatives of the other families to coordinate from time to time. Then there were tasks to be assigned to his crew, there was also a report to be written that he would need to calculate the casualties occurred in the process. He could have asked others to handle these trivialities, but well, the report would go to him for compilation in the end anyway.
Only when he could catch his breath, he would remember that beautiful skeleton mech, performing those impeccable and accurate strikes, calmly yet ferociously in an impaling force. And thinking of it would give him shivers of excitement coming deep from his heart all the time.
The excitement did not last however, as soon he would be engulfed by the large piles of documents and inquiries from his crewmen asking for permission.
Meanwhile, both Ye Chong and Rui Bing were sort of having a honeymoon on Darvill, with Old Jalopy and Fei Si. It was only natural when Ye Pang was the leader of the logistics department. They might no longer have any battery in the storage, but they at least could afford the finest wine from the last century and premium tea leaves from the other corner of galaxy. Old Jalopy and Ye Luo were hogging on the bottles of Chateau Lafite at night, while slurping Tieguanyin in the afternoon.
Sailors of the Darvill were overjoyed upon the sight of the exit, as they hugged each other celebrating their survival.
Once they passed the exit, they would arrive at He Yue.
The entire fleet was over the moon.
The sailors had been thinking of their home, especially after such a cruel war they had witnessed. They missed home, their families, the warm and cozy bed.
Shrieks of joy were heard in the ship the moment Darvill travelled past the exit.
Ye Chong, Rui Bing, Old Jalopy and Fei Si were all in one room. Well, Ye Chong called them there.
"We are leaving," said Ye Chong concisely.
The room was silent.
Fei Si opened her mouth... and she shut it back up.
There was no other timing better than now. Once they entered He Yue, the fleet would face another reformation, which meant a likelihood of commotion happening. It would be perfect to leave.
"W-w-whatever. *hiccup* You saved our lives after all *hiccup*," muttered Old Jalopy who was a little drunk he after that epic drinking with Ye Luo last night.
Ye Chong and Rui Bing both left the room after giving a glance at Old Jalopy and Fei Si.
"Grandpa...," Fei Si insisted expressing something but Old Jalopy opened his eyes wide, he was pretending the whole time. Old Jalopy looked at Fei Su's slightly sunken cheeks, sighed, "Girl, stop thinking. The world is no longer peaceful. It'll only get messier over time... Just go with him... You still have years to come by, it's more important to survive."
Fei Si's eyes reddened upon his words as she burst into tears within Old Jalopy's embrace.
"Sigh..." Old Jalopy gave a gentle pat on Fei Si's back.
... (At the other spot) ...
"So, you're leaving?" asked Ye Luo softly.
Ye Chong nodded.
"Right, it is a good timing to leave in fact," nodded Ye Pang approvingly.
Ye Luo remained silent for a moment, "Let me show you something." And he suddenly prompted the hologram projection in the room.
It was an intergalactic layout of He Yue galaxy, with a few red spots on it.
"It just came from our family. Did you see those red spots? Something happened..." His voice got low, "Spatial distortion."
Ye Chong looked at the projection in blank dismay.
"It's just a friendly reminder from me," elaborated Ye Luo, assuming that Ye Chong received a shock of his news. "You should not be traveling at these spots, it would be too dangerous. You probably didn't know, before the pathway was raided, we have already received several notifications on spatial distortion at different places. We wanted to send our experts to investigate but things changed, the pathway got attacked. Our family was suspecting if these anomalies were somehow related with these unknown creatures..."
Ye Luo then walked to Ye Chong, with a sharp glare into his eyes, as word by word the warning went, "You can go wherever you want, I would not care less. But, never, ever, hit, your, path, to, these, places. They. Are. Dangerous."
Ye Chong stared at the projection.
And as mentioned before, reformation of fleet happened and it was truly a commotion. The galaxy was Xue Lai clan's territory after all. They did not intend to fight however, as they had received orders to shift all the military forces away from the zone, to show their respect towards the return of the formidable warriors and a sign of wanting peace.
That was when one gate of Darvill opened, as a small ship flew out quietly.
The reformation involved shuffling of spaceships. So in the midst of the commotion, no one noticed the departure of the little ship.
The ship weaved in and out of the moving spaceship and soon disappeared in the boundless space. The other ships were too busy heading back to their own family to take notice of the ship.
The little ship then accelerated, all according to plan. Surely, both Ye Luo and Ye Pang had already planned an escape path for Ye Chong's references. The path was one cleared out by the Xue Lai clan as a returning route for Ye family and Xi Feng tribe after the reformation, but well Ye Chong treaded it first.
The ship was supplied with sufficient batteries. Those were part of the supplies sent by the Xue Lai clan for Darvill that Ye Pang generously took a large box of them to Ye Chong.
Ye Chong once imagined the entrance to the pathway leading to free space zone would be a remote zone as well. He never expected the three entrances to the pathway were surrounded by a lively space zone.
The few planets near Xue Lai's pathway were a collection of well-developed business zones where flocks of vessels would come for trades all the time. Ye Chong got to admit that Xue Lai clan had a pretty tight mouth on this. No one had really heard of it.
...(Meanwhile)...
"Captain, we received an SOS signal from a lifeboat nearby," said one sailor on Risson the intergalactic long travel cruise.
"SOS signal?" frowned Captain Airi. All these years he had been working on the cruise, yet he had never heard of an actual accident of spaceship in this zone. He seriously wondered which greenhorn was leading the unlucky ship, that an SOS signal eventually arrived to his ears.
"Try contacting them. Ask them what is happening," ordered Captain Airi.
"They claimed to be traveling at long distance the first time and seemed to have lost contact with their mothership on an unattended control."
I knew it. Greenhorns these days... Sigh...
"Escort them into the ship. But, remind them, they would have to pay if they broke anything in the process," said Captain Airi helplessly.
The captain would not be low on guard if he was receiving the same signal at other space zone. But really, the space zone he was traveling now was indeed a secure one, that it sounded strange to him to have received an actual SOS signal from an accident. He had been traveling at this course for 10 years, and had heard of the same story a few times, that the newbies could not handle their ship well and requested assistance.
Ships today... sigh... what happened to standards?
But I can't be merciless and turn them down, can I?
Thought the kind captain.