Alien Hotel.

Chapter 691 Seepage

Hong raised her right hand and placed it on her forehead. Although she never opened her eyes, it was as if her eyes were being burned by the figure radiating holy light, and she frowned slightly.

“A living saint…” she murmured softly.

The holy light body that descended from the sky slowly turned around, its illusory and hazy form floating about ten centimeters off the ground. The alloy floor of the bridge hall melted beneath its feet, radiating rolling heat waves. Its translucent light-cast wings fluttered slightly in the air, and powerful spiritual energy resonated joyfully, emitting a melodious sound like wind chimes.

The hole that pierced through the bridge caused a gas leak. A gust of wind swept through the hall, carrying away a large amount of lightweight debris, which was instantly sucked into space. However, the automatic damage control system quickly activated, and a layer of surging silvery-white metal rapidly filled the hole in the roof. Then the wind subsided, and the nearby ventilation ducts began to hiss as they rapidly replenished the gas.

The surviving Secret Order members in the hall seemed to see a glimmer of hope. Although they had almost been sucked out of the hall by the gust of wind just moments before, they now clung tightly to nearby fixed objects and cheered joyfully: "The living saint! The living saint! Our protector has come!"

A holy light surged through the hall. Red's brows furrowed as she sensed the immense power emanating from the psionic "creature." Her usually calm expression softened, and she muttered to herself, remaining vigilant: "...neither alive, nor holy, nor even human..."

The moment the words left his mouth, the powerful psionic creature raised the light-forged greatsword in its hand—dazzling holy light burned on the blade, and terrifying energy began to gather in the air.

Hong tensed up instantly, and layers of illusory mirrors began to appear in the hall.

Then she saw the creature suddenly swing its sword in a whirlwind, a blazing white light sweeping across the hall and onto the cheering Hermit cultists—the fastest of the latter only had time to widen their eyes in terror, let out a short scream, and instantly melt into the intense light.

red:"……?"

A blank expression appeared on the face of this border geography official for the first time. She stared at the scene in astonishment, not understanding what had happened for a long time. It wasn't until the white light in the air gradually subsided that she subconsciously muttered, "...not even your protectors."

The melodious sound, like wind chimes, gradually faded away. The living saint, floating in mid-air, silenced the noise in the hall and once again turned his gaze to the "vampire" before him.

Then came a long silence, the hall enveloped in stillness, with only the occasional beeping of some system alarms coming from some unknown corner.

The Living Saint seemed to have no intention of launching a further attack, but also showed no signs of being able to communicate. It just floated there quietly, causing Red to not dare to make any rash moves and could only continue to maintain a tense standoff with it.

This agonizing standoff continued for quite a while when Hong suddenly heard Baili Qing's voice through her earpiece: "Hong, what's the situation on your end—Yu Sheng sent a message asking us to help him stabilize the stargate's status... Hong?"

“I’ve run into a bit of trouble here,” Red muttered softly, “I’ve encountered the ‘living saint’ of the Hermitage.”

There was a brief silence in the headphones for two or three seconds.

"Can you beat them?" Baili Qing's tone became noticeably serious as she quickly said, "Send me the coordinates, I'll come find you."

“No, the situation is… complicated,” Red said in a low voice, keeping a watchful eye on the psionic creature’s movements in the distance. “It didn’t make a move—but it just wiped out all the remaining cultists in this area.”

Baili Qing: "...?"

Just then, Hong suddenly saw the "living saint" opposite her make a move.

It gently flapped its wings and slowly floated over here.

"They're here—"

As Hong spoke quickly, she suddenly took half a step back—layers upon layers of illusory mirrors suddenly appeared behind her, and a chilling aura, as if from a grave, surrounded her. Her long, black hair seemed to be soaked in blood, and began to quickly turn crimson from the ends. Her fingers were also quickly stained with a crystal-clear, jade-like color, and her nails grew like blades!

But just as she was preparing to face this bizarre "angelic derivative," the anticipated attack did not occur.

The "living saint" stopped a few meters away from her and extended a hand to her—the hand that wasn't holding the sword.

Hong paused for a moment, looking at the semi-transparent palm formed from holy light.

In that hand was a handful of small, colorful, and beautifully colored odds and ends.

It was a handful of colorful candies—semi-transparent candies with an ethereal texture, looking like some kind of spiritual creation.

The "living saint" took another half step forward, leaning his upper body slightly forward, and continued to extend his hand, seemingly with some kind of... expectation, as well as a friendly probing.

"Hong? Hong? How's the situation on your end?" The voice in the earpiece began to sound anxious. "Tell me your location, I'm..."

Hong interrupted the other person: "Ah Qing, they gave me a handful of candy—a handful of candy that I couldn't hold onto."

Baili Qing: "...Huh?"

Hong opened her mouth, took two or three seconds to organize her thoughts, and then said, "I don't know how to explain it to you, but..."

She had only spoken halfway when a sound of psionic resonance suddenly interrupted her.

The next second, she saw the previously calm radiance around the "living saint" suddenly begin to stir again, and before she could react, the other party suddenly spread out the wings on his back!
With a sharp blast of air, the strange psionic creature turned and took off, crashing through the bridge and creating a large hole before disappearing into the vastness of space. The control room, which had just been repaired by the damage control system, now had another hole, and in the same spot no less.

A sudden gust of wind arose, air began to leak, the pressure balancing system emitted a dying groan, and the damage control nanobots once again began desperately repairing the damaged parts of the spaceship.

Red stepped through the air amidst the raging wind, arriving at the bottom of the hole. Looking up at the war-torn space outside, she saw only a holy white afterglow disappearing into the darkness.

Then the wriggling, silvery-white nanomachines blocked her view.

Bai Liqing's voice came through the earpiece: "Red! The radar detected an extremely fast, high-energy reaction that crossed the battlefield and disappeared into a spatial rift near the stargate—we couldn't stop it!"

“Understood,” Red said softly, one hand on her earpiece. “It’s that strange living saint—but there’s no time for him right now. Prioritize suppressing the defensive forces around the stargate.”

"The rest depends on how our 'Angel Hunter' plans to pierce through this starry sky."

"Okay—Also, when you get back, tell me all about that living saint."

Hong gave a soft "hmm".

Then a pair of blood-red bat wings suddenly unfurled behind her, and with a flap of the wings, the black-haired girl shot straight toward the top of the hall—where her gaze fell, the roof of the bridge hall suddenly transformed into a smooth mirror, reflecting the glittering starlight near the distant stargate.

She flew into the mirror, her figure disappearing into a ripple.

Immediately afterwards, the transformed mirror began to spread outwards with the ripples, and in the process of spreading, it quickly shattered inch by inch - the entire roof of the bridge hall began to break along with the disintegrating mirror, shattering into pieces with crisp and continuous sounds.

Air leaked, air pressure became unbalanced, and howling winds swept away the corpses of the cultists and all the scattered items in the hall. The rapidly cooling gas then condensed into a murky ice fog in space. Fine mirror crystals, along with the ice fog, spewed out from the middle of the warship, like beautiful yet eerie flowers blooming in space.

The damage control system finally failed completely—the lights on the surface of the battered Dark Star cruiser flickered a few times before it veered and plummeted toward the brown dwarf star that emitted a dim red glow.

Behind the slowly falling interstellar warship, in the vast expanse of space against the backdrop of the entire stargate, the flames of war continued to rage.

The Special Operations Bureau's unified fleet, which jumped into the battlefield from the stargate, had completely destroyed the star fortress and the "disaster recovery node pod" that had sprung from it. The remaining stargate defense forces were quickly routed in the chaos. A small number of fierce and determined Hermit commanders organized a few insignificant counterattacks during this process, but the small groups that had just gathered were almost instantly and precisely targeted and killed by the light spear weapons of the unified fleet, turning into scorching debris in space.

The combined fleet brought by Hong and Baili Qing was superior to the local Stargate garrison in terms of combat power. When such a fleet jumped directly from the center of the Stargate into the Hermitage's defensive blind spot, the outcome of the entire battle was already a foregone conclusion.

At the same time—in the Sacred Realm, in 11XX.

The toxic atmosphere was thick and murky, and the cold, chaotic wind blew through the mountain valleys. On a wide open space where the mountains and plains met, the silver-white nine-tailed fox stopped and looked up at the distant towering mountains.

Then she sneezed several times, causing sand and stones to fly within a ten-meter radius.

"This place still stinks..." The big fox raised its paw and rubbed its nose vigorously, then stuck out its tongue and licked its dry nose, making a dissatisfied grumbling sound, "Don't you guys feel it?"

As Yu Sheng dismounted from Hu Li's back, he casually remarked, "I don't know. I've been holding my breath the whole time—the air here is poisonous; you'll die if you breathe it in."

"Is that even human language?! A normal person would die if they held their breath!" The little doll spouted loudly from Yu Sheng's shoulder, then quickly added, "But I wasn't breathing either."

Luna's figure fell to the side, and she pointed to herself: "I don't have this function."

“Can’t you just hold it in too?” Eileen turned to look at Hu Li. “Anyway, you can survive in space.”

“I can’t smell anything if I don’t breathe,” Huli flicked her tail. “I feel uneasy if I can’t smell anything in this unfamiliar environment.”

Eileen thought for a moment, scratched her head, and said, "...I don't really understand you cyber vixens."

Then she turned to look at Yu Sheng and said, "Hey, we're back here again. Which way should we go next?"

Yu Sheng squinted, gazing into the distance through the alien planet's murky atmosphere, and then vaguely determined a direction: "Over there."

The little doll shaded its eyes with its hand: "Over there? What's over there?"

"The Gate of Eden".

"...Huh?" Eileen was completely bewildered, and even stood up to look into the distance. "Are you kidding me? This is a sacred place from hundreds of years ago. Forget about the Gate of Eden, those Hermitage followers are probably digging for stones in some wasteland right now!"

“Yes, this is a sacred place from hundreds of years ago,” Yu Sheng smiled and stepped forward, “but one of the ‘time roots’ of the Gate of Eden is rooted in this place.”

(End of this chapter)