Yuan's Guard

"Mm, it seemed you really had calmed down." Hearing Cole's form of address, Yuan nodded in satisfaction. It was not that he cared about the honorific "Your Excellency," but that he was pleased by how decisively Cole had recovered from losing control.

"My apologies, Your Excellency. Everything I had held fast to for so long was shattered by you in a single day. I... found it hard to accept." Cole waved his hand, a trace of embarrassment on his face.

"Don't dwell on it. At least you, me—we're all still alive. Life is a miracle, and life always finds a way out, doesn't it?"

"Perhaps." Yuan's lesson made Cole nod helplessly, but then determination filled his eyes.

"Your Excellency, you've seen my current state. Compared to our companions, what we need now is your guidance. I want..." At this point, Cole clenched his teeth tightly, as though making an agonizing decision.

"I want to hand over command and have you lead us."

"Oh? Have you thought it through?" Yuan did not reject him harshly at once. Whether one possessed power had always depended on the fist one clenched!

"Commander!"

"Commander!"

The Taotie soldiers behind him hurried forward, wanting to dissuade him. After hundreds of years of fighting, they had long grown accustomed to Cole's presence.

A transfer of command meant their unit would once again head into an unknown future. Seeing the worry in everyone's eyes, Yuan merely shrugged indifferently.

"Your Excellency, you? Shut up, all of you! I'm completely at a loss right now. I don't know which way we should go next. Do you expect me to watch you walk straight into a fire pit?" Yuan's words immediately made Cole anxious.

"Hey! What's there to fear about a fire pit? We've been through nuclear explosions more times than we could count. My armor has fire resistance!"

"Yeah, Commander. In the VR room, I liked hanging out beside bonfires the most. It was exciting!"

"You..." Cole's voice even choked up.

"You idiots!"

"Hehe! Commander, we're beast-bodied!"

"That's right. Beast-bodied brains were bad to begin with. My god Carl personally verified that." Cole's choked voice once again sparked laughter and banter from the crowd.

"I swear, why are you people so dramatic?" Looking at the rather heartwarming scene, Yuan could not help feeling a little envious.

But he knew he would probably never have such an opportunity. Since his grandmother's passing, there had no longer been anyone by his side he could talk to.

As for the Taotie before him, Yuan had always remained wary of them. He half-believed what they said, but did not show it.

Without time to grow accustomed to one another, he could not tell whether the Taotie truly were as they claimed. Besides, there seemed to be a true god behind them who controlled the Styx Galaxy.

"Worship death! Pursue death! Create death! You really didn't hide your pursuit at all. Was that threatening feeling just now the so-called God-Slaying Weapon?"

Yuan muttered to himself. He had firmly committed Cole's earlier loss of control to memory.

Though Cole spoke respectfully and even addressed him as a god, the utter disdain and killing intent in his eyes just now, along with the weapon he had been ready to deploy at any moment, made Yuan wary.

Strategies for dealing with the Taotie in the future kept flashing through his mind, but Yuan's expression remained perfectly composed.

After experiencing so much, he had become more mature as well. One must never let down one's guard against others—his grandmother's words were once again deeply imprinted in his mind.

"Alright, enough with the emotional drama. The records didn't say the Taotie reproduced asexually. Try to keep it conservative, yeah? And you've still got this primitive man here!"

"Your Excellency, you—" Cole had just wanted to say something when Yuan cut him off. Waving his hand, Yuan said:

"Alright, enough chatter. Since our cooperation has begun, I won't stand on ceremony. I need to absorb all the knowledge and information here, so you'll need to handle the necessary facilities and equipment."

"But, Your Excellency, according to what you said, our unit has no secrets from the academy at all. Shouldn't the most important thing now be leaving the Styx Galaxy as quickly as possible?"

"Do you think we still have that chance?" Yuan pointed at the battered warship nearby, which was so ruined it barely retained any recognizable shape.

The scene instantly fell silent. Cole felt as though he had been slapped across the face several times without a sound, and his face immediately reddened.

"I-I already said my current state was... well, a little off." Cole's stammering voice came through, but it did nothing to ease the atmosphere. It only made the silence more pronounced.

"How could a black face show a bashful blush? Hmm, another subject to study." A faintly mischievous thought arose in Yuan's mind.

"Alright. After everything that's happened, I think you all need some rest. Whatever it is, we'll talk tomorrow."

With that, Yuan turned and left with an easy stride, heading toward his home.

The Taotie left where they stood looked at one another, then all turned their eyes toward Cole.

"Commander, what do we do next?"

"What do we do? What do we do? How the hell should I know what to do? The whole situation is out of control! What solution could I possibly have? Go repair the warship, all of you, and get us out of this damned place sooner."

At Cole's familiar roar, relieved smiles appeared on the Taotie's faces. They immediately formed groups and headed toward the warship, which was nearly scrap metal, beginning frantic repair work.

"My king... was it really as he said? Have you been deceiving us all along? What exactly are you trying to do?"

That was right. All the information had come from Shihao. As the Taotie's king, the technology that disguised them had come from him.

Could it be that, over these hundreds of years, Shihao truly had done and asked nothing, just as he claimed?

Cole had never dared imagine how Shihao could have avoided Carl's eyes. The more he thought about it, the more terrified he became.

He did not dare believe that, if Yuan was telling the truth, then what roles Shihao or Carl had played in all this.

"The void is the future! Death is eternal!" Suddenly, Cole bared his teeth. Pure blood-red light filled his eyes, and a strange curve appeared on his face.

The quarrels and chaotic sounds behind him formed a bizarre contrast with his expression, but in the blink of an eye, everything vanished as if it had never happened.

Only Yuan, walking down the road in the distance, seemed to feel a chill rise up his back, and a sense of foreboding welled in his heart.

After pausing slightly, Yuan continued onward as though he knew nothing.

"Was it those guys? Or this village? I can't stay in the Styx Galaxy any longer. I'll find a chance to get away from them."

Lost in thought, Yuan looked at the night that had gradually fallen and forced himself to stop thinking. He quietly leaned against a haystack, just as he had in childhood, and fell into a deep sleep.