"Something's wrong!" Duhe suddenly stopped, his voice taut. "Quick! Sound the alarm and report to the team—"
Before he could finish, his body abruptly froze, transforming into a crystal-clear ice sculpture. Even the astonishment on his face at the final moment remained perfectly visible.
Morgan reacted with astonishing speed, almost instinctively lunging toward the alarm button on his right—
But before his hand could touch the button, bone-chilling cold swept through his entire body.
The next second, he too froze in place, becoming another ice sculpture. His arm remained outstretched, as if still expressing the determination he had held onto in the final second before being frozen.
Unfortunately... it was too late.
Inside the warship, the Taotie vanguard members, completely unaware of what had happened on the deck, continued assigning tasks.
"For the next surface reconnaissance mission, who's going?" Yu Ting's gaze swept over the people present.
"Heh heh, I suppose it's our turn this time, right?" Xiong Feng was the first to step forward.
Almost at the same time, Feng Lei stood up across from him.
"I can barely hold myself back any longer. I want to offer even more deaths to My God Karl."
Yu Ting glanced at the two of them and was just about to nod—
"Captain! Something's wrong!"
An urgent report suddenly came from the direction of the control console.
Yu Ting frowned and turned his head.
"What happened?"
It was Di Shen, who was responsible for navigation. His hands flew across the console, and his voice carried unmistakable confusion.
"The outside of the warship has been surrounded by a vast stretch of unknown dark clouds. None of our external detectors can penetrate them. We... have lost real-time monitoring of the outside world."
Yu Ting's brow furrowed even more deeply.
"This is space. Where would dark clouds come from? Di Shen, you haven't lost your mind, have you?" Xiong Feng sneered.
Feng Lei, however, mused, "It looks like dark clouds, but since they've appeared in space... they might be some kind of unknown phenomenon, or perhaps..."
He paused, lowering his voice.
"Someone did this deliberately."
Yu Ting pondered for a moment before swiftly making his decision.
"All units, enter first-level combat readiness. Prepare to engage the enemy at any time!"
"Yes!"
Di Shen immediately began tapping rapidly on the console. The alarms inside all three warships rang out almost simultaneously, while red warning lights bathed the cabins in a grim atmosphere.
Yu Ting turned to Xiong Feng and Feng Lei and ordered in a low voice, "Feng Lei, Xiong Feng, take a reconnaissance squad into that patch of dark clo... black fog and find out exactly what's going on."
"Yes!"
Feng Lei and Xiong Feng answered in unison, their metal combat boots striking the floor with heavy echoes.
The two of them quickly turned and headed toward the equipment area, where an elite ten-man reconnaissance squad had already assembled.
"Check your equipment. Assemble outside the cabin in thirty seconds." Feng Lei's voice was calm and concise.
Xiong Feng bared his teeth in a grin, a battle-hungry gleam flashing in his eyes.
"Finally, we get to stretch our legs. I'm practically rusting inside this tin can."
Thirty seconds later, the airtight door of the launch bay slowly opened.
Twelve fully armed Taotie Warriors stepped into the narrow connecting passage. The final hatch leading outside lay ahead.
"Open the hatch," Feng Lei ordered.
The hydraulic system rumbled lowly as the heavy alloy hatch slid open to both sides—
The frigid chill of space surged in instantly, but following it came something even more unsettling: a certain "presence."
Beyond the passage was not the pitch-black starry sky they had expected. Instead, everything was shrouded in a dense darkness that seemed capable of absorbing all light.
"Damn, this really does look like a patch of dark clouds..." Feng Lei stared at the dense, roiling darkness before him and spoke in a low voice.
The reconnaissance squad maintained a tight formation as it slowly advanced into the cloud.
Suddenly, a streak of icy-blue light flashed through the darkness.
"Enemy attack!"
Feng Lei reacted with astonishing speed, sweeping his energy rifle wildly toward the light. The soldiers behind him immediately raised their weapons and joined in, their dense fire completely covering the area.
Only after firing for more than twenty seconds did Feng Lei raise his hand to signal a ceasefire.
The gunfire abruptly stopped, but all the Taotie Warriors still gripped their weapons tightly, warily staring ahead.
Feng Lei slowly stepped forward, his combat boots treading through the silent void—
Then his pupils suddenly contracted.
Before he could react, bone-chilling cold had already swept through his entire body. In the next instant, he had transformed into a solid ice sculpture.
The squad members behind him did not even have time to cry out before meeting the same fate.
Xiong Feng reacted the fastest. He turned and tried to flee in the direction they had come from—
Unfortunately, he was still too slow.
Ice crystals coiled around his armor like vines, freezing even his final struggle in time.
Above the cloud, Azhui stared wide-eyed at Su Bai beside her, her mind momentarily unable to process what she was seeing.
This... wasn't quite right, was it?
Are you sure his "brain doesn't work properly"?
Azhui was not the only one. Everyone in the livestream room was equally shocked.
At that moment, Su Bai had a pair of "wings" spread behind him, one half formed from sparkling ice crystals and the other half from blazing flames. The usual simple, vacant look was gone from his face, replaced by a calm and confident smile.
No matter how she looked at it... this was not the expression one would expect from someone with a damaged soul and the mind of a child.
Could he have been pretending all along?
But they had actually misunderstood.
The reason Su Bai appeared like this was partly because his soul had recovered slightly after continuously writing in the Diary. As for that smile—
Ahem, that was because Xiao Xue had asked him to "look a little cooler."
Su Bai gently exhaled a wisp of icy-blue chill, countless tiny ice crystals reflected deep in his eyes.
Ahead, three Taotie warships had been completely enveloped by the surging dark clouds. Around the outside of the clouds, countless ice crystals reflected one another, refracting light and forming a massive, dazzling cage.
"The world—"
He slowly raised his left hand, his voice calm yet carrying a piercing force that was difficult to describe.
"Is in my hands."
As his words fell, a miniature, blazing, spinning "sun" suddenly appeared in his palm.
Immediately afterward, a jade-green hurricane howled into existence, spiraling around the sun.
Gray dark clouds surged forth, staining the hurricane with a chaotic hue.
Crackling—deep-blue lightning leaped and flashed around it.
Clear droplets of water emerged, weaving and intertwining with the dancing arcs of electricity.
Finally, scattered ice crystal fragments revolved slowly around the outermost layer like a ring of stars.
"This is—"
Su Bai gazed at the miniature spectacle in his palm, where multiple elements had fused together in harmonious coexistence, and spoke softly.
"A parting gift."
The next moment—
That "Rasengan," condensed from several elements, dragged an orange-yellow lightning tail as it shot toward the fleet below at incredible speed, following a jagged trajectory that nearly resembled a lightning emblem.
At that moment, inside the warship's command room—
Yu Ting realized that Feng Lei's squad had been out of contact for a long time. Their signal had vanished completely.
"What happened? Could there really be enemies lurking in the black fog?"
He no longer hesitated and decisively ordered, "Di Shen, order the other two warships to coordinate their attack and blanket the black-cloud region with full-fire orbital cannon bombardment!"
Before you continue