The Children Wake, Hunted by the Mastermind!

Lin Xuan reclined in the captain's chair, his eyes closed, his soul consciousness already taking control of every corner of the ship.

He did not rush to deal with the children in the hibernation pods.

The hallucinogenic gas filling the cargo hold was a neurotoxin that would continuously erode a living being's will to survive.

Waking them directly could trigger widespread mental breakdowns, or even brain death.

The environment had to be purified first.

With a thought from Lin Xuan, the cargo hold's environmental control module was brought up separately on the bridge console.

Gas composition, concentration, circulation system... all the data was laid out at a glance.

He did not attempt to operate the complex control system.

A gentle strand of soul consciousness flowed silently through the ship's internal piping and into the cargo hold's air circulation system.

This power was the true essence of the Purity Scripture that he had comprehended from the panel's manuals. When wielded through soul consciousness, it could cleanse filth and purify sinister impurities, its effectiveness depending on the strength of one's soul consciousness.

Inside the frigid cargo hold, the pale blue gas carrying a cloying, strange fragrance silently disintegrated the instant it came into contact with that power.

The toxin's molecular structure was directly broken apart and reconstructed.

In just a few breaths, the air in the cargo hold had become fresh, carrying a faint scent of grass after rain.

After finishing all this, Lin Xuan did not stop.

He manipulated his soul consciousness, turning it into hundreds of invisible threads.

These threads precisely entered every hibernation pod, lightly touching the children's foreheads as they slept.

Warm currents of energy slowly yet steadily nourished their fragile souls, which had been eroded by the toxin.

As the toxins inside and outside their bodies were cleared away, the sleeping children began to react.

A little girl of four or five trembled her long eyelashes and let out a soft, dreamlike murmur.

Her awakening seemed to be a signal.

"Mm..."

"Mom... I'm so cold..."

"Where is this... It's so dark..."

One hibernation pod after another, the children gradually opened their bewildered eyes.

What greeted them were cold metal walls and indicator lights flickering with a dim glow.

Around them were countless unfamiliar faces, their eyes equally filled with terror.

After a brief, deathly silence.

"Waaah—!"

A loud cry tore through the stillness, instantly igniting panic among all the children.

"Mom! I want my mom!"

"Let me out! What is this place?!"

"I'm scared! I'm so scared!"

Panic was contagious.

In an instant, the entire cargo hold descended into chaos.

The cries, screams, and pounding on pod doors from hundreds of children blended together, enough to drive anyone mad.

On the bridge, Lin Xuan's brow creased slightly.

His figure blurred atop the captain's chair. The next second, he had silently appeared in the center of the chaotic cargo hold.

Facing the wave of frantic cries, Lin Xuan merely slowly closed his eyes.

He neither spoke to comfort them nor forcibly opened the hibernation pods.

An even grander and gentler wave of soul consciousness spread outward from him like rings of golden ripples.

This power carried neither coercion nor pressure.

Like warm winter sunlight, like a mother's soft humming, it silently embraced every child.

The invisible force brushed over every hibernation pod, as well as every terrified child who was crying out.

A little boy who had been pounding hard on his pod door abruptly froze.

The terror on his face faded into confusion as he felt as though a pair of warm, large hands had wrapped around him.

A little girl huddled in a corner, trembling all over, stopped crying.

She sniffled, her large eyes full of confusion, as though she could hear her mother humming a lullaby by her ear.

The ear-splitting cries gradually subsided. Screams turned into sobs, and sobs turned into whispers.

In less than a minute, the entire cargo hold had fallen silent once more.

The children were still inside their hibernation pods, but they no longer cried or shouted. Only bewilderment and calm remained on their faces.

They stared with curious eyes at the man standing quietly outside the cabin, sensing an innate closeness from him.

Lin Xuan slowly opened his eyes and looked at the children, who had temporarily calmed down, while considering how to get them out safely.

But at that moment, his expression abruptly changed.

His gaze seemed to pierce through layer upon layer of decks and dense fog, reaching toward the distant horizon.

Within the range of his soul perception, an icy, utterly emotionless killing intent was surging in from the direction of the horizon at an astonishing speed.

There were dozens of incoming enemies.

Each was like a drawn sword, their targets clear and their killing intent fierce.

Inside the volcano base, the Doctor's gaunt face looked somewhat sinister beneath the red glow of the surveillance screens.

"The Ghost Ship has gone offline. Signal interrupted..."

"Activate the 'Cleaners' protocol!"

His wrinkled hand slammed down hard on a blood-red button.

Deep within the base, dozens of launch silos hidden in the rock walls opened at once.

Jet-black drones shaped like flying locusts shot into the sky, trailing crimson flames.

These drones had no pilots or complicated weapons systems, because they were weapons themselves.

At the core of every drone was a highly compressed fusion bomb. Their mission was to self-destruct upon reaching the target.

This was the Doctor's contingency plan, specifically designed to destroy all failed products and evidence.

Dozens of Cleaners formed a torrent of death, hurtling toward the Ghost Ship's coordinates at more than five times the speed of sound.

They would erase that ship—and every secret aboard it—from this world completely.

Aboard the Ghost Ship.

Lin Xuan's eyes turned cold.

"Trying to destroy the evidence?"

A sneer curled across Lin Xuan's lips.

"What a fine plan."

He knew full well the speed and destructive power of those drones.

If they got close, not only would this ship be destroyed, but the sea within several kilometers would be vaporized in an instant.

And the children who had only just awakened from their nightmare would not even leave behind a trace of ash.

There was no time to hesitate.

Lin Xuan vanished from the cargo hold in an instant and reappeared in the captain's chair on the bridge.

His fingers swept rapidly across the holographic nautical chart, quickly locking onto the coordinates of the nearest deserted island.

"Raise engine output to one hundred and twenty percent!"

"Activate all energy shields!"

At his command, the colossal ship that had been moving like a ghost finally let out a roar for the first time.

Several main thrusters at the stern blasted out white plasma flames over a hundred meters long. The massive vessel shuddered violently, then brutally tore across the sea's surface and charged toward the deserted island at full speed.

A huge white wake, as though plowed open by force, stretched across the sea behind it.

Lin Xuan stood before the observation window, gazing at the distant sky, where the first pale light of dawn had begun to appear.

In his perception, the dozens of red dots were rapidly closing in.

He had to move the children onto the island before the drone swarm arrived, then deal with the rest.