Ye Tian's wrong decision cost him a lesson paid in blood. His three hundred–odd loyal subordinates had the land vehicles' heavy firepower behind them, but machine guns were nothing next to the Phalanx. And a thousand-plus cannibals were more than that handful of soldiers could handle.
In a blink, a rain of stones came down, and more than a dozen land vehicles were simply smashed down to the ground by the stones. The battered soldiers, before they even landed, were seized by leaping cannibals and torn to pieces.
Sharp claws scooped out soldiers' hearts, and the spurting blood dyed the black carapaces red. The monstrously strong cannibal warriors could even rip a soldier in two while he was still alive.
Now Ye Tian understood: the cannibals had evolved not only in brains but in strength. To his astonishment, even the weakest of the cannibals facing him was the equal of a third-dan martial artist.
A full thousand-plus third-dan martial artists charging as one was a spectacle rarely seen even on the front lines of the Horsehead Star Ring and the Orion Star Ring, and on top of that there were quite a few fourth-dan martial artists mixed in among them.
"Give the order to retreat. This is a reckless order—a commander like you belongs before a military tribunal..." The Imperial Guards around Ye Tian simply couldn't stand it any longer, and they accused him in one voice.
"We've recorded everything you've done today, all of it. I'm sure Lord Gu Bai will give you a fair judgment. You'd better order a retreat right now; if these three hundred–plus soldiers die here, it'll only add to your crimes..."
The Imperial Guards' threat sobered Ye Tian considerably. He really had been too furious to think straight; he had never meant to send his men to their deaths. Sheer frustration had made him speak so recklessly.
"Retreat. All of you, retreat..."
But it was too late to retreat now. The cannibals had closed their encirclement, and the three hundred brave men were candles guttering in the wind, to be torn apart one after another.
"Captain, I can't stay with you any longer. I'm sorry..." One soldier triggered the land vehicle's self-destruct sequence and shouted his last words before he died.
The violent explosions reminded every despairing soldier on that field of one thing: better to blow yourself up than become cannibal rations. No one wanted to end up as heaps of dung in the Pillar Forest.
"Captain, avenge us..."
"Send the money I saved to my mom..."
"Ye Tian, you idiot, get out of here! We can't hold them much longer..."
These deathbed confessions came wrapped in burst after burst of explosions, the whole battlefield a blaze of red fire. The Imperial Guards had already hauled Ye Tian up, dragged him backward and shoved him into a land vehicle; paying no mind to how wretchedly their captain wept, they gunned the engine and roared off north.
Just as the land vehicle fled north, a signal forced its way into Ye Tian's terminal, and Gu Bai's furious voice came through.
"Ye Tian, you son of a bitch, you explain to me why the Earth-Moon missiles were activated! Why were they aimed at the exchange zone? What excuse do you have left? You're a traitor, you bastard..."
At that, without listening to a word of Ye Tian's explanation, Gu Bai shouted to the four Imperial Guards, "Take him up into space for me and lock him in the Flying Maiden's brig. I'm sending him to a military tribunal."
By then Ye Tian had stopped holding back. Pointing at Gu Bai's nose on the screen, he roared, "I don't give a damn what crime you pin on me. If you want to kill me, kill me, but spare me the bullshit. But I'm telling you this: those three hundred dead soldiers were old brothers I brought back from the front lines. Every one of them has been through death with the Hunters..."
"If you're still an officer of the Empire, then order the space warships to open fire right now. Blast those revolting cannibals to hell and avenge my brothers..."
Ye Tian shouted himself hoarse, and the force of it left Gu Bai staring openmouthed. He was silent a full half minute before he nodded. "Damn it. Traitor or not, you're a decent soldier—you know how to avenge your men. Fine, I'll give you that much face..." Then the holographic screen went completely black.
Ye Tian knew Gu Bai wouldn't lie to him. He turned and gazed at the southern horizon, his heart full of grief for his comrades. Gu Bai did not keep him waiting long; the Imperial Guard were the elite of the elite, after all. In less than three minutes, that holy white light appeared in the sky once more.
This time the pillar of light was brighter, thicker, longer-lasting. Ye Tian could tell at a glance that it was the main cannon of an interstellar assault ship firing—power that an orbital warship could not begin to match.
"Brothers! Your big brother has avenged you! Don't wander too far, ghosts—I'll be right behind you..." With that, tears covered Ye Tian's face.
Just as Ye Tian was being escorted into space, below the Pillar Forest, in the mine tunnels a hundred meters underground, Wuchang—fleeing with the princess on his back—was going out of his mind, because their position lay right inside the blast radius of the ship's cannons. The barrage had actually set off a small earthquake underground.
Chunks of volcanic rock fell from the tunnel roof and struck the princess's back. The precious cloak shielded her, but it still hurt badly.
Seismic ripples were already running across the ground above. Wuchang's foot was just about to land when the earth suddenly dropped away beneath it; caught off guard, he stepped into empty air and went down with the princess, the two of them tumbling like rolling gourds.
"Ow! That hurt—can't you watch where you're going..." Wuchang ignored the princess's complaining. He seized her, scooped her up with both hands, and planted Ye Mei's backside onto his back.
"Get the cloak on, quick—there's a shelter four hundred meters ahead." Without waiting for Ye Mei to answer, he flooded his whole body with Dragon-Tiger strength and brought out the Tiger Break movement technique; Wuchang turned into a streak of afterimage, racing forward.
"Ah!" Ye Mei had never imagined Wuchang could run this fast—so fast she did not even have time to pull the cloak on. By the time she had it over her shoulders, he had already shot more than a hundred meters.
"You villain. Taking liberties with me like that," Ye Mei muttered in Wuchang's ear.
Wuchang's whole mind was on running. He never noticed that once he poured Dragon-Tiger strength into himself, every muscle in his body had been called into play—and that his two hands were now cradling Ye Mei's ample rear, his big palms already dug into the flesh, the soft cheeks squeezing out between his fingers.
A princess of her standing had never been handled like that. Under the intense stimulation, Ye Mei went scarlet to the ears, and even her voice dropped to a whisper.
The shaking from the ship's cannons was not a real earthquake, after all. The tunnels had taken damage of varying degrees, but nothing catastrophic; by the time Wuchang carried the princess into the shelter, the tremors had already eased a good deal.
Wuchang sat on the floor with his back against the wall, gulping down air, while Ye Mei squeezed in beside him like the girl next door and spread the cloak over them both.
"Are you tired? Are you really that tired? Uncle Gu Bai can run way better than you." Ye Mei had clearly never learned how to comfort anyone—the words out of her mouth were guaranteed to annoy.
Wuchang was in no mood to bicker. He downed a bottle of purified water in one go, then wolfed down an entire pack of dried meat, and only then did he recover about half his stamina.
"I'm rested. Let's get moving..." With that, Wuchang grabbed that ample rear once more and hauled Ye Mei onto his back, indifferent to whether she was blushing or acting strange, and pounded off down the tunnel again.
That fall was really just a minor interlude along the way—but the two of them had no idea that such a small incident would bring enormous danger down on their plans later.
During that brief moment when the two of them lay on the ground and the cloak slipped off their bodies, in an ordinary basement in Huang'e City, several tense-looking people suddenly let out a low cry.
"There it is—it's showing up! Underground, no less, and pushing north..."
Several heads crowded in around the edge of the screen, and they panted with excitement at the blinking dots. One of them said, "That's right, absolutely right. One of those codes is Wuchang's terminal encryption signature. These two have to be Wuchang and the princess."
"Excellent. We finally found those two rats. This spy radar the Hunters developed really is something—its decryption capability is a full 30 percent better than our own radar."
"Boss, what do we do now?"
One of them rested his chin on his hand and kneaded it hard, running scenario after scenario through his head. A full ten minutes passed; only when the two dots had vanished from the radar did he finally speak.
"I've studied the Second Princess's temperament for a full ten years. She's a mad girl with adventure in her blood. Rushing north in such a hurry like that, chances are she's going to break someone out of prison..."
"Break into a prison?" His subordinates were dumbstruck. "The princess, breaking into a prison? To free who? How is that even possible?"
"Haha, you never would have guessed, would you? Honestly, neither would I. But our Second Princess loves doing the unthinkable—otherwise why would the First Princess guard against her so carefully?"
"All right, enough chatter. Everyone follows my orders..."
Ye Mei had no idea that someone in Huang'e City was scheming against her—and that this person even held top-secret military equipment produced in the Hunter Star Ring. Clearly the net the First Princess had woven was vast indeed, and her resolve to kill Ye Mei was firm.
While those unknown figures were making their preparations, Wuchang, carrying Ye Mei on his back through a day and two nights of hard travel, had finally drawn near the edge of the underground base. A little farther and they would enter the security perimeter.
"I... I need to rest... a moment..." Wuchang plopped down on the ground and gulped for air. Nearly five hundred kilometers in almost forty-eight hours—that was already far past the absolute limit of human physical capacity. Without the support of an internal body-tempering art like Dragon-Tiger Rush, Wuchang probably could not have lasted even a third of the way.
Ye Mei knew how utterly exhausted he was. She did not disturb him; she simply pulled the cloak over them both and said softly, "You rest. Leave what comes next to me..."
Ye Mei took the portable terminal off Wuchang's wrist and connected it to the delicate obsidian bracelet on her own. When the obsidian bracelet projected a holographic image, Wuchang realized that the bracelet was no ornament—it was a terminal as well.
"Don't go thinking I'm just a useless princess who lives off others. Back when I studied at Imperial University under an anonymous identity, I took first place in the hacker programming contest. Cracking the defense program of one little military base is child's play..."