Chapter 35: He Is a Tyrant

Wen Yuzhi actually wanted to say he could walk on his own.

But when the teenager’s eyes swept over the corpses and blood on the floor...

...All right.

Being carried is fine, then.

Over these past days, Wen Yuzhi had been carried around plenty. From not being used to it at all in the beginning, to now—he’d slowly gotten a little accustomed to it.

Besides, the Saint Clan were tall. Sitting in the crook of their arm always made the view feel wider.

As for embarrassment...

Wen Yuzhi had already let it go.

In the eyes of these Saint Clan, he was a cub anyway, and wasn’t it perfectly normal for a cub to be carried?

If there was anything that wasn’t normal...

It was that the one carrying him was actually Selet.

Selet looked icy, and the attitude toward Wen Yuzhi was cold and indifferent, too. Wen Yuzhi hadn’t expected Selet to come over on the initiative and pick him up.

Wen Yuzhi blinked, hesitated a little, and said, “Thank you.”

Selet’s steps paused so faintly it was almost imperceptible.

But the expression on the Saint Clan’s face remained indifferent. Selet only said that it was what a subordinate should do, and then stopped speaking again.

“......”

Once or twice was enough for Wen Yuzhi to realize this adjutant—someone he’d only just met—seemed a bit hard to approach.

...Did Selet not like him?

The thought crossed Wen Yuzhi’s mind, but it didn’t make him feel especially sad.

He wasn’t the type everyone liked. Back at the Wen household, there was still Wen Xingyan, who fought with him day after day. If anything, after arriving on Dark Tower Star, every Saint Clan he’d met had been unusually warm and friendly to him, to the point it left Wen Yuzhi a little at a loss.

So, all things considered, Wen Yuzhi could accept Selet’s coldness.

He wrestled with it for a moment, then tossed it to the back of his mind.

What Wen Yuzhi didn’t know was that just as Wen Yuzhi turned to look at Mond, from an angle Wen Yuzhi couldn’t see, Selet’s gaze—while seeming to stare straight ahead—kept letting a sliver of sidelong attention fall quietly on the teenager.

But by now, Wen Yuzhi was already asking Mond, “Can I bring them with me?”

He meant the Gumu.

They had just helped him, and before it was confirmed the palace was completely safe, Wen Yuzhi also wanted to bring them along.

The Gumu seemed to understand Wen Yuzhi was talking about them, and they excitedly let out a chorus of guji guji.

Then, Wen Yuzhi and the Gumu all looked in Mond’s direction at the same time.

The pale-gold pupils and the round little bean eyes were perfectly synchronized in that instant—both round, both equally clear and clean, both full of hopeful expectation.

Mond was instantly stabbed right in the softest part of the heart by that sight. A gentle smile appeared on Mond’s face, and even the voice seemed to soften a lot.

“Of course you can. Little Highness, do you need me to bring a basket?”

Wen Yuzhi blinked again and said happily, “That would be great. Thank you so much, Mr. Mond!”

Mond couldn’t help saying, “It’s my honor to make you happy.”

In the end, this group of Gumu—so fortunate as to be promoted to the little Highness’s new favorites—were placed into a basket lined with soft padding, under the envious gazes of the other Saint Clan.

Wen Yuzhi didn’t let anyone else handle it. He personally hugged the basket close to his chest.

Only, that light atmosphere came to an abrupt stop as they neared the council hall.

Wen Yuzhi caught a thick, heavy stench of blood on the wind.

The closer they got to the council hall, the heavier the blood smell became.

The tall doors were only half shut, barely covering the opening, and through the crack, a fresh red liquid was still flowing out from inside.

Wen Yuzhi took one look and recognized it.

Blood.

And it even looked like it had just seeped out of a body—fresh to an unsettling degree.

Wen Yuzhi also noticed the carpet here was darker than in other places.

No idea if it was because it had absorbed so much blood.

Wen Yuzhi didn’t let his eyes linger on the carpet long. He lifted his head—before even going in, he could already hear the bursts of shrill screaming inside, hysterical, mixed with furious curses and shouted abuse.

The next moment, the doors opened, and two Ge De guards dragged a... thing... out.

Why call it a thing?

Because Wen Yuzhi couldn’t be sure what species that blurry lump of flesh had been when it was alive.

Mond didn’t look the way Mond had when facing Wen Yuzhi earlier—no longer gentle. Mond stared at the bloody mess with disgust and said coldly, “Throw it straight into the bug pit. Wrap it with a cloth—don’t dirty the carpet.”

After all, these carpets had only just been replaced to welcome the little Highness. How could they be dirtied by this kind of trash?

Listening to Mond’s orders, and looking at that lump of flesh that seemed to still have the faint rise and fall of breathing, Wen Yuzhi thought he would feel sick. He’d never experienced something this bloody before.

But in reality, his heart was simply beating faster.

He’d seen those Padar people die earlier, too, on his side. He’d never seen that much blood before, either.

Yet unexpectedly, when facing blood and corpses up close, Wen Yuzhi didn’t feel much fear.

“Do you want to go in?”

Selet asked.

As if, if Wen Yuzhi didn’t want to go in, Selet would immediately take Wen Yuzhi away from here.

Leave, or stay.

Faced with that choice, Wen Yuzhi didn’t hesitate.

“Go in.”

Selet didn’t say anything. The instant Wen Yuzhi gave the order, Selet’s body already obeyed the command, carrying Wen Yuzhi forward.

The council hall was exactly the same as when Wen Yuzhi had come before.

The only obvious difference was the Padar people crouched on the ground, shivering.

The Padar people who had invaded the palace tonight—aside from the few who’d ended up on Wen Yuzhi’s side—were basically all here now.

They no longer had that earlier arrogance and confidence. When they saw the figure on the throne, the Padar people—whose minds had been knocked dizzy by power—finally started to regain clarity.

And once they realized what kind of stupid thing they’d done, panic flooded their faces in an instant.

Some fell to their knees and begged Mansendis.

Some bowed their heads and curled into a ball, trying to reduce their sense of presence as much as possible.

And some had already guessed they couldn’t escape death. They simply broke completely and screamed insane curses at the silver-haired sovereign on the throne.

“If you hadn’t taken our homeland and stolen our planet, we wouldn’t have wanted to kill you!”

“You Saint Clan killed so many of our people first—you’re butchers! You’re a pack of madmen!”

The grating abuse echoed through the council hall.

Selet brought Wen Yuzhi in just in time to hear it.

With no doors blocking [N O V E L I G H T] the sound, the Padar people’s voices were even clearer, even sharper. The volume they raised—out of fear or rage—was just ugly noise to the ears.

So loud.

Wen Yuzhi knitted his brows slightly.

He didn’t look at the Padar people on the floor. He stared straight at Mansendis seated on the throne.

The silver-haired sovereign’s expression was indifferent, as if the Padar people’s curses didn’t matter in the slightest.

And at some point, the heavy curtains on both sides of the hall had been drawn back.

Moonlight poured in like running water through the windows, landing on the layered steps, one after another. The final thread of silver glow barely crossed the stairs—only to stop short right before the towering throne.

Light and shadow formed a stark dividing line.

Mansendis sat in darkness. A black crown like coiling vines pressed down on that silver-white hair. With eyes lowered, those golden vertical pupils—brighter and more dazzling than the sun—held a bleak, silent chill.

The silver-haired sovereign didn’t say a single word.

Yet the icy, terrifying aura and the heavy pressure radiating outward made the air in the hall feel as if it had frozen solid.

The longer Mansendis stayed silent, the colder that atmosphere of stillness became.

The Padar people closest to the steps felt it most deeply.

Gradually, even the few who’d been screaming grew quieter and quieter.

A thread of cold spread from their backs through their whole bodies. Shaking, they lifted their heads—

And what entered their view was the silver-haired sovereign’s golden vertical pupils, reflecting their own tiny figures.

All at once, those Padar people remembered a line that had circulated through the star sectors.

—The Saint Clan are monsters without feelings.

Without feelings...

“M-monster...!”

The Padar people looked like they’d gone mad. They stared at Mansendis—whose expression hadn’t changed once since they were dragged in—as if Mansendis truly were some hideous, terrifying beast.

Wen Yuzhi had heard words like that before, too.

In his memory, Wen Xingyan’s disgusted, frightened gaze was still deeply branded into Wen Yuzhi’s mind.

In a daze, reality and memory interlaced before Wen Yuzhi’s eyes—Wen Xingyan’s shrill scream and these Padar people’s voices seemed to overlap in that instant.

And what yanked Wen Yuzhi out of it was a scream of unbearable pain.

Wen Yuzhi snapped back and saw the scene in the council hall had completely changed.

Mansendis had come down the steps.

One hand was clamped around the Padar person who’d just shouted that word—monster.

Bone spines unfurled segment by segment, wrapping the body. The edge that was as sharp as a blade twisted and cinched tight around the Padar person.

Drip... drip...

Blood kept falling. It was quickly absorbed by the carpet, then more fell again, repeating in a cycle.

But the Padar person didn’t die.

Mansendis “mercifully” left a gap—just barely enough for breathing.

Fresh air was right there, within reach, and the Padar person could only drag in breath desperately.

That slow torment was no different from being sliced apart a thousand times.

But there was no choice.

There wasn’t even a way to struggle. The bone spines had already severed the nerves in the spine the moment they wrapped around, and the intense pain this Padar person could “feel” now was only an illusion—phantom pain.

The body had already memorized the worst moment.

“Hh... hh...”

A muffled sound rasped out of the throat.

Mansendis didn’t even look at the Padar person once.

The silver-haired sovereign looked toward the other Padar people. The tone was calm.

“My patience is limited.”

“Who gave you that drug?”

“And who was the first person you contacted?”

Two questions in a row, yet the Padar people stammered and fumbled, unable to force out any clear answer.

Mansendis released the grip.

A rush of fresh air flooded into the lungs. The Padar person thought, for an instant, that this meant salvation.

But the next moment—

The bone spines crawled up over the body.

Like a snake, winding tighter and tighter, ring after ring.

Crack-crack-crack—bones snapping in rapid succession.

When the bone spines finally loosened again, what collapsed to the floor was only a shapeless lump of blood.

Staring at that lump, Wen Yuzhi finally understood what the “thing” dragged out at the door earlier had been.

Clearly, before this Padar person, there had already been an example killed by the bone spines.

And watching the bone spines return to Mansendis after killing the Padar person in the most painful way, Wen Yuzhi felt... unfamiliar.

They didn’t look anything like the image in his memory—spoiled, clingy, and always acting cute.

Instead, they were bloodthirsty. Killing intent. A sharp weapon from head to toe, radiating an icy edge.

It made people shiver without meaning to.

Especially after the bone spines had effortlessly strangled one Padar person to death—every other Padar person who saw it was so terrified they couldn’t even speak.

When they finally reacted and tried to scramble over each other, desperate to throw themselves at the silver-haired sovereign’s feet and blurt out answers, Mansendis no longer looked at them.

“Take them all away and deal with them.”

“Not leaving a single one?”

Alvin asked.

“Don’t leave any. Since they don’t want to live, there’s no need to keep them.”

Mansendis pulled off the glove that had touched the Padar person and tossed it onto the lump of blood on the floor.

Alvin wasn’t surprised by this answer at all.

Turning to face the remaining Padar people, the Saint Clan’s expression was gentle—looking far easier to talk to than Mansendis had just been.

But the moment Alvin spoke, the words made the Padar people go cold all over.

“Let me think about how to deal with you. Don’t worry—I’m not like the king. I prefer... brighter methods.”

“Just happens the bug pit is short on feed lately. How about you go be that feed?”

“I think you should be willing, right?”

Willing?

How could anyone be willing?

The Padar people hadn’t expected that switching to a different Saint Clan would lead to an even more living-hell ending.

At this point, Alvin’s gentle smile looked, to them, no different from a reaper’s demon.

Alvin was just about to take them away when, turning around, Alvin saw Selet at the door, and...

“Little Highness?”

There was surprise in Alvin’s tone.

Clearly, Alvin hadn’t expected Wen Yuzhi to come here.

By Alvin’s original plan, Mond shouldn’t have let the little Highness come, much less let the little Highness be exposed to something this bloody.

That’s right.

Even though the Saint Clan scoffed at the labels other species in the galaxy slapped onto them, Alvin also knew there was one line those species hadn’t gotten wrong.

That line was: brutal.

The Saint Clan’s methods toward enemies had always been cruel and violent.

The little Highness had lived among humans before. Alvin didn’t know whether what they’d just done would scare Wen Yuzhi.

And Mansendis had known from the start that Selet had brought Wen Yuzhi in.

Yet Mansendis still executed that Padar person right in front of the cub.

Would the child fear him?

Mansendis wasn’t sure.

But Mansendis knew that if given a chance to do it again, Mansendis would still do the same.

Mansendis wanted his child to understand—

He was not a merciful sovereign.

And the Saint Clan were even less a merciful people.

Looking at them through a human lens was, without doubt, an extremely foolish thing to do.

—

Silence fell so heavily in that instant it was almost oppressive.

After Alvin called out “little Highness,” the entire council hall abruptly quieted.

The Padar people on the floor also stared curiously at the teenager carried in the crook of a tall Saint Clan’s arm.

A sense for beauty was something all races shared.

Even though these Padar people hated the Saint Clan, even though they were in this situation, they still had to admit—

The teenager being carefully held by the Saint Clan had a face even prettier than an elf’s.

Compared to the tall Saint Clan, Wen Yuzhi looked like a delicate porcelain doll.

Some Padar people also noticed the silver hair and golden eyes, and the faint resemblance in the brows and eyes to that sovereign.

...What was the relationship?

They guessed wildly, uncertain.

The smarter ones seemed to have already guessed it—the silver hair and golden eyes, and Alvin’s “little Highness”... the identity was almost self-evident.

But they didn’t dare believe it.

Or rather—they didn’t want to believe it.

...Was it possible?

...Since when did the Saint Clan have another royal blood?

Wen Yuzhi didn’t care about the Padar people’s measuring stares.

What disappointed them was that this little Highness, who looked soft and weak, was oddly cold when looking at them.

As if, in Wen Yuzhi’s eyes, they were nothing but dead things.

They had seen that same look on the silver-haired sovereign before.

Wen Yuzhi didn’t have Mansendis’s kind of oppressive pressure, and the feeling Wen Yuzhi gave off wasn’t icy at all.

Wen Yuzhi was so soft, so harmless.

Almost not similar at all to the powerful, terrifying Saint Clan.

Yet for some reason, these Padar people still sensed, on Wen Yuzhi, the same chill they had once felt from the silver-haired sovereign.

Mond saw the little Highness staring at the Padar people, and couldn’t help worrying the little Highness might be fooled by their current state.

Mond hurried to explain, “Little Highness, these Padar people are best at plundering. They often rob merchant ships passing by—not only swallowing the cargo, but often killing everyone on board. And with races weaker than them, they’ll even go occupy the other side’s planet.”

The kind that set fires, loot, and still won’t stop until everything is wiped out.

The things those Padar people had accused Mansendis of—were all things they themselves had done.

They had completely forgotten that the reason the Saint Clan attacked Kanirila in the first place was because these Padar people had tried to come rob a Saint Clan merchant ship first.

Otherwise, from as far away as the Eighth Star Sector, the Saint Clan couldn’t be bothered to go out of the way to pick a fight.

And the Saint Clan had allowed most Padar people to leave. The ones brought back to Dark Tower Star were all from the Padar upper ranks.

The decision to seize the Saint Clan merchant ship had been made by these exact people.

What’s more, Alvin and the others had also found that these Padar people seemed to have colluded with certain forces out in the galaxy before.

Alvin suspected the robbery hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment idea. That ship had been carrying quite a lot of ore that could be refined into energy.

If that much ore truly fell into the hands of the Padar people—or those forces—the consequences could have been even worse.

Not knowing whether it was an act deliberately aimed at the Saint Clan, the Saint Clan naturally couldn’t let these Padar people go. When leaving Kanirila, Alvin also brought these prisoners back along the way.

But clearly, the Padar people hadn’t learned their lesson.

Hearing Mond’s words, they tried to speak up and defend themselves—

Only for bone spines to wrap tightly around their mouths.

Mansendis didn’t command the bone spines, but Mansendis also took a tacitly approving attitude toward what they did.

Just like Mond’s explanation—Mansendis didn’t stop it, either.

The silver-haired sovereign sat on the throne.

Looking down below—

Wen Yuzhi had lowered his head.

From up high, Mansendis couldn’t see the teenager’s expression clearly.

The Padar people at the side were already trembling so hard they could barely hold themselves up.

But what about the cub?

Would the cub also think he was cruel?

Or would the cub believe he was a cold-blooded, ruthless tyrant?