Chapter 79: Mobilizing the Fleet

Mansendis felt as if he’d just had an unbelievably beautiful dream.

In the dream, he was sprawled in a gorgeous sea of flowers, and right at his side there was an adorable little cotton-ball lump clinging tightly to him the whole time.

It kept calling him “Dad,” over and over, voice soft and syrupy, clingy in that way that made him unable to resist.

It made him want to follow instinct—open his mouth and swallow the cub, keep it tucked inside, hidden away.

This was his...

—His child.

Mansendis thought that, clearly.

Everything in the dream was so warm. So perfect.

When Mansendis woke from that sweet dream, for the first time in who knew how long, he actually felt reluctant to leave it.

But very quickly, the moment those golden vertical pupils fully opened, that familiar coldness and indifference gathered again across the silver-haired sovereign’s face.

With just that shift in expression, Mansendis returned to being the Saint Clan’s sovereign—

and not the giant beast in the dream who could tussle and play with a cub.

Only...

What happened in the dream still left its mark.

When his gaze dropped and he saw the cub asleep against his chest, his eyes were still cold—

but unmistakably warmed by a trace of softness.

In that moment, the silver-haired sovereign’s gaze turned gentle.

Maybe he looked for too long.

Or maybe the cub faintly sensed his gaze.

In its sleep, the cub’s tiny wings suddenly gave a light tremble.

Wen Yuzhi unconsciously scooted closer to Mansendis again, pressing his pale cheek against him, while that little paw gripped Mansendis’s clothes tightly.

“Dad... n-no... can’t eat...”

As if it had dreamed of something, the cub mumbled a sleep-talking sentence. The soft, muffled tone sounded a little wronged, and even its brow knit up.

Like a kitten—bullied, but all it could do was make tiny mewling sounds.

Watching the cub like that, Mansendis felt like he could stare forever and still not get enough.

For one brief instant, he suddenly understood his dream-self.

This was the child bound to him by blood—his deepest bond to this world.

Even if he kept the cub in his mouth, even if he held it in the palm of his hand, he still wouldn’t feel it was enough.

If he could...

Mansendis wanted time to stop right here.

He wouldn’t be the Saint Clan’s sovereign anymore.

Just a father.

And his child.

In this rare moment of relaxation, they could spend a quiet stretch of time resting here—light and unburdened.

Ever since he took the throne, Mansendis hadn’t had a moment as relaxed as this.

He’d slept once, and yet his body felt abruptly lighter.

And Mansendis knew exactly why—

because the cub in his arms had combed through his mind.

That warm, soft touch of the cub’s mental energy still seemed to linger in his head. The sharp noises that used to stab at him until his head felt like it was splitting had all disappeared.

Instead, a gentle warmth spread through him.

Light, from head to toe.

As for what had changed inside his mental sea...

When Mansendis noticed those huge stretches of blooming flowers and the thriving burst of life, he was startled—then, right after, he had that clear sense of: this is exactly the kind of thing the cub would do.

If nothing unexpected happened...

then this had to be Wen Yuzhi’s doing.

Because only Wen Yuzhi would waste something as precious as mental energy on a thing that, in other people’s eyes, might even count as “childish.”

Planting countless flowers and grasses and trees in a barren mental sea, working so hard—

just so the giant beast wouldn’t feel lonely or cold anymore.

If Mansendis wanted to, he could restore his mental sea to that old, hollow solitude with a single thought.

But in the end, he chose to keep everything the cub had changed.

He let those fragile little plants grow wild within the giant beast’s territory.

And the bone spines liked this new environment too.

Because Wen Yuzhi planted it with his own hands.

To the bone spines, if the cub made it, they liked it.

And compared to that old, icy look, they liked this lively, flourishing version even more.

It looked warm.

They liked that warm, soft feeling.

Mansendis wanted to stay like this forever, but he also knew this wasn’t a comfortable place for the cub to sleep.

They still had to go back to the room.

There were red crystals there to provide energy, a comfortable bed and blankets, and Wen Yuzhi’s favorite doll.

It would be better for the cub’s sleep.

With that thought, Mansendis lifted the sleeping cub in his hands and stood, heading out.

Layer by layer.

Separate.

Outside in the corridor, Mansendis saw the Saint Clan members waiting there.

They were about to salute when the silver-haired sovereign raised a hand and stopped them.

They froze—then noticed the cub.

A cub no bigger than a small doll was curled up in Mansendis’s palm, eyes shut ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) tight, clearly still asleep.

The moment they realized that, everyone present fell silent.

Mansendis placed the cub back in the room first.

When he came out again, the expression on his face no longer held even a trace of the gentleness he’d had in front of the cub.

Mond was holding the light-brain that had just been taken for testing.

“It’s already been checked. The model is indeed a style from twenty years ago. It’s been discontinued.”

There was nothing special about the light-brain, and there was only one communications number inside.

After Kasha and the others sent a message, the other side never replied.

And during that stretch of time just now, the technicians in the base rushed to restore all the data on the light-brain.

Mansendis opened it and went straight to that one and only contact.

There was only a single note attached to it: Changxi.

Changxi?

Mansendis lowered his gaze and asked, “Did they say what this note means?”

Mond shook their head. “They said they don’t know the other party’s real name. They only know Queen Tasiya once addressed the other party as Changxi.”

“And as far as I understand, in some of those human myths and legends, Changxi represents the moon, and is often referred to as a moon goddess.”

Unlike the Saint Clan, who believed in the Prosperous Mother Goddess, human beliefs were a chaotic mix—probably because back on Blue Star, humans had developed so many different civilizations.

But it also made the Saint Clan’s investigation extremely troublesome.

There were far too many humans who used Changxi as a name or codename.

There was even a human empire where the current emperor’s legal wife supposedly had the character for “moon” in her name, and the emperor openly declared his wife was the moon goddess in his heart.

That one gesture made anything “moon-related” surge in popularity across the human empire.

People everywhere praised the love between emperor and empress, and “moon goddess” was slapped right onto that empress’s title, which then spawned a whole wave of copycats.

And because of that, it wasn’t easy for the Saint Clan to find this “Changxi” in a short time.

They also tried using the data to locate the other party’s coordinates.

But they discovered the coordinates had long since vanished.

The trail ended here.

The only thing they could be sure of was this:

all signs pointed to Tasiya having ties with humans, and the star pirates that appeared later were, with high probability, tied to humans as well.

Humans...

A streak of icy chill flashed through Mansendis’s eyes.

“Deliver my order. Have Selet mobilize the fleet.”

He said it with no expression.

Even though they still had no concrete proof that the royal egg’s disappearance was connected to those humans—

Mansendis did have a rough understanding of the things humans were doing behind the scenes against the Saint Clan.

On the black market, there was never a shortage of bounties targeting the Saint Clan.

Mansendis had ignored it before, partly because he couldn’t be bothered.

And in recent years, after he took the throne and the Saint Clan grew stronger and stronger, even if the black market price went sky-high, very few people dared to provoke the Saint Clan.

Even the most vicious star pirates now went out of their way to detour when passing the Ninth Star Sector.

But that only meant fewer people were daring enough to come throw their lives away—not that they were gone.

There were always some lunatics who didn’t care about dying. For money, they’d do anything.

To the Mansendis of the past, no matter how much those humans jumped around, they were still just annoying flies.

He hadn’t taken them to heart.

But now these matters involved the cub.

And that had already crossed Mansendis’s line.

On top of that, there was what happened with the Padar people not long ago.

The drugs those Padar people injected—and the warships that met them—weren’t their own. It looked like the shadow of another force.

One thing after another, there was no question Mansendis had been well and truly angered.

He decided to teach those humans a lesson.

Make every other race understand clearly—

if you dared lay hands on the Saint Clan, you would pay the price.

Mond received the order and was about to withdraw, when a voice suddenly sounded behind them.

“Wait—!”

Footsteps approached. Kasha and the others came to a stop in front of Mansendis.

They hurriedly saluted. “Please allow us to accompany the fleet.”

If this was about venting anger for the little prince, of course they wanted to do their part.

The royal egg being stolen had been a thorn lodged in their hearts.

They had no face to stand in front of the little prince. They only wanted to do something—anything—to make up for it.

But Mansendis didn’t grant their request.

“I have other arrangements for you.”

............

Once Mansendis’s order went out, the Saint Clan moved fast.

Almost in no time at all, while Wen Yuzhi was still asleep, Selet had already finished counting and assembling the soldiers for combat.

Dense warships blotted out the sky above Esoris.

This operation was entirely under Selet’s command.

When this cold-faced Saint Clan adjutant heard from Mond that their purpose this trip was to teach humans a lesson, Selet didn’t speak.

But those green vertical pupils narrowed slightly, gleaming with a sharp, icy light.

And the First Star Sector had no idea the Saint Clan were coming.

It wasn’t until countless Saint Clan warships came surging toward them in overwhelming formation that they belatedly reacted.

But by then, it was too late.

The Saint Clan warships were packed together like a black flood. In an instant, they descended over the human empire’s capital world, and surrounded it from every side.

A piercing alarm shrieked to life.

The first to receive the news were the people who normally sat high above everyone else—the nobles.

Quite a few of them held positions in the military, and their information channels were exceptionally quick.

The moment they learned the Saint Clan were attacking, those nobles couldn’t sit still.

They immediately demanded an audience with His Majesty.

Inside the palace, a servant came scrambling up to the doors of a hall, half crawling and half running.

“Your Majesty! Something terrible has happened!”

Elsewhere—aside from the palace and the military—there was another place where news traveled fast.

The military academy on the capital world.

Xi Heyan was still in his dorm. When he heard the assembly whistle, his brow knit almost imperceptibly.

By the time he reached the plaza outside, he found the entire academy in chaos.

All the instructors were there, and every face wore the same anxious, panicked look.

...What was going on?

Xi Heyan wasn’t the only one confused. The students who’d been suddenly assembled were even more at a loss.

Zhuo Haoyu spotted Xi Heyan and hurried over.

“Are we going to war?”

Zhuo Haoyu said it in a lowered voice.

After all, the academy had rushed them out here and told them to stand by. No matter how you looked at it, it felt like the start of a war.

And saying it out loud made Zhuo Haoyu even more tense.

No matter how much they trained in daily life, they’d never actually been on a real battlefield.

Even though, before enrolling, Zhuo Haoyu had already mentally prepared for blood and sacrifice—

when it truly came to this moment, Zhuo Haoyu still couldn’t help feeling nervous.

Compared to that, Xi Heyan remained extremely calm.

He didn’t have Zhuo Haoyu’s tension, and he didn’t have the same panic as everyone else.

He was only thinking.

What, exactly, had happened on the capital world?

And...

would this affect his plans?

Just as Xi Heyan was thinking that, a wave of shocked cries rose around him.

As if sensing something, he lifted his head.

Above them, the sky was torn open with a single jagged rift.