“Ah! Stop, stop, stop!”
The monster’s roar rang clearly, filled with pain and madness. The strange power dispersed from the array also increased, but this time, these forces were firmly locked within a certain range by the prepared protective magic array, unable to spread.
Though it was a closed indoor space, a gust of wind suddenly appeared, quickly sweeping through every corner. The flames were fueled by the wind, rising higher and higher. The blood mists began to vaporize and disappear. Qiao Yi stood in the center of the flames, eyes lowered, looking at the blood on the floor, his expression cold and emotionless, but his killing intent overwhelming.
“Roar!”
The human curses turned into beast-like roars. The strange powers belonging to the monster began to retract. The blood mists in the flames gradually diminished. Qiao Yi suddenly flicked his finger, and a green-flamed plant seed flew towards the tracking magic array.
“Swish.”
As if stones were thrown into a stream, the last trace of blood mist dissipated. The magical flames disappeared, the wind stopped, Qiao Yi put away his staff, his long hair and robe fluttered in the wind, and he said calmly, “From today onwards, they will live every moment in the agony, with their blood burning like fire.”
Qiao Zhiya and Mi Lai stopped their magic input and approached him.
Qiao Yi reached out to embrace his concerned wife and son, looked at Chu Rong who had been quietly guarding on the sidelines, and added, “But it’s only making them suffer. This kind of suffering won’t cause any actual harm to their body. The tracking magic array just now could only confirm their proximity to the border, unable to pinpoint their exact location. Losing the experimental subjects and being injured, they may go into hiding. We must find them as soon as possible.”
Chu Rong glanced at Qiao Zhiya in his arms, nodded, and replied, “Understood.”
The scattered troops on the Federal planets began to gather at the borders, and actions also commenced in the Empire. All border planets were placed under strict martial law, with patrolling fleets seamlessly connecting, completely sealing off the entire border.
However, three days passed without results. There was no sign of the mastermind on any border planet.
“We’ve searched all the garbage planets thoroughly and used the most sophisticated detectors, but found nothing. Other habitable planets have also been searched repeatedly with no anomalies.”
After listening to his report, Chu Rong frowned and asked, “Fan Xiangnan, what is our principle regarding the protection of civilians?”
Fan Xiangnan was startled for a moment, immediately understood his meaning, and showed a hint of embarrassment on his face as he replied, “It’s better to be meticulous beforehand than to regret later. I’m sorry, Commander, I was being too nitpicky.”
The efforts of the soldiers were never wasted. Even though the current patrols and searches seemed meaningless, they were another form of protection for the civilian populations on the border planets.
Seeing that he understood, Chu Rong closed his electronic tablet again, waved his hand, and said, “Continue the patrol and search. Until we find any trace of the monster, we cannot relax.”
Fan Xiangnan should be fine now, having adjusted his emotions and turned to continue his busy schedule.
While the Federation and Imperial armies were busy at the border, Qiao Zhiya was studying the patterns on those teleportation devices with his father.
Although the original parts of the devices were all damaged, the patterns on them were backed up and recorded. Qiao Yi was very interested in these things and had been studying them recently.
“The patterns on these slabs resemble fixed magic teleportation arrays, reusable but cannot be moved, and take longer to activate.”
Qiao Yi laid out several blueprints, drawing a leaf pattern on one of them. Then he took out the remaining teleportation device blueprints, sorted them, and separated them into several parts, each drawn with different patterns. Finally, pointing to the neatly divided blueprints on the table, he said, “Let’s start with these slabs. They share a similar main structure, with only minor differences in details. According to the principles of teleportation magic, these different details represent different teleportation coordinates. These will be the objects we focus on studying.”
He analyzed slowly, watching Qiao Zhiya curiously observing the blueprints on the table. A hint of a smile flashed in his eyes as he pointed to another set of blueprints and continued, “These blueprints are the simplest, with the shortest teleportation distances. Most of them are installed inside humans or controlled by humans, resembling short-distance teleportation scrolls, and have no research value.”
Qiao Zhiya’s gaze then fell on the stack of blueprints. Just as he glanced at them, Qiao Yi had already shifted the topic to the next set of blueprints, saying, “The rest of these mostly use bloodlines for movement, ‘bloodline teleportation arrays.’ For example, this one uses Zerg bloodlines, which allows it to attract other Zergs. On this larger device, it uses the bloodline of a Zerg Queen, which can attract other Zerg Queens. Unlike humans, Zergshave strong reproductive capabilities, with a large number of eggs laid at once, so their bloodlines always appear in large areas as a unit, causing large quantities of Zergs to appear whenever a black hole is deployed.”
Once appearing mysterious and unpredictable, after such an explanation, the black hole immediately became ordinary and not so dangerous. Qiao Zhiya suddenly realized, then looked at his father with bright eyes, almost turning his admiration into stars.
Qiao Yi smiled, reached out to pat his head, and said, “Before, you didn’t have magic power in your body, so I didn’t teach you much about magic formations. Now that you have magic power, you can pick up on these things.”
Qiao Zhiya became even happier upon hearing this, tilted his head to rub against his palm, and nodded vigorously, saying, “I’ll study hard!”
The father-son pair studied and researched together, spending time extracting all the details related to the positions from the teleportation slabs, pondering a bit, and finally, after another week passed, they discovered the positional rules represented by these patterns.
Upon receiving the news, Chu Rong hurriedly returned from the military headquarters and earnestly listened like a good student.
Due to the language barrier, Qiao Zhiya was the one who explained it to Chu Rong, while Qiao Yi listened on the side.
After the three of them sat down, Qiao Zhiya placed a large pile of detailed pattern blueprints in front of Chu Rong and explained, “Based on our research over the past few days, my father and I have discovered some pattern rules. For example, this curved hook pattern represents direction, this polygonal shape represents distance, and this circular pattern represents…..”
“……All in all, when we combine this information, the data we obtain gives an approximate coordinate for the teleportation field.”
Chu Rong listened attentively, scanning his eyes over these patterns and nodding to indicate his understanding.
Seeing that he understood, Qiao Zhiya’s ears perked up happily. He glanced sideways at his father, who was quietly drinking tea beside him, and continued, “The teleportation field we first discovered on that garbage planet, after summarizing the pattern information on it, gave us coordinates that match the garbage planet outside the Smith Defense Line.”
At these words, Chu Rong frowned, suddenly recalling Qiao Zhiya’s frantic actions of spreading vines into the black hole to protect him on the garbage planet. He finally realized how the monster discovered Qiao Zhiya’s special abilities.
The black hole was a teleportation device, which likely sent the vines Qiao Zhiya had laid into it to those coordinates, namely the garbage planet outside the Smith Defense Line, where the monster seemed to have stayed before disappearing.
Before that, the monster had never shown a clear attempt towards Qiao Zhiya, even when they wanted to harm Chu’s family in anger, they first laid their hands on Gu Yan’an.
At that time, he only wanted to keep Qiao Zhiya from revealing his strength outside and tried his best to ensure that there were only Chu’s people around Qiao Zhiya when he used his strength, but he negligently ignored the danger that existed at the other end of the black hole.
Seeing that his breath suddenly sank, Qiao Zhiya stopped explaining and asked worriedly, “What’s wrong with you?”
Chu Rong regained his senses, just about to shake his head as he used to, remembered what Qiao Yi had just said, paused, honestly said what he had just thought of, and apologized guiltily.
Qiao Zhiya didn’t expect him to think of this, and felt unhappy because of it, first stunned for a moment, then couldn’t help but reveal a smile, pushed his face over to Chu Rong, calming him, “It doesn’t matter, it’s all that monster’s fault. I don’t blame you.”
Chu Rong’s feelings of guilt and depression slowly dissipated under the youth’s gentle words. His furrowed eyebrows eased, he then raised his hand to pat Qiao Zhiya’s head.
The two were a little tired, but they kept talking and the topic continued.
Qiao Yi, who was sitting on the side, looked at the interaction between the two. He stopped looking at Chu Rong’s face, got up slightly, and walked towards the room upstairs in a good mood, ready to appease his wife. If his wife knew this, her overprotectiveness streak may appear, so he better prevent it.
Each teleport field represents an orientation. Qiao Zhiya analyzed it all, and then took out the teleport field pattern on the garbage planet outside the Smith Defense Line, and said, “This is the only one of all these patterns that does not have a corresponding teleport field pattern.”
This means the teleportation field they wanted has not been found.
Chu Rong’s expression became grim: “The monster’s traces completely disappeared from here. So far, the army has not found him in the Blue Galaxy.”
“That’s because his lair may not be on those planets that the Blue Galaxy has already discovered.”
Qiao Zhiya continued to explain, “According to the coordinate analysis method we previously analyzed, after the information represented on this pattern is summarized, a somewhat fuzzy coordinate appears at the border, which is consistent with Dad’s previous tracking array method. “
As he said that, he picked up a pen and wrote down the approximate coordinates after summing up the information. He pushed it to Chu Rong, and said, “I used this coordination on the star map of the Blue Galaxy, and it should be inside the asteroid belt. It’s on the edge of the belt, quite far from both the Federation and the Empire, precisely at the border. If I search the Starnet for information on this coordinate, it is said that there are no planets here, only asteroids and void.”
‘Precisely at the border, inside the asteroid belt… no information about planets there, only asteroids…’ Chu Rong finally understood what Qiao Zhiya implied. “An undiscovered primitive planet then.”
Seeing the taller man understood his line of thinking, Qiao Zhiya’s ears perked up and flapped happily. “Yes, after finding out the location, I also thought about the primitive planets. The asteroid belt that separates the Federation and the Empire is so large, so is it possible that there is another undiscovered planet elsewhere in the asteroid belt. There may also be a large number of yellow-leaf trees, so there should be an abundance of spirit stones, possibly even mutated ones. That monster probably found such a good place and immediately made it into their lair.”
This speculation was valid and reasonable. The more Chu Rong thinks, the more he feels that this speculation should be correct. Qiao Zhiya was still young, yet his logic was so excellent. Filled with pride and affection, Chu Rong hugged the youth, kissed his forehead, and said, “Qiao, you are amazing… thank you.”
Qiao Yi was right. Qiao Zhiya was already very strong and smart. He was strong enough to be the protector.
‘I can rely on him more, trust him more…’ He thought, his hug getting even tighter.
Qiao Zhiya blushed with embarrassment at his praise but was extremely delighted. He hugged Chu Rong back tightly and nuzzled against his chest, unable to suppress a silly grin.
