extra chapter thanks to Elaine! I’ll upload the second update tomorrow!
this chapter has 5,7k words. Last chapter I thought it had 7k, but it’s ch 30 that has 7k words 
this chapter has 3,5k English words though idk how 2k words magically dissapear
I’ll stop accepting ko-fi donations and we ahve quite a lot of future updates, thanks everyone for the donations!
[Underground city, Sunrise District]
Boom—!!!
In the sky above the most central and bustling block, the iconic floating fortress experienced a sudden violent explosion. A faint blue barrier, like ripples, rose from the edges of the block, swiftly closing upwards, blocking the falling debris and flames from the explosion.
If a professional engineer familiar with the Skynet saw this scene, they would know that the sudden rising blue barrier and the Skynet on Earth had the same origins.
Inside the restaurant, the once magnificent ceiling abruptly collapsed, and numerous large bricks and stones rained down like a storm. The guards stationed outside immediately tried to rush in but were blocked by the collapsed walls, their anxious shouts seeming particularly weak and insignificant amidst the thunderous explosions.
“City Lord!”
“Quick! Protect the City Lord!!!”
“…….”
Zhou Jiuya didn’t expect the other side to be so furious that they would use a hand cannon directly against him.
Right now, the Legion Commander had just dodged away from the explosion zone and hadn’t had a chance to catch his breath. Suddenly, he saw a familiar figure breaking through the dust and rubble, out of nowhere like a thorn.
Swish—!
The long knife was enveloped in electric currents, almost aiming straight for his throat.
“Zhou Jiuya—!!!”
Clearly, the other party was very determined to kill him.
… just like back then, when the handsome and gentle young man reached out to him with the same unwavering determination.
[Hey, Lord Huo Chao told me to ask, do you want to come with us?]
As the stain on the Jiang family, he was born into this world as an illegitimate child. From that day on, Zhou Jiuya welcomed the turning point in his entire life.
At this moment, the yellowed memories were like old books being lifted by a fierce wind, flipping through countless pages with a rustling sound. Finally, it finally froze on the last page, where Ye Shu’s expression was ferocious and full of hatred, capturing the moment when he stabbed him with a knife.
—How did they turn into this?
The blade reflected a dazzling snow-like light, causing the Legion Commander to snap back to reality at the most dangerous moment, narrowly avoiding a fatal blow. However, a clearly visible bloodstain remained on his neck.
In an instant, the two gazes collided—one filled with hatred, the other with complex emotions.
Several clashes followed one after the other as the two instantly exchanged blows for dozens of rounds. They were all too familiar with each other’s attack styles, able to instinctively anticipate the other’s attack without a conscious thought.
This evenly matched close-quarters combat ultimately ended with a flaw that Ye Shu failed to realize due to his anger.
Bang—!
“Ye Shu! Snap out of it!!!”
Zhou Jiuya seized the other’s prosthetic left wrist, firmly restraining him. Ye Shu’s left arm was left behind on Earth when it became a dead planet, just like him. What Zhou Jiuya now held was a cold mechanical prosthetic arm.
“We have already tested it, haven’t we!!!??”
The silver-haired alpha forcefully and cruelly repeated,
“The day you brought back Forbidden Abyss, we tested it! He… wasn’t inside the wreckage core of Forbidden Abyss at all!!! Guarding it is pointless!!!”
Ye Shu’s breath suddenly stagnated, as if someone had slapped him, and a certain extreme pain gradually seeped into his expression amidst the confusion and stiffness.
Yes, as the only Grade SSS-rated mecha, Forbidden Abyss’s core defense, strictly speaking, could even withstand interstellar nuclear bombs. Even if millions of interstellar nuclear bombs were simultaneously detonated and the outer metallic limbs of Forbidden Abyss were to entirely melt, its inner core still managed to be desperately snatched back by Ye Shu.
However, Marshal Huo Chao was not inside.
Even though everyone had mentally prepared themselves that that person wouldn’t come back alive after detonating millions of interstellar nuclear bombs and perishing with the Zerg race, they never expected that they wouldn’t even manage to recover the remains of that esteemed person.
No one knew why Marshal Huo Chao had left Forbidden Abyss at the moment of detonating interstellar nuclear bombs and perishing with the Zerg race. But regardless of everything, that fact was well-established.
Earth had long since turned into a dead planet, and apart from the Forbidden Abyss’ core hidden on Winter Day Planet, everything that represented Huo Chao was a cold and stoic heroic monument.
“…Pointless?”
Ye Shu looked at his once most trusted friend and suddenly grinned, a bitter and mocking smile forming on his face.
“It turns out that it is meaningless for you to guard his last possession from being defiled by those disgusting people.”
“……”
This sentence was more deadly than the knife that had just come dangerously close to his throat. Zhou Jiuya suddenly froze, closing his eyes, and took a deep breath.
“Ye Shu, you still don’t understand the seriousness of the situation on Earth, the Zerg race…”
“I’ve said it before, this Laozi doesn’t give a damn!!!”
He let go of the knife, and his prosthetic left hand twisted and contorted at an incredible angle, instantly breaking free from the silver-haired alpha’s restraint.
Bam!!!
—Then he fiercely punched the Legion Commander, making him stagger.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“Stop talking….”
Even though he knew that when they met again, old matters would undoubtedly be brought up, just like scars that never healed. Yet just as he tried so hard to forget them, someone took a knife and stabbed into it again, grinding it into a bloody mess.
He repeated in a low voice, “Ye Shu, stop talking…”
“Why can’t you say it?! Isn’t it about Pei Changyun?!!!” Ye Shu strode over, aggressively lifting Zhou Jiuya’s collar, his eyes terrifyingly bloodshot.
“That is… the Emperor you are swearing your life to follow and loyally serve now, right?!!!” The City Lord let out a cold sneer.
“What, last time when the Zerg race appeared, you were willing to sacrifice Huo Chao, and now, with only a shattered core left in the Forbidden Abyss, you still want to snatch it?”
“—How utterly shameless!”
“……..”
This was not the first time Zhou Jiuya heard these words.
But he had no way to explain it now, so the Legion Commander could only shut his eyes.
“Ye Shu…”
“—Too bad your plan is going to fall apart.”
The City Lord abruptly let go of Zhou Jiuya’s collar, shook his hand, and he suddenly looked utterly bored,
“Zhou Jiuya, I’ve known for a long time that you’re not here specifically for me, nor are you looking for that omega brat in your family.”
Pausing for a moment, Ye Shu smiled coldly.
“—You’re here to stall me for certain people.”
He brushed off the dust on the chair, casually sat down, and rested his forearm on the armrest.
“Heh, quite an ambitious move. To avoid arousing my suspicion, you actually mobilized the main legion to stage a show for me.”
Hearing these words, Zhou Jiuya suddenly raised his head.
“You…!”
Buzz.
The Legion Commander’s optical brain trembled slightly.
—It was a short message from Jiang Ci.
Although the signal was blocked, thanks to Xiao X’s continuous efforts, the crucial message was still successfully delivered half an hour later. However, at this moment, no one noticed that subtle vibration.
Ye Shu gently stroked the skull mask on his left face.
“So, when I saw you, I was actually in a good mood.”
The City Lord grinned maliciously, revealing a malevolent yet carefree smile.
“Because today, they will all die without a burial place.”
“Every single one of them!”
Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, beneath the no-man’s land desert.
Jiang Ci suddenly felt a chilling coldness in his chest. He abruptly stopped, feeling his heart beating faster.
—This kind of intuition is very bad.
It usually indicated danger.
Pa.
A hand rested on his shoulder. The sudden touch made the silver-haired Major General’s body momentarily shake, however, he quickly realized whose hand it was. But obviously, this momentary shock made the omega a little irritated.
“You suddenly…!”
Then, a familiar presence enveloped Jiang Ci’s left ear, causing him to freeze suddenly. Huo Xianfeng abruptly leaned in, whispering softly,
“If you’re really scared, how about I go ahead?”
“……”
The young man was very close, and such proximity easily evoked thoughts of intimate moments between lovers. Even the cautiously whispered words of the other, with a subtle magnetic tremble at the end, were dangerously enticing.
Smack!
The silver-haired omega stiffened for a moment, immediately pushing Huo Xianfeng away with a palm to his chest.
“Who’s afraid?!” He vigorously scratched the itchy tips of his ear, and in a similarly fierce low tone, he commanded, “Don’t come near so suddenly!”
If it were someone else, Jiang Ci’s keen combat intuition would have detected it, and a dagger would have swiftly followed. However, after being marked, no omega would be on guard against their alpha.
“Hm, okay.”
Huo Xianfeng shrugged, indicating his acquiescence.
At this point, the two had descended about three thousand meters from the surface through the well-like opening and it seemed to be an abandoned mine.
After all, when Winter Day Planet was initially discovered, it was renowned for its countless minerals. Even the underground city that had been established was connected through numerous expanded and linked abandoned mines.
So finding an abandoned mine in the desert was not particularly surprising. However, after the initial vertical descent of two thousand meters, they discovered that the passage did not continue straight down.
Now, it was angling at a sixty-degree slope into the depths of the earth. The initially spacious area that could accommodate three or four people gradually narrowed to only allow for one person. The dense darkness seemed to linger for an incredibly long time, and it swallowed all the remaining outside light.
Xiao X floated in the air, emitting a soft light like a firefly, providing visibility within a range of five to six meters. The ground beneath them was a rugged, rusty, and bumpy path.
Further inside, it was unknow what the dark depths concealed.
Woo…
A faint, eerie whimper came from afar, accompanied by some rustling sounds in the distance, making one’s hair stand on end.
The young man frowned, and his heartbeat slightly tightened.
…Is it the wind?
Fortunately, this eerie situation did not last long. The initially narrow passage gradually opened up, and they finally reached the end.
Jiang Ci carefully observed the traces in front of him. It was an old alloy mechanical door, but the lock had been pried open, and the wiped-away dust marks indicated that the person who opened the door wasn’t so long ago.
“This should be… an abandoned underground mineral smelting plant?”
Huo Xianfeng didn’t answer as he just bypassed Jiang Ci and went in first. He quickly found the old and dilapidated switch next to him and groped for something amidst a jumble of chaotic wires.
“You…”
Jiang Ci frowned slightly, wanting to tell him not to mess around, but the next second—
Bzzz… Zzzz… Zzz…
After a brief burst of electric current,
Snap—!
The spacious and dilapidated factory hall suddenly lit up. Jiang Ci’s guess was correct; this was indeed an underground smelting plant with a huge assembly line, massive smelting tanks, and many broken tools and rubble scattered around.
Jiang Ci roughly scanned the surroundings and didn’t find anything suspicious. But would members of the Church come all the way from the Cleansing Soul Planet just for an abandoned smelting plant?! — That itself is very suspicious! Moreover, since entering here, Jiang Ci’s danger alarm had been stretched to the extreme in his mind; he had the feeling that someone was secretly watching them.
“I suddenly have a question,” the young man’s voice made Jiang Ci turn his head.
“What?”
Huo Xianfeng crossed his arms, still maintaining that relaxed and casual appearance, as if not concerned at all about the possible dangers hidden somewhere.
“The white robe people from just now, how many were there?”
“Seven.”
“Hmm…”
The young man looked up, squinting slightly as he gazed at the massive crane used for moving ore in the roof.
“So, if a fight breaks out later, how many can you handle?”
Jiang Ci hesitated for a second, instantly realizing something.
—Bang!!!
But before he could speak, the door behind him instantly slammed shut. Then, an eerie low laughter echoed from the high altitude.
“I thought, who could it possible be? Turns out it’s the little brat from the Jiang family…”
Jiang family?
Huo Xianfeng immediately caught onto the key word.
Jiang family… A-Ci…
Jiang Ci?
The young man’s brows slightly furrowed.
This name sounds very familiar.
At the same time, the silver-haired Major General suddenly looked up, only to see a figure in white standing on the giant crane, and he didn’t know when he arrived. This person seemed to enjoy the condescending view from above, and there was an undisguised sense of superiority and pleasure in their tone.
“I thought that Zhou Jiuya guy would hide you, his precious omega, in the Capital, but unexpectedly…”
However, when his gaze inadvertently swept over Huo Xianfeng who next to Jiang Ci, his unfinished words suddenly halted, as if he had seen something extremely shocking.
Bang!
An electromagnetic gun fired from the ground, precisely hitting the thick and rusted iron chain above the crane. Following a loud explosion, the enormous metal claw, along with the person on it, was blasted away.
The handsome omega’s expression turned cold, showing no mercy as he taunted, “Do the people from Church always talk this much before a fight like you?”
“….Pfft.”
Next to him, Huo Xianfeng couldn’t hold back his laughter.
However, Jiang Ci’s expression was serious. He recognized this person; he was one of the bishops under the Pope, Rhodes.
At the same time, Huo Xianfeng mentally shook his head. Although the shot was satisfying and the timing was impeccable, from initiating the attack, aiming, to hitting the target; all actions were flawless.
—But it was a bit too eager.
“Be careful!”
Jiang Ci suddenly shouted. He hadn’t expected Rhodes’ first target to be not himself but Huo Xianfeng. However, at this moment, Jiang Ci had no time to go help because he was already surrounded by the remaining six Church members.
In this instant, the man who should have been falling from the explosion unexpectedly dashed to Huo Xianfeng like lightning.
The young man raised his eyes, and for a moment, the two gazes collided with sparks!
The next second, Huo Xianfeng slightly tilted his head, just enough to narrowly avoid the sharp blade, making the movement seem so casual that it looked like a coincidence.
But only the attacking party knew how terrifying the opponent’s reaction and speed were.
Huo Xianfeng also didn’t understand why the first attack was aimed at him instead of Jiang Ci, but apparently, this person was much more troublesome than the rookie back on Earth.
Bang, bang, bang!
There were several muffled sounds of flesh colliding, and the two instantly exchanged blows for dozens of rounds. Then, a crisp bone fracture sound came, and Huo Xianfeng actually broke Rhodes’ arm.
Yes, it was indeed a little more challenging than that rookie, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t handle it.
At this moment, the two of them were very close, so close that Rhodes could clearly see his own disbelief reflected in those pitch-black pupils, and sudden pain in his body made his face slightly distorted.
Huo Xianfeng looked down at him with a disdainful gaze, as if looking at an ant with a natural arrogance, which reminded Rhodes of someone who should have died.
“You…”
No, it can’t be him!!!
When viewed from afar just now, they seemed very alike, but upon closer inspection, there were many differences…
Too young, too arrogant.
If that person was like an ancient primitive divine weapon plunged into a mountain of corpses and seas of blood, the young man in front of him was more like a newly forged and unique double-edged sword.
” —You… know me?”
Huo Xianfeng keenly caught the uncertain look in the other party’s eyes at this moment.
“No…”
Rhodes closed his eyes.
“That guy is much more impressive than you…”
Bam!
Before Huo Xianfeng could hear the rest of his words, he was suddenly thrown away by a terrifying force.
At this moment, when the white-robed bishop opened his eyes again, his entire eyeball had turned completely icy white. Numerous crimson-gold patterns, like some kind of parasitic creatures, crawled out from under the man’s white robe and quickly spread all over his body.
—Holy Stigmata!
The moment his gaze touched that thing, the phrase “Holy Stigmata” unexpectedly jumped into Huo Xianfeng’s mind without warning.
At this moment, he almost couldn’t control the expression of extreme disgust on his face. It was as if it was an innate archenemy that made the young man’s head ache and filled him with a roaring, raging intent to kill.
Suddenly, all the scenes before his eyes began to distort, like the torrent of time flowing backward.
The young man looked up, as if he saw a giant statue. The beautiful and divine Pope sat on a high throne in front of the statue, and the dazzling light poured from behind God’s statue, making it impossible for the youth to clearly see that person’s face.
All he knew was that that person’s face must be one of compassion and mercy.
A voice sighed softly, [Huo Chao, you have no choice.]
What is that…
Who is Huo Chao… What choice…?
Just at this moment, an anxious voice called out—
“Huo Xianfeng!!!”
Jiang Ci blocked the long knife thrust by Rhodes.
“What the hell are you staring at?!!!”
Bzzz!
The young man suddenly shook, instantly coming back to his senses.
At this moment, Jiang Ci directly knocked away the other’s sword blade and then fiercely blasted the person who had sneaked up from the side ten meters away.
This moment of being protected made Huo Xianfeng feel a subtle and strange emotion in his heart. However, there were too many people on the other side. Before Jiang Ci could react, he was grabbed by Rhodes’ arm.
Bang!
The silver-haired omega was violently slammed onto the ground, blood seeping from the wound on his left shoulder, emitting the sweet fragrance unique to omega pheromones.
This was too stimulating for an alpha. Rhodes couldn’t help but grab him, wanting to take a deep breath, but the next moment, the fierce alpha pheromones inside the omega fragrance made him reveal an expression of fear intertwined with anger.
“Damn! Who marked…”
Boom!
He couldn’t even finish his sentence before he was kicked away by a terrifying force, able to break several pillars on the way and finally creating a huge depression in the wall.
At this moment, Huo Xianfeng’s eyes were as cold and sharp as a blade. He slightly restrained some of his murderous intent, then turned around to look at Jiang Ci on the ground, reaching out to help.
“You’re fine…”
However, before he could finish his words, the omega who was supposed to be severely injured on the ground suddenly stood up, yanked open Huo Xianfeng’s collar, buried his face in it, and took a deep breath.
God knows how Jiang Ci had desperately endured to not vomit when Rhodes approached just now.
The buttoned-down Huo Xianfeng: “….”
In that brief moment, he thought of a plant called catnip that existed on the ancient Earth before it was destroyed by the Zerg invasion and millions of nuclear bombs.
Is HXF’s memories awakening? :3c hehehe I guess we’ll have to see it in the later chapters
Ye Shu is peak character design for me, he has so much angst inside him, chef’s kiss
and now we know the Emperor, Pei Changyun (裴长云)!
裴 long and flowing (garment)
长 length / long / forever / always / constantly
云 cloud
Thank you for the update ❤️💯
Thank you for the chapter!
Thank you for the update!
Thank you Elaine (〃ﾉωﾉ)
I wish I had the braincells to make sense of things and figure out what connection he has with Huo Chao 😭😭
Probably has reborn or reincarnation
I also think like that, that’s why he has nostalgy about people and places with How Chao
Damn Ye Shu !!! Why are you so cool !!!
Ye shu’s about to unknowingly explode his male god reincarnation tho- 👀 and i love tsuntsun jiang ci sm XD hes adorable
That was an exciting chapter!!
Thanks for the chapter 💞
so it seems the empire and church’s relationship isn’t as bad as people see coz they can join arms to steal that huo chao mecha.
thanks for the chapter!
So I guess the church people and the emperor somehow pitted Huo Chao to die together with the Zerg on Earth, but somehow Huo Chao got fused with the Zerg egg for 300 years and was finally reborn as the Zerg King?