Chapter 25: Lurking (Two-in-One)
It was a pair of crimson compound eyes belonging to an Ice Butterfly, with needle-like black pupils and black larvae swimming across the red eyeballs.
The moment Rong Mi spotted them, the two red dots stretched apart, transforming into a rapidly moving band of mist that surged toward him, enveloping him entirely.
At the same time, the venom gland that had been wrapped in purple flames seemed to be reactivated by the glance of those compound eyes, suddenly contracting and thrashing violently.
The purple flames leaped up and engulfed the venom gland once more, burning it completely.
However, the band of red mist formed from the compound eyes wasn’t so easy to destroy. It tangled and struggled with the flames. Amid the mist divided and sliced by the fire, faintly visible ice-blue wings emerged, starkly contrasting with the bright red. The red mist seemed to have transformed into the body of the Ice Butterfly, and in its center, the stacked black needle-like pupils reappeared.
Rong Mi: “…”
Unable to suppress himself, Rong Mi cursed under his breath.
It wasn’t the first time he had been attacked by lingering Zerg mental energy within a star beast’s mental domain, but it was the first time he had encountered something so bizarre!
Rong Mi thought: Why did it feel like the so-called stable and peaceful glorious old era wasn’t so secure after all?
It seemed as though a living Ice Butterfly had appeared in the Thunder Lion’s mental domain!
The butterfly’s wings stirred up more waves of red energy, clashing violently with the purple flames.
The purple flames eventually consumed the Ice Butterfly, emitting a loud explosion.
Yet another Ice Butterfly rose from the remnants of the red mist that had not been completely eradicated.
The mental energy battle caused strange energy storms to erupt within the Thunder Lion’s mental domain.
The lion’s mental sea of thunder and lightning grew increasingly agitated. Unceasing flashes of lightning churned the dark clouds, stirring up violent waves. The mental sea trembled as if shaken by an earthquake, with energy backflow forming vortex after vortex.
The Thunder Lion was never a star beast adept at controlling its mental domain.
It instinctively tried to expel the two intruding forces wreaking havoc in its mental domain, indiscriminately attacking both Rong Mi’s and the Ice Butterfly’s energy threads. This only made its mental sea more chaotic, showing signs of an impending breakdown.
“Roar!”
In the treatment room, the Thunder Lion let out a roar of pain and fury.
It thrashed violently, faint golden lightning flickering within its fur, only to be absorbed and suppressed by the restraint belt.
Its tail lashed furiously, claws extending outward with arcs of electricity flashing at their tips. The powerful energy release caused smoke to rise from the restraint belt’s energy absorption device, as though it was on the verge of breaking down.
Ellen looked worried. He had never seen Thunder Lion so restless and intolerable during treatment.
He pressed firmly against the lion’s back, preventing it from injuring anyone.
Even the Silver Wolf grew agitated, its fur bristling while silver mental energy glimmered uncontrollably around its body.
It could sense a heavy aura of an enemy from the Thunder Lion.
This was an extremely ominous sign.
The Silver Wolf had seen many other battle pets or humans display such an aura in their mental domains, only to either perish shortly afterward, their bodies turning pitch-black, or be assimilated, losing their sanity, exhibiting Zerg characteristics, and attacking their former allies.
The Silver Wolf kept a close watch on the Thunder Lion, frost flowers forming beneath its feet.
At the same time, Lu Yi strode quickly toward the treatment bed.
Within the Thunder Lion’s mental domain, Rong Mi’s purple mental flames clung tightly to the red mist, consuming one Ice Butterfly after another and burning through the eerie mist.
Rong Mi confined the battle to a narrow area, focusing on combat while repeatedly soothing the Thunder Lion’s mental sea.
As the flames burned, the seemingly endless appearance of Ice Butterflies gradually slowed, and the red mist shrank in size.
Just as it was about to be entirely destroyed, the final wisp of mist suddenly condensed into a thin red line.
It climbed onto Rong Mi’s mental flames, rapidly burning away, yet at the same time, it rushed along the descending route of Rong Mi’s mental energy at incredible speed.
The flame consumed it quickly, but its approach toward the mental domain’s interface was even faster.
Rong Mi couldn’t fully channel his mental energy into the lion’s mental domain to block it, as doing so would cause the lion’s just-calmed mental domain to erupt into even greater chaos.
He had already prepared himself for the possibility of the sub-butterfly’s mental energy invading his own mental domain.
Newly invasive Zerg mental energy was relatively easier to purge, as long as it didn’t slip away and go into hiding…
Just as Rong Mi expected, in the final second before it burned out, the thin red line broke through the interface and entered the young man’s mental domain.
Thousands of stars away, on the central lawn of the Capital Star’s amusement park, a virtual dreamlike stage for the music festival had been fully set up.
At the rehearsal venue, a young singer with chestnut-brown hair and light blue contact lenses paused slightly.
“Secco?” a staff member called out. “This line is yours—don’t zone out!”
Secco blinked lightly, snapped out of it, and picked up the microphone.
“What’s wrong, Captain?” his teammate whispered after the song was finished. “Didn’t sleep well last night?”
Secco, the captain of the StarNet boy band Phantom Chord, was always serious and responsible. It was the first time he had made such a mistake during rehearsal.
“No, just suddenly thought of Rong Mi…” Secco smiled faintly. “He wrote this song, after all.”
“Ugh, well, with his family’s sudden issues and the bigwigs in the industry targeting him, forcing him to quit and disappear… But hey, I heard he’s getting popular again through some mecha competition show. Have you heard about it? My mech-loving cousin couldn’t stop talking about it…”
Secco responded absentmindedly, his mind elsewhere.
In his eyes, it was no longer the central lawn he saw but a vast, boundless mental sea.
Far broader than the Thunder Lion’s mental sea.
It was filled with drifting purple mist, like a dreamlike world.
And he was diving deeper into the dense fog, ready to hide within this vast mental sea so deeply that even its owner wouldn’t be able to find him.
Like a virus lurking in the body, living and multiplying in secret, waiting for the moment to erupt.
Yet suddenly, a silver crescent moon rose in the sky above the purple sea.
The silvery light pierced the surface of the sea, precisely locking onto that trace of red.
The crescent moon then dissolved into countless streams of light, cascading into the purple mist.
With unstoppable force, it surrounded and obliterated all traces of the Zerg’s red mental energy!
On the Capital Star, Secco sat stiffly for a brief moment before letting out a low sigh of regret.
“Cecil was right,” he murmured to himself. “To the entire Ice Butterfly species, Lu Yi is nothing less than a harbinger of disaster… How did he enter Rong Mi’s mental domain?”
He closed his eyes briefly, pushing away the final image he had seen before his energy was annihilated.
Silver light scattered into countless points, sinking slowly into the seawater below, eventually extinguished.
Rong Mi: “…”
That unfamiliar, cold, and faintly numbing mental energy…
It was Lu Yi.
Rong Mi opened his eyes, sensing Lu Yi’s palm resting on his shoulder, their foreheads pressed lightly together.
The general’s warm breath brushed past his ear.
Rong Mi: “…”
The intimacy of the gesture made Rong Mi instinctively straighten his back.
Lu Yi’s aura lingered in his mental domain.
Rong Mi: “…You…”
The young man, slightly dazed, tried to ignore the sensation of Lu Yi’s touch and asked blankly, “You can enter someone else’s mental domain?!”
“Only yours.”
Because of their nearly perfect mental energy compatibility.
Lu Yi stepped back slightly, frowning.
The Thunder Lion’s earlier reaction during treatment, the fluctuations in Rong Mi’s mental domain, and the Zerg’s mental energy scent detected by the Silver Wolf all pointed to something highly unusual.
Lu Yi suspected that his mental power compatibility with Rong Mi was close to one hundred percent, so he took the risk of entering Rong Mi’s mental domain to investigate the situation.
This was an extremely dangerous action. If Rong Mi’s mental domain rejected his intrusion and subconsciously counterattacked, it would spell disaster for Lu Yi.
Rong Mi: “…Mental power compatibility?”
What was with this compatibility of mental domains? How high did the compatibility need to be for Lu Yi to move freely within his mental domain?! Judging by how effortlessly Lu Yi entered, it seemed that as long as the other party mastered certain techniques, they could even soothe his mental domain.
But his mental domain had never accepted anyone else’s mental power before!
Due to the self-recovery ability of artificial healers’ mental domains and his exceptionally strong mental power, accommodating other healers’ mental power was not easy. Thus, even when he felt uncomfortable, he usually endured it and waited for his mental power to stabilize on its own, never needing mental domain therapy.
Rong Mi’s mind was filled with questions, but Lu Yi had already moved on to the next topic.
“The energy attempting to invade Rong Mi’s mental domain from Sandor’s mental domain is Adie’s mental imprint,” the general stated succinctly, glancing at Allen.
Allen froze for a second, his face instantly turning pale.
Allen: “…Wha…what? How could that be?!”
“But we all underwent mental domain energy scans after battling Adie…”
Those scans were specifically to prevent Adie from leaving imprints in opponents’ mental domains during combat.
This ability was extremely dangerous because it could silently control the actions of the imprinted individual, causing immense harm to humanity at critical moments.
Allen’s chest heaved as he looked at the lion, Ben Lei, lying on the treatment bed. The lion had calmed down and stopped struggling. The sparks in its fur had disappeared, and it even relaxed enough to kick its legs slightly and roll over.
The battle companion was innocent. Sandor clearly had no idea that something so deadly was lurking in his mental domain.
Rong Mi reached out to unfasten the restraints on the lion.
Sandor then turned his furry head and nuzzled Rong Mi’s arm on his own initiative. The young man seized the opportunity to give the fluffy fur around the lion’s neck a firm rub, acting as though nothing had happened.
Rong Mi: The texture feels amazing!
The heaviness he felt after encountering the mental imprint lightened significantly.
“The lion is fine now. If you’re still concerned, you can have a legion healer check him again,” Rong Mi said to Allen. “Aside from Adie’s imprint, Sandor’s mental domain also contained remnants of an ice butterfly toxin gland, which I’ve just removed.”
Allen: “…I…thank you.” He expressed his gratitude sincerely, standing in silence for a while before turning to Lu Yi.
“It was my negligence,” Allen said gravely. “I accept the consequences of my dereliction and am willing to undergo an immediate investigation by the military. But I assure you, I have never communicated privately with the Zerg.”
A mental imprint left by Adie in a battle companion’s mental domain was no trivial matter.
When and how it happened, whether there had been direct contact with Adie, and whether Allen, as the companion’s owner, had communicated privately with the Zerg—all these needed thorough investigation.
Lu Yi nodded slightly, then turned to Rong Mi. “You said Sandor’s mental domain contained two traces of ice butterfly mental power. Can you distinguish the order in which they entered?”
“One toxin gland was left recently, likely by a high-level ice butterfly. The gland was embedded deep in Sandor’s mental domain, causing the Zerg contamination in the lion’s mental domain over the past few months,” Rong Mi explained. “As for Adie’s mental imprint…it’s buried very deep and appeared much earlier, around one to two years ago.”
“In routine mental domain scans, the success rate of detecting mental imprints decreases with time. Imprints this deep are almost impossible to detect unless the most advanced mental imprint detection is used.”
Such advanced detection could only be performed by experienced healers, requiring significant time and effort. Generally, mech pilots only underwent such tests after direct combat with Adie.
Rong Mi added, “Neither the ice butterfly that left the toxin gland nor the one responsible for the imprint is dead.”
“The toxin gland from the high-level ice butterfly was left during a battle three months ago,” Allen said in a low voice, his expression serious.
In that battle, Sandor had only fought one high-level ice butterfly. It had been a chaotic battle involving wasps, armored bees, and carapace insects. Though they had cut off the Zerg’s retreat, the high-level ice butterfly attacking Sandor had disappeared from the battlefield after being wounded, likely escaping.
But Adie…
The most recent and only encounter Allen had with Adie was half a year ago during a warzone battle—definitely not two years ago!
Allen felt a chill run down his spine as he looked at Lu Yi. The general frowned but remained calm.
“Suspension from duties,” he said, looking at Allen. “The legion will investigate your actions. During this period, access to critical areas of the starship will be revoked, while other permissions remain unchanged.”
“Notify the entire legion to undergo deep scans for Adie’s mental imprints.”
Allen: “Understood.”
He saluted Lu Yi and hurried to the scanning room.
As the treatment room door closed, Lu Yi said nothing further. With a slight frown, he opened the light screen and issued a notice for renewed mental imprint scans within the legion. He also reported the matter to the military headquarters and sent alerts to all legions.
Rong Mi carefully recalled the historical speculations regarding Zerg ambushes, pondered for a moment, and said, “Actually, the current Adie mental imprint scanning system may not be perfect.”
Lu Yi sent out the announcement, then turned to Rong Mi and said calmly, “Correct.”
“The scanning system might mistakenly interpret images in mental domains. The technical department has been working to overcome these issues. For ambiguous cases, healers’ assistance is required.”
Rong Mi nodded thoughtfully. “Do you know about gemstone rabbits? A pet-type star beast.”
Lu Yi shook his head.
Rong Mi: So the fact that gemstone rabbits can keenly sense Zerg mental power and Adie’s imprints hasn’t been discovered yet.
He didn’t elaborate further. Turning a little-known fact into widespread knowledge required substantial data support, something that couldn’t be achieved through casual conversation.
The general, unaware of Rong Mi’s reason for mentioning gemstone rabbits, asked indifferently, “Thinking of getting one?”
Nearby, the silver wolf’s ears perked up and quickly turned toward Rong Mi, as if unconcerned but clearly attentive.
Ah Yin was incredulous: Rong Mi just finished petting a lion, and now he wants a rabbit?!
“No, just curious,” Rong Mi said with a smile. “Rabbits are pretty cute…” He stopped mid-sentence, realizing something, and quickly added, “Of course, not as cute as wolves!”
Lu Yi: “…”
Silver Wolf: “…”
Rong Mi leaned back on the treatment bed and quickly steered the conversation away from the precarious topic, saying seriously, “General, I have a request.”
“Can I get temporary permission to join your first squad as a mech pilot?” He blinked. “I think you’re about to engage in combat.”
Rong Mi continued, “That high-level ice butterfly that left the toxin gland in Sandor’s mental domain should be nearby. When I burned away its toxin gland earlier, I faintly sensed its presence.”
“It’s hiding in a space wormhole connected to the warzone outside this barren star region. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of the wormhole,” he added regretfully.
Lu Yi frowned deeply, then raised his arm to activate his communication wristband.
Rong Mi looked at him. “Are we dealing with Adie’s mental imprint issue first or this high-level ice butterfly?”
“The high-level ice butterfly,” Lu Yi said succinctly. “Deputy Captain Sun Tong, hand over piloting duties to the first co-pilot. Co-pilots below second rank, fill in sequentially. Sun Tong, Mech Captain Linda, Deputy Captain Si Lan, and Information Captain Erwin, assemble in the conference room.”
“Full-ship alert. Everyone to combat standby.”
The sharp alarms blared throughout the starship, signaling battle preparation.
Rong Mi sat on the treatment bed, staring at Lu Yi expectantly.
Lu Yi met his gaze.
“I can follow commands, cooperate well, and have highly sensitive mental power. I can join either the reconnaissance team or the assault team,” Rong Mi raised a hand, eager to continue. “And I promise not to hold your people back during operations…”
He was itching to pilot a mech again after just a few days of inactivity.
“You’re one of our people,” Lu Yi interrupted. “But you don’t want to join the First Legion, only the first squad.” He spoke coldly. “Think carefully about what you want.”
Rong Mi: “…”
“I already told you, I’ve offended your legion commander and don’t want to deal with him,” he muttered. “But I do like working with you.”
He blinked, finally sharing a decision he had been pondering for days.
Rong Mi: “How influential are you with your legion commander? If you can handle him, I’ll consider joining your legion.”
Rong Mi gave him a thumbs up and stepped out of the medical pod, calling to Silver Wolf.
“Let’s go! A Yin!” the young man laughed, “Take me to see the mechs!”
“Ow!” Silver Wolf responded.
It ran through the starship corridor, brushing past Rong Mi’s ankles, leading the way ahead.
The backup mech storage of Team One occupied a whole room in the armory. Walls lined with hanging storage units for mechs divided the room into sections. Rong Mi glanced at the area indicator outside the door. The innermost section held mechs designed for inner space, the middle section contained outer space mechs, and the outermost section had dual-mode mechs, which could change shape and function depending on the environment.
Rong Mi directly walked into the middle section, which housed the outer space mechs.
His eyes scanned the area, and he selected a standard mech that had balanced configurations, capable of both long-range and close combat.
Before grabbing the storage button, he specifically checked the mental power enhancement rate.
“Enhancement 100%… A-class standard mech. Such a high enhancement rate, decent defense… Yet, it’s only stored in the backup vault,” Rong Mi muttered to himself. “So this is the extravagant era of the past.”
He sighed inwardly but didn’t waste any time. He placed the storage button onto the mech inspection device, confirmed that the mech’s energy was filled, and immediately proceeded to the next floor to the conference room, following the starship’s map.
As Rong Mi pushed the door open, Deputy Captain Sun Tong, the mech team leader, and the information team leader were already present.
“We’ve pulled up the records of civilian starship crashes and disappearances in nearby star regions over the past three months,” the information team leader quickly reported, having already accessed the military and security department’s database after Commander Lu Yi’s orders…
He heard the sound of the conference room door opening, and subconsciously glanced toward the door.
A handsome young man stood at the entrance.
He wasn’t wearing military uniform but a simple mech technician training suit. At his feet was the general’s Silver Wolf.
The usually cautious Silver Wolf refused to enter the conference room, staying at the door as though guarding Lu Yi’s retreat.
But Silver Wolf followed closely behind the young man to the conference room door. It looked at him with an inherent trust.
Lu Yi looked up at Rong Mi. “Come in.”
Rong Mi stepped into the room and saw Silver Wolf sitting at the door, bending down to gently pat the wolf’s back in a comforting gesture.
The room’s occupants were shocked.
“…?!”
How could General Lu Yi suddenly be so close with a stranger?! He was even calmly patted on the back without any reaction, completely unconcerned about the young man’s touch!
Some of them had seen Rong Mi aboard Lu Yi’s starship and began to guess why he was here. Others, who had heard of Rong Mi’s identity as a healer but didn’t recognize his name and face, showed expressions of surprise upon seeing the unfamiliar face.
“Rong Mi. My healer.” Lu Yi introduced briefly. “He discovered the movements of the high-level Ice Butterfly. He’s temporarily joining the 1-A0 Special Task Force.”
The “1-A0” task force was the special team code for the first squad of the First Legion, usually consisting only of Lu Yi himself.
All eyes in the room, which had been focused on Rong Mi, grew more complex.
Curiosity, confusion, and subtle scrutiny…
However, Rong Mi didn’t sense any doubt in anyone’s gaze regarding his joining the task force.
It seemed that everyone trusted Lu Yi’s judgment completely. Lu Yi’s acceptance of Rong Mi meant that Rong Mi’s character and abilities were unquestionably trustworthy.
Rong Mi thought: Lu Yi’s influence in the legion is truly impressive!
While thinking this, he politely smiled and greeted the people in the room with a wave.
Lu Yi lightly tapped the holographic screen and coldly said, “Continue.”
The information team leader quickly snapped back to attention.
“The location closest to the Desolate Star is 30 degrees left, a volatile storm star sea region about a day’s journey away. There have been five starship crashes reported here over the past three months,” he explained, continuing to provide details on the data he had just retrieved.
“This is a frequently stormy area, and the surrounding star sea is highly unpredictable and dangerous. There’s no official route here. The Federation’s transportation department has long warned civilian starships to avoid this region. But some starships, pressed for time, still take this shortcut route.”
“While starship crashes happen regularly here, the five incidents in the last three months are slightly higher than average but haven’t exceeded the abnormal threshold.”
Lu Yi glanced at the star chart sent by the information team leader and recognized the area.
“Grey market transport ships might pass through this star sea to avoid normal port inspections,” he said. “The actual number of crashed ships could be even higher.”
Lu Yi: “Turn towards the storm star sea.”
“Understood,” Sun Tong immediately responded. “We should reach the storm star sea in about five hours.”
The information team leader quickly checked the status of the star sea and confirmed, “The storm star sea is calm right now. Should we go straight in?”
“Dock at the space station an hour before the storm star sea,” the general looked at the star chart, “and switch to another starship.”
“This high-level Ice Butterfly is likely very clever,” Rong Mi observed while looking at the star chart. “There’s a space station an hour away. It could have attacked the station to feed, but it hasn’t done so.”
“Even if it was initially injured and hesitant to attack, three months should be enough for it to recover. One guess is that it’s afraid of drawing the military’s attention and being surrounded again.”
“If we enter with this starship, it should remain still.”
They couldn’t detect the exact position of the wormhole, so they would have to lure the Ice Butterfly to reveal itself.
Sun Tong gave Rong Mi a look of approval.
“Space station ports rent civilian starships,” he said. “The team’s flagship will stay at the upper military port, while the task force will go to the lower civilian port… Civilian starships don’t have weaponry, and there’s no time to make major modifications. At most, we’ll carry two Gamma-ray cannons on the lower deck. The mech operators’ attack power and speed are critical in this battle.”
“General,” he asked, “will you stay aboard the flagship?”
Rong Mi: “Actually, the space station may not be the rear.”
He studied the star chart, thoughtfully continuing his previous speculation. “Another guess is…”
“All sub-butterflies require a large amount of special energy to be born. Ordinary resources can’t sustain their growth; what they need most is human mental power.” Rong Mi muttered.
Thus, the appearance of sub-butterflies was always accompanied by great disaster. Their powerful combat abilities and ability to open wormholes would bring even greater destruction to humanity.
“So, the second guess is that this space wormhole is specifically meant for the fifth-level Ice Butterfly on Desolate Star,” Rong Mi pointed to the space station on the star chart. “The station’s resident guard force was likely intended as reserves to fuel the growth of that sub-butterfly.”
“So that hiding high-level Ice Butterfly can’t be used casually.”
“The fifth-level Ice Butterfly on Desolate Star can use both the star and the space station to upgrade. Even if it can’t upgrade, it can absorb a massive amount of energy. Afterwards, it will use this wormhole to enter the combat zone before retreating to the Zerg star domain.”
“If that’s true, there may be other Ice Butterfly siblings in the space station, or even more Ice Butterfly symbionts—human traitors.”
There was a brief silence in the conference room.
How the high-level Ice Butterfly originally arrived on Desolate Star, and how it had proliferated there, remained a mystery.
If Rong Mi’s conjecture was correct, this plan had likely been in motion for a long time.
Such a massive operation could not have been carried out by just a few people.
The military’s vulnerabilities might be far larger than they had imagined.
In the midst of the uneasy atmosphere, Lu Yi’s expression remained calm.
He nodded slightly at Rong Mi, acknowledging his guess, and spoke in a quiet voice: “We will eliminate the hidden danger.”
The general’s words were brief but conveyed an undeniable confidence.
Lu Yi: “Send a warning to the space station. In the name of capturing A-class space pirates, request the highest level of alert. Broadcast to all starships in the nearby star region, instructing all nearby ships to dock. Issue a starfield ban around the space station and the storm star sea.”
This arrangement was to prevent anyone from detecting unusual movements and tipping off the Ice Butterfly.
“In my private capacity, purchase a civilian starship and rent a starship modification room from the space station,” the general looked at Sun Tong. “You’ll lead the civilian starship, accompanied by Mech Commander Linda and thirty mechs, into the storm star sea.”
“I, A Yin, Rong Mi, and the remaining mechs will stay on the flagship.”
“If a fight breaks out at the space station, don’t use mental power recklessly.” Rong Mi looked at Lu Yi and, as a healer, asked again for confirmation, “This starship also doesn’t have mental power suppression bands?”
Lu Yi: “No, I’ll control my mental power.”
“Good.”