Chapter 603 - 520: Ants Under the Spiritual Energy Tide

Chapter 603: Chapter 520: Ants Under the Spiritual Energy Tide

"This way! Quick!"

At that very moment, Holland’s voice rang out beside him.

The former Priest’s usual playful smile and mercenary air had vanished completely. His brown eyes were now filled with nothing but sharp resolve.

He whipped the iron-rimmed Oak Shield—the one he’d just gotten from the black market—off his back.

He made no attempt to persuade or push aside the congested crowd.

Instead, with a low growl, he turned sideways and dipped his shoulder, ramming the Shield’s heavy edge forward like a siege hammer. He crashed right into a few unlucky souls who were shoving each other in fear, blocking the way.

"THUD! Oof!"

Amid the dull thuds and cries of pain, the unceremonious brute force tore a gap through the crowd.

Holland didn’t stop for a second. He blocked left and right with his Shield, using his body and its flat face to force a path open. He glanced back and yelled urgently to Roland.

"This way! Rudolph! Quick!"

His movements were unrefined, even brutal, but brutally efficient. In an instant, he had carved a path to safety through the chaos.

The brand-new Shield was immediately covered in new scratches and dents.

But he didn’t even glance at it, his eyes fixed ahead and to the sides, scanning for any potential threats.

Seeing this, Roland said nothing more. With one hand, he steadily hoisted the still barely conscious Ogre, while his other hand gripped Ellis’s arm like an iron clamp.

He followed close behind Holland, moving down the path carved out by shield and shoulder. Pushing against the chaotic trickle of people flowing the other way, they moved quickly and steadily toward the exit.

As they made their escape, back in the center of the hall, the five Heartstealers had already swiftly eliminated any Dark Moon Guards and the few participants who had been rash enough to attack or pose a direct threat.

Cold blasts of Spiritual Energy and precise Domination Spells, combined with their leader’s overwhelming Void Grasp, swiftly snuffed out any spark of resistance. All that remained was a dead silence and a collection of mindless bodies, standing frozen where they were.

However, they had no interest in the others who were fleeing in panic.

The five figures, radiating a chilling Spiritual Energy, silently circled the hovering Shell Ship.

Their slick tentacles gently brushed across the crude patches on the ship’s hull, their dark eyes gleaming with a cold, data-like light.

After a moment of dead-silent assessment, a High Tier Heartstealer on the left, holding a staff, "spoke." Its words came as a flat, monotonous wave of Spiritual Energy that directly impacted the consciousness of all nearby creatures.

’Sequence code comparison... confirmed as a standard-issue unit of the Seventh Exploration Fleet. However, the registration mark shows an anomalous discontinuity. The core Spirit Patterns show signs of a non-standard overwrite.’

Immediately following, the tentacles of another Heartstealer on the right twitched slightly.

’No residual link to a shared Main Brain detected. No recent, valid pilot’s Spiritual Mark found. The surface-dwellers’ methods were... crude, but they did succeed in Stripping the key bonds.’

The Spiritual Energy of the remaining two Heartstealers rippled faintly, like a cold sigh.

’The surface consciousness and deep memories of this area’s administrator have been scanned. No direct record of the ship’s arrival on this plane. The information chain is broken.’

A brief silence fell over them.

Finally, the lead Heartstealer slowly raised its strangely gloved hand.

Its "voice" carried an absolute, top-down coldness—the kind that regards all things as either analyzable objects or mere obstacles.

’In that case... execute the secondary cleansing protocol. Place all "meat-species" in this area under compulsory containment for deep-thought-probing.’

As it "spoke," its ink-black head turned toward the remaining participants in the hall—some frozen in terror, others still attempting to mount a defense. An invisible, oppressive wave of Spiritual Energy washed over them once more, cold as the tide.

’We must locate the missing pilot and recover the vessel’s complete data.’

’The creations and knowledge of our people... will not be squandered in the hands of these inefficient, foolish, primitive minds.’

The instant the thought faded, the murky crystals atop the four staff-wielding Heartstealers’ wands simultaneously flared with a deep purple light, far more blinding than before.

The light began to spread, slowly but unstoppably, seeping into every corner of the Dark Moon Hall like an invisible net closing in.

The slaughter—or rather, the systematic "containment"—was about to begin.