Chapter 1189 - 1055: Knowing the Right Moment

Chapter 1189: Chapter 1055: Knowing the Right Moment

Fighting the many with the few and pulling off results like that—of course everyone was stunned.

But even for this question, the Fire Attribute Supreme didn’t have any authoritative answer.

He could only say, "Artificial intelligence is a double-edged sword. The Imperial side has long made its judgment on that."

"Some people really are poking at taboo zones... They’ve got that kind of strength, sure, but they should also understand how serious this is."

"So large-scale promotion? I don’t think that’s likely. It’d be way too easy to lose control!"

At this point his expression turned much more severe. "Just right, I’d like to use this chance to warn everyone!"

"This taboo topic—don’t bring it up again from now on. This time, the Supremes Above behind them didn’t even make a move!"

Was there a Supreme Above among that faction just now? There’s no need to even doubt that.

If there weren’t Supremes Above, who gave them the guts to strike first? In that kind of situation, kneeling and begging for mercy still gives you a pretty big chance to live.

The scary part is, our side’s Traveler didn’t even use his full strength before he flattened that Supreme Above who suddenly popped up.

And if you factor in the other side’s two Supremes actually using Electromagnetic Techniques... that kind of foundation is terrifyingly deep.

Which means our side really needs to watch our mouths.

An A-level nodded at that. "Yeah, we need a gag order. Just look at their Body Technique... if you tell me that’s a Primordial Warrior I’d believe it!"

Everyone fell silent again at those words, some even pulling up the battlefield footage.

Qu Jianlei and the Paranoid’s Instant Flash was one thing—shooting out of the cabin seven or eight kilometers without showing any obvious exertion.

The key was Qinghu and Mu Yu. Worried the Mother Ship would blow apart in a firestorm, the two of them just blinked out nearly twenty kilometers.

Even in open space, that distance isn’t short, and the whole thing was captured crystal clear.

And they didn’t show any obvious movement of exerting force either.

This Body Technique was just too bizarre. Compared to it, whatever Electromagnetic Body Technique or Wind Attribute Body Technique—those are completely trash tier, okay?

Not to mention, they’ve got at least four people who’ve mastered this same Body Technique, which basically means... the technique is a general-use type!

The Fire Attribute Supreme watched the footage twice carefully, then sighed and shook his head. "Forget it. This too... is banned from discussion."

Because Qu Jianlei and the others changed clothes before and after Teleportation, the most sensitive part—the Teleportation Array—ended up drawing no attention at all.

Everyone just naively assumed that the two departing Starships had at least seven Supremes aboard.

Still, one A-level said, "Feels like that Supreme with the pure, sharp aura has a temperament kinda similar to the one on the battlefield."

He meant the Paranoid.

Then someone else chimed in, "I feel it too. That Wind Attribute A-level’s style is kinda like the one from the public channel."

The Fire Attribute Supreme shook his head. "Stop with the baseless guesses. You think they can walk through walls or something?"

Another A-level spoke up, "My lord, that might actually be possible. They never sent a distress signal."

That was what confused everyone most. A Luxury Starship doesn’t forbid communications, and it has corresponding monitoring systems.

If passengers have a certain level of authorization, the crew has no right to eavesdrop, but the equipment can still monitor whether any signal was sent out.

It’s not that they don’t trust their customers—this is an essential safety measure for interstellar travel. What if someone wants to hook up with Star Thieves?

And right now they were in deep space; trying to communicate normally with the outside world was basically impossible.

Under those conditions, if anyone wanted to contact the outside, they’d have to use a super high-power signal transmitter.

But in reality, the Luxury Starship hadn’t detected even low-power signals—this made no sense!

The Fire Attribute Supreme wasn’t an expert in this field, but he understood the general principles.

Thinking it over, he nodded slightly. "This issue you’re raising does exist."

"But it’s obvious a lot of their research results are beyond anything we can imagine."

"Under the cover of artificial intelligence, using tiny signals, then incrementally amplifying them outside the Starship through relays... that’s feasible, right?"

With that explanation, everyone shut up—it’s a hypothesis full of practical difficulties, hard to pull off, but that’s only from their perspective!

Bottom line: when your own abilities are this weak, don’t casually speculate about others.

Still, someone muttered under their breath, "Their strong suit seems to be in the Awakened System."

Whether it was that dazzling Body Technique or their multi-Attribute dual Cultivation, it all belonged to the Cultivation System.

But someone else objected, "Artificial intelligence is squarely in the domain of technology!"

Another person said enviously, "Wonder how many Divine Text Treasures they’ll haul in from this raid."

"Yeah, those Raiders obviously took part in auctions too... With a Supreme Above around, they probably robbed others before as well!"

"Enough!" The Fire Attribute Supreme was displeased. "You think I only took two Attack Ships because I’m timid?"

Like hell you people ever stop to think—are those things even something we get to covet?

Seeing that he was a bit annoyed, nobody dared comment further. Someone suggested, "Why don’t we interrogate the prisoners? Better than sitting around doing nothing."

When those two Starships left, they only took one severely wounded and one intact Supreme, plus the Supreme Above.

All the remaining prisoners are on this Starship.

The Fire Attribute Supreme nodded, gritting his teeth as he spoke. "I’m really curious—who’s got balls this big?"

While they were talking, Flower Scorpion was holding a Pioneer in her hands, silently watching lines of text scroll across the device.

Qu Jianlei had kept her back for one more task: eavesdropping on the other side.

In the end, it was because their side had exposed too many trump cards this time; it was very necessary to figure out how the other side might react.

Flower Scorpion had already grown used to Little Lake’s existence; she couldn’t even be bothered to ponder the principle behind it anymore.

What she cared about was that the enemy didn’t seem very interested in digging into all the trump cards they had revealed.

Realizing this, she finally let out a quiet breath: good enough—the outcome was broadly controllable.

Of course, she couldn’t rule out the possibility that the other side was deliberately letting her hear these conclusions.

But that wasn’t all that important. At least the Fire Attribute Supreme’s explanations were entirely reasonable.

Which meant that, at the very least, the other side understood just how sensitive these things were.

Their side had fully displayed its strength, and the other side was sufficiently alert. The odds of something going off the rails... dropped sharply.

For the next few days, she simply listened in on their interrogations.

And sure enough, the raiders’ origin really was exactly what Qu Jianlei had guessed!

These people were from the same organization that had staged the starship "accident" back on Dream Star and then went on a massive extortion spree.

The reason it was called an organization and not just a faction was that they had their own political demands.

They were a force that claimed to resist Imperial rule, similar to the Rebel Organization Qu Jianlei’s group had previously come into contact with.

Their whole point in extorting Dream Star so aggressively was to spread fear and stir up resentment within the Awakened System.

Of course, this group called "Skywalker" was also relatively short on money; for an organization that waves the banner of rebellion, no one ever thinks they have too much cash.

The people aboard the Luxury Starship were their chosen target, marked back on Dream Star.

It was just that the Military on Haima Star was too strong, making it inconvenient to act there, so they chose a section of Blue Bay Star’s route instead.

Beyond robbing Divine Text Treasures and specialized talent, they also wanted to coerce a few Supremes into their service.

Even if the victims came from major powers and might not be easily forced, it would still serve to build the organization’s reputation.

If they could, through other maneuvers, gain partial support from those powers, they’d consider that an acceptable outcome too.

Flower Scorpion listened in on the entire interrogation and was a bit surprised. "Boss’s mouth—has it been blessed or something?"

The starship, towing five Attack Ships, stopped five million kilometers from Blue Bay Star.

Then they spread out some personnel, piloting the Attack Ships and carefully closing in on Blue Bay.

At roughly two million kilometers out, the Luxury Starship contacted the surface.

After that, a starship came to meet them and dealt with the five Attack Ships. No need to go into the details.

Whether it was the Luxury Starship’s side or the Travelers’ side, both had quite sizable forces behind them; swallowing this bit of loot wasn’t difficult.

Then Flower Scorpion and the others landed as well, and no one bothered to check their identities.

In the end, it was Flower Scorpion and Claire who escorted the Koros siblings away from the rest of the group.

The Fire Attribute Supreme hadn’t made any targeted arrangements either. Since they were going to do someone a favor, they might as well do it properly.

Later on, however, the force behind him still hoped to make contact with the other side, but unfortunately they never managed to locate those four again.

After Flower Scorpion and Claire settled the siblings, the two of them quietly slipped away, set up the Teleportation Device, and left directly.

At that moment, the Omen Ship was waiting for them in space, eight million kilometers out.

Once they’d rejoined the main group, Flower Scorpion reported everything she’d picked up while listening in.

Qu Jianlei already knew most of it and was satisfied with the result.

Say what you will, those people actually understood boundaries—though ever since meeting Nutrient Injection, their own actions had gotten more and more unrestrained, hadn’t they?

Qinghu curled his lip in disdain. "Resisting the Imperial ’brutal rule’? Heh... and just how powerful are these people supposed to be?"

The two rebel organizations they’d encountered both operated in extremely radical ways, with zero concern for ordinary civilians.

Bentley didn’t like talking much, but as someone from a Garbage Star, he too expressed disappointment in the resistance groups.

"It’s just about unequal distribution of benefits. If they ever succeed, they might end up worse than the current Empire."

"Not ’might,’ but definitely," Qu Jianlei shook his head and said flatly.

"Their channels for upward mobility are blocked, so they’re trying to use this to jump classes... Forget it, let’s not dwell on this contest of who’s more rotten."

Flower Scorpion seized the chance to ask, "And that one above Supreme, Boss—what are you planning to do with him?"

She’d already noticed that the ice chunk was still hanging under the Omen Ship, and that man’s Vitality was still lingering.

Even though her impression of him was extremely bad, she had to admit his Life Force was tenacious as hell.

"I happen to want to run an experiment," Qu Jianlei said calmly. "He’s a pretty good test subject."

So we’re really going to use a live person for experiments. I’ve finally... become the sort of person I used to hate?