Chapter 66

Chapter 66: Escape

When the mine announced three days off to celebrate the emperor’s ascension, everyone’s gaze instinctively drifted to Jun Tang.

The rebel prince who had failed.

Jun Tang’s face was calm, too calm. There was even a faint smile at the corners of his mouth.

Wang Jie stood beside him. Over the past few days, he’d learned Jun Tang’s temperament. The man looked deep and steady, but it was mostly an act. The smallest thing could set him off.

Now he was smiling.

That meant something was about to explode.

Ever since the old general seized the battleship, everything Jun Tang did seemed to hinge on a hidden condition – some trigger he’d been waiting for.

That smile told Wang Jie the trigger had arrived.

The massive light screen flickered to life. The coronation ceremony of the Silver Radiance Empire began.

Wang Jie’s eyes widened. For the first time, he was seeing a civilization beyond Blue Star.

Just as Blue Star’s people once imagined – sleek technology, breathtaking scale. Starships lined up across the sky. The Imperial Capital itself looked like a sea of celebration.

The difference was this: Blue Star’s people had never imagined cultivation civilization could exist alongside technology.

Here, it did.

Cultivators rose into the air in organized ranks, performing some kind of ritual. Massive flying beasts swept overhead like living warcraft.

Wang Jie was absorbed.

This was the first alien civilization he had ever truly seen.

People couldn’t imagine a world without people; humanity itself was the lens through which everything became imaginable. As long as there were people, no matter how high and mighty the Silver Radiance Empire was – no matter how unreachable Jia Yi Sect felt – it could still be pictured.

His awe lasted only a moment. Then his gaze slid to the figure on the dais.

Emperor Jun Hua.

Jun Tang and Jun Hua were blood siblings.

Jun Tang was shadow and bitterness. Jun Hua was the opposite: dazzling, noble, and cold in a way that made you keep your distance – yet her smile was radiant, sincere. Especially her eyes, clear as snowmelt and burning like hidden fire at the same time. It was the kind of face that made people want to trust her.

A procession followed behind her as she approached the highest throne.

Jun Tang stared at the screen, his fist tightening slowly. His smile deepened.

Jun Hua was about to step onto the throne –

And the calm man behind her moved.

His palm snapped forward and slammed into the back of her head.

In the instant the strike landed, the light screen warped, the image rippling as if reality itself had been punched. Across the screen, the empire convulsed into chaos.

Jun Tang lurched forward, breath catching.

The Imperial Capital erupted.

Yet no one dared attack the man who struck.

The entire coronation froze.

Everyone stared, stunned.

Only the attacker stared at his own hand in shock.

He had failed.

“You’re not Jun Hua.”

The “Jun Hua” who’d taken the blow slowly turned around.

Her face shifted. Features melted and reformed into another woman’s face.

“Yu Dong.”

The man’s teeth clenched.

Yu Dong stared at him, expression glacial. “Xuan. As the empire’s War God, aren’t you supposed to be neutral?”

War God Xuan exhaled, smiling bitterly. “I didn’t have a choice.”

He looked at her with a weary resignation. “I underestimated Jun Hua. And I underestimated you.”

The light screen snapped to black.

Jun Tang stood in the mine, empty-eyed.

Failed?

He had endured for years, positioning everything for this day. Long ago, he’d forced War God Xuan to remain “neutral” so that when Jun Hua ascended, Xuan would strike her down – and Jun Tang would become the master of the Silver Radiance Empire.

His earlier “escape” had only been to make the old general waste his single chance to intervene.

He’d thought he’d calculated everything.

So why did it fail?

Outside the mine, panic detonated. In the distance, small starships rose into the sky and opened fire on the mine.

Bian Qi grabbed Jun Tang. “My lord, we have to go! There will be another chance!”

Jun Tang’s rage boiled over. “Why did it fail? Why?”

“My lord-” Bian Qi dragged him, voice shaking. “We’ve been trapped. The shackles can’t be broken. This mine belongs to her!”

Jun Tang was hauled away by force.

Then he jerked his head, searching. “Where’s that man?”

“Kill him!”

Bian Qi had been looking too – Wang Jie had vanished.

“We’ll kill him later,” Bian Qi said through clenched teeth. “My lord, we must leave first!”

Jun Tang’s face twisted with unwilling fury, but he had no choice.

And then –

A figure appeared directly ahead.

Wang Jie.

Jun Tang’s eyes widened. When had he-

Wang Jie lifted a finger.

Ninety-nine times limit strength. Qi and force fused.

The Luo Xuan Finger tore forward.

One strike – Jun Tang’s throat was pierced clean through. Blood sprayed across Bian Qi’s face.

Bian Qi stared, frozen, at Jun Tang’s collapsing body.

Wang Jie turned and sprinted.

Jia Eight Steps turned his body into a blur. His speed was terrifying.

“My lord-” Bian Qi screamed, clutching Jun Tang as if he could hold life in place.

Jun Tang’s pupils dulled to gray. He tried to speak – rage, disbelief, something – but the words never came.

He died.

A massive beam carved into the ground ahead. Bian Qi threw Jun Tang’s corpse aside and stumbled away, dodging wildly.

But the shackles bound him. They made every movement clumsy, heavy.

Even with Star-Breaking Realm battle power, he couldn’t move like he needed to.

Wang Jie could.

He’d broken his shackles long ago, and his speed was beyond anything ordinary.

Behind him, beams hammered the mine mountain. Heat waves rolled, weapons screaming through the air. The entire area turned into a furnace of annihilation.

Wang Jie twisted through the air and glanced back.

Miners died in droves, erased by light and heat.

Bian Qi wouldn’t escape either.

Wang Jie fixed on one direction and ran until he reached it – an exquisite small starship, far better than the one he’d arrived in.

Thank heavens he’d learned to fly. Otherwise, reaching it would’ve meant nothing.

The “old general” had ordered him to kill Jun Tang. He’d done it.

Not for that voice.

For himself.

Jun Tang’s killing intent toward him had been thick enough to choke on. Given a chance, Jun Tang would have killed him without hesitation. And Jun Tang was almost certainly Star-Breaking Realm.

Wang Jie might not have been able to win in a straight fight.

So he cut Jun Tang down while he could.

As for “reward,” Wang Jie hadn’t even considered it.

He’d killed an imperial prince. The best outcome was not being publicly executed. A reward? Ridiculous.

The real “reward” would be silencing.

So his only way out was to run.

He’d already mapped this mine, already confirmed where ships were. With qi sight, he’d confirmed the mine held no one stronger than him – no Star-Breaking Realm at all. There were battleships, yes, but if he could outrun this bombardment, he could disappear into space.

Hurry.

Wang Jie piloted the ship with practiced hands.

The vessel shuddered, lifted, then surged upward into the starfield.

The bombardment range didn’t reach this far. The battleships could only watch as the ship fled and vanished into the vast black.

Only when the mining planet became a distant speck did Wang Jie finally exhale.

Maybe his strength wasn’t as pathetic as he’d feared.

Jia Yi Sect’s trials had been filled with monsters. Rumors had spoken of people who could kill planet-destroyers with a tossed stone. Compared to that, Wang Jie had felt fragile.

Now?

In the Silver Radiance Empire, he could almost walk sideways.

Not long after, the voice came again through the earpiece he still wore.

“Come back and claim your reward.”

Wang Jie stared at the star chart, calmly adjusting course.

A reward?

More like a coffin.

“What are you afraid of?” the voice asked.

Wang Jie didn’t answer.

“Watch the news.”

He frowned. He could fly a ship. He didn’t know how to dig through entertainment systems.

The voice guided him until he found an external feed.

The moment the screen lit, a headline blared: Emperor Jun Hua assassinated.

The assassin: War God Xuan – an expert long considered the strongest in the Silver Radiance Empire. Full-Star Realm.

But the next line said he’d been captured.

Then another headline filled the screen.

Wang Jie.

The footage showed him killing Jun Tang – except his face was blurred and replaced with someone else’s.

And then, immediately, another clip: “Wang Jie” being blown into fragments by a blast.

Fake.

The footage was fake.

But the empire had announced it anyway.

The voice spoke again, smooth and coaxing. “See? We won’t do anything to you.”

“Jun Tang couldn’t be killed. But you killed him, so we needed an explanation.”

“That explanation has been given. You are already dead.”

“Here are coordinates. Come here.”

Wang Jie understood at once.

From the beginning, it had been a trap.

Jun Hua had set a trap for Jun Tang.

She lured Jun Tang into arranging War God Xuan’s strike – then ensured Jun Tang would be eliminated as well, cleanly, completely.

But how could they be sure Wang Jie would kill Jun Tang?

First: Wang Jie had provoked Jun Tang in the mine. With Jun Tang’s temperament, he would never let it go.

Second: the “old general’s” voice.

If Wang Jie was right, even that voice had been forged. They knew he’d heard the old general before, so they replicated it to push him into action.

Jun Tang had likely been right about something: the old general wouldn’t intervene again. And a man like that wouldn’t bother with tricks this intricate.

If you wanted to convince Wang Jie, no voice was more perfect than the old general’s.

Jun Hua looked cold. Her smile looked sincere.

Her mind, apparently, was not.

All the more reason not to go back.

The chances of being silenced were too high.

Wang Jie tore the earpiece out and crushed it in his fist.

Then he focused on the star chart.

Even this ship didn’t feel safe.

A harsh alarm blared.

Power low.

Wang Jie’s expression tightened. The ship needed fuel.

Trouble.

He had to land on the nearest planet.

After searching, he found only one viable option: Huanxing.

Huanxing’s technology was far beyond Blue Star’s. It had official landing ports.

Wang Jie had no intention of using them.

He brought the ship down onto the ocean instead, then abandoned it and left.

The moment it touched down, Huanxing detected it. A search began immediately.

His position likely couldn’t escape the empire’s surveillance, so he didn’t bother trying to keep the ship hidden. He only needed to hide himself.

Within an hour, news spread across Huanxing: a stowaway was being hunted.

Wang Jie was masked. If he hadn’t been, Huanxing’s sensors would have captured his face clearly even on open water.

By the time the alerts spread, Wang Jie was already in the city.

The skyline screamed technology. It was a different world from Blue Star.

He disappeared into it.

The next day, the capture mission was abruptly canceled.

Everywhere on Huanxing, a movie played: interstellar pirates hiding on a planet – then being effortlessly caught.

Wang Jie watched in silence.

Message received.

He stepped out and headed for the starship port.

A ship waited for him there.

As soon as he boarded, it launched, ripping back into space on a fixed course.

The movie had been aimed at him. It was telling him plainly: even if he hid on a planet, he would be found. He’d learned plenty from Jun Tang, but it wasn’t enough.

His position could be pinpointed easily.

If a Star-Breaking Realm expert wanted him dead, that would be the end.

They simply hadn’t chosen to do it.

Yet.