Chapter 309

Chapter 309: Breaking the Threshold

A streak of crimson bloomed inside the transparent tube. Then it spread with terrifying speed. In a blink, the blue drug being pumped into the holy coffin had stained into the color of fresh blood.

The lead operator saw it immediately.

Terror hit just as fast—and so did his hands. He slammed the emergency stop button beside the coffin hard enough to nearly break it.

Nothing happened.

Not just that button. Every control device around the holy coffin went dead.

“The control system is offline!” an assistant screamed, voice cracking. “Cultivator, it won’t stop!”

“Smash the pipe! Cut power!”

“Give me the axe!”

With a thunderous bang, the lead operator seized a fire axe and brought it down on the pipe feeding the coffin. He hacked again and again, then turned on the cable bundle and neural tubing on one side of the platform, chopping until sparks burst like fireworks.

The alarm tone warped into a shrieking, off-key wail—then cut out mid-note.

Silence crashed down.

The holy coffin at the platform’s center smoked faintly, its fault lights flickering without pause.

“…We stopped it?” The lead operator’s voice trembled as he gripped the axe and stared at the coffin, speaking as much to himself as anyone.

“It’s over,” a lower-ranked cultivator groaned. “We destroyed the holy coffin. The saintess must be damaged too. How will Sage punish us?”

“We saved her!” someone snapped back, immediate and desperate. “We stopped something worse. You saw it too—”

“Quiet.” The lead operator cut him off, sharp as a blade. “Shh. Quiet.”

Everyone froze.

Then they heard it.

A faint scraping from inside the coffin, like fingernails dragging across metal.

One of the lower-ranked cultivators went pale, but before anyone could speak, a thunderous crash shook the room.

The heavy shell of the holy coffin burst open.

A brutal force ripped the jammed locking structure free and sent it flying. A metal component shot across the room too fast to track and slammed into the lead operator’s head, shattering his mask and ripping away half his skull.

A tall, slender figure sprang from the coffin.

Then, as if she had teleported, she was suddenly in front of a lower-ranked cultivator.

“E-emergency protocol, execute E-12…” he recited on instinct, stumbling through the shutdown command he’d drilled into himself. He got only a few words out before cold—then searing pain—punched through his chest.

He looked down.

Several sharp blades slid back out of him, and between them hung a shredded heart.

“…Damn…” Blood spilled from his mouth as he collapsed.

In the dimming, tilting view, he saw the others already down. All of them. He hadn’t even noticed when they’d fallen.

Only the low hum of machines remained.

The artificial saintess stood before the ruined coffin, wrapped in a black shell. Blood clung to her body in glossy streaks. Warm yellow light poured down like a beam from heaven, turning her into a statue—holy, and steeped in something wrong.

For a long moment, she didn’t move.

Then the “statue” twitched.

Her head rose, stiff and slow. Joints in her neck creaked. A beautiful yet hollow face wore a pale smile as she turned toward a corner of the room. Her expression didn’t change, but her attention sharpened, focused hard on something unseen.

A figure stepped out of that corner.

Yu Sheng stopped a dozen meters away.

He had revived long ago. For some time now, he’d been strolling through nearby corridors and rooms like a man taking a casual walk.

Most of the ship’s structure had become an extension of his body. Surveillance devices spread throughout the interior were his eyes. The tightly knit hull perception system was his nerves. He had been moving openly in plain sight, because with most systems already under new ownership, no cultist could notice him.

Dying and coming back like this had taught him a lot.

It was the first time he’d transferred his will directly into another carrier while he was dying. Blood he’d spilled in advance had soaked into the ship. The idea had come from the time he’d used clay and his own blood to create Irene’s body. With the right preparation, he’d managed to keep sensing and influencing the real world even after death.

Maybe the experience would be useful again someday. It needed setup, but at least now he had another option besides falling into dark space.

Later.

Right now, he had a steel doll in front of him.

She was in chaos—and still resisting his control with ferocious strength.

Through the blood connection, Yu Sheng could feel emotions boiling inside that cold shell: anger, hostility, sorrow… and something else, bright and fierce, like a sense of justice.

He didn’t know if the feelings were accurate. He only knew he could feel them, and that confused him.

This killing machine was moving because she believed she was right?

The saintess’s shell trembled. She fought the foreign force inside her body and took one step toward Yu Sheng. The movement was stiff, no longer graceful, but unwavering.

“I think we can talk first,” Yu Sheng said, hesitant but steady. “If you really have a complete mind and you can understand me, I have a few questions.”

A dark, irritated howl rolled through the air, like something unseen was mocking the idea.

The steel doll staggered—then picked up speed. Killing intent surged.

Yu Sheng frowned, but kept talking. “Can you understand me? When I tried to touch that coffin just now, I saw… images. In your memory, there’s a wheat field, right?”

The air seemed to throb with another voice—tempting, coaxing—hissing at the edge of hearing, as if trying to twist his words into something else.

The saintess stepped over a fallen Hermitage Order member. Her feet splashed through blood. She kicked aside the corpse’s still-warm arm.

To her, it was a martyr fallen for unknown reasons. May a compatriot rest in peace.

She lifted her head.

The lights in the holy sanctuary wavered. Under the grand glass dome, ominous purple smoke drifted. The hymn had shattered into broken fragments. The spirit body that served the sanctuary cowered behind candlesticks and curtains. Filthy blood dripped from iron chains overhead, and a demon-shaped creature stood not far away, speaking in a blasphemous, seductive voice.

Her holy sword shone in her hand. Blood stained her armor, and yet she was still wrapped in light.

The knights who had left home with her were dead, but their brave, noble souls still stood at her side.

When this long expedition ended—on the day of triumph—she would bring their spirits back to that quiet hometown.

So she smiled, the way she’d smiled at eight years old when she’d charged the scarecrow in the wheat field with a wooden stick raised high.

And she accelerated toward the demon.

The steel doll lunged.

The reboot had spiraled out of control. Her body was damaged, filled with disturbing internal noise. Her alloy face smiled, cold and hollow, while blood-like fluid seeped from its edges.

She leapt high, twisting midair into a terrible angle. Blades snapped out from her fingertips, flashing with chilling light as they stabbed straight at Yu Sheng.

Yu Sheng dodged back—and felt enormous pressure.

Not from her strike. The saintess, in this state, was weaker than either of the two times he’d seen her before. Slower. Her strength greatly reduced. She came at him fiercely, but her movements were full of openings. Even without Irene and Foxy, handling her wouldn’t have been hard.

The pressure came from somewhere else.

A heavy mental weight, carried through their blood connection, pressing straight into his mind.

He slipped aside. The blades chased him again.

The iron doll attacked like a beast gone mad, wild and patternless.

Weapons rang through the chamber. Metal tore. Sparks spat from her joints. Something inside her shell was melting down. Smoke puffed from gaps in the casing, and thick, unsettling fluid began to leak from her limbs like overflowing plasma. It hit the floor and burned pits into it.

“Wait!” Yu Sheng shouted as he dodged and blocked. “Your body’s breaking down. Stop for a second—you’re going to die!”

She didn’t answer.

She only kept coming.

Like a saint determined to become a martyr.

Yu Sheng retreated again, ready to seize the floor and walls around her and bind her in place.

The instant he pulled back, the iron doll surged.

For a heartbeat, it was as if she had returned to her peak.

She twisted violently out of the inertia of her last movement and slid in like a ghost.

“Oh hell—”

Yu Sheng barely had time to yelp and raise a hand.

Cold bit into his chest.

Again—two stabs, eight holes.

He collapsed beneath a pillar, dragged the corner of his mouth into a crooked smile, and looked up at the pale face inches away.

“Ma’am,” he rasped, “try a new move.”

The steel doll didn’t respond.

She didn’t move at all.

Had she finally… died?