Chapter 314

Chapter 314: Homeward Bound

Yu Sheng could barely describe how he felt.

When he fully took over the ship called the Pillar of Order, fused his consciousness with cold metal, and faced the vacuum not as flesh but as steel, a storm of feelings hit him all at once—endless vastness and extreme loneliness, and yet a quiet peace under starlight. The contradiction struck so hard he couldn’t calm down for a long time.

It was completely different from when he took over Nightfall Valley.

He couldn’t say why. Was it the vastness of space?

Or the special nature of this steel body?

Maybe both.

And he didn’t resist it.

He stood at the end of the control hall, staring into the endless dark. At the same time, from the ship’s perspective, he examined his own position and state. His awareness flowed through the living giant tower in a way only he could understand, comprehending everything inside this new body.

After an unknown amount of time, his gaze fixed on a direction. He raised a hand slightly.

Just like the first time he reshaped mud and stone in Nightfall Valley, he clumsily moved his new limbs.

Near the base and midsection of the Pillar of Order, hidden grilles unfolded into space. Dark red glows lit one after another. The main engines ignited, and the giant tower began to accelerate slowly.

Then more auxiliary engines lit up in sequence, adjusting the ship’s orientation.

A few minutes later, Yu Sheng stopped and began checking the ship’s other systems.

He found many damaged or unstable areas. Some had been wrecked when the ship fled Mistbound City under Special Operations Bureau bombardment. Others were overload damage from an emergency shutdown when the phase engine was disrupted.

Those faults had already existed when Yu Sheng took over, and he didn’t understand the principles behind the tech, so of course he couldn’t fix them now.

Looks like he’d have to let the Special Operations Bureau experts study it once he got back—see if they could repair it—and then do another blood bestowal on the damaged parts to refresh their state…

Yu Sheng’s mind spun as he confirmed the ship’s readiness.

Luckily, even with damage, the ship’s basic functions were intact. The warp structure was in the worst condition, but for Yu Sheng it mattered the least.

He could use his own method to make up for the missing key structures of the phase engine.

After testing a pile of functions and thinking through the same ideas again and again, Yu Sheng finally took a light breath. He focused, fully syncing with the ship, and opened both hands as if pushing open a door.

Phase engine charged. Teleportation parameters began generating—

A deep tremor ran through the whole hull, and a low roar echoed through the ship. The high tower floating in space suddenly turned hazy, as if several afterimages overlapped. Distant starlight passed straight through its huge, transparent structure.

At the same time, a shaking rift appeared inside the tower’s phantom, like a growing tear in spacetime. The entire ship began collapsing inward toward that internal rift, flipping—

…

Deep in the valley, near the Black Forest.

A roar rolled across the open ground, startling Squirrel chewing acorns on a tree branch, Hunter chopping wood, and Little Red Riding Hood—who had just gotten home from school after finishing four sets of papers, one essay, and ten pages of in-class exercises, and only wanted to duck into the woods, find a quiet spot, and clear her head while watching videos.

Squirrel shrieked and leaped down from the tree, bouncing onto a big rock at the edge of the clearing and staring toward the noise.

“Another huge project? Another huge project! I didn’t hear anything?!”

Hunter walked out with his axe. At a glance, he saw the stretch of ground not far from the Black Forest entrance, toward the grave… and Hotel the Hub was heaving and writhing.

It had been wasteland—nothing but rocks—but now it was leveling at an incredible speed. Soil and stone seemed to melt, then turned into a gray-white solid material—the same “stuff” Yu Sheng usually used to build houses.

Then the flattened ground changed again, forming a massive pit and raised platforms, like it was reserving a foundation for something enormous. Hard roads extended from the edge of the fast-changing land, connecting to the path between the Black Forest and Fairy Tale Town…

Little Red Riding Hood ran out too, her wolf pack padding behind her, eyes wide as she stared into the distance.

Hunter’s low voice came from beside her. “…Did Yu Sheng mention any big construction plans lately?”

“Never heard a thing,” Little Red Riding Hood said, equally confused. “He just made Hotel the Hub, and he hasn’t even finished the interior. Why is he starting something this huge again?”

“What do you think it’s for?” Hunter muttered.

“A giant water pit!” Squirrel hopped up, landing on Hunter’s shoulder. “A pit this big with platforms around it—it’s a swimming pool! Probably for Mermaid—”

“Mermaid can’t swim,” Little Red Riding Hood said seriously.

“Then she can sink in it,” Squirrel said gleefully, for no clear reason. “And you can stand on the platform and swing your rods—”

Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth, but before she could speak, another roar tore across the sky, cutting her off.

She looked up, stunned. Squirrel and Hunter looked up too—Hunter included, even without a face.

A twisted rift was spreading rapidly across the sky. Around it, huge phantoms appeared—dizzying, overlapping afterimages that flipped and reassembled into a floating, unreal giant tower: high, solemn, imposing. Near its top, many sub-towers like hovering pods clustered around the main spire, eerie and magnificent.

Even the wolves beside Little Red Riding Hood stared blankly.

Then the giant tower shifted from illusion into solid reality. After adjusting its posture, it slowly descended toward the freshly completed foundation pit beside the Black Forest.

It landed perfectly in the pit, as if guided by two skilled hands. The “rock” structures around the pit immediately reshaped, locking the towering building firmly in place.

Squirrel finally screamed, “What is that?! Hunter, do you know what that is? Little Red Riding Hood, do you know what that is?!”

Hunter said nothing. After snapping out of it, Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. “No, but it has to be something Yu Sheng made… maybe he’s trying to make it symmetrical with Rapunzel princess’s tower up north?”

Squirrel yelled, “Rapunzel princess’s tower can’t fly! This thing can fly!”

Just then, Little Red Riding Hood saw a phantom door appear near the tower.

Relief hit her immediately—at least that was something she recognized.

The door opened, and Yu Sheng stumbled out.

Little Red Riding Hood rode her wolf over at once. In a blink, she reached him, slid down, and grabbed his arm to steady him. “Hey! Are you okay? What’s going on?”

Yu Sheng waved weakly, his face green. “Don’t talk yet. Dizzy… so dizzy… ugh—”

Before he could finish, he doubled over and started dry heaving. He gagged for a long time and threw up nothing, which somehow only made it worse.

The sound almost made Little Red Riding Hood want to puke too, but she kept holding on anyway. Nearly a full minute later, he finally steadied, lifted his head with difficulty, and forced out, “Damn… getting kicked awake by Irene in a dream wouldn’t be this bad… long-distance warp is that dizzying, huh?”

Little Red Riding Hood was completely lost. “Huh? What warp?”

Yu Sheng took a long breath. The weakness and dizziness started to fade, and his mind stopped buzzing. He pulled his arm free and pointed at the ship beside them.

“That. I brought it back from outer space. A local specialty.”

Little Red Riding Hood looked even more blank. Her senior-year brain understood the words, but couldn’t make them make sense.

“A… a local what?!”

“I’ll explain later,” Yu Sheng said, still a little unsteady but smiling through it. “First I’m going to pull Irene and Foxy in…”

As he spoke, he reached for the air beside him and casually pulled open a phantom door.

On the other side was the living room at Wu Tong Road No. 66. Foxy, Irene, and Xuan Che had returned not long after the tower’s escape, and they’d been waiting there ever since.

A moment later, several more stunned figures appeared beside the Black Forest.

Little Doll stood frozen, craning her neck so hard it looked like she might snap it, staring up at the tower that pierced the sky. After a long pause, she said, “…You really dragged the whole damn tower back here?!”

Yu Sheng said, “What do you mean ‘dragged’? This is spoils of war. And didn’t I say I’d bring local specialties back?”

Irene looked like her brain had shorted out. “…What the hell kind of ‘local specialty’ from space is a spaceship?!”

Yu Sheng said, “Just tell me if it makes sense.”

Irene had nothing to say.

Just then, Xuan Che turned, clasped his hands, and bowed, voice sincere. “Truly expert skill—thunder’s merit indeed.”

Yu Sheng scratched his head without thinking, embarrassed by the praise. Before he could mutter a modest reply, Foxy crowded in too, tail wagging like a three-speed electric fan, eyes shining.

“Benefactor boarded the enemy ship alone, slew their leader, and seized their vessel—you can be a boarding immortal!”

Yu Sheng stared at them, speechless.