What on earth had he done...
And what on earth did he know?!
Evenheiler stared at Lei Ting in a daze, his expression gradually turning solemn.
Apton Angye’s black-and-red eyes, which possessed the characteristics of a mental attack, were actually a manifestation of high-level Demonic Transformation. He hadn't originally possessed such power, but the moment he learned of his home's destruction, his psyche suffered a devastating blow, allowing the corrosive forces of the Ethereal Plane to seize the opening.
Demonic Transformation was an infection born of the mind, and its physical symptoms began with the visual organs.
At that time, Angye had nearly begun the formal process of transformation. Correspondingly, Evenheiler and the others near him had also suffered mild contamination.
However, through some unknown means, the "Principal" had isolated the path of their infection, while the "Speaker"—who hadn't shown his face in over a century—had projected his power from afar to halt the change within Angye.
From then on, Angye had changed completely. He went from a gentle, earnest, and idealistic young man to the person he was today, step by step.
Yet he never did anything to harm the Federation, not only because of the regulations but also because his very self-stability was now maintained by the Speaker’s power. Should he harm or betray the Federation, death would be his only path.
But now...
"Angye..." he whispered. "...Is he dead?"
"Why would you think that? He’s fine; he’s still the Vice Speaker of the Federation. The Federation’s more shameless external activities mostly rely on him..." Lei Ting paused, his expression shifting. "Wait, are you worried about him? Did you think I’d kill him?"
"..."
A wave of perceived grievance emanated from Lei Ting, momentarily choking Evenheiler. "...No, it’s just that if something happened to him, the negative impact would outweigh the positive. However, if he were dead, it could be considered his just deserts."
Lei Ting didn't doubt his words. He simply watched him in silence.
Then, in the dim light, his expression gradually smoothed into a mask of indifference.
This change made Evenheiler open his mouth, unsure of what to say. Before he could utter a word, he saw the unfamiliar face his young man was currently wearing press its lips together. Lei Ting turned away, looking somewhat dejected. "Let’s go."
As the lean, ordinary figure walked toward the door, Evenheiler couldn't help but superimpose Lei Ting’s true, towering form over him in his mind.
...He looked a bit pitiful.
"...Lei Ting," Evenheiler spoke up, moved by some inexplicable impulse. "I wasn't worried about him."
The sentence was so clumsy that even he was stunned after saying it. He knew perfectly well that he had no need to explain this to Lei Ting, nor any reason to "pity" him. After all, their roles weren't truly those of lovers, but of a Vice Legion Commander and his captive. And the young man before him was one of the most powerful individuals in the galaxy today.
Even if this young Vice Legion Commander doted on his captive to the point of satisfying almost every whim. Even if his immense power had, over the past few days, frequently been used... just to make his captive sleep a little more comfortably.
"Human perception is determined by electrical signals. The movement of metal ions can interfere with them," Lei Ting said suddenly, without looking back. "Back then, I made him believe he had returned to twenty years ago... because he tried to deceive me.
"To put it simply, I was provoked. It happened during my most unstable period. And at that time, you weren't by my side."
Then, he opened the door, turned around, and winked at Evenheiler with a clear, bright smile.
"Let’s go," he said. "Let’s take a walk outside and get something to eat."
***
As the largest interstellar social entity in the galaxy, the Ring World’s racial and cultural diversity was truly peerless.
Nearly ten thousand "Civilization Specimens" operated in a semi-autonomous fashion across the Ring World. The Complex had allocated each of them a territory at least the size of a "moon," allowing the survivors of destroyed civilizations to reside there and thrive under various preferential support programs.
Of course, the Complex didn't give away land for free. The survivors had to fully cooperate with the Complex’s policies, which included tourism development, cultural merchandise, technological exchange, and certain mild social experiments.
To put it simply, the places the Ring World provided for them to live were all designated as... artificial scenic spots.
With the support of environmental terraforming technology, tourists could see landscapes belonging to three or four different planets and civilizations within a single area. Naturally, the particularly beautiful or thrilling environments generated extremely high income, allowing the resident survivors to thrive and eventually leave the "Civilization Specimen Project." They could then take their culture and knowledge, move away from the Ring World, and become masters of their own new planet.
"A form of protection," Lei Ting said softly.
On the magnificent crystal street, he walked in front while "Mr. Wen" followed behind, with a distance of about two meters between them.
Around them, beautiful humanoid creatures resembling "elves" from fantasy stories occasionally leaped through forests of active crystals. Branches laden with gem-like fruits were mottled with a type of energy crystal that, under the decorative lights, displayed a hallucinatory, dreamlike beauty.
This was the territory of the "Galactic Upright Thinking Centralized Civilized Carbon-based Organism Type IV - Virgo Subspecies." Located not far from the Orion gathering area, it bore the utterly cliché name of "Dreamy Forest."
But this name actually belonged to the home of these "Virgo Elves." Originally, their home was a sea of fire with extreme temperatures. Later, it became a magical star sector filled with crystal planets of all sizes and their corresponding lifeforms. Finally... finally, it became a sea of fire once more.
This process had taken billions of years, and the Virgo Elves' history of thriving there could be traced back as far as 1.8 million years.
Of course, the current final civilization had been established for a much shorter time—a mere twenty thousand years or so.
Thus, sometimes "tacky" and "cliché" were simply synonyms for "long-standing existence," "wide application," and "popular with many."
"Perhaps," Mr. Wen said softly. "I hope they find their way out soon."
"Or perhaps they don't want to 'find a new way out' at all," Lei Ting said.
After speaking, he turned to glance at a Virgo Elf who was coquettishly soliciting customers at the entrance of a nearby casino.
To outsiders, it was difficult to discern their age or gender, but their appearance—truly beautiful enough to transcend race and even the boundary between organic and inorganic—meant that with just a few laughs, people would dizzily wander through the doors.
This was one of the pillar industries for the Virgo Elves in the "Dreamy Forest"—gambling that might or might not involve sex, but definitely no drugs.
If drugs were involved, the Complex would execute them immediately.
Mr. Wen also watched the scene from a distance and felt a lump in his throat. In truth, small civilizations moved into the Ring World every year, but those who remained self-reliant and flew back out were few and far between.
In contrast, more survivors who had barely made it through a disaster didn't want to return to a life where everything depended on themselves...
The "Tane" humanoid race, which Supervisor Valen had introduced to Lei Ting during the exhibition match in the game, was, after all, part of an extremely resilient minority.
The vast majority of life, when faced with extreme environments where boiling water fell from the sky, magnetic storms raged in the air, and the ground liquefied, could only obediently allow the matter they possessed to return to the sea of stars.
Under the shimmering starlight, lifeforms that understood unity, strove for progress, and possessed enough luck were never in the majority.
the Ring World had trillions of residents, but not many truly created value for the galaxy.
But it didn't matter. At least for now, the Complex’s supply capacity could still maintain internal balance.
"Wen, you’ve been here for quite a while, haven't you?" Lei Ting looked toward the casino, watching the two Virgo Elves wave smilingly in their direction. He tilted his head slightly and asked softly, "Have you ever been in there?"
"No," Mr. Wen said coldly. "Don't even think about going in. Don't be fooled by their looks; they’ll rack their brains to swindle every cent out of your account."
The way he said it... Lei Ting raised an eyebrow.
Why did the air feel a bit sour?
"Fine, let’s go." Mr. Wen turned to leave, and in a few steps, he was almost out of the spatial transfer lockdown zone Lei Ting had preset for him. "If you’re not leaving, I am."
Good grief, what would happen if this guy got the chance to run out of the range where the "prison" could take effect at any moment? Lei Ting grinned, unwilling to use force, so he hurried to catch up. He felt, inexplicably, as if he were the actual prisoner.
Of course, he didn't tell the other man that he hadn't been staring at the casino entrance or the two Virgo Elves. Instead, he had been looking at an "acquaintance" talking to someone in a first-floor corner in that direction—the Federation’s rising star medical scientist, Kona Maslow.
In fact, from the very beginning on that spaceship, Lei Ting had sensed something unusual about Ms. Maslow—she wasn't an Orion. Or rather, not purely an Orion.
Her body had Orion characteristics, but her essence was a type of spore. Beneath that white hair was pale, snow-like mimetic skin and a pair of white eyes wearing realistic red contact lenses.
In the classified documents Lei Ting could access, her origin and specific identity were recorded.
To the public, she was an albino who could have been completely cured through gene editing long ago but preferred this look.
Internally, she was actually... an anomalous "Bayer Comister."
The existence of this thirty-nine-year-old woman proved that something had likely gone wrong with the Comister civilization—the fungal planet and fungal organisms that loomed within the galaxy.
Furthermore, the problem had occurred... decades ago.
...
Inside the casino, Kona Maslow withdrew her gaze from the window, feeling somewhat unsettled.
"What’s wrong?" The white-haired, white-eyed Virgo Elf dealer sitting across from her asked casually while deftly mixing a drink.
"It’s nothing..." Kona said, suppressing the sensation of being "watched by a natural predator" that had haunted her for two full months. "To make a long story short, sister. Can you still connect to the Mycelium Network?"
