Stars See Me [Interstellar] | Chapter 89 | Descent into the Abyss | Novela.app

Sandro could hear his own breathing. A sound Luo Xian would never make again. When one witnesses death, do they shoulder the soul of the deceased? Probably not. Otherwise, doctors and nurses wouldn't be able to walk. Haha. Yet now, whenever he thought of that swift, sudden arrival of death, Sandro felt as if he were carrying a person on his shoulders. Or rather, a corpse. Yes, a corpse—unmoving, unsmiling, unable to speak, cold and rigid... And he was the blood-splattered wall. In the midst of a stench that reached the heavens, he silently watched the end of a life. ...... ... "Sandro... Sandro?!" A voice came from the distance. "Sandro! Enemy above!!" It was Susanna's voice... she wouldn't scare him on purpose! Without a word, Sandro performed a tactical roll, a searing pain tearing through his waist. Immediately after, a heavy pounce slammed into the spot where he had just been. Then, a familiar figure ran toward him from afar, clutching an unfamiliar rifle. With several *bangs*, she blew the Floean enemy—which looked like a ghoul—into smoking fragments. Susanna rushed forward and grabbed Sandro by the shoulder and arm as he struggled to get up through the agonizing pain. Amidst the rapid *beeping* coming from the corpse fragments, she strained to drag him backward. Her superpower was 'Emotional Stability,' which only worked on herself. Its sole effect was to keep her perpetually devoid of joy or sorrow. Like Sandro's 'Hyper-calculation,' it had no direct combat or destructive utility, and it wasn't particularly helpful at a moment like this. Unfortunately, Sandro's ability required a massive amount of nutrients to activate. Right now, he didn't dare calculate as freely as he did at the academy. He could only manage to scrape along the ground in coordination with her movements, asking as he went, "What's happening...?" "That thing is going to explode!!" Susanna roared. "Did you forget everything you learned? Floeans under the 'Deep Space Stealth' designation—" As she spoke, Sandro scrambled back in terror. The beeping grew louder and louder until it finally culminated in a thunderous explosion. Sandro instinctively threw his arms over his head, thinking this was the end—how could this distance possibly mitigate a bomb installed in the skeletal structure of a 'Deep Space Stealth' soldier? Real battlefields weren't like games; in games, for the sake of fun and balance, the power of bombs and shotguns was scaled down so that one would be fine a dozen meters away. But in reality? In reality, if a shotgun is pointed at you, try standing a hundred meters away and see if you can take the hit. But after the blast, he felt no pain. Only the sound of tearing flesh. A muffled groan. A fresh scent of blood wafted from in front of him. Sandro lowered his arms in a daze. His lips trembled as he slowly raised his head. It was Susanna, the friend he would cherish for the rest of his life. Back when he was a reclusive child, she had stood in front of him with her back turned, telling his bullies: "If you've got the guts, kill me first!" And now, she had become the reclusive and cold one. He had smiled for her for over a decade, handled her affairs and social relationships for over a decade, slowly led her out of the shadows of the past, and looked forward to a future with her... But in the end, she was still the one standing in front of him, using her back and the ballistic inserts she’d scavenged from somewhere to shield him from the shrapnel. Then, she said to him... "Are you stupid? You should have stayed flat! *Cough... cough cough...*" Susanna hacked. "Get up... move. The electromagnetic interference here is severe. We need to get to high ground and connect to the Star Net..." Ballistic protection didn't mean being completely invulnerable. Her ribs were definitely broken, and shrapnel had pierced through the plates. When Susanna pulled out the now-useless protection, the bloodied protrusions on it looked like a mountain range one could never escape. Sandro's face was pale. He struggled to help her up, and they leaned on each other, staggering toward the highest mountain in the distance. On the way, Susanna sorted her thoughts after self-administering several doses of emergency stimulants. She spoke in a weak, raspy voice: "This place seems to be a Floean planetary weapon... though it's not large and the terrain hasn't been heavily modified, the Floeans have indeed succeeded in giving their planetary weapons the same counter-reconnaissance capabilities as their fleets..." "Damn it." Sandro licked his parched lips and cursed from the bottom of his heart. After Susanna was injured, his mind finally began to clear from the fog of blood loss. "Bypassing controls to connect to the Star Net is one of my basic skills. The problem now is... this place is too dangerous. I'm afraid we won't make it." "Yes, so our primary mission is to survive first." Susanna nodded with a grim expression. "When I was dropped, I landed in the same area as a few of my neighbors from the dorms..." "Where are they?" "Dead." "...I'm sorry," Sandro said hoarsely. "Luo Xian is dead too. I saw him..." He instinctively skipped over the state of Luo Xian's body; it was so tragic that even describing it felt like a disrespect to the dead. "...I think we were caught in a joint ambush." "No." Susanna shook her head. As the stimulants took effect, a faint flush returned to her face. "You must have been unconscious for a while, so you don't have much information... I found some intel earlier. This planetary weapon was intercepted by our Army Group before. It was likely discovered by some sensory-type Espers. After several rounds of fire coverage, the Floeans on the surface were nearly wiped out... "Right now, this planetary weapon is barely escaping using 'Deep Space Stealth' technology. I don't think the Floeans believe it's still fit for an 'ambush' mission." "..." Sandro frowned deeply. He rapidly filtered through various pieces of information before suddenly saying, "Spatial transfer is impossible to execute this precisely without coordinate field induction... that damn thing that sucked us in here must be related to the Floeans. Or rather, connected to them." "I think so too," Susanna rasped. "But... did you notice? That thing looked like a Hataen, but also like the legendary..." ... "...Demons." Lei Ting sensed the 'sun' he had left behind in the distance. He stared fixedly at the enemy before him, whispering the name. He was currently in a strange darkness, looking disheveled but uninjured. The enemy across from him, however, was a different story. It was a hideous figure over two meters tall, with sharp horns, exposed black-red skinless flesh, and powerful digitigrade limbs. All of it was currently in tatters—one horn had already been broken, and now one of its legs had been severed by him. Chaotic metallic elements caused the creature's bones and flesh to have a melting, sagging quality, making it impossible for them to regenerate. To achieve such results within a few rounds after being blindsided by a bizarre enemy should have been a point of pride. But a strong sense of crisis surged in Lei Ting's heart. He knew something had gone wrong. His classmates and friends were in danger just like him, but they weren't as capable in a fight, and he was being forcibly locked in this strange space by this eerie enemy. Even if his victory and departure were a visible future, he didn't even dare imagine what was happening in the outside world right now. "Heh..." The monster across from him grinned, gesturing wildly as it told its story. "'Demons'? It's quite nice to be called that by the Human Union's 'Solar Star'... Do you want to know where those Orion brats went? The Floeans and I set up a fine ambush plan. Although the execution was a bit rushed, it would be even better if they and those Orion brats perished together..." Lei Ting remained expressionless. He charged from hundreds of meters away, wreathed in brilliant golden light, launching a metallic chemical reaction explosion followed by a leaping slash. He had no intention of engaging in pointless conversation—whatever the enemy had to say had nothing to do with him. Regardless of anything else, he would finish the fight in front of him first! But this monster, which was clearly no match for him, did not attempt to mistify and dodge or continue the slaughter as before. It gleefully accepted a heavy injury from his explosion and was then cleaved in two by his massive sword. Yet even in two halves, it did not die. Instead, the two sides of its demonic, hideous face grinned in unison. "Come... then." —*Come. Come to the new world.* Lei Ting suddenly understood its meaning. —*Come.* In the next instant, black mist exploded! A chaotic dizziness, enough to collapse any normal person's cognitive ability, hit him along with the mist. He frowned, golden radiance erupting from his eyes. 'Immovability' kept his mind indifferent to it all, but a sense of spatial chaos and a strange familiarity within it forced his movements to pause for a moment. In that moment, he clearly felt himself vanish from his original position once again. This time, he could no longer even sense the small portion of power he had left behind. The black mist dissipated. Lei Ting raised his brilliant golden eyes and looked at the countless eyes before him. In the darkness, innumerable demons shrieked as they swarmed toward him. There were monsters the size of planets and even larger horrors writhing in the dark, extending their tentacles toward him— Yes, he had left the physical world. And on this brand-new and alien battlefield, within the lawless darkness that tried to erode his spirit only to fail futilely against 'Immovability,' approximately ten million monsters... were waiting for him. *This* was the true 'ambush.' Lei Ting's expression was as cold as iron. He slowly tightened his grip on his 'New Sun' as a metallic storm began to rise around him. Fine. Fine, he thought. Spatial tunnels were always two-way. Since he could come here, he could certainly leave. Thus, the only clear path now lay grandly before his eyes. —*Are you all waiting for me?* He stared fixedly at the enemies lunging like a collapsing sky. He raised his heavy sword, lowered his stance with grim seriousness, and began to build power for the 'opening statement' he would deliver to this place in this cross-spatial exchange. —*Thank you very much.* He began to smile. A magnificent golden light shone in his eyes, and a phantom golden silhouette slowly emerged behind him. From within that silhouette, another figure quietly drifted out. It was another 'Lei Ting,' but... one with blurred features and a cold, empty expression, eyes filled with golden radiance, and a dazzling halo suspended behind its head. Lei Ting didn't need to look back to know that this was the form of his spiritual body, and his form 'here.' And His halo was surely sharp and spiked, like a crown, and like a ring of disordered, long thorns. A moment later, He quietly merged with Lei Ting's body. The sharp halo floated behind his head, and together with the seamless sea of golden light behind him, it radiated ten thousand leagues of sunlight, like a magnificent, blazing sun. Beams of light like solar swords sliced into the monster swarm. In an instant, countless 'demons' were reduced to ashes within that 'indestructible' halo granted by 'Immovability.' Then, fully armored, Lei Ting lunged forward, throwing himself alone into the demons that nearly filled the world, completely