The explosions were earth-shattering, one after another, and in the blink of an eye, all nine rounds had been fired.

The mop that had fallen to the ground hadn’t even recovered before it was blasted by the earth-shaking bombardment, pissing itself like rain.

He suspected that Scott Harris hadn’t even had time to aim in that split second. Yet the barrage formed a perfect dotted line, and the planet’s fragments broke apart again, with a chunk falling away along that line.

On the other side of the dotted line was a whole section of ground hooked by the space prison’s grappling cables, with a vast black cedar forest and the villa they’d just been in. On this side of the dotted line was the dragon pillar, still glowing blue.

The land fragment with the dragon pillar broke free from the grasp, fell back down, and in the process collided with the corner where they stood, barely piecing together a slightly larger fragment.

But that was only “large” in a relative sense.

All told, rounding up, it looked to be no more than forty square meters.

And the few of them, whether standing or slumped, stood silently on this fragment, looking like a pod of stranded pilot whales on a lonely island.

Scott Harris held the now-empty rocket launcher, looked up at the section of land seized by the space prison, and said expressionlessly, “My house. And my subordinates.”

After speaking, he lowered his gaze and swept it around...

How wonderful—on this tiny patch of land, there was the chief of the Security Building himself, the terrorist Eric Bennett-Young, a buy-one-get-one-free pair of mops, all together in perfect harmony.

Having lost both his property and his people, Officer Harris was in no mood to be cheerful. His gaze shifted and locked onto Eric Bennett-Young, and he pointed up at the suddenly attacking space prison. “Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?”

——

Eric Bennett raised his head, pressed his tongue against his cheek, and squinted up at the underside of that massive object. After a moment, he looked back at Scott Harris, lazily raised a hand to touch his brow, and gave a salute as roguish as could be.

He drawled, “Reporting, Chief, I think the space prison is under your jurisdiction. Did you oversleep?”

Scott Harris: “……” Cut the crap.

Of course he hadn’t overslept!

Precisely because the space prison was supposed to be under his control, he’d instantly sensed something was wrong—

Eric Bennett-Young had escaped, so the prison should have been chasing him across the universe. The controller in his hand hadn’t been destroyed yet; the space prison could pinpoint his location to the centimeter, and could even induce physiological shock within the controller’s radiation range.

But now, the space prison had jumped over, and the grappling cables it dropped weren’t even aimed at Eric Bennett. Such an error, under normal circumstances, would be enough to make the entire prison management resign.

What’s more, Scott Harris’s communicator hadn’t been turned off, and his channel was at the very top of the prison’s authorization list.

During the attack, his position would have been marked in glaring red on the prison’s star map. Even if the management were blind, there’s no way they’d let the grappling cables go for their direct superior.

That was a blatant act of rebellion.

With all these oddities combined, Scott Harris couldn’t help but suspect Eric Bennett was up to something.

“Don’t look at me with those pretty eyes, darling.” Eric Bennett raised both hands. “I really can’t explain this.”

“If I ever get shot in the head, maybe I’ll choose to believe you for once,” Scott Harris retorted without the slightest politeness.

Eric Bennett chuckled. “We’ve known each other long enough to raise a short-legged brat to adulthood, and you’re still so merciless. I’m hurt.”

Like hell you are.

Scott Harris shot back, “Even if we raised the brat to ashes, I’d still be the same.”

The mop: “……” What the hell kind of metaphors are these?!

“Friendly reminder: instead of wasting time being sarcastic with me, why not take another look at your house and your subordinates?” Eric Bennett still had his hands raised in surrender, but even that looked like he was asking for a beating. “After all, the next time you see them might be fifty years from now.”

The silvery space prison had already hauled that entire fragment high into the sky. The “spider abdomen” at its base had opened a mouth, about to swallow it whole.

Ripples of blue light flashed across the prison’s shell, passing from front to back—signaling that the jump had begun.

This was absolutely not something a few people could stop.

For the moment, Scott Harris couldn’t figure out the space prison’s purpose, but there was one small consolation—

No matter who was controlling the prison now, or what they were plotting, his subordinates wouldn’t be in much danger for the time being. After all, to anyone, cryo-capsules weren’t disposable, even if they were in use, and even if it was hard to open them from the outside.

But the house...

Scott Harris’s face instantly fell: when he left the storage room, he’d activated the self-destruct device.

The good news was, he didn’t have to worry about anyone breaking in. The bad news was... it was about to blow.

Sure enough, as the “spider abdomen” closed its mouth again, a deafening explosion erupted.

Even Eric Bennett looked over in surprise, just in time to see the entire space prison, surrounded by blue waves of jump energy, give a violent shudder. Black smoke billowed from its belly, making it look utterly wretched, like it had pissed and shit itself.