Chapter 265
Ye Bai had been closely monitoring the main control terminal, which, despite its powerful functions, was fundamentally fragile. In an instant, it was reduced to dust by a single shot, scattering into the vastness of space.
It seemed that the main control terminal could indeed be destroyed, for after that explosion, the alerts on Ye Bai's secondary account ceased.
"Get out of here now!"
Just as Ye Bai was about to make her escape, a ripple in space caught her attention. A micro wormhole opened, and more than a dozen members of the Starry Church, clad in robes adorned with various celestial patterns, emerged. Among them were deacons with galaxy motifs and bishops with star cluster designs.
With precise coordinates, they had teleported directly to the scene.
Some of the first arrivals even witnessed Ye Bai using the electromagnetic cannon to eliminate Le Lun.
They arrived so quickly! Ye Bai's heart raced, and she sank deeper, bracing herself for a fierce battle.
However, just as she was searching for an opening to fight, a wave of mental energy washed over her, filled with unexpected delight.
"Great! You did well!"
This mental wave was familiar to Ye Bai; it came from the deacon she had encountered during her last wormhole closure.
Huh?
The Starry Church hadn’t realized the problem originated from her?!
Ye Bai froze, suddenly understanding the implications. She abruptly halted her preparations for battle.
The members of the Starry Church remained as arrogant as ever. After the deacon's praise, no one paid Ye Bai any further attention. They gathered around to examine the scene and began discussing among themselves:
"Confirming the target has been completely eradicated."
"It's a pity the terminal was destroyed; we can't study how it was done."
"Better it be destroyed than let it stir up trouble..."
Meanwhile, Ye Bai put on the performance of a lifetime, ensuring she appeared as someone who had just completed a mission.
She had just realized that the alerts were related to the soul limit, and Le Lun had somehow broken through that limit. Although Ye Bai understood that their situations were not the same, the Starry Church was unaware of this distinction.
Thus, in the eyes of the arriving Starry Church members, all the chaos was attributed to Le Lun.
Now, the blame was firmly placed on Le Lun, with no one left to contest it.
---
Chapter 181
The first group of bishops was soon joined by more arrivals, including several who held higher ranks than the deacon. Ye Bai sensed that most of the bishops were A-level, while the deacons were B-level.
It seemed to be a trend within the Starry Church that all its members appeared exquisitely perfect, approaching an ideal of flawless symmetry.
The large-scale mobilization of the Starry Church truly showcased what it meant to have "A-levels everywhere, B-levels in abundance."
However, considering that the majority of those present likely represented the Church's core strength, it all made sense.
The Starry Church had been entrenched in the Chaotic Star Sea for countless years. Even if Le Lun claimed that the soul limit for intelligent beings was ten thousand years, just as he extended his lifespan through modifications and mental stasis, others could do the same.
There might even be many bishops and deacons Ye Bai was unaware of, currently in stasis and not present here.
A few scattered taskers also rushed over but were quickly dispersed by some notification, driven away from the area.
Once the Church's main force arrived, Ye Bai's involvement was no longer necessary.
The instigator, Ye Bai, feigned calmness in front of the Starry Church members. Her genuine emotions made her performance flawless; at least the deacon who approached her didn’t suspect anything. Instead, he encouraged her appreciatively:
"You did well. You can choose one of these high-level rewards, and you’ll also receive ten thousand points."
Seeing the deacon's attitude, Ye Bai's mind raced. She recalled Le Lun's main control terminal, which had created all the secondary terminals for the taskers in the Chaotic Star Sea.
Even though each main control terminal could influence secondary terminals, logically, each secondary account corresponded to a specific main account.
Given that the other Church members ignored her, it was natural for this deacon to come forward to distribute rewards. The terminal Ye Bai had obtained from the black hole was likely a 'sub-account' under this deacon's authority.
The familiar interface reappeared, and this time Ye Bai saw various advanced Starry technologies, even more sophisticated than the rewards from her last wormhole closure. The ten thousand points were quickly credited to her account.
Even though Ye Bai knew the truth about the Starry technologies and points, her heart remained calm. On the surface, she still displayed excitement at the appropriate moments.
Scanning the list, Ye Bai chose the technology for crafting advanced cloaking spacecraft, which was the same type of ship Le Lun had piloted. If she hadn’t received the terminal's location prompt after getting close to Le Lun, she would have struggled to find that ship.
Even with micro wormholes, understanding the hidden dangers behind the Starry terminals made her believe it was necessary to build her own ship. In critical moments, she could destroy the terminal to avoid forced teleportation interference like she had experienced during this mission.
Now that she had acquired the crafting technology, Ye Bai would only need to gather energy and cosmic resources for material conversion to manufacture the ship in her Ether Laboratory.
"And what about the previous civilization migration task..." Ye Bai reminded.
The deacon initially seemed taken aback but nodded nonchalantly after a moment: "No problem. What’s the reward?"
"Five thousand points." Ye Bai deliberately inflated the number a bit.
Sure enough, the deacon didn’t even blink, nor did he check the records of the previous task. In the next second, five thousand points were added to Ye Bai's terminal.
This further proved that 'points' held no real value within the Starry Church.
"That’s enough. You can leave now," the deacon instructed before turning to join the other bishops, investigating Le Lun's remains, and ignoring Ye Bai entirely.
The Starry Church was so arrogant that they didn’t even bother to ask Ye Bai, the killer, for any details. It seemed that as long as the target was dead, that was all that mattered, especially since the precious main control terminal had been destroyed.
This suited Ye Bai just fine, and she activated the free micro wormhole to leave the area.
---
It wasn’t until she reached the desolate star zone near the old nest that Ye Bai finally let out a sigh of relief.
Now that she understood the truth about the points, she could confidently use historical cycles to "farm points" in the future. The fifteen thousand points she had just acquired would last her a long time, even after accounting for the costs of crafting and upgrading her ship.
As for the other main control terminal, Ye Bai had set aside her thoughts of "fishing" for it for the time being. She had already obtained the most crucial information from it, and triggering another alert would leave her without a scapegoat like Le Lun.
With the crisis of exposure resolved, thoughts about the underlying reasons began to resurface in Ye Bai's mind.
[Soul active time: 11,442 years... exceeding the limit.]
Everything had been normal before; all changes occurred when her mental energy touched the main control terminal. Even from Le Lun's reaction, it was clear he hadn’t anticipated such an outcome.
But why was her soul activity exceeding the limit, or rather, how could it exceed the limit?
Ye Bai had indeed lived for over ten thousand years, being the sole survivor among the Antarctic cryogenics after the meteor crisis on Blue Star. However, according to what Le Lun had previously informed her, periods of stasis without consciousness did not count towards soul activity. He had lived for billions of years this way, reaching the limit of his soul, and had defected from the Starry Church to seek a longer life.
Unless, during her stasis, Ye Bai had been conscious.
But she had no memory of any such conscious activity.
With this thought, Ye Bai recalled her three job transition tasks, which were so unique that only she could trigger them. It seemed as if some will was influencing and interfering with her, guiding her to choose this particular career path among the myriad worlds.
Ye Bai calmed her mind and began to sift through her memories from birth to the present.
With her current mental strength, she could quickly retrieve and digest the memories of her less than thirty years of life.
Upon this detailed investigation, Ye Bai noticed another anomaly she had previously overlooked—her memories regarding her brain cancer diagnosis and the decision to undergo cryogenic stasis were somewhat hazy.
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