As they passed by the nutrient tanks, the wolf seemed to sense something faintly.

It barked loudly at Wen Yuzhi and tugged at the hem of his clothes with its mouth, trying to get him out of there as fast as possible.

The glass on the outside of the tanks was also shattering quickly.

Before Wen Yuzhi and the wolf could run out, one of the stray beasts that had been inside a nutrient tank had already awakened.

By sheer bad luck, it landed right in front of the door.

Now Wen Yuzhi and the wolf could not get out either.

The stray beast shook the slime off its body. It was built as solidly as a bear, and standing in the doorway, it blocked the entire exit completely.

The wolf, however, was brave. Even facing a stray beast larger than itself, it still chose to stand in front of Wen Yuzhi.

Earlier, when Wen Yuzhi had been checking the guards’ corpses, he had picked up a laser particle gun that had fallen to the floor.

He had only taken it as a precaution, never expecting he would actually get the chance to use it.

But when he fired at the stray beast, the powerful pulse did not even damage its hide. It only left behind a scorched black mark.

Clearly, the stray beasts fused with multiple organisms’ genes were nowhere near as easy to deal with as the stray beasts outside.

Their hides were incredibly tough. A laser beam that could punch straight through steel plating could only leave a faint mark on a stray beast’s body.

Not only did the laser gun fail to do any real damage, it only made the stray beast feel like its food had dared to provoke it.

With a roar, it charged straight at Wen Yuzhi.

And it was fast. Its four thick, powerful claws looked heavy, yet in the blink of an eye it was already in front of him.

The wolf immediately bit into its body, desperately trying to hold the stray beast back and buy Wen Yuzhi time to escape.

Xi Heyan noticed what was happening over here as well.

While tangling with the stray beasts in front of them, he and King of Clubs started moving toward Wen Yuzhi’s side.

Faced with that giant blood-reeking maw right in front of him, Wen Yuzhi did not panic in the slightest. Before dodging aside, he even fired another shot at the stray beast.

This time, he aimed for its eye.

No matter what kind of creature it was, its eyes would never be as tough as the outer hide.

And that was indeed the case. The laser beam that could not penetrate the hide successfully punched through the stray beast’s eye.

It let out a howl of pain.

But before Wen Yuzhi could feel any relief, he noticed the flesh around the ruined eye socket slowly beginning to heal.

And over on Xi Heyan and King of Clubs’s side, one stray beast they had worked together to tear apart had its chunks of flesh writhing on the ground, as if alive and trying to stitch themselves back together.

King of Clubs blurted, “What the hell are these things?!”

The scene was grotesque and nauseating.

And what came next was even worse.

The stray beast that had died did not even get the chance to reassemble. The chunks of flesh on the ground were eaten by the others that rushed over beside it.

They fought over the blood and meat on the floor, feasting greedily.

One of them got the biggest share. After it had eaten its fill, its bones started clicking and cracking, and its already bulky body instantly swelled another size larger. The wounds it had suffered healed at once.

“They keep evolving after eating their own kind?!” Xi Heyan’s expression shifted with shock.

During the beast tide, they had already noticed that once those collared stray beasts were killed, their corpses would attract other stray beasts that rushed to devour them.

But back then they had been too far away and had not seen clearly.

Only now, watching the stray beasts feed from up close, did they realize that after devouring the corpses, the beasts themselves would grow stronger.

Devouring their own kind could make them stronger...

Xi Heyan could barely imagine how terrifying these stray beasts would become in the future if they were simply left to keep devouring one another.

Especially with that massive beast tide still outside.

King of Clubs, meanwhile, was thinking even further.

He suspected it was not limited to their own kind. The stray beasts craved flesh and blood so desperately that perhaps they were absorbing energy through feeding on flesh and blood.

Any living creature whose flesh was full of energy could likely be used by them to strengthen themselves after being devoured.

That thought reminded King of Clubs of venom breeding.

Countless poisonous creatures were thrown together, and in the end, the one that devoured all the others and survived was called the venom king.

Wasn’t the laboratory’s method of raising these stray beasts much the same?

“You were right. They’ve all gone insane.”

He voiced his agreement to Xi Heyan.

Xi Heyan, however, did not respond to King of Clubs. He had already come to Wen Yuzhi’s side and blocked a stray beast that had been trying to sneak an attack on the boy.

Wen Yuzhi and the wolf were still dealing with the stray beast whose eye he had shot, and in that moment of distraction, he had not noticed the movement behind him at all.

Fortunately, Xi Heyan stopped it.

But Wen Yuzhi did not even have the spare moment to turn around and look. He trusted Xi Heyan and handed his back over to him completely.

Before they realized it, the three of them had gathered together, standing back to back, completely surrounded.

The countdown was still going.

Dropping lower and lower.

Under the flashing red warning lights, Wen Yuzhi and Xi Heyan wordlessly chose the same target at the same time: the stray beast with the injured eye.

The flesh around its eye socket had already healed, but the missing eyeball could not grow back, so the beast was blind in one eye.

Without question, that made it the easiest one to deal with.

Wen Yuzhi aimed at its remaining eye, the wolf bit down on its left leg, and Xi Heyan took the risk of leaping onto the stray beast’s back. He locked an arm around its neck and twisted with force at the wrist, forcing the beast’s head—

“Roar—!”

With a scream of pain, the stray beast’s other eye was destroyed as well.

Enraged, the blind stray beast launched itself into a frenzy of attacks at Wen Yuzhi and the others.

Wen Yuzhi could not find another chance to fire a second shot. He could only keep dodging the stray beast’s attacks.

This was definitely the most battered he had been in quite some time.

There were stray beasts in front of him, behind him, and on both sides.

And Xi Heyan and King of Clubs were also being forced back by several stray beasts, pushed away to other parts of the room. Once again, they were separated, and the only one left at Wen Yuzhi’s side was the wolf.

With three far more delicious pieces of food already there, the stray beasts clearly were not very interested in it.

By all logic, the wolf could have run at once.

But it still chose to stay.

At this point, though, leaving was impossible anyway. The countdown had already dropped to the final minute.

Another stray beast lunged over. Wen Yuzhi was slammed to the floor beneath it.

The wolf tried to come help him, but another stray beast pierced through its hind leg with a blade of wind. Enduring the pain, it still struggled toward Wen Yuzhi.

Wen Yuzhi used his dagger to block the stray beast’s bared fangs. He could no longer worry about exposing his identity.

Just as he was about to spread the wings behind his back, the stray beast in front of him was suddenly struck as though by some invisible sharp weapon. Its head was severed cleanly by an unseen blade.

Before the blood that sprayed out could splatter onto Wen Yuzhi, he felt another force yank him away from where he was.

When he saw the cloaked figure, Wen Yuzhi hesitated for a moment before calling out tentatively, “Bai Yi?”

“Mm.”

Perhaps because Wen Yuzhi still remembered him, there was the slightest rise and fall of emotion in Bai Yi’s voice.

“Why are you here? Did they capture you too?”

Wen Yuzhi had never expected that the Bai Yi he had been trying to find this whole time would actually be here.

Bai Yi wanted to explain, but when he saw that only ten seconds remained on the screen, he said nothing more, only, “I’ll get you out.”

“Wait! My friends, they—!”

Wen Yuzhi was still trying to say something, but Bai Yi lifted a hand and covered his eyes.

“Sorry.”

That cool, indifferent voice sounded by his ear.

And in that instant, it overlapped almost perfectly with another voice from his memory.

The gesture was so familiar that Wen Yuzhi instantly remembered how, back when he had been under the tree, someone had taken him away from the Saint Clan in exactly the same way.

He had never known who that person was.

But now Wen Yuzhi suddenly realized that the one who had taken him away from the Saint Clan was most likely Bai Yi!

So... Bai Yi was the one who had kidnapped him...!

On the other side, Xi Heyan had just killed one stray beast and had not even had time to catch his breath before he saw a cloaked person standing in front of Wen Yuzhi.

His heart tightened at once, and he immediately tried to rush to Wen Yuzhi’s side.

But the stray beasts that kept throwing themselves at him held him back.

In the briefest moment of distraction, the cloaked figure and Wen Yuzhi vanished instantly.

And the countdown on the screen had already dropped to the final three seconds.

On the side nearest the mountain range was where the laboratory kept its escape pods.

Inside one of the starcraft cabins, which had been empty moments before, three figures suddenly appeared out of thin air.

One was a cloaked figure carrying an unconscious boy in his arms.

As for the extra one...

Bai Yi lowered his head.

A wolf was clamped onto his cloak with its teeth.

But he had no time to deal with it right now. Bai Yi quickly slammed the activation button.

The escape pod had only just lifted into the air when a thunderous explosion erupted below them.

The violent blast wave shook the entire pod.

Fortunately, Bai Yi wrapped the outside in mental power, softening the impact from the explosion.

But the price was blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

Bai Yi looked as though he was long since used to this. He picked up an injection and drove it into his body.

The wolf kept staring at every movement he made.

Its wary posture seemed to say that if Bai Yi dared do even the smallest thing to hurt Wen Yuzhi, it would tear into him immediately.

But Bai Yi paid it no attention.

This wolf was just an ordinary beast. It posed no threat to him.

Bai Yi found a blanket, laid Wen Yuzhi down on the floor, then took off his own cloak and draped it over him.

After finishing all that, he sat down beside Wen Yuzhi and stared without blinking at the sleeping boy.

And he stared like that for a full day.

Bai Yi himself could not explain why he had wanted to look for so long.

Wen Yuzhi seemed to have some kind of deep pull on him. He found him familiar, and that feeling came from something deep inside, an impulse that made him unable to stop himself from wanting to get closer.

And if Wen Yuzhi was willing to speak to him, his chest would fill with a strange swollen softness.

More importantly, they had the same hair color and the same eyes.

Bai Yi had never seen another experimental subject with the same hair color and eye color as his own.

Among all those experimental subjects, he had always been an anomaly.

But Bai Yi did not care about any of that.

Everyone said he was Dan’s most obedient dog, that his life contained only four words: carry out the orders.

But this time, Bai Yi wanted to disobey an order for once.

The institute’s command had been for him to bring Wen Yuzhi back.

Yet Bai Yi knew very well what would happen to Wen Yuzhi after he was taken back.

This was not the first time he had carried out such an order.

Those returned targets would all end up turned into experimental subjects.

When they were strapped onto the operating table, they would let out almost hysterical screams of terror.

Not long after, those experimental subjects would either be discarded and fed to the stray beasts, or sent to the Tribunal, where they would continue existing just like the rest of them.

Instinctively, Bai Yi did not want Wen Yuzhi to be treated that way.

And so, for the first time in his life, he chose to disobey the institute’s orders.

He had even endured the agony of his mental power falling into disorder long enough to destroy the suppressor on his neck, along with the positioning chip inside it.

Without the positioning chip, the institute would not be able to locate him for a while.

And that gave Bai Yi time to sit here quietly and watch Wen Yuzhi.

But just as every road eventually came to an end, when the escape pod entered a new star sector, Bai Yi knew it was time for him to leave.

At the very last moment, Bai Yi reached out and lightly touched Wen Yuzhi’s hair with his fingertips.

The wolf that had been guarding beside him the entire time immediately sat up in alarm at Bai Yi’s sudden “move.”

But Bai Yi only touched his hair and did nothing more.

For him, that little touch seemed to be enough.

Within the First Star Sector, the Saint Clan’s vast fleet was moving toward the human empire.

At the head of that fleet was the Thanatos.

The closer he came to this region, the harder it became for Mansendis to keep his emotions steady.

The pull from the bloodline bond kept telling him the same thing.

His child was most likely here.

After searching for so many days, even Mansendis could not help but feel a trace of anxiety.

Mond wanted to persuade Mansendis to rest, but also knew that with the king in his current state, there was no chance at all that he would relax before finding the little highness.

And it was not just the king. They were the same.

Not a single Saint Clan member had closed their eyes during this time. They had all been searching for the little highness’s traces.

Mansendis in particular had spent most of that time staring fixedly at the star route map.

When the alert tone sounded, a Heimo officer at the helm reported, “Your Majesty, there is an escape pod up ahead approaching us.”

The Thanatos had run into many similar situations before—sometimes starships, sometimes warships—and in the end, investigation had always shown them to be attacks staged by forces opposed to the Saint Clan.

The Saint Clan was utterly fed up with it.

Just as before, Mansendis responded to this kind of harassment vessel with a cold command.

“Shoot it down.”

Then right after saying it, he called out again, “Wait...!”

The silver-haired sovereign stared at the dot of light on the star route map that represented that escape pod. After a moment of silence, he said, “Let it come in.”

If it were an assassination attempt, there was no reason for them to send only an escape pod. An escape pod could carry very few weapons and could not inflict any meaningful damage on the Thanatos.

The things sent before had all been warships, or at worst starships, and always in groups.

A lone escape pod was obviously suspicious.

And besides, that strange premonition in his heart made Mansendis give the order to halt the attack.

The escape pod drew closer.

By the time it docked with the Thanatos, Mansendis had already gone to stand in front of it.

Click—

The door in front of him slowly opened.

The first thing the Saint Clan saw was the boy lying on the blanket.

The silver-haired, golden-eyed boy lay there quietly, his soft and delicate features closed in sleep, his long lashes casting a faint shadow over porcelain-pale skin.

The light from outside poured in through the opened hatch and draped itself over the boy like flowing water.

In that bright and hazy halo, the sleeping boy looked like an angel at rest.

And perhaps sensing all those gazes falling on him, the sleeping boy’s lashes suddenly trembled.

He slowly opened his eyes.

His pale golden pupils were still hazy with the dampness of sleep, yet brighter than any jewel in the world.

In that dazed moment, his gaze met Mansendis’s.

At the sight of that familiar figure, his body reacted faster than thought.

Wen Yuzhi murmured instinctively, “...Da-Daddy?”

That one soft cry of “Daddy” was like something breaking open. The Saint Clan across from him instantly snapped out of that strange, frozen silence.

—their little highness had come back!

The moment they realized that, the Saint Clan’s pupils tightened, each one looking even more emotional than the last.

Among all of them, only Mansendis remained utterly motionless.

His ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) gaze rested on the boy.

From his hair to his brows to his nose and lips, he looked over every part of him with painstaking care.

Wen Yuzhi noticed the way Mansendis was looking at him, and only then did he remember that after his molting period had ended, his body had grown too.

His appearance had changed from before as well.

He thought Mansendis had failed to recognize him, so Wen Yuzhi hurriedly explained, “Daddy... it’s me. My body...”

Before he could finish, Mansendis had already dropped to one knee in front of him and pulled him into his arms.

“I know.”

That voice sounded slightly hoarse.

Mansendis held the boy in his arms tightly.

How could he possibly fail to recognize him?

His child—no matter what he looked like, he would know him.

The bond of blood would not vanish because his appearance had changed.

This was his child.

The treasure he had gotten back after losing it.

That broad embrace was just as warm as before, carrying the scent that always made Wen Yuzhi feel safest.

Wen Yuzhi had thought he had grown up, that he was strong enough now.

But after drifting out there for so long, the moment he returned to that most familiar embrace, he still could not stop his nose from stinging, nor the blurry mist of tears from filling his vision.

“Daddy...”

Wen Yuzhi opened his mouth and called out again, and there was a trace of grievance in his voice.

Even though he did not know where that grievance had come from.

But in Daddy’s arms, he simply could not stop that endless sense of hurt from welling up inside him, begging to be let out.

Hearing the sob in Wen Yuzhi’s voice, Mansendis tightened his arms around him. Just as he had once treated that tiny palm-sized cub, he carefully gathered the boy into his embrace.

And his cold voice, just like before, softened into a quiet murmur of comfort.

“Mm. Daddy’s here.”