Without Qin Feng, the four of them would have been annihilated.
Qin Feng retracted his Long Spear, glanced at the alloy blast door, and ordered his S-class Intelligent Assistant, "Hammer, contact the ship’s main control system and relay a message to the survivors inside the habitation cabins."
[Command confirmed.]
A moment later, a clear and steady synthesized voice echoed through the habitation cabins, broadcast via the blast door’s internal system:
"Attention, survivors in the habitation cabins. We are a warrior squad from the Canaan Star Sky Martial University-Warrior Group. We have eliminated all enemies outside. The threat is neutralized. Please remain calm and await extraction by our personnel."
The desperate cries from behind the door instantly fell silent, replaced by a dead stillness, which then erupted into incredulous cheers.
"The mission isn’t over," Qin Feng said over the comms. "Follow me. We’re going to the cockpit."
The other three immediately followed.
The squad quickly reached the cockpit on the ship’s top deck.
The area was in shambles, but the core control hub was still mostly intact.
Qin Feng walked to the main console. Following Hammer’s instructions, he opened a hidden compartment and removed a palm-sized, faintly shimmering black cube.
’Got the flight recorder.’
His consciousness delved inside, quickly scanning its contents.
He quickly found the truth.
The source of it all was one of the Nagash Followers, disguised as an ordinary passenger.
The moment the ship entered a Subspace Jump, he detonated a plague bomb hidden inside his body in a suicide attack.
He was obliterated in the explosion, but the highly contagious plague spread like wildfire through the sealed confines of the ship.
Those powerful, corrupted monstrosities had been the Guard Warriors originally in charge of security on this luxury shuttle.
As the strongest individuals on board, they had the most direct exposure while fighting the plague, and ultimately, their mutations were the most extreme.
"Hammer, scan the ship’s interior for emergency survival equipment."
[Scan complete. Emergency supply crate located in Cargo Bay B7. Contents: 300 emergency survival respirator masks.]
"Good."
Qin Feng immediately used the control hub to dispatch the ship’s transport drones, sending the supplies to the lower decks.
"Let’s go. Time to get the survivors."
When Qin Feng’s team returned to the massive alloy blast door, the crate containing the respirators was already there.
Qin Feng entered a command on the blast door’s control panel.
HISS—
With a heavy rush of depressurizing air, the alloy blast door—the barrier that had separated life from death—slowly slid open.
Inside, over a hundred survivors were huddled together. When they saw the four figures in power armor standing outside—looking like Demon Gods splattered with blood and viscera—their eyes instantly filled with ecstatic relief.
’Interstellar Warriors!’
Qin Feng activated his power armor’s external address system, his voice broadcasting clearly:
"Everyone, the corpses and residual fluids outside are highly corrosive and infectious. Please put on these respirators, then follow us to the escape pods."
The survivors stared at them, stunned. The fear and despair they had suppressed for so long instantly gave way to tears of relief.
Qin Feng’s gaze swept over the people.
Their life energy readings were generally low; the highest didn’t exceed 20.
They were clearly just ordinary passengers on this shuttle. Some might have even come from remote colony worlds where the Subspace Transmission Network hadn’t even been fully implemented.
This was the reality for the common people of the Empire.
Fragile and helpless. In the Dark Forest of the cosmos, they were like candles, ready to be extinguished by the slightest breeze.
Organized by the four warriors, the survivors methodically collected their respirators. They formed a single file line and followed the power armor, carefully crossing the death-filled hall.
The final step went without any further incidents.
The squad successfully escorted all survivors to the escape pod area located on the ship’s flank.
Watching the small escape pods detach from the shuttle one by one, carrying the survivors towards a nearby planet, Zou Yun let out a long sigh of relief.
"It’s finally over."
Qin Feng, on the other hand, immediately opened his mission interface and selected "Submit Mission."
"Please place the flight recorder in your Subspace Storage Unit! And evacuate the current coordinates immediately!"
"Warning! The Imperial Court of Justice has authorized an Extermination Order! An orbital Spiritual Energy strike will arrive in ten minutes—"
"Mission complete. Final reward assessment in progress. Please leave immediately!"
"Spiritual Energy strike will arrive in ten minutes—"
"Spiritual Energy strike will arrive in ten minutes—"
The crimson warnings flashed relentlessly across their HUDs, like a death sentence counting down.
An orbital Spiritual Energy strike!
Zou Yun, Zhou Quan, and Yin Jing reeled at the words.
It was the ultimate method of purification, capable of wiping the shuttle—and everything within a several-kilometer radius—from physical existence.
The four exchanged a look, each seeing the same shock and resolve reflected in the others’ visors.
There was no hesitation.
"Go!"
With a sharp command from Qin Feng, all four activated their personal Subspace Teleportation.
In the next instant, their forms flickered and distorted, dissolving into four streaks of light that vanished completely from the doomed, death-filled ship.
* * *
HUM—
The vertigo from the spatial tear and the maddening whispers of dimensional travel receded like a tide, replaced by the reassuring feeling of solid ground beneath their feet.
A blinding white light made the four squint instinctively. Their power armor’s photosensors adapted to the ambient light in a hundredth of a second. On the cool blue of their HUDs, the frantically flashing "Orbital Spiritual Energy Strike" warnings finally vanished, replaced by a single, concise line of green text.