novelraw Chapter 1087: How Could There Be a Path to Immortality in This World? (95) — The Royal Ship
Chapter 1087: How Could There Be a Path to Immortality in This World? (95) — The Royal Ship
Inside the main control room of Leixia Ship.
Count Drekeya was tensely monitoring the battle between the Valkyrie-Class Gaia and Da Zhe—when he saw the fight break through the ship’s hull and move to the mountaintop where Penglai Palace was located, his brows furrowed deeply.
Through the connection between the Valkyrie-Class Gaia and the main system, Count Drekeya immediately grasped the situation atop the mountain.
On-screen, several female faces were quickly identified: You Ye, Qin Chuyu, and Jessica. At the same time, the main system began analyzing the data transmitted from the Valkyrie-Class Gaia.
Three analysis sub-windows popped up next to the count, with Jessica's profile being the most detailed. But Drekeya barely glanced at it—her threat level was so low it wasn’t worth considering. Qin Chuyu’s stats were much higher, especially with the Green Lotus Sword Song in her possession.
Still, Count Drekeya only frowned slightly—until he looked at You Ye.
Shock finally showed on his face.
The system’s readings for You Ye were nothing but a string of garbled symbols. At the end of the analysis, a strange line of text floated into view:
“Unable to compute via standard system…”
“What?!” Count Drekeya’s expression turned grim, filled with disbelief. “Source of Anomaly reading: zero… and yet standard systems still can’t analyze her? What’s going on!?”Even Da Zhe, currently fighting Valkyrie-Class, didn’t trigger this kind of system failure.
In that moment, Count Drekeya’s face shifted again—he recognized this blonde woman in the black-and-white maid outfit… from Tai Yinzi’s memory data.
“The orthodox proxy… from the Root?” Drekeya pressed both hands onto the central control pillar. Two more pillars rose beside it.
His fingers moved rapidly across the three control cylinders. Countless screens filled the control room, almost suffocating the space with information.
He was searching—digging through Tai Yinzi’s memories, hoping to find traces of the orthodox proxy of the Root.
But no matter what, Count Drekeya couldn’t find a single clue. Despite having browsed Tai Yinzi’s full memory bank, he couldn’t picture what the proxy looked like. Everything about them—their voice, appearance, even their manner of speech—was shrouded in fog.
This was the Root’s protection for the orthodox proxy. Not even a Black Soul Envoy could pierce it.
“Damn it… If the orthodox proxy is truly here…” Count Drekeya slammed a fist onto the pillar. “Then I…”
“No. I must obtain the teacher’s essence as soon as possible… Only then…”
He took a deep breath and pressed his palm onto the central pillar.
The ship trembled slightly.
Suddenly, faint popping sounds crackled through the air—small arcs of electricity began to float around him.
A numbing sensation surged through Drekeya’s arm from the pillar. Reflexively, he retracted his hand.
Then he saw it: a visible bolt of lightning curled around the control pillar—his expression changed drastically!
He spun around in panic toward the edge of the control room—
The spherical outer shell of the command pod was melting… slowly, a gap opened—and within it, a face Count Drekeya knew all too well appeared.
When the gap fully opened, a petite figure was slowly pushed into the control chamber by an unseen force.
Her eyes were blank and lifeless, like a fog had clouded her soul. Strands of hair hung over half of her face.
“Prototype… no… you… you’ve ‘awakened’…”
Count Drekeya backed away in terror, as if seeing the thing he feared most in life. His voice trembled.
“…Brother…” At the sound of his voice, something stirred in the girl. She slowly raised her head.
Then, she fell silent again.
Drekeya calmed himself gradually and began edging closer, holding a black ring assembled from dark fragments in his skeletal hand.
Fragments of black matter had begun forming on the white bone hand—he had started reassembling the Double Serpent Ring.
“As expected… it was destroyed,” he muttered. “Unlocking level two was too reckless after all…”
The skeletal fingers twitched. The black fragments floated and joined together, forming a seamless ring—no crack remained, like the control room’s self-repair function had returned it to its Root-powered state.
But because his Source of Anomaly reading was too low, using the Root power to reconstruct the ring caused him intense pain.
He glanced at the screen showing the battle between Valkyrie-Class and Da Zhe. When the giant sword formed in the sky, Drekeya’s brow twitched.
Still, his top priority was reinstalling the Double Serpent Ring onto the Prototype Gaia.
She remained unmoving, eyes hollow, a soulless shell.
Cautiously, he approached. Holding the reconstructed black ring in both hands, he slowly lifted it toward her head.
Time passed unbearably slowly. Every second felt like agony—as if he had returned to a dreamless slumber.
“You weren’t supposed to ‘wake up’… You shouldn’t even exist…” he muttered.
The black ring slid over her head.
The moment it touched her, it came alive—transforming into two black serpents that vanished into her long hair and bit into the back of her head.
Count Drekeya tensed—then let out a sigh of relief.
No complications.
At that moment, a violent tremor rocked the Leixia Ship—Da Zhe had split the mountain open with his sword.
Inside the command room, all visuals retrieved by the Valkyrie-Class Gaia were suddenly lost. Drekeya frowned and pressed his hand to the pillar again. The images returned—among them is the footage of the Valkyrie-Class Gaia.
The video showed the Valkyrie-Class Gaia severely damaged, buried in rocks, and falling to the earth.
From the left shoulder to the right waist, a deep gash had torn it apart—Count Drekeya’s eyes briefly flashed with fury.
“To damage my masterpiece like this… However—” he sneered, “Valkyrie-Class won’t be destroyed so easily.”
As if to confirm his claim, the ruptured Valkyrie-Class Gaia began to melt at the wound, turning into silvery liquid that slowly flowed together… starting to heal itself.
Still, it would need time to recover.
But Drekeya could barely endure the backlash any longer—and having just used Root power to restore the Double Serpent Ring made things worse.
Time was slipping away fast.
He clenched his teeth. “The Royal Ship—Leixia Ship—it’s time to reveal your true form.”
Count Drekeya once again pressed his palm against the control pillar!
In an instant, the two massive columns that served as power sources began to rotate wildly. At the same time, he closely monitored everything happening outside—after losing the Valkyrie-Class’s visual feed, the Leixia Ship quickly switched to another surveillance system.
When he saw the club maid examining the exposed hull of the Leixia Ship, Count Drekeya’s brow instantly furrowed.
“I don’t possess true royal power. The Leixia Ship cannot exert its full strength… it may be difficult to handle someone who can't even be calculated. The key is that the orthodox proxy still hasn’t appeared… is he hiding somewhere? Damn it, what is he planning?!”
Suddenly grabbing at his hair, Count Drekeya muttered rapidly,
“Priority now… is to increase my own Source of Anomaly possession rate… If I can’t even qualify as a candidate, then everything is for nothing!”
“Brother…”
As Count Drekeya was lost in thought, the voice of the Prototype Gaia rang out again behind him—startling him into turning around!
The Prototype, who was supposed to have been re-synchronized with control, was now staring blankly at one of the many screens.
“Brother…”
On the display, a young man slowly emerged from a distortion in the air.
“Brother…”
The Prototype Gaia’s body began to tremble, like a machine rusted for a thousand years now trying to move—inch by inch, she approached the screen.
Thump—!!!
Count Drekeya fell to the ground, eyes widening with disbelief and fear as he stared at the image of the young man on the screen.
“No… Impossible!!!” Count Drekeya screamed in horror,
“Impossible… The Eternal Prince was supposed to be—”
At that moment, Count Drekeya froze!
He looked down at the white bone hand fused to his arm, trembling uncontrollably. He looked up again at the Prototype Gaia, then at the young man on the screen—his mind spinning.
Everything came flooding back…
The Treasure Vault had already been opened once before his plan even began.
His entire Gaia army had been wiped out—only the Prototype remained.
Tai Yinzi stumbled in by accident.
He had used Tai Yinzi’s Source of Anomaly, not the advanced Black Soul fighting as Valkyrie-Class.
Everything—it was like a perfectly designed disaster meant just for him, coming at him wave after wave…
“It was you… Cicero!!! You planned all this!!” Count Drekeya roared,
“You manipulated me!!! Even in death… you still won’t let me go!!”
Meanwhile…
The Prototype Gaia clutched her head in pain, screaming louder than even Count Drekeya!
Terrifying arcs of lightning began to surge wildly across her body—
The black ring hidden behind her head—the Double Serpent Ring—began to crack!
Count Drekeya was both furious and terrified. The bone hand fused to his arm trembled violently, as if it might rip free at any moment.
“Cicero!! You still won’t let me inherit your legacy!!!” Count Drekeya howled.
He suddenly raised the bone hand, aiming it at the Prototype Gaia—
The cracking Double Serpent Ring began to slowly regenerate.
But Gaia’s screams grew more agonizing—her cries penetrated the entire control chamber, clearly audible even to Long Xiruo and the others, imprisoned outside.
They didn’t know what was happening inside the sphere—
But they could feel it: a terrifying power, like a raging sea trapped in a storm, compressed inside this chamber!
Inside the command room, Count Drekeya staggered back to his feet, sneering viciously at the screen showing the young man.
“So what if he’s the orthodox? So what if he’s really him?! The one he’s facing… is his ‘sister’! Hahahahaha!! Cicero, you still underestimated me!!”
“Gaia! Awaken the Leixia Ship! Unleash your full royal power!!”
“…Understood…”
——
BOOM—!!!
A beam of light slammed into the square outside Penglai Palace—landing not far from Luo Qiu!
The massive blast blew apart a corner of the plaza. Debris flew toward Luo Qiu—
Miss Maid raised her hand, and a flash of black flame incinerated those into nothing.
“Master…” Miss Maid stared blankly at Luo Qiu.
In his hands was the scroll he had picked up earlier. Now, he slowly opened it.
On the painting: a serene and graceful young girl… and a young man sitting beside her.
They appeared before Luo Qiu’s eyes.
In that moment, he seemed to witness something—half illusion, half reality.
Among countless stars, the girl slowly fell—
Falling into a vast vortex that seemed ready to devour the entire cosmos.
She smiled, and cried—
A sorrowful beauty. Her softly trembling lips seemed like they wanted to speak...
The image vanished in a flash. Luo Qiu instinctively pressed a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.
“Master!”
Miss Maid's face showed true panic—for the first time, she had lost her composure.
Luo Qiu opened his eyes, shook his head slightly, then looked to the sky at the massive Leixia Ship, whispering:
“Gaia…”
“Master?”
Luo Qiu murmured,
“You Ye, I think… I really need a bit more time off.”
With that, Luo Qiu took a step forward—
And in the next moment, he vanished from everyone's sight.
(End of Chapter)