A teor fell from the do, and Flana piloted the spaceship in a rapid descent, dodging the crisscrossing anti-air firepower that followed close behind, just grazing past the rlot Building. Li Aozi grabbed Nikita by the shoulder and imdiately activated the spaceti ripple, jumping onto the spaceship.
"—Damn it!"
Nikita had barely set foot on the corridor of the spaceship when he was pulled to the ground by the overload. Li Aozi casually grasped at the air, opening a gravitational field that left him in a state of weightless suspension, which finally brought him so relief.
"Head through the Ord Star Gate, go straight to Firewolf Star, they won’t catch up to you."
"Hey, employer, this is way beyond the scope of my services!"
Flana jerked the nose of the ship up to its limit and shot straight for the atmosphere, with lasers and missiles crisscrossing in pursuit behind her, prompting an unwilling complaint.
"I’ll pay you extra."
"Alright, boss."
Li Aozi didn’t waste more words, instructing Nikita to lay down the hostage, and then he imdiately took the other and jumped off again. The high-class vessel piloted by Flana was out of reach for the rcenaries, so he had no worries.
Nikita hadn’t even co to his senses when Li Aozi dragged him into the spaceti ripple. In the blink of an eye, he faced the entire city and began to free-fall.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it!"
Panicked, Nikita yelled out:
"Do you see where the hell you’re teleporting us to!?"
"Don’t panic, you won’t die from this."
As soon as Li Aozi finished speaking, a fighter jet whizzed past overhead, the pilot completely oblivious to them thanks to Flana drawing their fire.
Enveloped in gravity, Li Aozi brought a shivering Nikita to a gentle landing from thousands of ters high, without even stirring a speck of dust. Nikita’s feet had barely touched the ground, and he nearly collapsed as his plasma felt as though it was squeezing out of the soles of his feet after escaping the weightlessness.
Fortunately, in his youth, he had been a Zeta Rank warrior. Even though poverty and aging had taken a toll on his physique, his quality was still much higher than that of an ordinary person, so he didn’t just fall down.
"Thanks for going through all this with , Nikita."
Li Aozi patted the old soldier’s shoulder and transferred 3,000 Ammonium Gold to him.
Nikita was about to curse the kid for his life-threatening antics, but the transfer notification made him obediently shut up.
"I’m going to find Julian, things are about to get rough for a while, take care of yourself."
After finishing his sentence, Li Aozi paused and then added:
"Do you want to leave this place? The future of Valenkov is probably going to be very ’lively’..."
"I’ll stay."
Nikita gave a bitter smile:
"You’ve seen the condition of my daughter, with her state, she can’t stand the strain of space travel. Thanks for your offer, Leoz."
That was just an excuse.
Li Aozi knew that Nikita was deeply attached to his holand and didn’t want to leave. This was the case with old people across the universe; the older they got, the more they wished to return to their birthplace, a sort of inherent hosickness within every life.
Of course, the more pressing fact was that Nikita couldn’t afford the costs of living in and getting dical treatnt from a Narrative-level Civilization.
Three thousand Ammonium Gold wasn’t much, but hope suddenly shone in Nikita’s eyes.
Even though he knew the fate of Valenkov couldn’t be changed, for so reason, Li Aozi was toying with his own ideas.
Perhaps it was because he hadn’t really gotten over the White Wolf ending of "Imprint" that he had just settled.
He wouldn’t say if he could do it again, he would definitely do this or that, that was unrealistic.
There’s no pill for regret in the world, and for Li Aozi, this wasn’t a ga, there was no chance to start over.
Now, he had almost completed his task, and taken the most important reward. He was supposed to be able to leave now.
Li Aozi stood still under the purple sky, his headless body seemingly gazing sowhere far away.
He had killed the leader of these people and was about to besmirch and tarnish his image further.
However, without Kaltz’s death, the state would only get worse.
Even the best Angel ending could only save three hundred thousand people.
Frankly, Li Aozi had no personal connections with these people, and no friends of his were there.
But at this mont, he was suddenly seized by a strong doubt.
[Should I leave?]
If he wanted to go, nobody could stop him. He was about to promote to Delta Rank, and as a [Star Realm Echoer] wielding two Sequential Arcane Energies with Blood Demon Style at its peak, even Zeta Rank couldn’t kill him.
"Nikita, I want to ask you a question," Li Aozi suddenly said.
"Is there money in it for ?" Nikita quickly held out his hand, rubbed his fingers together, indicating sothing eagerly.
"Depends on how you perform."
"As long as you’re willing to pay in Ammonium Gold, there’s nothing I can’t do."
Nikita said:
"What do you want to ask?"
"If, I an, if." Li Aozi brewed his words and continued, "If you possess better strength and vision than others, and there happens to be sothing that you have the power to make turn out a little better, but you can’t completely solve it—would you still do it?"
"Uh, this question, let think—does this have anything to do with your family?"
"No. The people here probably still don’t like much."
"Do you need to do this to gain so sort of achievent? Like fa, status, or money?"
"I might even lose out."
"Then are you a person with conscience and morals?"
"Can’t really say that; my bottom line is quite low and quite flexible."
"Then I am curious, why would you still consider doing it?"
"I don’t know."
Li Aozi gently tapped his chest and answered:
"But I always feel frustrated. Having the ability to change sothing and not doing it makes very uncomfortable."
His head had no idea where it was, but a sudden strong impulse surged into his heart.
[Hmm? Did I forget to take the Truth Drug today? No wonder I feel so strange.]
Li Aozi suddenly realized.
His actions were so fast that he had not adjusted to the ti difference of interstellar travel and forgot to take his dication.
Nikita looked at Li Aozi, thought for a mont, seed to realize sothing, and patted the headless man’s shoulder:
"It seems you’re a bit lost. How about this, I’ll take you sowhere."
Li Aozi was just about to retrieve the dication to feed to his head caught in the twisted spaceti when he heard Nikita’s offer and hesitated slightly.
...
Half an hour later, Li Aozi and Nikita climbed a small hill. They walked the entire way, treading on the soft soil and vegetation as they ascended, with the light purple sky gradually falling, and the distant East displaying cloud formations like scattered fragnts, covering even the stars in the dim sky for a mont.
Li Aozi looked around:
"It seems to be just an ordinary mountaintop."
"Of course, it’s just an ordinary mountaintop."
Nikita walked to the edge of the cliff, sat down, facing the cold wind, and gestured for Li Aozi to sit beside him. He then took out a water flask, took a swig, and gazed at the distant horizon.
Afterward, neither of them spoke, just sat quietly for a while, facing the evening breeze, not really knowing where they were looking.
"Valenkov is a fighting species, or rather, was forced to beco a fighting species."
Nikita broke the silence first:
"I was born in a military camp. My mother was an accompanying priest, and when I was very young, I never saw my father. They told he was a great warrior, a great hero. I never understood, what kind of hero snubs his own wife and child."
"Then when I was six years old, his body was brought ho wrapped in Valenkov’s trident skeleton flag, along with two children of different species."
"Those two children were orphaned children of his fallen comrades, whose parents both died on the front lines. In the hardest tis of battle, he insisted on supporting his comrades’ children with his own salary and brought them back to his holand."
"When people asked my father ’You have your own child, why not send more money ho instead of raising these two burdens yourself? You shouldn’t spend money on children who are not your own.’ At that ti, my father always told others:"
"’It’s not about whether I should, but about what I can do. So, I did it.’
"My father won many wars, but most of the ti he appeared as an aggressor and a butcher. Only this ti, they didn’t earn any military accolades, but brought back an honor more precious than dals—life."
Nikita lit a cigarette, offering one to Li Aozi unconsciously, but Li Aozi waved it off:
"I’ve quit smoking long ago, plus I wouldn’t be able to smoke it anyway."
"Neither cigarettes nor alcohol are good things, but people always need to find so spiritual reliance and anesthetic."
Nikita took a drag on his cigarette, blew a smoke ring, and continued:
"Like the other Valenkov Aliens, I trained in combat, weapon handling, and tactical cooperation from a young age. Because of my father’s deeds, I was always the center of attention, so I trained harder than anyone from an early age."
"I was the first among my peers to complete an orbital assault, the first to be implanted with biochemical limbs, the first to beco a Transcendent, the first to beco a Fleet Commander—I was so outstanding that the school principal noticed and offered his daughter to , how lucky—our love was mutual and blissful, and soon we had the crystallization of our love."
Nikita reminisced about the past, especially when talking about his wife and marriage, he seed to lose decades in an instant, as if he suddenly beca a young and strong man.
"Actually, I don’t like fighting, nor do I like being number one. But it’s not about whether I should do it, but whether I can—I’m always motivated by my father’s motto, moving forward."
"It’s not that I want to be first; it’s that I can be first, so I did it."
Li Aozi laughed.
"You have a very special father."
Nikita flicked the burning embers from the cigarette and continued:
"I had a good friend who begged to give up my spot in the training camp because it was really important to him. He needed the spot to beco a mber of the assault team, so he could earn three tis the salary to afford his mother’s surgery."
"He was teary, emotionally moved, making incredibly compassionate—so I decisively turned him down."
"I knew the assault team’s missions were extrely dangerous, with a high death rate, and he didn’t have the ability to survive until payday. In the end, all his mother would get was a death notice with a condolence paynt."
"So, I lost my best friend."
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