I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 810: Smugglers

Inside the transport ship, the alarm echoed without a moment’s pause.

The whole bridge was lit in flashing, glaring red, light screen after light screen refreshing with shield attrition rates, hull integrity and the distribution of enemy firepower.

Every time a main gun landed, the entire transport shook violently, as though it might be torn apart completely at any moment.

At the center of the bridge, more than a dozen enormous creatures were gathered before the main control platform.

Their shape was very much like so many gigantic snails walking upright.

Gray-white spiral shells covered their backs, soft, thick bodies supported their whole trunks, and several long antennae extended from their heads, each tipped with a nimble eye, all of them at this moment fixed on the images of the battlefield.

Every one of these “people” wore an expression of pure agitation.

On the light screen, the transport’s last layer of shielding was already as thin as a cicada’s wing.

The two sixth-level powers escorting them struck out again and again, and were still held down hard by the enemy’s three sixth-level beings.

The three light assault ships circled the transport like hunting hyenas, cutting away at its shield energy.

At this rate… another ten or twenty minutes at most and the transport would lose all ability to resist.

At last a young great snail could hold back no longer, and turned to look at the center of the bridge.

“Captain!” His voice trembled slightly. “Reinforcements… when will reinforcements get here?”

Every gaze turned that way of its own accord.

Before the central control console, a great snail visibly older than the rest stood in silence.

His shell was covered in the cracks the years had left, and several of his eyestalks were thicker than the others. At this moment they were sweeping steadily across one tactical light screen after another.

Hearing the question from the snail beside him, he shook his head slowly. “The distress call… was sent out long ago.”

The bridge went instantly still.

“But there has been no response of any kind so far. I suspect communications have already been intercepted by them.”

He raised one of his eyestalks and looked toward the auxiliary ship in the distance, which had hung on the outer edge throughout without joining the attack.

“What is more, they have already activated a spatial anchoring device, and this whole region of space is locked down. We do not… even have the chance to fire up a spatial jump and stake everything on one last throw.”

As his words fell, the entire bridge seemed to lose its last trace of warmth.

One great snail after another sagged slowly downward, the light in their eyes gradually dimming, despair spreading like a tide.

Just then, one young great snail suddenly raised his head. “Not necessarily!”

Everyone instinctively looked at him.

He drew a deep breath and forced himself to steady down.

“If they really were absolutely certain of it, why have they held off on an all-out assault for so long? With their strength they could perfectly well take us by storm, and yet they have kept up this surround-and-hold posture the whole time.”

“That means they must have some misgiving! Otherwise they would never have dragged it out this long!”

Those words at once put some of the light back into a fair few pairs of eyes.

“That is true…”

“What exactly are they waiting for?”

“Could there really be some turn in our favor?”

Soon several more great snails crowded anxiously around the captain.

“Captain!”

“Is there no other way?”

The old captain was silent for a long moment, and in the end only shook his head slowly. “There is not.”

The bridge fell into dead silence once more.

No one noticed that in the instant everyone lowered their heads, the captain’s innermost eye closed for the briefest moment.

Deep in those clouded eyes, a flicker of struggle passed, as though he were wavering over something.

Just then, the entire battlefield abruptly went quiet.

More precisely, every attack stopped at the same instant.

The sudden change had every snail aboard the transport looking up in shock and delight, crowding forward to see the light screens and work out what had happened.

Outside the transport, a dark golden figure came flying slowly out of the depths of the void.

He merely stood there quietly, and a layer of dark golden Law Solidification Domain spread out like a tide.

On contact with that Law Solidification Domain, everything stopped: the torrents of energy fired by the transport’s main guns, the beams the three assault ships loosed in unison, and the law-attacks colliding between the sixth-level powers alike!

Every attack was as though it had run into an invisible wall, and then dispersed without a sound.

Across the whole battlefield, not a breath was heard.

Inside the transport’s bridge.

One young snail stared blankly at that figure, and then, once he made out the familiar robe with its dark golden patterning, he let out a sound that came apart at the edges:

“The… the Apostle of the Eeeend!!!”

Once he had broken the silence aboard, the entire bridge erupted.

“The Apostle of the End!!”

“It is the Apostle of the End!”

“Gods above!!”

“Are we going to die?!”

At the same time, aboard the other three assault ships, screams broke out that were more terrified still.

Those creatures that looked like great masses of tripe with constantly squirming surfaces curled their bodies up one and all in fright.

“It is the Apostle of the End!”

“Disarm, now!”

“At once! Do not display any aggression!”

“Shut down the main guns! No target locks!”

“Anyone who dares take aim, I kill first!”

In the space of a few seconds, the weapon systems on all three assault ships locked down completely.

Gun muzzles slowly drooped, shield output was voluntarily reduced, and the fleet formation even pulled back several hundred kilometers of its own accord, to show it had no hostile intent whatsoever.

By contrast.

Although the transport had stopped attacking, its main guns remained in a charged state.

The two sixth-level escorts even withdrew slowly to a position in front of the transport, expressions wary.

Jie Ming swept a glance over the transport. Something stirred faintly in his gaze, but he said nothing.

A moment later, an enormous projection rose above the pirate fleet, and the image of an aged tripe-creature appeared out in the void.

His voice was hoarse and shaking, but the language he used was the impeccably standard common tongue of wizard civilization:

“Honored Lord Apostle of the End, we have no wish to make an enemy of you.”

“This operation was undertaken purely for profit.”

“If my lord wishes to save this transport ship, we are willing to withdraw at once.”

Here he paused visibly, then gritted his teeth as though steeling himself to some decision:

“It is only… there is an item aboard that ship, and we hope my lord will permit us to take it away. That item belonged to us in the first place.”

Jie Ming raised an eyebrow. “What item?”

The Tripefolk elder was silent for several breaths, and at last slowly uttered four words:

“The Reflection Prism.”

A curious light flashed in Jie Ming’s eyes.

Reflection Prism?

He had never heard of it.

But the name alone was enough to tell him it certainly could not be separated from the Reflection Dimension.

And anything involving the Reflection Dimension…

Even across the whole of wizard civilization, that fell under the most tightly controlled category of all.

Any research whatsoever had to pass through layer upon layer of approval.

Because no one knew whether a single experiment might open a new dimensional fissure outright.

Which raised a question.

A small chamber of commerce with no record even in the Noren Workshop’s archives… how exactly had it gotten hold of a thing like that?

Jie Ming looked toward the pirate fleet. “Where is the prism?”

The Tripefolk elder answered at once:

“According to the intelligence we gathered, it should be in the transport’s second cargo hold.”

“My lord, we will take only the Reflection Prism. We will not touch a fraction of any other cargo. We are willing to pay sufficient resources as recompense and compensation…”

At that, Jie Ming slowly turned his head toward the transport again. “Do you have anything to say?”

After a moment’s silence, an aged voice finally came from inside the transport. It was that old captain:

“My lord… I do not know anything about a Reflection Prism.”

“Everything we carry is legal cargo, and all of it has complete manifests. This shipment was loaded three months ago at the star port. The owner is anonymous, but the paperwork is in order, and it passed every inspection by another Apostle of the End as well.”

“If there really is contraband hidden in that hold… then we know nothing of it.”

“Know nothing of it?” The Tripefolk elder at once began to sneer.

“The dimensional radiation of a Reflection Prism can only be shielded by three layers of Phantom Alloy. And your second cargo hold happens to have three-layer Phantom Alloy bulkheads.”

“If that is what passes for knowing nothing… then I will cut my own throat here and now!”

At those words the transport went utterly quiet.

Inside the bridge, one great snail after another slowly turned their heads, their gazes settling as one on the old captain, their expressions gradually growing complicated.

The old captain opened his mouth, but could not get out a single word.

Out in the void.

Jie Ming had fallen silent too.

His silence, however, was because he had abruptly realized that this time he seemed to have poked his nose into someone else’s business.

He had assumed at first that this was a trap laid for him, but from what he had heard so far… the matter seemed nowhere near that complicated.

This looked more like a clash of interests among smugglers, and no matter how he looked at it, it did not seem aimed at him.

In that case… Jie Ming quickly reached a decision.

The prism had nothing to do with him.

The smuggling had nothing to do with him.

This was the Strife Star Region, not a jurisdiction of the Star Ring Federation.

Whoever was in the right and whoever in the wrong, it was outside the scope of his duties.

He was only passing through, and pressing on with his journey was the most rational choice.

At that thought, Jie Ming nodded slowly and was about to speak.

But… at that very moment, something changed!