“Female Lord, you don’t need to blame yourself.”
“This wasn’t your fault. We were the ones who failed in our duty as your beast husbands—we should have noticed something was wrong sooner.”
Pei Wenye didn’t show the slightest trace of resentment. If anything, he was a little relieved—relieved that he had entered the wormhole first to scout the way.
If the female lord had gone in first, she would have been sent alone to some unknown place. Compared to that, their current situation wasn’t too bad.
Pei Wenye was only worried about one thing: his ability had yet to break through to SSS rank. If the wormhole led somewhere dangerous, would he be able to protect the female lord?
Wormholes were one of the Insect race’s methods of spatial travel. Planetary teleportation was the least impressive of their capabilities.
Especially since this wormhole had most likely been opened by the Insect Queen.
But neither Yunyang nor Pei Wenye currently had any way to escape the wormhole.
Most importantly, a wormhole was equivalent to creating a completely independent space. If they broke through its boundaries, they might fall into a spatial rift and never come out alive.
Thus, the two of them could only let that powerful force propel them forward.
The Insect Planet.
After the Insect Queen’s death, the Insect race had collapsed into disarray, while the Federation’s army grew more courageous with every battle.
Fuyuan’s ability had already been exposed, so he no longer bothered worrying about concealing it. He directly joined the forces fighting against the Insect race.
Qin Mo, Xuan Yu, Fu Shiyi, Rong Jin, Leonardo, Chen Yueli, and Cang Zhuonian all joined the battle as well.
The enormous white tiger rampaged through the swarms of insects as if he had lost all reason, venting his fury without restraint.
Even when attacks from the Insect race landed on him, he acted as though he couldn’t feel the pain. His movements never paused for even an instant.
When his ability was exhausted, he switched to weapons or brought out his combat mech. Then he dug out the cores of the defeated insects and absorbed them directly, heedless of the green fluid coating them.
For seven whole days and nights, he never stopped.
The other beast husbands finally understood why Commander Sheng Li had called Deputy Commander Qin Mo the sharpest “weapon” of the Federation’s Twenty-Third Army.
Although Qin Mo was only an S-rank ability user, the combat power he unleashed on the battlefield was in no way inferior to that of an SSS-rank ability user.
They were stunned by Qin Mo’s madness, but they themselves were hardly any better.
The way they fought as though they didn’t care whether they lived or died made Wu Zhengming and Kalunden’s teeth ache.
To prevent panic from spreading through the Federation army, no one had been told that Yunyang had disappeared. Si Zhao merely told everyone that she had been injured and was resting, while Pei Wenye was taking care of her.
So Wu Zhengming and Kalunden assumed that Qin Mo and the others were helping Yunyang vent her anger.
Young people, they thought. They certainly had plenty of fire in them.
Still, venting was probably a good thing.
The two commanders did not stop them. Those boys still had a female lord, after all. They couldn’t possibly throw their lives away.
Although the Insect Queen was dead, eliminating the remaining Insect forces was no easy task. The Federation army spent more than half a month clearing out most of the insects left on the Insect Planet.
Throughout that time, Wu Zhengming and Kalunden continued waiting for Yunyang to “recover from her injuries.”
But even after the war had completely ended and everyone had returned to the Federation, they still hadn’t seen Yunyang appear.
Worried, the two of them went to find Si Zhao.
“Your Majesty, are you feeling all right?”
Si Zhao wasn’t in good condition either. There was no color in her lips, and her face was deathly pale.
Even so, she managed to force out a smile and shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Only then did Kalunden hesitantly ask, “Your Majesty, how is Lord Yunyang’s recovery going?”
Now that the war was over and the Insect race had been reduced to a few insignificant stragglers, there was no need to conceal the truth anymore.
So Si Zhao told them what had happened. “Yangyang was swept into a wormhole. I haven’t been able to detect her presence since.”
“I suspect she may have been sent to the outer star systems.”
All the commanders of the Federation’s various armies knew about the outer star systems.
Wu Zhengming and Kalunden drew in a sharp breath.
The outer star systems had always been an unexplored region that the Federation had never successfully investigated. No one knew what lay beyond them, and every beastman the Federation had sent to explore the region had lost contact.
At last, they understood why Qin Mo and the others had fought like madmen back on the Insect Planet.
Their female lord had disappeared. Who wouldn’t go insane?
Forget Qin Mo and the others—even if this news were made public, every single unmarried male in the Federation would lose his mind.
Lord Yunyang was the only SS-rank female the Federation had seen in several hundred years!
Wu Zhengming asked urgently, “Your Majesty, should we send another team to explore the outer star systems?”
If Lord Yunyang couldn’t return, that brat Zhuonian would cry himself to death.
Si Zhao shook her head. “Let’s return to the Federation first.”
Although the Insect race had been thoroughly crippled by this war, the Federation had also suffered heavy losses.
The fallen soldiers needed to be properly laid to rest, and their families required comfort and compensation.
The war might have ended, but the aftermath would take no less time to deal with than the war itself.
As for Yangyang, she would find a way.
·
Yunyang and Pei Wenye were pushed through the wormhole for a long time.
There was no signal from their optical brains inside the wormhole, and they couldn’t sense the passage of time, so neither of them knew how long they had been traveling.
Then the wormhole’s exit suddenly appeared before them.
Pei Wenye tightened his hold around Yunyang.
The two of them shot out of the wormhole and plummeted straight downward.
Once they had left the wormhole, the spatial device could be used normally again. Pei Wenye immediately took out his combat mech.
It was the same combat mech Fu Shiyi had given him before Yunyang’s first trip to the Frontier Star. Although it could not compare to the Rose Shadow, which Fu Shiyi had poured all his effort into creating, it was still more advanced than the latest combat mechs currently used by the Federation army.
Pei Wenye switched the mech into aircraft mode, set it to autopilot, and programmed it to stop at a point one hundred meters below them.
Once the aircraft hovered in midair, Pei Wenye switched positions with Yunyang, taking the impact on his back as it struck the top of the aircraft.
The distance was painful, but he could endure it. He merely let out a muffled groan before he could stop himself.
Yunyang hurriedly sat up. “A-Ye, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
Pei Wenye shook his head, sat up, and pulled Yunyang back into his arms. After setting up an ability barrier around them, he piloted the mech into an automatic descent.
The two of them had no protective equipment on, so he kept the mech’s speed very low.
Yunyang took the opportunity to examine their surroundings.
This appeared to be an abandoned planet. Barren earth stretched in every direction, and the landscape looked somewhat like the Insect Planet.
Could this be the Insect race’s second home planet?
The same suspicion arose in both Yunyang and Pei Wenye’s minds.
The wormhole had been opened by the Insect race, after all. If this really was a second Insect Planet, the insects might have sent them here so that their own kind could kill them.
Therefore, despite not sensing any presence of the Insect race, Yunyang opened her spatial device and took out a large number of weapons and defensive supplies. She also bestowed blessings upon herself and Pei Wenye.
The two of them put on their armor and equipped themselves with weapons at the fastest possible speed, standing ready for anything.
A few minutes later, the aircraft touched down.
Whether or not this was an Insect Planet, Pei Wenye opened the hatch at once and pulled Yunyang inside.
The hatch closed again.
