Chapter 51 - The Slaves’ Hope

“Panting.” My chest was undulating. I took deep breaths to calm down.

I looked at my corroded hands, thinking, This is war. Luck will not favor any sides. One can only rely on oneself to survive until the end.

“Heh,” I chuckled. Then, I turned around and lifted my hand to block the clear sunlight. The sunlight was warm, and it shone on the back of my hand. My bones looked transparent under the sunlight.

I’d stopped Totole’s superpower using my blue crystal energy, and it seemed that it could stop me from bleeding the way I used to. I hadn’t had the time to realize it earlier.

I looked at Sparkly Blink, still in the form of a pile of gemstones. He blinked.

“Turn him into a gemstone. I’m worried that he might resurrect.” I wasn’t worried about the other Ghost Eclipsers, but this had been a Ghost King’s favorite general. Who knew if he would come back to life through something like photosynthesis? He was a poisonous creature, and there were too many uncertainties.

“What’s your favorite color?” He asked softly.

I thought for a while and replied, “Colorless.” I didn’t have any color on my mind at the moment. Perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood to think about it.

Sparkly Blink blinked, and Totole’s dead body slowly turned into a colorless gemstone, resembling a transparent crystal. He looked just like the crystal teddy bear I used to have on my bookshelf at home.

“The target is dead. Come and retrieve the robot,” I commanded calmly as I looked at the corpse on the ground.

“Yes, Ice Dragon is on his way.”

I stopped looking at the dead body and turned around. “Jun? Zong Ben? Are you okay?” I asked. They’d experienced the shock of the impact earlier, but they should have been fine within the blue crystal energy.

The video feed in my heads-up display flickered. It seemed they had sustained some external damage.

“Got it. I will send Ice Dragon to get you.” The flickering images disappeared.

Everyone was fine.

I put the lightsaber away calmly. Then, I slowly sat down on the rough ground while leaning on the ice-cold gemstone. I took out the painkiller injection, muscle spray, and bionic skin from my waist bag.

I bit the needle cover off under the sunlight and injected the painkiller into the part of my hand that was still intact. The pain began to fade slowly and I let out a breath of relief. I’d been covered in cold sweat due to the pain.

It seemed I was the only one in the cave, besides Sparkly Blink. It was really quiet. I was able to heal from my injury quietly and take a breather.

The blue light motes began to gather. I began bleeding as soon as I retracted the blue crystal energy. The blue crystal energy in my blood alone couldn’t stop the bleeding fast enough. I had to apply the muscle spray to my wounded hand, covering it in white foam. I leaned against the gemstone and rested.

I had to wait until the white foam dried up and wrapped around my bones like a layer of gel. Then, the gel could temporarily act as a replacement for my finger muscles.

“Is that your superpower?” Sparkly Blink asked softly. He stayed in his gemstone form. It seemed to be his safest state.

Gemstones couldn’t be damaged by fire or acid. It seemed blue crystal energy couldn’t harm him, either. In fact, many artificial blue crystals were simply gemstones that stored blue crystal energy within.

I suddenly realized that Sparkly Blink was immune to most of the superpowers in this world! He was almost like me.

“Mm.” I looked at him. “You were immune to Totole’s superpower. Why were you so scared?”

He blinked his gemstone eyes and replied, “He would have handed over the young men in our tribe to the Queen if I didn’t cooperate with him. We were the only district that didn’t need to send young men as tributes.” He sounded really calm. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was much calmer than ordinary people, or if it was because his superpower of turning rocks into gemstones made him as cold and tough as rock.

“Do you need any beautiful young men?” he asked me softly.

I looked at him. My hand had dried up, and I wrapped some bionic skin around it. It was a kind of bionic gauze that was like human skin, and it could stop the bleeding. “I don’t eat humans. You won’t have to pay any tribute to me in the future.”

“You don’t need anything at all? Do you need any gemstones?”

“No. I don’t eat humans.”

He was surprised. He was dumbfounded for a while before he asked again, “What do you want, then?”

I looked at him and answered, “I want you to be able to protect yourself!”

His round gemstone eyes stared at me blankly. He didn’t say anything after that.

I heard some light footsteps in the silence. Soon, I could see people cautiously advancing, reflected in the facets of the huge gemstone.

“Goddess!” Xiao Mi ran out from the crowd. Xiao Mi’s mom immediately pulled her away and hugged her tightly. She didn’t let her daughter take another step forward.

The people at the cave entrance didn’t move an inch. They looked ahead of them anxiously. The facets seemed to have reflected my image as well. They never spoke, but they also never left. The silence and the sunlight filled the air simultaneously.

“What’s the matter?” I asked with my man’s voice, breaking the silence among us.

“No… Nothing,” the old chief replied in his trembling voice, not knowing what to say.

I didn’t speak again, nor did I want to stand up, because I felt exhausted.

Sparkly Blink looked at me and blinked. Then, he stood up and walked out of the cave. The gemstones on his body began to disappear and revealed his tattered clothes. He stood in front of the old chiefs and the other villagers, saying, “He is our new king, Ice Fire King. He killed Totole.”

“What?!” The people exclaimed in surprise, and a great commotion stirred. They looked terrified, unsettled, and fearful..

“What’s the difference? When one dies, another comes.” Whispers and soft sighs were exchanged among the people.

“There’s still no hope for us.”

“After the drug wears off, we will…”

“Stop! Don’t say it out loud!”

I turned my face slightly. The people in the fourth zone were different from Moto and the other young men. I could see the spark of resistance in them that had yet to be extinguished completely.

“What does he want from us?” The old chief compromised and asked. “We’re willing to do anything, as long as he doesn’t hurt our children.”

“I asked earlier,” Sparkly Blink said calmly. “He said that he doesn’t want anything.”

“What!?” The people were shocked.

“He said,” Sparkly Blink began again.

The crowd interrupted anxiously, “What did he say!? What does he want!?”

Sparkly Blink looked at me. He wore a calm expression. He then turned back, continuing, “I think what he meant is that we are free now. He hopes that we can stand up with courage, and fight for ourselves and our own people!”

I was surprised at Sparkly Blink’s interpretation. That was right! That was exactly what I meant! But whenever I told Moto and the other young men that, they looked confused and lost. I thought the Ghost Eclipsers’ slaves didn’t know how to fight back anymore.

It seemed I’d jumped to conclusions. I could see future hope for the slaves of the fourth zone.