Star Rank Hunter

Original and most up to date translations are posted at volaretranslations.

Chapter 213: Mist? Or Merciless? [Part 2]

Cillin told Shawton about his analysis, but Shawton wasn’t familiar with either Mist or Merciless. Therefore, he couldn’t tell which one of the two forces had done this either.

One thing was certain though, and that was that their enemy had set their sights on them. Either one of the two forces were extremely dangerous, and the Sixth B Squadron’s strength alone wasn’t enough to fight them. Therefore, Shawton had reported the situation to the A Squads. They would solve this once the A Squads had sent over some men to inspect the construction progress of their base.

By the time Cillin came out of the spaceplane once more, the battle situation had already become very clear. There were only a few transformed humans left struggling on the field while the Lovages were scrambling to snatch them for themselves. Meanwhile, the rest of the Sixth B Squadron members were watching the show from the sidelines not far away.

Unlike how they attacked the transformed humans earlier, the Lovages didn’t try to cut them into several parts this time. Instead, they took bites off their enemies and ate them little by little.

“What’s going on?” Cillin asked while he was walking over.

Cary lifted his chin at the little Lovages who were staring pitifully at the last few transformed humans before turning towards the final battlefield, “It seems that the more those transformed humans differentiated and cloned themselves, the less the Lovages liked eating them.”

It was like a very tasty bowl of soup where a few spoons of water were added before a little of it was drank, then rinse and repeat. After the process had been repeated for a couple of times, the soup would have become so diluted that its taste must be poor.

In the end, the remaining transformed humans were all eaten. The Lovages had eaten and licked the last of the cells before they could differentiate.

There was no doubt that these Lovages had a fulfilling meal, and some of the little Lovages were now an entire size bigger than they were before. The speed of their growth astounded everyone.

After the Lovages had returned to their nests, Shawton told his men to comb through the area thoroughly and destroy all hidden threats.

Although this incident was resolved successfully, the danger it brought caused Shawton to be deeply unsettled. It wasn’t until the A Squad’s men had arrived that his unease had subsided just a little.

The people the A Squad sent over were unknown to Cillin, but they were all elder level members like Songba Leruo. They hadn’t put on too much of airs when they spoke with Cillin though. They had only called him over briefly to speak about his findings during the battle and nothing else.

Cillin had no idea what the A Squad’s men had discussed with Shawton after his departure, but he was in no mood to know anyway. Right now, he was working hard in researching a few things; things that might soon come to protect his life.

The A Squad left behind a group of troops to guard the planet. The base was of great value to them, and they had even arranged some technical specialists to inspect it. They were all full of praises towards this base.

In reality, Cillin, the gray cat and Czedow knew that Sigma was one of the reasons the base had maintained a high standard of functionality today. Sigma had spent countless years in maintaining, perfecting and improving the base.

Cillin took a look at the trees planted around the base. They were genetically engineered species that were brought in for the purpose of improving the planet’s environment. Now, these trees had completely taken root and producing new shoots from the ground.

Not far away, a group of little Lovages ran behind Snowball’s butt while the gray cat bumping over a ball. They caught the ball before bumping it into the air once more, looking very happy as they played. These little Lovages hadn’t turned hostile towards the Sixth B Squadron just because they had finally tasted flesh. The chip inside their body was what separated them from the common beast.

“What are you looking at, Cillin?!” The gray cat jumped in directly through the window and climbed up Cillin’s shoulder in a familiar fashion, asking.

Cillin scratched the gray cat’s chin and answered, “Just watching you guys having fun.”

The gray cat raised its chin so that Cillin could scratch it as it said lazily, “They’re just a bunch of kids.”

Cillin’s mouth twitched. Other than its age, the gray cat was pretty much the same as them.

“So? How are you doing after cooping yourself for days inside the workshop?” The gray cat swung its tail and asked.

“The results are showing, but, hmm. Wheeze, I have a question to ask you. How much chance do you think you have if you fought against Barthus and Songba Leruo?”

The gray cat stretched open its narrowed eyes. It thought for a moment before replying, “I don’t know.”

In reality, the gray cat knew very well that it would be at a disadvantage. It was confident that it could beat Barthus and Songba Leruo in a head on battle, but fighting was never just a mindless brawl. Tactics were always involved, and it was obvious at first glance Barthus and Songba Leruo were two old foxes who had fought hundreds of battles in their lives. Although the gray cat possessed a powerful brain, it couldn’t think od many crafty plots or machinations at all. It had no idea how to lie, and was so bad at it that Cillin could identify one of its lies in a single glance, much less those old foxes.

“Are you going to fight against them? We can work together. You use your brains and I use my claws. There’s no way we can’t beat them together,” The gray cat said.

Cillin shook his head, “They’re not my enemies, but my enemy is stronger than them both combined.”

The gray cat’s ears flicked, “I know who you mean now. You’re talking about those people we met at the prison. They are very strong, and cunning as well. Oh right, are they really going to attack our base?”

The gray cat didn’t need to ask the Sith B Squadron to be able to learn things. The base itself was Sigma’s eyes and ears.

“I think so.”

“There’s no need to be afraid. I’ve discussed this with Sigma before, and Sigma has been recently planning to renovate the base a little more as well as adding a couple of batteries outside. It’s not like we don’t have the materials to build them. Eudy even said that he’s going to install the batteries with us tomorrow.”

The gray cat had gotten excited while talking, so Cillin didn’t interrupt it. He continued to scratch the gray cat’s chin while staring towards the faraway distance, thinking to himself.

Two days later, another squad mission had landed on their laps. The two rank C planets they detected earlier contained a rich amount of precious metal resources, and it was just what they needed since they were about to build new defensive facilities at the base.

Cillin’s squad and Zaya Kasa’s squad went out to mine the ores. Each squad was responsible for one planet.

The gray cat was currently engrossed in building the batteries and didn’t follow him. Cillin left Czedow behind to supervise the construction and prevent those fellows from messing around without a clue in their heads.

On the starship, Cillin sat quietly on a chair as he listened to Cary, Beaver and the others chatting about the construction of the defensive facilities at the outskirt of the base.

He couldn’t shake this uneasiness inside him.

Cillin was not a person to act without preparation, but he was still feeling very uneasy despite all the preparations he had made.

Tico walked over and stopped in front of Cillin. She looked at Cillin with a bit of worry in her eyes.

“What’s wrong? Is there something the matter?” Cillin asked.

“I’m fine. What I want to know is what trouble you’re in, or rather what trouble you think you’ll be in, LC.”

Tico pulled over a chair and picked out the little rabbit inside her big pocket. She passed the rabbit to Cillin.

The little rabbit’s ears were drooping, and it was obviously staring at Cillin with great worry.

Cillin had never seen such a look from the rabbit. He could also sense the reluctance to part besides worry.

Cillin didn’t know why he was able to decipher the meaning behind the rabbit’s eyes. He simply knew that those were the emotions it was conveying through its eyes. The rabbit’s mouth might not know how to speak, but its eyes did.

“It’s been like this ever since we left the base, and it wasn’t looking at anyone else like this except you,” Tico stared straight at Cillin, “What on earth happened? What haven’t you told us?”

Cillin rubbed his hand across the table surface.

Inevitable. In the end, it was inevitable.

He knew what he was going to face from the rabbit’s look now.

Cillin didn’t answer Tico’s question. Instead, he closed his eyes and tapped his finger against the back of the chair.

Five minutes later, Cillin opened his eyes and stood up. He rubbed the rabbit staring at him once he looked back at Tico, “It will be fine.”

Tico didn’t believe Cillin because she understood the rabbit in her hands all too well, and she knew every meaning its eyes were conveying. It was why she dropped the table knife in her hands out of sheer shock earlier when she saw the look the rabbit was giving Cillin.

The look meant that Cillin was very likely to die soon. The rabbit wouldn’t have worn a look of worry and reluctance to part otherwise.

Cillin went to look Eudy. Dias wasn’t around to hear him, so he had explained some of his plans to Eudy instead. After all, Eudy was one of those people who could calmly analyze a problem, and had greater say in the entire Sixth B Squadron. He was the most suitable person to hear this right now.

Decisiveness was necessary in certain times.

By now their starship had flown rather far away from their base planet, and they were just about to reach the planet with rich metal resources they’d registered in their chart. But not only did Cillin not give the order to descend, he even told them to get their weapons ready, and the personnel inside the control room to assume their positions. He told them to inspect their energy supply and defense systems.

Cary opened his mouth, but was shut up by a single glare from Eudy. Right now, Cary was feeling extremely gloomy and puzzled. His heart itched like it was being scratched by the gray cat’s claws, but even worse was the fact that he was not allowed to ask.

“Are we ready?” Cillin looked at Eudy.

Eudy nodded, “We’re ready.”

“Good. Begin!”

Eudy laid down the orders the second Cillin said so.

The starship that was flying towards the resource planet suddenly made a U-turn, activated its defensive shields and flew away like it was running from something.

Cary seriously couldn’t hold it his annoyance any longer as he shot a glare at Eudy. The amount of energy blocks that they were going to waste was going to be astronomical considering that the ship’s defensive shields were activated to the fullest extent, not to mention that they were using the special energy blocks too. Was he still not going to give an explanation now?!

Cary opened his mouth and attempted to ask. His voice didn’t escape his throat before the starship suddenly shuddered.

“We’re under attack!”

From the display, the squad could see many laser bullets being fired at their ship. Behind them, a starship slowly revealed its true form.

A starship was actually waiting to ambush them!

What was even more shocking was the fact that their scanners and probes hadn’t detected anything at all!

Right now, that enemy starship was pointing all of their cannons at their starship. If it wasn’t for the shields, the starship would probably be half paralyzed by now. At the very least, there was no way they could’ve continue flying at their current speed.

“Who are they?!” Cary asked.

“I want to know too,” Cillin left the control room after staring at the starship pursuing them closely from behind.