Chapter 88
At this time, traces of the previous battle were still there on the Princess Star. There were other buildings around the white palace, most of which had been blown to pieces. Outside the ruins, many places in the forest were still burning, with black smoke billowing, making the blue sky full of haze.
Judging from the traces of battle and the appearance of those people, it is not difficult to guess what happened before. But the spacecraft was attacked at this time, and it was impossible to ignore it. Leopold said: "Switch to bomb No. 7."
"Switch to size 7."
"Switch to size 7."
The order was passed down layer by layer, the gun barrel outside the spacecraft retracted, turned a circle, and a new gun barrel was extended out.
Zeruo and his men were driving mechas and had already reached the spaceship and started to attack. They knew that with their current equipment and ammunition reserves, it was a dream to defeat the steel behemoth in front of them. However, if they escaped, their heads would explode into a ball of blood mist. Going forward meant death, and retreating also meant death. Even though they actually put their own lives aside when launching the attack, Princess Tanada still had many of their brothers and sisters in her hands, as well as thousands of children from Prison Star who were undergoing training and had not yet left the training camp. All of these people were hostages in the hands of the princess. If they wanted to escape from the battlefield, or even if they were a little lazy in the battle, the princess would randomly let some of them "know why the flowers are so red."
When forcing them to come out to fight, the maid beside the princess explained all these matters clearly, leaving them no chance of success.
They can only fight to the death... Perhaps, when all of these rebels are killed in the battle, the remaining unaware, docile and obedient children can survive - after all, they, the Prison Star people, are natural killers and tools, and can be considered... rare materials, right?
Zeruo felt a little relieved and sorry when he thought about how he had kept the little girl Jin Yingzi behind on the grounds that she was not old enough before setting out to join the war on Princess Star.
——Girl, pretend that you know nothing and live on!
Even if your life and personal freedom are controlled by others, it is enough to just be alive.
As long as you are alive, there is hope.
Thinking of the man named Rong Yuan and his mysterious methods, Zeruo felt a pang of regret. Jin Yingzi once suggested that they could find a way to join forces with that man, but he refused because he... didn't trust that person. He was worried that they had finally escaped from the control of the princess, but would be caught by another person with ulterior motives.
If I had known this earlier... If I had known this earlier...
Ze Ruo gritted his teeth in hatred and controlled the mecha, rushing towards the buzzing muzzle of the spaceship like a moth to a flame, ready to use himself to block the gunfire so that others can continue to attack.
The headphones contained other people's screams and shouts, but Ze Ruo seemed not to hear them. His mecha spread out its limbs and blocked the muzzle of the gun tightly without hesitation.
In fact, with the power of the shells on the spacecraft, his mecha would only be torn into pieces like paper at this distance, and would not even have much blocking effect. In the final analysis, Zeruo's action was just suicide.
In the palace, the princess saw Zeruo's actions on the magnified screen, a satisfied smile appeared on her lips, and her eyes sparkled with joy.
"boom--"
White light spurted out, and Zeruo's mecha was completely submerged.
Many people cried out in pain and screamed, but then they saw the white light dissipate, and Zeruo's mech looked intact, but it fell straight down from the air as if it had lost power. Two nearby mechs hurriedly flew over to catch him, and found that the life signal of the pilot was not completely gone, and they almost cried with joy.
Then, the people on the ground saw that the mechas were falling from the sky like dumplings. The mechas themselves had built-in safety devices to prevent them from falling from high altitudes when there was a problem with the power system. Before the mechas touched the ground, they were suddenly wrapped into huge balls by the white flocs that suddenly sprayed out of the mecha shells. The speed of the mechas' falling suddenly slowed down, and then they slowly fell to the ground.
However, the people on the ground did not see them fall to the ground, because when the mechas began to fall, they all fell down one by one, with stiff limbs and weak breathing, looking like dead people.
The No. 7 bomb is a biological weapon. The spores that spread rapidly at the moment of explosion carry a large number of viruses. After invading the organism, it can paralyze the whole body in a very short time. The people who fell can still hear, see, think, have touch and pain, but the only thing that can move is the eyelids. This kind of ammunition was originally used in some public riots, demonstrations, or hostage kidnappings. It is rarely used in the army. It is occasionally used to make the enemy feel the process of his own death clearly. Therefore, it is regarded as a prelude to torture and people are terrified.
But at this time, Leopold used this ammunition to save the people present.
Princess Tanada, who had originally planned to watch a good show of them killing each other, made a "tsk" sound, extremely dissatisfied, with a frosty look on her pretty face.
Leopold's ship landed.
Then it fell!
After Zeruo's mech landed, the white flocculent on the surface was quickly dissolved. The mech's camera was facing the direction of the spaceship and the palace, so he saw that the ground where the spaceship landed suddenly cracked into a huge gap, swallowing the huge spaceship in its entirety. Various collisions and explosions came from the black hole, causing the ground to undulate like waves, bouncing from time to time. The sound in the hole lasted for about half an hour before it returned to calm. Zeruo in the mech's cockpit couldn't help but stretch his neck, even though he couldn't see what was happening below no matter how hard he tried.
With a "bang", Leopold was thrown at the feet of Princess Tanada. In order to prevent him from suddenly jumping up, his hands and feet were broken. He lay on the ground covered in blood, looking extremely miserable.
Princess Tanada was obviously very satisfied with his current appearance. After admiring him for a moment, she smiled and said, "Long time no see, Leopold."
Leopold opened his eyes and looked at her coldly.
The princess said, "The last time we met here, I was your prisoner. Now that the positions have been reversed, how do you feel?"
Leopold didn't answer, but his eyes moved quickly around and looked around.
During the more than 100 years that Princess Tanada was imprisoned here, she actually hollowed out half of the planet and transformed it into a war fortress. When Leopold 's spaceship suddenly sank, although he was surprised, it was not difficult for him to deal with it. However, the subsequent series of attacks did not give him any breathing space, and the spaceship's system was also invaded and fell into the hands of the enemy. Then the hatch of the spaceship opened automatically, and a group of people rushed up and subdued him and his soldiers.
As the most elite force of the empire, the Jun Ya should not be subdued so easily, but the problem is that the ones fighting against them are not "humans" in the full sense of the word.
They were a group of biochemical mechanically modified humans.
They have no reason, feel no pain, are not afraid of death, and weapons can extend from every part of their bodies, and their number is as numerous as ants.
In that small space, Leopold and his men defeated enemies that were ten times their number, but then, a hundred times their number rushed over, and they could not be killed or driven away. He even saw a few familiar faces among them, the faces of the young soldiers he had sent to guard Princess Tanada.
The people brought by Leopold were all controlled at this time, but those people did not kill them, perhaps because the princess wanted to transform these elites into her weapons, so only Leopold was brought to Princess Tanada. On the way, when he passed through the long corridors and hanging stairs, he saw countless mechanically transformed soldiers standing densely in the underground space with no visible boundaries. They stood in neat rows like stone statues, without any sound or movement, and did not look like living people at all.
Perhaps, when they were transformed, their consciousness was completely wiped out.
Looking at the blank and silent eyes of these modified people, Leopold hated Princess Tanada to the core. Listening to her proud words, he even wanted to tear this woman apart alive.
Leopold gnashed his teeth and said, "How long do you think you can be so arrogant? Almost all the people in the organization have been purged, and those who were deceived by you in the past have long been demoted or transferred! You can only rely on these shady troops, but even if you defeat me unexpectedly, the empire will send a more powerful army later. By then, you and your people will be reduced to ashes under the empire's artillery fire!"
"That's right, I think so too." Tanada said with a smile: "So I made a little preparation, what do you think?"
She clapped her hands, and two men and two women walked up to Leopold from behind him. Leopold thought that no matter what he saw, he would not care, but when he saw the four people, he was horrified and his seriously injured body almost bounced off the ground!
"You...you guys..." Leopold said in shock, and even felt that he had lost the ability to think.
Each of the four people in front of him shocked him beyond words.
At the front was a maid with an ordinary appearance. Leopold did not remember her at first, but when he saw her in the uniform of the Ice Palace maid, he remembered that he often saw this maid when he went in and out of the Ice Palace, but she was like a shadow and never attracted anyone's attention. Leopold remembered her because he knew that this maid had had a brief conversation with Lance before his death, so he paid special attention to her.
He had always been unable to understand why Lance would be so determined to commit suicide when he discovered something unusual without any definite intelligence. Now he finally understood.
It turned out that the order actually came from the princess, conveyed by this inconspicuous maid.
The man behind was the Duke Dumont, a colleague Leopold thought had died long ago.
Although this man holds the title of Duke, he is not very prominent among the many prominent officials and nobles in the Imperial Capital Star. He has no close friends or enemies, and he always keeps to himself, as if he has no connection with anyone. However, only the confidants of the old emperor, such as Leopold, know that Duke Dumont is the person the emperor trusts the most. He controls the underground forces of the empire and has a secret team that does not exist in any public records, specializing in handling some secret people and things for the emperor.
Although Leopold was trusted and respected by the emperor, he was also the princess's man. Although he had long known that the princess's influence had penetrated deeply, he did not feel the chill until this moment.
It was not until this moment that he understood why the old emperor was so wary and disgusted with Princess Tanada.
But what really shocked Leopold and made him unable to accept it was the man and woman behind him.
One is an old man with white hair and wrinkles on his face.
One is a girl with red hair and blue eyes, in the prime of her life.
It's the old emperor and Serinda.
No, it should be said that it is people who look exactly like them.
Even the curvature of the hair at the temples, the position of a mole on the cheek, the demeanor revealed in the corners of the eyebrows and eyes, and some small unintentional movements are all exactly the same as the real person.
In this world, even identical twins can't be so alike, so there is only one possibility -
These two are actually Kelong people. Moreover, they are Kelong people carefully cultivated according to their living habits, knowledge, education, words and deeds, etc., so there is this effect that seems like copy and paste.
In an instant, Leopold understood Princess Tanada's plan - she wanted to use these two Kelon people to replace the original owners, so that the emperor of Landia... no, it should be said that the entire empire would become her plaything!
Originally, she was planning to replace the sick and old previous emperor with Kelon. With Lance as an insider, this replacement could be done without anyone noticing. After the old emperor Kelon, who was manipulated by her, died, she could pass the throne to his "beloved wife", Princess Tanada. In the history of Landia, there was an old precedent for wives to temporarily take over the power of their husbands because of young children. The ministers did not strongly oppose this because the power would eventually fall into the hands of their children.
However, before they could replace the emperor, the old emperor died unexpectedly, which temporarily ruined their plan. However, they were not completely unpredictable about this situation, so the princess had already trained a perfect substitute for Celida.
but--
Leopold roared: "You crazy woman! Her Majesty the Queen is your biological daughter!"
If their plan went smoothly, the best outcome for Serinda would be lifelong confinement. In fact, to ensure that nothing could go wrong, the best way would be to let her disappear from this world without a trace.
Leopold had no doubt that Princess Tanada was capable of such an inhumane thing.
Hearing his roar, Princess Tanada showed no shame. She waved her hand, and the Kelon girl immediately knelt down at her feet, resting her head on her knees. Princess Tanada touched the girl's smooth long hair and said, "This is also my daughter. She also has my blood and my genes in her body, and she grew up beside me, didn't she?"
Leopold was speechless, not because he felt that what Princess Tanada said made sense, but because he realized that to the person in front of him, any verbal condemnation or insult would be like a breeze blowing on her face. No one could change what she had made up her mind.
But Leopold still wanted to struggle - although he knew it was futile - he still tried to prop up his upper body, stared at Duke Dumont with wide eyes, and shouted: "Dumont! His Majesty has entrusted you with important tasks and has been very kind to you. Is this how you repay His Majesty?" The His Majesty he was referring to at this time was naturally the deceased old emperor.
“Hahahahahahaha…”
Dumont did not respond, but Princess Tanada suddenly burst into laughter, as if she was extremely amused by Leopold's words, and she laughed so hard that she fell backwards.
Leopold didn't look at him, but stared at Duke Dumont, hoping to see a different reaction on his face.
But he was disappointed.
"If you think this will make him change his mind, or even turn against me, then you'd better give up. It's impossible." Princess Tanada had laughed enough. She put away her smile and said coldly, "Because of him, he took my soul talisman."
"What?" Leopold didn't understand for a moment.
Princess Tanada patted the head of the Kelong girl and asked her to stand up. Then she adjusted her skirt and said with a smile: "The army found three soul charms near the Pillar of Creation. Have you heard about it?" Seeing Leopold recalling, she continued: "How could I miss such an interesting thing? The one sent to the Academy of Sciences was cut off early and mixed with my blood. At first I hadn't figured out who to feed it to. Then I heard that the old man wanted to use the soul charm to control Dumont, so I asked Lance to switch it and let Dumont drink my soul charm. As for the old man's soul charm, it was fed to an old and ugly dog. The old dog was loyal to him, but unfortunately... who cares?"
"So, do you think the old man really trusts Dumont? No, he only trusts the Soul Talisman. Before he died, he asked Dumont to assassinate me, wanting to die together. It's a pity that the person Dumont is truly loyal to is me!"
"You too." The princess patted Leopold's face gently. This action was full of ambiguity and insult. She said, "Do you feel that the old man trusts you so much, and you are willing to die for him?" She chuckled, and every word sounded like the devil's whisper: "Do you want to know what tricks the old man has prepared to control you in order to ensure this ridiculous 'trust'?"
"What...is it?" Leopold couldn't help but ask what she meant.
"Haha, guess~" the princess laughed maliciously.
Seeing the man lying on the ground getting angry and struggling desperately, Princess Tanada felt that she had finally avenged herself for being sent to this damn place by him. She waved her hands in satisfaction and said casually, "Drag him away and kill him."
After she finished speaking, she took the iced juice handed to her by the maid beside her, took a sip, moistened her throat which was a little dry from speaking, and her smile became even sweeter.
That's how it should be! After doing so many things and enduring for so long, if she keeps all of this hidden, what's the fun in that? Her enemies should know that going against her will eventually make them lose everything, and any struggle will be in vain. It's fun to completely destroy all that ridiculous loyalty, love, and trust.
"I don't understand, what's the fun in playing with people's hearts and harming the loyal and honest people?" said a faint voice.
The princess turned around suddenly and her expression changed for the first time.
