Chapter 160 After the Explosion

After the explosion, the out-of-control propulsion engine finally ended its rampage. A large hole had been blown open in the main body of the engine, and the propulsion nozzle, along with a long section of components, had even broken away from the engine entirely, propelled into the infinite depths of space by the force of the explosion. Regardless of whether the other parts of the engine were still functioning, it was no longer capable of producing any thrust.

As the main engine shut down, the surrounding equipment also quieted down. Hao Ren saw bursts of varying intensity flaring up elsewhere on the outer edge of the floating island, where the remaining normal thrusters were working hard to adjust the island's attitude and recover it from its previous mad roll. The crisis was finally over.

Izhaks dispelled his demonic power and relaxed. "I haven't been this tense in a long time. It reminds me of fighting wars back home."

The two flew towards the floating island. The engine had left a huge gash after the explosion, and the place was unrecognizable. Hao Ren searched for a long time before finally finding his way back through the twisted and skewed metal wreckage and the large swaths of burning dust. Only half of the maintenance area remained, but fortunately, the force of the explosion had stopped there. The maintenance tunnels and various gates behind the maintenance area were unaffected. The elven remains previously placed near the second gate were also unharmed. Hao Ren carried the remains back to the surface.

The artificial gravity in this area seemed to have recovered slightly. Although it was still uncomfortable, at least it was possible to walk normally.

A large group of people had gathered outside the exit. Apart from the mages who were still maintaining the sealing of the breach, almost all the elves who had participated in the rescue effort had gathered. Hao Ren was taken aback by the crowd in front of him as soon as he appeared, but he first put the remains he was carrying on his shoulder on the ground: "I found a victim..."

The elves quieted down. A wounded man with a bandage on his arm pushed through the crowd and identified the body, letting out a sigh. "It's Angleton, as expected. He was trapped in the lowest level of the maintenance room when the explosion happened... But thankfully, his body was brought out intact. Thank you."

Hao Ren didn't know what expression to use to accept this gratitude. At this moment, two more elves squeezed through the crowd, having heard the news. They were two female elves of slightly different ages, with bandages on their wrists and arms and bloodstains on their faces. They were obviously also injured in the previous explosion. The two elves threw themselves on Angleton's remains, weeping softly in sorrow. Someone explained that this was Angleton's wife and daughter—the three of them worked in this crew, and they had just moved to this district recently. Their new life had ended abruptly due to an accident before it had even begun.

The older female elf recovered more quickly. She wiped the tears from her face, looked up at Hao Ren with a grateful expression, and then gently patted her daughter's back. "Mana, tell the rationing officer when you get back that we'll be taking two rations from now on."

Hao Ren remembered a similar joke on Earth, but now he thought the joke was not funny at all!

Perhaps they had lived like this for too long, and the elves had already ingrained certain things into their bones, regarding them as natural laws. The departure of their loved ones made them sad, but at the same time, they would immediately think about reducing a ration quota. This was a habit that could only be twisted out by thousands of years of high-pressure living. Humans born in the resource-rich Earth would probably find it difficult to imagine all this. Lily and Vivian, who had been helping to treat the wounded or clear the buildings that had collapsed due to the explosion, also ran over at this time. They had also seen many lives and deaths in their lives, but they still felt some emotion in the face of the scene before them. The data terminal's voice sounded in Hao Ren's mind: "If only there was a priest of the goddess of life here, or a general-purpose resurrection device. People who have died within a few hours like this can be resurrected..."

Just as Hao Ren was about to say something, Vivian suddenly hesitated and said, "Maybe I can try?"

"Try what?" Hao Ren looked at her in surprise.

"The body looks intact," Vivian said uncertainly. "I don't know if my blood will work... Anyway, it used to only have a one-fifth success rate when used to save people. I seem to be a bit different from other bloodkin in this regard..."

"Let's try first," Hao Ren quickly pushed Vivian forward, cheering up this unconfident vampire. "It can't get any worse, right?"

Vivian politely asked the elven mother and daughter, who were immersed in sorrow, to step aside. Under their puzzled gazes, the vampire girl drew a complex rune with blood mist on the chest of the dead elf. The rune slowly penetrated into the other party's body. At the same time, Vivian's nails also grew rapidly, until they became like sharp刺刀 (cīdāo, bayonets). After waiting for the blood mist to completely penetrate, she whispered something, and then stabbed her nails into the dead elf's heart without hesitation!

Hao Ren heard her say: "Rulai, Guanyin, Jesus, Mary, 12345, please bless me and don't stab it wrong..."

He immediately knew what the one-fifth success rate was all about: just with this sentence of praying, the gods in the sky would have to fight for half an hour before they could decide who would come to help, and this time she even added a 天外飞仙 (tiān wài fēi xiān, a celestial being from beyond the heavens) who was more unreliable than anyone else—maybe it would have been better if she hadn't said this sentence!

But this time, the Raven 12345 seemed to have really manifested. Not long after the spell was cast, the dead elf's body suddenly trembled, and then opened its eyes with a strange stiffness.

The surrounding elves were in an uproar, and the elven mother and daughter were even more stunned. Hao Ren grabbed Vivian and Lily and left the crowd before the situation became chaotic. He looked back at the chaotic scene with some worry: "Did you turn him into a vampire? Why is this process different from what I imagined? I thought you were going to bite him..."

"That's the method to transform low-level blood servants," Vivian waved her hand. "From the perspective of the bloodkin, it's food processing, similar to dipping a sauce when eating. Although it's simple, the blood servant's consciousness is fragmented and can only obey the bloodkin's commands. I used a more advanced transformation method."

Lily frowned: "Is he a vampire now? Will he have to drink blood to survive in the future? There should only be one vampire like you who eats normally..."

"No, I've experimented before. I don't know if it's because my bloodline is special or what, but the people I save are a little afraid of light in some ways, but are otherwise the same as ordinary people. Although they occasionally have the urge to drink blood, they can control it easily, and they can survive by eating normal food," Vivian frowned. "It's just that I don't know why, my transformation success rate is always only one-fifth, whether it's used on living people or dead people. And when other bloodkin transform advanced descendants, the success rate is 100%. And the people I transform are completely ordinary humans, with no special abilities at all."

Hao Ren responded casually: "Let 12345 check you out when you have time. There must be something abnormal about your physique..."

Just then, a hovercar suddenly flew over from the city center and stopped steadily in front of the group. A familiar elf jumped out of the car: Hildir's only son, Wim. He bowed to Hao Ren and the others: "My mother sent me to pick up a few guests. She's waiting for you at the Royal District Spire."

Hao Ren then remembered that he should go back and nodded hastily: "Oh, right, we have to discuss serious matters with Hildir. By the way, the data terminal..."

He looked back at the scene of the breach. The data terminal was still lying in the middle of the pile of temporary charging equipment. The dome of the floating island above was emitting uniform and soft light under the terminal's power supply. Obviously, that guy couldn't leave for a while.

"You go ahead and do your thing," the data terminal's voice came from afar. "After these elves have messed with the spare energy pool, this machine will find you myself... Ugh, this twitching, don't let me die from exhaustion..."

Hao Ren quickly boarded the hovercar and left that cheap thing at the scene.

The hovercar drove over the city. Through the windows on both sides of the car, they could see the post-disaster scene below.

Although the rolling of the floating island was stopped in time, the tremors had already caused huge damage to the fragile city on the floating island. Collapsed buildings and bridges could be seen everywhere in the city. In more open areas, huge cracks could be seen in the ground. In some of the cracks, one could even see the mechanical structure under the city and the complex pipelines that flickered with faint light: The floating island built by the Irim elves was like a giant living creature. Its interior was covered with a network of energy transmission like blood vessels, and the solid ground supported the city. Now, the outer shell of this island was cracking open, and those complex structures below were exposed like internal organs, giving people a shocking feeling.

A large number of hovercars were leaving the Royal District in the center of the island, and groups of people could be seen on the ground. These were the Irim civilians who had been evacuated for emergency shelter. Now that the biggest crisis had passed, they had to immediately return to their jobs, rebuild their homes, restore production, and repair the land and the equipment under the land—they had no time to rest. This fragile country must be maintained in continuous maintenance and repair in order to survive.

The Royal District Spire appeared in front of the hovercar.