"Don't look at me like that." Shelley was so gentle that he seemed to whisper, "You must know that there is never more than one betrayal. ”

If there is an all-knowing and all-powerful being looking down on this, He will find many interesting things. For example, Narek looked at the stake in astonishment, his eyes trembling between clarity and confusion. His right hand clenched the lightning strike stone, and blood trickled down between his fingers, soaking through the headband that Luo Jia had tied.

For a moment, his eyes were soaked in bloodlust and desolation, but they quickly returned to their usual blankness.

Uriah's vertical pupils were almost rounded, and although he didn't know what was happening, he knew that this was not the way to make his master happy. The thought of the Dark Prince's punishment of the foolish servant made him tremble. And the foolish men and women who were controlled by him had a nervous breakdown because of the master's distraction, and they also looked at the flame in amazement, thousands of pairs of eyes reflecting the sparkling fire like a mirror.

Shelley's glass beads' eyes were similarly reflected in a raging crimson, until the tiny figure in it finally stopped twitching and turned into a charred mass. A hint of disappointment appeared between her brows, her lips squirmed, and she spat out an obscure word.

Of those present, only Uriah heard it, the language was too far away, but Uriah had been a learned priest, so he knew that it came from the young carpenter who had been crucified thirty thousand years ago, and the specific meaning of the phrase.

A rage ensued that Uriah even forgot about his defeat and the punishment that followed. He grabbed the nearest man by the ankle of the sluggish wretched creature, tearing him apart so hard that he didn't even have time to scream.

Organs slammed down on the lost man's face and body like ripe grapes, splashing crimson juice. Uriah stretched out his slender tongue and licked it, the pain in his blood calming him slightly. Then he turned his eyes and stared at the three stunned or sluggish bastards who had ruined his plans.

An escaped geist, a hellhound assimilated by the essence of the Most High, and a puppet. There is no point in killing them. The true body of the puppet emperor's lackey is not here. Uriah longed for revenge, but wasn't so angry that he lost his mind, and he knew he couldn't take revenge on the damn ship, even if it was lazily looking down from the sky.

The gods hate each other, but their rivalry follows a delicate balance. In Colchis, their forces were evenly divided. As a subordinate of the Prince of Darkness, Uraiyah's arrangement in Bethlehem has reached the limit of what he can do, and this is because he has not yet ascended to the demon, and theoretically does not belong to the eternal silver palace.

Now if he does a little more, he will upset the balance and cause the dissatisfaction of the master brothers. When the time comes, he will face more than just such a gentle punishment. I'm afraid that even the essence will be extracted and turned into a wail in the crystal gem of the Silver Palace.

In comparison, how unscrupulous are the servants of the puppet emperor...... He watched the priestess's unmoved back, stung in the eyes by the afterglow of the cold sun. He is beyond the world, but he has not yet escaped the remnants of the physical world and ascended to one of the thrones of the highest heavens. So he doesn't have to follow the rules of the great game, and he can intervene in it appropriately. What hypocrisy, hypocrisy, disgusting false compassion.

Uriah gritted his teeth fiercely, his cunning finally lost to the tyranny. The thick snake's tail shot out, and the sharp scales easily tore through Shelley's flesh and pierced her chest. She staggered forward, flesh blistering hot and blistering in the close-up sear, filling the air with a burnt aroma.

The fire in Uriah's heart finally eased slightly, and he raised his two arms under his robe, which still retained his human form below the upper arm, and above the elbows, he transformed into two sharp spikes, glowing with the multicolored luster of poison.

"You're next, wanderer." He hissed and spat at the relieved Narek. "Then I'll eat that wronged soul and digest it with her people."

-----------------

Luo Jia had a dream.

In the dream he was a bystander, or a wandering spirit. It took him a long time to realize that "himself" was a huge spaceship. According to his simple estimates, the length of "himself" is about 20 kilometers. He remembered a much smaller ship with noisy people and warm hands, but couldn't remember more details.

She'd love the way she looked. He thought vaguely. But I can't remember who it was.

They called themselves the Twilight, a beautiful name. Luo Jia couldn't say how much he liked it. The younger, livelier crew members called him "our good girl", much to his distress.

"Is it going well, Shelley?" The captain said as he straightened his collar. He's a good guy with iron-gray eyes and a heart of steel. The crew feared his majesty and did not hesitate to give him their lives.

"It's going well, or maybe there's no big mess yet." The woman who spoke had a pair of gray-blue eyes, always pursed her lips slightly, and looked cold and ruthless. Thin platinum electrodes hung from her skull, hidden in the collar. Luo Jia was familiar with her, she was a close friend of the captain, always in the laboratory and in the library. She never rests, just like herself - well, the materials that make them up are really pretty much the same, mostly metal.

"There's a lot of noise over there." The captain pinched his eyebrows. "To put it nicely is to insist on ......"

"I'm going to be ugly, and it's one that is closer to the truth." Shelley interrupted him. "I'm busy."

The captain sighed. "You've always been like that. Well, the hard part is that the overwhelming opinion that our plan is a fantasy, and the radical ones have already begun to deploy 'scavengers'. You know, a lot of the high-ranking people on the Esoteric side are spirits, and it's hard for them to put on a smile on such a thing as 'recreating gods'. ”

"Not reinvented, just according to the principle of their formation......"

"It's a different thing for them." The captain said calmly. "Even if you don't talk about offense, you know how our plans are. We plunged headlong into this project with a legend, a conjecture, and some forbidden historical legends. Think about it, if you're an Adalyn and you hear a hairless monkey who has just learned to speak, 'Based on the fragments we've dug up here and there and the whispers of some madmen, the gods are the weapons of the Ancient Sage to contain the subspace, and now let's work together to make a new one.' 'What would you think?' ”

"I would laugh at this short-lived race for the sake of self-perpetuation, but I am human."

The captain let out a long breath: "yes...... Who called us human beings? They don't care about the struggles of short-lived monkeys. But for me, if humanity can't be saved, I don't care if the whole galaxy burns. He got up and opened the walnut cabinet in the back and pulled out a bottle of wine. Top goods from the Old World, do you want to get some? ”

Shelley tugged at the corners of her mouth, a small gesture that softened her a lot. "You're willing to waste it on me, a tin monster?"

"The meaning of good wine is to drink it with your friends – to come." The captain poured a full cup for the two men, and before Shelley could make a move, he took his own cup and drank it down. "Before I worked for Esoteric Buddhism, I had been in the service of humanity for decades. I'm as good at killing like I breathe between my own kind and heterogeneous. I'll never be able to see things from the perspective of the universe like those bastards. You and I are the same kind of people, Mary - don't look at me like that, we're all going to make gods together, can't I call you by your name? ”

Shelley let go of her slightly furrowed brow and took a sip of the amber liquor. "I'm rarely referred to as the same kind of person, they prefer to call me 'Medusa' and the more direct 'witch'."

"Because they're all fucking bastards." The captain's voice was already tinged with wine. "Listen to what those people say? The Golden Age, Utopia? And fucking permanent peace is already within reach? Oh, it's the afterglow of dusk, but they're wishful thinking as the dawn of dawn? Why aren't so many of us willing to look behind the fucking curtain, when they're riveting us to the skins and bones! His voice grew louder and louder, and finally he was close to roaring.

"If there is any inferiority shared by intelligent races, it is probably to cover up and steal the bell." Shelley said slowly, "Pain belongs to those of us who see too far and too far. It is much easier to believe that you are lucky to live in a golden age than to believe that you are hated by the universe. ”

The captain loosened his freshly trimmed collar and collapsed into his chair. "If it weren't for the fact that time was so tight and our strength was so weak, I would have scolded this plan. Even now, I think it's crazy, and even crazier is that I'm involved in it. He laughed, "Use faith and ancient technology to create a separate zone of subspace, and then create the isotopes of the Primordial Destroyer and the Spirit Race God, and find a way to discover their positive effects?" Sounds like some old-fashioned movie mad scientist must have screwed up the plan! ”

"Anyway, before dusk, we did what we could. That's why we call it Project Twilight – light up the first star after the sunset and then try to survive the long night. Maybe what we do can turn out to be ...... Survivor's Daystar. ”

The sound of Didi interrupted their communication. A synthetic female voice sounded in the captain's room: "A habitable planet has been detected, and specific information has been sent to your personal terminal." Also, captain, may I remind you that you are quitting alcohol. and good day, Ms. Shelley."

Shelley smiled. "Good day, Alice, you're still so cute."

"Thank you, Ms. Shelley, for being lovely too. In addition, please tell the captain that he has been 'considering' my proposal for half a month, and ask him to give an answer as soon as possible, otherwise this question will always occupy my process. ”

"Please tell Alice when she stops telling me to quit drinking and hiding my cigarettes, and I won't answer." The captain said angrily.

"Ask Ms. Shelley to tell the captain that as his exclusive artificial intelligence, I can't ignore his health, over."

"Stop, we're down to business."

"Please tell him I can hear you, and may you have a good day, Miss Shelley. I love you like half the captain I love, over. ”

Shelley fell back into his chair and watched with rare ease as the captain inhaled with toothache. "Leave her alone...... A habitable planet was detected ahead, about three times the size of Earth, located at a subspace node. All in all, it's a good fit for our experiment, I'll send you a copy, what do you think? ”

"Not bad...... Ah, what's a name for her? ”

The captain frowned, took a cigar from his jacket pocket and lit it. "Hmm...... Alice? ”

“…… Friends, be decent. ”

The captain spread his hands. "Then Colchis, my hometown, the homeland of Medea in Greek mythology. Hopefully we'll be able to steal the dragon's Golden Fleece here too. ”

"Iason's fate is not good...... Heh, so be it. ”

"Are you ready to save humanity or mess it up, Mary?"

"Don't call me Mary." Shelley raised his glass, "To the long night yet to come." ”

The soft sound of wine glasses colliding. "To the coming dawn."

"How long do you guess it will take for the Esoteric Sect to clean up our mess." The captain asked in a joking tone.

Shelley drank it down, the wine sliding from the corners of her mouth, her eyes sparkling. "Whatever they want. If humanity could not see the dawn, then it would not have to come. ”