Chapter 1 The Renegade's Spaceship

The renegades' spaceship, like themselves, displayed an ostentatious and flamboyant atmosphere in every detail. Inside this gigantic space vessel, which resembled a palace, every corridor, every piece of equipment, and every object was meticulously decorated and thoughtfully arranged.

Its corridors were wide and bright, with gracefully curved arches. Pale golden, tassel-like luminous bodies hung from the corridor ceilings, with crystalline raw stones suspended at their ends. Countless relief patterns were arranged continuously on the walls on both sides of the corridor. These relief patterns spared no effort to depict scenes like religious legends with exquisite artistic techniques, including struggles against natural disasters, mysterious rituals related to the stars, and the domestication of various dangerous beasts. The protagonists in these pictures were, of course, all those tall and handsome "perfect humans," either wearing sacred armor or draped in robes representing wisdom and knowledge, acting as saviors or guides in every picture, while various other species—including humans similar to them but depicted as weaker—were all prostrate at the feet of these "gods."

Hao Ren felt that he was walking in a magnificent temple rather than a warship. If it weren't for the occasional flashing technological facilities between the reliefs and statues, he would almost have forgotten that this was a spaceship floating in space.

Izhaks walked beside Hao Ren, casually looking around at the opulent decorations. These resplendent and exquisitely decorated corridors reminded him of some things in his old home—the art-loving elves and the ancient human kingdoms would build similar things, though slightly inferior in terms of luxury, but in terms of "exquisite works of art," the two had something in common.

"If it weren't a weapon, it could be called a decent work of art," Izhaks said with a smile. "It's a pity that such decoration shouldn't appear on the battlefield. As a warship, it's too extravagant, full of unnecessary decorations."

"Luxury goods on the battlefield, humans also had such a period, but that was ancient—it's hard to imagine a space civilization maintaining this style," Hao Ren shook his head. "These rebels have completely gone mad. Becoming gods is still a distant matter, and they are in a hurry to gild their statues."

Lili poked at the passing statues with her ice and fire claws, muttering as she poked, "Collective madness, any society has this happen from time to time, it's just that these guys are a little more mad. By the way, it looks like there's really no one in this ship, huh?"

The data terminal floated at the front of the team, constantly scanning the surroundings with a blue beam, detecting the energy flow in the corridor walls and the residual life nearby: "No signs of life detected—except for microorganisms. The ship's power seems to be intact, and regular signal transmissions can be detected. The ship's basic systems should still be operating automatically. The core system seems to be offline. This unit has detected a silent line, which runs through the entire ship. We can find the location of the shipboard mainframe through it, and also understand the approximate structure of this ship."

Hao Ren gave a perfunctory "oh." Although he cared about the structure of the ship, he was more concerned about the whereabouts of the crew. This resplendent place, every inch of it, seemed luxurious, but at the moment it was lifeless and without vitality, like a cold craft floating in space. He wanted to know why. Along the way, he found no traces of damage, and no signs of intra-ship combat on the corridor walls, so he could basically rule out factors such as the warship being invaded, a crew mutiny, or internal environmental disasters leading to the crew abandoning ship. Similarly, since no obvious external damage was found on the outside, the possibility of abandoning ship due to warship damage could also be ruled out.

The ship was abandoned in a completely intact state.

They came to the end of the corridor, where there was a y-shaped fork and a door. The door was right in the center of the fork, and inside it was probably a temporary rest area for the staff. Lili scratched the metal door with her claws: "What's behind this?"

Hao Ren pushed the husky girl aside to prevent her from making more noise, then stepped forward to check the state of the gate. The energy supply to the access control system should be fine, but he didn't know how to open it. He looked around the door, and finally his eyes fell on both sides of the gate: there were two symmetrically placed small sculptures, the sculptures were of some kind of beast with sharp teeth and a slender face. Hao Ren subconsciously put his hand on the head of a sculpture, and heard a slight sizzling sound from the wall, and then the gate slid open to both sides.

"This thing reminds me of the ancient tomb traps in TV dramas," Hao Ren smacked his lips. "The design is quite retro."

Behind the gate was a small rectangular room, a lounge as Hao Ren guessed. In the room, you could see some soft, wide seats and long metal tables, and what was striking was that there were still things on those metal tables.

Hao Ren quickly walked into the room and saw strange-looking tableware on the metal tables. Some of the food had not been touched at all, and a holographic projection was still suspended in the corner of the room, showing a section of the cabin that had not yet been detected. When Lili saw the food on the table, her first reaction was to exclaim, "Oh, so they eat too?"

"Nonsense, Raven 12345 still eats instant noodles to relieve boredom, let alone these guys who aren't even demigods," Hao Ren said as he reached for a drink on the table, as expected… it was cold. "Well, it looks like they've been gone for a while."

Izhaks looked at the scene in the room, his brows slowly furrowing: "The food is on the table, and the projector didn't have time to turn off, but other than that, there are no traces of fighting. They should have evacuated suddenly, and the reason for the evacuation was not violence. Judging from the scene, they were in a hurry when they left, but not in chaos, so the reason for the crew abandoning ship was most likely an order from a superior."

Hao Ren's answer was only three words: "Keep looking."

The order to retreat from the entire ship should have been issued from the bridge or a similar command center, so the group temporarily set their sights on that place. The data terminal searched for cabin sections suspected of being command centers by invading the data lines buried in the corridor, and led everyone all the way into the depths of the ship.

As they continued to go deeper, they successively found more evidence that could prove that the crew of this ship had evacuated urgently under a unified command.

They found more activity sections, including lounges, conference rooms, dormitories, and various workshops. Each room showed signs of being suddenly abandoned: food was left untouched on the tables, personal items were discarded in the corners of the rooms, some equipment was still turned on, and some rooms even had clothes discarded on the beds, as if the owners of the rooms had suddenly run out halfway through changing clothes. This kind of emergency evacuation could be described as panic-stricken. Hao Ren couldn't help but wonder under what circumstances those renegades, who always dressed themselves up as majestic gods, had made such a flustered move.

Finally, they found a wide corridor leading to the deepest part of the ship. At the end of this corridor was a magnificent door, large enough for even giants like Mu Lu to enter with their heads held high. The door was made of crystal and decorated with images of gods. It was taller and more exquisite than any door they had encountered before. The data terminal confirmed by invading the surrounding lines that the ship's control center was behind this door.

This time, Hao Ren couldn't find the control switch for the door. Lili pried at the door seam with her claws: "This thing is so sturdy!"

Hao Ren looked around and confirmed that the control method of this door was different from the small gates that could be opened with statues before. He tapped the data terminal's shell: "Is this door connected to self-destruct or some other warning switch?"

The data terminal shone on the door twice: "No, there's only a simple access control system."

Hao Ren slapped Izhaks' arm: "Some technical support, please."

Izhaks was stunned at first, but he quickly reacted. He rolled up his sleeves and summoned a hell lava out of thin air, and smashed it towards the door with this great weapon for killing and looting: "Everyone, stay away!"

Lili was lowering her head and pulling at the door seam, and when she looked up, she saw a fireball the size of a calf flying over her head. She howled and窜 to Hao Ren's behind, and then a deafening roar spread throughout the corridor.

Lili jumped and shouted in a cloud of smoke: "Can you not be so sudden! Would it kill you to give me some reaction time!"

"You should have realized that it was going to explode when he said the four words technical support," the data terminal said cheapingly, "As expected of this unit's partner, your work style is getting better and better!"