The eyes of those people all turned into black swirls.
Their whole lives, will, and souls were absorbed by this swirl into some sort of… frantic zombies.
Even their brain cells had qualitative changes. The old brain cells perished nonstop, and the new brain cells established weird sulcus and gelatins in a completely different way, imprinting the indestructible ideas on their souls.
Those people who dwell in the dark will, unable to free themselves from it, were completely melted in the network of soul resonation. They unleashed their mental power and released brainwaves that contained black venom to affect more and more people.
It was like the spread of a virus.
Wuying Qi was not hypnotizing everybody on his own. Rather, he began from the weakest low-level Immortal Cultivators whose souls were most unsteady in the massive spread. After their brains were conquered, they were developed into his black pawns, and the pawns could contaminate more pawns. When a few low-level chess pieces reverberated with each other, they were able to corrupt the higher-level pawns.
Just like that, a gargantuan “mental plague”, boarding on the ubiquitous but ever-changing solar storm, swept across all the starships of the four families’ ace fleets. Not a single brain could survive it!
Half an hour after the massive enlightenment, the first batch of Immortal Cultivators who had been completely brainwashed gradually woke up from their trance.
At first look, they were no different from half an hour ago, except for the weird smiles on their lips and the shimmering darkness in their eyes.
However, deep in their hearts, they had already come to an epiphany. They had realized the truth of the universe and seen the ultimate future of the civilization of mankind.
They communicated with each other with their thoughtful eyes, immediately understanding each other’s identities and locations. Then, they cast their rigorous eyes to other directions, sensing the people whose brainwaves were of utterly different frequencies.
Most of the Immortal Cultivators were still in a trance. Their minds were in conflict, and they were not the targets.
There were always people who were extremely determined and loyal to the four families and who were unable to be brainwashed.
Those people were mostly the commanders or advisors on the starships, at least above the middle-level officers.
They also realized that their starships were under some sort of highly-dangerous mental attack. They all scuttled along the pathways, trying their best to wake up their subordinates.
“What’s going on? Why are you not moving? Get back to yourself!”
“Raise the spiritual shield! Raise the anti-radiation and anti-particle shields of the highest level!”
“Release the sedatives of the highest density to the cabins of the starships. No, no, no. Just release the powerful anesthetics. I would rather all the crew to go to sleep than watch them in this goddamn state!”
“Carry out my order! Is there anybody that can carry out my order? Damn it!”
The officers tried to hold back their headaches and their mental shock, jumping up and down like desperate gorillas.
In the harmonious symphony of the reverberation of the souls, they were like the loudest noises that were recognized by the deeply-brainwashed soldiers easily.
With creepy smiles, the soldiers wobbled rigidly but firmly at the officers.
“What are you doing? You are not allowed to come here. Stop! Stop there, or I will shoot!”
“Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea who I am or who you are?”
Bam! Bam!
The officers who were still awake wielded their storm bolters, blowing the heads of the few brainwashed soldiers in the lead into broken watermelons, but it did not quench the courage of the other soldiers. Very soon, the few officers who were still conscious were surrounded by the soldiers and vanished in the zealous vibe.
Of course, on many starships, because of the thorough defense, the radiation and the high-energy particles had decayed after penetrating through the shields and the plate armor, and they failed to achieve 100% brainwashing.
However, even if only twenty to thirty percent of the soldiers were brainwashed, and another twenty to thirty percent were turned into bloodthirsty monsters after their derangement, it still would be an unbearable strike for the starships.
The places like engine compartments and arsenals were mostly defended by the bottom-level soldiers. They were heavily struck by the brainwashing. As long as twenty to thirty percent of the soldiers obeyed Wuying Qi’s will, they would be able to cause major trouble to the starships.
The first thing they did after their “epiphany” was to sabotage the engine compartments. Then, they retrieved abundant crystals from the arsenals and transformed them into crystal bombs. Then, they held each other’s hands and marched at the bridge, demanding their commanders to listen to their “reasoning”.
It was needless to say that a lot of human-shaped monsters, who had lost their sanity and who had been given excessive strength, were running amok among the dark and profound pathways, killing and destroying everything they saw. Nightmares that were beyond the description of any words were going on.
Even though the soldiers who were still conscious quelled the internal conflicts with great efforts, the starships were mostly riddled with holes and boarded on destruction. After the engine compartments, the fuel cabins, and the arsenals exploded, even the largest starship would be heavily damaged and could not sail in the sea of stars again without a couple of months’ of major maintenance.
During the first hour of the solar storm’s rampage, riots large and small almost burst out on every starship in the four families’ ace fleets.
In the second and third hours, after the internal conflicts on some of the starships were finally settled, even more terrible things happened.
On some other starships, abundant starship commanders, advisors, and fire control officers had already accepted Wuying Qi’s “enlightenment”, understood the “truth of evolution”, recognized the highest commander and the one true god of the Imperium, and became Wuying Qi’s most loyal accomplices.
Darkness was burning intimidatingly inside the eyes of those commanders and fire control officers.
Hollowness appeared on their faces again, and their lips were curled into vague smiles.
Through the intermittent, seriously-disrupted channels, they sent messages to the neighboring starships and communicated with the commanders nearby.
“The Imperium is embracing a new life.”
Those commanders spoke to the commanders of the neighboring starships, “The highest commander is back. The savior of mankind has finally arrived!”
Some of the commanders, after receiving such a message, would respond to them, “Long live Blackstar the Great! Long live the Imperium of True Human Beings!”
Then, they would mark each other’s starships as black—the color of allies—in the identification system.
But some of the commanders would roar in panic and fury, “What the heck? What nonsense are you talking about? Hey? Hello?”
The commanders who had been awakened would cut off the communication quickly and mark those starships as white—the color of foes—without any expression.
Then, they would blow out all their firepowers and launch a suicide attack, not bothering with their own defense or the gap between themselves and the hostile starships.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Almost at the same time, countless dazzling ribbons of light and abnormally expanding balls of light glittered in the iron tide made of more than a hundred thousand starships.
The starships that were close to each other bit each other like hyenas. Both the spiritual shields and the composite armor were torn into shreds like paper.
Tremendous materials, swallowed by the fire of spiritual energy, spurted out like the artery blood onto other starships, raising colorful ripples.
The starships that were “polluted” were mostly rapid warships and arsenal warships of smaller sizes. Those starships had weaker spiritual shields and armor, and their commanders’ levels were not high. Naturally, they became the first batch of Wuying Qi’s devout believers.
The leaders, including the highest commander, were gathered on the massive, thick motherships and comprehensive supply starships, and those starships were still under control.
However, the gap between their sizes and their firepower did not stop the rapid warships and the arsenal warships to output the most violent firepower while they accelerated to the highest speed and crashed into their command starships, motherships, and comprehensive supply ships. In world-shaking explosions, they blew themselves up into pieces and left devastating holes on their command starships and their motherships.
Before the sun radiated black light, not a single commander had foreseen such an unbelievable scenario. Therefore, they were in the densest battle formation, and there was little space for them to adjust their positions.
After the solar storm swept across the whole fleet, the engine units, the fire control system, and the mainframe crystal processors of a lot of starships were completely paralyzed. Many bottom-level soldiers had accepted Wuying Qi’s brainwashing and turned into monsters or zombies, making them lose effective control over the starships.
It was often the case that they could only watch their arsenal warships crash into them like crazy fireballs without being able to do anything about it.
The overwhelming space fleet completely went into chaos.
Some starships intended to run away, only to be dragged by the debris and the fire back into the vortex of destruction.
Some starships intended to march forward and take over the situation by taking advantage of their tough starships and awe-inspiring cannons, but before long, a fatal “mental plague” would burst out from within those starships. Tremendous soldiers with deep, dark eyes would march into the bridge and surround the commander and the fire control officer, biting them until nothing was left.
Some other starships completely lost their momentum; their spiritual shield and exhaust flames gradually dimmed, as if they were cold iron coffins. It was impossible to imagine what was happening inside—nor did anybody have the courage to.
The iron torrent that was confident in destroying anything a few hours ago seemed to have hit invisible reefs and was on the brink of collapsing!
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