Chapter 69: The Pendant

Jeremy's head burst like a shattered watermelon, red blood and white brain matter scattering as he fell heavily backward. All his skills proved useless against a close-range sniper round.

With Jeremy felled, David felt the needle-like pain miraculously vanish. Though his mind remained exhausted, he could now move again.

The Shadow Attendant, as if drawn to a delicious meal, flew toward Jeremy's fallen corpse and took a deep, soul-drenching breath. Even experiencing only a fraction of the sensation through his mental link, David lost himself for ten seconds.

But now was not the time for relaxation. The troublesome Jeremy was gone, yet the aftermath needed swift handling.

He staggered to his feet and approached Jeremy's body. Only after seeing the head half gone did David allow himself to breathe easy. The Shadow Attendant had absorbed the soul, but without witnessing Jeremy's actual death, David remained uneasy.

Jeremy's cunning and power surpassed anything David had faced before. Even Gallen needed armored protection to unleash his strength, but Jeremy fought relying solely on his own abilities. Especially with his formidable white-light armor and shield, Jeremy's speed was terrifying.

David suspected if he faced Jeremy clad in that armor directly, he might not even withstand a single blow, for Jeremy's charge displayed not only speed but immense strength. It was like an unarmored man fighting a fully suited exoskeleton warrior; the vast difference in speed and power rendered skill worthless—especially since Jeremy's swordsmanship matched David's.

"Villains die because they talk too much!" David thought suddenly, sighing inwardly.

He turned to retrieve the replica of the Eye of Death from the Gladstone Type III car, a smile curling his lips as he held it. Who would have guessed? Both combatants possessed nearly a thousand kilograms of strength—Jeremy even more—but the battle was ended by a mere hundred grams.

The Shadow Attendant's hundred grams was just enough to pull the trigger, unable even to shift the gun barrel, but with David's cooperation, it delivered the killing blow.

Stowing the Eye of Death replica, David felt some strength return. He lifted Jeremy's corpse; ordinarily, such a task would cost him little effort, but now the body felt heavy.

He carried it to the floating car parked by the roadside, its window pierced and roof shattered by the sniper round, and tossed the corpse inside.

Then he produced the K2 Military Electronic Countermeasure Device and forcibly gained access to the vehicle. The sniper bullet hadn't damaged any critical components, so David easily drove the floating car into the waste processing plant.

He stopped before the compactor used for scrapping old floating cars but didn't act immediately.

He began searching the vehicle and soon found an alloy suitcase in the back seat, locked with a password. David set it aside and searched Jeremy's body again.

Around Jeremy's neck, David discovered an amulet-like pendant, its surface etched with strange patterns he couldn't decipher. Its shape reminded him of the peculiar flying vessel, for the two were remarkably similar.

Finding nothing else, David tossed the corpse into the incinerator and drove the floating car into the compactor, activating the machine's energy arms.

Soon, the floating car was flattened into scrap metal, and Jeremy disappeared from the world entirely.

After finishing, David returned to the warehouse, deftly unlocking the door and lifting the floor to reveal the patterned vessel once more.

He approached the vessel with the pendant in hand, but to his disappointment, nothing changed.

"Was my guess wrong?" David muttered in frustration.

He habitually shifted a portion of his mind to the Shadow Attendant. Through its eyes, the pendant appeared differently: a faint light pulsed on its surface.

David's heart stirred; the Shadow Attendant flew forward and seized the pendant. The small pendant, weighing less than a hundred grams, was easily taken.

As the Shadow Attendant held the pendant, the vessel's surface patterns began to writhe, and a passage opened on its side.

David entered and realized it was a genuine small spaceship. Even knowing little about ships, he could tell this one was extraordinary.

The ship's hull was made entirely of Tier-One materials, the gentle glow almost dizzying him. Though smaller than Gallen's Black Phantom, the ship's ten-meter width and fifteen-meter length represented an extravagant use of Tier-One resources.

As for other configurations, he couldn't discern much; his expertise lay elsewhere.

He produced the K2 Military Electronic Countermeasure Device to hack the ship's intelligence system, but though he connected to its systems, he found no intelligent core.

"Is this ship really manually operated?" David said, disappointed. If so, he would be unable to pilot it.

Just then, through the Shadow Attendant, a strange, unintelligible neutral voice reached his mind.

"If only it spoke Federation Common!" he thought, when suddenly the voice switched to Interstellar Federation Common: "Greetings, Captain. The Beacon Starship awaits your command!"

"Who are you?" David asked through the Shadow Attendant.

"I am the Beacon Starship's intelligent spirit, Feihuo," the voice replied.

David glanced at the pendant in the Shadow Attendant's grasp, deducing its owner was the ship's master.

He took the pendant from the Shadow Attendant, but after waiting a minute, heard nothing.

"Feihuo, respond. Can you confirm my identity?" David persisted.

No answer, no sound.

He returned the pendant to the Shadow Attendant, and immediately heard the neutral welcome.

"There must be some reason I can't understand—a special condition to activate the pendant. I haven't met it, but the Shadow Attendant has!" David concluded.

"Feihuo, tell me the Beacon's functions," David asked mentally through the Shadow Attendant.

"Captain, the Beacon is an intra-planetary vessel capable of concealing all its signals. Most Interstellar Federation scanners cannot detect the Beacon," Feihuo replied.

David assessed Feihuo's nature. It seemed more like a functional intelligence, yet its presence was as uncanny as Jeremy's.

With David's electronic warfare skills, he couldn't find Feihuo in the Beacon; it clearly wasn't a conventional intelligence.

Especially since Feihuo called itself an intelligent spirit, indicating its uniqueness.

David asked Feihuo many questions, but it only answered those related to the ship; for others, it was as blank as a white sheet.

He lingered aboard the Beacon for twenty minutes but didn't depart with it; he needed a place to dock the ship.

Jeremy was dead, and for now, no one would know, making the location temporarily safe.

He just had to find a sufficiently large and hidden place to store the vessel.

David once more erased all traces, triggered self-destruction for every program installed throughout the industrial zone, then returned to his Gladstone Type III car.