Chapter 48: Little Cat Rides Little Dog

The little cat that had just woken up had his fur puffed up, startled upright by the dream. The two ahoge on his head swayed straight like antennas.

Xun was also startled awake by his movements. He blinked his eyes in a daze, glanced at the still dim sky outside, and stretched out his short touch-claws to press down those two antennas. But as soon as he let go, they stubbornly bounced back.

Meanwhile, the robot leaning against the wall, which had been trying to imitate human sleep cycles for dormancy, instantly activated its program upon detecting the anomaly. Its eye lights came on, and its electronic voice calmly asked, “What happened?”

Li Ao, wearing a little puppy hat on his head, said with a dazed look in his eyes, “I dreamed of Xixi.”

Humans say that what you think about during the day appears in your dreams at night. The robot tried to analyze, “That’s because you miss him too much.”

The little cat blinked in confusion, his tail curling slightly as he accepted the explanation, yet still felt something was off.

“But…” He hesitated, rubbing his face with his paws. “I also dreamed of… a mass of black mist, like tons of wriggling black wool threads, and then a pair of blue eyes emerged from inside.”

If it were human parents, they might brush it off with a light reassurance like “It was just a dream, don’t be scared,” or casually scold, “You played too wildly during the day, that’s why you’re imagining things.”

But the robot wouldn’t do that. It knew how special the short-legged cat was, so it walked over, picked up the little monster on top of the cat’s head, and pressed the cat back into its nest. “Sleep a bit more. Once it’s bright outside, I’ll take you to find the humans.”

But Li Ao couldn’t sleep. The little cat twisted and turned restlessly in the box. Unable to sleep, a pair of glowing green cat eyes lit up in the darkness, followed immediately by a pair of larger ones.

“…” The two little ones shone their flashlights in unison. The robot turned on the light. “Let’s go find them now.”

There were guards patrolling the castle day and night in shifts. When they saw the robot leading the two little ones out, they immediately stepped forward and saluted. “Your Highness, what do you need?”

Li Ao held his head high. “I had a dream, and I saw Xixi and Zane.”

The guard froze for just a moment before summoning personnel. “Please wait a moment. We’ll go fetch someone.”

Shelby, the current dean of the Imperial Research Institute, was dug out of bed. His disheveled clothes weren’t even properly on as he yawned at the medical corps leader. “Why are you here too?”

Kuren withdrew the stethoscope from the little cat’s body, casually ruffled the cat’s head, peeled a milk candy, and stuffed it into the cat’s mouth before standing up and replying, “Since I’m here, I’m here.”

In fact, the night patrol guard wasn’t sure who to call for this situation, so he simply summoned all the ministers living near the castle.

Kuren lived closest. Upon receiving the message, his first reaction was worry that the little Highness might have developed anxiety from excessive longing, making it hard to sleep. Fortunately, a simple check showed the little one was eating and drinking well, with no major issues.

“Teacher, why are you here too?” Kuren tucked the stethoscope into his coat pocket and hurried forward to support the old man.

The ministers who had rushed over stood in a circle as the old man asked, “Little Highness, can you tell us about your dream?”

With the milk candy still in his mouth, the little cat described the scene he had seen in his childish voice.

“Dreamwalker,” the old man concluded, sitting in a chair. “Like his ancestor Aliya, he can see things from the past, present, and future happening in his dreams.”

This cub’s ability was beyond human imagination.

“Zane is most likely not dead.”

“If he’s still alive, then why hasn’t His Highness returned to his homeland?” The crowd erupted in shocked uproar. Someone suddenly stood up, the chair scraping harshly against the floor.

Clang—!

A sharp metallic clash shattered the frosty silence. The Sun God Sword collided fiercely with the silver-blue longsword, sparks flying the instant their blades crossed.

Blades pressed against each other, sword energies intertwining, continuous clanging sounds ringing out densely.

“Zane.” Isiris spoke calmly during a gap in the clash. “Who am I?”

The black shadow painfully took the sword. Under the inertia, he shook violently, his steps forced back repeatedly.

The offensive was fierce and urgent, sword lights pouring down like a storm. Every block he made seemed labored as misty black threads surged and twisted madly, resisting the sword energies slashing from all directions with full force.

It was this frantic defense that gave the black shadow controlled by it a slight breathing space.

That voice—that familiar, cold voice—stabbed straight into the depths of the black shadow’s consciousness.

Who was he?

The black shadow’s consciousness tore and struggled endlessly, his head splitting with pain. Fragments of memory tried to break through the seal, only to be forcibly suppressed and crushed by the black mist in the next second.

—Who was he!

—Who was he!!

—Who was he!!!

The azure eyes snapped wide open, staring deadly at that golden figure.

“Xixi!” The little cat stood up amid the crowd’s uproar. “I want to go find Xixi!”

He didn’t want to wait in place—not even two days. “Li Ao can feel…” He could feel that Zane, whom he had never met, needed him. “I want to go save Susu!”

Li Ao placed his two paws on the robot, and as soon as his cat face turned serious, the two deep brown vertical lines furrowed, giving him a fluffy air of solemnity. “Machine, I want to go find Daddy!”

“Will this make you happy?” Silver Wing asked.

The little cat froze for a moment, then nodded resolutely.

“Alright.” The robot picked up the short-legged cat with its left hand and the little monster with its right. “We’ll go to Aiai’ang’ang to get my mech.”

“Wait a minute!” One minister spoke up with a wry smile. “Even if you have a mech, His Highness can’t go star-jumping with you. It’s too danger—”

“Of course I know.” The mech was a complete entity with no extra cockpit, so it couldn’t take the little cat into space. Silver Wing interrupted, “So why haven’t you gone to start up the battleship yet?”

“Mandjet, activate energy shield!” The captain slammed the console. A brilliant energy barrier expanded from the ship’s surface, blocking the low-level Xenoids about to crash into the battleship.

The golden-haired emperor was locked in fierce combat with the black shadow. The purple-eyed knight battled endlessly with the high-level Xenoid. Soldiers scattered to engage and kill the remaining Xenoids and Xenoid Variants. On the bridge, the captain gritted his teeth. “Search for gaps in the storm and transmit the stellar coordinates!”

However, the moment the order was issued, that colossal beast in the distance seemed to hear it.

With a tail swipe that flung away the entangled blademaster, it roared to the sky. Light gathered abruptly in its throat, and then—deep blue breath erupted like a raging tide.

Blazing light shot straight to the heavens, energy surging like a tsunami, covering the entire sky. Dark blue night descended, instantly swallowing all communication bands and severing Mandjet’s signal connection.

“Shen Que.”

Isiris swept his sword horizontally, the blade drawing a streak of light in the air. He followed with a leg lift and a vicious kick.

Bang—!

The black shadow was kicked flying backward, smashing heavily onto the cracked ice surface. Black mist surged as it struggled to rise immediately.

The instant he heard Isiris call his name, Shen Que unhesitatingly leaped to the Monarch’s side. His tang dao flashed with cold light, precisely blocking the counterattack stirred up by the black shadow.

Isiris crouched slightly, tilting his sword tip. His back wings unfurled, and he soared into the air in an instant.

Longsword riding the wind, charging straight to the firmament.

Golden sword light cleaved down from the sky, slashing straight at the giant beast’s energy barrier.

“—Break!”

[Link successful, stellar coordinates transmitted outward]

The two antennas on Li Ao’s head that could never be pressed down trembled a few times. He said, “In my dream, I saw it—a planet of ice blue.”

Dozens of warships from Delphi’s First Legion sailed through the starry river, advancing at high speed along Mandjet’s last known route before signal loss.

“Match planets in nearby sectors fitting this description.” But even so, progress was too slow. As everyone frowned, the comms station suddenly crackled with intense signal fluctuations. Someone abruptly looked up, tone urgent. “Received transmission from Mandjet!”

With precise coordinates, warp-speed navigation entered the target system almost instantly.

“There it is!”

Li Ao looked in the direction the person pointed. Cerulean energy enveloped the planet like a massive cocoon. Lightning flashed through, arcs crawling over the cocoon, locking the entire planet in cerulean thunderstorm.

“No wonder the signal couldn’t get out.”

Brenna, dutifully staying by the little cat’s side, asked, “Can we blast the barrier with energy cannons?”

“That definitely won’t work.” Shelby clicked his tongue. “If it could, Mandjet would’ve blasted it already. This thing’s like a Xenoid energy field—high-speed energy impact would detonate the entire planet.”

Everyone on that planet would be blown to fragments along with it.

The A-Rank Xenoid was pinned immobile by Isiris’s Spiritual Power. The black shadow controlled by the black mist had its shoulder pierced by the Sun God Sword and nailed to the ice wall.

The purple-eyed man with a sword scar on his face wiped blood from his face with two fingers and looked toward his Monarch. “What now?”

“Wait.” Isiris looked up at the storm-raged sky, golden eyes blazing like flames. “Wait for my Leo to arrive.”

The little cat pressed his fluffy face against the porthole, squishing it into a pancake. He quietly listened to the adults intensely debating feasible methods, then suddenly spoke up. “I want to go down.”

“No way!” Silver Wing’s reaction was almost instantaneous, its electronic voice carrying an unquestionable objection: “Too dangerous!”

The detection data showed that those energies wandering across the planet’s surface were terrifying. The instant anything approached, it would be torn into fragments.

“I’ll go.” Even shrunken to its minimal form, the still massive Machine stood up: “I’ll try cutting open the rift with my lightsaber.”

“That won’t work either!” A researcher immediately rejected the idea: “The lightsaber equipped on the Alpha Machine could cause an energy clash.”

They argued endlessly without any viable method. Li Ao stared at the planet below, urgency flickering in his cat-like pupils.

He could sense it—something was about to die! He had to hurry, or it would be too late to save!

“Li Ao.” Xun rubbed up beside the kitten, communicating in their own special way.

The stray hair on the cat’s head perked up. With all four paws, he climbed onto Xun’s head. His round little wings quietly unfurled, and beneath him, the little monster reborn from annihilation within Old Sun finally spread its young black bone wings.

The moment the bone wings extended, the barrier of reality was torn apart.

“His Highness!”

“Li Ao!”

Brenna and the Machine both abruptly sensed the anomaly, their expressions changing in an instant.

However, the very moment their words fell—

“—Buzz!”

A sound like something tearing through dimensions exploded in the air. In the next second, the kitten and Xun’s figures vanished from the warship, suddenly appearing above the planet ravaged by thunder.

Xun’s breath enveloped the kitten, blocking the cosmic radiation. But even he couldn’t directly pierce through that energy to land.

The kitten rode the little dog, his fluffy face illuminated by the glowing blue energy. “Xun, I need to get closer to that.”

The instant Li Ao finished speaking, Xun carried him right up to the surface of the cocoon.

“His Highness—!” Everyone on the warship watched with eyes nearly popping out, terrified they’d see a charred corpse in the next second.

But that didn’t happen.

Li Ao’s two paws pressed onto the planet. The tiny contact area was practically nonexistent. Yet that negligible touch was enough—golden energy spilled from his paws, igniting the entire sky like starfire.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the dark blue canopy of the heavens, and tens of thousands of light strands pierced through the clouds, pouring down like the Tyndall effect.

“Look.” A faint smile appeared on the great face, as if crafted by a god himself. “My cat cat god has come.”