Chapter 244 - 209: Trap? Golden Capital

Already filled with resentment and fury over the matter with Robie, Raphael was the first to react.

As the mysterious Spiritual Storm slammed into the ship, his eyes erupted with blinding white lightning. He thrust his left hand forward, weaving a Mind Storm into a massive web of electricity to forcibly block the Spiritual Storm’s power.

The next moment.

BOOM—!

A terrifying, deafening roar erupted inside the cabin, like a firecracker tossed into a tin can.

Immediately after, the small merchant vessel—never intended for warfare—spun completely out of control. From an altitude of ten thousand meters, it plunged headfirst toward the ground!

Inside the violently shuddering cabin, even Reinhardt had to grab a handle to steady himself.

But the Oil Girl piloting the ship didn’t have it so easy.

Although she hailed from the Mechanical Order, she was no Transcendent—just a Mortal who had undergone some alchemical modifications and knew a few things about repair and piloting.

It all happened so fast.

First, the Neural Metal Wires connecting her to the ship’s hull snapped violently. The pain shot straight to her brain, forcing a hysterical scream from her lips.

As she knelt on the floor, clutching her head in agony,

the out-of-control ship threw her backward. She was flung toward the rear of the cabin with enough force to demolish a steel chair.

If Reinhardt hadn’t grabbed her arm, she would have smashed through the cabin door and been flung out of the ship.

Even so,

a large crate of parts smashed through the rear door. A fierce wind blasted into the cabin, and the sudden depressurization made it nearly impossible to breathe.

"Have we been exposed?!"

Manon screamed at the top of his lungs, but his voice was immediately swallowed by the raging gale. He couldn’t believe it; they had escaped the encirclement of the Space Dragon Race without crashing,

yet no sooner had they entered Hurst World’s atmosphere for this mission than they were ambushed.

If they kept falling like this, even with the Knightly Physique of his Seven-star Military Rank, he’d be nothing but a smear on the ground!

When he turned his head to look behind him,

three ships belonging to the Capet Family had broken through the cloud cover, appearing starkly in his line of sight!

Their mission to Hurst was a covert decapitation strike, so they had to keep their presence to an absolute minimum.

Furthermore, to maintain their stealthy infiltration, Raphael had been suppressing his Mental Power to avoid alerting Grand Lord Kles’s people.

’Damn it... Didn’t Lady Catherine say she’d handled all the prep work? That all we had to do was get to Hurst, kill the target, and then suppress the rebellion?’

’Where did these enemy ships come from?’

’Has the rebellion already begun?’

He connected to their shared telepathic link.

’Raphael! Can you take control of one of their ships? If we keep falling, we’re all going to die!’

Despite the critical situation, Matthias glanced at Reinhardt before correcting Manon.

’Not all of us.’

’Damn it! When did you become just like that bastard, Seventy-Six? How can you joke at a time like this?’

Although the merchant ship was still plummeting, Matthias had already realized that the Hurst rebels knew nothing about them—not their identities, their backgrounds, or their true power.

In other words, the enemy might have known Lady Catherine was making a move against them, but they had no idea who she would send.

This was a clandestine commercial rebellion, not a declaration of war for independence. Whether for the sake of security or profit, the enemy also feared things escalating too far and provoking a crackdown from the Imperial Knight Battle Group.

If they were flying a Punisher right now,

an attack of this magnitude wouldn’t even break its Energy Shield, let alone cause them to crash.

It was a shame Agate wasn’t here and Seventy-Six was recuperating at the Assassin Court. Otherwise, for a decapitation mission like this, the target would be dead before they even landed.

So, Matthias wasn’t the least bit worried.

’Just a minor incident,’ he thought.

After Raphael entered a state of Mind Release, the white lightning swirling around him became a tempest. It was a simple matter for him to invade the mind of a Clan Knight and seize control.

At an altitude of five kilometers, they successfully transferred over to the enemy ship.

The Oil Girl, having barely escaped with her life, watched the merchant ship plunge to the ground. Then, Reinhardt grabbed her and hauled her into the other vessel as if she were a helpless chick.

Before this mission,

she had been given very little information. It boiled down to one simple instruction: Just get them there. Don’t ask who they are or what they’re doing.

Once inside the new ship’s cabin, her heart hammered in her chest, having just been snatched from the jaws of death. She looked up at Reinhardt, his imposing, mountain-like frame completely encased in sleek Power Armor.

The overwhelming pressure that radiated from him made her chest tighten.

"Th... thank you."

From her perspective, this Emperor’s Angel didn’t even spare her a downward glance. He just issued a cold, iron-willed command, "Take control of the ship. Prepare for landing."

She had once studied at the Mechanical Order, becoming a Technician Priest admired by countless Imperial Citizens, but deep down, she knew her place.

Even if her talent made her one in ten thousand among Mortals, that was the extent of it. She wasn’t an Imperial Knight from an Elite Formation, nor was she from one of the Noble Families of a Forging World.

In the eyes of a Transcendent, they were nothing more than ants.

Even so,

she was filled with gratitude. She was grateful for the Emperor’s Angel’s mercy, grateful that he had saved her life.

Unlike the great war with Kemola, the attack on Reinhardt’s group was short-lived. Once Raphael took control of the situation and killed the Tier One Mage who had ambushed them, there was no follow-up.

The Oil Girl took control of the vessel, and they landed smoothly at the spaceport.

A commercial rebellion was different from an uprising by Cultists or a declaration of independence.

There were generally no large-scale battles.

These rebels were not pursuing power, but Extraordinary Power and more wealth.

Their methods usually involved absconding with funds, defecting to rivals with shiploads of goods, or internally persuading mid-level managers and major clients to break away from the family and go independent.

War, which was tantamount to throwing money into a fire, ran completely contrary to their primary goal for staging a commercial rebellion.

Especially starting a war in the Three-dimensional Golden City.

It was the largest commercial hub in the Imperial Administrative Region, handling the financial settlements for all business activities across two hundred worlds. It was also the largest tax settlement center in the Administrative Region.

It was a no-brainer: if they made too much of a scene, a massive crackdown by the Imperial Knight Battle Group was a foregone conclusion.

This was also why Lady Catherine had ordered Reinhardt to keep the mission’s impact to an absolute minimum.

The Three-dimensional Golden City.

It was just as its name implied.

Unlike the dilapidated and desolate Verne, here, to say that every inch of land was worth its weight in gold would be a gross understatement.