The water injection into the thousand launch tubes was complete, and seawater rushed in through the massive breach. Gaius, though aged, was remarkably well-preserved, his movements still spry. Seeing the two alloy plates hurtling toward him, he roared and instantly rolled aside.

The two heavy alloy plates slammed down precisely where his chair had been, bouncing apart and forcing Gaius and his bodyguards into another chaotic scramble to evade them.

When Gaius finally looked up, he saw a green lightsaber floating in mid-air, its tip pointed directly at his forehead. Gaius’s face went deathly pale. He stared intently at the blade’s tip, scrambling backward on all fours until his back hit the bulkhead. Raising both palms toward the lightsaber, he cried out, “I surrender! Don’t kill me!”

Several bodyguards had just drawn their uranium pulse rifles when several jets of water suddenly sprang from the deluge pouring through the hole, whistling past to pierce their skulls.

Watching his bodyguards collapse instantaneously, Gaius’s complexion turned the color of bleached paper. He yelled, “I’ll give you anything you want! Were you hired by someone else? Name your price, and I’ll pay double—no, ten times what they offered!” Seeing no reaction from the lightsaber, he pressed on, “Don’t come closer! If you let me live, I’ll get plastic surgery, find some place no one knows, and vanish forever. Just pretend you’ve already killed me—I’ll give you a hundred times that!”

Yang Ying watched the patriarch of the Caesar family display such desperation in the face of death and wasn't sure what to think. Did those who had enjoyed the most wealth fear death the most?

Gaius continued, “I am the Vice Chairman of the Military-Industrial Joint Council. If you kill me, you make an enemy of the Council. There are several other corporations like our Caesar Group on the Council, covering every aspect of the Terran military: training, armament, logistics, intelligence, insurance, and so on. We have people everywhere in the Terran military. Do you think you’ll get away with it after you kill me?”

Gaius screamed wildly, as if trying to vent all the fear and hatred in his heart through language.

Yang Ying was not some perverted villain who reveled in the fear on his enemy's face. He had already said what needed to be said to Gaius. There was nothing more to discuss. He merely gave a slight flick of the lightsaber.

The frantic roar abruptly ceased. On the wall behind Gaius, a perfectly straight, molten scar appeared, positioned roughly at the height of Gaius’s neck.

The life slowly drained from Gaius’s eyes. His body listed to one side, and his aged head tumbled from his neck.

The patriarch of the Caesar family, one of the few who held the reins of global economics, died ignobly like this in a cramped escape pod.

“The Military-Industrial Joint Council and your Caesar Group are merely a difference in quantity. What use is having several times the strength? There is a difference in quality between you and me.”

Yang Ying retracted the lightsaber, stood up, and jumped out through the hole in the ceiling.

Outside, Yang Ying raised a hand and summoned several squads of Phantom Agents, dispatching them to clear the target throughout the submarine. Simultaneously, they planted explosives at points of weak armor.

As for himself, he decided to wait right there by the escape pod to see if anyone else would deliver themselves to him.

The primary target in the Caesar family had been eliminated; he would let the Phantom Agents deal with the rest.

As soon as Yang Ying gave the order, the Phantom Agents went about their tasks.

About ten minutes later, a burst of messy footsteps echoed from a distant passageway. Yang Ying, possessing keen hearing, had already detected the movement and looked in that direction.

From the depths of the passage ran a burly bodyguard, carrying on his back an elderly man whose face was etched with the marks of years, his eyes sharp, and his clothing exquisitely tailored. Five other bodyguards surrounded them, moving quickly toward the escape pod, nervously scanning their surroundings as they ran, seemingly terrified of any sudden disturbance.

As they approached, they immediately spotted the destroyed escape pod launch tube and were instantly aghast.

The old man riding on the bodyguard’s back widened his jaundiced eyes and bellowed, “Psionic Monastery! It must be the Psionic Monastery! Even if I were blind, I could recognize the mark cut by a lightsaber!”

This elder was the highest-ranking member of the Caesar family’s Elder Council and a staunch supporter of the Psionic Monastery threat theory. He was clearly in a state of mental disarray, forgetting even to correct his grammar.

Since an enemy had appeared here before, the enemy might still be present.

These bodyguards were all rigorously trained to handle various emergencies. They reacted instantly, drawing their uranium pulse rifles and aiming them around, their gazes sweeping every corner where someone might hide, encircling the elder. They cautiously moved toward an intact escape pod launch tube.

“Don’t be so disgraceful; you’re embarrassing the Caesar family. Psionics aren't something you can handle. That thing is a monster that even Old Monster Tim couldn't defeat. The lot of you combined are nothing more than an appetizer on its plate.” The elder pushed the bodyguard carrying him, signaling to be set down.

“That’s right.” Yang Ying projected his voice toward him... [The original text suggests a cut-off here, likely referencing a moment of distraction or initiation]... He activated the green blade, saying he was about to strike. “Enemy attack! Fire!”

Seeing this, the bodyguards immediately turned their rifles on Yang Ying and fired. However, every beam was reflected back by Yang Ying’s lightsaber, instantly killing most of the bodyguards.

The last two bodyguards, realizing the situation was dire, immediately ceased firing and stood tensely before the elder, staring at the green lightsaber.

The elder shoved the two bodyguards aside. He seemed to have thrown caution to the wind, sneering, “Heh, indeed a Psion. Humanity hasn't even won against the Ancient Legions, and you already seek to shatter humanity’s pillar and usurp the supreme position of all humankind? You mutated freaks.”

The Basic Sword Style of the Psionic Monastery was a method for blocking and even reflecting uranium pulse beams with a lightsaber. Aside from the Psionic Monastery, almost no other schools on Earth possessed the technique to counter uranium blasts.

After all, in the ancient era when schools flourished, there were no uranium pulse rifles or lightsabers. By the time uranium rifles and blades existed, the Psionic Monastery was already on the rise, absorbing diverse knowledge and bringing together the wisdom of several master-level experts to forge this Basic Sword Style.

To this day, even if other schools wished to create their own defensive sword styles against uranium fire, they lacked the necessary resources.

Therefore, the moment the elder saw Yang Ying reflect the pulse beams, he was certain Yang Ying must be a Psion.

At this moment, the elder's face displayed a blend of hatred and contempt, an expression laced with infinite malice toward the Awakened. Yang Ying even noticed that the elder hadn't shown such intense hatred when mentioning the Ancient Legions.

It was an expression twisted by hatred.

Yang Ying had never witnessed such naked animosity, and his anger surged. With a gesture, he summoned two masses of seawater from the side, shaping them into two water blades that instantly pierced the hearts of the two bodyguards who were subtly moving. He demanded, “Why are you so hostile toward Psions?”

There is no love without cause, nor is there hatred without reason. The more intense the elder's hatred, the more Yang Ying felt compelled to understand it. He had a faint premonition that the ideology this old man represented was not isolated, and he might have to deal with similar individuals in the future; it was better to be prepared now.

Seeing all his bodyguards dead, the elder didn't care in the slightest. He seemed resigned to his fate, transforming all his malice toward the Awakened into a verbal assault on Yang Ying:

“The human world belongs to humans, not to the Awakened! Though your talents are high—your physical conditioning and intellect far surpass humans, and you possess supernatural powers—those are not human talents. They are the talents of monsters, the cancer of the human world!”

“Once the talents of monsters surpass those of humans, the existence of the Awakened will suppress the elites of humanity. If you occupy the high ground, you will warp the direction of human cognitive development, forcing humans to prostrate themselves in worship of monstrous talent! I will never allow these cancers to run rampant in human society! For a pure and perfect human world, all you Awakened must die! Die! Die!”

Three times he commanded, “Die,” each inflection stronger than the last.

The elder entered a state of abnormal fervor, exhausting every shred of his remaining energy, like a final burst of light before death. Yang Ying would not have been surprised if he had died the very next second.

“The base camp of the Awakened is the Psionic Monastery, which is far more dangerous than the Ancient Legions. The Ancient Legions cannot take the human world, but the Psionic Monastery can. I always knew the Psionic Monastery would eventually attempt a coup. This devastating attack on the Caesar family is probably the prelude to seizing power! Our family is the leader who guides humanity, possessing the most legitimate status and the longest history. Only under our leadership can the human world be pure and perfect. You ambitious monsters seek to destroy our world; even in death, I will become a vengeful ghost to haunt you!”

After screaming these final words with all his might, the elder’s heart suddenly seized with agonizing pain. He clutched his chest in agony, convulsed a few times on the floor, and then lay still.

“A pure and perfect human world? How dare you say that.”

Yang Ying shook his head. This old man was clearly a small-time, fanatic racist, hostile toward the mental powers of the Awakened, even to the point of labeling them as monsters and excluding them from the human race.

He wondered how many people held such views among humanity, and that faint premonition he’d felt earlier suddenly seemed disturbingly real.

While Yang Ying pondered, the Phantom Agents had completed their tasks and returned to his side. Yang Ying recalled them to the Floating Continent, then boarded an escape pod and launched it.

Shortly after leaving the Killer Whale, a dull explosion was heard. The pre-planted bombs detonated simultaneously. Fires and smoke erupted across the Killer Whale, followed by a violent explosion when the armory was ignited, tearing the vessel in half before it slowly sank to the seabed.

Chapter Three may run past midnight; if you are tired, friends, go to sleep and read it tomorrow morning.