"..."
"?"
The conversation cut off dead. Two wisps of pale-green ghostfire stared in silence at the two gray-haired ones who had just come bounding out of the undergrowth. If they'd had faces, their jaws would have been on the floor.
Where did these weirdos come from?
What project?
What Astral Express?
"Wait — the Astral Express! You two are Nameless from the Astral Express?!"
The loading spinner turned for two full seconds before the duck-voiced Heliobus let out a startled yelp.
"That's right."
Stelle planted her hands on her hips and puffed up with pride. "I — the Galaxy Batwoman — will pay up, or beat you up. Your call."
"Bro, you know them? Hiss — these two have a really weird smell on them…"
Under normal circumstances, when a Heliobus encountered a human it would gleefully lunge in for a taste of their emotional flavor. But there were exceptions. Little fragments like these could only possess ordinary people — stumble into a sufficiently powerful host body and they'd find themselves getting scorched instead.
Right now, it could sense the pressure rolling off the gray-haired girl's body. The most overwhelming host body it had ever encountered since splitting off.
So — so powerful!
Just being in her presence was intoxicating enough to make it tremble!
Like a person who chases the warmth of the sun but doesn't dare touch the sun itself — it could only look, not reach.
There was another reason, too.
"They've got the scent of someone who fought Phantylia on them. They're the humans who drove Phantylia off!"
The delinquent Heliobus shuddered, its entire flame shivering in terror, and it wheeled around in a panic trying to flee.
Heliobus who had been sealed inside the Creation Furnace for centuries, or ones freshly split off, had limited knowledge of the outside world — but no matter how young, if you didn't know outside affairs, surely you knew your own family's business?
Among the Heliobus, the name Phantylia was known by every single one of them — like a prodigy from a small village who'd made it into Peking University.
As an Emanator of Destruction, Phantylia was a Lord Ravager — and even she had gotten beaten up. What chance did little scraps like them have?
"Hey, don't run!"
Caelus drew the Jizo Mitama and cracked it like a whip toward the Heliobus scrambling away in blind panic. Crimson stardust particles stretched and condensed into a lash of light, curved and coiled and wound tight around the pale-green ghostfire.
To the sound of the delinquent Heliobus shrieking "Help!" and "Let go of me!", Caelus hauled it back over.
"Don't be scared — take some notes from your friend over there. Look how calm it is."
Duck-Tier Heliobus: "..."
It wasn't that it didn't want to run.
There was just no way to run!
"What do you two want?"
"Didn't we just say? My daughter and I think the little project you two were discussing has real potential. As it happens, we're planning to open a barbecue restaurant selling grilled Abundance Ebon Deer meat — how would you two like to come on board as our renewable energy source — ahem — I mean, employees?"
"Full benefits, twelve days on and twelve days off — you two can perfectly cover one shift each, day and night."
Caelus and Stelle flanked the two shivering little Heliobus from either side, sandwiching them in the middle, their smiles warm and utterly friendly.
"Uh… for a second there I genuinely couldn't tell which ones are the ghosts."
March 7th, having caught up, couldn't hold back the comment.
These two were the actual bloodsuckers, weren't they?
"Um… Caelus… it's better to seal the Heliobus properly, you know."
Huo Huo spoke up, soft and gentle, her compass and triangular teal banner embroidered with the character for "Command" held in her hands.
"A Ten-Lords Commission Judge?!"
When the two Heliobus caught sight of Xueyi, Raven, and Huo Huo, their trembling, huddled flames went still — their terror curdled into pure despair.
"Heliobus are a menace. They should not be loose in the world. They invite calamity."
Xueyi spoke in her calm, flat Herta tone.
"Easy fix — as long as they're not hurting anyone, there's no problem, right? Just like Tail. We can seal them right onto the barbecue grill."
Caelus clapped his hands, then rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "The only issue is that would turn the twelve-hour work shift into a twenty-four-hour one."
The two Heliobus: "..."
We might not be human, but you are genuinely dogs!
Xueyi froze. Raven opened her mouth. Then a beat of total silence fell.
"Oh, right — we never got your names."
Stelle propped her bat over her shoulder.
Delinquent Heliobus: "Ah Yan."
Duck-Tier Heliobus: "Ah Yu."
"So — Ah Yan and Ah Yu. What do you think of our offer?"
Caelus's tone was gentle and cordial.
The two Heliobus exchanged a glance, seeming to rally each other's courage, then declared with furious indignation:
"We would rather die — get captured by that stupid gourd, locked inside that giant furnace for eternity, and perish inside it — than ever become your renewable energy charcoal!"
They were Heliobus, after all. Being sealed onto a barbecue grill to serve as charcoal? Did they have no dignity?
Their own kind would mock them for ages!
For all their talk of death, they were hardly fragile carbon-based lifeforms — dying on them was basically impossible.
"I admire your unyielding spirit. But are you really sure you won't reconsider?"
Caelus smiled pleasantly and uncorked the Yue-Hiding Gourd.
"A true warrior can be killed, but never humiliated!"
Ah Yan and Ah Yu screwed up their courage, bracing themselves for the gourd to activate and suck them in — but Caelus's next move drew a look of bewilderment from everyone present, including Stelle.
Rather than using the Yue-Hiding Gourd to capture the two Heliobus, Caelus swung the Jizo Mitama and retracted the crimson light-whip — then sent it in like a tentacle into the mouth of the gourd, and fished out a faintly blackened wisp of pale-green spirit flame.
"Caelus — that Heliobus is… dangerous."
The moment she saw what had been pulled out, Huo Huo rushed to stop him.
That one had committed multiple serious crimes — it had bodyjacked and devoured over a dozen hosts.
Huo Huo had only barely managed to arrest it with Tail's help.
A pity it was nearly impossible to truly kill — otherwise, judging by its accumulated crimes, it would have deserved to be shot five minutes straight.
"Caelus-cub, what are you doing?"
Stelle leaned in curiously.
"Heh heh heh. I'm feeling a little peckish and want a snack. I was thinking — Heliobus should be edible too, right?"
Tentacles of Corruption energy bound the Heliobus. Caelus smiled a smile that belonged on a Soul Hall Elder.
"!!!"
"??"
Ah Yan and Ah Yu's eyes went wide with horror and utter disbelief.
What in the — come again?
Xueyi: "O_O?"
Raven: "o?o?"
March 7th: "(╥д╥)?"
Huo Huo: "(oΔo)?"
A Heliobus possessing a human unfolds in several stages.
First, the parasitic stage: it seeps in, drinking their experiences, tasting their emotions.
Second, the Heliobus takes root in the host's nervous system. It exploits their inner desires and weaknesses to induce all manner of delusions and inverted thinking, puppeting the host like a chess piece — the host grows utterly obedient to it. This is what is called bodyjacking.
Finally, the host's body is consumed dry at a rapid pace — like kindling burned to ash.
In a sense, a Heliobus bodyjacking is "eating" the creature it parasitizes.
And now someone was saying they wanted to eat a Heliobus?
The world had gone completely upside down!
And beyond that — it was simply impossible.
How could a human eat a Heliobus?
Then the whole group watched as Caelus reached into his spatial ring and produced an unfamiliar piece of machinery.
Silver-white body. Three cylindrical containers arranged around it, connected at the top by wrist-thick tubes. A folding-door-style output slot at the front. Rounded and smooth overall. One red button, one green. Almost insultingly simple.
"What's that thing?"
The moment Stelle spotted something new she hadn't seen before, her interest was immediately piqued. She went over and started poking and prodding it.
"Universal Synthesizer… don't pull on that with all your strength."
Caelus batted away the hand Stelle was about to use to perform a miracle of brute force upon it.
"Wait? A Universal Synthesizer? What brand is this?"
March 7th walked over and examined it from all angles, but couldn't find a brand label anywhere.
Universal synthesizers did exist across the galaxy — though not like the one on the Express in the game, the one that could fuse all sorts of bizarre odds and ends into buffing food. A more accurate name for the common kind was an auto-kitchen machine, standard issue for intergalactic shut-ins and lazy types. Put vegetables and seasoning in, get food out. No special effects whatsoever — just ordinary food. Decent enough taste, if nothing to write home about.
"Hold on — Caelus, you're not about to—"
When March 7th saw Caelus holding the struggling, still-trying-to-bite Heliobus in one hand and open one of the cylindrical containers with the other, she suddenly put it together and her eyes went wide.
"Making a snack."
Caelus stuffed the Heliobus inside and pressed the lid shut.
Gray-Uncle's machine was the real Universal Synthesizer — better than the one that only existed in the game. Not just food synthesis; it could fuse toys too. He casually reached into Stelle's skirt pocket and fished out a candy, which he placed into the second container.
Caelus stared at the third container in contemplative silence. Two seconds later, to March 7th's increasingly question-marked expression, he reached his hand out toward the Stellaron spirit:
"Stelle, I need some black silk."
"Sure."
Stelle blinked. "Used or unused?"
"Either works."
Caelus could afford not to trust Herta — but he couldn't afford not to trust the First Grand Guardian. The description said healthy and clean food, which meant it was clean food, full stop!
This thing was invented by Gray-Uncle for Little Gray-Hair himself.
Stelle rummaged through her own spatial ring and frowned:
"Looks like the stock's been used up. Have to go to Jarilo-VI for a resupply later."
"Here, take this then."
Stelle placed one hand on Caelus's shoulder to steady herself, then hooked a fingertip under the pure-white laces of her sneaker and drew out that jade foot wrapped in crystal-black silk.
Slender fingers slipped into the butterfly-bow garter clip at the side of her thigh. The black silk peeled away inch by inch from the thigh downward — new-snow white and pale-blue veins intertwined, like a painting blooming under glaze on a porcelain body.
It paused at the back of the knee, and in the moment the toe of the stocking drooped and hung — Stelle caught it in her hand and passed it to Caelus.
"Here you go."
Caelus glanced without ceremony at the great white leg carved from white jade, then dropped the original-flavor silk stocking into the third container.
Per the instructions: so long as, in the user's perception, at least two of the three ingredients are edible, the synthesis result will be a food item.
At the outset Caelus had used the Persona Mask to alter his own perception of Heliobus — he hadn't been totally sure the synthesis would produce food. Now he was sure.
One dared to ask; the other went right ahead and took it off. The seamless, matter-of-fact transaction left everyone watching with their brains thoroughly broken.
What — what was even happening?
How does one thing lead to another and suddenly there are stockings being removed?!
And putting the stocking into the Universal Synthesizer?!
The Heliobus had it even worse!
And then, something even more absurd happened.
Caelus pressed the green button. The Universal Synthesizer hummed to life. Beneath the exploding, stupefied stares of Xueyi, Raven, Huo Huo, and March 7th, the Heliobus, the candy, and the black silk were drawn up into the thick tubes — a low, reverberant drone followed.
The folding output slot at the front of the synthesizer opened. The conveyor belt turned. A large pile of dark chocolate was delivered out.
Xueyi: "!!!"
Raven & March 7th: "(╥д⊙)!!?"
Huo Huo: "W(°Д°)W"
Tail: "What the f*!"
Everyone else was shocked — only Tail was horrified. Genuinely terrified. Even shaken by a retroactive chill at the thought of having almost gotten into a real fight with these two gray-haired weirdos just now.
Watching one of its own kind get processed into chocolate right before its eyes — even Lord Tail felt a wave of cold run through it.
Ah Yan and Ah Yu were so badly frightened their flames had stopped moving entirely.
"Didn't expect one Heliobus to yield this much energy."
Caelus stored the bulk of the dark chocolate into his spatial ring, keeping about a dozen pieces. "Come, come — there's enough for everyone."
"Clean and hygienic — bottoms up!"
Caelus distributed the dark chocolates into the hands of the petrified onlookers, then picked up the last piece and bit into it.
"Rich, smooth — with a hint of black silk!"
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