Chapter 440: Moth to a Flame

After leaving the atmosphere of Virusia, Virus straightly opened a crack near the technological Earth. 

Appearing in the space near the planet, Virus threw one last glance at the planet of colors before commanding the spaceship to open another rift.

Of course, he still adhered to his rule of being far away from the location of cultivation Earth while opening a rift through from one side to another.

“See you later.” He murmured casually.

As the gate was now wide open for him to pass through, the spaceship dived in with no delay.

…

Meanwhile, right as Virus entered the fissure in the fabric of space, many contemplations regarding what he was going to do on the Cultivation Earth were passing through his head.

‘I should first visit the Silver Sky Sect and visit apprentice sister and fulfill that promise of top-quality tea I made with the Alchemy Pagoda Master.’ By apprentice sister, he naturally meant Astes, the fairy-like beauty of the Alchemy Pagoda section of the sect which he had accepted as his apprentice sister.

‘And then-‘

BOOM! RUMBLE~

The entire spacecraft experienced such a sudden quake and tremor that Virus was sent flying away within the interior of the spaceship!

All one hundred percent shield of the spaceship was gone in an instant while the vessel itself also became terribly damaged. There was even a gaping hole passing through the spaceship. Fortunately, however, that hole was quickly covered by the emergency features of the spacecraft that had been installed for times like this.

Meanwhile, even though it was within the vacuum of space, a roaring sound of cheer, much like thunder, reverberated everywhere!

“HAHAHA! At last, after patiently waiting for so long! I finally caught the little mice hopping in my house!” An ancient voice reverberated in all directions. 

“So that’s how this creature looks like! Fascinating!” The ancient old man stated, gazing upon the spaceship while playing with his snow-white beard.

It was clear he had mistakenly taken the spacecraft as some type of bizarre creature.

At the same time, inside the spaceship, Virus felt as if his eardrums were going to explode any seconds now, but he determined this was not the time for that.

Therefore, not paying any further heed to the agony he was experiencing due to the sound of the unknown attacker, his attention was drawn to the current condition of the spaceship.

‘The invisibility has been turned off due to the extreme damage, though it should still work.’

‘The shield is also gone!’

Of course, he reached these conclusions using all his AI capabilities so no time had gone by really.

The next course of action Virus took was to first reactivate the shield before changing the course of the spaceship to a ninety-degree different direction.

In the meantime, outside, seeing the creature suddenly vanishing again, an annoyed crease showed up on the ancient old man’s forehead who didn’t hesitate to attack again.

BAM!

Unfortunately for him, his attacks could no longer come into direct contact with the creature again.

“DAMN IT!” He yelled in anger. “What a slippery mouse… I’ll find you, you hear me! I’ll find you!”

…

In the meantime, having successfully escaped from the grasp of that insane old man he had laid his eyes upon momentarily, Virus let out a sigh of relief.

‘Fuck… why is there such a terrifying old man lying in wait for me?’

‘Sigh… I should go back for now.’ As this line popped into his mind, he tried to open the rift to go back and fix the spaceship before returning, when, much to his dismay, he noticed the rift could not be opened at all.

“Ah, shit… this is as worse as it could get!” Muttering this, Virus checked all the remaining faculties of the spacecraft next.

“Both multiverse and universe rift opening technologies are smashed… even the fast movement features are gone, damn it! I can’t go back!” Virus deduced.

He was feeling quite lost honestly. And floating around in the middle of nowhere in absolute darkness didn’t really help much.

The only option he had available, for now, was to go toward the Cultivation Earth at that snail-like pace of the spaceship.

…

Three weeks later, an announcement attracted Virus’ attention to itself.

[The Spaceship is entering the atmosphere of the planet.]

Soon, the whole interior began to quake and tremble while Virus fastened his seatbelt awaiting the successful landing.

“Land beside the Sky Silver Sect!” He commanded the spaceship’s basic A.I.

…

A few hours later, an invisible spacecraft landed in the specified location.

‘Phew, I’m finally here. Let’s go meet apprentice sister Astes, shall we? I wonder if she missed me though… she was such a crybaby when I left last time, haha!’

The first thing Virus did was to enter the portable Shape-shifter technology he had brought with him and change his appearance to that of a young man called ‘Vee’ with jet black hair and dull emerald eyes. 

That was the face with which he had infiltrated the Sky Silver Sect in the past and it was the identity he was known for by his apprentice sister and everyone else in the sect.

Subsequently, getting off the invisible spaceship, he took a glance in the Silver Sky Sect’s direction.

However, what he witnessed following that quickly forced his eyeballs to become as round as they could get.

That was because, in front of him, instead of the expected ancient ground of the sect that was filled with grand pagodas and busy disciples running around somewhere, there was only a wrecked site with debris covering nearly everywhere!

“W-what’s this place? Was I brought to the wrong location? Did the spacecraft malfunction due to the previous damage?” Going back to the spaceship, he checked the coordinates, only to be certain this time that he was indeed in front of the gates of the former Silver Sky Sect!

“What the, what happened here?” Virus could hardly believe his eyes as a sense of skepticism overwhelmed him.

Feeling somewhat concerned regarding the fate of the sect due to the existence of Astes, Virus resolved to go around, ask, and get to the bottom of what exactly was happening.

A while later, he came across an old man. He was the first person he encountered after more than ten minutes of searching.

Hence, stopping the man, he inquired, “Hello, good old sir, would you mind answering a few questions of mine?”

“W-what is it?” The mortal old man, however, seemed anxious seeing a strange young man blocking his path. These days, he had heard many rumors of how there were lots of thieves in the area.

“No need to be worried, I’m not a hostile person and I have no bad intentions toward you whatsoever, I just have a few questions and I’ll leave right away.” He assured him.

“Oh… is that so? Then what is it?” Still a little dubious, the old man retreated while awaiting the questions. He didn’t want any trouble, so he wanted to reply as quickly as he could before scurrying away.

“So, here is the deal, I’m originally a disciple of the Silver Sky Sect but I left a few years ago…”

…

Five minutes later, Virus became aware of the rough picture of everything that had taken place in the Silver Sky Sect.

Apparently, around a month or two after Virus had left the sect, the Poison Deity Clan, the clan that was the ruler of this island the Silver Sky Sect was on, had attacked and invaded out of nowhere as they had slaughtered nearly every disciple, master, and chicken they could find!

As for the reason why they had suddenly decided to do so, the old man wasn’t quite sure, however, what he could tell Virus was the fact that even at the time of the attack and invasion, the sect leader of the Silver Sky Sect was still away as he was nowhere to be found. Therefore, there wasn’t much the sect could do except watch and die.

“Do you know if anyone has survived?” To this question of Virus, caressing his beard, the old man responded, “Hmm, I don’t know who exactly survived… but I heard that some of the disciples and masters were taken away as prisoners and hostages to their dungeon prison probably. The rest were massacred.”

And now, sitting within his spaceship after sending away the old man, many notions and doubts were flickering through Virus’ head.

‘Did apprentice sister Astes survive?’ Gritting his teeth while making an anxious fist, Virus wondered.

The whole situation seemed a bit off to Virus, the fact that the strongest clan of the island had attacked the second strongest out of nowhere in that timeframe.

‘Should I go try to save her right away?’ The moment this line showed up in his brain, however, he shook his head, rejecting the idea temporarily.

‘A mere Adept Falcon had nearly killed me… if I go to the Poison Deity Clan and try to release her and the Alchemy master, I would be dead before even noticing that I was attacked.’ Adept Falcon was the person that had assaulted Virus on the night of his return from the Silver Sky Sect.

If it wasn’t for the golden beauty’s protection and sacrifice that night, Virus was quite sure he would be in fact dead already.

‘Going to the Poison Deity Clan right now would be the most idiotic and suicidal course of action.’ With his nails biting into his flesh unconsciously, this notion shimmered through Virus’ mind while he began to experience an intense clash between his logic and emotions.

While his emotions were screaming ‘go save her right now!’, ‘she is waiting for you!’, ‘she would’ve come for you!’, etc. His logic was telling him ‘don’t be an idiot!’, ‘that’s what we call a retard!’, ‘all calculations say that would be a useless act, and not only would you die a meaningless death in the process, you’ll also fail to save her!’.

Many such deliberations were storming through his head, occupying it.

On one side, thinking about how Astes might be suffering, Virus’ heart could not tolerate staying still and doing nothing even if it resulted in his death.

On the other side, Virus was a hundred percent certain no matter how smart he was, schemes were nothing in the face of absolute power. It didn’t matter how a single ant schemed against an elephant, the elephant was still capable of crushing the ant with a simple step.

‘They destroyed the entire Silver Sky Sect with all of its experts in a single day for fucks sake! Don’t be arrogant, Virus! Confidence without power to back it up is nothing but arrogance and a fool’s game!’

According to the information he had received from the old man, there were simply too many variables and powerhouses in the Poison Deity Clan. Furthermore, Virus couldn’t even connect to the world and surveil them at the same time since there were no waves and technology to back him up.

No matter how hard he contemplated, it would still lead to his own demise at any corner with a simple flip of the enemy’s finger. And it wasn’t only one enemy… rather an entire army of it!

‘I need a logical plan. I can’t just storm my way in there. Not only would that lead to my quick death, but it won’t save apprentice sister Astes as well and merely endanger her instead. There is no way I would risk her life for an idiotic and pointless charge.’

In fact, one of the matters the Artificial Intelligence Virus abhorred the most was to make a move toward a goal that was clear to result in a negative and fruitless outcome.

Thus, at last, this was where his heart was suppressed while his logic came out on top!

“First things first, I need strength!” He muttered to himself with his eyes chilly cold, he knew in order to even have a shot at saving her instead of simply throwing himself off of a building like a moth to a flame, he needed power!