202: Resonance from Hell

"Ram them! Ram all of them!"

Reno's roar exploded in the comms channel, but this time, his voice was mixed with a chilling electrical static.

Inside the vengeance's bridge, the red alert lights, which usually signified excitement, now glowed a sickly pale green due to some invisible magnetic field interference. The air became viscous, as if every breath inhaled rust and the scent of blood.

The black crystals—undead crystals, a specialty of Ashen Earth Star—hanging around the crew's necks or embedded in the dashboards, were now vibrating at an eerie frequency.

This was a special magnetic field that only existed deep within the Shattered Star Graveyard. When it encountered these ore samples, imbued with the grievances of Ashen Earth Star's deceased, combined with the current highly agitated and near-breakdown mental state of these desperate individuals, a chemical reaction inexplicable by science occurred.

"Heh... heh heh..."

The helmsman's whites of his eyes were covered in black blood vessels, his hands were welded to the joystick, nails cracked, blood seeping into the control panel's crevices. He felt no pain, only a primal urge to tear everything in front of him to shreds.

This wasn't high morale.

This was mass hysteria.

The entire Vast Sea Fleet, thousands of Mine Slaves who had crawled out of Ashen Earth Star, at this moment, had their brainwaves forcibly assimilated by that magnetic field, transforming into a massive, chaotic hive mind driven solely by the instinct to kill... On the slaughterer's bridge.

"Commander! Radar signal... something's wrong!" The radar officer's voice changed pitch, and he sprang from his seat in terror, as if he had seen a ghost.

Xing Zhan frowned and strode to the radar screen.

With just one glance, the seasoned Commander's pupils sharply contracted.

On the screen, the green light dots that represented enemy ships had vanished. In their place were twisted, constantly wriggling red lines. These lines no longer followed any physical inertia; they jumped and stretched across the screen, looking less like mechanical constructs and more like a group of... screaming ghosts.

"Warning. Logic error. Data stream abnormal. Unable to parse target intent."

The ship's main AI's emotionless electronic voice now stuttered, as if even its precise algorithms were thrown into panic by the inability to process such 'malicious' and illogical data.

"What the hell is this thing..." Xing Zhan's fingers, gripping his battle axe, felt a slickness for the first time.

Just then, the piercing shriek in all communication channels vanished.

It was replaced by a low hum, as if countless voices were whispering in one's ear.

The sound burrowed into the ears of every Scavenger soldier, speaking the names they feared most, describing the deaths they dreaded most... Ashen Earth Star, Vast Sea Command Center.

Chen Feng watched the surging waveform on the screen, which represented the mental pollution index. "Boss, their Sanity is plummeting!" Eve's fingers flew across the keyboard, her face pale. "The Shattered Star Graveyard's magnetic field is amplifying their negative emotions through the undead crystals! If this continues, they'll turn into madmen!"

"Boss, their Sanity is plummeting!" Eve's fingers flew across the keyboard, her face pale. "The Shattered Star Graveyard's magnetic field is amplifying their negative emotions through the undead crystals! If this continues, they'll turn into madmen!"

"No." Chen Feng stared at the screen, his fingertips tapping lightly on the desktop, twice as fast as usual. "This isn't madness; this is a weapon."

On his retina, a golden system interface popped up an emergency window.

[High concentration mental resonance field detected.]

[Current environmental adaptability: extremely high.]

[Initiate temporary transaction with River of Oblivion Echo Plane?]

Chen Feng didn't hesitate.

"Trade," he murmured in his mind. "Purchase 'Fear Aura,' maximum power, target locked—Giant Star Mining Fleet."

[Transaction confirmed. interstellar credit points deducted: 30 million. Goods shipped.]

Invisible ripples instantly transcended dimensional limits and descended upon the battlefield of the Shattered Star Graveyard... In the slaughterer's corridor, a fully armed elite marine stood guard at the bulkhead leading to the engine room, holding a Gauss Rifle.

Suddenly, he felt a bone-chilling coldness shoot from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

The surrounding lights seemed to dim, and the wind from the ventilation ducts sounded like the panting of some beast. He instinctively looked back; no one was there, but he felt as if a pair of eyes were staring at his neck.

"Who?!" he roared, his voice trembling.

No one answered.

Only that suffocating fear, like an icy hand, clutched his heart tightly.

Just then, a loud bang shook the entire battleship.

"Boom—!!!"

Not artillery fire. It was a collision.

The vengeance, like a massive battering ram, ignored the overload alarms of its shield generators and directly slammed its thickest armored bow section into the slaughterer's mid-section hangar.

The ear-splitting shriek of tearing metal was enough to rupture eardrums.

The airtight door's alarm lights flashed madly, but this couldn't stop the group of madmen.

"Screech—"

The vengeance's deformed hatch was violently cut open from the inside.

No tactical formations, no covering fire.

A group of people wearing crude, patched-up old spacesuits surged out like a breached dam of black water. They weren't holding standard issue rifles, but high-frequency oscillating mining drills, industrial laser cutters, and even two-meter-long hydraulic shears.

"Fire! Fire!"

The guard pulled the trigger in terror.

The usually precise Gauss Rifle now lost its aim in his trembling hands. Bullets struck the bulkhead, sending sparks flying.

But the Mine Slaves didn't dodge at all.

A small miner had his left shoulder pierced by a bullet, but he seemed to feel no pain, not even faltering in his steps. He grinned menacingly, his face behind the visor twisted like a demon, and lunged directly at the guard.

"Sizzle sizzle sizzle—!!!"

The sound of the high-frequency drill rotating was teeth-grinding.

The guard's proud composite ceramic armor was as fragile as paper before a drill designed to excavate high-hardness ore.

Blood splattered on the miner's visor, but he didn't stop, instead letting out a beastly roar and pressing the drill deeper.

This scene unfolded in every corner of the slaughterer.

This was an asymmetric war.

On one side were well-trained, well-equipped professional soldiers, now enveloped by the Fear Aura, their limbs cold with terror.

On the other side were desperate individuals with shattered sanity, impervious to pain, intent only on tearing apart every living thing in their sight.

"Aaaah! Monsters! They're monsters!"

An officer watched three miners hold his subordinate down, brutally severing his mechanical prosthetic limb with hydraulic shears, then dragging him like a dead dog towards a dark corner. His psychological defenses completely crumbled.

He dropped his weapon and turned to run, only to crash into a burly figure.

Reno.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Vast Sea Fleet was not holding a gun at this moment. Welded to his right arm was a chainsaw sword, still dripping with oil.

His single eye glowed fiercely red.

"Why run?" Reno's voice sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. "Didn't you want our lives just now?"

"No... no..." The officer slumped to the ground, his pants soaked.

Reno raised his chainsaw sword.

"Next life, don't mess with miners."

...slaughterer's bridge.

On the monitoring screens, red "signal lost" warnings flashed.

The vital signs of his most elite subordinates were extinguishing at a terrifying rate.

In the footage, the Vast Sea crew didn't look like they were fighting. They looked like they were participating in a carnival, a bloody ritual. Some even threw away their weapons and directly bit at their enemies' throats with their teeth.

Xing Zhan watched this scene, his body stiff, sitting in the command chair.

He had fought countless battles and witnessed countless ways to die.

But he had never seen such enemies.

This was not an army at all.

These were demons crawled out of hell, wearing human skin, coming to claim the lives of the living.

What had that man named Chen Feng unleashed?

"Commander! The inner defense line has been breached! They... they're coming towards the bridge!" The adjutant's voice was tearful. "The bulkheads can't stop them! They're cutting through the bulkheads!"

"Sizzle—sizzle—"

As if to confirm his words, the half-meter-thick alloy door of the bridge suddenly began to glow red and heat up.

A blinding point of light penetrated the metal, followed by the light point moving, drawing an irregular circle.

That was the sound of an industrial laser cutter at work.

Xing Zhan stared intently at the expanding circle of light, the veins on the back of his hand, gripping his battle axe, bulging, but he found that he couldn't stand up.

A chill from the depths of his soul pinned him to his seat.

It was the first time in his life he had tasted 'fear'.

"Clang!"

The cut circular metal plate crashed heavily to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

As the dust settled.

Behind that circular opening, countless red-glowing eyes in the darkness greedily watched the luxurious bridge.

Like watching a plate of bloody meat.