147: Chapter 147 The Half-Snake Queen's Cold Scales and Snow White

Chen Chen leaned against the cabin wall, one foot propped up on a protrusion.

"Six of your clansmen remain, all in the temporary settlement area on the first floor of the fortress. I've already had Jiang Jiuyou assign them housing and rations."

Yi Chang gripped the edges of the medical cloth tightly.

"The inheritance pebble is in your hands. My people are in your territory. I agreed to all your conditions yesterday."

"Not enough."

Yi Chang's vertical pupils twitched.

Chen Chen pulled out a dark-gold metal blueprint from his silver-grade storage ring and unfurled it before Yi Chang.

"S-grade biological fusion pod. It can purify alien bloodlines, repair any physical deformities, and activate latent genetic sequences."

Yi Chang's breathing hitched for a beat.

Her gaze was locked onto the blueprint.

As the leader of the Snake Scale Tribe, she knew all too well what biological technology of this level meant.

The Snake Scale bloodlines within her six dying clansmen had severely degenerated due to prolonged combat and black mist erosion.

If they could be purified using a fusion pod—

"Manufacturing this pod requires a live sample of an alien bloodline."

Chen Chen put the blueprint away. "You're a ready-made one."

Yi Chang was silent for three seconds.

"You want my blood?"

"More than that."

Chen Chen took a step forward.

The high temperature radiating from his 167 points of constitution was particularly noticeable in the sealed medical cabin.

Yi Chang was a cold-blooded creature.

Her body temperature was influenced by her environment.

When Chen Chen approached to within less than half a meter, that wave of scalding thermal radiation slapped directly against Yi Chang's exposed shoulders and neck.

Her vertical pupils dilated sharply.

Her lips parted slightly, and an extremely thin snake tongue flicked out uncontrollably—an instinctive reaction of cold-blooded alien races when sensing an extreme heat source.

"I have a system on my vehicle," Chen Chen said, looking down at her.

"Engage in deep contact with me, and your attributes will rise, as will mine. The concentration of your degenerated bloodline, your peak combat power from the Ruined City—there's a chance to restore them, or even break through."

Yi Chang's snake tail tightened unconsciously behind her.

"What... conditions are you proposing..."

"You don't understand?"

"I understand."

Yi Chang looked up, her vertical pupils churning with extremely complex emotions. "You are saying you want me in your bed."

"Yes."

The cabin fell silent for two seconds.

Yi Chang's chin tilted upward.

The pride inherent to an alien ruler kept her spine ramrod straight, even though she was only wrapped in a single medical cloth.

"I am of the Snake Scale—"

Chen Chen took another half-step forward.

The heat directly penetrated that thin layer of medical cloth.

Yi Chang's words caught in her throat.

Her upper body gave a slight shudder.

It was the irresistible physiological dizziness that surged from the depths of the spine when a cold-blooded animal came into contact with a high-temperature object.

The snake tongue flicked out again.

It was longer than before.

Her vertical pupils lingered on Chen Chen's face for three seconds.

"...I need to consider it."

"Fine, no rush."

Chen Chen stepped back.

The moment the heat source withdrew, Yi Chang's entire body broke out in tiny goosebumps.

No—not goosebumps, her scales had all stood on end.

Chen Chen turned and walked toward the cabin door.

As he reached the door, the alarms for both the fortress and the Ghost Fortress exploded simultaneously.

The piercing buzz penetrated through all five structural levels.

Over the communicator, Shen Wanbing's voice rose by two octaves: "Southeast direction—massive number of flying heat sources—over a hundred! Moving extremely fast! They're charging toward the fortress!"

A 3D projection popped up on Chen Chen's communicator.

Over a hundred red dots were arranged in a wedge formation, approaching at an alarming speed.

"Species confirmed—Peak Tier-2 Miasma Pterosaurs! Body length over five meters! Carrying highly corrosive venom!"

Shen Wanbing's concentration ice heart necklace flashed with intense blue light.

"Estimated contact with the C-grade outer shield in forty seconds!"

Chen Chen's walk toward the door turned into a sprint.

He took the stairs two or three at a time up to the fourth floor.

Jiang Jiuyou had already unbuckled her seatbelt and was standing before the control console. She had split the holographic panel into four screens, her fingertips rapidly adjusting the fleet's defensive formation.

"All fleet units enter anti-air mode! First-tier armored vehicles, pull machine gun elevation to the max! Third-tier supply vehicles, pull in toward the fortress!"

In the communication channel, Iron Wall's raspy voice replied: "Copy that!"

Chen Chen rushed to the main pilot seat and opened the weapons system panel.

The energy storage for the Void Annihilation Matrix showed eighty-seven percent.

Qin Hongye's voice drifted down from the fifth-floor dome, cold and devoid of any fluctuation:

"Visual confirmation. Wingspan over six meters, dorsal scales are dark purple, mouths are accumulating liquid—it's definitely Miasma Pterosaurs. The twelve in the front row are the largest; estimated to be leader-class."

"Wait for my command before firing."

Chen Chen glanced at Jiang Jiuyou.

"Can we block them?"

Jiang Jiuyou's ice-blue pupils glowed with terrifying brightness. "The shield can hold for two minutes, no problem. But pterosaurs are flying targets; the hit rate for heavy machine guns—"

She didn't finish her sentence.

The sound of metal clashing came from the direction of the first-floor medical cabin.

Chen Chen pulled up the surveillance footage for the first floor.

It was Yi Chang.

She had ripped a spare energy conduit from the cabin wall. Her snake tail suddenly propped up her entire body, catapulting her across the narrow space of the first floor toward the weapons rack.

She yanked down a B-grade standard-issue energy spear with one hand.

The medical cloth slipped halfway off her shoulder during the violent movement, revealing a large area of silver-gray scale patterns and snow-white skin flashing under the cold lights.

She didn't care.

Her snake tail slammed against the floor, and she shot toward the fortress's connecting passage.

"She's going out," Jiang Jiuyou frowned.

Chen Chen's hand moved to the hilt of his void-rending ship-slaying blade.

...

Yi Chang was faster than anyone had expected.

The force of her snake tail striking the metal floor gave her a launch speed close to a short-distance sprint.

Holding the spear horizontally, she dashed through the connecting passage, onto the open platform of the fortress's first floor, and directly smashed through the one-way passage layer of the C-grade shield—

Disappearing into the acid mist five hundred meters in the air.

In the communicator, Qin Hongye's report lacked any emotional fluctuation:

"The snake woman is out. Three o'clock direction. She's flanking the pterosaur swarm."

"Is she crazy!" Jiang Yanxue's voice came from the first floor. "She just recovered from a major illness and she's charging out—"

Su Xiaoqi, with half a mammoth tenderloin stuffed in her mouth, chimed in indistinctly:

"Is she showing off? Does she want Brother Chen Chen to praise her?"

The cabin fell briefly silent for a second.

No one picked up that thread.

Chen Chen stared at the real-time footage on the fifth-floor dome.

The outlines of the Miasma Pterosaur swarm were now clear—dark purple scales reflected a deathly luster within the acid mist. With wingspans exceeding six meters, their mouths constantly churned with fluorescent green, highly corrosive venom.

Over a hundred of them.

The twelve leader-class ones in the front were even larger, with wingspans approaching eight meters.

Yi Chang's silver-gray figure flashed on the right flank of the pterosaur swarm.

The spear thrust out.

A beam of ice-blue energy exploded from the spear tip, piercing through the neck of one pterosaur. Dark purple scales shattered, and the pterosaur spiraled down into the acid marsh.

A second shot.

A third shot.

Three pterosaurs fell one after another.

Yi Chang's snake tail coiled around a broken branch of a floating giant tree in mid-air. Using this point as a pivot, her entire body swung in a wide arc, the spear slashing out a sharp curve of light bolstered by centrifugal force.

Beautiful.

Chen Chen admitted that this snake's fighting style was highly aesthetic.