【Barton froze for a moment, suspecting he’d misheard.】
【“Are you robbing me?”】
【You waved a hand and smiled.】
【“Come on, we’re all respectable people. How could I rob you? I’m just worried you won’t make it back, and then you’d lose both your life and your belongings. This way, at least you won’t lose your ‘belongings.’”】
【“If I do make it back, will you give them back to me?”】
【“As long as you’re alive, these things are all external possessions. Why be so attached to them?”】
【Barton was sure of it now. You were robbing him.】
【He sighed and accepted the hand fate had dealt him.】
【“Ah, nom nom! Awooo...”】
【That was the sound of Barton eating.】
【With his mouth open, he shoveled food into it with both hands, clearing out everything edible in Pot Heaven space, then swallowed it down at lightning speed.】
【He reluctantly tossed you the things that couldn’t be eaten.】
【He called this maneuver “cutting his losses in time.”】
【You hadn’t expected this guy to pull a stunt like that. He caught you completely off guard, and you didn’t have time to stop him.】
【By the time you reacted, you were looking at rare treasures of heaven and earth covered in his saliva, and you found them too disgusting to take.】
【Forget it. You didn’t want them anymore.】
【Barton’s actions had reminded you that you should take Horton’s belongings in advance, lest he also “cut his losses in time.”】
【When you turned to look at Horton, you found him already letting out a belch.】
【“Damn...”】
【No wonder they were colleagues. Their corporate culture was remarkably consistent.】
【After Barton willingly handed over all his worldly possessions, he resolutely took Formless with him and flew toward the black hole.】
【You casually sent out a doppelganger to go along. If Barton failed to throw Formless into the black hole, you’d have no choice but to sacrifice a doppelganger to send it inside.】
【Why not just send a doppelganger in the first place? It didn’t matter if one died, after all.】
【Ah... that was precisely the problem.】
【Near the black hole’s extremely powerful gravitational field, the flow of time was vastly different from that in other places.】
【What if the doppelganger was in a situation where, from its own frame of reference, it was about to die, but from yours, that moment wouldn’t come for millions of years?】
【Then that doppelganger would be squatting on the latrine forever without taking a dump.】
【You had to know that you were short on doppelgangers right now. You’d left one in the human world, one in the Winged Feather stellar system, and one on Blazing Star. That left only three on you.】
【You looked at Horton, who was still belching.】
【“Your brother looked like he was about to fight me to the death just now.”】
【“Not at all. You must have been mistaken. We’ve cooperated with you so much. I’m sure you won’t give us a hard time once you’ve dealt with Formless...”】
【“The matter with Formless is more or less settled, but there’s something else I need your help with.”】
【Horton’s head broke out in a cold sweat. Inside, he was complaining that you were such a pain in the neck.】
【You furrowed your brows and shot him a sideways glance.】
【Horton thought to himself again: Could this guy know what I’m thinking?】
【As it happened, you really did.】
【But you didn’t hold his thoughts against him. You judged people by their actions, not their thoughts.】
【“What else can the two of us do for you?”】
【“Take me to the channel into the Celestial River local galaxy. You should have a way, right?”】
【Since these two could travel between galaxies, they must have some special means of navigation. Otherwise, flying aimlessly through the vast cosmos would make it all too easy to get lost.】
【“That’s easy. Once we’ve taken you to the channel, can we go our separate ways?”】
【“Mm. Though I know you can’t bear to part with me, happy times are always too short.”】
【“Yes, yes... You’re absolutely right.”】
【“I’m warning you again: don’t go to Earth to conduct any more experiments on Formless.”】
【“Don’t worry. It’s not like you can just get your hands on another Formless...”】
【“No other experiments, either!”】
【“Don’t worry, don’t worry. We’ll never come back again!”】
【He meant it. You heard his true thoughts.】
【You and your doppelgangers could communicate mentally within a certain distance.】
【Before long, a message came from your doppelganger.】
【Barton used a Divine Art to summon a giant bird. It grabbed the bottle containing Formless in its beak and plunged straight into the black hole.】
【Quite a while had passed, and there was still no sign of anything happening inside.】
【Formless must have been trapped by the black hole’s gravity.】
【After that, Barton returned.】
【To be on the safe side, the three of you stayed in the area for a month, keeping an eye on the black hole.】
【“Looks like this worked. Formless was either shredded by the black hole’s gravity or firmly trapped in its gravitational field.”】
【“So... can we leave now?”】
【“Let’s go. Take me to the channel!”】
【Poor Barton had been hoping to get back his pile of artifacts and cultivation resources. But every time he met your possessive gaze, he lost his nerve and could only give up again and again.】
【You still hadn’t confiscated Horton’s belongings.】
【You needed them to take you to the channel, so you couldn’t push them too hard.】
【Horton pulled out a jade ruler as tall as a person. It was covered in complicated markings and had a star chart on it.】
【“What’s that?”】
【“A Star-Seeking Ruler.”】
【“How do you use it?”】
【“You just... Uh... are you planning to take it from me once you’ve figured out how it works?”】
【“Don’t be ridiculous! We’re all respectable people. Why would I do that? You’re thinking way too little of me, buddy!”】
【Horton didn’t tell you how to use the thing. After a flurry of activity that looked impressive but achieved little, he settled on a direction.】
【The three of you boarded your Star Ship, the Voyager, and sped off in that direction.】
【Along the way, to make the Star Ship go faster, Horton took out two Spiritual Treasures that looked like cannon barrels and attached them to the back of the ship.】
【After absorbing the energy from Source Stones, the two treasures unleashed powerful thrust, propelling the Star Ship forward at even greater speed.】
【You looked at the two Spiritual Treasures, extremely pleased.】
【“These are nice. Really nice...”】
【Barton and Horton glanced sideways at you and silently supplied the rest of your sentence: You should take them.】
【Year 149, age 175.】
【Interstellar travel in progress...】
【Year 150, age 176.】
【The glowing channel, formed from countless densely packed divine mark characters, finally appeared before your eyes once more.】
【Once the Star Ship connected to the channel again, its internal star chart function finally returned to normal.】
【The star chart that the Star Ship could retrieve had a limited range. A super star chart that could display an entire local galaxy at once was too much for a small Star Ship to hold.】
【On the star chart currently visible, you saw Earth, but not Vermilion Violet Star, Blazing Star, or the other planets you knew well.】
【Clearly, this area was far from the region where you’d previously been active.】
【Barton and Horton were no longer useful to you. You planned to strip Horton of his belongings too, then set off on a new journey.】
【“R-R-R...”】
【When you turned around, Barton and Horton had vanished from the Star Ship.】
【“Where’d they go?”】
【You’d only looked at the star chart for a moment, and those two had already disappeared?】

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