CHAPTER 221: CHAPTER 221 - PANICKED STATE

Bian stormed out of the control room like a crack of thunder had torn through the calm, the doors hissing shut behind him. His boots hit the alloy floors with force, every step reverberating like a warning shot across the corridors. He didn’t care who saw his fury. The facade was gone. What burned inside now was terror—ugly, primal, and growing more poisonous by the second.

They had vanished.

Two humans—weak, defenseless, utterly average humans—had escaped a fully sealed Farian warship while it was adrift in deep space. It was impossible. And yet here he was, teeth clenched, eyes wide with a paranoia that scraped at his brain like glass.

"They can’t stay hidden forever..." he muttered under his breath, his lips pale as he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. The coppery taste of blood grounded him for a moment. He welcomed it.

Because underneath all the fury was fear.

Not fear of the Graylings. Not fear of some faraway enemy.

But fear of the old man.

That man—his grandfather—who had once held him in wrinkled arms, who had once fed him with trembling hands... He knew things. Things Bian had long buried. Things he had promised himself he would never allow to resurface.

"He’ll tell someone," Bian whispered, eyes narrowing as he stalked the hall. "He’ll fucking tell someone I’m not a Farian at all... that I’m just—"

He cut the thought short with a growl and turned toward the lift bay. His hand slammed the panel hard enough to bruise his palm. As the lift doors opened with a quiet chime, he stepped inside, punched in the override, and descended to the engineering level—floor one.

The moment the doors opened, he was a blur of fury. The startled crew barely had time to turn before Bian was already barking at them.

"Line the fuck up! Right now!" he snapped.

They hesitated, some mid-weld, others carrying coolant tanks. One engineer dared to ask, "Sir, is there an emergency—?"

A sharp crack rang out as Bian slapped the man across the face hard enough to send him stumbling.

"Did I ask for your opinion, you wrench monkey?" he sneered. "You think two fucking humans just disappeared into thin air?! You think they magicked themselves into atoms?!"

"N-no, sir," the man stammered, blood pooling in his mouth.

Bian paced before the gathered engineers like a predator in a cage.

"Then where the fuck are they?! This ship is only a thousand squarefeet wide, three fucking floors. What, did they phase through the hull?! Did someone lend them a teleportation disk?!"

Silence.

He stopped in front of a Farian mechanic with soot on her face. "You. Tall bitch. I saw you doing thermal checks two days ago. Did you find any signatures that didn’t match crew heat levels?"

She shook her head. "No anomalies, Your Highness. We’re set to internal protocol. Every cabin is tagged—"

Another slap. She flinched before the blow landed.

"Then why don’t you go back and check again, this time with your eyes open?"

He stormed off before she could answer, heading for the next level.

The lift chimed and hissed open.

Bian stepped into the middle of the hallway and shouted, "All guards to me, now!"

Within seconds, the storage division and a handful of Farian patrols gathered. Sleep was in their eyes. It was an off-cycle shift.

Bian didn’t care.

"You’ve been living up here like pampered fucking dogs while two terran insects crawl around my ship!" he roared, his voice echoing in the narrow hall.

One soldier opened his mouth to protest, "Sir, we ran a scan earlier and—"

Bian grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall. The man gagged.

"You ran a scan? You ran a scan?! Do you know how easy it is for those vermin to crawl inside our ventilation ducts? You think I’m stupid?"

"N-no, Your Highness—"

"Then why the fuck are you defending failure?!"

He released the man, letting him slump against the wall, coughing.

"You. You. And you." He pointed to three guards. "Go check every food container, under the bunks, inside laundry processors—I don’t care if you have to tear open the fucking walls. If they’re breathing, they’re here."

He stalked off toward the storage corridor, kicking a random box over as he passed it. His mind burned with images—of the old man smiling, telling Dican the truth. Of the boy’s eyes, filled with adoration, mistaking him for Jian. That boy...

He must be eliminated.

By the time Bian stormed the final level, his knuckles were bleeding. His foot had kicked open four doors. He had slapped nearly ten people.

Inside the dim glow of the observation deck, a pair of junior officers monitoring life readings stood up in panic as the door hissed open.

"You," Bian snapped at one of them. "You’ve got access to heat readings. Did you see anything strange? Any fluctuation in oxygen flow? ANYTHING?"

The girl fumbled. "There was a drop in sector D-13 last night, but the ducts auto-corrected within margin. It wasn’t considered—"

"YOU STUPID FUCKING IMBECILE," Bian screamed, grabbing the display and yanking it aside. "That’s a hideout. That’s how they fucking got through—"

He froze mid-sentence, chest heaving.

No.

That can’t be it.

Because if the ducts were compromised... someone helped them get through. Someone who overrode access. Someone who rerouted heat flow.

Someone on this ship was protecting them.

Bian’s breathing grew faster. His eyes glittered, and he turned around, pointing to no one in particular.

"When I catch whoever’s doing this," he snarled, voice dropping to a growl, "I’m going to flay them alive. I’ll make them watch as I fucking vaporize those two humans into ash."

Without another word, he stormed out of the lab, footsteps echoing down the metal corridor like gunfire.

His mind was spinning now, not just with rage—but with doubt.

They were hiding something. The crew, the quiet glances, the hesitations.

They knew something.

And he would find out who.

Bian’s boots dragged across the floor with less fury now and more frustration—a tired kind of madness that had built up after hours of storming corridors, shouting down officers, threatening crew, and overturning panels with his own trembling hands.

Every damn room.

Every crawlspace.

Every ration cabinet.

Nothing.

No trace of the old man.

No glimpse of that damned brat.

Even the ventilation routes had been combed over twice by elite patrols, and still—nothing.

Not a single broken panel, not a single thermal echo out of place.

It was like they had vanished from reality itself.

Bian shoved open the door to his quarters so violently the automatic panel stuttered, grinding against the wall with a shriek. He didn’t wait for it to fully open—he slipped through and slammed it shut behind him, his chest rising and falling with hard, exhausted gasps.

The room was dim.

Too quiet.

He ripped off his gloves and flung them across the room, letting them land wherever they may. His skin buzzed with barely restrained rage. Not just rage. Fear. That old, crawling, cold kind of fear that whispered of unraveling truths. Of secrets slipping through cracks.

He knows... Grandpa knows. He might even tell Dican. He might already have told him.

He tore at his chest plate, unfastening it, but his fingers trembled so badly he dropped the clasps. "Damn it! Damn it!" he hissed through his teeth, pacing in tight, erratic circles.

Behind him, the door hissed open with a gentler sound.

"...Bian?" came the soft, careful voice of Dican.

The prince stepped into the room, his expression uncertain—nervous even. His long silver-blonde hair was still pulled back neatly, but his brows were knit together in concern, his eyes soft and full of a gentle ache.

He approached slowly, cautious of Bian’s trembling form. "Are you okay, love?"

That word.

That word.

Love.

It slipped into the air like an arrow, but instead of piercing Bian’s heart, it grated against his nerves.

"Don’t call me that!" he snapped, whirling around.

Before Dican could respond, Bian’s hand flew out and struck him across the face—hard.

The sound echoed in the room like a shot.

Dican’s head turned from the impact. He didn’t speak. Didn’t react at first.

Bian froze, his hand still raised, panting like a cornered animal.

The silence between them stretched.

Then... something changed.

Dican slowly turned back to face him.

The dazed, dreamy warmth in his silver eyes wavered.

Cracked.

And behind it—beneath the cloudy veil that had dulled his awareness for days—clarity began to surface.

He blinked once.

Then again.

And a furrow formed between his brows, deepening with confusion.

"You..." he murmured, his voice different. Not soft, not docile—but uncertain, wary.

His gaze flicked around the room, as if trying to understand where he was, what he was doing here.

"Where...?"

His voice trailed off as he took a step back, the sudden tension in his shoulders betraying a ripple of panic.

"Where are we?" he asked, now louder. "Why... What’s going on? Why does my mouth taste like—?"

He looked at Bian again, and this time, there was fear in his eyes.

And that could not happen.

"No, no no—NO!" Bian shouted.

In an instant, he lunged forward, slamming into Dican’s chest. The prince stumbled backward in surprise, but Bian grabbed the back of his neck and bit down—hard—on Dican’s lower lip.

Dican cried out in shock and pain as blood welled in his mouth.

But Bian wasn’t done.

With his other hand, he fumbled inside the hidden pouch at his hip, pulling out the last of the violet-hued salve. The vial was already warm in his hand, its contents faintly glowing in the dark.

He popped the lid with his teeth, spit it aside, and pressed the mixture onto his tongue. The thick, syrupy liquid clung like resin.

Then, mouth still bleeding, he kissed Dican again—forcefully—forcing the mixture between them.

The bonding agent worked fast.

Dican’s hands, which had risen to push Bian away, faltered.

His shoulders slumped.

His panicked breaths slowed.

And then... his hands dropped to his sides entirely.

The confusion left his face.

The fog returned.

That docile, affectionate sheen bled back into his eyes like ink spilling across white cloth.

He blinked slowly, gazing at Bian now with a softened expression, his lips parted and still stained with red.

"Bian...?"

The younger boy stared at him, panting hard.

His hands were clenched tight, one of them still gripping Dican’s collar.

He held the man close, but he didn’t feel relief.

He felt like he had just put out a fire with oil.

But for now... he had bought more time.

Bian pressed his forehead against Dican’s chest, eyes squeezed shut.

"I won’t lose this..." he muttered. "Not to some senile old man. Not to some human brat. Not to anyone."

Dican simply stood there, eyes dazed, arms limp at his side.

Obedient.

Loving.

Exactly how Bian needed him to be.