Upon receiving orders, Feros' men quickly cleared a firebreak around the escape pod to prevent the ensuing destruction from setting the entire field ablaze.
From the beginning of the battle, Feros had kept the defense forces from engaging, only requesting two melta bombs to be thrown into the escape pod once the firebreak was complete.
The detonation utterly obliterated the pod, along with the crate packed with weapons within it.
"Times have certainly changed, haven't they, Weepers?"
Ryan, who had been knocked unconscious and captured by Feros, now awoke, his mocking tone laced with defiance as he struggled against Feros' subordinates.
But with two Terminator-clad warriors holding him down, all his efforts were in vain, ending with a well-placed punch to his face.
"Are you now the Talon's pet dogs?"
"Looks like the Talon's lord has gifted his pets with some fine toys," he sneered. "In the old days, you'd have eagerly kept those weapons for yourselves."
His taunts failed to stir Feros' anger but left him with a sense of bewilderment. Studying Ryan, he wondered at the drastic change in him. He recalled Ryan as the reserved Captain of the Claws of the Void, known for his stoic demeanor—even when the Minotaurs annihilated his squad.
Yet now, this twisted Ryan trembled with an uncontrollable fervor, his face, drawn taut by his spiked collar, shifted from jubilance to scorn with each passing second.
It was unsettling.
"Save your strength; you'll need it for the interrogation," Feros replied, striding forward and securing a containment device onto Ryan before transmitting a teleportation command to the *Storm Maiden.*
In an instant, the twelve men vanished from the agri-world, reappearing upon the ship's teleportation platform.
Feros then escorted Ryan toward the brig.
Along the way, they encountered several squads en route to the training grounds; in each, at least three members wore Terminator armor. Ryan, initially believing the Weepers had only a dozen suits, now saw them far more frequently, his disbelief mounting.
"Am I hallucinating, or are there that many Terminators?" Ryan muttered incredulously. "Did you raid Ultramar?"
Feros said nothing, pressing onward.
As they neared the detention block, a young woman in a black uniform approached, a look of excitement brightening her face. "Mission accomplished? Are we returning to Talon?"
"Yes, Tessa," Feros nodded. "Prepare to depart for the Talon Sector at once."
This young woman, Tessa, was one of the orphans rescued by the Weepers from a plague-ravaged Talon sector. After living with her sister under their care, she later proved herself a prodigious navigator, rising to lead the navigation group on *Storm Maiden.*
"Yes, Commander." Tessa saluted, heading to the bridge to set the course.
Ryan, noticing her familiarity with Feros, eyed her lecherously, smirking. "Nice body, girl. If I catch you, I'll turn your corpse into my cushion! Hahaha…"
Feros silenced him with an uppercut, sending two bloodied teeth splattering against the corridor wall.
"Carry on," Feros ordered Tessa, leading Ryan to the brig.
With the *Storm Maiden* primed for a warp jump, its protective barriers enveloped the ship, propelling them toward the Talon system.
In the brig, Ryan was secured to an interrogation chair instead of a traditional cell, its ten mechanical arms injecting paralytic needles into his joints to render him powerless.
The chair itself was a device of torture, yet Ryan seemed impervious to pain, his face twisted in an obscene excitement.
Feros ordered everyone but one apothecary to leave. Clad in customized Terminator armor equipped with a personal energy shield and an array of medical apparatus, the apothecary's mechanical arm conducted a bio-scan of Ryan's body.
"This lunatic," Feros muttered. "We met him eighty years ago—he wasn't like this."
After a thorough examination, the apothecary confirmed Feros' suspicions. "His physiological levels are abnormal. He's exhibiting a heightened state of arousal."
At that moment, Qin Mo and his guard, Arrindar, arrived, Qin Mo's gaze dissecting Ryan's malformed skull, penetrating to his grotesque brain tissue—a mass of writhing tendrils suspended in green liquid.
"Well done, Feros," Qin Mo nodded, turning to Arrindar. "Interrogate him with traditional methods."
Arrindar moved forward, delivering a powerful punch to Ryan's jaw, then tearing away the spiked collar that gripped his flesh.
As he straightened Ryan's chin, Arrindar spoke calmly, "What is your mission?"
But for one so deranged, torture was meaningless. Instead of pain, Ryan's face filled with escalating exhilaration.
"Two more punches! Hahahaha! Give me everything you've got! Where's the novelty in this?"
Watching Ryan's manic fervor, Feros shared a look of helplessness with Qin Mo, who then turned to the apothecary.
"Remove the canister," Qin Mo ordered, pointing at the container strapped to Ryan's back.
The apothecary, suspecting the canister might be the source of Ryan's frenzy, set to work immediately.