by <unknown>
At first glance, it was like a scorpion that was spurting out venom.
That was how the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy got its name.
The reactions of spiritual energy and materials in the nebula were very intense by themselves and could be sensed clearly from hundreds of thousands of lightyears away, making it a natural lighthouse in the universe.
When the high-energy particles and the powerful radiation were spurted out through the 'tail' irregularly, the intensity of the internal reactions would be further increased by several levels.
Also, the high-energy particles and the powerful radiation pointed at fixed directions, creating the best sailing route in the sea of stars.
Therefore, setting the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy as the destination of the jump was the option with the highest precision.
As the 'tail' of the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy began to expand slowly, emitting very dangerous deep-violet colors, and the expansion at the end turned into scorching white and spurted out visible multicolored mist, the deep, profound space not far away from the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy where there seemed to be nothing was stretched by a pair of invisible hands!
From the three-dimensional point of view, the picture could not have been weirder.
There was not the slightest reference substance nearby. The whole space was melted and inseparable, but a tiny proportion of it was being dragged nonstop like a noodle.
When the 'space noodle' was extended to the maximum, there was finally a 'fracture'.
The fracture was like a hollow tube and an exit of a journey through time and space. It threw out a tiny grain of rice!
The wormhole disappeared immediately, and the torn space regained its prior tranquility. Except for the feeble space-time ripples that spread out at the speed of light, nothing seemed to have happened at all.
The tiny grain of rice, on the other hand, was fully revealed under the illumination of the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy.
It could not have been more than fifty meters long. Compared to the boundlessness of the universe, it was no better than a grain of sand.
The surface of its shell was covered in rust and dents caused by the collisions of meteoroids and dust. An emblem of the lightning trident of the Imperium of True Human Beings was painted on the head of the starship. Below the emblem was a weird name.
Jingle Bell!
It was the Star Glory Federation's multipurpose exploration starship of the 'Heavenly Eye' model.
It was the first greeting from the edge of the cosmos to the center of it, informing the entire universe that they were there!
"Is—Is this the center of the cosmos? Such brilliant stars. Such overwhelming spiritual energy. Such a beautiful universe!
"I am finally here!"
Li Yao was still on the bridge of 'Jingle Bell', but he had set the starship to be completely transparent. Everything around seemed to have entirely vanished, and he seemed to be standing right in the middle of the sea of stars, bathing in the most prosperous brilliance of the three thousand Sectors. With a mixture of excitement and other feelings, Li Yao almost could not help but cry out to express his ecstasy.
Before his spiritual root was awakened, in the small magical equipment graveyard in Floating Spear City in the Star Glory Federation, when he looked at the dense purple clouds in the sky and heard his foster father telling him bizarre stories of beyond the stars, Li Yao had made up his mind to travel to the center of the cosmos one day and make the name of 'Vulture' Li Yao resound in every Sector and every star.
Today, he had finally come to the peak of all stars and the center of all Sectors.
More than a hundred years had passed, and he had finally fulfilled his wish.
"The final jump was almost perfect. I have been directly teleported into the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy, and the scorpion-like nebula is right before my eyes!
"Judging from the intensity and angle of the high-energy particles that the nebula has spurted out, my landing point is perfect, too. It is neither so far away that I have to micro-adjust the coordinates with a second jump nor so close to the nebula that I will be exposed to the blast of the high-energy particles and the powerful radiation.
"Hehe. This means that my luck parameter is increasing. Is fate finally in favor of me?
"Or does it mean that my speculation is correct and the Earth is right here somewhere in the center of the cosmos? Because I belong here in the first place, I am no longer in conflict with the world around me, and no force is 'rejecting' me anymore now that I have returned, right?
"In any case, Imperium, I'm here! Covenant Alliance, I'm here! Earth, I have returned!"
Li Yao bashed his chests and shouted out loud.
He had every reason to be excited. It had certainly not been an easy mission to complete the Black Wind Fleet's hundred-year journey in reverse in only one month.
Jingle Bell did not jump to the Imperium from the federation in one try.
It was very difficult to control the precision in such an attempt. Even if the destination was set as the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy at the beginning, with a minor error of one decimal in one of the parameters, or if all the initial parameters were perfectly correct but the astronomical environment near the destination had slightly changed in the past hundred years, Li Yao could have reached somewhere unknown after the space jump. For example, a military base of the Imperium that was heavily guarded or right in front of hundreds of main-force warships of the Imperium.
Besides, the fundamental architecture of 'Jingle Bell' was the single escape capsule of the Pangu Clan, which was fifty meters long at best. How much fuel could have been loaded even if the toilets were filled too?
There was too little fuel to support a super-remote space jump across billions of stars.
Therefore, Li Yao had adopted the approach of 'frog jump'.
When the Black Wind Fleet marched to the edge of the cosmos, it had also carried the mission of establishing a brand-new sailing route for the Imperium. Therefore, they had left countless automated resource warehouses along their expedition route. Those places were some sort of 'courier station' in the sea of stars.
Not much fuel was left inside the courier stations, but it was more than enough to supply a super-mini starship like 'Jingle Bell' for a medium or short distance jump.
In such a way, Li Yao jumped station to station. After every courier station he reached, he would refill the fuel and slightly adjust his direction.
When he was not far away from the Imperium, he spent an entire day locking onto the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy, his final destination, and he hit the bullseye accurately!
"However, this is not the time to be carefree."
Taking a long breath, Li Yao activated all the surveillance magical equipment on 'Jingle Bell'. He then raised his wariness to the highest, ready to summon his crystal suit and his Colossus.
Like a beach landing, the most dangerous moment in a space jump was the moment when the space jump had just finished.
'Jingle Bell' was the most advanced stealth exploration starship of the federation. After it entered the cruise state, it could almost cover all the radiation and energy reactions from itself.
However, the moment when a space jump was completed, the spreading space-time ripples when the three-dimensional space was ripped apart could not be disguised in any way.
The space-time ripples that spread out at the speed of light could be discovered by the enemy.
By 'enemy', it did not necessarily refer to the patrolling fleets of the Imperium of True Human Beings.
The universe was too vast a place. Even the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy alone had a hundred desolate worlds and almost ten Sectors. The odds were not high that he would run into an army of the Imperium the moment he jumped over.
Even if he did run into them, he could communicate with the army of the Imperium because 'Jingle Bell' had been highly modified and had nothing that would expose Li Yao's identity or the existence of the federation on the surface.
However, other than the people of the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance, there were other dangerous hunters in the profound sea of stars—alien species.
Since a long, long time ago, Li Yao had been curious about one thing. The three thousand Sectors included millions and even more galaxies, with too many habitable planets with atmospheres to be counted.
Even on the 'uninhabitable' planets without atmospheres, a lot of low-level lives in vastly different forms from mankind had been discovered.
In such a colorful and prosperous universe, why were there no powerful civilizations other than the civilization of mankind?
It was said that human beings had encountered some strong and intelligent alien species during the expedition to explore the universe. There were even cases where one single individual from such species annihilated a whole legion of mankind.
However, most of the alien species had been fighting on their own. No matter how strong they were individually, they were always suppressed by the army of mankind in the end.
It was their fatal weakness that they did not have a civilization.
It was not until a long time later that Li Yao learned the answers from the incomplete information on Kunlun and in the underground laboratory in the Ancient Sages Sector.
Millions of years ago, in the vast space that human beings called the three thousand Sectors, there could have been hundreds of civilizations.
However, most of the civilizations were destroyed, or rather, 'assimilated' by the alliance of the Pangu Civilization.
The alliance of the Pangu Civilization was not made of the most lenient creatures. Instead of joining each other under the lofty ideals of 'harmony, friendship, and unity', they were more like an alliance made of the thirteen most powerful carbon-based civilizations in the universe who made up their mind to destroy all the other weaker carbon-based civilizations.
Chapter 1941: Alien Species! |
Not all the individuals of the destroyed carbon-based civilizations had necessarily perished. They were more likely to have been modified into slaves and new biochemical weapons by the alliance of the Pangu Civilization, just like human beings domesticated wolves into dogs, wild animals into livestock, and broncos into war horses.
After the Nuwa Clan broke away from the alliance of the Pangu Civilization and raised a war that inevitably led to the destruction of both the Pangu and the Nuwa civilizations, the past 'cattle' naturally ran away. A tiny proportion of them slowly regained their wildness.
Deep inside their genes, it was possible that the memories of their ancestors from millions of years ago were stored, which allowed them to generate high wisdom and boast powerful techniques far exceeding the understanding of human beings.
However, due to the barriers and the domestication of the Pangu and the Nuwa civilizations, they were merely animals with survival instincts, which meant that they had all kinds of fatal weaknesses.
Countless 'beasts' like that were modified into biochemical weapons by the Pangu Civilization and the Nuwa Civilization in the final years of the primeval war. They were set to the automatic reproduction and hunting mode so that they could be engaged in incessant killing.
That was the truth of the 'alien species'.
Despite their past glorious civilization, they were nothing more than beasts that were slightly stronger. It was impossible for them to compete with the civilization of mankind as a whole.
But the vastness of the universe did give them a chance of survival. However powerful the civilization of mankind was, it was unlikely for them to locate all the alien species hiding in the sea of stars and annihilate the beasts.
It was not unusual for such creatures to assault a fleet or even a resource plant of human beings under certain circumstances, resulting in the demolition of towns and the demise of hundreds of civilians.
There were in fact alien species at the edge of the cosmos, too.
The 'spiritual beasts', 'demon beasts', 'foreign beasts', 'monsters', and so on that the Cultivators often talked about were mostly not the aboriginal species in the local area but the relatively weak branches of the alien species. After being domesticated by mankind for a hundred thousand years, their living habits and even appearance had gone through drastic changes.
The spiritual energy at the edge of the cosmos was very thin. It was not the main battlefield of the primeval war, either. The Pangu and the Nuwa civilizations did not project a great number of 'biochemical weapons' in this place. Therefore, the alien species within the borders of the federation were of the level of 'pheasants' and 'mallards' at best.
But the cases were different at the center of the cosmos.
The resources there were more abundant, the spiritual energy was in excess, and the environment was complicated. The place had been the main battlefield in the primeval war. All kinds of 'biochemical weapons' that could automatically reproduce and kill could be found there and had continued their mutations and evolutions during the hundreds of thousands of years after the collapse of the alliance of the Pangu Civilization. After they cross-fertilized other wild alien species, there was simply no telling how many kinds of such creatures were out there.
In the eras of the ancient Cultivators, the Great Dark Age, the Star Ocean Imperium, the Star Ocean Republic, or the Imperium of True Human Beings, the war where human beings resisted alien species had never stopped.
The hundred thousand years of war had resulted in the decline of alien species, which were no longer a fatal threat for the civilization of mankind as a whole.
However, it was also like a sieve that had filtered out all the weak and idiotic alien species. Those who had survived the hunts and slaughters of human beings were all the most dangerous, cunning, and brutal creatures.
For the fleets of a smaller scale and the weakly guarded space towns, the alien species were the most dreadful threats.
In the heartland of the Imperium of True Human Beings, such a threat even far exceeded the shadow of war brought by the Covenant Alliance.
However, the Covenant Alliance was merely devoid of emotions. They were not entirely lunatics out of their mind. The two parties were engaged in a fierce war at the borderland, but few of them had ever jumped to the enemy's rear to launch suicidal attacks.
The alien species, on the other hand, were utterly unpredictable. They could appear at any place at any time to start the most ruthless massacre.
Many alien species boasted the abilities to survive and travel through space. They also had a very keen sense of the space ripples.
It was said that they could sense the space ripples like the sharks could sense blood.
There was a terribly fierce mutated shark in the Heaven's Origin Sector that could smell one drop of blood that was sprayed into the ocean hundreds of kilometers away.
Some of the alien species that lurked in the sea of stars and preyed on the passing-by fleets boasted senses much better than that.
If he encountered patrolling fleets of the Imperium of True Human Beings or unmanned satellites, Li Yao could still try to disguise and argue for himself.
However, if the alien species got their eyes on him, there would be absolutely no option except to fight with all his strength!
Therefore, the moment he jumped to the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy in the Imperium of True Human Beings, Li Yao increased the probe abilities of 'Jingle Bell' and his own level to the maximum.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
As it turned out, before he finished the search for the astronomical parameters around, the crystal processor sent out ear-splitting warnings. Unknown high-energy reactions were approaching quickly.
It was a seemingly gargantuan meteoroid that was coming at 'Jingle Bell' precisely.
Li Yao, however, snorted to himself. What were the odds of running into a meteoroid the moment he jumped over? Something had to be behind it, and it had to have been attracted by the space ripples released when he travelled through the wormhole.
"Bring i
t on, then. Let me see how strong creatures at the center of the cosmos are!"
Li Yao had never expected to arrive at the center of the cosmos peacefully and smoothly. There were always unexpected factors.
Since the traces of an alien species had been found, he was reassured and was more eager to fight than ever.
The spiritual shield of 'Jingle Bell' was increased to the highest level as it braced for the crazy collisions from the meteoroids, raising the colorful, erratic sparks of destruction.
Li Yao finished the implementation of his crystal suit. The Colossus was standing by and ready to be activated, too. The powerful telepathic thoughts close to the Divinity Transformation Stage were released in rings as he searched for the enemies deep inside the stone belt.
Right then…
Zhi! Zhi! Zhi! Zhi!
Li Yao felt as if he 'heard' shrieks and screams from deep inside his brain. Sharp waves burst out of the meteoroids around him, which penetrated through 'Jingle Bell' like gloomy winds and caused the malfunction of a lot of components on 'Jingle Bell'.
The spiritual shield and the power rune arrays of Jingle Bell dimmed at the same time, and about fifty percent of the impetus was lost. It had been going against the current in the stone belt previously, but it was now following the trend and flying further away, mired in the middle of the meteoroids.
In the meantime, the seemingly cold, lifeless meteoroids, after wriggling weirdly for a moment, slowly opened their limbs with sharp teeth and thorns, unfolding themselves into the shape of stars.
At first glance, they appeared to be dull-brown starfish of different sizes. Some were more than three meters in diameter, much greater than human beings, and some were delicate and only the size of a palm.
At the center of the five limbs was a mouthpart that had three rings of circular teeth. Regardless of their size, their sharp teeth were all revolving rapidly, shredding any metal, rocks, and minerals.
Those 'starfish' that were pretending to be meteoroids expanded nonstop, as if a certain high-energy reaction inside their body generated tremendous gas. The gas spurted out of their body, boosting them with a great acceleration. Together with the previous inertia, they lunged at 'Jingle Bell' brutally.