by <unknown>
"Oh, if my lord is unaware of it, I can interpret it for you in great detail. We have a facility named septic tank, where certain microorganisms can transform the excrement of human beings into the most fundamental elements that can be devoted to the ecological cycle again.
"Aya, seeing is believing. I'm afraid that my description is not very vivid. Why don't I invite my lord to visit it in person? One of my starships was hit in the battle, and the recycling cabin at the bottom level where the septic tank is located is damaged. Tsk, tsk, tsk. That picture, that odor, that touch… All are simply too 'wonderful'."
Li Wuji's expression completely changed, and he shrieked like a rooster whose neck had been grasped, "What are you doing, Boss Bai? What are you doing exactly? I-I will not spare you even if I become a ghost!"
"Nothing. I'm just inviting my lord to the peaceful and quiet place where you can consider calmly without being disturbed."
Boss Bai said with a smile, "If my lord does become a ghost there, you will certainly be a ghost… with a full belly."
"No, no, no!"
Every hair on Li Wuji's body was rising and shaking, and he was about to completely collapse.
Boss Bai turned a deaf ear to his cries. Summoning his subordinates, he commanded, "Escort my lord to take a brief rest in the recycling cabin at the bottom of 'Thunder Snake'. Well, just hang him one meter above the septic tank and drop a little bit every minute. After my lord is full and calmed down, bring him back to me.
"My lord, this way, please. Just make yourself at home. Come on!"
Boss Bai bowed at Li Wuji deeply and sent the man away with perfect manners.
"BOSS BAI! BOSS BAI! BOSS BAI!"
Li Wuji cried like an undying ghost who was seeking revenge. Even a pig that was about to be sent into the slaughterhouse couldn't have struggled harder than him. His wails were clearly audible even when he was dragged to kilometers away.
After taking care of the two most important persons on the reformists' side and the four families' side, and looking at the back of the miserable Li Wuji who was pulled away against his wish, Boss Bai couldn't help but chuckle and said to the Fist King who was next to him, "Let's continue the topic just now. Should we take a walk while we talk?"
The two experts walked to the depths of the port aimlessly.
Everything they saw on their way was either maintenance and upgrades or the confiscation and loading of all kinds of assets. The Big Bai Pirate Gang and the fleet of Cultivators were like two ravenous bugs that were lying on a big apple that was the Blue Sky Market, and they were determined to suck up all the juice in it.
After the battle of the Blue Sky Market, both Boss Bai, who swallowed twenty-eight pirate gangs within the market, and the Fist King, who was bold enough to ambush Li Wuji's fleet in space, had become "gods" in the eyes of the soldiers. Wherever they reached, everybody cheered and applauded for them.
The two of them talked and laughed while they walked to a forsaken port. It was not until nobody was around that Boss Bai finally said, "The allocation this time will be like before. I do not want to keep any of the cunning and atrocious guys in the twenty-eight pirate gangs. Just kill all of them. As for the guys who do not owe much blood debts and who can still be reshaped, the ambitious and obedient ones will go to me, and the docile ones who are just doing this to make a living will go to you.
"As for the starships, according to my evaluation, only 20% of them are fast enough to catch up with my Big Bai Pirate Gang. However, I'll need to dismantle the power units and fuel cabins of some starships to modify my starships and make them faster. Taking all of them into account, approximately half of the starships will be at your disposal, which will double the size of your fleet. How about it? Can you handle it?"
"That's not a problem for me."
Compared to the chatterbox Boss Bai, the Fist King was taciturn and solemn. He calculated carefully for a while before he said cautiously, "When I was in the Land of Sins, I was sort of the head of bandits, but I did not know what a 'head of bandits' should really be like until I came to space and witnessed Boss Bai's methods.
"We wouldn't have stood any chance of winning without Boss Bai's planning and forethought. I truly admire you, Boss Bai."
"You do? That's highly unnecessary. Everything I do is still within the understanding of most people."
With a weird smile, Boss Bai suddenly said, "What you have achieved after you came to space, Fist King, is truly remarkable on the other hand. It makes people not only admire you but also fear you. Even I have been shocked so many times that I can't help but wonder, are you a human being, Fist King?"
Chapter 2461: The Gaoists, Alien Humans! |
The Fist King's crystal processor clattered, and vague smoke popped up from the joints of his metal skull. He said casually, "I don't understand what you are talking about, Boss Bai."
His hands in his back, Boss Bai looked at the gantry cranes in the port that appeared to be the debris of a giant and said, "When you came to me with the crushed Cultivators, you were just an inconspicuous spectral Cultivator, with a combat ability in the Nascent Soul Stage at best, and you did not know the first thing about starship battles.
"However, as resources, particularly crystal processors, were provided for you incessantly, you were like a hungry sponge sucking and absorbing all the knowledge, growing into a qualified fleet commander at an astonishing speed.
"Furthermore, after crafting a few new artificial bodies, your combat ability leaped from the Nascent Soul Stage to a weird level that was on par with the Divinity Transformation Stage. It was something that even that monster Li Yao couldn't have achieved.
"Today, the starships that you can command at the same time are even more than what I am capable of. You are even confident enough to swallow the starships of the twenty-eight pirate gangs that are in a mess. It is needless to mention your weird abilities in cyberwarfare. You've truly become someone else during the past half year!
"Other people who do not know you well may think you are always like this, but I've been observing you closely enough to know that all your changes were completed within half a year. Such a shocking speed of advancement reminds me of the thorns in the deserts on the dry planets. In a drought, they will be only a cluster of dry and rigid whiskers, but as long as there is one heavy rain, they will immediately split apart and cover the entire planet after absorbing enough water!
"The ambush on Li Wuji's fleet is the same. Your calmness and your perfect control of the timing were remarkable. Even I couldn't have done a better job. It makes me wonder—if I were to lead a fleet and start a space battle with you, Fist King, which of us would be the winner?"
While talking, Boss Bai stopped and turned around, staring at the Fist King thoughtfully.
At this moment, they had reached the deepest part of the forsaken port, far away from the heat at the docks and harbors.
They were surrounded by rusted garbage and the gigantic loading and unloading magical equipment. Nobody was around but them.
After Boss Bai said that, the whole world suddenly became quiet, as if an invisible glass cover had fallen and enveloped the two of them.
The rusty, abandoned port was about to become a hellish battlefield.
Boss Bai and the Fist King, two monsters with extremely weird backgrounds and extraordinary abilities, confronted each other at the mountains of wasted metals.
The cheerful atmosphere a moment ago was entirely gone, and the only thing left was the fighting will that had been finally unleashed. What should happen had finally happened.
"Finally, it's our turn now?"
The Fist King's voice that was as stable as a machine did not shiver at all. He said calmly, "Boss Bai, you destroyed the sturdy defense of the Blue Sky Market with Li Wuji and the twenty-eight pirate gangs first, and then you swallowed Li Wuji and the twenty-eight pirate gangs with the cooperation of the Cultivators' fleet. Now, you are kicking the ladder and devouring the fleet of the Cultivators too?"
"Fist King, you are overthinking."
Boss Bai wandered around the Fist King, like a velociraptor searching for the flaw of the prey. "Believe it or not, I do not mean any harm to the Cultivators. Besides, swallowing the fleet of the Cultivators recklessly will only bloat the Big Bai Pirate Gang and undermine my combat ability. I am already having indigestion right now, and I will be killed by the excessive food if I keep on eating.
"Rest assured, I have never planned to give the Cultivators a hard time.
"But the critical question is, Fist King, are you really a 'Cultivator'?"
The sharp question pierced into the Fist King's body deeply, casting the "permanent battle puppet of auto-learning and auto-upgrading abilities" into a long silence.
"If you are not a Cultivator, who are you?"
Boss Bai's eyes were sharper and sharper, and his voice became more and more creepy. "Or to be more exact, 'what' are you?"
The Fist King replied, "Is it important?"
"Maybe, maybe not. I'm just curious."
Boss Bai chortled and opened his hands. "Space pirates are meant to explore the unvisited lands, figure out all the unanswered enigmas in the universe, and move all the strange, interesting items to our homes for collection purposes. How can I tolerate such a huge mystery like you hanging around me all the time and turn a blind eye to it? Isn't that so, Old Gao?"
This time, the Fist King was truly astounded. "What… did you call me? Everybody knows that my surname is 'Lei'. Even though 'Lei Zonglie' is perhaps not my real name, what makes you think that my surname is 'Gao'?"
"Perhaps it is not a surname, but the name of a clan, or a very unique title—"
Observing his face, Boss Bai asked suspiciously, "Do you not have any impression of the name 'Gaoists'?"
"'Gaoists'? A very unique clan with a surname of Gao?"
The Fist King was even more confused, and it didn't help at all when he activated all his computational ability. He shook his head. "Boss Bai, if you insist on fighting me, I'll have nothing to say, and we'll just see which of us is stronger, but I truly do not have any clue about this 'Gaoists'."
Boss Bai narrowed his eyes and observed the Fist King for a long time while he sensed the changes of the super tiny chips inside the Fist King's shell. Not detecting any sign of disguise, he thought for a long time and finally retrieved an item the size of a fingernail from his Cosmos Ring. He tossed it over and said, "Take a look at this."
"This is—"
The Fist King picked it up. Brilliant rays shot out of the nine crystal cameras on his metal mask as he scanned it quickly, only to discover that what Boss Bai had thrown to him was a crystal chip.
To be more exact, it was a crystal chip that had almost been entirely melted and destroyed due to high temperatures.
However, even though almost 100% of the surface of the chip had been melted, it was still obvious that the chip was in a different style from the traditions of the Cultivators.
The twisted stripes on it looked like some sort of complicated and tedious language, which was organized and expressed very differently from the runes of the Cultivators. It naturally carried a certain weird rhythm.
The Fist King searched his entire database and did not find any information on the words, which was quite strange. The words did not even belong to Pangu, Nuwa, or any other primeval species.
The Fist King touched the words on the chip with his metal finger, feeling that he had heard a distant voice that was both familiar and strange from the chip, which was incomplete and almost melted.
"I've never seen such a thing before…"
Holding the chip in his hands, the Fist King studied it for a long time, before he admitted frankly, "The structure to squeeze a hundred layers of metal slips, the weird language system carved on the surface, and the mechanism to make energy travel between worlds and metals are all vastly different from the training methods that I have known. It does not even look like a product of our world.
"Boss Bai, where exactly did you find this? What's the relationship between this weird chip and the so-called 'Gaoists'… or me?
"Why were you certain that I would recognize this item, and why did you regard me as one of the 'Gaoists'?"
"It seems that you are truly unaware of anything. Then, this whole thing is even more intriguing now."
Boss Bai had been observing the Fist King's movement all the time. Raising his eyebrow, he grinned and said, "You're right about one thing. This weird chip is indeed not a product of this world. To be more exact, it is not even a product within the range of the three thousand Sectors, the territory of human beings created by Pangu. It is probably from another world of human beings from somewhere extremely far away, or even on the other side of the general universe."
"What do you mean?"
As long as he wanted, the Fist King could cancel the procedure of "being surprised" anytime. So, he retained extreme calmness despite hearing such astounding news and even turned on the cooling rune arrays of his main crystal processor in time to maintain the high computational ability. "Another world of human beings—what is that?"
"Since you truly know nothing, perhaps I can start from the beginning."
Pondering for a long time, Boss Bai said, "Perhaps you do not know this, but before the Big Bai Pirate Gang rose at the peripheral worlds of the Imperium, we had once jumped to the Martial Meritocrats Sector, which was our first stop on our journey to distinguish ourselves.
"However, we did not go to the Land of Sins where you were at like Li Yao did later, because we were large in number and too eye-catching. It was impossible for us to snuck to the main planet of the Martial Meritocrats Sector under the nose of Wuying Lan and Li Lingfeng.
"We were just wandering at the peripherical space zones of the Martial Meritocrats Sector, hoping to gather some intelligence and assets and see if we could ambush a few carriers of the Imperium.
"We turned out to be quite lucky. Soon after we roamed at the edge of the Martial Meritocrats Sector, we happened upon a remnant of what appeared to be a starship because of a coincidental outbreak of space storm."
The Fist King said, "What do you mean by 'a remnant of what appeared to be a starship'? Even Boss Bai couldn't tell what exactly the remnant belonged to with your keen eyes?"
Boss Bai smiled and said, "If it were from a starship of the Cultivation civilizations, however bizarre the starship might've looked, all the starships shared similar structures and mechanisms. I would've recognized it even if it had been burnt into ashes.
"However, the remnant probably drifted, or was teleported, from a certain place on the other side of the grand universe beyond the three thousand Sectors. It was so seriously damaged during the journey that it was not only twisted but also extremely fragile, as if it would turn into powder the moment you touched it.
"Even if it were some kind of starship, it was nothing like anything we'd been familiar with in terms of structure and mechanism. So, it was not until a long time later that I finally speculated based on the incomplete tomography that it was probably a starship from an alien human civilization."
Chapter 2462: New Civilization, a Loyal Dog of the Four-Dimensional Lives! |
"Wait—"
The Fist King said, "On human beings' journey to explore the sea of stars, they have encountered a lot of alien species, many of which boasted advanced technologies a long time ago. Some of them were even capable of crafting starships and roaming in space.
"The starship remnants of the aliens, although rare, do not seem to deserve such attention. Why are you so cautious about this particular remnant and call them 'alien humans' instead of 'alien species', Boss Bai? What's the difference between 'alien species' and 'alien humans'?"
"Because the guests from the other side of the grand universe are too similar to us."
Boss Bai said, "I did not find their corpses, but before the remnant of their starship was obliterated, I had a quick glimpse at their looks from some mottled l
ight and shadow in it. The individuals of the extraterrestrial civilization had similar heights and body sizes to ourselves, if not identical. The only difference was that their skin was relatively fair and crude. Half of them had blonde hair and blue eyes, while the other half had a myriad of hair and eye colors.
"The color differences of the skin, the hair, and the eyes are genetically insignificant. Ignoring the tiny differences, they are almost like our duplicates, our 'mirror version' from the other side of the grand universe."
"Is that so?"
The Fist King said, "Both the Pangu civilization and the civilization of mankind craved to leap out of the swamp of the three thousand Sectors and explore the unknown on the other side of the grand universe, but the exploration teams found nothing after they were billions of lightyears away from the three thousand Sectors. It was even determined that there was a 'desolate area' beyond the three thousand Sectors where the resources were highly insufficient and even the stars had completely died out. It's like a thick, overwhelming black wall that caged Pangu, mankind, and all the civilizations to come.
"But Boss Bai has claimed that a starship of alien humans crossed the ceaseless black wall from the other side of the grand universe and reached our world, with an appearance very similar to the human beings in our place?"
"Exactly."
Looking at the distance, Boss Bai sighed. "I've been keeping it a secret for a long time, but the suffocating blast is still coming back to me when I recall it today. Even if those extraterrestrial guests were mud monsters that had tentacles all over their bodies and could transform freely, I wouldn't have been as surprised. But they were humans, humans that were almost identical to us, except that their skin was white and their hair was blonde."
"Boss Bai, have you ever heard of 'habitable zone' and 'standard planet'?"
Right then, Fist King interrupted Boss Bai and said, "The biologists and cosmists of the Imperium of True Human Beings have reached the conclusion after studying the hundred stellar systems in the three thousand Sectors that life—at least carbon-based life—has strict demands on the environment in order to be born. Carbon-based life can only be born in medium-sized planets with a stable structure. The planets can't be too far away or too close to the star, and the star must be on the relatively peaceful trajectory in the larger system, in order to reduce the radiations from the center of the system and the scourges of space storms, while absorbing energy incessantly from the center of the system.