Chapter 518: Back to the Castle
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Honestly, Hao Ren was not surprised by the First Born's space combat capabilities.
This powerful primitive creature had already demonstrated a small part of its fighting ability. It could control gravity, produce shields, distort space, and know how to use anti-air firepower to destroy targets in the face of meteorite attacks. All signs indicated that the First Born knew what space was all about from the very beginning—at least it knew what 'air combat' was. Plus it had destroyed the lunar city of the Ancient Magic Empire. So of course this monster could take the war to space.
Only that Hao Ren did not expect that the 'space ship' it created could be so smart.
After confirming that the 'seed' had completely died, Lily cut through the skin of the seed with his claws, exposing the withered organs below. The shape of those organs was between animals and plants. Although they looked like organs, they were similar to wood fibres. Hao Ren also took a look at the annular structure at the core of the seed. It had a metallic lustre and seemed to contain a lot of minerals. Hao Ren reached out to touch it. It felt dead: its weight on the lunar surface was rather baffling, and was not known what kind of material it was constituted of.
"It's a weapon, through-and-through," said Vivian, scratching her chin. "It seems that it's designed specifically to attack other planets."
What Vivian said rang a bell as Hao Ren suddenly realized that the First Born was not a weapon when it hatched from the Seed of Origin. It was just a plant responsible for shaping the initial ecological environment. Although powerful, it did not have such meticulous weapon. This seed was obviously a well-designed weapon. It was not be the initial blueprint of the Seed of Origin.
No doubt that the First Born had designed this thing. It had been capable of designing this weapon despite of its madness. Or was it that some sort of logical thinking remained and was enough for it to complete this wonderful art of destruction despite its madness?
As Hao Ren spoke of his thoughts, the others were shocked and some began to contemplate. Lily had been wagging her tail for a long while in deep thoughts. She suddenly jabbed on Hao Ren's stomach and said, "It seems that all civilisations of the universe have been wiped out, including those who had the ability to fly into space."
Before Lily's voice trailed off, Hao Ren instinctively bounced two metres backward with cold sweat trickling down his back. "Don't poke me with this claw! We're going to kill me!"
Nangong Wuyue reached out her hand giving the 'seed' a little push. She then stuck out her tongue and said, "You'll surely die if you get marked by this thing. Anyway, is there really not a single survivor in this universe? The universe is so big yet it doesn't even have someone strong enough to counter this thing?"
The survivors Wuyue mentioned were not like those in Holletta which had retrogressed but the ones who had succeeded in preserving their civilisation and even solved the First Born crisis themselves.
"The entire universe is dead. All of the channels have only our own reverberations, or broadcasts from the Imperial Data Link," the MDT shook itself. "I don't think there is any living interstellar civilisation left. The strength disparity between the Second Born and the First Born is too just obvious. The latter's form of life has an absolute advantage. Unless a race had moved to another galaxy before the First Born went mad, completely cut off the connection with the parent star, and nothing associated with the First Born—not even a cell—could be taken, or they would surely get caught and then destroyed."
Vivian hugs herself as she chimed in. "There is another possibility: there may be survivors. They are hiding and dare not respond to anyone."
After seeing Hao Ren's quizzical gaze, Vivian shrugged. "Don't forget how otherworldlings on earth live under persecution by the demon hunters. They hide. They stay in shelters. They make no noise. They don't not respond to any contact. But the First Born is even more terrible than the demon hunter, so the survivors will have to hide even deeper. There must be some civilisation still out there—alive. As Wuyue said, the universe is so big that there must always be someone who's strong enough."
Hao Ren felt a little emotional. He looked up at the stars in the night sky. Planet Holletta was hanging in the middle of the night sky, surrounded by endless glorious stars. A sense of inexplicable feelings came to mind as he thought of the few horrified eyes that might be hidden among the silent, icy planets. They were survivors of the catastrophe. They had a complete record of 10,000 years of history. They might have already demolished their communication equipment—obviously the First Born had the ability to track their signals—and locked themselves in a place that could completely blackout any sign of life. But the survivors would certainly leave some sort of window—unless they wanted to stay in the shelter until the time of the destruction of the universe, otherwise they would always leave a way to perceive the outside world.
It was like the pigeon that Noah released.
Hao Ren wanted to leave a broadcasting tower, sending out a 'The catastrophic events have ended' message to elicit those survivors, but he soon realized that this was very risky because he was completely unsure whether the catastrophe was really over!
The First Born went berserk at the same moment, but not necessarily died at the same time. At least Holletta's First Born was just in deep sleep. Perhaps there were other First Borns which were still active in this universe. He could not afford to attract the attention of those ancient creatures.
So in the end he could only shake his head. "I'll leave behind a proliferation-type passive radar station watching the universe, and capturing all communication signals. The radar station must be a little farther away to prevent attracting the First Born to Holletta."
The MDT whistled and said, "Roger that!"
A hatch on the upper part of the Petrachelys opened. A silver-white rectangular equipment measuring several metres in length was raised from the garage, which was then turned into a beam of light and disappeared into the vast space. It would be monitoring the area in a long-term basis and continuing to replicate itself, setting up radar stations in more and more distant galaxies until the entire universe was under its observation. Hao Ren had no clue this would work out because he did not read the manual. But he felt that this thing looked pretty high-tech and might work.
He ordered the autonomous robots send the seed back to the lab on board the spacecraft. After collecting some more samples of tentacles and debris on the lunar surface, they left the place.
They returned to the Alamanda transit point in Tannagost. Hao Ren tucked away the ship, but leaving behind an autonomous robot. He let the little robot procure materials needed to build a series of protective walls, at least blocking the square, and if possible, reinforcing it into a fortress. The next time he came he would bring some weapons and beefed up the defence capability of Alamanda Transit Plaza.
The light purple film that connected The Plane of Dreams with Surface World was still emitting a regular glow. This space crack had completely stabilized. As they passed through the film, they immediately felt a cold wind blowing on their faces.
Before them was the dark and vast snowfield. In the blink of an eye, they were already back in Andrea Castle.
"I really didn't expect to have so many things happened in this trip," Lily tucked her ears and transformed back into the human form. She sounded very happy as she said, "I thought that it would be just a casual trip, little did I expect it took a little more than a week."
Hao Ren also looked at the snow scene in front of him, his heart filled with emotion. Returning from The Plane of Dreams to the Surface World had always brought about an inexplicable sense of fragmentation. This time, crossing both worlds through the space cracks was no exception.
Nangong Wuyue was the first jumped off the stone platform. "Let's go and spook the Andrea family."
Hao Ren: "....."
It was not known whether Nangong Wuyue had a premonition or it was a coincidence, the moment they pushed open the iron door down at the crypt they saw Igor out there. The old man was dusting those old portraits of his family when he heard a sound behind the iron door, thinking that the evil spirit had come back for revenge. As he turned around he saw the witch and the masters who had disappeared for a week. He clapped his hands in surprise. "Hey—"
Then he blacked out again.
The butler was beside him and Igor passed out and seemed to have got used to this rhythm as he held up his master and performed some acupuncture and the aromatherapy on Igor—as Igor's condition was quite serious this time. Igor came back on and looked at Hao Ren and several others, dumbfounded. "You've been missing for a week...I thought something had happened to you guys!"
"We've gone to a faraway place," Vivian smiled. "It was about magic. So please don't ask."