Chapter 589: Return II
Translator:EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor:EndlessFantasy Translation
The thin purple mist in front of them was very familiar to Ye Chong.
"It's the flesh nest of the red-tailed beasts. We came across it when we passed through here. There were only weak red-tailed beasts here, with one or two fingers only. Their flesh nest seemed to be having some kind of trouble. They are deteriorating rapidly." Rui Bing spoke up softly beside Ye Chong. This was where she and Sang Kan had first encountered the flesh nest.
"Prepare for battle." Ye Chong quietly gave the order. The crew members of the warship got to work immediately, like fast moving parts of a high precision machine performing their functions with definite accuracy. The combatants moved into position, while students in the first line of defense entered their mechs, standing by at their designated passageways.
Shooters and students in charge of the shooting stations were already in position. Powerful shooters like Sha Ya were tasked to monitor their surroundings with their parapsychic sense. The other shooters were all on standby for the imminent battle.
The warship Darkniss slowly but steadily entered the purple mist.
Within the purple mist, the holographic scanning system could not be used. They could only rely on the parapsychic sense of the shooters. Fortunately, Darkniss had Sha Ya, a Level 9 shooter of the highest caliber. Her parapsychic sense could reach further than any normal shooter could ever imagine. With her guidance, they need not worry about missing their shots.
Sha Ya closed her eyes. Her hair seemed to blow in the wind, despite the still air around her. Calm and seemingly endless parapsychic waves radiated outwards from her.
After five seconds, Sha Ya reported their first targets. "Five degrees from the radius vector, 11 kilometers ahead!"
A crew member close to her keyed in the numbers into the photon processor and marked it as a target. The information was then relayed to every combatant's photon processor. The entire process took only 1.5 seconds.
"Fire!"
Right after Appilok gave the order, numerous laser beams pierced through the purple mist.
Appilok was now a fully grown battle commander. Ye Chong put him in charge of their first line of offense, and he did not disappoint. Each mission was completed with flying colors. His victories convinced the other students to respect him as their leader, and this allowed him to lead the army more effectively.
A sharp and angry cry reverberated in the purple mist.
The thick laser beams from their warship's cannons were highly destructive, leaving a clear, straight path in the purple mist. In that moment, Ye Chong saw their target. It was the center of the flesh nest. Ye Chong did not know what was at the center of the flesh nest, but he remembered seeing his first six-fingered red-tailed beast at the center of a flesh nest.
The combined firepower from 67 ship cannons were enough to destroy a small planet of about 300 kilometers in diameter. Their attack on the flesh nest ensured total destruction.
Countless furious red-tailed beasts charged at their warship. Since the ship was covered with a layer of transparent substance derived from the colloid fungus, the creatures did not notice its arrival earlier.
Leading the creatures was a red-tailed beast. Its crimson red eyes glowed in anger. Its face twisted menacingly.
Ye Chong did not go out to meet the challenge this time, since he knew it was not necessary.
As expected, the red-tailed beast immediately drew the attention of the shooters at their shooting stations. By then, the red-tailed beasts were only five kilometers away from Darkniss. At this distance, most of the shooters could already sense it.
One by one, their parapsychic waves radiated outwards.
They locked on to their target! This was the advantage of being a shooter.
The red-tailed beast noticed the parapsychic waves.
Red-tailed beasts were sensitive creatures. Ye Chong knew this from first hand experience. He saw evidence of it during his pursuit last time. The creature could detect metals hidden in rocks, far better than many of their specialized equipments.
The red-tailed beast seemed affected by its discovery. It looked scared, but Ye Chong could not know for sure. It was the animal whisperer, Sang Kan who studied the red-tailed beast and stroked his chin in thought, and then commented, "It's afraid!" The Sang Tribe understood wild animals, almost as well as they knew themselves.
How could this red-tailed beast not be afraid?
There were nine shooters above Level 7 who locked on to the red-tailed beast, and attacked it simultaneously. It was a terrifying experience, to be locked on by shooters above Level 7. After their training in the Sea of Threads, the shooters improved significantly in their parapsychic energies. A few of the Level 7 shooters were fast approaching Level 8. Their parapsychic energies were much stronger than before. The red-tailed beast's high sensitivity amplified the sense of being threatened by the parapsychic waves.
It was enough to frighten even a wild beast!
The six-fingered red-tailed beast turned to run. It stepped behind the other red-tailed beasts than ran past it, using them as cover.
Ye Chong looked at the escaping red-tailed beast without expression. He was not concerned about the habitat of the red-tailed beasts. In some ways, Ye Chong was a utilitarian. He would only make choices that benefited himself. These red-tailed beasts were a latent threat. They were weak now, but once they entered the He Yue Galaxy, they would surely be able to acquire enough metals and energy to evolve quickly.
It was a terrifying prospect. Hence, Ye Chong did not allow them mercy. Rui Bing supported him in this. The invasion of the red-tailed beasts had pushed humanity close to the brink of extinction. It was still unclear how many humans had died because of them. This was not a matter of good and evil, but of the conflicting relationship between two different species. Sang Kan did not really hate the red-tailed beasts. Few of the Sang Tribe died from the red-tailed beasts. The Yi Ju Zone was already cleared of red-tailed beasts. Newcomers from the Sang Village could only get to know these horrible creatures through records and conversations with their seniors.
Nine laser beams, each only as thick as an arm, shot out from their warship. The laser beams pierced through the horde of red-tailed beasts and converged into a single point.
The red-tailed beast stared in disbelief at the nine holes left in its body. Blood gushed out from its wounds. An anguished howl pierced through the purple mist!
Laser beams continued to rain down on the other red-tailed beasts. The animals cried out in pain. The purple mist was tinged with the color of blood. The army of red-tailed beasts in the air fell into disarray. One by one, the creatures fell from the sky.
Ye Chong's unique strategy using the shooters was paid off in full. All red-tailed beasts that came within range of their parapsychic waves never stood a chance. They were all shot down before they could even think of escaping.
As expected, the red-tailed beasts were mostly with one or two fingers. They were weak. This made Ye Chong more confident of his hypothesis. Perhaps there really was a spatial window that led to He Yue Galaxy around here.
There was no suspense in their battle anymore. The red-tailed beasts were thoroughly defeated by the powerful warship, Darkniss. The entire battle was firmly controlled by Ye Chong. The red-tailed beasts never posed a threat.
None of the mechs on Darkniss were deployed to achieve their victory. Only the shooters and the ship cannons were used. It was a result that even Ye Chong was satisfied with.
The battle was over very quickly. The purple mist in the area began to disperse. It disappeared quickly without warning, like it was following the footsteps of the red-tailed beasts.
Before the warship Darkniss was the dreadful aftermath of the battle. The bodies of red-tailed beasts were everywhere on the ground, their blood still seeping into the earth that they had lived on for centuries.
Besides the bodies, there were also many flesh columns. As Rui Bing informed him, these flesh columns were dying. They were dehydrating quickly. It was obvious that they were perishing.
Ye Chong was not particularly excited about their victory. The red-tailed beasts were relatively few, and only weak and immature ones at that. Who knew how many red-tailed beasts were still alive in the He Yue Galaxy? They had invaded planets and taken control over massive supplies of metals and pure energy. How many of them had evolved? Even Ye Chong could not stay calm thinking about it. Compared to the red-tailed beast he pursued last time, this one was much weaker.
They found no other lifeforms in this place aside from the red-tailed beasts. Compared to the lush and plentiful mountain areas, this place was like a wasteland.
The terrain was flat, suitable for using the Hummingbirds.
50 Hummingbirds were deployed in all directions to scout their surroundings. Live feeds were relayed directly to Darkniss. The warship was slowly heading towards where Rui Bing first arrived in this world.
"It's here." Sang Kan's sense of direction was reliable as ever. The crew members were no longer surprised by his skills, and this was a let down to Sang Kan.
The site did not look any different from their surroundings. It was simply more desolate than where the red-tailed beasts lived.
All the Hummingbirds were deployed, but they had found nothing of interest.
Darkniss did not linger around. It continued forward at constant speed. Ye Chong sent 13 squads out to widen their search range. The mechs fanned out in all directions from the warship.
It was on the 10th day when the environment began to look different. The flat terrain began to show mountains and even mountain ranges. However, these mountains looked different from the ones they passed by earlier. The land and the mountains were all barren. There were no signs of life everywhere around them.
Here, they discovered large numbers of dried skin. These were the skin shed by dehydrated flesh columns. This meant that the red-tailed beasts once lived here. They found a few more places with dried skin, but did not see any red-tailed beast or their skeletons.
Could it be that the red-tailed beasts that invaded He Yue Galaxy once lived here?
This seemed to be the most natural explanation. From their scouting efforts, it seemed that there were no other red-tailed beasts around other than the ones that they had killed.
Ye Chong learned nothing more about spatial windows during this period, a problem that he was most concerned with. Aried was ready to explain why they found nothing at all. Naturally occurring spatial windows were periodic. They would often disappear for awhile due to external factors. However, if the surroundings of the spatial window were not disrupted, it would reappear after some time.
The terrain around them became more and more complicated. More precisely speaking, it became more and more fragmented. The mountain ranges gave way to numerous hills of rocks and pebbles. The rocks were easily disturbed, and would roll down with the slightest touch.
"Warning. Warning. Spatial instability straight ahead." The warning alarm blared abruptly, surprising everyone in the warship. Ye Chong and Aried, however, felt invigorated.
Spatial science was known to be deep and mysterious. What happened before them now further reinforced that image.
Everything around was dead silent. There was only the occasional sound of something cracking.
All the crew members saw something absolutely eerie. A rock of about five to six cubic meters suddenly began to fragment. Thin cracks spread across the rock like spiderwebs, slowly covering its entire surface. Nothing else around the rock was behaving weirdly.
Boom! There was a soft sound of explosion. The rock burst into countless tiny fragments, like broken glass.
All the crew members were horrified to see this. Inside the warship Darkniss was complete silence.
Aried had an odd expression on his face, a mixture of joy and fear. He muttered to himself, "Cracks in space … There really are cracks in space …"
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