Chapter 144: Death Trio Star Region
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Old Porter had especially left him a golden ball, which was this very signal receiver, and the fiery-red glow of it was presently flickering, going bright and dimming periodically.
In the past year, this signal receiver had remained dormant, yet now that he was back in the Alliance territory, it suddenly kept flashing. Could Old Porter have sent a message to him?
Xia Fei anxiously picked up the receiver. In his eyes, Old Porter was a very mysterious person. From his outward appearance, he was merely a highly skilled mechanic when it came to maintenance and retrofitting, but this very mechanic gave Xia Fei a long-range signal receiver, as well as an overclocking chip from the ancient civilization. Just how could a normal mechanic have come to possess such things?
Even stranger was how he could actually use the meteor script, which only the major families in the Alliance would come to know after decades of studying. Clearly, this was an indication that Porter’s background was far from ordinary.
Xia Fei was holding that golden ball when, all of a sudden, a display screen shot out to display several words.
“‘Head to the Black Abyss Star Region, D1C3. Locate Windchime,’” Xia Fei read to himself aloud.
“The Black Abyss!” Phantom exclaimed in surprise, his two eyes wide as if very afraid of something at the mention of that place.
“What’s with the Black Abyss?” Xia Fei furrowed his brows in question.
Phantom pursed his lips. “The Black Abyss isn’t a good place; You’ll understand once you see the star map. Why would Old Porter run to The Black Abyss all by himself…”
From the date, Old Porter appeared to have sent this message two months ago, and he had only received it today probably because the Heritage Planet did not allow contact to the outside.
Xia Fei knitted his eyebrows. “It’s already been so long; could something have happened to Old Porter?”
Turning on his microcomputer, Xia Fei quickly pulled out the star map to look. The computer system’s star map covered all the known star regions to humanity, and the Pan-Human Alliance spanned over three hundred star regions. Beyond that, there were plenty of star regions that humanity had no knowledge of, which would therefore not be included within the star map.
Entering Black Abyss into the address bar, the star region, including those near it, very quickly appeared on the star map. It was projected in 3D, so it conveniently included a flight path from Endaro Star Region to the Black Abyss Star Region right away.
After some time, Xia Fei sucked in a cold breath. There was no cardinal direction in space, so he had to rely on up, down, left, right in order to determine position. Endaro Star Region, which was closer to the insectoid territory, could be considered as one of the more distant star regions in the Alliance.
Going from Endaro Star Region to Black Abyss Star Region would pretty much require Xia Fei to traverse through the entire Pan-Human Alliance territory—a distance that was more than ten million lightyears away.
More importantly, though Endaro was considered distant, it was at least within known star regions, and anyone could reach the insectoid territory as long as they passed through the Wild Star Region, which humans had a semblance of understanding toward.
Meanwhile, Black Abyss was completely different. Traveling from that star region would mean wandering into a large swathe of the unknown expanse; naturally, nobody knew what was beyond Black Abyss, what sorts of lifeforms were there, or what dangers existed beyond.
Looking at the surrounding star regions of Black Abyss again, he saw names such as Evil Gulfstream Star Region, Terminus Star Region… Just the mention of their names and anyone would know how terrifying and dangerous they were.
If the massive Pan-Human Alliance was likened to Earth, then Black Abyss, Evil Gulfstream, and Terminus star regions would be like the moon, for they were all tightly packed together like a round cluster, more than ten million lightyears away from the Pan-Human Alliance, far away from the human galactic society.
“Why is the Black Abyss Star Region so far away from the Pan-Human Alliance?” Xia Fei asked.
Phantom sighed. “Those three star regions are also called Death’s Corner. A very very long time ago, there was a stable wormhole that connected the place directly to Kurusu Star Region inside Alliance territory. Many humans, either because they had nowhere to go or were seeking for an adventure, went through the wormhole and arrived there, settling down in the three-star regions.
“Over 400 years ago, that wormhole suddenly collapsed, and Death’s Corner became a Pan-Human Alliance’s enclave. Though it belonged to the Alliance in name, it had in fact since been independent. There’s no way for the Alliance to keep control of the place since it was so far away.”
Xia Fei realized how serious this matter was; he used the flight calculation system to plot a path from Endaro Star Region to Black Abyss Star Region, and even the shortest route would take him at least two and a half month’s time, and half a month would be spent flying blind in the uninhabited territories.
It must be said that in this age of warp engines being highly popular, taking over two months to get from one place to another essentially meant crossing an unimaginably far distance.
“How do people live there? Is there any military presence protecting those three star regions?” Xia Fei asked.
“They do have a military, but these are troops that no longer follow the Alliance naval dispatch, now working in a feudalist monarch system. They each has taken to commanding their respective dominion and viewed one another with animosity. The natives mainly depend on their local produce, as well as the biannual large-scale military convoy.
“Because those three star regions are essentially independent, the supply the Alliance offered toward them is already reducing over time. Ultimately, the place is a chaotic mess, without any unified management or supplies, and the lives of the citizens there are as lowly as ants,” Phantom explained.
Xia Fei pondered for a moment. “In that sense, isn’t the Death Trio Star Region similar to the Wild Star Region?”
Phantom waved his hand dismissively. “The Wild Star Region is populated by pirates, not having any major military strength to their name, but the Death Trio Star Region has over a hundred combined fleet garrisoned, and those fleets are already operating as private mercenaries for the local warlords and tyrants. They are far more vicious than pirates, and considering the existence of many other fleets and pirates, the place has since become chaotic to the extreme.”
“With how powerful the Pan-Human Alliance is, why haven’t they gone over to restore order? The Alliance ought to have the ability to do so,” Xia Fei asked again.
Phantom coldly snorted. “The Pan-Human Alliance is actually a loose coalition of organizations, and the Alliance itself actually does not have many fleets under their name. The real, large-scale armies are all in the control of several major territories, while the Death Trio Star Region is extremely barren, lacking any material wealth. None of these major territories care to pay any attention toward it; why would the politicians care about the life or death of the citizens there?”
Xia Fei slowly came to realize that the Death Trio Star Regions were not just three regions that had been ignored. Instead, they had left the human galactic society and formed their own culture and rules. It was akin to how the different territories did not have to listen to one another’s orders, only conforming to the Pan-Human Alliance in name.
“Indeed, this is somewhat troublesome.” Xia Fei, who was lying in bed, mumbled to himself. “And I still have no idea why Old Porter wants me to visit such a place.”
The Catalyst-class destroyer slowly took off, heading in the direction of Heaven Execution Training Camp.
The moment the warship departed from YZZ 7526 and left the planet’s communications restriction barrier, Xia Fei’s microcomputer automatically connected to the interplanetary internet, and just like what had happened when he had gone to Wild Star Region, a barrage of emails filled his inbox, and the amount this time around was way more than what he received before.
It seemed that it was a habit of Xia Fei’s to disappear for a time every so often, but it was because of just how sudden his disappearance had been this time around and the fact that he had been gone for a longer duration than usual.
Xia Fei closed the emails and patiently waited, knowing that the mischievous sprite Avril would come contacting him. As long as he was somewhere with an interplanetary internet connection, that girl would always appear sooner or later. It was as if she were omnipresent and as if no rules of the interplanetary internet bound her.
Alas, after waiting for a whole ten minutes, Avril still did not contact him.
That was when Xia Fei began to wonder, which slowly turned into a feeling of unease. Could something have happened to Avril?
Xia Fei pretty much knew nothing about the mysterious Avril. He did not even know her contact number or her address, much less confirm if her name was real.
Opening his email, Xia Fei composed a message addressed to Avril, informing her of his return and, at the same time, asking about what she had been up to recently.
This email was the only method of contact he had with Avril, and Xia Fei had no other means to locate her aside from this.
In the past, the lady could always reach him whenever she wanted, and he had not been able to shake her off even after changing to an anonymous account. Conversely, if Xia Fei wished to contact Avril, he needed to send out an email. If she was free, she would very quickly send a video-call to him; in fact, even if she was ill-disposed, she would still send him a reply, arranging for a time that they could meet and chat.
However, this time, this email of his was like a stone dropped in the middle of a boundless sea; there was no reply at all. Avril not only did not connect with him but also did not reply to his message.
Xia Fei felt very melancholic. The two of them were like old friends. Even though they seldom saw each other, he did miss her somewhat. Now that this person he had been missing was no more, he could not help but feel sad.
He tapped the screen and was about to send another email when Xia Fei stopped in the middle of composing it.
The facts were very apparent; given how Avril had such amazing means on her fingertips that she could reach him whenever she wanted, what use would there be in composing a million emails if she simply did not wish to chat?
What Xia Fei was most worried about was whether something had happened to Avril or not, and he did not really care about all the other things.
“There’s no telling if Old Porter is alive in the Dark Abyss, and I haven’t gotten any word back from Avril, either. Just what is going on here?” Xia Fei mumbled to himself in bed.
The soft mattress made it easy to lull people to sleep, and as Xia Fei contemplated these worrisome matters, he slowly began to drift into dreamland and was soon fast asleep.
Phantom, standing all alone in that cabin, stared at the star map of the Death Trio Star Region for a very long time, seemingly muttering something under his breath. His expression looked somewhat lost, which the dreaming Xia Fei was completely unaware of.
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