Chapter 3: World Coordinate
The cabin space was not small, after all, the entire spaceship was several hundred meters long. Inside the cabin were two large rows of seats close to the edges. Su Xiao casually found a seat and sat down.
The seats were made of black metal and had many functions, such as emergency oxygen supply.
There were enough seats. After all the contractors sat down, Su Xiao swept his gaze across them, roughly understanding the several factions in the space battlefield.
The first faction was the Divine Emperor Adventure Group, also the strongest faction. Their configuration was strange. Among the seventy to eighty members of the adventure group, there were at least twenty or more healers, whether male or female. The frontliners were also classes like Paladins, and their healing output might be abnormally high.
The second faction was the Brotherhood. Their strength was average. The leader, Adam, was a mage who mastered Wood Release, and another mage named Chen was also not weak. Su Xiao had cooperated with him once before.
The name of the third faction was unknown. The leader was a woman wearing a black hood with golden patterns on it, only revealing a fair chin and lips that held a slight smile.
This faction had about sixty or more members, with a very reasonable configuration. The most conspicuous among them was a burly man over two meters tall. Beside him was a shield the size of a door panel. For some reason, he didn't store the shield in his storage space. He was holding an iron bar in his hand, crunching and chewing it loudly like a biscuit, eating with great relish.
The fourth faction consisted of independent contractors, a mix of all kinds.
[The cabin door has been closed. All contractors must fasten their seatbelts. The spaceship will depart in three minutes.]
With a loud bang, the cabin door closed, and all contractors felt a tightening in their hearts.
Several military-green seatbelts popped out from behind the seats, clearly meant to strap the body firmly to the seat. After Su Xiao fastened his seatbelt, he was securely tied to the seat.
"This crappy spaceship."
A low curse came from beside him. Su Xiao turned his head and was startled.
"Five Fireballs?"
Beside him, a mage in a dark yellow robe turned his head. Su Xiao recognized his staff.
"You are?"
"A few derivative worlds ago, we met in the arena."
Su Xiao had actually encountered him just a few days ago.
"Oh, I was wondering how you knew my code name in Paradise."
Su Xiao was speechless. It turned out the guy was really called Five Fireballs.
Five Fireballs wasn't weak in strength, but his appearance was really hard on the eyes. His old face was full of wrinkles, making him look at least sixty years old. If you looked closely, you'd find he was at most thirty, clearly a case of premature aging.
The more Su Xiao looked at Five Fireballs, the more familiar he seemed. That old and lecherous face, covered in wrinkles, looked just like the Marine Admiral Kizaru from the One Piece world.
"Friend, you're an independent too, huh."
Five Fireballs grinned, looking super lecherous. Su Xiao felt he looked even more like Kizaru.
"Yeah."
After chatting with Five Fireballs for a while, Su Xiao learned that he was also participating in a space war for the first time.
The spaceship beneath them vibrated slightly. Su Xiao faintly felt a sense of weightlessness. The ship was taking off.
[Spaceship accelerating. Current speed: 673 Mach. Preparing for space warp... Generating wormhole...]
[Beginning space warp. Contractors, please remain seated.]
Su Xiao no longer cared about the notifications from Reincarnation Paradise. The seat beneath him was vibrating non-stop, and the surrounding contractors were shouting and yelling.
This situation lasted for about half an hour. The spaceship's vibrations decreased and finally stabilized.
[Announcement: Space warp completed. Estimated time to destination: 8 hours 35 minutes.]
[This space battlefield is D-rank. Maximum stay time: 8 days.]
[Contractors may move freely within the cabin. Leaving the cabin to enter the cockpit is prohibited.]
Su Xiao unbuckled his seatbelt. An eight-hour journey was not short. Contractors from the same adventure group had already gathered together. Upon closer inspection, these guys were actually playing games like Dou Dizhu or Zha Jinhua, betting Paradise Coins. Their mental fortitude was quite good.
"Everyone, the Flash Gold Adventure Group is setting up a gambling table. Welcome to join!"
The one shouting was the burly man who had been eating steel. It turned out the third adventure group was called the Flash Gold Adventure Group. Some contractors gathered around.
Divine Emperor, Brotherhood, Flash Gold—there were three adventure groups on the spaceship.
Contractors qualified to participate in space battles were generally not weak, with excellent mental fortitude. Most of them weren't very nervous.
Of course, there were exceptions. Some contractors sat with grim faces, their complexions ashen.
Su Xiao sat cross-legged on his seat, playing with a tablet computer. He wasn't nervous at all. Being nervous was useless. What was coming would come. Without a heart of steel, even if you weren't killed in Reincarnation Paradise, you'd develop mental problems from the fear.
Between life and death lies great terror. Not everyone is suited to be a contractor.
A few hours later, the cabin was filled with smoke, the smell of alcohol and food permeating the air. Laughter and curses were incessant, occasionally interrupted by the sound of snoring.
Boom! The spaceship shook. All contractors looked up.
[Warping through space barrier into derivative world...]
The familiar sensation of teleportation appeared. This time, there was no feeling of being hit on the back of the head, and Su Xiao was conscious. The entire spaceship was performing a short-distance teleportation.
The spaceship shook again, apparently having landed.
[Entered derivative world: Parasyte]
Timeline: 30 years after the start of the story. (This derivative world has no established world coordinate. Timeline reset is not possible.)
World Difficulty: Lv.10 (Extremely Difficult)
World Source: 0% (World Source will be awarded uniformly after the space war is won.)
World Introduction: One night in 2013 on Earth, a meteor streaked across the sky. Inside the meteor were many small creatures. Upon contact with oxygen, they broke free from the meteor and drifted onto the sea surface.
These small creatures were the size of a thumb, shaped like translucent little snakes. They had extremely strong survival ability in the sea. Some lucky ones drifted to land.
Upon reaching land, these small creatures revealed their terrifying side. Using their small size, they sought out intelligent lifeforms to parasitize.
Humans were their primary target. They would burrow into a human body, rush straight to the brain, devour the entire head, grow using the nutrients from the consumption, and finally disguise themselves as a human head, parasitizing the headless body. They possessed thinking ability, mingled among ordinary people, and were indistinguishable from normal humans. They were called Parasytes.
Parasytes could not survive independently. They needed the human body to intake nutrients, transmitted through the blood. Normal food could satisfy their survival needs, but for unknown reasons, Parasytes chose to devour humans.
Prosperous cities became their hunting grounds. Hiding among ordinary people made them difficult to detect.
The successive cases of murder and body consumption alerted governments worldwide. A month later, the whole world knew about these creatures called 'Parasytes'.
The combat power of Parasytes was relatively weak. A few soldiers with rifles could handle them. Parasytes were hunted on a large scale.
Three years after the Parasytes appeared, 90% of them on Earth were eliminated.
Five years later, Parasytes were nearly extinct, becoming rare creatures. All countries issued bounties because a certain biologist discovered that Parasytes were a very magical creature with high research value. If the genes of Parasytes were deciphered, human lifespan would be greatly extended, from 200 to 350 years.
Seven years later, Parasytes had become the most precious species on Earth, each worth over 50 million USD.
Ten years later, disaster struck. A huge sky-spaceship arrived at Earth, positioned over the European continent. Millions of aliens descended upon Earth.
These aliens were ugly, upright creatures covered in black scales, with lizard-like heads. They drifted in space, homeless. Their original planet had collapsed. That planet was called Kara Star. Now, the spaceship was their home. They arrived on Earth looking like refugees.
The meteor that originally carried the Parasytes was launched by them. There were tens of millions of such meteors, aimed at finding planets with oxygen.
The origin of the Parasytes was revealed. Parasytes were biological signal transmitters. Upon reaching a habitable planet, they would instinctively kill the planet's natives and constantly emit a wavelength to allow the Kara Star people, originally from Kara Star, to locate it.
The Kara Star people had advanced technology. Although there were only a few million of them, they quickly defeated most countries on Earth.
The Kara Star people intended to wipe out all Earthlings. In the following three years, 60% of Earth's human population died. The European continent was occupied by the Kara Star people. Most humans migrated to the Asian continent. It was predicted that within seven years, humans would be extinct, and the Kara Star people would completely occupy Earth.
At this critical moment of life and death, humanity became enraged. They were the masters of Earth, not some Kara Star people.
Faced with survival or extinction, humans united, abandoning racial conflicts. After the alien invasion of Earth, those were just internal conflicts.
The Human Alliance was formed. All humans concentrated on the Asian continent because the Kara Star people were creating air suitable for them. Earth's environment changed rapidly. Islands around the Asian continent were swallowed by the sea.
A protracted war began. But humans helplessly found that even united, they were still no match for the Kara Star people. At this critical juncture, the Human Alliance made a painful decision: use nuclear bombs!
Widespread use of nuclear bombs meant destroying Earth. After deliberation, the Human Alliance decided that even if they had to destroy Earth, they would never leave it to those damn Kara Star people. This was the place where humans thrived. Non-our-kind, never allowed to settle here!
The nuclear war began. Nuclear bombs almost became conventional weapons. This was humanity's only means of dealing with the Kara Star people.
Nuclear bombs made the Kara Star people very cautious, halting their invasion. But large areas of land became radiation zones, wastelands.
Humans used items seized during the war to develop technology. Seventeen years later, humans began to stand up to the Kara Star people.
The European continent was the domain of the Kara Star people, full of danger. The Asian continent was the domain of humans. Here, technology was advanced, with towering buildings. The entire outer layer of the Asian continent was set up with a protective net, filtering the air while also preventing any Kara Star people from entering.
The war continued. Humans rose up with tenacious perseverance, a huge population, and rapid learning ability.
After three years of intense fighting, the Kara Star people intended to surrender and maintain the current territorial division. The Human Alliance refused. It was predicted that within ten years, the Kara Star people would be cleared from Earth, or killed to the last one, their race and species annihilated!
[Warning: Space war is about to begin.]
[Current location: Radiation zone of the Asian continental plate. Kara Star troops are about to attack. Contractors, please prepare in advance. Ensure the safety of this spaceship at all costs.]
[World coordinate generation in progress. Estimated time: 12 hours. A total of three world coordinates need to be generated. After all three are generated, Reincarnation Paradise will reset the 'Parasyte' world to return to the storyline timeline.]
After a series of notifications, Su Xiao was stunned. It wasn't because of this strange derivative world, but because two arm-length metal tubes had appeared in his storage space. The information on the metal tubes was clearly [World Coordinate Generation Device].
Reincarnation Paradise's meaning was easy to understand. After all three coordinates were generated, the 'Parasyte' derivative world would belong to Reincarnation Paradise. One coordinate was on the spaceship, currently being set up, needing another 12 hours. The other two were to be set up by him. The contractors were responsible for protecting the world coordinate setup, guarding that location for 12 hours.
The locations where the world coordinates needed to be set up had already been transmitted to him by Reincarnation Paradise. After the three coordinates were generated, the 'Parasyte' derivative world would be reset. In the future, Reincarnation Paradise could directly teleport other contractors into this derivative world, instead of taking a spaceship.
A smile couldn't help but appear at the corner of Su Xiao's mouth. Although the task was somewhat dangerous, the rewards were bound to be very generous. He had a feeling that this derivative world was the type with a short duration, extremely dangerous, but with very high returns.
As for the so-called neutral position, that was all nonsense. After he set up the coordinates, the main thing was to prevent contractors from fleeing at the last moment or the enemy using dirty tricks. He just couldn't directly participate in the war to kill enemies. Setting up coordinates was perfectly fine.
The other contractors quickly walked out of the spaceship, seemingly having received some task, their footsteps hurried. A minute later, only Su Xiao remained in the spaceship. His clothes began to change.