Chapter 14: The Star Shepherd Court
Opening his eyes, what could be seen was an exceptionally vast, exceptionally bright silver-white metal hall.
In this giant space, over four hundred meters in length and width, and over one hundred meters in height, aside from the streamlined, flickering runic lights along the ceiling and walls, there was nothing, nothing at all to see. Everything was blank. The entire hall didn't even contain air—it was an extremely thin vacuum.
The scale of the hall was truly enormous, a proportion and structure that ordinary humans simply could not accept. The sense of dissonance and the instinctive feeling of unreality made everyone inside feel as uncomfortable as if they had entered a land of giants.
Moreover, the bright light emitted by the runes was a special kind of torture. The light waves, containing special energy fluctuations, stimulated the nerves of all living creatures exposed to them, making it absolutely impossible to sleep, driving them into maddening exhaustion—not to mention the vacuum. The inability to breathe was, in itself, a lethal torture that most creatures could not endure.
Yet, right in the center of this seemingly bright and spacious, but actually special prison-like vacuum hall, stood five translucent crystal pillars. On these five pillars, five human-shaped metal cans were suspended in mid-air by some kind of sealing array, completely immobile.
"...Where is this?"
The knight, Clark, opened his eyes in confusion. He had just woken up from the shock of the failed teleportation, but when he opened his eyes, what he saw was not the desolate (as it usually was) land of another world, but a hall that was clearly a product of civilization.
Soon, the knight realized that he was now bound by an array to a crystal pillar that was clearly a seal.
"You're awake. As expected, your mental fortitude is the worst among the five of us."
From the communicator inside his helmet, the voice of the clergy member, tinged with a slight electronic tone, suddenly came out: "Don't make any moves. Keep your current posture, pretend you're still unconscious."
Although the knight was said to have the worst quality, it was only relative to his teammates who were spellcasters. He quickly realized something was wrong and, following the clergy member's advice, kept his body still, pretending to be unconscious.
The five of them were all wearing specially made 'Otherworld Exploration Mana Armor' from the Moldavia Territory. This was a fully sealed, fully covered special full-body armor. Its outer shell was forged from 'Living Metal Alloy', possessing a certain degree of self-repair and extremely strong world adaptability, not melting from heat nor becoming brittle from cold. The inner armor was made from a special 'Self-Repairing Material' obtained by analyzing the body of a legendary Demon Lord, also possessing unparalleled adaptability. It could even temporarily assimilate with the wearer's skin, providing neural perception, becoming a part of the wearer's body.
For some reason, none of their mana armors had been removed. It was precisely because of this that they could survive in the vacuum for so long. The armor's built-in self-circulation system allowed the team members to survive in the void for a period of time; a mere vacuum was nothing.
"What's going on?"
The knight felt a sense of foreboding. He knew they must have gotten involved in some bad situation again, so he quickly asked his teammate: "Captain, what's this..."
"You rest for a bit first. Let me ask."
But the mage decisively interrupted the knight's jinx-like words, cutting in directly. He spoke to another mana armor, which was also pretending to be unconscious: "Captain, do you mean that we've been captured by a group of high-level alien intelligent lifeforms, and now they're planning to interrogate us through various tortures, asking questions that we actually don't know the answers to?"
"Correct."
The mage's tone was full of resentment, but his question was clear and logical. Priest, who had been calmly thinking, immediately replied: "That's the situation."
"At the final moment of our teleportation, an inexplicable attraction pulled us onto a strange steel altar. At that time, all of you were basically unconscious. Although I was awake, I was also dizzy and disoriented... And it was then that I saw a very strange alien lifeform... come before us."
When he said 'very strange', Priest's tone was a bit odd. Through the mana armor's built-in communication function, he sent the image of the alien creature to the other four.
It was a strangely shaped creature, somewhat resembling a spider-like crustacean, but definitely not a true crustacean.
It had a gray-black carapace, sharp eight legs, a disc-like body with obvious 'visual organs', 'mouthparts', and forelimbs similar to a crab... Just based on this, it looked like nothing more than a somewhat strange large crab. But the most important part was not this body, but the mushroom-like object that had 'burst out' from the center of the disc-shaped body.
Was it an animal? Or a plant? Or perhaps, truly some kind of fungus? Without touching it, no one could confirm. Compared to the huge body, the fungal body seemed relatively thin. To make a comparison, it was probably like a finger compared to an entire palm. On its oval cap, magical light flowed with obvious regularity, proving that this was indeed an intelligent lifeform.
"...Looks a bit like a parasitic fungus."
The knowledgeable alchemist gave his opinion. He had been dealing with various strange plants, animals, and fungi all year round, so he immediately recognized the special nature of this life form: "I don't know if you've seen it, but there's a fungus that can parasitize insects, control their actions, and eventually eat them completely... This thing looks similar. The crab below is probably just the parasitized body."
"Indeed. When they interrogated me, they did use this fungal pillar-like thing as the main body."
Priest took over the conversation and continued: "This alien lifeform has extremely powerful mental strength. While we were unconscious, it tried to peek into our mental world. But because the species gap is too large and our thought logic is completely different, it couldn't do it. Afterwards, through mental communication, it forcefully interrogated me about 'how we found them'. I deliberately cut off the oxygen supply to my brain and passed out."
Saying this, Priest seemed to think of something amusing. He laughed in the communicator: "These alien lifeforms seem to think that the 'mana armor' is also part of our bodies. Coupled with the fact that the living metal alloy does have some biological characteristics, they've been torturing the armor. Whipping, cutting, even chopping off a few of my 'fingers'. But it never occurred to them to peel off the armor. They seem to think we are a species with strong bodies and excellent self-regeneration abilities."
Hearing this, even in such a serious environment, everyone couldn't help but laugh. Sometimes, the gap between species and civilizations is large enough to cause such misunderstandings.
But soon, the topic returned to seriousness.
"These alien lifeforms seem to call themselves a 'fleet'. They should be traveling through the void and happened to intercept our failed teleportation."
Priest summarized: "Based on known information, I can roughly infer that they should be carrying out some kind of secret operation. That's why they are so nervous about our sudden appearance, constantly interrogating us about how we found them."
"What should we do next?"
The clergy member asked concisely.
"Wait for the right moment, gather information. Once we roughly understand the situation, use the 'Return Beacon' to leave directly."
Priest didn't waste words either. He said seriously: "These alien creatures think the armor is our body. In the short term, they won't be able to analyze the things in the inner layers of our armor, or whether they are necessary life-support organs. As long as we wait until they are not paying attention, we can return through the beacon at any time."
"It's a bit regrettable to leave without accomplishing anything, but knowing that such a special alien intelligent lifeform exists is not without gain."
The mission of the External Exploration Department, in the final analysis, was to find colonizable other worlds and valuable resource worlds. At the same time, finding alien civilizations was also an important task, whether it was a primitive civilization with great potential like the dragonmen of the Chronos World, or a vast and advanced alien civilization like the Star Sea World.
Although Captain Kita repeatedly emphasized that the value of the Return Beacon might be greater than all five of them combined, that was just a kind of good-natured joke. It should still be used when necessary. Thinking of this, Priest couldn't help but feel a bit fortunate that they happened to bring it this time. Otherwise, they would definitely be trapped in this strange place forever.
However, just as Priest was asking the team members to remain silent.
Hum.
A dull humming sound came from one side of the hall.
A circular 'door' opened.
A large amount of air rushed in rapidly. The turbid gas was mixed with gray-yellow spores, releasing a very obvious magical fluctuation. In just over ten seconds, the originally empty and pale giant hall was filled with air clearly from another world.
And a squad of eight-legged fungi walked out from the circular door, coming to the side of the five people bound to the crystal pillars by the array.
This squad of eight-legged fungi had arc-shaped magical shields rotating around them. They did not come here for interrogation, but for another purpose. As the exploration team held their breath and nervously watched what these alien lifeforms intended to do, accompanied by a magical fluctuation, the five crystal pillars rose from the ground and floated in mid-air.
The cap of the leading eight-legged fungus flickered with magical light. This seemed to be some kind of 'gesture' for casting spells. Then, five translucent energy conduits connected to the crystal pillars. And it began to walk, pulling the floating crystal pillars and the five people on them.
Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.
The communication between the eight-legged fungi relied on some strange and sharp hissing sound, possibly even some kind of ultrasonic vibration. What the human ear could hear was only a partial fragment. But at this moment, neither Priest nor the others heard any hissing. All the eight-legged fungi moved forward silently, leaving the hall.
'Are they going to dispose of us?!'
Through the mana armor's built-in communicator, the knight sent a brief message to everyone. From the punctuation, it could be judged that he was very nervous at the moment: 'Chopping us into pieces, throwing us into the garbage heap, or even into the mana engine core... I heard that Lord once threw quite a few magical beasts in there. That death was miserable, extremely miserable, utterly miserable!'
'Shut up!' 'Be quiet!' 'Silence!' 'You wretch!' Everyone, including Priest, was almost fuming: 'You jinx! If you speak again, I won't let you off even if I'm dead!'
The eight-legged fungi did not know about the internal communication of the exploration team, but they didn't need to.
After leaving the vacuum-sealed hall that seemed to serve as 'isolation imprisonment', the five people, who had been proven to carry no infectious viruses and were harmless, were brought by this squad of gray-black eight-legged fungi into the real alien civilization environment.
Instantly, all members of the exploration team forgot to communicate, shocked and immersed in the scenes they were witnessing.
The giant prison hall was a rectangular metal cabin suspended in mid-air. Priest originally thought it was already large enough, a giant building that humans would find hard to adapt to. But he didn't expect that outside this hall, such a building was nothing at all.
What a vast world this was!
Above the hall was a rumbling, constantly interlocking and reorganizing 'metal sky'. Below the hall was a vast, endless 'living continent' that stretched as far as the eye could see.
This was an artificial environment with a round sky and square earth. The semi-metallic, semi-living 'sky' was constantly writhing. Fungal pillar-like materials formed the main structure of the semi-circular dome. At the very top of this dome, a huge mana sun lamp emitted bright orange light, illuminating the flat ground.
And the ground itself was also alive, writhing fungal pillars. The ground was covered with all kinds of towering living buildings. Hive-like structures were everywhere. Tens of thousands of eight-legged fungi were entering and exiting the hives, transporting materials, and working.
The prison hall was a high-altitude extension facility belonging to a super-giant central hive located at the center of this world. This squad of eight-legged fungi took the crystal pillars carrying the exploration team onto a cable car that looked very similar to a pitcher plant, and then continued to take them forward.
Without time to think, react, or sigh, everyone present instinctively turned on the recording function of their mana armor and began frantically recording the surrounding visual data.
Priest felt his eyes weren't enough. At this moment, the group had already been brought inside the giant central hive. The eight-legged fungi seemed to have no sense of secrecy, casually allowing them to observe the surrounding environment. They took the cable car, vertically entered an entrance of the hive, and headed towards its very center.
And in this short time, during the movement of the cable car, Priest observed countless extremely valuable pieces of information.
A funnel-shaped white organ, presumably an 'energy engine', that was filled with various organic materials and output a large amount of mana.
A processing chamber where dozens of eight-legged fungi were cutting, filling, and separating materials using mana.
A production base for planting some kind of plant, or perhaps a half-plant, half-creature strange thing.
A semi-transparent sealed chamber immersed in a pale golden liquid, where the shadows of several eight-legged embryos could be vaguely seen floating inside.
Priest even subconsciously forgot that he should hide his actions. He slightly turned his head, looking around at the unique sights of the alien biological civilization surrounding the moving cable car.
As the cable car went deeper, he saw that the internal structure of the hive became increasingly solid, resembling metal. He saw countless prisms made of crystal-clear transparent material inserted into the fungal pillars, seemingly controlling their growth and movement through mana flow. Priest discovered that the deeper they went into the hive, the brighter the light became. The self-illumination phenomenon brought by the high-concentration mana made it so that no light source was needed to see everything clearly around them.
Not only Priest, but all five members of the exploration team saw that around the cable car, white fungal bubbles began to appear, floating in mid-air. The surfaces and interiors of these bubbles were covered with obvious special runes. The bubbles collided with each other, merged with each other, and from time to time formed an extremely large bubble. Then this large bubble would rapidly split, transforming back into hundreds of thousands of small bubbles. They seemed to be performing some kind of calculation and information exchange. Every fusion and split of the bubbles was equivalent to a spark of thought and inspiration, accompanied by a faint hum of mana in the air.
It was too vast.
If the giant hive were the size of a person, then the prison hall, hundreds of meters long and wide and a hundred meters high, was only the size of a person's fingernail. Entering the center of the central hive, Priest felt as if he had entered the center of an incomparably huge creature.
Inside this creature's body, countless eight-legged fungi were moving and working back and forth, like bees and ants, shuttling between one giant fungal structure after another, hardworking and tireless.
And at the center of the hive, where the light was already as bright as the midday sun, the destination of the eight-legged fungi and Priest's group had appeared. A giant regular hexagonal prism 'palace' located at the very bottom of the central hive.
'The Star Shepherd Court'.