Chapter 49: The Mycroft Civilization's Hospitality 6000
Within the planet-destroying giant pit of World 39958, the heat from the planet's interior heated and distorted the air, creating massive vacuum funnels as hot and cold air exchanged.
The ancient civilization spacecraft named 'Knowledge Seizer' had its main structure composed of a black living metal. This magically activated runic metal could absorb thermal energy from the lava to maintain internal temperature balance and facility operations. While the metal material craftsmanship was not exceptionally advanced, its special durability and magical technology allowed this spacecraft to maintain its structural integrity even after hundreds of thousands of years.
Unlike the Mycroft civilization, the Knowledge Seizer's spacecraft appeared somewhat cramped. It was evident that this otherworldly civilization's beings were much smaller than humans, and every part of the spacecraft had numerous palm-sized pits. These pits were incredibly deep, turning the entire interior of the spacecraft into a giant honeycomb—it was clear that a creature smaller than a human palm had once lived in this spacecraft and moved through these honeycomb passages.
The Elite Squad, who had been swept into the lava by the giant air convection storm created by the planet-destroying pit, had been blessed by misfortune. They found this technologically advanced alien spacecraft on the surface of the lava. The five of them combined the computational power of their respective Psychic Terminals, cracked the spacecraft's blockade code, entered it, and with the Alchemist's biological technology, obtained the spacecraft's genetic recognition. They activated this ancient spacecraft and sent much valuable information back to the Joint Fleet headquarters.
Now, it was time for the Elite Squad to prepare to launch the spacecraft back into the void, then use a reconnaissance ship to tow this half-broken ancient spacecraft back to the fleet headquarters—after all, their flying vehicle was damaged, and they had no long-distance teleportation beacons. Without this spacecraft, it would take them months to crawl from the mantle layer to the surface.
"This time, it's all thanks to me, alright!"
The Alchemist's triumphant voice could be heard emanating from a cabin of the Knowledge Seizer spacecraft.
This was an elliptical hall. The walls of the hall were covered with circular pits, surrounded by magic runes inlaid with crystal fragments. Hundreds of semi-transparent spherical pods floated around the magic runes, containing the remains of creatures resembling ants. Protected by magic, the remains of these bizarre creatures still maintained the state they were in at the moment of their death.
At the front of this hall, there was a strangely shaped crystal plane, flashing with various bizarre runic information. Five Psychic Terminals were plugged into it, translating this runic information into the common runic script used in the Mycroft world.
At this moment, the Alchemist was controlling the five Psychic Terminals, using them as intermediaries to slowly control the entire alien spacecraft to start, lift off, break free from the planet-destroying pit, and return to the void. A faint rumbling could be heard coming from all around the hull, proving that the engines had started and the spacecraft was about to officially take off. The Alchemist's method of controlling the five Psychic Terminals was also quite marvelous—his right hand had now mutated into a giant octopus tentacle, with five smaller, sucker-covered tentacles wrapped around the five Psychic Terminals, maintaining stable data exchange with the Alchemist.
"...This time, it really is thanks to you... I never thought that your 'Soul-Devouring Giant Octopus' biological modification would have the ability to perform magical programming communication directly through the flesh, and this ability just happens to be the same method the 'Knowledge Seizer' used to control their spacecraft."
Priest first glanced at his teammate's smug, rather handsome elven face, then looked seriously at the other's wriggling tentacle—a real tentacle—the young warrior muttered with a complex expression: "But, uh, don't get angry, Constantine, but don't you think your body modification is a bit excessive?"
On the side, the other three standing on the other side of Priest, who had been watching the Alchemist with awe, nodded in unison, still shaken. They remembered that when the Alchemist first used the Psychic Terminal to crack the alien spacecraft, he looked far more terrifying than now. At that time, his entire body had swelled up, tentacles flailing everywhere, simultaneously invading every corner of the spacecraft's control core.
"Jealous, aren't you!"
To this question, the Alchemist Constantine showed a look of superiority to his clearly awestruck teammates. He raised his hand, thumb pointing at himself, and smiled confidently: "This is the 'Third-Type Star Warrior' body modification tailor-made for me by Lord Radcliffe! It contains the bloodlines of the 'Soul-Devouring Giant Octopus,' 'Ouroboros Giant Serpent,' 'Titan Dragonfly,' and 'Prison Void Dragon'! I now have three hearts and six lungs. As long as I activate my belt-shaped transformation device located at my waist, I can transform into a Star Warrior form comparable to the Ultimate Essence of Force at any time!"
During the three years of sailing in the Silent Void, besides continuous hard training, there had naturally been technological progress. Due to his body modification, the Alchemist had taken the lead among all his companions, being the first to take a step forward on the path of 'Ultimate Essence.' Although the power surge brought by the transformation couldn't truly make him reach the Ultimate Essence of Force, the Alchemist, who had personally experienced this power beyond limits, could undoubtedly touch this realm more easily than others.
To this, Priest and the others had no jealousy... What was there to be jealous of? Ordinary people couldn't modify their bodies like this! Moreover, it was precisely because they spent every day together that Priest and the others knew how much effort the Alchemist had to put in daily to obtain this power.
After the daily training under that lord, the Alchemist still had to diligently study various biological knowledge and corresponding engineering and pharmaceutical knowledge. His body, due to the modification, was much stronger than ordinary humans, or even ordinary dragon beasts. But precisely because of this, it also required a lot of maintenance and pharmaceutical support. Each transformation was also very taxing, no easier than their hard training in battle qi, magic, or holy light.
The price of hardship was exchanged for powerful strength. By now, the Alchemist, who had once been somewhat confused about his future path, had also determined his direction. Now, as one of the few reformists in the entire fleet who supported body modification, he had also begun to worry, just like Joshua, that his companions were unwilling to accept even basic body modification.
Just as the five were chatting and joking among themselves.
Semi-transparent magical light surrounded the Knowledge Seizer's spacecraft, lifting it out of the lava with anti-gravity, then continuously floating upward.
As the spacecraft slowly rose and detached from the scorching lava pool, it could be seen that this was a diamond-shaped spacecraft with a deformable exterior and great flexibility. It had very good void docking capabilities. This shell structure made of living metal had advantages in many situations, and the Mycroft civilization could draw many meaningful experiences from it.
As the spacecraft continued to rise, the Elite Squad thus broke free from the planet-destroying pit. They could see that the land of World 39958 was getting smaller and smaller, with the curved orange-red continent extending to both sides in the dark vacuum. Outside the world barrier, the reconnaissance ship floating on the world's surface was so conspicuous to the five who had authorization—they were already starting to recall the fully automatic coffee machine and hot bath on the reconnaissance ship.
But.
Whether fortunate or unfortunate.
Unlike the other teammates who were enthusiastically discussing how many exchange points they could get from this expedition, the usually calmest and most composed Priest suddenly frowned—because he saw a flash of light in the distant starry sky that was completely different from normal.
"Hey, wait, stop arguing, look at the voi..."
Before he could open his mouth to remind his teammates to be careful and observe any anomalies, amidst everyone's laughter and chatter, a seven-colored rainbow light flashed across the void, silently reducing the entire reconnaissance ship to nothing. A bit of metallic mist floating in the void was probably its last remains.
"...d..."
Priest, who had just finished speaking, had a face as pale as his suddenly silent teammates. But the Elite Squad, being a team that had experienced all kinds of storms and countless accidents, reacted in an instant—the Alchemist immediately controlled the spacecraft to descend, the Mage began chanting a barrier spell, Priest used gravitational battle qi to accelerate the descent, and the Knight quickly shut his mouth.
Just as everyone was hurriedly descending, preparing to hide themselves in the planet-destroying pit, Priest could see that outside the world barrier, the flash of light appearing in the distant distance was gradually growing larger and larger, rapidly approaching.
Accompanied by intense energy oscillations and space-time distorting fluctuations, amidst sky-covering engine exhaust flames, one after another advanced warship, very similar to the spacecraft they had discovered and entirely forged from black living metal, rapidly swept across the world's surface. They gathered together like countless ants forming an ant colony. The massive mass change distorted light, making it impossible to see the end or how vast this fleet was. They were like a metal-forged river of stars, endless and infinite.
They paid no attention to the reconnaissance ship they had destroyed earlier, nor to Priest and the others on World 39958—in fact, they had long noticed them, but they didn't care. The previous attack was merely equivalent to a touch. Ships, civilizations, and individuals that couldn't even withstand their attacks had no qualification to communicate with them.
The Knowledge Seizer never did meaningless, time-wasting things. The long time, the turbulent history, the near-destruction several times, and the resilience of being reborn again had made their hearts as hard as rock.
The mighty river of spacecraft twisted the trajectories of the stars. The rotation of the surrounding worlds temporarily stopped due to this, locked by the tidal force of this huge cluster. They moved forward silently, with only command instructions within the fleet being transmitted through the network channel.
Elsewhere in the Star River.
A silver-blue brilliant light spot was approaching the boundary of the World Star River at a speed far exceeding the black fleet. It almost seemed to be in a constant state of jump, flickering between thousands of star domains in an instant. In just the blink of an eye, it could be seen disappearing at the other end of the star cluster.
Jetram World, Joint Fleet Void Base. Even with Transcendent beings including many Legendary experts joining the construction, two months were not enough to piece together ecological ships into a complete void ecological circle. So the vast majority of crew members still lived on their respective ships, taking turns to go to the base to collect supplies.
Joshua was one of those who stayed on the ship. He had no interest in admiring flowers and plants, nor did he understand the moved expressions of most crew members when they saw green plants, or even giant cabbages. But this didn't affect him watering the potted plant beside his seat—after all, it was a filial gesture from his disciples, different from ordinary flowers and plants.
After handling daily routine matters, Joshua was generally quite idle. With the addition of a large number of Spirit clan laborers and various constructions falling into place, there wasn't much work left that required his intervention. The warrior, as predicted by the people of the Mycroft continent back then, had become a guardian stone statue that sat in the army with nothing to do on ordinary days and only moved when enemies invaded.
Greeting a crew member who was handing over work nearby, receiving a respectful bow in response, Joshua shook his head and sat back in his seat. He linked into the entire expedition fleet's network and began to scan for any noteworthy recent news.
Then, Joshua keenly noticed the fact that 'Reconnaissance Ship 001 Signal Lost.'
"Priest and the others' reconnaissance ship... completely disappeared?"
Squinting slightly, the warrior didn't say much and showed no emotional fluctuation. He continued scanning other messages and sent an emergency short message using space-time sorcery to the reconnaissance ships around World 39958, where Reconnaissance Ship 001 was located, requiring them to immediately hide and evade, or even directly request an emergency jump back to the fleet base.
Then, Joshua paused, frowned, and sent similar information to all crew members on the Dreadnought Void Battleship, requiring them to also immediately retreat to the void base and leave this ship. Other ships were to prepare for battle and begin adjusting their formation.
"It's here."
After doing all this, the warrior sighed heavily, stood up, and calmly said to the surrounding crew: "Immediately leave the bridge and take refuge in the void base."
"Yes, sir!"
Although they didn't understand why Joshua gave such an order, as the fleet's supreme commander and a Legendary expert, his command was absolute. Even the battleship's control personnel immediately got up and teleported to the void base through the fast passage. In just a few seconds, the entire ship was empty.
The unmanned Dreadnought battleship floated up and down under automatic program control, adjusting the imbalance caused by the loss of personnel. Joshua sat in his seat, hands on the armrests, gazing into the distant void.
The next moment.
Accompanied by the intense flash caused by a Psionic Leap and the psionic fluctuations powerful enough to stir space-time, a tall humanoid completely shrouded in silver-blue energy waves stepped out of the jump channel, standing in front of the void battleship.
Thousands upon thousands of incredibly complex rings, arcs, and geometric structures floated and rotated around this humanoid. Runes from another world, in forms as tiny as atoms, formed clouds swirling around it. The moment this humanoid appeared, the world seemed to freeze, everything turning pale. Color, shape, form, even whether the world was three-dimensional, all became meaningless. All Transcendent power was repelled. The entire void almost became a purely two-dimensional silhouette. The only entities with substance left were 'Psionic Energy' and 'the one controlling the Psionic Energy.'
Containing everything, bearing everything, even burning oneself out to forge a future for one's civilization—despite having such a great artistic conception, it revealed an extremely extreme and paranoid aura, making one smell a metallic tang while feeling an icy coldness in the brain.
To this, Joshua slowly stood up. And as he stood up, all the strange phenomena shattered. Silver light trembled space-time. The domain formed by psionic energy shattered like glass. The jump channel was forcibly closed. The world was filled with color and sound again. A scorching, mouth-drying, fear-inspiring aura was spreading.
Takur Annihilation Order High Patriarch, Georg Takur, looked around with curiosity. He wore a battle robe inscribed with countless runes, his gaze sweeping over the entire Joint Fleet headquarters, over the void base. His gaze penetrated the void and world barriers, staring at the giant Space-Time Hub inside the Jetram World and the super-giant space-time rift tens of thousands of meters long—he had always been curious about how powerful this otherworldly civilization and its fleet from the Lost Star River were. Now, it seemed within expectations, not beyond imagination.
Although they had advanced technology, it wasn't to the point of being incomprehensible... Not impossible to be an enemy.
"Strong one of the foreign civilization."
Turning his head, Georg looked at Joshua—the strongest in the entire fleet according to his psionic detection, and the one who had almost passed through the space-time rift back then to find the coordinates of their home star system. His psionic fluctuations filled the void, and the materialized information could completely replace language: "I. We. We want to ask you. You all. A question."
The High Patriarch of the Annihilation Order, feared by almost all civilizations in the Multiverse Star River and called the Messenger of Destruction, spoke for the first time in such a friendly, equal tone: "Have you already seen through the truth behind the multiverse, that everything ultimately returns to annihilation?"
"Are you willing to join us—cooperate with us, to face that terrible dark future together?"
But at this moment, Joshua was not looking at the other, nor paying attention to the other's communication.
The warrior was frowning, looking at his surroundings—the previous psionic impact had even caused a small explosion in the battleship's control system, with sporadic electric arc sparks on the console. Beside his seat, several flowers had withered from the overly intense psionic light.
He had just watered them.
Fortunately, the roots weren't completely dead yet.
So, after exerting a little power to protect the flower roots, the warrior slowly raised his head, met the one-eyed Georg's gaze, and said calmly: "Alright."
"But before that, you need to apologize to me—and to all the crew members who were disturbed."
"Apologize?"
For a moment, Georg hadn't understood the meaning behind these words, but soon, thinking was unnecessary.
Because he saw a giant fist.
Because Joshua's fist had already arrived.
Boom!
In the surrounding warships, everyone who didn't know what was happening but was looking toward the Dreadnought Void Battleship clearly saw that the huge and heavy void battleship, the fleet's flagship, suddenly sank downward violently amid extremely intense energy roars, crashing toward the void base. It was as if a violent reaction force had pressed it down, slamming it hard against the base's sturdy outer armor layer.
But even more conspicuous than this was a silver-blue streak of light shooting out from the battleship's bridge like a straight line toward the distance!
Boom!
The heavy iron fist imprinted on the left side of the one-eyed giant's face. It could be seen that the power sufficient to crush a planet and dent a sun had punched tens of thousands of layers of microscopic psionic shields into dents and shattered them. A violent tear appeared at the point of impact. The sound of bone shattering could be heard, the sound of flesh evaporating, the sound of elemental nuclear fusion.
Everything happened in a single instant. Georg could only feel his head spinning several times, a sun exploding on his face. Half of his skull was shattered, and then his entire body flew backward.
But how could Joshua leave the enemy time to think? After throwing the punch that sent Georg flying, he accelerated again without hesitation, stepped forward, stomping the entire void battleship downward, then lunged forward. An enormous mass distortion appeared. He stepped on the world barrier he had condensed out of thin air, his figure disappearing like a phantom, then arriving later but faster, catching up with the trajectory of the flying Georg!
At the same time, a silver star suddenly appeared in the middle of Georg's flight path. The flying High Patriarch crashed into the extremely solid neutron star body.
—No greeting. No indication. No intention to restrain or stop the spread of his aura. If such a sudden attack was also called goodwill and a cooperative attitude, then Joshua must have been too old to even distinguish 'hostility.'
The warrior was very clear: if he hadn't been here, this otherworldly strong one would have unhesitatingly destroyed the entire Joint Fleet. The previous observation was nothing more than checking how many Legendary experts were in the fleet.
So no more words were needed.
"Welcome to the Mycroft Civilization's Origin Star River Base."
Just as Georg was about to get up and face the humanoid swinging a fist at him, a deep voice that shocked him greatly suddenly came from within the silver star, and his feet were entangled by spreading silver chains, locked with space-time anchors.
And the next moment, accompanied by earth-shattering mass changes, a giant hand rose from the side of the star, bringing a large patch of dark shadow. Then, without hesitation, together with the approaching humanoid, it slammed down like swatting a fly.
"Welcome."