Chapter 99: The Praying Galaxy
【—Child.
The moment you were born, I still remember it clearly.】
In a temperature-controlled artificial cultivation chamber maintained at thirty degrees, a massive white egg sac rested within a stable, soft thermal nesting nest. Around this egg sac lay many others that had already withered and dried. Among dozens of siblings, only one egg sac had successfully nurtured life. With a rustling sound, a peculiar insect that resembled both a young cicada and an ant broke through the egg sac and crawled out. The membrane over its eyes had not yet peeled away; it could not yet see the world.
To obtain more stable and superior individuals, as well as more widespread and powerful intelligence, the Takur people abandoned their ancestors' exceptional fertility and the genes of rapid mutation. They chose to reduce their reproduction rate to that of ordinary mammals, paying the price that only one out of dozens of egg sacs would survive, in exchange for more durable bodies, stronger brains, and innate psionic abilities.
A sight appeared: the door of the artificial cultivation chamber opened. The young cicada seemed startled, trying to shrink back into its egg sac, but two flexible antennae extended, gently lifting it up. The light of the sun lamp shone like the environment, draping a thin, golden veil over this newborn life.
The perspective shifted. The bright sun lamp became a real star; the shining light turned into an overly dazzling starlight in the vacuum. A fully organized fleet, though some ships were heavily damaged but overall intact, sped through the cosmic void.
This fleet was mainly composed of three styles of warships. One type resembled insects, with obvious exoskeleton design. Another type looked like plant fruits—biological ships that seemed more grown than manufactured. The third type, and the rarest, were ordinary metal warships. It was visible that this strange mixed fleet belonged under one banner, speeding through a star system toward the inner orbital ring.
"Beware of Chaos Minions!"
A cold, mechanical voice came through the communication channel. It could be seen that along the orbit the fleet passed, there were numerous wrecks of warships and bizarre creatures. The vast majority of these destroyed warships were all exoskeleton-style like insects, while the remains of the bizarre creatures were mostly different from each other. They were twisted, malevolent, covered in seemingly meaningless but absolutely abnormal and dangerous tumors and growths, as if their very existence represented absolute chaos.
The cold mechanical voice came again: "They may still be lurking in the wreckage… All personnel—prepare to bombard them!"
"Yes!"
Responding to this cold command, the fleet uniformly activated their weapons. It could be seen that the muzzles of psionic wave cannons began to gather particles of light, and high-heat psionic streams capable of vaporizing most matter were converging.
A silver-blue radiance flashed, and then came the eruption.
In the vast, galaxy-long psionic beams, the wrecks of warships and bizarre creatures turned into nothingness. Countless Chaos larvae lurking within them also let out silent screams in the vacuum before annihilating in the light.
【—Time passes so quickly. I have already begun to forget the days I spent with you.
But I have to leave, because this is for the stars, for more races, for our world.】
In a sea-blue sky, a large young cicada that had gradually grown—a Takur juvenile—was flying in midair using psionic power. It flew unsteadily, often making mistakes, but each time it faltered, a pair of huge, gentle antennae would reach out to stabilize its flight path. Soon, the juvenile learned basic flight. Both it and 'he' were very happy. The small juvenile curled up in the embrace of the huge antennae, watching the stars in the sky together.
But in that vast star river, stars went out one after another, visibly vanishing. The light of stars was extinguished in the dark universe, just like the wrecks in the vacuum that were ignited by the main cannons of warships and slowly burned away.
The mixed fleet had left the star battle zone. They arrived at a fortress area that had been breached. It could be seen that at the orbit of a giant gas planet, there was a huge trapezoidal armed defense fortress wreck, with a diameter of up to 1,400 kilometers—a true planetary-level fortress. Based on the conspicuous armor style and the clearly visible internal structure of the fortress from the breaches, it was easy to tell that this fortress came from the same source as the insect warships.
"Deploy reconnaissance spheres! Begin scanning for survivors!"
The cold mechanical voice sounded again. At the edge of the fleet, rows of escort ships moved out. A groove appeared at the bottom of their hulls, and metal spheres flew out from them, igniting psionic light as they flew toward the trapezoidal fortress.
Soon, replies came one after another in different tones.
"Report: No survivors found."
"They're all dead—this place fell just three months ago. Damn it, if only we could have arrived sooner!"
"At least the Plague Minions have been repelled. The 'Great Flanking' operation was successful; they were forced to withdraw from this star sector."
Noisy discussions and information exchanges filled the channel, but the cold mechanical voice sounded, overriding all other sounds.
"Destroy it."
At the core of the fleet was an immensely huge warship, over 25 kilometers in diameter, shaped like a giant 'G'. At its front was a recessed psionic energy convergence slot. On the bridge of the G-shaped warship stood a lifeform that was grayish-white, very old, and looked like a giant cicada. Its antennae moved, and the cold mechanical voice was broadcast to the entire fleet from the crystal translator hanging on its chest.
"Target the lower half of the fortress, Sector 15. That is where the original energy core is located." This lifeform, a Takur in the late stage of its life, repeated: "Leave no trace of Chaos. Destroy it."
Thus, light gathered again, blossomed, and turned into a straight beam, piercing directly into Sector 15's original energy core.
In an instant, a blinding light flared. An extremely violent explosion silently unfolded in the vacuum. The planetary-level fortress disintegrated under the tremors, shattered into massive chunks of wreckage, and then broke apart in the flames, becoming interstellar dust.
The fleet was not affected by this small explosion. They continued moving forward.
【—I once promised you that I would definitely protect you. I am a great hero, and I will surely return victorious.
Everything will be fine.】
The light from the planetary fortress explosion washed over the fleet like a tide. The psionic shields covering the fleet's ships stood like reefs, intercepting and shattering the light. The aged Takur stared into the vacuum, stared at the sun, as if returning to a decade ago when, as an old father, he carried his child walking by the seaside. The two watched the footprints on the sand being washed clean by the seawater, their antennae dancing, simple and joyful.
The sunlight shining on the sea looked just like this now… The energy tide from the explosion moved against the solar wind, stirring up an incredibly brilliant, dreamlike mist of light.
Chased by this mist of light, the fleet continued forward, arriving near a sea-blue planet.
Here, there were more warship wrecks, more Chaos minion corpses, more fortress ruins. Here, it could be clearly sensed that Chaos had not gone far. Among the numerous wrecks and ruins, within the corpses of the Chaos minions themselves, a great number of Chaos entities still lurked.
But as the cold command was issued, the advancing fleet deployed a translucent field. Within the area covered by this intangible, qualityless light—named the 'Order Field'—all Chaos temporarily lost activity, or even simply turned to ash and vanished into nothingness. This advanced technology, developed by other high-level civilizations in the star sea and freely gifted to other civilizations, could effectively curb the spread and proliferation of Chaos, provided the field generator was efficient enough.
The Takur fleet commander slowly walked to the front of the bridge. No one stopped him; even the staff silently moved aside, allowing this highly authoritative and respected fleet commander to clearly observe the nearby sea-blue planet with his own eyes.
With his naked eyes, the fleet commander saw a planet that looked like moldy bread—still appearing sea-blue, but covered everywhere with dense, dark green mold spots.
And these mold spots were precisely located in the areas with the most life on the planet.
“…Attempt communication.”
The antennae moved. Invisible low-frequency waves mixed with psionic waves echoed through the atmosphere, and the translator hanging on the fleet commander's chest faithfully rendered: "Try every band. Do not give up, not even on one."
Hearing the command, the other crew members naturally did their utmost. Immediately, various noisy calls sounded, filling the previously quiet bridge with exaggerated content and meaningless noise.
But unlike the bustling calls, the Takur fleet commander remained motionless. He only stared at that familiar azure-blue planet, watching those dark green mold spots that were constantly expanding and spreading… As a powerful psionic, he could sense that there were no longer any independent individual consciousnesses on this planet, no longer any individual psionic energy.
On the side of the planet facing away from the sunlight, whether on the continents or the oceans, all light had gone out.
The light of civilization had gone out.
No band returned any reply.
"Commander…"
Gradually, the calling sounds in the bridge ceased. One band after another fell silent. A humanoid plant lifeform—judging by the insignia, a Midgardian who seemed to be the vice-captain—hesitantly stepped forward, coming to the side of the Takur commander. He opened his mouth, paused, and then said in a low voice: "No reply received, no life reactions detected… Commander, please accept my condolences."
"The Takur homeworld… has been corrupted."
【—I swore that I would do my utmost, even at the cost of my life, to protect you all.
I swore it.】
Countless fragments of memory surged through the river of the soul. Roaring emotions leaped up like fish jumping out of the water—anger, sorrow, and despair crashed onto the river's surface, stirring up great psionic waves, rippling through the soul. Many things could be recalled: the first feeding, the first crawl, the first time learning to read, the first time calling out 'Mom' and 'Dad'… and the first flight, the first time achieving top grades in the entire grade, the first time going alone to the capital's central academy for advanced studies… too many firsts.
And that one last first was still remembered… Before leaving, the cicada, now not much smaller than his father, moved his antennae. The two pairs of antennae crossed, rubbed together, and emitted subtle vibrations.
"I love you, Dad."
That was the first time he said 'love' to his parents. He seemed very embarrassed, so he quickly added: "Make sure you win the battle and come back safely!"
"Of course."
That was his own voice. Confident, spirited, and even if there was a little unease, it was suppressed by a great sense of responsibility, turning into the driving force to keep moving forward: "I am a hero."
Silence.
Whether on the bridge or in the communication channels of the entire fleet, there was only silence.
Everyone was silent. The noisy commands, the forced jokes, the voices of captains scolding their crew—all disappeared. The void fleet just hovered at the planet's gravitational equilibrium point.
But their silence did not mean the planet would be silent. It could be seen that the giant mold patches scattered across the globe suddenly began to contract and writhe. Countless extremely tiny but densely packed green dots erupted from these mold aggregates… These were Chaos minions, newborn Chaos minions.
This was a planet corrupted by the Plague Evil God—all organic matter was devoured and converted, and inorganic matter could not escape either. Chaos corrodes everything, but it prioritizes life as its target.
And in the perspective of a psionic, there was an immensely huge, planet-sized cicada-shaped phantom bound to this planet by various molds and tentacles. It struggled, trembled, flapped its wings, but could not escape… This was a psionic aggregate that had been bound by Chaos and was beginning to be corrupted and converted—the condensation of all the souls, psionic energy, and all transcendent power of the planet's intelligent life. And it was the raw material for the Plague Evil God to create 'Giant Mother Beasts'.
At this moment, the Takur fleet commander's antennae, which had been still for a long time, twitched. The voice, still cold as a machine, came through: "Activate the Extermination Protocol."
"Commander…"
Beside the giant insect, the plant-like Midgardian vice-captain raised a hand. He seemed to want to say something, but in the end, he said nothing, only sighed.
In his eyes, the Takur commander's psionic energy had already shifted from silver-blue to blood-red.
"Destroy it."
The mechanical voice continued, calm to the point of sorrow. The Takur commander remained motionless except for his antennae: "That is already Chaos territory."
In the cosmic vacuum, the mixed fleet gradually dispersed. The massive G-shaped warship slowly moved forward, arriving directly 'above' the planet. It began to transform, to change, to unfold its curled-up form. The G-shaped shell stretched out bit by bit, extended, and then became straight—a huge inverted cross, long at the top and short at the bottom.
At the lower end of the inverted cross, where the crystal psionic slot of the original G-shaped giant warship was located, light began to condense, converging into a brightness that had almost no limit.
"Fire."
The light paused, and then suddenly burst forth. Under the cold mechanical command, a long, flowing radiance like a descending galaxy fell, plunging straight into the planet's ocean.
The Takur homeworld.
On the surface.
By the polluted coastline.
This place was once where many Takur played and vacationed, once filled with countless laughter and joy. Here, a father and son once walked together, watching the stars in the sky together.
But now, on the once-beautiful coast, there were only clumps of sludge-like, rotten organic aggregates, like seaweed and mud.
And a pillar of extremely bright light descended, landing right in the middle of the ocean.
At first, there was calm.
Then came a roar that grew louder, heavier, and more grand.
—BOOOOOOM!!!!
A super-tsunami over dozens of kilometers high and a cloud of water vapor erupted from where the light pillar landed. The entire planet's atmospheric circulation balance was shattered in an instant. The whole celestial body was like an egg that had been broken, and the countless steam evaporating and escaping into the vacuum was the flowing, spreading egg white.
Ripples, extremely conspicuous even in the vacuum, spread across the world. They broke mountains, destroyed cities, covered the once-dense primeval forests that had turned into polyps, and washed away all remnants of civilization and Chaos cleanly.
Naturally, these ripples also completely swallowed that filthy coastline.
Everything was destroyed.
In the vacuum, the planet's core was detonated by the overly concentrated special psionic beam, slowly disintegrating into large pieces of stellar debris. Over the next few thousand years, it would continue to break apart and subdivide, and who knows how many tens of thousands of years later, it would become an asteroid belt orbiting the entire track.
The mixed fleet had already jumped out of this star region, heading to the next mission location—the tasks of the Galactic Guardian Alliance came one after another, because Chaos gives no one any time to rest.
Inside the G-shaped giant warship, which had reverted to its original form, the Takur commander, who had seemed very calm, began to tremble slowly. The farther the jump took them from the shattered planet, the more violently he trembled. The Midgardian vice-captain beside him kept wanting to step forward to comfort him, but was gently pushed away by a soft psionic force. The blood-red ripples looked dangerous, but were actually still gentle.
Rip—the antennae moved. The old commander tore off the translator from his chest. His antennae danced fiercely in the air, and weak psionic waves trembled.
But aside from the air being snapped, there was no sound… Without the translator, at this distance, no one could understand what the old man was roaring about, nor could anyone tell whether it was anger or sorrow, or both.
But in reality, the aged Takur was not saying anything at all. At this moment, he could not say anything.
"Ah, aah…"
"AAAAHHHH!!!"
A mournful howl, as if the owner was vomiting out his very soul.
This was just a small star system, a small civilization, an insignificant battlefield among the stars—the battlefield between Order and Chaos.
The view pulled back, jumping out of the star system. It could be seen that on the chessboard called the Galaxy, countless lights shone, and countless darknesses corroded.
The Galaxy rotated.
Countless angers, despairs, countless sorrows, longings, endless hatred and mourning, and endless… love.
Incredibly intense 'emotions', mixed with countless souls, countless lives, gradually converged into a massive vortex among these rotating galaxies.
This vortex, a mixture of psionic energy and life, seemed to be responding to something, praying for something, yearning for something.
It was calling out.
Calling for 'destruction', or perhaps 'hope'.