Age of Cosmic Exploration

Ying’s group had lost their grasp on sanity, mowing everything in their path to reach the mother ship’s central location to demolish it. They were hoping for it to be the engine room, that way they would die together with the whole ship of despicable space merchants.

Madness and despair had overwhelmed their sanity, including Ren Tao and Xiao Niao. They kept no prisoners, so there was no way for them to know they had been tricked. From the moment they saw the Hope explode, the only thing left in their hearts was despair. Since there was destruction waiting for them, why not drag the space merchants along with them?

They vented through destruction, but they knew it was only a matter of time before reality’s despair would come crashing back down. Even if they destroyed the mother ship, would humanity be saved?

When Xi Kong’s voice appeared in their minds, there was a light shining through the miasma of despair. They were startled and found it hard to believe what they were hearing. They confirmed it was Xi Kong, and some in the group had started to cry.

Ying looked at the pile of alien body parts unfeelingly and spat, "We’ve been tricked, the Hope hasn’t been destroyed! That alien had us fooled!"

Ren Tao continued in a similarly chilling tone, "That’s right. That alien wanted to push us over the edge, and we fell for its trick so easily. Looks like these aliens are shrewder than we thought... That was careless of us."

Liu Bai didn’t dawdle; instead, he asked, "Then what should we do now? There is still no way for us to contact the people on the Hope, as we don’t have any Anima with us."

Ren Tao’s face was frosted over. He pointed at the remaining 7 or 8 alien captives that they were going to kill, adding, "Simple, leave two or three live ones and kill the rest. Xi Kong is the most powerful Anima we have; she can communicate with common people and even see the fireballs that represent their souls. I believe she’ll be able to see the fireballs representing these aliens as well. By slowly extinguishing the aliens’ soul flames around us, she’ll be able to tell we are still alive."

Ying wasted no time and walked towards the group of alien captives. He cut through the aliens one by one without hesitation like a god of war plying his judgment.

Back on the Hope, Xi Kong was hamstrung because the communication was only one-way. She realized there was no Anima in Ying’s group, so how was she going to know their situation? At that moment, the weak soul flames around Ying’s group started to get extinguished one by one. Xi Kong was originally confused, but when she understood that those was the aliens’ soul flames, she quickly passed on the information to Yao Yuan.

"So, Ying’s group is surviving and is killing the aliens’ military inside the mother ship..."

This was welcome news for Yao Yuan. He was waiting for the supermagnetic orbit cannon outside of the Hope. After he received the message, he replied Xi Kong, "Then repeat the following orders to Ying. This is Yao Yuan, I order your group to locate and destroy the core system within the enemy’s mother ship in the next 30 minutes. The goal is to paralyze the space merchant’s mother ship, so it can be the polymerized reactor, the central mainframe, or anything that looks important, half an hour, spare no expenses! Lastly, as Black Stars, for glory... Tell them all this!"

Xi King memorized his words and then passed them on word for word to Ying’s group.

Ying was killing the fifth alien when his team received Xi Kong’s message. Ying, Liu Bai, and Ebon looked at each other in silence and stopped to process everything after the message finished.

Ren Tao and Xiao Niao noticed their silence and quickly asked whether there was something wrong with the message.

"No, there’s nothing suspicious about the message," Ebon explained. "It’s just that the Black Star Unit has a slogan, I guess you can call it, but we will not use it at any random moment, because every time the slogan is mentioned, it means that it is a life or death situation. It’s kill or be killed..."

Xiao Niao understood immediately. "Got it, so this means that the Hope is facing a huge tragedy that threatens its existence, and our team might be the only hope they have left. Now I can see why the message is filled with so many choice words like ’spare no expenses’..."

Ying nodded before turning to address his team, "We are now tasked with the most important mission, so let’s be on our toes. Ren Tao, Xiao Niao, and Liu Bai, I want the three of you to interrogate these alien captives and get our location and the map of this ship out of them. Ebon, you and I will check the aliens’ siege engines and weapon storage to see whether we can salvage some of them. Zhang Heng, you will be responsible to be the lookout and warn us if there’s any danger. The rest help out Zhang Heng. We’ll stay here for 3 to 5 minutes, so be quick!"

After Ying gave his orders, everyone moved to oblige. Even the business experts stood alongside the troopers to help with the lookout.

As Ying and Ebon sifted through the aliens’ siege engines and weapon storage, they found several interesting heavy weapons. There was a rifle that fired spindle-shaped light orbs. It had a long reload time; it took 8 seconds to reload before it could fire another bullet, but the damage was incredible. Earlier, one trooper was unlucky enough to be struck by one of the light orbs, and his body shook before bursting in a gory splatter. It was like being rammed into by a speeding train. The damage was so high that not even the spaceship’s inner walls could withstand it, which brought up the question: Why were the aliens willing to use such a powerful weapon inside their spaceship?

Ying’s group had come across this weapon which they dubbed the Seiya Gun before, but the ones they came across had their energy depleted. The gun exhausted a huge amount of energy for each shot, and even with 100% charge, it could only fire 3 shots. The group had no idea how the aliens charged these weapons, so they didn’t take the weapons with them. Now they were searching for fully-charged Seiya Guns.

As they flipped through the weapon storage, Ebon suddenly whispered, "Ying, what shall we do regarding those business experts? They have no space armor protection and can’t catch up to our speed. The mission is only 30 minutes, so I’m afraid... they’ll be nothing but added weight."

Ying was silent for a beat or two before answering, "Yes, this is going to be a problem. I’ll have a chat with them later."

Ebon went back to concentrate on the task at hand, trying to find out ways to use them. After quite some time, he added, "It’s not that I want to abandon them, but if we fail this mission, it’s over for the Hope and humanity. We have no choice but to..."

Ying interrupted him, "I understand, but certain things have to be done for the sake of humanity... These people have to be left behind, because if the mission fails, then we’ll be facing a bigger loss."

The two continued their work in silence. Two minutes later, Ren Tao, Xiao Niao, and Liu Bai approached them with the result of their interrogation. Ying and Ebon eventually located three useable heavy weapons from the weapon pile. Two were high-power Gaussian rifles that were similar to mankind’s Gaussian cannon and the last was a Seiya Gun that still had 2 shots in it.

"The mother ship is delineated according to race. The separation is incredibly complicated. We’ve seen a general map of the mother ship, and generally it can be separated into 7 levels. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a geographical map of the ship; perhaps the aliens were reluctant to give it to us. Regardless, we’re running out of time, so we decided not to waste any time on them. Of these 7 levels, the only system of import was a main energy circuit. This was confirmed by our interrogation. The circuit is connected to the mother ship’s four polymerized reactors, so if we can locate the main circuit and follow it, it will eventually leads us to the reactors," Ren Tao concluded.

Ying nodded and said, in a loud order, "Everyone, do a last minute check of your equipment and space armors. We’re starting the mission soon, and we’re not stopping until the mission ends. Unless all of us die, we’re not going to stop until we destroy this group of reactors, even if the group only has one member left. In the scenario that I die in combat, Liu Bai will take over the mission, over!"

After that, under everyone’s scrutiny, Ying walked to stop before the group of business experts. Facing their begging eyes, Ying steeled his heart and said, "We can’t protect you anymore. This mission is related to the survival of the Hope, of humanity, and we ourselves might pay our lives undertaking this mission, so we can’t allow any mistakes. Without space armors, I’m sorry to say this, but you guys will not be able to catch up with our speed, and to be frank, your involvement will only drag us Troopers down...

"Here are two Gaussian rifles, use them to decide your own fate. You can surrender to the aliens, or use them to force out a road or your own, or... anything you wish to do with them. Of course, you can try to keep up with the rest of us, but I assure you, it’ll be difficult..."

Ying stared silently at the despair that had returned to the business experts’ faces and he bowed slightly. "I’m sorry, but the group has no choice but to abandon the lot of you. If I die in combat, I will personally come apologize to you guys in the afterlife, but for now, I have to focus on the mission at hand...

"Black Star Troopers, attention! Our target is the main energy circuit!"