Age of Cosmic Exploration

"Demons... are the ones mentioned in your human race’s bible, or the demon within the heart described within the eastern scriptures."

Xiao Niao remembered such conversations with ZERO. Even though ZERO had not conversed with him face-to-face, she had always relied on typing, and thus there was always a mechanical feeling to her conversation. But at that moment, Xiao Niao felt the sense of surprise between ZERO’s lines.

"I have watched you humans evolve from chimps. I can assure you that you humans are normal sentient lifeforms. There are many lifeforms like yourselves in the whole cosmos. You humans are not as exceptional as portrayed in your literature. However, there is one thing that is incredibly curious. In your many civilizations, be it western or eastern, the similarity between the human race’s origin has always been related to earth and the soul (the breath or blood of the gods). Weirdly enough, it is from this origin that the start of the demon race was described...

"Could it be that you humans have a history that is unbeknownst to me as well?"

Xiao Niao thought back to all of this. It overlapped with the story Guang Zhen told him. The demon in the bible and in human heart... what kind of existence would that be?

The demon in the bible should be the angel who betrayed God. He went against God’s order and reached out towards mankind’s ancestor, Adam. One third of the angels joined Lucifer’s rebellion and they were all sent by God into hell and became demons. These demons eventually made a deal with God. God would lead humanity towards good while demons would lead humanity towards depravity. The good people would go the heavens and the depraved to hell, thus creating the worldview described in the bible.

The demon within the human heart in eastern scriptures referred to the possibility of falling into a demonic state during cultivation. The types of demons included sins of greed or envy. They affected the cultivators mentally.

The similarity between the two was their abstract nature... For example, the demon in the bible might have a shape or form, but due to the limitations set down by God, demons are unable to physically harm human beings. They can only rely on sins and lies to lead humans towards depravity. It was the same for the demons in human hearts.

The second similarity w as their ability to draw human beings into depravity mentioned above. Both types of demons lure human beings into hell or death through pure deceit. In other words, their influence was purely mental. On the physical plane, demons were non-existent!

The information above was the product of the many discussions between Xiao Niao and Ren Tao. However, since there were still too many things that were unknown about the demon race, the discussions weren’t much more than things to pass the time.

Until they captured Blue 6 and obtained more information from him, the discussion between the two Thinkers started in earnest again, but in the end, however, they could not come up with any valid conclusion because they had not seen the demons in action for themselves...

Until then, when Xiao Niao heard those words from Guang Zhen, he finally had some ideas in his mind.

"I remembered a hypothesis from a famous scientist... He asked another scientist if is there a type of living creature that cannot feel, see, nor touch. The other scientist replied, ’If there is a creature that cannot feel, see, nor touch, then it is not a living creature...’"

Xiao Niao studied the morphing organisms and said this to Guang Zhen matter-of-factly.

Guang Zhen was in the middle of assigning orders to the Black Star Troopers. He paused when Xiao Niao said those things. He then turned towards him and barked, "Be clear and concise, don’t play puzzles with me. I am not afraid of you Thinkers, I am not Yao Yuan, and this is a battlefield. If your little puzzles cause any delay in the mission, I will be the first to put a bullet in your head!"

Xiao Niao shrugged helplessly and said, "I meant what I said, literally... Fine, I will put it in simpler terms, and I believe you. Do you remember what Blue 6 told us? In legends, the demons could only be fought by cosmic adapters. In reality, us Homo Evolutis cannot see the illusions that you see, so we will not be affected, and I suspect that if you fall for the illusion... you too will change into those meat blobs. Perhaps...

"The supposed demon race is a type of lifeform that exists purely in soul form. We cannot see them, touch them, or detect them on our radar. Only under specific circumstances will they appear, and when they do, they will use some kind of method to infect materials or lifeforms, changing them into different forms. They use this method to achieve some kind of goal!"

When Xiao Niao reached this part of his analysis, his face was drawn, but he continued, "And isn’t this... exactly the way the demon in the bible or in our hearts materialize themselves?!"

At the same time, before the eyes of 150 Black Star Troopers, the several green meat blobs had finished their transformations... The end result was hard to describe. It wasn’t certain whether they were still living organism or not. Some of the meat blobs had morphed into giants, but they were weird-looking and disgusting. The biggest were 20 plus meters tall and were made out of bones. Some of them had seven to eight bones sticking out of their flesh, like spiders.

Some had minimized to become aheets of meat boils that covered the floor. They were about 20 cubic meters in size.

Others morphed into rocks or metals. Some parts of their bodies looked like weapons, while others were fire or ice. Some were moving or roaring, while others were completely twisted. It was something that human language failed to describe. It was something out of one’s nightmares.

These few meat creatures appeared before the Black Star Troopers. Even though the troopers had been through several wars and some of them were soldiers when they were still on Earth, they felt chills when looking at this situation. The chills came from the fear of the unknown... Because what exactly were these things before them!?

Regardless, there was nothing else they could do but fight!

Guang Zhen took a deep breath because he saw several mirage creatures slipping into those green meat blobs. The mirages looked exactly like the things that appeared before them now... Was it like Xiao Niao said, could they only exist in soul form and had to rely on inducing evolution in material stuff to pass into the physical world?

"Fire! Fire! Get into combat!"

Guang Zhen waved the sawblade in his hand and roared, "We are Black Star Troopers! We are humankind’s best weapon and armor! We are steel! We are the end for humankind’s enemies! We fight for humanity! We have no fear!

"Kill all the monsters! Cowards will die from shame! Do you wish for your name to appear in the Hall of Remembrance as cowards?! Kill for the Hope! For humanity!"

A hail of Gaussian bullets rained on those monsters!

To everyone’s surprise, when the bullets neared the monsters, they disappeared... Yes, all the bullets evaporated into thin air without causing any damage to the monsters. There were no signs of bullet damage on the monsters, nor the ground around the monsters. The blanket fire resulted in... nothing!

"Electromagnetic shields? Plasma shields?!" Guang Zhen almost bit through his lip because he was the most familiar with what was happening before them. These creatures’ weird and sudden appearance had already rocked the troopers’ confidence in battle. However, if they could win this one battle, then their confidence would be recovered. The troopers had fought bigger and stronger enemies before, like the zerg. The thing that caused fear in their hearts at the moment was the unknown... They would not be afraid of these scary-looking monsters because they were Black Star Troopers, and they had survived multiple space wars and had unimaginable combat capability!

But now... their attack was useless? And it was not just that the bullets got blocked physically, but this mystery added to the unknown. If this was allowed to continue, then the confidence of the troopers would break...

Guang Zhen gritted his teeth. After a sudden roar, he charged into the fray, his sawblade whizzing through the air. After that, a few of the other Black Star Unit members who came to, the first being Ebon, who was flashing red in his eyes, yelled loudly, "Those that want to accomplish their mission and become a real Black Star Trooper, follow me!" He picked up his speed to chase after Guang Zhen. In fact, he ran past him and was the first to charge into the middle of the monsters. He lifted his sawblade and swiped at a metal monster.

The sawblade tore through metals...

The sawblade was like cutting through tofu. Ebon had sliced the legs off this monster before he even realized what had happened. Ebon did not stop there. He was a Perceptor, the Homo Evolutis most suited for combat. While he was charging towards another target, he kicked the ground under his feet and the power within his space armor exploded. Following a small tremor, he leaped several meters into the air, and there were two particle flux streams behind him. He landed before a meat mountain monster. Under everyone’s gazes, he charged at it...

Ebon came out from the other side of the monster as the monster was cut into two by him!

These so-called demons... were so weak?!