Age of Cosmic Exploration Chapter 173

With their experience in the Black Star Unit, they were undoubtedly the strongest batch of Homo Evolutis. In both rankings for Black Star Troopers and space combat jet pilots, they occupied the highest placement.

Right then, they were at the frontline, caught in a space battle with the alien monsters.

Even though their combat gains weren’t as insane as Yao Yuan in Red Lightning, it was already scary enough, miles ahead of the other troopers. In other words, they were the core that kept the troopers running.

However, they were also greatly exhausted.

It had been more than 2 hours since the battle began. Even though piloting the combat jet didn’t require them to keep their superhuman power activated, combat with the monsters required their extended use. That coupled with the fatigue that came with piloting the jet, they had reached their limits. 2 hours were their threshold.

"Damn it, Ying! The main cannon missed the last reactor and Ol’ Captain is not here because he has gone to intercept the propeller. What should we do now?"

After Ying blew up a bunch of monsters, another jet surfed to his side and Liu Bai’s voice came over the communicator.

"Keep on fighting…" Ying said matter-of-factly. "Until the retreat order comes, we must keep on fighting!"

"I know that!" Liu Bai yelled. "But what’s the strategy?"

"Then…"

Before Ying could architect an answer, a sound wafted into his brain. It was a light, caressing humming. It seemed to communicate a message to him.

"Attack the mother nest’s surface to temporarily disable its ECS system?" Liu Bai echoed the thought in Ying’s head.

"So… you heard it too." Ying, after some length, added firmly, "Liu Bai, contact the remaining combat jets! Order them to focus fire on the mother nest’s surface!’

"Roger!" Liu Bai replied. Before he left, he asked, "By the way, do you feel that…"

"Yes, I do." Ying raised his hands to massage his temples. "I feel my body becoming lighter, like the melody is taking my lassitude away. It’s such a wonderful sound…"

The sensation was not limited to Ying and Liu Bai. The remaining 89 pilots all felt an indiscernible serenity that chased away all their fatigue. Many others also picked up the threads of message that were embedded in the melody. Staying in their 3 members per team formation, they flew towards the mother nest.

Yao Yuan, who was further away, felt the miraculous properties of the melody as well. He felt the melody reaching beyond his corporeal form. It was more than a simple transference of message, it felt like a communication between souls… Perhaps this was the true power of the Anima. She could not only communicate with anyone she wished within a certain radius across the barrier of time but also heal and reenergize the weary soul. Yao Yuan felt his previous despair melting away, and he was ready to take on the alien once more.

He looked out the window of his jet and saw something that buoyed his heart even further.

The previously organized monster army started to have its members stray from their formation. They tumbled out of their designated position like they were drunk. Some even turned on their allies, chewing and clawing at each other.

Yao Yuan saw a meat blob that was torn from within. The monsters that it was transporting turned on it from within, and after it burst open, the monsters floated about suspended in space.

"Right! The mother nest uses some kind of biological messages to make these essentially rabid monsters into an army. Xi Kong’s Anima power must have overridden it somehow… We had an ultimate weapon on our side all along, we just didn’t realize it! Yes, victory is possible!" Yao Yuan roared excitedly.

This excitement was replicated by the 89 pilots. As the monsters were too busy attacking each other to pose any threat to the troopers, they started to strafe fire at the mother nest’s surface. It was shot by Gaussian cannons from every side.

Under such focused fire, the mother nest’s ECS system started to lose its functionality. Due to the mechanism of the ECS system, it had to be attached to the surface, so under the carpet fire of 89 combat jets, parts of the ECS system underneath the mother nest’s fleshy surface was destroyed. It kept rebuilding them, but it didn’t take long for them to get taken down again.

The Hope started recalibrating its coordination. The invisibility of the mother nest adopted a random pattern. Sometimes its vulnerable parts would be revealed, other times not. This added to the complication of the calibration. After 30 seconds, the calculation was completed after mixing and matching all of the different parts that were revealed at varying times. Now they only needed to take into account its location and movement speed.

Everything was rapidly processed by the central mainframe.

"We have 5 more seconds, 4, 3, 2, 1…"

The assistant mouthed out the countdown that appeared on screen. After it drew to 0, multiple windows of data appeared. Bo Li ordered immediately, "Send all the data over to the main cannon. Fire immediately after the recharging’s completed!"

"Yes. Captain’s orders…"

Several seconds later, the Hope was assaulted by another tremor. Another shot was launched from the Supermagnetic Planet Annihilating Rail-Cannon.

The shot carried humanity’s prayers. Everyone stared at the screen silently as the shot they focused on arced through space…

There was no sound in space, but everyone could clearly see an explosion as the cannon shot came into contact with the mother nest. It writhed around a small ball of fire that emerged at its center as if it was wincing from the heat and pain.

With the loss of its last reactor, the entire mother nest reappeared in space because the power gpomg to the ECS system was lost. The mother nest was defenseless… at least until it reconstructed a new reactor.

Not only that, the surveillance in the Hope showed the density of creator’s particle in space decreasing. Evidently, the mother nest was too injured to be able to manipulate the string.

"Increase the creator’s particle’s functionality to its maximum. Clear away the creator’s particles within this planet system," Bo Li ordered.

"Captain’s orders…"

Several minutes later, as the melody started to slow down, about 70 percent of the creator’s particles had been neutralized. There were still communication issues, but the Hope’s surveillance devices had come back online. The surveillance range broke past the 10 kilometers limitation.

"There is a high energy reaction within the mother nest. It is creating a new reactor. Size medium, predicted completion time is 37 minutes…"

"The giant propeller will reach its target in less than 16 seconds… 13, 12, 11… It has made contact. Activating super growth field to push the propeller deeper into the enemy…"

"Unusual development found within the mother nest. Disappearance of high energy reaction, I suspect it has abolished the plan to create a reactor. Concentration of cells around the propeller increasing… The cells disappeared… The mother nest is collapsing, heading towards dissolution…"

"Dissolution stopped. Emergence of a new type of cell, and it’s increasing in numbers…"

When the propeller shot into the mother nest, the nest became animated. Its fleshy surface started gyrating in waves. It was reacting to the appearance of an alien object in its body. The constant motion all over its surface lent it a look of desperation…

Or excitement.

Following the disappearance of the melody, the monsters should have returned to their disciplined selves; however, they were weirdly agitated. They flew towards the mother nest to merge their bodies into it. In a matter of minutes, the space was cleared of any living monsters.

"The plan is working successfully. Increase the propeller’s propulsion to its maximum. The target is… the sun!"

Chapter end