Age of Cosmic Exploration Chapter 239

The Black Dragon was a super species man couldn’t understand.

According to mankind’s understanding of evolutionary theory, the Black Dragons should be born on a planet that has gravitational force 20 times larger than Earth's, a barren landscape, a lack of food, low concentration of atmospheric oxygen, and was prone to frequent natural disaster.

It was the logical explanation behind why the Black Dragon was such a powerful super species. Survival of the fittest, natural selection, one of the most accepted theories within biology.

However, life would be impossible on such a planet. Gravity that is 20 times stronger than Earth's? That alone is enough to make the existence of such a planet dubious. With that strong of a gravitational force, how small would the planet have to be? Or perhaps the geological structure of the planet would be different? Under such circumstances, how could there even be a food chain when the plants that form the foundation of all food chains would have difficulty growing?

So why would the Black Dragons evolve to such a stage in the relatively peaceful new planet? What kind of event instigated such a drastic change in their evolutionary journey?

These were questions mankind’s current scientific knowledge couldn’t answer.

However, one thing was for sure: the Black Dragons were friendly to mankind’s presence. Of course, it was not at a stage that was akin to man’s relationship to dogs, but it was obvious that at least the Black Dragons were not averse to humanity’s presence. However, it was another question whether the Black Dragons would put themselves on the line to fight for humanity’s survival. I suppose we’ll soon find out…

The moment Yang Sen lost his consciousness, a gorilla alien that was picking up an unconscious human beings was crushed into a mess of guts and meat by a Black Dragon. The dragons’ speed was so fast that the space merchants were completely oblivious to their approach. Even though their spacesuits were equipped with the latest radar system they had, it was still too slow in comparison to the Black Dragons’ speed.

Especially now, when the Hope’s power system had gone completely offline and the ship had become a zero-gravity environment. While the space merchants’ spacesuits were more advanced than mankind’s, proven by the more numerous propulsion systems that decorated their spacesuits, providing a better balance and speed, the loss of gravity still greatly affected their mobility.

About 20 Black Dragons entered the space merchants’ sight. The dragons maintained an unusual stance to move forward. Their tails and claws firmly pierced through the metallic layer. The paths that they travelled were left with a trail of small, deep holes. The deepest were the ones made by their tails. It appeared like they were flinging themselves forward using this kind of forward momentum. Of course, they used this method to change directions freely in space too. They approached the zero-gravity environment like fish in the water. The zero-gravity did nothing to slow them down; in fact… they might have been even faster in this environment!

When the Black Dragons appeared, the hundreds of space merchants changed their formation. The gorilla aliens led the frontline, rushing at the dragons, their stun guns at the ready. The space merchants seemed intent on capturing the Black Dragons alive.

That was a mistake…

In the blink of an eye, all of the Black Dragons disappeared from their sight and appeared around the group of unconscious human beings. The leading Black Dragon, the one that was missing a leg, sniffed the human beings on the floor and gave out a booming roar. The rest of his pack joined in the war-drum-like growling.

In the next second, 20 adult Black Dragons launched headfirst into the space merchant troops, and about 10 of 30 space gorillas that stood in the front were knocked out of their formation. A few of them w

ere torn into pieces by the Black Dragons. After a swipe of their claws, the aliens’ spacesuits were shredded like paper. They were defenseless.

Of course, the space merchants kept shooting at the Black Dragons, but the dragons simply shrugged the stream of electricity off. An electrical voltage that was strong enough to knock a grown man out instantly was like a mosquito bite to the Black Dragons. They ignored the space merchants' pitiful attacks and tore freely through their ranks.

It was a massacre!

On the other hand, with the power outage, all of the space armors came back online. After ensuring this development, Yao Yuan stopped hesitating. He led the troopers who were back in their armors to the jet hangar.

There were only about 80 Defense Unit soldiers left at the central mainframe. Furthermore, most of these 80 people were already stunned by the electrical gun and were biting their lips to keep themselves from fainting. At this moment, they had reached their very limit. When Yao Yuan’s unit charged out from within the central mainframe, several four-armed gorillas were charging in. They knocked the Defense Unit soldiers out of the way like nothing. One of them even picked up a soldier, aiming to throw him at the Hope’s central mainframe!

A flash of red lightning zipped through, and from top to bottom, the space gorilla was split cleanly down the middle.

With the space armor’s aid, Yao Yuan didn’t even need to stop to collect himself. He immediately went after the next space gorilla. Furthermore, the space armor greatly reinforced his physical power, so he could even rival a Black Dragon in strength. It was a pure force that was even greater than a giant tank.

Yao Yuan slammed into a space gorilla and carried his momentum to ram into the other aliens in the area. The aliens piled onto one another, being carried by Yao Yuan’s force until eventually they were sent careening into the rest of the space merchants out in the corridor leading to the central mainframe.

"Leave no prisoners! Troopers, use your sawblades and hack your way through!" Yao Yuan yelled into his communicator, and moments later, the air was thick with blood…

More space combat jets continued to stream out of the space merchants’ mother ship. There were around 1,500 circular combat jets as well as 100 plus several-hundred-meter-long circular spaceships. When the three human spaceships, the Observer and the Defenders, self-destructed, about 400 combat jets and 20 spaceships were caught in the explosion. Regardless, the space around the Hope was still teeming with these hostile spaceships.

The spaceships travelled to and from the Hope and the mothership ferrying the human cargo, but it stopped temporarily when the power went out for the second time on the Hope. Perhaps it was their dogmatism, but the leaders of these space merchant units resumed their capturing mission. The only change was that the spaceship started circling the Hope in high alert.

About 7 minutes later, a red combat jet shot out of the Hope with startling speed. Other combat jets followed it out one after another. There were about 100 combat jets in total. Their shapes and appearances were completely different from the space merchants’ circular combat jets. Mankind’s combat jets had adopted the sleek, streamlined design that was popularized by airplanes and aircrafts. Their appearance was quickly noted by the space merchants.

It took the space merchants about two seconds to realize that they needed to capture the red combat jet, but that was easier said than done.

The red combat jet was faster than any one of them. Before the space merchants could close in on it, it sped through their enclosing web, causing more than half of them to lose their offensive formation. However, the space merchants recuperated quickly. They decided to stop giving chase to the red combat jet and focused on the rest.

A bent pipe appeared underneath their spaceship and began to shoot a series of bright, glowing, fast-moving bullets. They looked like Gaussian weapons but had a firing mode completely different from other Gaussian weapons.

They miscalculated because unlike their own combat jets, which were piloted by normal soldiers, their enemies’ combat jets were piloted by Homo Evolutis that made up the Black Star Troopers. Before the bullets even left the pipe, the Troopers had already felt their projection of malice and separated, evading the attack. Even though their speed was not as high as the red combat jet's, it was still far beyond the space merchants’ speed. They escaped their trap easily and sped outside of the Hope’s creator’s particle range!

"Fire! Take down any enemy combat jet you can see! Leave the larger spaceships alone because they’re carrying our civilians!"

Yao Yuan pulled on the control stick and the Red Lightning made a drastic U-turn in space. When he righted himself, all the space troopers had escaped the creator’s particle zone. He yelled with eyes burning with rage, "Since they’ve asked for war, we’ll give them one! Charge! We’ll crush them to a pulp!"

The Gaussian railgun and the mini cannon on Red Lightning started roaring as the combat jet charged towards one of the nearest circular combat jets…

Chapter end