Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Nolan was shocked upon hearing the news. Zorm’s reception of the signals from deep space was totally out of her expectation. Her reservation about Hao Ren’s speculation did not prevent her from believing that the incident was not a mere coincidence.

Perhaps it really had something to do with the giant antenna on orbit.

After a while of silence, the long-range cognition array became busy again as its various components began to hum while the electrical switches did their work. Hordes of autonomous robots and engineering drones began to flow out of their resting bays to physically connect the long-range cognition array to the crystal resonant antenna. The forward base itself was not spared of disruption as lights in some areas had temporarily gone out, and the base was announcing the energy control plan and the shutting down of some areas.

As there was no prior model to follow in designing these temporary facilities, many of the components were made merely to meet their own needs, So, it was inadequate in facing an unexpected situation. No one had ever thought of the need to connect Zorm’s long-range cognition array with the giant antenna, which was a signal detector. It was necessary to shut down the energy module of either side when making the connection and transfer part of the energy in the power reactor of the forward base to the long-range cognition array.

But this emergency procedure would not last long. When the physical connection of the two systems was completed, the power control unit had quickly calculated the system power requirement of the coupled system and reset the operating parameters of the two energy modules. The energy ration in the forward base ended in less than twenty minutes.

But the procedure had alerted the little buddies in the forward base. It was Lily who first yelled as she ran over. “What’s the matter? Are we at a fight with something else? I was in the middle of writing code words in the room and then the blackout. Fortunately, I have backup power.”

She was followed by Vivian, who was preparing dim sum in the kitchen and only came out when she saw Lily scurried out noisily. And then there was Y’zaks and his daughter, and the Nangong siblings. But Rollie and Lil Pea did not appear.

The feline maiden must have gone on an adventure in some corner of the base; a little change of light was completely common for a wild cat that grew up in the ruined ancient city. Meanwhile, Lil Pea was sleeping like a log.

“Are you sure,” Vivian was stunned for a while as she looked at Hao Ren, “that the signals that Zorm received are related to the crystal resonance that we are carrying out right now?”

“Of course, I am not sure. I just take a guess.” Hao Ren spread out his hand. “Zorm has just confirmed it; the signals have only a few minutes of delay and are of hyperspeed communication, which means that the signals are not phantom radio frequencies originating from the past but ‘freshly’ sent out shortly after we turned on the antenna. I cannot help but make an association when the two incidents come at once.”

Y’zaks scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “After listening to the conversations in the signals, the crystal resonant signal that we have emitted must have caused great trouble to someone out there. Wait a minute! Is the antenna still turned on?”

It was precisely why Hao Ren felt helpless. He pinched his forehead and said, “The problem is that we cannot simply turn it off. The crystal resonant antenna looks complicated, but it only consists of a giant antenna and a power module shrouded in a case. The real core component is the large crystal that we have dug out from the earth, and until now, we have not fully understood the inner working of the crystal. What we have done so far is that we have only jabbed the crystal once, and hooray! It started to emit the signals. The system we created only passively scan the universe for any echoes.”

Y’zaks finally figured out what was happening. The crystal resonant antenna had two completely distinct parts put together. The crystal, the product of the Goddess of Creation, emitted the signals, and the best Hao Ren knew was how to poke it so that it sent signals. Meanwhile, the main antenna system that Nolan created was a passive receptor, which had no control over the crystal.

Lily thought for a moment, and then she raised her hand. “Zorm must be hearing those guys cursing us right now.”

Hao Ren sighed. “There has been silence since a while ago. Maybe they have given up. Of course, they could also have—”

Before Hao Ren could finish, Vivian suddenly interrupted. “The guys who sent the signals should be fine for now. Since Zorm could intercept their communication, then they should be within observable space. At least, not too far. Those who could master hyper-speed communication and still survive in Star Cluster X are no slouch. Even if something is attacking them, they should have at least made some sound.”

“Well, it makes sense.” Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing Vivian’s analysis. He nodded lightly. “At present, our various antennas could not receive this communication signal, and Zorm, because of his limited ‘functionality,’ could not pinpoint the signal source location. Now, I have connected the data processing center of the long-range cognition array to the antenna array; if all goes well, maybe we can let the two systems work together to lock on the signal source.”

It was the only thing that they could do right now. But Hao Ren was impatient already. While searching for the signal source, he issued a combat alert to the nearby drone cluster. All armed drones just rolling out of assembly line began to assemble and heard toward the home planet, and the engineering drones hauled the components out from the nearby nests and assembled a huge warp-jump acceleration track over the home planet.

Once they locked on the signal source, Hao Ren could make sure that he could send the drone forces there in the shortest time possible no matter what happened there.

In this strange ancient galaxy, the drone cluster meant a lot in terms of safety.

“What trouble do you think that those guys out are having?” Vivian asked Hao Ren when things were in position.

“There is too little information to tell. There are only a few conversations that we have captured.” Hao Ren shook his head. “But judging from those few conversations, the guys who have sent the signals must be trying to avoid making contact with the outside world. But since the crystal resonant signal is a forced two-way transmission, they are forced to respond to our signals whether they like it or not. I have no idea why our antenna system could not receive the feedback signals from deep space, but I am sure this is what happens. It is very likely that our forced signal transmission has broken their radio silence mode.”

“You mean they are hiding their own signals?” Vivian asked thoughtfully. “Are they fleeing, hiding, or what?”

Hao Ren looked solemn when he looked up at the stars above. “Most likely, that is the case.”

Just then, in a place of the galaxy invisible to the naked eyes, a vast celestial body was flying in the dark.

It was an irregular short conical body with a large curved surface. The other side of the body was jagged and covered in twisted cracks and broken pipes as if it was torn apart from something much bigger.

Any experienced space adventurer would know that it was the piece of a planet. The curvature of the surface and the overall length of the body suggested that it was roughly a third the size of the planet from which it broke apart.

This massive planetary fragment that drifted in space was not all dark and dead, though. There were light sources of different sizes covering the curvature surface, on which a large number of man-made structures stood. Some towers looked like cannons, and magnificent palaces and cities were built around these towers. Outside these man-made structures were vast jungles and grasslands. It was hard to imagine that these landscapes still existed on a planetary fragment that wandered in space.

Apparently, the light and life-sustaining environment of the artificial facilities had preserved this vegetation.

The surface of the planetary debris still flourished with lives, but it was not so optimistic elsewhere. At the edge of the curved surface was a large number of broken structures, collapsed crust, and exposed pipes and machines that had been damaged. Electrical arcs and sparkles burst out from the underside of the celestial fragment with small-scale explosions and fires breaking out continuously. There were gaseous leaks on the lower half of the body, leaving the tail end of the cone-shaped body shrouded in gas and dust.

There was a vast grassland on the center of the curvature surface. Sitting on the grassland was an old assembly hall, where huge metal obelisks were arranged in a ring on the outside. The metal platform circled by the obelisks was large enough to accommodate thousands of people.

Right now, a large group of strange creatures with a shimmering body from the last era gathered on this metal platform discussing noisily. These creatures resembled the elf but had a nearly-transparent body like spirits. It was hard to tell of their genders as they all wore the same type of clothes, which was almost non-matter, and their bodies and clothes exuded a soft halo. These sprites flocked together in large groups with bright arcs sparked between them as they argued in a disorderly fashion.

“We are going to die! We are going to die! Those people are still sending out signals!”

“It has overloaded our signal jamming capability! We will be exposed!”

“Silly you! We have already been exposed since two hours ago!”

“It has been three hours, apparently!”

“It does not matter how many hours! Those bad guys are coming for us very soon!”

“We can’t beat them! No way we can beat them! We don’t even have a gun that works!”

“Are there not many guns in the plains?”

“Silly you! They are all spoilt! All spoilt! Now, the guardian giant would be helpless even if it is still alive!”

“What should we do? What should we do? The goddess just gave us a task when she created us, and we screwed it up!”

“Speaking of which, where is the Queen? Where is the Queen? Let the Queen think of something!”

“Where is the Queen? Where is the Queen? Where is the Queen? Where is the Queen…”

Silence…

“We are doomed! We don’t have a queen!”

“We are going to die! We are going to die…”