Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Li Yao did not know how he could describe the things that he was seeing. The universe inside the crab nebula was ten thousand times more brilliant than the universe outside.
It looked both like thousands of rivers in different colors that were colliding, and hundreds of beasts that were mauling and killing each other.
In the silent and yet surging tides, every spindrift was in thousands of different colors.
Just looking at the red colors alone, there were carmine, ruby, coral, maroon, magenta, fuchsia, cerise, vermilion, and thousands of more in different shades.
There were also millions of colors that were unrecognizable to human eyes.
What was even more amazing was that, every couple of seconds, an intense wave would come over from the deepest part of the crab nebula. Like a tide that was even more massive, it stirred the millions of colors in the entire universe and forced them to crash into an extraordinary outburst of brightness!
Such colors seemed to be alive. In fluffy and yet enormous arms, they extended to Li Yao and slapped his head as if deities had opened their hands!
Gaps were splitting apart from some other clusters of brightness while they turned into wry faces and grimaced at him in creepy smiles.
Breathing heavily, Li Yao felt that the billions of optical cells on his retina were far from enough.
He even had the illusion that the crab nebula that was larger than a galaxy was an overwhelming beast and that the waves of light were the breath and heartbeat of the beast.
Staring at the place where the waves came from, Li Yao asked Professor Mo Xuan in a low voice, “What’s that?”
Faced with such a spectacular universe, Li Yao felt that he was nothing more than dust or a germ in the body of the beast. He could not help but lower his voice.
“It’s a pulsar.” Professor Mo Xuan replied in a low voice as well. “The pulsar has been unleashing immense spiritual waves and stirring the nebula, turning the entire crab nebula into an enormous turbulence of spiritual energy.”
A pulsar was a type of neutron star that would release pulses periodically. They were usually around ten kilometers in diameter and boasted an extremely high rotation speed that could be tens of thousands of times higher than that of regular stars or planets!
Every celestial body had their own field of spiritual energy. Pulsars, because of their high revolution speed, had particularly intense spiritual waves and often unleashed them incessantly to the outside world.
Generally speaking, such waves were undetectable to the eyes.
But as it happened, this particular pulsar was surrounded by a nebula made of star dust and radiation aftermath. That was the reason it could leave brilliant traces on the visible spectrum.
Li Yao, the Fire Ant King, and Professor Mo Xuan appreciated the view for a moment. Then, they calmed themselves down and got back to business.
The pulsar was not their target.
For the technology of mankind, even in the heydays of the Star Ocean Imperium, it was impossible to efficiently train with a neutron star.
It was best to stay away from such dangerous celestial bodies.
At this moment, the hundreds of probe balls that the four star spirits had sent into space had collected a lot of astronomical parameters, which were not very satisfactory.
“Too much star dust occupies the era. Also, the waves released by the pulsar are blowing the stole belts everywhere randomly.
“Sparkle, a ship less than a hundred meters long, could manage to jump over, but a super warships dozens of kilometers long such as Burning Prairie cannot jump to a place with such complicated conditions!
“Besides, it is impossible for us to deploy star beacons here, which will be destroyed by the meteoroid cascades before they are unfolded. Even if they are not, they will barely be able to guide the way precisely because of the interference of the pulsar and will likely lead Burning Prairie toward the pulsar!”
Space jumps could be highly perilous. A starship was always defenseless when it just finished a space jump.
Sparkle was a super mini exploration ship that was agile and easy to maneuver. That was why it could risk jumping to the middle of the turbulence.
Burning Prairie, on the other hand, was too huge. At the most vulnerable moment after it finished the space jump, the odds of it getting hit by the meteoroid cascades were thousands of times higher than Sparkle. Also, it was bound to be affected by the pulsar!
Another very dangerous possibility was that some large meteoroids would melt into the engine unit or the warehouse of crystals during the space jump.
Objects that did not belong to the same place would be overlapped by force, and a great explosion would definitely be raised!
One other possible that was even more dangerous was that Burning Prairie would land too near the pulsar!
Once it was captured or even swallowed by the pulsar, the dream warship, along with the hundreds of Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and Core Formation Stage Cultivators on board, would be compressed to the size of rice, and even their remaining souls would not be able to escape. They would not even know how they were killed.
After discussing the issue with the four star spirits for a while, they all agreed that it was impossible to establish star beacons at this place. Thus, they had two options.
Firstly, they could fly to the opposite direction out of the crab nebula and then build up star beacons beyond the reach of the pulsar.
The advantage of such an option was that it was secure, but the shortcoming was that it would waste a lot of time. Even if Burning Prairie was teleported over, it would still be outside of the crab nebula. They would still have to slowly clear the sailing route and fly in bit by bit.
Secondly, they could fly further into the crab nebula and stop somewhere near Kunlun.
“The crab nebula is like a cosmic storm. The outer area has a complicated spiritual and electromagnetic environment, but the center is a relatively stable zone, just like the ‘eye’ in a storm!”
Analyzing the astronomical parameters just collected, Professor Mo Xuan said, “The Pangu civilization’s relic ‘Kunlun’ is exactly at the center!
“Deploying the star beacons at the ‘eye’ will allow Burning Prairie to pass the crab nebula and directly appear in Kunlun. What do you think, everybody?”
Although the plan was a bit risky, the odds of success were still quite high with the delicate control of the four star spirits. Right now, they were trying to beat the Immortal Cultivators of the Imperium to their destination; there was no time to worry too much.
After activating the spiritual shield and the force field twisting system to the maximum, Sparkle wriggled forward in the crab nebula like a glittering firefly.
They ran into small meteoroid cascades and spiritual energy turbulence on their way, but the probe magical equipment on Sparkle detected the events in advance and dodged them perfectly. The journey proved to be soul-stirring but safe.
However, the closer they got to Kunlun, the denser the meteoroids in front of them became. They had nowhere to dodge and could only crash into the meteoroids.
“This is abnormal. The ‘meteoroids’ look very weird. They do not seem natural!”
Manipulating two artificial arms, Professor Mo Xuan dragged a ‘meteoroid’ into Sparkle. After five sterilization procedures, he examined the elements of the object in person. As it turned out, it was made of a super alloy that would hardly appear in a natural environment.
“This is not a meteoroid but a certain synthetic material.”
Everybody looked at each other in bewilderment, but they had no choice except to move forward.
In the voyage in the next hour, everybody was breathing ill at ease, as if they were on a ragged boat that was sailing in infamous, dangerous reefs.
“Look!”
Very soon, they discovered edges that were obviously unnatural on more meteoroids. Some of the meteoroids were even carved with complicated spiritual stripes.
The spiritual stripes were a hundred times more chaotic than the most sophisticated spiritual stripes of the present day. Even Li Yao, a specialist who was familiar with the ancient spiritual stripes and the contemporary ones, had never seen such eerie, messy spiritual stripes that contained boundless information before!
“Li Yao, what does the ‘meteoroid ocean’ remind you of?” Professor Mo Xuan asked him in a low voice.
In a trance, Li Yao mumbled, “I’m thinking of the debris of the space battlefield that we saw when we just arrived in the Flying Star Sector. I feel that this is also a relic of a space battlefield, not ten thousand years ago, not forty thousand years ago, but… from a primeval era that is much more ancient!”
Right then, a star spirit exclaimed.
The searchlight of Sparkle detected a human-shaped object!
“Fly over, let’s take a look!”
All seven of them got excited. Maneuvering Sparkle, Professor Mo Xuan drilled a channel in the ocean of meteoroids with the drill of mystic rays. Very soon, they discovered a body that was floating in the cold universe!
It was a gargantuan body in a heavy armor that looked very similar to a crystal suit but with additional solemnity and dominance, indicating that its master might eclipse the stars.
Counting the armor, the ancient body was more than twenty meters long. The general appearance of the body was very similar to that of a human being, but it boasted six arms and a hairy tail.
The facial cover of the body had been knocked off a long time ago, revealing a hideous face with long tusks. Traces of scales could be found on many parts of its face, too.
For some reason, the body was still preserved perfectly and vividly after such a long time. The fury, regret, and desperation on the face were etched onto Li Yao’s heart.
There was a hole more than three meters in diameter on the abdomen of ‘him’, and all the internal organs inside had disappeared.
If ‘his’ biological structure was similar to that of a human being, the wound should have been fatal.
But even after death, ‘his’ arms were still waving different weapons.
Li Yao could vaguely distinguish several sabers and swords in ancient structures. Some other magical equipment was cylindrical. It was hard to tell whether or not they were remote weapons such as guns.
“This is a member of the Pangu Clan!” The Fire Ant King’s eyes were beaming with joy.
They had once seen a corpse of the Pangu Clan in Ba Yanzhi’s Mausoleum of Chaos. Although the previous guy was half human being and half snake and looked quite different from the six-armed dude in front of them right now, the armor that had almost melted into their bodies shared a lot of similarities. It was not hard to tell that their style was consistent.
“It seems that a fierce battle once took place in ‘Kunlun’. The Pangu Clan had a confrontation with other primeval species. The ocean of meteoroids is made of the debris and scraps from the broken starships at that time!”
Controlling Sparkle, Professor Mo Xuan drew close carefully. After scanning up and down more than ten times and making sure that there was no anomaly, he extended the mechanical arm, trying to pluck a weapon in the hand of the dead body.
Li Yao, however, felt a sharp pain in his head as if somebody stung him. He shouted subconsciously, “Watch out!”
