The Mantis Battle Group said that although they couldn’t mount a rescue, they would forward the distress signal from Wasteland Planet 7 out into the cosmos.
“Maybe Lin Xiaohe will receive your message after she comes out of the Dark Zone, and she’ll come to save you.”
Guo Hai said, “Thank you very much.”
After sending the message, the Mantis Battle Group accelerated and left the Sixth Star Ring.
If it weren’t for the fact that the wasteland planet was Lin Xiaohe’s home world, they would have ignored the distress signal even if they’d received it.
Doing a good deed for once was purely for Lin Xiaohe’s sake. Maybe, if they ever ran into her again, she’d remember them with a bit of goodwill.
Back on the wasteland planet, everyone had fallen into despair.
They had lost the will to survive. Some people walked right out of the survivor camps, waiting for death to come.
“So stupid. We are so stupid! The Federation treated Lin Xiaohe like that. Why would they ever come to save us? What are we to them? We’re lower than the dust on their shoes!”
“Let’s just die. Let’s all just die. What’s the point of living in a world like this? If I could live my life over, I’d choose never to come back!”
“Hahaha, Star coins are a pile of garbage! Damn it all. I finally saved up enough money to emigrate. I scrimped and saved, worked my butt off all these years… for what?!”
The person speaking pulled a stack of star coins from a satchel and tossed them into the air.
The star coins fluttered down like snowflakes, drifting slowly to the ground. But no one around bothered to pick them up.
They stared blankly and numbly at the sky, not understanding what their entire lives had been for.
Rushing and bustling, busy every day… it seemed like they were working toward something, but really, they were still stuck within the framework the Federation had drawn for them. Even at the end of their lives, they couldn’t step beyond the star rings.
At that moment, they felt Lin Xiaohe’s strength more deeply than ever.
She had genuinely, through her own power, stepped out of the Sixth Star Ring and reached the peak of the Federation!
“No wonder they always bullied Xiaohe.”
“Xiaohe did the right thing killing them! She should have killed even more! They don’t treat us like human beings, so why should we treat them like human beings?”
Curses that had once been buried deep in their hearts, that they’d never dared to speak out loud, now poured from their mouths.
They were about to die anyway. What did they have to be afraid of anymore?
To hell with the Federation! To hell with honor and glory! They talked a better game than they sang, but not a single one of them did anything decent.
They were jealous of talent, they chased after personal gain, they avoided all responsibility, and they treated the people like blades of grass.
They must have been blind to vote for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Those two parties weren’t fit to lick the dirt off the Star Hope Party’s boots!
People cried, people laughed, people shouted curses at the top of their lungs, letting out all the emotions that had been crushing them.
The entire wasteland planet turned into a chaotic madhouse. Even the Black Armored Beetles would have been confused if they’d seen it.
Guo Hai gave a bitter, defeated smile. Could he really expect ordinary civilians, who had never received professional training, to have the steel-like will and psychological fortitude of soldiers?
Oh well. People’s hearts were scattered. It was hard to lead a team like this. Everyone, look out for yourselves.
Amidst the earth-shattering outpourings of emotion, a faint, trembling hum was mixed in.
The humming grew louder and louder, gradually drowning out the people’s voices.
Before everyone’s horrified eyes, the Black Armored Beetles flapped their wings, and clouds of thick smoke billowed out from their bodies.
A gust of wind blew, and the smoke turned into microscopic dust, invisible to the naked eye, scattering on the wind.
Then, as if completely exhausted, the Black Armored Beetles wobbled unsteadily and flew toward the wormhole.
When the last Black Armored Beetle entered the wormhole, the wormhole began to shrink. Under everyone’s watchful gaze, it shrank down to a tiny black dot, and then vanished completely.
Director Chen rubbed his eyes, unable to believe it. “This… the wormhole is gone? The insectoids let us go?!”
Guo Hai’s right eyelid twitched non-stop. His heart pounded so violently it felt like it would burst out of his chest. Every hair on his body stood on end. He was covered in goosebumps.
It was a sense of crisis unlike anything he had ever felt before — a premonition of total annihilation!
Thud.
An overwhelming pressure silently swept across Wasteland Planet 7.
Everyone was pinned to the ground by this force, unable to move.
What in the world was happening?
…
The Mantis Battle Group followed the evacuation convoy of the Sixth Star Ring military.
The space fleets were battered and ragged, thick with the smell of gunpowder and smoke.
The mood in the formation was as oppressive as if they’d lost their own mothers.
“Captain, are they looking down on us? Why isn’t anyone saying anything in the comms channel? Did they block us?”
The Mantis Battle Group captain cuffed his subordinate on the back of the head. “Block us? We should block them! Shut your yapping. Quietly follow the military as we retreat to the Fifth Star Ring.”
He had barely finished speaking when the comms channel crackled with the hoarse voice of the Sixth Star Ring Military Region Commander: “Report your numbers!”
“Eastern Resource Zone Defense Sector Orbital Ground Forces: 130,000 troops.”
“Western Special Forces: 10,295 troops.”
One by one, low, somber voices reported in. Each number cut at everyone’s hearts like a knife.
It hurt! It hurt so much!
After everyone had finished reporting, the Military Region Commander asked, “What about the Miluo Star Ground Forces?”
“Reporting, sir! They… they refused to evacuate. They said they would fight to the death against the Empire and the insectoids!”
The comms channel fell silent again.
Their Sixth Star Ring Military Region could endure hardship. They could fight tough battles. But now they had to flee to the Fifth Star Ring like whipped dogs.
Where could they even put their faces?
Every single person felt a pent-up anger inside them. But military orders were absolute.
The fleet of space battleships maintained a steady, uniform speed. There was no sign of the panic or urgency of fleeing troops.
The Mantis Battle Group, lagging at the back of the formation, was practically dying of anxiety. But the entire fleet just moved along at a leisurely pace.
They were furious: “Are they doing this on purpose?! They don’t want to get away quickly, but we do!”
Amidst the cursing and complaining, a sharp alarm blared from the space battleships.
They saw a certain region of the Sixth Star Ring suddenly tighten, as if pulled taut.
Countless pitch-black, glowing wormholes contracted and peeled away from various parts of the galaxy, like hyphae retracting from a rotting fruit, leaving winding, luminous trails in the void.
They no longer appeared above planets. Instead, they converged toward a single point of nothingness. They surged and intertwined, then collapsed and melted into a single Domain River that stretched across the sea of stars.
Where the Domain River flowed, time twisted, and liquid light boiled into waterfalls.
“What is that?”
Everyone stared blankly at this Domain River. Even from such an immense distance, they could feel its terrifying pull.
At the twisted, unseeable end of the Domain River, shadows squirmed.
A giant earthen tomb crushed its way through the void, following the Domain River.
It wasn’t drifting. It was making the very light bend and collapse before its rotting outline.
Wherever it passed, the radiance of the Domain River immediately withered, like scorched paper, condensing into thick, dark clumps of darkness.
The Giant Tomb, with an arrogant posture, came to rest in the central region of the Sixth Star Ring.
Anything that stood in its way — whether Empire fleets or meteor dust — was reduced to its most primordial particle state and merged into the Domain River beneath it.
When it finally stopped, humanity could finally observe its appearance with the most advanced equipment.
It looked like the corpse of a giant, rotting planet. Its surface was not still. Countless biological orifices, like pores, expanded and contracted as if breathing, exhaling cold, icy mist.
“Alert! Maximum alert!”
