Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 194

Chapter 194 – Chief Lin Ge’er’s Statue

Lin Jingheng’s gaze shifted slightly the moment he heard that voice.

“Roger.” His voice was deep and hoarse, “Retreat.”

Chixiao forced open a road ahead with its heavy arms like a bulldozer annihilating anything in its path. Lin Jingheng took the handful of escort mechs around him and sailed right into the transfer portal, ordering the rest of the Eighth Galaxy Forces to retreat at full speed.

The area right past this transfer portal would be proper territory of the Eighth Galaxy.

The galaxy was abundant in natural resources but was at least sixteen times the size of the First Galaxy with not very many natural planets, making the galaxy look more deserted than it was. Upon redevelopment, numerous space stations were built along the galactic terminals and shone like little gems beneath a desert. The light from the space stations were vibrant and alive; they occasionally glowed in a different color on closer inspection that would shift across the military cameras on a mech. On the screen inside a mech, they were like fleeting lights that interconnected with each other, forming an invisible web across the stars.

The Eighth Galaxy Galactic Forces were like a flock of birds fleeing into the forest, sailing straight into the long terminals in an orderly formation.

The AI fleets pursuing from behind followed up without any hesitation.

They were the subordinates of super AI Woolf that carried powerful processors that could analyze the live battle. The AIs determined that the enemy did not have any power to fight back and was out of supplies to maintain the defense line outside of the galaxy, so the retreat and pursuit on both ends were logical.

But if the human Woolf was still alive and witnessing the battlefield, perhaps he wouldn’t be so optimistic.

Because within the fifty years since Lin Jingheng had graduated the Black Orchid Academy and enlisted in the military, the man had never once retreated like a coward in a battle that took place in his own territory.

The first missile shot up in the air like an elegant lead dancer, opening the curtains up to greet the Eighth Galaxy in this unsolicited opening act–

Immediately following that, a line of missiles shot out from the space stations and major planets in the periphery of the Eighth Galaxy and clashed with the AI fleets that had entered their zone. The mechs that didn’t have time to react were forced out of their positions and blown up like celebratory fireworks.

This was the first activation of a planetary-grade anti-missile system–a concept born from the long-deserted planet Beijing-β.

Not only did it blow up their enemies, but it even stunned the Eighth Galaxy Forces.

“My….” Bayer wasn’t sure which god to pray to at this moment and choked up on his own words, then asked in shock, “What the heck is that?”

“Oh this, they’ve been working on it since the day the Eighth Galaxy closed up,” Turan reconnected onto the channel and answered. “I heard the last experiment results weren’t up to standards and they had no choice but to drag out this half-assed work in progress today, but I guess this is passable.”

Bayer: “This….this is considered ‘passable’ to you?”

“That’s only because you have no idea how many years this thing took,” Turan let out a sigh. “After Planet Alpenglow was blown up by the AUS, one little girl among Minister Lu’s students brought up this impossible idea with no promising future. It’s been years since then, and that massive project has contributed to nothing. I’ve even heard that these engineers do nothing except spend our money; the majority of the Eighth Galaxy’s limited funding were all given to them for research. I swear, if it wasn’t for Minister Lu backing them up and keeping the project going, I’m sure this would have been called off a long time ago.”

Lin Jingheng had already taken this short break to completely reload his armory and installed a new backup engine on his mech. He said, “Did I say we’ve made it to the point where we can sit back and enjoy the view?”

With his command, the exhausted Eighth Galaxy Forces quickly reorganized themselves and sailed out to the battlefield with new blades before the ashes of the explosion dispersed.

At the edge of the First Galaxy.

The moment they locked in on the space station, all soldiers on the mech—aside from Lu Buxing, who temporarily sealed up his emotions–lost their minds.

“It’s the main processor, we found it!”

“Minister Lu,” The pilot couldn’t suppress his excitement and said, “should we blow it up right now?”

Lu Bixing’s gaze fixed on the space station from the camera on the mech, he spoke up calmly, “How much ammo and power do we have left?”

The pilot immediately gave some numbers.

They had already given up their heavy mech and urgently sliced their way through a dangerous barricade with their current ship, so it was natural that they didn’t have much in the way of resources left.

“Close in a bit more,” Lu Bixing ordered sternly, “Stay cautious; scan the space station and analyze if it contains an anti-missile system.”

His words were like a bowl of cold water that extinguished the excitement of all soldiers.

The on-land anti-missile systems in the Union were too cheaply made to function correctly; while it could block off a missile that accidentally fell off from space, it was worthless against a mass-scale missile attack.

But the problem right now was that the current team didn’t carry enough arms on their small mechs to launch such a grand-scale attack. Any sort of attempts to fire a missile would surely be blocked off, and if they could not hit the target with one shot, they could easily be stuck in a situation where they had no choice but to watch their target stand before their own eyes without a method to destroy it.

Moments later, the pilot took in a breath of air and said, “Prime Minister, there are heavily guarded anti-missile systems and shields installed on the space station. Thank god we didn’t….wait.”

“Hm?”

“We’ve detected an unidentified form of matter,” the pilot said in a low tone, “There’s something inside.”

Another soldier tensed up and said, “There are hidden arms and mechs inside?”

“No,” The pilot seemed to be a little suspicious, “the size is extremely large….”

His words were cut off by the alarm within the mech.

“Minister Lu,” the pilot said, “We’re already entered the enemy’s anti-missile zone, it’s currently attempting to connect to a passkey. If it fails, it will deal with us as an invader.”

“Back up, all escort mechs retreat outside of the anti-missile zone.” There were no technicians around him so Lu Bixing had to take up the job himself, “What was the password the prophet from the AUS had said he used to activate AI Woolf? Who remembers? Wasn’t it….some sort of flower?”

“Minister, it’s ‘seed’.”

Lu Bixing hesitated a little before entering ‘seed’. The pilot held in his breath and the handful of escort mechs that have already backed out of the active firing zone were all on edge as they stared at him, preparing to take down the missiles aimed at their Prime Minister—

“Beep–” a soft sound tugged on everyone’s senses.

Incorrect password!

The atmosphere around suddenly grew eerie, Lu Bixing’s mech was immediately locked on by the station’s anti-missile system. The alarm inside the mech rang up wildly.

“Minister Lu, please back up, watch out!”

At that moment, a missile was already firing toward his mech. The pilot immediately prepared to intercept the missile and pull back the mech.

“Wait!”

Lu Bixing was unmoved by the disruption, a flash of light shone in his eyes as he suddenly felt an epiphany–

“King Hertz will not disappear, you must not open up Pandora’s Box.”

The moment right as the mech was about to leave the anti-missile zone, Lu Bixing quickly entered ‘Pandora’s Box’.

Password correct!

The pilot: “……”

“Give me access to the mental network,” Lu Bixing said, “let’s try and land on the station.”

The pilot from the other escort mech suddenly chimed in and asked, “Minister Lu, we…”

“You all wait outside of the atmosphere,” Lu Bixing responded. “If anything happens and the situation becomes dire, fire at the space station. If even one missile manages to pass through the anti-missile system, victory will be ours.”

“Minister Lu, this ‘if anything happens’ is not very reassuring.”

Lu Bixing gave him a smile and received the piloting permissions, carefully steering the mech towards the space station where the main processor was located.

It was an extremely large station that could almost be on scale to Old Fart’s station back in the Eighth Galaxy many years ago. Yet unlike the lively old station, there was not even a single ant on this station. It was completely silent, like a cold and lifeless machine empire.

Lu Bixing felt fortunate that he missed a round of fire the closer he sailed towards the space station because he could finally see the structure of it–this was virtually a mechanical monster. Countless black holes from the cannons that fired the missiles pointed out towards the artificial atmosphere; the density of those cannons sent fear into the hearts of even the most well-trained galactic soldiers.

If they stayed outside of the atmosphere and fired at the space station, they would have in turn been shot into beehives by these cannons.

The mech felt the artificial gravity on the space station and slowly landed following the terminal, quietly parking on the launching dock. Nobody on the mech dared to walk out and began analyzing their surroundings inside the mech.

The area around was surprisingly friendly–the air pressure and oxygen were enough to maintain human life with no signs of toxins in the gases. The gravity was about 0.9 times that of Wolto; no robots or surveillance cameras were found on the station.

“Prime Minister, allow me to go down to check the surroundings…sir, wait!”

Before the soldier could finish, Lu Bixing already jumped off the mech in a spacesuit–he was still connected to the mental network of the mech and used it to scan the station, in which he saw a sign to the ‘control room’.

The heart of the entire First Galaxy pumped in silence; the massive radiator on the station shook the ground up slightly like an ancient demigod resting within its nest. Lu Bixing followed the road signs into an elevator that took him up about a hundred meters. The doors of the elevator opened up into a narrow passage with a small door at the very end of the walkway. On the small door was a realistic carving of a tulip.

Engineer 001’s hacking skills were getting rusty but were still there; Lu Bixing took a little more time than usual but successfully opened up the digital lock to the small door. The door opened up from the center to reveal a few people inside the room.

The soldiers that followed Lu Bixing quickly surrounded their Prime Minister out of caution.

“Don’t worry,” Lu Bixing gave a pat on the tense shoulders of one soldier and said, “There is no breathing or heartbeats; I can hear it.”

He pulled out his personal device as he spoke, the light from the device flashed through the few silhouettes inside the room–they were life-sized 3D printed statues.

A soldier spoke up softly, “That’s Chief Lin Ge’er’s statue.”

That statue stood by the wall and held a notebook in his hand. His head was slightly tilted, a hint of a smile froze on his face as he looked to a certain direction. Lu Bixing met the eyes of the statue for a moment and then followed the gaze of the statue to see a wall with words written on it.

“If after every tempest come such calms, may the winds blow till they have wakened death. [1] ”

“All…hail the pledge of freedom.” The soldier read the line of words in a strange tone, “Hubert Woolf?”

This was a pledge that everyone spoke of in the NSE age as if it was universal truth; yet reading it now at a place like this seemed nothing but ironic and creepy.

Lu Bixing walked over, his fingers glossed lightly over Woolf’s signature–the engraving was a little rough and uneven, almost as if it was hand-carved.

The next moment, a light clicking sound rang out. Lu Bixing pulled his hand back in alarm; the wall engraved with the words before him suddenly broke down, the thin layer of wooden decoration on the outside peeled off like a dead snake skin to reveal a massive digital screen in the back. A plain dialogue box popped up right before the large interstellar map of the Union that read: Do you wish to activate the sleeping transfer portal?

The entire group of people were awestruck.

“A sleeping transfer portal? But isn’t this….what does this mean?”

“Minister Lu, the unknown high-density matter beneath the space station, could it be….”

Lu Bixing said, “Activate the mech, let’s prepare to retreat.”

A soldier ran back immediately. Lu Bixing turned around and exchanged another glance at the smiling Lin Ge’er, suddenly realizing something.

“Activate the transfer portal.”

“….Confirmed.”

A sound like a deep sigh rang out from the space station, a countdown appeared on the massive screen inside the room.

“Retreat.” Lu Bixing’s pupils contracted under the bright light, “Hurry!”

They ran out and down the narrow passage, and without waiting for the elevator to enter, Lu Bixing broke the glass wall with his enhanced strength from the biochip. The mech down below floated up just in time and sent out a capturing net to fish the Prime Minister and his soldiers back toward the mech, then accelerated out toward the atmosphere.

The violent sound of wind blew past Lu Bixing’s ears; he struggled to open his eyes and saw the entire space station from space.

That awesome artificial station was too large to be fully captured by the naked eye, yet the ground of the station was already shaking up. The main processor of AI Woolf seemed to have sensed something, the anti-missile system on the space station suddenly activated and attempted to clean up all the intruders. Within an instant, the capture net retracted back inside the mech and barely sailed past a missile.

Sirens rang out inside the mech to indicate a never-before seen energy level.

“Prime Minister, what exactly is this thing?”

Lu Bixing didn’t have time to answer as he accelerated the mech out of the atmosphere with the last fuel remaining in the mech through the mental network. The escort mechs on standby outside didn’t understand what happened but followed the command ship frantically–

Just as they were about to escape the anti-missile zone of the space station, the entire station self-destructed.

Virtually all functions inside the mech malfunctioned temporarily. The high energy created by the explosion swept through space, even timespace distorted slightly at the explosion. Space debris, broken metal, missile shells, space waste, the fearsome main body of the AI….everything was consumed and annihilated in this Big Bang-like explosion of a universe. The mech that had lost its balance and gravity system was like an out of control space debris that tossed everyone around inside its body.

The mechs sailed in high speed toward that massive spiral in space.

Just as they were about to be consumed by the spiral, the surroundings of the space station calmed down. Those small mechs that no longer had pilots floated aimlessly around space, while the computers inside began to reboot.

A new transfer portal appeared on the interstellar map, right at an important point connecting the First and Second galaxies.

[1] Othello, Shakespere.