Interstellar Survival: Invasion

Chapter 316: Ten Million Lightyears Away

The fiend raised a massive limb of light and smashed down at the black ball. The so-called black hole immediately absorbed the light and the fiend's limb.

"Shit! This black hole is actually a life form!" Even the mighty fiend sounded nervous.

The black hole devoured the fiend's limb at a rapid pace. The entire body of the fiend was also being pulled into the black hole. The fiend erupted with a golden light and resisted the pull with its powerful physical strength. However, it did not look like it could last much longer.

Immediately, Markus arrived beside the fiend and used its final bit of remaining energy to release a green beam at the fiend's limb. The green beam sliced into the limb.

"Ahh!" We heard the little bee projected in the ship wail in pain. When we looked over, we saw that the bee had also lost a limb.

The loss of a limb allowed the fiend to hurriedly withdraw. After flying farther away from the black hole, it spewed a violent beam of fire at the black hole. However, the entire fire beam was devoured.

"Looks like this is getting troublesome. Not even the fiend can deal with this secret weapon. I reckon we won't be able to escape, after all," said Zhang Bao'er pessimistically.

"That might not be the case. I feel that the fiend will grow even stronger after losing a limb," said the great sovereign.

Sure enough, the longer the fight went on, the stronger the fiend became. Although its flames were constantly being devoured, the intensity of its attacks did not weaken. Gradually, we started seeing some changes to the black hole.

The edges of the black hole started losing the event-horizon-like effect, clearly revealing the black border behind the event horizon. The fire attacks were clearly working on the black hole.

"Little Ant, attack with all you have. We will do our best to protect you from the other enemies," said the great sovereign encouragingly. The battle had reached a critical moment.

The surrounding ships were madly attacking the defensive circle formed by the vigor bombs. The circle of light around us started fading away. It did not look like our defense would last much longer.

"Temo, you need to strengthen our defenses. The enemies are going to get through soon," said Kelly.

"Markus has exhausted all its energy. The only thing we can do now is enjoy a live-action space movie," said Temo helplessly.

"You! Who allowed you guys to cut my arm?" Even while in the middle of an intense fight, the fiend was still able to complain to us.

"If it wasn't for us, you would have been eaten by the black hole," replied Zhang Bao'er.

"I'm going to destroy this little toy soon. Be ready to charge out with me," reminded the fiend. It seemed ready to launch the final attack.

"Xingxing, Skyhawk has escaped the two black balls. We're coming back to help you," Carter's voice came from the communicator.

"Carter, you need to be quick! We're about to charge out soon, but we're running out of energy. We need your help," said Zhang Xingxing.

"I am a god. I don't need any help!" declared the fiend as an even thicker beam of fire shot out of its mouth. The beam struck the black hole, causing the black hole to start shrinking. Before long, the black hole reached the size of a chicken egg. Behind the egg, we saw a location beyond the empire's defensive perimeter.

"Go, charge through that hole!" Zhang Xingxing reminded Temo.

No time was wasted as Markus instantly charged forth toward the hole. However, the empire once again displayed the might of their technology. Right as Markus was about to go through the hole, it exploded.

The explosion was massively powerful, as though it was the Big Bang itself. Nothing could stop the explosion as a blinding white light spread out and swallowed our ship. The impact threw all of us into the ship's walls. At the same time, an electromagnetic attack was assaulting all of us. In the span of a few seconds, I lost consciousness.

After an unknown amount of time, I slowly woke up. I lifted my arms and bit my tongue. The pain told me that I was still alive. After painstakingly pushing myself up from the ground, I noted that the others were still unconscious. Due to the impact caused by the attack, the projections of the great sovereign and the fiend could no longer be seen. Even Dodo and Bob were off because of the intense impact they had been subjected to.

Our surroundings were calm, as though the battle had ended long ago. Blue light was shining through the window. I struggled back onto my feet and checked the others, paying close attention to Zhang Xingxing in particular. Fortunately, all of them had merely fainted. Nobody seemed to have sustained great injuries. At that moment, the appearance of an odd star outside attracted my attention.

Resisting the pain I felt all over my body, I painstakingly moved toward the window. A beautiful blue star was hovering in the distance. The star looked massive and was different from the stars we were familiar with such as Sirius, Alnitak, or Betelgeuse. I started searching through my database for a star with such an appearance. Eventually, I discovered that this blue star did not exist in my database because I couldn't match a single star in my database with the one I was looking at.

"Good lord. My head...the pain is killing me. What was that explosion? The impact alone nearly killed me," grumbled Zhang Bao'er as he slowly sat up.

I looked back and saw that the others were starting to wake up. Kelly was busy helping restore Dodo's and Bob's energy systems. At that time, I noticed Dondon crawling out of the medical room.

"Dondon, how's Master Crystal?" I hurriedly asked.

"The impact knocked all of us unconscious. Master Crystal's condition is stable, but his vitals are still extremely weak. He urgently needs proper treatment," said Dondon while gasping for breath.

"Just what battle did you fight earlier? I was sleeping nicely when I was suddenly sent flying," complained Wind Spirit, crawling out from behind Dondon.

"Where is this? Why does this star feel rather unusual?" asked Zhang Xingxing.

Hearing Zhang Xingxing's question, Dodo immediately got to work and performed a scan to verify Markus's current location.

"Great sovereign, little bee, are you alive?" asked Temo, who had awakened as well. The great sovereign was still missing from the projection.

"Carter, this is Kelly. Can you hear me?" Kelly called out anxiously.

"Looks like the explosion had transported us somewhere. Perhaps the fiend was right. The black balls are merely a trick utilizing a wormhole-transportation system to transport all their targets to unknown locations," analyzed Baron Sisse while looking at the alien star through the window.

"If this is instant transportation, it shouldn't send us too far away. Dodo, try to verify our current location," ordered Z.

"I already checked. We are currently 10 million lightyears away from Blue. Use that as the parameter for the search. Don't bother searching within the Milky Way Galaxy," said Temo, throwing us a shocking piece of news.

"What? Ten million lightyears?" exclaimed Zhang Bao'er as he slumped onto the floor in shock.

Zhang Bao'er was not the only person shocked. Both Old Du and I were similarly hit with a great sense of despair. Even with the best technology the league had to offer, we could only travel a maximum distance of 2.5 million lightyears away by performing wormhole-leaps. The furthest the league had reached was the Andromeda Galaxy.

That was only 10 million lightyears away. Our current location was too far for our technology to reach. Now that we had been transported so far away, it was likely that we wouldn't be able to return and save the Milky Way Galaxy.

"That's right. We're really 10 million lightyears away from Blue. You have all heard of this place. We're at the Sculptor Galaxy," replied Dodo.

"Sculptor Galaxy? That silver galaxy 10 million lightyears away from Blue?" asked Zhang Xingxing.

"Yes. We're here. There is no doubt about it," said Dodo.

"Everyone, are you sure we aren't in an illusion?" asked Zhang Bao'er, not daring to believe that we had been sent so far away.

"I have performed relevant time-space checks. Also, my internal programs have further verified the result of my checks. I can confidently inform you that we're not in an illusion. We're really at the Sculptor Galaxy," said Dodo, speaking with an emotionless calm commonly seen in robots.

Hearing Dodo's words, some of us slumped weakly onto the floor. Even Zhang Xingxing and Baron Sisse appeared to be in deep despair. A distance of 10 million lightyears was not something we could cross in 9 days.

Even the signals we sent would probably take 10 million years to reach Blue. It would seem as if there was no avoiding destruction for the league. Everyone started sighing sorrowfully while Temo appeared confused at our responses.

"The league will be destroyed, but Eternal will remain. In the universe, both continuation and destruction are nothing special," consoled Temo, who was still viewing the matter from the perspective of a star-level civilization.

"Looks like low civilizations are very vulnerable to emotions. This is not over yet. Why are all of you so depressed?" a familiar voice rang out. The great sovereign had reappeared in the projection.

Those words might have sounded casual, but Zhang Xingxing immediately grabbed onto what the great sovereign said. She stood up and said, "Respected senior, do you have a method for us to return quickly?"

"Hey, little fellow, isn't your ship a star-civilization ship? Can your ship still perform wormhole-leaps?" asked the great sovereign.