Chapter 402: The Gear of the Void

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

While the ‘Assimilation Fighters’ were sorting out the information they had learned from the ‘Void Eggs,’ the ‘Hunter’ civilization had also begun their operation.

After the battle with the ‘Silent,’ the losses caused their higher-ups to feel embarrassed.

Even if the battleships sent out were only a small part of their strength and were not even considered the main force and were only part of their ‘entertainment.’

However, when faced with a civilization that was far inferior to theirs, their ideal battle situation was an easy one-sided defeat instead of a one-to-one loss.

They couldn’t even confirm if the ‘Silent’s’ battleships had been destroyed. Those pure energy battleships were just luminous objects. After they dissipated, there wasn’t even a wreckage. They couldn’t confirm if they had just changed their form and escaped.

After a series of discussions, the higher-ups did not change their strategy. Instead, they upgraded the battleships they dispatched. In the next battle, those battleships would give the enemy a huge surprise.

And the legend of the ‘Hunter,’ the ‘Legendary Hunter,’ had also obtained the authority to remove the huge restrictions on his original ship. Now that his ‘hunting battleship’ was one of the best in the entire civilization, he had once again embarked on the path of ‘hunting.’

Although he was part of the army, ‘Hunters’ like him had unique rights. The most obvious was they generally did not need to participate in the war between the main fleet. They were more of an ‘assassin’ or ‘bounty hunter’ who specialized in sniping high-value targets.

At the same time, they were also responsible for using high-tech means to demoralize the enemy. They would destroy a fleet by themselves to show the gap between civilizations, making it easier for the ‘Hunters’ to extract the energy of the entire galaxy.

In that galaxy, the ‘Hunter’ troops would only gather and engage in what they thought was a ‘glorious battle’ when they encountered the ‘Silent’s’ battleships.

That was a popular tradition in their civilization, but it did not originate from the ‘culture’ of ‘defeating the strong’ passed down from the native era. Instead, it was a ‘bad habit’ developed after traveling in interstellar space for a long time.

It originated from a ‘hunting game’ organized by a rich man in a certain civilization when they were still in an ordinary interstellar civilization era.

A group of hired mercenaries would follow the ‘rules of the game’ and head to a native civilization or an interstellar civilization that was much weaker than them and use limited means to start a ‘hunt.’

Sometimes, they would target certain important people, and whoever could complete the assassination first would be the winner of the ‘game.’ Sometimes, they would simply use the number of kills as the final evaluation standard.

In that process, there were many instances where the ‘prey’ killed the ‘hunters,’ but the ‘Hunter’ civilization did not have any tradition of respecting the winner. They would only use more powerful weapon technology to kill the ‘prey’ that ‘tainted’ the game.

That tradition spread throughout the entire civilization as the ‘Hunter’ civilization expanded and fought more smoothly. The ‘victors’ always needed some unique pastimes to show off their noble status.

In the end, the entire civilization began to enjoy the feeling of hunting their prey. They enjoyed watching the lowly struggling for survival but were still unable to escape the despair of collapse.

Even the ‘Silent’ were no different from ordinary civilizations in their hearts. They belonged to the category of ‘low-class civilizations.’

Although they rarely had time to engage in such ‘hunting games’ since the large-scale collection of energy, some of them would still try to revive that ancient ‘tradition’ in their free time.

Those people became all kinds of ‘Hunters,’ and they were given titles based on their ‘hunting achievements.’

Their mission was to hone their skills and defeat their opponents beautifully with weapons of the same level. Then, they would make videos and circulate them among the civilization to alleviate the urge of people to kill.

The ‘Legendary Hunter’ was such a ‘Hunter’ title, and he was the most famous ‘Hunter’ in the ‘Hunter’ civilization who had already obtained the ‘Legendary’ title.

As the ‘cage’ that shrouded the galaxy temporarily stopped the advance of civilizations, and the higher-ups seemed to attach great importance to certain secrets in the galaxy, even after millions of years and generations of ‘Legendary Hunters,’ they did not clear the galaxy or extract the energy there.

He did not know what the higher-ups were doing, so he could only obey.

Therefore, those ‘Hunters’ quietly used weapons that were no longer restricted to ‘hunting’ but their original weapons. They headed to the places where the ‘Silent’s’ battleships appeared, according to intelligence, preparing to bring new spiritual food to the civilization through a ‘gorgeous’ hunt.

At that moment, Li Wenyuan also had new progress regarding the ‘void’ from the ‘Void Eggs.’

A technology that could establish a weak ‘connection’ with the ‘void’ was discovered from the ‘Void Eggs.’ The ‘Assimilation Fighters’ who studied it discovered that the ‘Void Eggs’ was able to maintain a stable and controlled state largely because of that weak connection with the ‘void.’

Without that connection, the ‘void’ part of those ‘Void Eggs’ would lose their connections with the ‘void’ and gradually be assimilated by the nature of the universe, eventually becoming an ordinary substance there.

When the researchers traced the source of that ‘connection,’ they found that it might have come from an unexpected place, which was the ‘Wound.’

When he received that news, Li Wenyuan was even a little shocked. That was because those ‘Void Eggs’ were created by the ‘Hunter,’ and the ‘void’ was also attracted by the ‘Hunter.’

If the source pointed to the ‘Exile’ Galaxy, he would think it was pointing to the ‘Hunter.’ And if it pointed to somewhere in the distant starry sky, he would think it was pointing to the ‘Hunter’s’ parent galaxy.

But in the end, it pointed to the Wound.’ That was something he had never expected because the ‘Hunter’ wasn’t a civilization that originated here.

His current speculation was that the ‘Void Connection’ would automatically connect to the nearest ‘opening,’ thus creating the illusion that those ‘Void Eggs’ originated from the Wound.’

However, Li Wenyuan felt that that was not the case.

Just as he was about to return to the ‘Exile’ Galaxy to test if the ‘Void Connection’ could help him understand the secrets of the ‘Wound,’ a small anomaly in time caught his attention.

From establishing a connection with the ‘Silent,’ to entering the ‘Exile’ Galaxy, to putting on the ‘Invisible Cubic Space’ to explore the Wound,’ and then to leaving the galaxy to receive information from the Assimilation Fighters,’ it should take him no more than a year, and most of it was spent on monitoring the ‘Wound.’

However, when he reconfirmed the galaxy date submitted by the Assimilation Fighters,’ he realized five years had passed.

Previously, after his consciousness left the ‘Exile’ Galaxy, he experienced a period of ‘memory synchronization.’ He thought it was due to the error caused by the distance between the galaxies.

Moreover, for the controller of an interstellar civilization, a few years of time difference would not cause too much of a sense of separation, so he did not pay much attention to that matter.

However, he had now confirmed that the time flow in the ‘Exile’ Galaxy differed from the outside world! Just like the spaceships that had entered the Black Hole Horizon.

“And I was wondering why the ‘Assimilation Fighters’ had such a quick result…”

Li Wenyuan’s thoughts raced. He suddenly realized that he had overlooked an important question. How long had the ‘Hunter’ been there?

According to the records left behind in the Megacorp Galaxy, the ‘Hunter’ had lost contact more than 2,000 years ago.

However, if the flow of time in the ‘exile grounds’ were different, then the time they spent inside would be different.

Then, he obtained the result from the ‘Silent.’

“The ‘Hunter’? Based on the information from the ‘Exiled,’ the ‘Hunter’ has been here for at least three million years…”

That huge time difference made Li Wenyuan feel that something was wrong. According to his experience, the time flow there was not that fast. One year and five years. Two thousand years and three million years. The time flow difference was unbelievable.

“Did someone affect the ‘time’ here? Is the thing at the periphery not a ‘cage’ but an even more terrifying ‘isolation’?”

Li Wenyuan thought of the ‘Curtain.’ In the ‘Curtain,’ the laws had been specially modified by humans, allowing them to achieve some unexpected things. Was it the same there?

He hurriedly returned to the spaceship stationed at the ‘Wound’ and used the ‘Void Connection’ to contact the subspace rifts.

An almost undetectable ‘Void Connection’ spread out from the subspace rifts. It started moving in all directions, but when it reached a certain point, it suddenly gathered and rushed toward Li Wenyuan’s spaceship.

At that moment, the universe seemed to have dimmed. The stars lost their radiance, and all matter lost their forms. Everything was distanced, leaving only a dark life with a ‘lifeform’ impression existing in that ‘void.’

In a flash, Li Wenyuan seemed to see some numbers flashing in the ‘void.’ It seemed to be an illusion, but it had a huge pressure that made people unable to breathe.

Then, time began to reverse. After an incomprehensible scene, it seemed to be the scene of that ‘Exile’ Galaxy.

At that moment, a huge stream of data was flowing into Li Wenyuan’s memory from an unknown place through the ‘Void Connection.’ Countless messages were flashing in his virtual world.

It looked messy, but none of it was a sign of danger.

However, Li Wenyuan didn’t pay attention to that because, through the ‘Void Connection,’ he seemed to have seen what had happened in the ‘exile grounds’ through the ‘void.’

A certain powerful civilization that ruled that galaxy seemed to have gone mad and destroyed all the lifeforms in the entire galaxy, not letting a single living thing escape.

Countless civilizations and lifeforms perished at that stage, but it still could not stop the crazy behavior of that powerful civilization.

Li Wenyuan didn’t know which civilization that was, but he had a feeling that he would receive an unexpected answer.

A certain native civilization that had once received help from that powerful civilization did not resist but quietly waited for destruction to descend. They felt that that was a form of repayment for the kindness they had received all along.

Then, destruction arrived on time.

A historian of that civilization stood at the end of destruction. Even though the shock wave was close at hand, he was still writing furiously.

On it was written, “Year XXXX, Month X, Day X. My civilization was destroyed by the ‘Scribe.'”

The scene ended there. Li Wenyuan had also recovered from the influx of information and realized something shocking.

That galaxy was the origin of the ‘Scribe..’