Three hours later, within a primordial, oxygen-rich forest, the two men sat down.
Lei Ting’s expression was as calm as ever, while his companion—who had cautiously ambushed him only to be soundly thrashed—looked utterly aggrieved.
"So," Lei Ting projected his mental waves, "your name is... 'Jiu-350'?"
The other’s mental energy was saturated with resentment. "It can also be interpreted as 'Liquid Edible Ferment 350'..."
"That doesn't sound like a name," Lei Ting remarked.
"How does it not? My kin all think it's excellent—"
"If I were to take a few fruits now and brew them into wine or an alcoholic beverage and label it '350,' it could also be called 'Liquid Edible Ferment 350.'"
Lei Ting shrugged. Looking at the fellow across from him and recalling his reaction to himself and Ivanheiler, as well as the information revealed in his words, Lei Ting suddenly laughed. "How about I give you a name?"
'Jiu-350' was very reluctant to accept, but the beating he had just received was still fresh in his mind. Thus, the Silver Star person could only ask in return, "What name?"
"I'll take a personal name from my mother tongue, 'Cota,' and combine it with a word representing 'ascent,' 'promotion,' or 'enhancement,' which is 'Rise.' How about the name 'Cotaris'?"
"...And why should I accept this name? That is your mother tongue, not mine."
"You're right." Lei Ting spread his hands. "That’s why I asked for your thoughts; I don’t intend to force you to accept it. Now then, Silver Star, do you know where the 'Star' civilization that created you is? Or do you know who might have that information?"
'Jiu-350' was struck with visible shock. "How do you know I am a Silver Star?! No, wait—what are you looking for 'them' for?!"
As he spoke, he still tightly gripped that glob of red gel in his hand. During their battle, that had been his weapon.
One look was enough for Lei Ting to know that the gel was 'Firewine.'
Or rather... it was a prototype, a soft weapon the other had developed himself.
One day in the distant future, the part of Cotaris that possessed humanity would abandon its original form—which mimicked the races of the Galactic Empire—and merge with this weapon to become 'Firewine' itself.
Lei Ting sighed softly.
...
Ultimately, Lei Ting determined that the other truly didn't have any more information regarding his questions.
However, he also learned that this was Earth in the ancient era. The 'Ancient War' from beyond the heavens was still raging somewhere far away—indeed, across the entire universe!
This realization made Lei Ting, who had thought he would need to continue traversing further back, bolt upright like a dying man suddenly galvanized. He scooped up the lanky Silver Star person and flew toward the heavens.
'Jiu-350': "?"
'Jiu-350': "?!!!!"
"Don't scream... I just need you to point the way!"
During their flight, Lei Ting’s mental message was filled with an irresistible authority, successfully making the other stop preparing his vocal organs for an outcry. "I'm not looking to cause you trouble. Just cooperate!"
Hearing this, the other indeed stopped struggling, though whether out of despair or simply resigning himself to fate was unclear.
………………
"Where is this?" Lei Li asked. "The light outside... it’s like some fantasy ballroom-themed virtual scenario."
"..."
'Solar Star' wiped the thick dust from the porthole, revealing nearly infinite, long, glowing chains and the ever-shifting radiance within the dark void.
"The bottom of the space-time rift," he judged.
"...Huh?"
Lei Li found himself making these idiot-like sounds quite often lately. He was supposed to be a renowned powerhouse when adventuring with his teammates, though they had all been sent back to the material realm by 'Myriad Illusions' long ago. "Wait, uh, 'Solar Star,' what did you say?"
"I said, this is the bottom of the space-time rift. The light you see is likely the manifestation of various laws. And those chains," Solar Star gestured toward the distant 'chains'—anyone seeing them would know they were infinitely expanding, yet they still gave the illusion of being thin and long—"they are a certain aspect of the universe."
"Wait, isn't the universe shaped like a butterfly?"
"Yes. But no one ever ruled that the universe 'can only be like that,'" Solar Star replied. "It can manifest different faces on different levels, like a Metatron’s Cube. That is the charm of space-time."
Lei Li blinked. "What's a Metatron’s Cube?"
"The cube of Metatron."
"And who is Metatron?"
"...Alright, let's change the subject." Solar Star decided not to indulge the boy in these trivialities for now.
After staring in a certain direction for a moment of contemplation, he said, "I can feel it. 'I' am right there..."
He turned back, his mental power sweeping over the figures moving to and fro across the starship—there were fewer than three thousand of them, spanning all the major races of the galaxy.
And one of them, frankly, surprised him.
"Now, answer me... Human Union citizen, Shane."
He frowned, adopting the serious posture typical of 'Lei Ting,' and tilted his head slightly.
"—How did you board this ship, and when did you board it?"
Faced with this question, the blonde, purple-eyed youth nearby turned a shade paler.
He lowered his head slightly and began to explain the answer.
………………
"So," Solar Star said, "you didn't actually live your life over; you simply inherited memories from a parallel world."
"Yes," Shane answered softly. He closed his eyes tightly. "But it cannot be denied that whatever form the changes I experienced took, they were essentially changed because of you. As for the reason I came here... I encountered a parallel version of myself while on a mission in the Universal Passage. Our energies collided; we used the same technique at the same moment with the same power. This caused us to tear a small piece of already fragile space-time and fall into... 'here.'"
He glanced out the porthole, a look of lingering fear evident on his face.
"I believe many others have had similar encounters, perhaps not limited to the Universal Passage sector," he said. "But I fear most of them didn't survive... it's too dangerous here, too terrifying. If Myriad Illusions and her starship hadn't happened to pass by, I couldn't have survived until now. By the way, where are Myriad Illusions and her crew? Do you know where they are?"
"..."
Solar Star remained expressionless. "Dead. You saw them as living people?"
"...?"
Shane was struck with horror. "Liv... what? Of course they were living people!"
Good heavens, was this some kind of interstellar ghost story?!!
"Don't be nervous. What you saw was likely her from about six hundred thousand years ago," Solar Star said.
To soothe the other’s emotions, he even patted Shane’s shoulder, unaware that his words only made the youth more terrified.
—Six hundred thousand years? Huh?
You're not joking, are you? You don't look like the type of person who jokes about such things!
No, wait?
Did I wake up too fast and end up hundreds of thousands of years in the future?
Shane’s pupils shook, his soul felt adrift, and for a moment, grief welled up until tears blurred his vision. This was a true 'longevity gap' tragedy; he couldn't even be sure if human civilization would still exist six hundred thousand years later... No, it definitely wouldn't! If it did, why would humanity's peak combatant be in this godforsaken place, piloting a ghost ship that was hundreds of thousands of years old?!!
"...Don't let your imagination run wild." Solar Star, nearly at a loss for what Shane was thinking, felt a bit helpless. "You didn't travel through time. The ones truly traversing are Myriad Illusions and this starship... The bomb that took them away back then had a problem: a blue crystal, related to space-time, with immense power. It was likely a weapon launched through time by some ancient giant civilization that accidentally ended up there."
Speaking of which, the 'Crater 900' crew was truly cursed with peerless bad luck.
The universe was so vast; the probability of such a moderately sized bomb traveling through time should have been ninety-nine percent likely to land in some extreme environment and take a patch of void down with it.
But they had just been performing a combat mission when they were inexplicably hit by it, entering a state of despair and torment that was nearly endless for a human.
There were so many hibernation pods; they probably weren't there from the start. They must have picked up quite a few from various universes. But people surely kept dying. In the early days when energy was scarce, if they stayed out of the material realm for too long, or if they reached the material realm in some desolate sector, people might have starved to death.
Thinking about it, Myriad Illusions rewriting her personality into an AI probably wasn't her initial idea either.
One could only wonder what they had endured to reach such a point...
"In any case," Solar Star shook his head, gesturing toward the direction where he sensed Lei Ting’s aura. "Move forward. Go there."
The order was given, and the two thousand-plus espers who had survived because they were confirmed harmless quickly intensified their efforts.
"I can sense it. As long as we return to one, we will surely... reach the next level."
Solar Star spoke within the mental field, his brilliant golden eyes slightly closed.
"At that time, all these conflicts will end. When that time comes, what do you want to do?"
"Huh? Um... me?" Lei Li pondered for a moment and answered honestly, "For me, I'll probably go find my teammates and continue adventuring together, or maybe go on an interstellar trip."
"It seems you are very fond of them."
"Of course. In the few years since the Universal Passage opened, the reason I survived wasn't just because of the energy you gave me." Lei Li grinned. "Your energy is way too aggressive—it really hurts! And there's no way to neutralize it!"
"My apologies," Solar Star said.
His apology was devoid of emotion, but Lei Li wasn't upset. He simply let out a long sigh. He sighed just like his father did.
"It's fine, I know you didn't want to. Sometimes people are just like that: forced to hurt others for certain reasons, well, things like that." He muttered, "To be honest, I was just thinking about something else."
"What is it?" Solar Star asked smoothly.
"I was thinking," Lei Li said softly, as if they could be overheard even within the mental field, "'Reach the next level'? That sounds a bit like some ancient poem or proverb... I mean, you couldn't actually be a retro-ist like the legends say, could you?"
***
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
---|---|---
银星人 | Silver Star people | An ancient race, ancestors of the Cotaris.
科塔雷斯 | Cotaris | The name Lei Ting gives to Jiu-350; later the name of a race/character.
阳星 | Solar Star | A fragment or aspect of Lei Ting.
万幻 | Myriad Illusions | A character who turned her personality into an AI.
环形山900 | Crater 900 | The name of the starship and its crew.
火酒 | Firewine | A prototype soft weapon made of red gel.
万向通道 | Universal Passage | A specific spatial region or phenomenon in the setting.
时空夹缝 | Space-time rift | The interdimensional space between timelines or realities.
复古主义者 | Retro-ist | Someone who adheres to or admires ancient/traditional styles and values.
