It was a massive and agile figure, hundreds of meters high, resembling an upright coyote.
Wrapped in a churning black mist of chaos, it lunged from the deep space, braving the light of the "Solar Star." Its head, composed of a dense thicket of long tentacles and a cross-shaped soft vertical mouth, writhed incessantly, seemingly muttering some chaotic language that transcended the limits of hearing.
When it suddenly opened that mouth, its entire head unfurled like a blooming flower. Thousands of teeth, arranged in dense concentric circles, writhed along with the opening petals of flesh. As it did so, the black mist could no longer resist the power of the "Solar Star." Beams of light pierced and tore through it without hesitation, slicing it into several pieces even as it moved with swift agility.
However, even with its body sliced into several segments, it showed no sign of impending death. Instead, it continued its charge, braving the "Solar Star" in its fragmented state as it lunged to bite Lei Ting!
In just that first encounter, Lei Ting realized that the "Solar Star" had limited effect on this thing. His intuition had been correct—this top-tier monster truly posed an extraordinary threat to him!
Saliva sprayed, and threads of blood were visible to the naked eye. In a fleeting instant, that maw, as large as a skyscraper, was upon Lei Ting, making his heavy mecha look pitiably small by comparison.
Yet Lei Ting remained expressionless. As he flew backward, he casually tossed the "New Sun" into the mecha’s hand. The greatsword spun through the air, and the core gemstone embedded within it lit up with a dazzling golden light.
As its modules shifted, it transformed into the shape of a heavy cannon. Simultaneously, a large number of metal components attached themselves to it, equipping it with energy concentration modules and a full set of external plating.
Within seconds, the "New Sun" had turned into a heavy energy cannon seven or eight meters long. When it fell back into the hands of Lei Ting’s mecha, it exuded a sense of power that matched its wielder.
From all directions, various dim phantoms swept past. These were silver-gray metal needles, pinning themselves into the monster’s flesh like a torrential downpour.
At the same time, a speck of brilliance lit up in the distance. A psionic manifestation, shaped like a giant old-fashioned fountain pen, shot through the void like an arrow or a spear, heading straight for Lei Ting’s position. Wherever it passed, all hideous demons and ghosts vanished silently...
It was strong, orderly, and devoid of malice.
As its target, Lei Ting sensed its presence, but he quickly judged that the newcomer was not a threat. Thus, he didn't even turn his head to look at it. Instead, both his hands pulled the heavy cannon—which was even heavier than the mecha he wore—steadying his stance and aiming it at the unfurled flower not far away.
—*BOOM—!!!!!!!!!!!*
A broad beam of light, so blue it was luminous, pierced through everything. The core structure of the psionic reactor stimulated a terrifyingly high temperature. Consequently, an even greater light was born within the monster’s body—it was a nuclear explosion, and currently Lei Ting’s favorite method of heavy lethality.
A brilliant sphere of light emerged at the edge of the golden sea of light. The thin air of the Ethereal Plane vibrated with the roar. The center of the explosion was sucked into a complete vacuum.
Golden radiance burned around Lei Ting’s mecha. The intense external impact caused the psionic power supplying his shields to deplete rapidly, but in the face of a "Double S" energy density, none of this was a problem.
A nuclear explosion had occurred within its body, yet the "Helminth-Hound"—its name suddenly appeared in Lei Ting’s mind the moment he dealt it significant damage—still did not die. Scattered, blurred parts were gathered by the thin black mist, and in the blink of an eye, it condensed once more into a "Helminth-Hound" about half its original size.
But at this moment, the grand flash of the nuclear explosion had not yet faded. The Helminth-Hound had barely formed before it was torn apart again by the energy shockwave occurring right in its face.
As for Lei Ting... he had already used the momentum to fly out of the flash’s range, tracing a curve through the darkness toward the distant, descending "fountain pen" manifestation.
A strange sensation urged him to approach it as quickly as possible. Under the threat of countless targets even more dangerous and terrifying than the Helminth-Hound closing in from further away, he had almost no choice.
Through this battle, he had realized that while his energy was abundant to the point of being nearly infinite and his various application techniques were comprehensive, he lacked means of higher direct lethality. This was a fatal weakness in combat that exceeded ordinary levels, and he had to compensate for it.
Golden light shot forward as the "fountain pen" pierced through. The former was like a simulated fire, while the latter poured down a soft light in the darkness.
Just as they were about to close the distance, the fountain pen suddenly tilted slightly, and the two brushed past each other.
Lei Ting instinctively turned his eyes.
He saw a pair of eyes where red and blue blended together, watching him gently.
*Snap!*
A fleeting sense of disorientation flashed by. All light and shadow vanished. The lingering whispers of that space no longer appeared.
Lei Ting raised his eyes and saw the starry sky, along with a dim planet in the distance surrounded by countless types of discarded wreckage.
—He was back.
He had returned to the material world.
This was a random teleportation. Theoretically, the space he was in now should be near the point of maximum spacetime fluctuation in the stars near the battlefield—such places had fragile spacetime barriers and naturally possessed an induction field.
Lei Ting sensed the "Sun" he had left behind in the far distance and slowly turned his gaze toward that solitary planet drifting in the deep space.
The optical computer eyepiece, which had been forced to shut down earlier due to intense energy interference, popped up. However, it could only capture the planet’s appearance; it was unable to lock onto or probe any information about it.
And this location...
...A large-scale teleportation event should have just occurred here.
***
"This light is really a bit too blinding..." Sandro muttered, sitting among a group of young people who were all wounded. He was tinkering with a makeshift instrument in his hands... then he winced as it flashed, letting out a huff.
"Give it a rest. Is the light from that big shot at your school any less blinding than this?" a girl beside him complained. She wore the badge of the "Federation Third Military Academy" on her chest. "I heard them say before that you were a friend of that 'Double S.' Could it be a lie?"
"It’s really not a lie. The two of us are indeed Lei Ting’s friends," Sandro answered lazily.
As he spoke, he raised the Star-net signal detector, which had begun to flash with a blue light and a series of *beeps*, and waved it in all directions.
When he lifted his arm, the wound at his waist—which had just been treated by a healing esper and was now barely scabbed over—nearly tore open. He let out a muffled groan and was caught by Susanna, who then silently took the detector from his hand.
"...It hurts like a bitch," Sandro muttered, clutching the scar at his waist. "Alright, let’s find the place where the electromagnetic interference is weakest... then pray our optical computers still work."
"Right." "Okay." "Nice one, brother." The crowd chimed in one after another.
Subsequently, Susanna and Sandro helped each other up, and the other seven or eight people mostly did the same.
This group was composed of people the two of them had picked up from the mountains of this alien terrain. Among them, there was only one person from the First Academy—the healing esper, who was also a logistics psionic mecha mechanic.
Besides them, there were two veterans outside the hollow where they were temporarily hiding, helping to keep watch. Previously, these two had stayed at the frontline base after writing their final letters, and now they had naturally been teleported here together.
As for that unlucky base...
...God knows where it was. Of course, it was also possible that it was among the parts flying in the sky... Currently, those things occasionally turned into meteors and fell from the heavens, scaring the people on the ground half to death every time.
No matter how small this planet was, it was still a planet. Although about a million people had probably been teleported at the same time, when distributed three-dimensionally across this entire planet, they were like a few grains of dust falling into a rice bin.
"As long as Lei-ge comes, everything will be fine!" Sandro encouraged those around him as he walked out of the hollow. "I know his level. As long as there are enough raw materials, he can build us another base right on the spot!"
"Listen to you... there are raw materials flying all over the sky..." The crowd laughed.
As they spoke, the massive wreckage of half a spaceship fell in the distance, trailing fire and crashing with a force that shook the earth.
"I never thought that from this angle, a spaceship would look so big..." a student from a branch academy’s piloting department, who had a broken leg, remarked with a sigh. "I mean, from the perspective of a target."
A group of broken-limbed living targets on the surface let out laughter, finding joy in their sorrow.
On the way, the group encountered several attacks. But the reaction speed of the two veterans to these incidents was incredibly fast. Every time, before the students even had a chance to fire, the veterans had already torn the enemies apart.
Naturally, the students were curious about how they did it. Their answer was...
"If it were me, I would also set up an ambush in those positions," one of the veterans smiled. Her voice, coming from beneath her full-coverage armor, sounded like a friendly sister next door. "'A killer understands security best'—it’s basically like that."
Judging by the voice alone, one really couldn't tell that you’re a seasoned ambush expert...
The crowd marveled, feeling a bit more at ease.
But this sense of security collapsed when they encountered a remnant unit of the Flo.
The two veterans, who had been fortunate enough to survive the war until now, died. Along with nearly half the members of this patchwork squad.
Because everyone had overlooked one question: could electromagnetic interference so strong that no electronic instrument could function possibly be a normal occurrence?
No, that was naturally not a normal environment... "Deep Space Stealth" is built upon high-precision enemy detection and counter-detection assassination; it is absolutely not something that simple electromagnetic turbulence can achieve.
There was something wrong with the planet itself.
So... since these people were looking for a place with a signal, wouldn't the remaining Flo know to do the same?
How could they not!
"Dammit..." Sandro collapsed beside Susanna, who had become increasingly silent as the group grew. He clutched his repeatedly torn wounds and looked down at the several new gashes on his body, gasping for breath as blood flowed.
They were all through-and-through wounds.
Fortunately, they were through-and-through. Otherwise, he would have died on the spot.
The only person who could heal was also dead... This was the Flo’s home turf, and they were guarding the places with signals...
Sandro scanned the surroundings. Including himself, there were only four people left... four weak, sick, and injured youths.
Aside from him and Susanna, there were only two students from the Second Military Academy left. One had a superpower for environmental perception, and the other had no superpower at all, having survived this far purely through sheer toughness...
Sandro gritted his teeth and felt the data card tucked into his shirt’s chest pocket
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Stars See Me [Interstellar] | Chapter 91 | Back to the Material Realm | Novela.app | Novela.app
