Age of Cosmic Exploration

Eva became half vegetable...

This so-called half vegetable state was when the brain was confirmed dead, but weirdly enough, the brain still showcased some minute activities. The activities were unlike normal brain waves. The situation was similar to Jay’s condition; it was a type of recovery period of Homo Evolutis, but no one knew how long they would be asleep for, because currently mankind didn’t have the technology to resuscitate them...

Yao Yuan stood in the ICU room and looked at the girl’s peaceful sleeping face. His heart felt pain.

Eva was the biggest contributor in this incident with the level 3 space civilization. If not for her Sage power, the Hope would’ve been enslaved without knowing how or why. Yao Yuan might not even have had time to pull the self-destruct trigger and humanity would’ve been enslaved by this level 3 space civilization just like that. On this point alone, Eva was humanity’s real saviour. She was so much more important than himself, who was only humans’ savior by name.

But she was only a little girl!

Yao Yuan could still remember when Eva was only a few years old when she boarded the Hope. Due to the anarchy back on Earth, Eva was only skin and bones back then. The pair of inquisitive eyes didn’t lose their luster, however. Yao Yuan remembered feeling melancholic watching the group of intellectuals and children shoveling food into their mouths like refugees that hadn’t seen food for years. At the time, little Eva even asked cautiously whether she could bring some food home with her since she was afraid her family might get hungry at night.

Who knew such a little girl would become humanity’s savior several years later? Just like Jay, she over-exerted her Homo Evolutis power to save humanity and entered a half-vegetable state. This could last for several years, decades, or even until death. This sacrifice was... a bit too hefty.

Yao Yuan sat quietly beside Eva’s bed. He raised his head to look at the clock on the wall. It was already 4 AM. After a whole night of setting up the Black Star Troopers and Black Dragons, the Hope’s current most powerful military force; widening the circle of information, especially to those that would be responsible for space warping so that they wouldn’t panic during warp; and organizing all sorts of trivial jobs, he finally had time to himself. The first thing he did was visit Eva’s room.

"Our sacrifice..."

For some reason, this was the phrase that cropped up in Yao Yuan’s mind as he studied Eva’s sleeping face...

For the sake of humanity, civilization, and survival, even the final hope of finding yet another blue planet, for all of these, mankind had sacrificed so much in the ten something years since they had left Earth. The people’s sacrifices, the soldiers’ sacrifices, the Homo Evolutis’ sacrifices... Jay was still asleep, and Eva had joined him. His Black Star Unit’s comrades, Ying...

There were so many sacrifices!

Yao Yuan sat beside her bed and lowered his head into his open palms. Those sacrifices appeared again and again in his heart. They weighed so heavily on him that he couldn’t feel anything else anymore. He might’ve been the Hope’s savior, and many hailed him as the ultimate savior, but he understood that they wouldn’t have survived until this point without the sacrifices of these true, brave heroes and heroines!

However, the sacrifices were too hefty...

If humanity had better technology, if they were already a level 3 space civilization with 5th revolution technology, if... if all this was true, then wouldn’t there be fewer sacrifices?

Without power there would be no means to protect the things one loved, to protect one’s people, to continue mankind’s legacy. Therefore, they needed...

Power!

At around 6:30 AM, Yao Yuan sat in the military camp’s canteen and had an early breakfast with the Black Star Troopers who just woken up or couldn’t sleep. They would need to be in their space armors until Xiao Niao came with the news, because that would be when the aliens entered the Hope!

Time trickled by slowly. Eva didn’t have the chance before she collapsed to give the exact time the alien would enter the Hope. The only thing that was certain was that the timing was going to coincide with when Xiao Niao received news from ZERO.

However, even though Eva didn’t specify the landing location, she did mention the aliens’ spaceship being hit by the Supermagnetic Planet Annihilating Rail-Cannon. There were only a few spots on the Hope that could be targeted by the stationary cannon. Otherwise, the power of the cannon itself would blow up the Hope.

With this clue to work this, the two Thinkers came up with a select pool of landing spots for the alien spaceship. Other than a small number of Black Star Troopers being used as patrol to prevent nasty surprises, most of the military power was congregated in these few possible landing spots, waiting for the aliens to arrive.

At that moment, Yao Yuan had already put on his red space armor. He told Guang Zhen, who was also in space armor, "Ol’ Wong, you don’t need to be involved in this battle. Go to the Hope’s central command and wait for Xiao Niao. The moment he arrives, get the Hope to warp immediately, the faster the better. In my eyes, it is impossible to demolish this group of aliens before we warp, so might as well warp with them inside the Hope, because then they will be isolated, and sooner or later, we will have them in our grasp!"

Guang Zhen hesitated. He looked at Yao Yuan and said, "Be careful... This alien civilization probably has plasma weapons, and no one knows how the space armors will hold up against them. So be very careful. I’ll be leaving then, contact me if you need anything." Guang Zhen then gave a salute before leaving without turning back.

Then it was a long wait. Everyone was anxious, and the most anxious was probably Xiao Niao, who waited in his room because the whole operation would start with him sending out the message. Ever since he was informed of the news the day before, he hadn’t closed his eyes. He stared unblinkingly at his computer screen, his bloodshot eyes lending him a crazed look.

"Please let there be no accident!"

Xiao Niao had been mumbling this phrase to himself so much that he felt he might go crazy. Time was slowly moving into noon, and Xiao Niao felt ZERO was going to show herself soon. He barely had the energy to lift the lunchbox he was given and his body was at its limits, but his mental state was hyped. His brain kept on turning to dissect the situation, the possible accidents, why ZERO would be delayed. He sat there thinking and thinking; he could even feel his body being bogged down by over-exertion of his Homo Evolutis power.

"...You’ve been waiting for me?"

Suddenly, as Xiao Niao’s brain came to a mounting headache, this line appeared on screen. Like being struck by a pin prick, Xiao Niao sprung up from his seat. The action was so huge and sudden that he knocked over his brunch and fell back from his seat.

While he was lying on the floor, he picked up his communicator and pressed the button hurriedly. He yelled into it as he tried to catch his breath, "ZERO has contacted me!"

At the same time, at the Hope’s largest space port, a 60 plus meter long silver spaceship, landed. In the spaceship, Blue 6 and his five most loyal second grade bionic men who had been at his side for hundreds of years since he became a cosmic adapter and a few spaceship operators were already in a rather rounded spacesuit. This was the Blue Race’s combat-use spacesuit.

"This ruin is so weird. It is so small that it doesn’t have centrifugal force, but why is there gravity?"

A bionic man jumped out of curiously and successfully landed. This proved that Blue 6 was right, the ruins had gravity.

Blue 6 didn’t have the time to understand the mystery, as he was thinking about the series of warnings he received earlier from the space traffic control, the military, the royal committee, and even the Emperor. However, none of them were able to stem his determination. At this moment, after he was personally in the ruins, his anxiety had finally dissipated. The sense that the ruin was going to disappear at any moment dispersed and in its place was a low degree of danger.

"This is curious. Could it be that it only allows me to go in alone? The more non-cosmic adapters that I bring, the greater the danger? But I’ve never heard of a ruin that was specific to cosmic adapters before."

Blue 6’s interest was piqued. He turned to address his men, "The operators will stay in the spaceship, the 6 of us will enter the ruin... Do not attack anything on sight. My danger sense is low, but that probably has to do with my identity as a cosmic adapter."

The operators moved to oblige. Then Blue 6 led the 5 bionic men out of the spaceship and they walked towards the ruin entrance. Using the simple plasma blade, the metallic entrance was cut down like it was nothing. This kind of easy entrance unsettled the small group.

Before they could understand what was happening, in just a blink of an eye, energy shields appeared in front of their spacesuits. A few hundred "people" in prehistoric spacesuits were firing at them...

Electromagnetic weapons from a level 2 space civilization?

Wait, this feeling was...

At the moment the small group was being attacked, Blue 6 felt a curious emotion, not danger, but...

A resonance with cosmic adapters?

The lifeforms before them were all cosmic adapters?

How was that possible?!

Before Blue 6 could give any command, the 5 bionic men beside him raised their arms and 5 Homo Evolutis in front of them were blown into dust...