The Interstellar Queen of Scavengers

He Bi’s mouth twitched.

Ever since this guy entered the Mechanical Cabin, it’s been nonstop nitpicking, to the point of trashing He Bi’s Mecha as totally worthless.

Because of that, He Bi didn’t really feel like responding to it.

Seeing that He Bi was ignoring it, Little Golden Dragon snorted a few times and said, “Don’t try to deny it. Your Mecha really is old-fashioned. Even if you get so mad you foam at the mouth, that won’t change the facts.”

He Bi: “…”

He Bi said, “I happen to like old-fashioned Mechas. At least they’re obedient and don’t talk back.”

Little Golden Dragon snorted, “Ji You has never thought I was noisy.”

He Bi said, “Of course she hasn’t. She traded a whole stack of contracts to get her Mecha back. How could she not treat it like a baby and coax it?”

Little Golden Dragon could hear He Bi was mocking it, but it no longer cared at all. What was that human saying again?

When the pot’s already cracked, you might as well smash it!

Exactly.

Just like that—everyone already knows it’s a little cripple now, so it has no reason to care about its pride anymore.

Mr. Ji has a saying: the thicker your skin, the greater your creativity.

Cough, cough…

Okay, that line doesn’t seem to be from Mr. Ji, but she does seem to live by it?

Little Golden Dragon kept a straight face and silently pondered.

Right then——

Little Golden Dragon suddenly felt that something was off.

He Bi noticed nothing and kept operating the Mecha, driving toward the set coordinates. The whole grid-cage space was actually huge, but they didn’t rush to break out of the area. Instead, they kept searching in multiple directions—front, back, left, right—for possible locations.

Which basically meant they stayed in this circle, constantly changing direction and circling around and around…

Little Golden Dragon straightened its spine, body leaning forward bit by bit. He Bi asked, “What is it?”

The next second.

Realizing something, He Bi’s face suddenly changed. He turned to Little Golden Dragon. “It’s this direction?”

Little Golden Dragon frowned, not answering immediately.

Through the monitors, it stared ahead, its frown deepening further and further.

He Bi’s gaze darkened as he turned to the display. Suddenly, his expression shifted. “What’s going on? The grid cells are shrinking?”

“Yeah.” Little Golden Dragon’s tone was heavy. “You noticed too? I just felt something weird. We came from that direction. Look again—the distance to that side shouldn’t be this short.”

“Short by 500 meters?” He Bi’s face went black in an instant.

At that moment, sitting in the spaceship’s cockpit, Shen Changqing urgently tried to hail Senior He Bi—but although this region was otherwise perfectly suitable for human survival, not a single bit of signal could get out. In other words, all communication signals were blocked; coordinating was extremely difficult.

Shen Changqing grit his teeth and fired a round of ammo in the direction Senior He Bi was heading.

Whoosh——

He Bi slammed the Mecha to a halt, then turned toward the spaceship.

The next second.

He Bi piloted the Mecha back onto the spaceship’s deck.

Shen Changqing said, “Senior, monitoring shows that the region we’re in is being rapidly shrouded by some kind of dark matter.”

He Bi frowned and said, “I already noticed.”

Yue Qiyuan sat beside Shen Changqing and added, “At this rate of encroachment, it’ll take less than ten hours for this entire grid zone to be fully covered.”

What happens once we’re covered by darkness?

No one could give a definite answer.

He Bi thought for a moment. “Have we launched any probes into the darkness yet?”

Shen Changqing shook his head. “We haven’t had time to launch a probe yet.”

He Bi said, “Launch one now.”

Shen Changqing: “Yes.”

Yue Qiyuan assisted on the side. The two of them quickly launched a probe into that dark region—then the probe vanished like a stone sinking into the sea.

Not a single bit of data came back.

Shen Changqing’s fingertips went still as he reported the results to He Bi.

He Bi frowned. “Looks like that’s a massive shielding field—strong enough to blank our probe the instant it enters.”

He thought for a moment, then said, “Throw a bomb in there. See if we can get any sound out of it.”

Shen Changqing immediately complied.

The next second.

A High Energy Particle Cannon was fired toward the shrouded darkness.

Whoosh——

The Particle Cannon was extremely fast, breaking into the darkness almost instantly. Under everyone’s tense gaze, the black-shrouded area remained utterly calm, no ripples at all, as if nothing had happened.

Everyone’s hearts sank.

Shen Changqing pressed his lips together. “At the Particle Cannon’s speed, it should trigger the Self-Destruction program in under three seconds. It’s been six seconds and we still haven’t heard a single sound.”

What does that say?

It says that even the blast from a Particle Cannon can’t get out of that dark region. So what has that place turned into now?

If the darkness keeps creeping closer, once X-N3848 is fully shrouded, what will the entire spaceship turn into?

A massive pressure pressed down in an instant, and everyone felt as if someone had clenched a fist around their hearts.

He Bi said, “Keep testing with other things. Toss a high-decibel loudspeaker in there next.”

Shen Changqing carried out the order right away.

Whoosh——

The high-volume loudspeaker roared as it shot into the darkness. That deafening sound that felt like it could shatter eardrums froze in an instant the moment it entered the black.

Everyone’s faces changed in unison.

Chu Jiaojiao’s expression went grave. “If we really step into that Black Fog, we might not even be able to hear each other talking.”

That would be total blind fumbling.

Staring at the monitoring feed, Shen Changqing’s face grew more and more grim. “The darkness is expanding faster. Maybe we won’t even have eight hours before it engulfs us.”

He Bi suddenly said, “Has Ji You woken up yet?”

Chu Jiaojiao shook her head. “No, still out cold.”

He Bi said, “Wake her up. Everyone get back inside the spaceship, try to stay together. Keep your weapons on you and get ready for defensive measures.”

Shen Changqing hesitated and asked, “Senior, are you saying…?”

He Bi said, “We can’t scout the darkened areas anymore. Once the darkness invades, whoever’s behind it might start picking us off one by one. So we don’t split up—we cluster everyone together. Move!!! Get into the cabins fast. Everyone hold hands; nobody lets go.”

The worst-case scenario might be about to hit. If the spaceship gets swallowed by the darkness, then the whole vessel might be forced to halt, and all signals could be cut at once. The ship wouldn’t be able to orient itself; lights, sound, vision… everything would go dead… Everything would be pitch black; you wouldn’t even be able to clearly hear your teammates right beside your ear. Every channel, every method for transmitting information would be severed. And then the situation everyone faces would become truly lethal.

Because——

You wouldn’t be able to tell who’s the enemy and who’s on your team.

Open readable version