The Almighty Ring

“In space, no one can hear you scream.” That was just an outdated, obsolete way of thinking. For advanced races in interstellar space, there were ways that one could hear sound. One of the methods used was psychic transmission, where you did not listen directly to sound but the mental thoughts of another.

While the pirate ships were all running away from the planet, the mysterious lullaby they made was broadcast even louder. For others, the lullaby sounded no different than odd melodious squeaking. For the Ultralisk, however, it was a soothing voice, like that of an angel even. It was a method the pirates had managed to devise in order to appear invisible.

*Thump! Crush!*

One of the six brand new ships was captured by the Ultralisk’s tentacle, and the moment the tentacles wrapped itself firmly around the ship, it snapped instantly like uncooked spaghetti. There was a large explosion followed by a small fire, which faded quickly, and all of the crew members were thrown out of the ship.

There was no doubt that any soldier in the Valsalrian Army was strong, but the harsh environment of space was never accommodating. As soon as they were ejected out of their crushed ship, they were all exposed to the vacuum of space. The weaker ones quickly suffocated and died while the stronger ones were able to react in time and attach a breather for their respiratory organs. However, that was not the end of it. Even though they had been expelled from the ship due to the escaping air, smaller tentacles at around three meters wide shot out from the Ultralisk’s slimy body and grabbed the drifting soldiers.

Although the smaller tentacles were akin to strands of hair on humans, they were extremely strong and agile. They extended from pore-like openings on the creature’s body and flew toward the soldiers. The drifting soldiers reacted fast but they were not able to turn on the portable thrusters in their boots to escape the incoming tentacles. It only took several seconds from the explosion to the capturing of the drifting soldiers. In that time, one ship was destroyed and all of the Valsalrian soldiers, dead or alive, were captured and tossed into the mouth, or orifice on the Ultralisk’s massive planet-like body.

The Ultralisk had a main orifice that extended as far as several kilometers, end to end. To swallow those tiny soldiers, the beast did not bother opening its gigantic mouth. Instead, smaller pore-like openings that closed and opened rapidly appeared all over its body. They looked like pores from a distance, but they were dozens of meters wide up close! Those orifices were meant to consume smaller lifeforms like that of the Valsalrian soldiers.

Once it consumed all the soldiers, the Ultralisk’s many eyes glowed with a deep red hue. A blast of faint red light radiated out quickly and enveloped a large proximate of the planet, encompassing even the escaping pirates, though they were unaffected. It was another wave of psychic attack meant to subdue lifeforms that had not been subdued from before. That was how the beast attacked and hunted. Even though it did not possess high intelligence and merely acted on instincts, its hunting ability was certainly an evolved one. Not a single life form would be given a chance to escape.

When the radiating red hue reached the Corvette, Domingo writhed painfully. This time, he fell backward and struggled to breathe again. The beast was coming to the ship, and besides the need to worry about the psychic attack, he had to worry about the ship’s destruction too. Domingo and everyone else, including Jiang Fei himself would be powerless against the Ultralisk.

“What can I do?!” Jiang Fei asked himself over and over again as the Ultralisk got closer to the ship. Even though he was completely immune to the psychic attack, he would be exposed to space and be eaten alive if the ship was destroyed.

No one had expected the small band of pirates to actually capture and enslave the powerful Ultralisk. Such a beast literally spelled Doomsday for any intelligent species. Due to its lack of intelligence, the Ultralisk had become a living being that would render any galaxy quadrant inhabitable! Its sheer power and psychic ability could sterilize any potentially habitable planetary system, turning it into something like a black hole! Even then a black hole could form a sustainable planetary system if it was large enough…

To make things worse for Domingo’s forces, the pirates had somehow managed to devise a method to control the Ultralisk. Even though the method did not really grant them full control of it, it was still good enough to unleash the beast onto their enemies without being affected by it. In anyone’s book, that was considered a proper containment method. As long as one could be invisible to the Ultralisk, one could venture into any place without having to worry about being targeted because pursuers would be busy dealing with it! The method had been used a long time ago in a place far, far away. However, this group of pirates was not smart enough to employ the same tactic. They had never thought of actually using this cheat code to completely dominate a galaxy quadrant for themselves. Instead, they treated the Ultralisk as a guard dog to kill anyone who dared to disturb their homes.

The situation grew dire once there were only two ships left; the Corvette class and the Cruiser class.

“Damn it!” Jiang Fei roared in despair as he sat in the captain’s seat and witnessed all the other soldiers get eaten by the Ultralisk. Right then, they were extremely close to the Ultralisk, and the psychic wave had gotten so strong that Domingo was twitching. The rest of the ships’ crew had long passed out.

Boom!

A minor tremor was felt as the last Cruiser was destroyed.

“Ack…” Domingo made a sound and quickly lost consciousness. It was miraculous enough for Domingo to retain his consciousness at that distance for so long. Unfortunately, even though he was driven by his fear of Ottogackt, Domingo had his limits when it came to enduring the mind-searing psychic attack of an Ultralisk.

“I have no choice,” said Jiang Fei with a heavy sigh. There was no other option but to fight the beast directly. The ship was stranded as the only one still conscious, Jiang Fei had no idea how to operate it. Apart from drifting aimlessly in space, there was the possibility of being eaten by the beast.

*Woosh!*

Since that was the last ship in its sight, the Ultralisk pushed itself toward the ship and extended all of its main tentacles to capture it. In a split moment, before the ship could be crushed, Jiang Fei focused his mind with everything he had and…

*Woosh!*

A faint silvery light flashed across the entire sector of space, and everything vanished; the beast and the ship were gone. It was as if they had been removed from existence.

“What the…

“What just happened?

“What happened to the Ultralisk?!”

…

From the pirates’ vantage point, the beast and the last remaining Valsalrian ship vanished in a spark of white light. Even though they were all distraught by the ship, they witnessed what had just happened; the ship and the beast disappeared, but they did not know how!

…

“Gahack!”

When Jiang Fei reappeared in the 10th Dimension, he spat out a mouthful of blood and another until he was sure it was more than enough to kill him.

Pulling the entire Braveheart into the 10th Dimension was already a strenuous feat, and Jiang Fei had to pay for it dearly. He did not only pull a Corvette class ship, but also a planet-sized Ultralisk! If he had not been stronger than he was before, the rebound effect would have killed him.

“I need to be more careful next time…” said Jiang Fei to himself before he quickly focused on the situation at hand. He understood well that every second he spent in the 10th Dimension would inflict an exponential rebound effect on him. With that thought in mind, Jiang Fei needed to thank Domingo once he had the chance. If it had not been for the training room provided by Domingo, Jiang Fei would not have been able to train himself and become stronger in such a short span of time.

Jiang Fei, in his ethereal form, drifted out of the ship like a ghost. There was no need to tend to the ship since it was completely unscathed. The reason he had dragged the ship into the 10th Dimension was to prevent the pirates from destroying it while Jiang Fei was busy dealing with the Ultralisk. With no one on the helm as they were all unconscious, the ship would be a sitting duck even against a single one-man transport ship!

“What am I going to do with you?” Jiang Fei asked as he stared at the planet-sized Ultralisk in suspended animation. He had successfully dragged it into the 10th Dimension, but he had no idea how to completely destroy it from there.