Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 471: Ending?
Chapter 471: Ending?

Translator: EndlessFantasy TranslationEditor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Despair clogged Yao Yuan’s heart. The number of enemy spaceships… was simply too high!

During the ambush circle, even though the New Solar System first fleet faced a larger enemy, humanity had the upper hand in that battle. From the location, Homo Evolutis, and most importantly, the weapon that changed the tide of the battle, humanity had the advantage, and that was crucial to humanity’s victory despite the enemy having more numbers.

However, here, humanity was racing to catch up to the enemy who was heading towards the City of Light Moon. The battlefield was not humanity’s choice. There wasn’t much strategy to be said for this war as this was a war of numbers, and in terms of numbers, humanity was losing greatly…

One human had to fight about one thousand enemy spaceships. The imbalance in terms of numbers was hugely disadvantageous for humanity!

If this was allowed to continue, the fall of humanity was only a matter of time. Yao Yuan was a human being, and he too would get tired and exhausted. In fact, when this thought crossed his mind, he was already feeling so fatigued that he could fall asleep there and then, but he understood he couldn’t. He was the City of Light Moon’s biggest defender, and he had taken care of more than 90 percent of landing ships on his own. If he was indisposed… he really didn’t dare to imagine the consequences…

The enemy still has at least fifty to sixty thousand main spaceships left. Damn! This is an unwinnable war. If this drags on, we’ll only welcome extinction. So our only hope is… space warp!

This thought cropped up in Yao Yuan’s mind. This was the final, final resort, something that had to be done when there was no other option. After this space warp, humanity would lose this New Solar System and all the good things that had been built here. They would lose… the Homo Evolutis, vanguard unit that sacrificed themselves here….

Just what kind of ending would this be? Humanity, a space civilization that was heading towards middle-tier, would drop to become a space civilization at the brink of extinction. The life of humanity in the future was unimaginably bad. Without resources, without weapons, without motivation, without a place call home, humanity might end up worse than those deteriorating level 2 space civilizations…

But… what choice did they have? It was either this or definite extinction…

(Yes, Bo Li is already on the Hope. Same with the majority of the great scientists. There is also a handful of Black Star Troopers that didn’t join the war. It’s good enough…)

Tears escaped Yao Yuan’s eyes and pain tore at his heart. This was a final goodbye. Even if these abandoned soldiers miraculously survived the war, the warped citizens would no longer return. Space is too wide for them to meet again. The families, lovers, and friends, they were not going to meet again…

I shouldn’t be too emotional. At least we still have the chance to escape. While I can still fight, I should try to hold on to buy time more time to space warp. Yes, we shall try to provide this last opportunity to humanity. Humanity… will continue to survive in space!

Yao Yuan then shot down the batch of landing ships closest to him. As he turned to drive towards the creator’s particle zone of the city and order them to space warp, his vision cleared because the numerous landing ships started to disappear. Well, disappear was an exaggeration. The number was no longer that intensive, so the place was several hundred times less crowded than before. Only several hundred spaceships remained, and they didn’t head towards the City of Light Moon, they moved towards the spaceship fleet.

F*ck! They’re no longer interested in taking the City of Light Moon? They want to destroy it? Using that purple light ray weapon?!

Yao Yuan broke out in cold sweat. The damage of that purple light ray weapon was too powerful; it was powerful enough to harm a level 4 space civilization. Even though only a mothership could use it, the focus fire of several motherships was more than enough to ruin even the moon itself. This kind of weapon… humanity wouldn’t even have the chance to defend itself. Extinction would come in the blink of an eye!

Yao Yuan didn’t dare to stay put. He didn’t think there was even time for him to tell the City of Light Moon to space warp. In the Red Lightning, he rushed towards the enemy fleet, attempting to take down those motherships in the shortest amount of time. However, before he even got close, a purple ray suddenly brushed past the Red Lightning. When the ray passed him, Yao Yuan felt like his heart had stopped. Fear, terror, none of the adjectives were strong enough to describe his feeling. He didn’t even dare to turn to look. The people, families, Bo Li…

Yao Yuan’s Red Lightning stopped right there in space. He didn’t move forward or backwards. He stayed there for at least four seconds before he ”looked” back. There it was… Light Moon and the City of Light Moon. The purple ray had brushed the moon before dispersing into space. Neither the moon nor the city was harmed.

”They’re… retreating?”

Yao Yuan turned around to see the AI fleet starting to turn around just like how they did in the ambush circle. All the spaceships crowded around the pyramid-shaped motherships to protect them as they turned around. Some of the main ships remained immobile. Even though Yao Yuan didn’t know where the purple ray cannons were, he could tell they were aiming at the City of Light Moon… Was that a warning shot?

Not only had Yao Yuan come to this conclusion, almost everyone involved in the war could see it because the AI fleet was being quite obvious. They were leaving the City of Light Moon at an incredible speed. Other than the Black Star Troopers who were deep in their ranks, the humans and AI spaceships were clearly delineated on the battlefield. One was idling, the other was slowly moving away.

About 10 minutes after the AI fleet started retreating, all the Black Star Troopers surrounded Yao Yuan. Yao Yuan was at his limit, but he forced his eyes open to look at the AI fleet. He had no idea what was happening. Why would they retreat when they had victory in their grasp? What was the reason? Weren’t they here for ZERO or Intel? Didn’t they want lifeforms?

Many questions surrounded Yao Yuan’s mind. He had to get to the bottom of this; however, he didn’t dare to give chase to the AI fleet. None of them did. Even though the AI fleet still had 50,000 civilians whose fates were unknown, they didn’t dare to chase after the fleet. The power of the purple ray was too scary. Behind them was the the City of Light Moon, so no one dared to make this bet, including him!

Everyone could only watch as this happened. At the most crucial of times, at the very last moment, at the point of despair, the enemy chose to retreat without much fanfare except a shot of the purple ray to warn humanity from pursuing them. The whole of the human forces watched as the enemy escaped… none of them dared to test the AI fleet. What if they returned to land on the City of Light Moon?

Even as the AI fleet moved away, none of the humans dared to let their guards down until suddenly the space occupied by the AI fleet started to blur. It was as if a giant bubble had appeared in space, and the size was bigger than a planet. Before humanity realized what it was, the endless amount of AI ships disappeared. Yes, they disappeared along with the blur. After that, the blurry space started to sharpen until everything returned to normal. Everything felt like it was just an illusion.

”No, it’s not an illusion! The signs of the war are still there, the broken bits of the spaceships, this is not an illusion… Yes, the fleet has used warp drive. They sure are brave to use warp drive inside a solar system. Aren’t they afraid of losing their way? Then again, an AI fleet wouldn’t have to care about the issue of life. As long as they have enough energy, they wouldn’t mind getting lost. They could find a random solar system and a hundred thousand spaceships can be reproduced just like that…

”But why would they retreat? What was their purpose? Was it not ZERO or Intel? The way they knew about ZERO or Intel aside, they wouldn’t have left before getting the two sentient intelligences… No, wait! Intel! F*ck! Intel was part of the vanguard unit, and they had captured the shuttle with 50,000 civilians. Could Intel be on that shuttle as well…”

Perhaps it was the last light before dawn, but as Yao Yuan watched the AI fleet disappear in a blur, he didn’t feel exhausted anymore. In fact, his brain started to work in overdrive. In just a second, he had come up with a conclusion, but before he could decide what to do with that conclusion, darkness fell…