บท 2: The Egg That Came From Space
บรรณาธิการ: Noodletown Translations
Mu Fan grinned as he pulled out his dagger from the mutant beast's neck and wiped off the blood on this two-meter long creature; he didn't care at all about the five claw wounds on his back that were still bleeding.
He was lucky that the mutant beast was idling around the edge of the forest by itself. It was dangerous for Mu Fan but not deadly. For Mu Fan, the blood and wounds on his body were of less importance compared to the hundreds of kilograms of meat that he could get from the dead beast.
Mu Fan squinted his eyes in reminiscence; he felt like he had never been full before. But he soon remembered that this much meat could last him for days if he saved it up, so he bent down as he prepared to pack up the beast to bring it back home.
Wait, what's that sound! A numb sensation ran across Mu Fan's scalp and all the way down to his toes as a huge sonic boom fell from the sky. Suddenly, his prey on the ground cast a shadow.
Mu Fan raised his head and saw a long streak of fire coming from the horizon, and it ripped across the night sky like a Holy Sword piercing through Planet Loga.
Mu Fan was stunned by this astonishing scene as he stood still and watched the flaming fireball fly towards the depths of the forest.
Wait, the depths of the forest?
Mu Fan widened his eyes as he suddenly realized that he wasn't safe where he was, but it was too late as the fireball crashed into the ground. The aggressive impact generated a blast wave, and it crashed towards Mu Fan from three kilometers away, causing trees to fall down at an incredible rate towards him.
Mu Fan didn't even get to close his mouth, which had opened due to shock when he was blown onto the ground.
A large amount of smoke rose into the sky as the fire eventually extinguished in the forest. The citizens who lived more than 40 kilometers away only heard a loud noise and assumed that it was a normal event of falling meteorites as they continued to enjoy their nightlife.
…
Crack!
The sound of his top and lower teeth clacking against one another came from below the dirt. Will I still be able to eat meat with my teeth? Mu Fan thought as he shook his head, trying to recover. He fully regained his senses when the two shadows of the same tree in front of him finally became one.
He laid there on the ground as he stared into the sky as it returned to its dead-silence and darkness.
"My meat!!!" A shrill scream sounded.
Mu Fan flipped onto his feet as he anxiously looked around him, ignoring the new scars and dirt on his body from the blast. He only sat down in relief when he saw that his meat didn't get blown away.
What could it be? A meteorite from outer space or fallen space junk? Mu Fan pondered as his eyes lit up brightly, I will go take a look first. I can come back later to take the meat home.
The darkness wasn't a problem for Mu Fan, and he moved deftly towards the point of impact as the other beasts were all scared away by the blast wave. More trees were knocked down the closer he got.
He could smell the burnt trees as he jumped over a large log and moved closer. There was a…"black egg" deep down in the center of the impact crater. Every once in a while, it sparked.
Yes, exactly like a black egg. Mu Fan was satisfied with this description as he confirmed his judgement about the object's appearance. His lack of knowledge prevented him from finding a more close-fitting description.
Mu Fan slid down from the edge of the crater with care and curiously stared at the black egg that lay at the bottom in silence as he slowly approached. The black oval-shaped object was about one meter in length, and he still couldn't tell its actual color even with the occasional sparks that illuminated its surface.
"Electric sparks, which means that it's probably metallic," Mu Fan muttered as he randomly grabbed a broken branch beside him and knocked on its surface. Judging by the sound, it should be hollow on the inside. He then touched the leaves on that branch and felt that they were warm. "Mmm… The surface temperature has decreased already."
Mu Fan reached out both of his hands, which were wearing worn-out leather gloves, and placed them onto the surface of the black egg, feeling a slight hotness coming from his palms. Then he pushed the black egg lightly, moving it slightly in the giant crater.
"Weighs about 200 kilograms." Mu Fan stood up as he looked around and scooped up some dirt to cover the areas where sparks were occasionally flying out. He then clenched his fists before he grabbed the black egg and lifted it up from the ground to his right shoulder. With a few quick hops, he showed a level of strength that didn't match up to his slim figure, and he got back up to the edge of the crater before dashing towards his food.
Under the night sky in the outskirts of Planet Loga District 22, no one would notice that a young boy running home was carrying a huge black egg on one shoulder and dragging a dead mutant beast with his other hand.
Go home, eat meat, and then check out what this black egg is all about. Mu Fan grinned as his eyes glistened from happiness. Is this a gift from the stars?
The dense rings of space junk surrounding the planet, the heavy black clouds in the night sky, the outskirts far away from the city, and the uninhabited edge of the forest… everything had come together as a perfect coverup for this small event on a remote planet.
…
Scattered space rocks floated around in the tranquil cosmos at the edge of this galaxy that was 0.7 lightyears away from Planet Loga. Deep down in an asteroid belt, a huge black crack suddenly ripped through the space. Three silver-white heavy battleships appeared through the crack. Although there weren't any logos or marks on their aerodynamically designed hulls, there was no doubt that the three battleships were combat-ready; there were heavy particle-beam cannons that hung outside on the hull, and other weapons in all sorts of shapes and forms were densely packed around the battleships, making them look like three fierce dragons with terrifying combat power.
"Family Head, the fleet warp jumped outside the region, and we've lost them! We failed the mission, please punish us!" The captain in a navy uniform half-kneeled as he asked for punishment from a middle-aged man in front of him. The middle-aged man standing was also wearing a navy uniform, and he was large in size as well. His eyes seemed cold and majestic behind his glasses as he glanced down at the captain with an indifferent expression. "Our Huangchuan Family has lived in silence for hundreds of years under the Galactic Empire. How many other noble families have vanished like smoke in thin air because of the battles between the Empire and the Federation. Conservative strategies? Hmph. Those aristocrats on Planet Overlord have fallen, and now the chance is in our hands. If we don't catch it this time, we'll never get the chance again. Chuan-13, which galaxy is our fleet currently at?"
"Family Head, we have warp jumped near the border of the United Galaxia Federation's territory. We are currently situated within a small asteroid belt, and we haven't been detected yet by the Federation. Family Head, please determine what we should do next." An officer standing to the right of the middle-aged man moved his hands quickly on a holographically projected screen, and soon a three-dimensional map of this galaxy appeared before everyone's eyes.
"Chuan-1, you may rise. We can rest assured that it was probably not the b*stards from Hawkeye because they wouldn't be entering the Federation's territory. To avoid exposing our fleet, we shall speed up our preparation." The middle-aged man who was respectfully addressed by others as 'Family Head' paused and pondered a bit before he commanded, "Head back."
"Yes, Family Head!" The captain stood up and returned to the commander's podium as he ordered, "Initiate warp engine at 175% capacity. Huangchuan Iron-Curtain Mode activate! Load coordinates for spatial node no. 1; calibrate destination coordinates. Everyone onboard, head back!"
The black crack that had just disappeared reappeared and ripped open the cosmos horizontally like a huge vertical pupil. The battleships turned from silver-white to ink-black and disappeared slowly into the crack. The vertical pupil closed, and the asteroid belt returned to its tranquil silence.
If the researchers from the Federation's science lab were here to witness this, they would have been astonished by this technology; generating a small and conserved teleportation channel within static space was a research field that the Federation had just touched on, yet it was being used in practice already. However, no one knew that all of this had happened.
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