Chapter 1 People of the Stars

The People of the Stars—that was what mankind called these mysterious beings from the depths of the cosmos. In Holletta, the ancient magic emperors called them “allies from the stars.” These mysterious lifeforms had names of their own, but because their language and vocabulary structures were so bizarre, it was difficult for ordinary races to accurately reproduce their racial name, whether through transliteration or free translation. Therefore, the races that had come into contact with these mysterious beings eventually chose their own customary names.

The image of the People of the Stars was that of an amorphous, bright glow, with starlight and lightning wandering inside. Some believed that these beings were formed from the most primitive and purest light in the universe, representing the pure light side of this world. They possessed bizarre technology—or perhaps magic—that humans could not understand, and they were able to cause all sorts of miracles. Some even believed that they possessed a power beyond the material world, and thus could affect ethereal things such as fate and karma. The People of the Stars initially established communication with humans on this planet through spiritual connections. Subsequently, they came to this planet through a peculiar optical phenomenon that defied the laws of physics, and quickly demonstrated their incredible power and great qualities.

The People of the Stars warned the locals about the awakening of the First Born and foretold a disaster beyond mortal imagination, one that would almost overturn the entire universe. At first, the humans on this planet did not believe these warnings, but the People of the Stars soon proved everything through a series of accurate prophecies and the First Born’s tentacles unearthed from the depths of the ground. They helped the natives prepare for the doomsday disaster, including a plan to fight the First Born and a special shield to protect the planet after the solar flare—all of which came from these strange, radiant beings.

"So, they came to this planet from the depths of the universe to warn you, guide you to transform the planet into an ark, help you push the First Born into the sun and detonate it, and even help you build a planetary shield, which is far beyond your tech tree," Hao Ren said with a frown after listening to the records about the People of the Stars from the ark's mainframe, "...But in the end, it still failed. The People of the Stars did not know that the First Born's soul could continue to exist after the death of its body, and even had the power to destroy the entire ecosystem. So, what was the fate of those People of the Stars?"

"They returned to the light," the ark's mainframe replied in a flat, emotionless voice, and displayed the record of the planet's final moments on a nearby machine. Hao Ren saw the earth shrouded in a thin layer of dark red light, and the distant sun was visibly expanding and gradually disintegrating. The people on the surface seemed to be holding some kind of celebration ceremony, but when the sun expanded to a third of the sky, the celebrating crowd began to fall down one after another.

At this moment, several strange rays of light shot up from the crowd. They resembled tangled and twisted lightning and jelly, with starlight twinkling inside, about the size of houses. These lights twitched violently against the sky, and finally turned into huge pillars of light and disappeared abruptly.

Those light clusters should be the People of the Stars, Hao Ren thought, and the final pillars of light were the images of their deaths.

Allies from the stars—the ancients of Holletta firmly believed that these mysterious beings from the depths of the universe could help them fight against the First Born. The latter seemed to have power beyond that of mortal races; at least they had a way to successfully destroy the First Born's body. But the fact proved that this level of power was still not enough, and the People of the Stars eventually died on this planetary ark.

The screen froze at the moment when those pillars of light disappeared. Vivian looked at the screen thoughtfully: "These light-like races should be rushing to support everywhere in the universe. Their space technology is very advanced, so they probably have the ability to protect themselves from the First Born's pursuit, but to help other races... it's not very successful."

Hao Ren sighed and asked the ark's mainframe a few more questions. The events of that year finally came to light.

The original plan of the People of the Stars and the natives of this planet was to leave here on the ark after destroying the First Born with the sun, and find a place with a suitable star again, but on the day of the ark's launching ceremony, the civilization on the planet was instantly wiped out. For more than ten thousand years after that, this planet had been quietly sleeping in its home star system, as if dead. But there were still "living" things on this planet—the machines left by humans were still silently waiting in the darkness. They had never forgotten the purpose for which they were created, and they had never given up the ancient plan formulated ten thousand years ago.

During the ten thousand years of the planet's slumber, the ark's mainframe maintained the minimum level of operation and scanned the entire planet's life signs over and over again—under the guidance of the established program, it constantly searched for survivors on the planet. Even if only one person survived, the ark's meaning of existence would be continued.

If it were humans, they would have given up, but these machines, from the day they were created, did not know what giving up meant.

Vivian understood everything: "The Nangong couple restarted the ark's launching protocol?"

The ark's mainframe confirmed her guess.

"So, those TVs, newspapers, advertisements, and place names in the city... all of human society, it was all simulated by you?"

The ark's mainframe's reply was only one sentence: "The creator's civilization must not be cut off."

Hao Ren felt that this mainframe's understanding of "civilization" seemed to be a bit problematic, but he opened his mouth several times and didn't know if he had the position to correct this "problem." The machine in front of him was just using its mechanized logic to complete its mission. It might not really understand what civilization was, nor did it know what the creators wanted to preserve. It was an abstract thing, carrying human will, something that AI could hardly understand. The ark's mainframe did not understand these things.

But it still stubbornly carried out the instructions from ten thousand years ago—in its own way.

"So, you don't let the people in the city leave," Hao Ren sighed, "But you also know that we are not your creators—it doesn't make much sense for you to take us away."

The ark's mainframe was silent for a long time, and finally repeated in an emotionless voice: "The creator's civilization must not be cut off."

"Then what is your next plan?" Vivian asked, "You brought us here, which proves that you are also hesitating. You understand that you can't continue to maintain this stalemate. This is a delusion, a meaningless drama."

Hao Ren also stared at the giant computer in the center of the hall. Although he could not see any emotional factors from the other party's steel body, he vaguely felt that this AI was also confused like humans. There was something in its body that did not belong to the program, and this was prompting it to seek change.

After another long silence, the ark's mainframe asked a question: "Where do you come from?"

"You have antennas on the surface, right? Point them at space. There's a silver-white spaceship there," Hao Ren said while connecting to the data terminal in his mind, "Terminal, broadcast to this planet, tell it about the Time and Space Administration."

The lights on the surface of the ark's mainframe flickered, quietly listening to the broadcast from space. Hao Ren and Vivian waited patiently beside it. A few minutes later, a human-like sigh came from the mainframe: "I understand."

Half an hour later, Hao Ren led everyone back to the Turtle Rock Platform in space.

He only brought back two things from the planetary ark.

One of them was a square black metal box, more than half a person tall. It was a library, storing most of the ark civilization's data. The ark's mainframe tried its best to understand what "civilization" meant, and finally it created this database, hoping that someone would take it far away. Like most civilizations—when facing the end, the ark chose to leave its information behind. This was the only way to commemorate its creators.

The other thing was a transparent jar more than a foot high, containing some gray-green substance. This was the second thing the ark's mainframe wanted Hao Ren to take away: moss scraped from the condensation pipes.

Life samples from this planet.

The ark's mainframe explained it this way: "Some scholars among the creators once deduced the situation in which the entire plan failed, so they envisioned some backup plans: if they couldn't save humans, they would save some animals; if they couldn't save animals, they would save some plants; if nothing could be saved, they would save some cells. Please take these away and let them survive and spread, and my mission will be completed."

The Turtle Rock Platform slowly left the orbit of the planetary ark in a blue light, and the gray-white wandering planet gradually drifted away in the field of vision.

In the sanctuary of the planetary ark, the lights were gradually dimming, the day was over, and after dusk, another civilization fell into darkness. Unmanned cars slowly stopped on the side of the road, the robots also stopped working, and began to turn off the power one after another. On the advertising screen of the building on the side of the road, a middle-aged man in a neat uniform with gray hair looked at the empty city and said the last good night to the world: "Citizens, the shelter is about to close. Thank you all, goodbye."

After the last ray of light in space was obscured by the warped space, everyone turned their attention away from the holographic image. "Roll" curiously looked at the black metal box that Hao Ren had brought back, and went up and arched it with its head: "It's so heavy."

Hao Ren sighed: "Yeah, it's pretty heavy."