Chapter 1 A Magnificent Place

A beam of light pierced the darkness as the Land Turtle Rock Terrace exited hyperspace and entered a brand new starfield.

External monitors relayed the view outside the ship and simulated the entire starfield around the bridge with wraparound projections. Hao Ren saw that the starfield outside was slightly dark gray, which meant that this star region was surrounded by a very large primordial cloud belt. On one side of the starfield, there was a bright, long strip, in which countless lights gathered, as if millions of stars were clustered together, illuminating the night sky. That was likely a stellar nursery, constantly producing new stars and spewing primordial matter into the entire universe.

"A… magnificent place," Izhaks finally lifted his head from his ever-present newspaper after they had stopped. He looked around, "Looks like the sirens' galaxy is still young."

"Aio has appeared directly ahead, and the ship is approaching the target," the data terminal's voice sounded through the ship's broadcast, "Just a moment… alright, you can see it now."

In the front of the holographic projection, a dim-colored planet was gradually magnified. Its surface was completely covered by dark oceans, and the entire planet was shrouded in a gray-blue hue. Only some fragmented, huge white patches were sparsely distributed in the northern hemisphere of the planet, which were seasonal ice floes resembling continents. The southern hemisphere of the planet was shrouded in a dense cloud cover. According to the records in the Nasaton database, it was a unique atmospheric phenomenon that moved across the planet's surface on an annual cycle, which the sirens of old called the "Sky Curtain."

The sun was on the side of the line between the ship and Aio, and the sunlight shone obliquely on the surface of the planet, as if plating it with a layer of metal.

"This is the sirens' homeland…" Lily drawled, leaning on the back of her chair, while turning to look at the siren queen, "Your old home has arrived."

Shakira and Soma also stared at the image on the holographic projection, the strange planet completely covered by the ocean was now the only thing in their sight. After a long while, Hao Ren couldn't help but interrupt, "So, any thoughts?"

"I… don't know," Shakira shook her head in confusion, "I thought I should be more excited, but when I saw this planet, I didn't feel anything special, and I could hardly associate myself with being evolved from this place."

Nangong Sanba stood up and straightened his black trench coat in a particularly flamboyant manner, and poured out a bowl of chicken soup for the soul as if he was the most important person in the world: "Because you can't experience the feeling of setting foot in your homeland from space. The homeland is mountains and rivers, streets and alleys, familiar street vendors hawking their wares in the local dialect, and familiar local customs. You can never truly return home without experiencing these things, and you can't experience it by looking at a 3D photo in space…"

May raised her head to look at Nangong Sanba: "Brother, will you die if you don't show off? Your chicken soup for the soul is stale—if I remember correctly, you used that line twenty years ago to get close to those old overseas Chinese, right? You swindled them out of two white jade rings."

Nangong Sanba: "...But I also caught three evil spirits for the old man, why don't you mention that!"

Watching these siblings bicker was much more interesting than watching Nangong Wuyue poke the floor with the tip of her tail.

The ship quickly approached Aio and circled around to its sunny side. Since the planet was completely covered with water and there were no conventional landing points, Hao Ren decided to find an ice floe to land on. But just as the ship was gradually approaching the planet, a beam of light suddenly flashed across the holographic projection. Hao Ren looked up and found a shimmering object floating above the northern hemisphere of Aio. He quickly ordered the ship to change course and approach it.

"What's that?" Lily's ears perked up spiritedly, fully entering the state that a husky should have when going out, "Looks like a space station?"

The shimmering space facility was getting closer and closer, and finally presented a series of clear arcs and arched structures. Its scale was like a giant city, and its overall shape was like layers of overlapping shells. Around this facility, there was a circle of towering walls inlaid with crystals, but the space above the facility was empty. There seemed to have been something like a shield there, but it had now disappeared.

The more Hao Ren looked at it, the more familiar it seemed. He finally suddenly recalled: "Doesn't this look like the shape of Nasaton?"

"I almost didn't recognize it flying in the sky!" Vivian was also very surprised, "This… is another immigrant ship? Why is it staying in orbit?"

"Slowly approach it. Terminal, search the Nasaton database that we copied earlier to see if it has any sister ships or anything like that."

All of Hao Ren's previous interest had been focused on the planet Aio itself and the fragments of the sirens' history. Even though he had copied a lot of things from the Nasaton database, he hadn't had time to look at them in detail. So when he saw another giant immigrant ship at this time, he suddenly thought that he should pay attention to whether the sirens at that time had also built other exile ships—and what the fate of those exile ships was.

The Land Turtle Rock Terrace gradually approached the space giant ship that was almost exactly the same as Nasaton, and the voice of the data terminal sounded: "Searching… Confirm that Nasaton has three sister ships, namely the Zarazann, the Antawen, and the Paracin. Except for the Antawen, which was specially designed and has a landmark core fusion tower, the other two ships have the same structure as Nasaton and were built using the same blueprint."

"In that case, it should be one of those two mass-produced ships," Hao Ren's interest suddenly increased, "Are there any signs of threat on it?"

"Preliminary scan, there are no signs of life on the ship, but the possibility of unidentified special life forms cannot be ruled out."

Although the Land Turtle Rock Terrace was advanced, it was only a few hundred meters long, and it seemed inconspicuous after flying near the wreckage. Hao Ren let the ship fly slowly over the wreckage, carefully observing the condition of the giant ship. The latter had of course completely lost power, and now it was flying without power in a high orbit around Aio, and rolling along the central axis at a very slow speed. The siren queen observed for a long time and said softly: "It doesn't have a water dome."

"Don't mention a water dome, it doesn't even have a drop of water." Lily clicked her tongue and shook her head.

The ship's shield had disappeared, and several sections of the wall on the side seemed to be damaged. The clear water that once filled the cabin had long since dissipated into space. A large number of internal buildings and facilities were exposed to the dry vacuum of space, and were ruthlessly baked by the scorching sunlight and cosmic rays.

Hao Ren saw a series of torn marks after the explosion on the side of the wreckage, which was undoubtedly the reason for the ship's accident. But who caused those explosions?

Did the brain monster destroy this ship, or the eldest son?

Hao Ren looked up at the console: "Terminal, have you found the reaction of the gate?"

"No, it may be hidden on the seabed, or it may be hidden in abnormal space like Nasaton. This unit needs to perform a large scan of the entire planet. In addition, this unit solemnly declares that this unit is a terminal, and you cannot call this unit's nickname at will…"

"Have you found the life reaction of the brain monster?"

"This will also have to wait until the entire planet has been scanned. Also, this unit hasn't finished speaking yet, you have to respect a pdA…"

"Go scan the planet and deploy more probes. Maybe those big heads have already set up an ambush waiting for us to land," Hao Ren said as he walked towards the bridge door, "I'll take two people to take a look at that wreckage and confirm the cause of those explosions. I'll be back soon."

"Oh, okay. But this unit would also like to emphasize that this unit is a terminal…"

Hao Ren ignored it at all, strode towards the transfer room, and called out as he walked: "Who else wants to come with me? Bring your life-support collars."

Lily jumped up and followed: "Landlord, wait for me, I'll go with you! Also, Landlord, do you think it looks good that I added a small bell to the collar…"

Vivian sighed and followed Lily: "I'll go too. Neither of you are reassuring."

The group of three left the Land Turtle Rock Terrace and was directly "launched" by the teleportation projection device onto a section of the outer wall of the huge wreckage. The Land Turtle Rock Terrace quickly disappeared at the end of the horizon after sending out a few light signals: it was going to perform a comprehensive scan of Aio.

There was no power on this wreckage, and of course no artificial gravity. It took some skill to explore it. Hao Ren looked around, searching for the best path to the explosion zone, while instructing the two girls who followed in the communicator: "Be careful, don't bump into the pillars. You are not very accustomed to space activities yet."

Before he finished speaking, he saw Lily flying out excitedly, and then bumping into a thick alloy beam, her head buried in the metal for a long time before she could pull it out…

"Okay, it's okay if you bump into it."