Chapter 1 In the Ark

Just as Hao Ren was seriously considering whether all these arks had lost all signs of life, unexpected good news suddenly arrived: a group of probes, after penetrating deep into one of the arks, detected life signs, and very strong ones at that.

The Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace immediately lit up its thrusters, silently and quickly gliding through space, and soon arrived above the ark transmitting the life signals. The silver-white spaceship slowly descended onto the black shell of the ark, like a delicate stethoscope reading the information coming from the depths of the ark.

"This is the ship?" Hao Ren looked at the image transmitted from the external monitor. At present, this ark was no different from the other ships. It looked equally dilapidated and old, and even the armor seemed to be in worse condition. It was hard to imagine that beneath its several-kilometer-thick shell would be hidden the last surviving group of these refugees.

"There are indeed life signs. The probes have already captured them. Engineering drones are building a temporary airlock below so you can enter and exit," Nolan nodded. "The probes didn't find a normal way to open the door. They drilled in—and now that leak point has automatically sealed itself."

"The automatic sealing system is still working, so there must be survivors," Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief. "What about communication? Has anyone in this ship responded to your calls? Is anyone willing to respond to our contact?"

Nolan shook her head gently: "Still no response. That's the strangest thing. Also, the probes sent back some strange images."

As she spoke, she turned on the holographic projection. Hao Ren saw a dilapidated city illuminated by lights appearing on the screen. Everything seemed old and decayed. The internal city of the ship stretched out before his eyes like some kind of ruin. Then the picture shook, and a ragged man with strange lines painted on his face appeared in the corner of the screen. This was clearly an ark resident. The ragged man staggered out, then knelt down on the street, seemingly bowing to some great figure, and then remained in that posture without moving again.

This disjointed video clip made Hao Ren feel inexplicably puzzled. He exchanged glances with the others and decided it would be best to go and check the situation himself.

He still brought Vivian, Lily, and the Nangong siblings, while the others remained on standby aboard the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace.

The engineering drones that had previously cut through the ark's outer shell and drilled deep inside had already prepared the passage. Hao Ren and his group entered from the normal surface airlock as usual, and after passing through a long corridor, they met up with the drones. This time, they didn't plan to enter the internal city of the ship through that damaged elevator shaft—because this ship's ecosystem was intact, and rashly opening the door from the outside might trigger some kind of alarm or the ship's automatic stress response. Instead, the drones had drilled a slender hole in the outer shell of the internal city of the ship and installed an airlock device at the opening. The drones moved quickly. At least, it didn't trigger any alarms when they were carrying out this project.

The "infiltration" process was very smooth.

Hao Ren and his group walked into the airlock and passed through a passage several hundred meters long. The outer walls of the passage were still a bit hot, the residual heat from the high temperatures generated when the drones were cutting. When they reached the middle of the passage, gravity appeared: this gravity wanted to throw them out of the passage, but it was a good sign, because it meant that the internal city of the ship was indeed functioning normally.

They emerged from a dirty, desolate, and uninhabited old neighborhood.

Hao Ren was the first to emerge from the "invasion hole." As soon as he entered the city, he felt a humid, cold air mixed with strange smells filling his nostrils. This smell could also be detected in the passage, but it was even more obvious when he reached the surface. He frowned subconsciously: although it was good to finally find an internal city of the ship with an atmosphere, the air circulation pumps in this place must not be in good condition.

"Cough, cough..." Lily coughed softly after she came out, she frowned, her tail tense behind her, "Feels like we're in a junkyard."

"The atmospheric purification machines on this ark might be too old," Nangong Sanba took a breath after climbing onto the ground. "Better than no air. Speaking of which, this place looks...I think it's not even as good as those abandoned shelter cities before?"

The condition of the surrounding buildings was indeed very bad. Although the probes had sent back some images before, those images were not as realistic as seeing them in person. All around them, as far as they could see, were dilapidated city buildings. The outer walls of the buildings were mottled and peeling, the facilities on the roadside were covered with rust and dirt, the flower beds had long lost their original appearance and had become dirty mud pits, and in the distance, they could see collapsed and crooked bridges and power line towers. Some scattered, dim yellow lights were the biggest source of light in this dilapidated city. These lighting devices, which had been operating for who knows how many years, were randomly hung on the tops of wires and buildings, casting many mottled and strange shadows in all directions with their poor lighting.

It looked like it had gone through a world war and then been abandoned for three hundred years.

Lily shook her tail: "Did we just drill into a demolition zone?"

"No..." Hao Ren pointed to the top of everyone's heads after looking around at everything within sight, "The whole city is like this."

The others followed the direction of his finger and saw that the distant and enclosed other side of the land was also a desolate gray, and the other end of the city, like here, had also been abandoned for many years.

"...Looks really bad, it's hard to believe this is inside a starship that can travel faster than light," the data terminal commented, "After the other ships shut down one by one, it must have been difficult for the people on this ship to find materials to repair their shelter."

A small silver-white device crawled out of the nearby building ruins and landed lightly on Hao Ren's shoulder. It was the life detector that had previously drilled in to check the situation. After completing its mission, this little guy had been hiding here to prevent accidents, and now it came to apply for recycling.

Hao Ren casually stuffed the detector into his pocket and turned his head to remind Lily: "Tuck away your ears and tail—we're going to deal with 'people'."

Lily let out an "Aww" and turned her ears and tail back, then asked curiously: "Do you think we can blend in with the locals after I turn into human form?"

"I'm not planning to blend in—I'm just worried you'll scare them," Hao Ren waved his hand and walked forward, "They rejected all of Nolan's communication requests. It's hard for me to analyze how the residents of this ship view outsiders, so I don't want to get off on the wrong foot."

The group walked out of this desolate and dilapidated street and walked towards the depths of the city: another more desolate and dilapidated place. Hao Ren was thinking on the road about how he should greet the first person he met. After Nolan's stylized communications were rejected, he had to run out and be a diplomat himself, and the bad thing was that he was not a skilled diplomat, so he began to conceive all kinds of opening remarks in his mind, and whether he should go directly to the "central control station" of this ship to meet the city's commander. But his thoughts only lasted for a little while, and were suddenly interrupted by the faint sounds coming from the front.

It sounded like people were fighting and shouting, and there were also crisp sounds of metal colliding mixed in.

Vivian also nudged his arm: "There's the smell of blood ahead, fresh blood."

Hao Ren immediately quickened his pace: "Let's go see what's going on!"

They sprinted quickly in the shadows of the surrounding buildings, swiftly crossed some dilapidated streets and collapsed ancient houses, and the shouts of fighting from the front finally became clearer and louder, and the mixed metal collision sounded like an ancient cold weapon battlefield. Finally, Lily, who was running in the front, suddenly stopped next to a low wall. She quickly found a place to squat down, poked her head out, and looked outside: "Landlord...there's a war going on!"

Hao Ren poked his head out from beside Lily's head, and the scene in front of him suddenly made him stunned, and even a sense of absurdity of time and space dislocation came to his face.

Dozens of fully armed people were fighting fiercely in the square in front. These people should be residents of the ark giant ship, but their clothes and equipment were absurd and strange. They were wearing armor made of iron plates and reinforced plastic steel, and colorful cloth strips were constantly flying in the gaps of the armor. These warriors wielded shiny long swords and battle axes in their hands, and they collided and fought together while making earth-shattering roars. The blood splattered from the wounded stained the ground of the square red, and the smell of blood in the air made Vivian's eyes glow slightly red in the darkness: "This is like a medieval battlefield."

"How could this place become like this..." Hao Ren murmured in surprise. The images sent back by the probes before did not have these details, but before he had time to think about it, he suddenly saw a young warrior with a face full of blood rushing out of the fighting crowd. This warrior staggered, his eyes full of fear, seemingly wanting to escape from the battlefield, and the direction he was escaping was exactly where Hao Ren and others were hiding.