Chapter 1 A Silver Egg

The enormous silver-white entity in space – it looked as if it had been operating in that location for many, many years, so much so that its ellipsoidal shell bore numerous auxiliary facilities of varying styles and ages, and many small bright spots moved incessantly between those facilities, like a swarm of bees dancing around a hive.

When Nolan zoomed in on the image, Hao Ren saw that the "swarms" were actually various kinds of aircraft: they appeared particularly tiny in comparison to the space station's volume, revealing the sheer size of that "silver egg."

Hao Ren naturally thought of the information he had seen on the reliefs in the city ruins. At the final juncture when the Great Disaster swept across this planet, humanity had built a massive spaceship and launched less than a tenth of the population and a large amount of resources into space. The spaceship depicted in that image looked like a giant egg, and although there were differences in detail, this could be explained by the continuous renovation and expansion over the millennia.

The space station Nolan observed was the exile ship launched back then – it hadn't gone to the depths of space but had remained in high orbit?

And this ship had not been hunted down by the First Born, but had safely evaded the doomsday disaster that occurred on the ground and survived to this day?

Hao Ren frowned, making a bolder guess: "Could this space station… be the 'Zenith' that those aircraft mentioned during communications?"

Hao Ren had been searching for the survivors' base for the past two days, but Nolan had expanded the scanning range to more than half the planet. Apart from discovering a large number of traces of battle and capturing several battle scenes, she had not observed anything resembling a human stronghold. Nangong Sanba had once guessed whether the humans on this planet had built their base underground, but this guess had led to Nangong Wuyue using her tail to wrap him up and swing him around in a windmill for fifteen minutes – Wuyue thought her brother's brain was waterlogged and needed to be spun dry, and everyone deeply agreed.

Wasn't it obvious? Apart from the First Born's pile of tentacles, what else was underground? Only a human with a hole in their head would run into the First Born's armpit to seek refuge!

So after discovering that the human base could not be found on the surface, Hao Ren guessed that the survivors might be from outer space, but he had not taken action for the time being because he did not have the ability to expand his activity range to space before Nolan could take off.

Unexpectedly… his guess was verified so quickly.

"The escape ship from back then was directly hung in orbit and became a space station," Hao Ren said, stroking his chin. "Where is this 'ship' now?"

"You might not believe it – we've always thought there were two moons in the sky, but actually, the smaller moon is this 'ship'," Nolan's figure jumped out from the corner of the holographic image. "It has become a stable on-orbit facility, and I have observed aircraft of the same model as the 'bombers' we saw before detaching from this space station and flying towards the planet's surface. Therefore, it can be basically confirmed that the survivor rebels observed on the surface are from there. It is the 'Zenith' mentioned in the communication."

"I actually guessed right; this ship didn't fly far," Hao Ren pressed his fingers to his forehead. "This is simply inexplicable… Would the First Born just watch the enemy's base under its nose without launching an attack? The laser beams released by its tentacles are enough to destroy everything in orbit. There's no reason why it can't do anything about this 'Zenith'."

At this time, Izhaks also threw the cards in his hand aside: "Not only that, but I'm also more curious about where these survivors get their resources? Every time they deploy, they lose several bombers. This kind of action has probably been going on for many years. They only have a spaceship hanging in orbit… How could they produce so many weapons of war? Not to mention production, I find it incredible how they've kept the space station running for so many years."

"They have a source of raw materials, on that real moon." As Nolan spoke, the picture on the holographic projection changed.

Hao Ren saw a pale earth that was slightly curved, and countless industrial facilities built on the earth. Like the space station in space, these industrial facilities looked ancient. They were distributed in patches across the earth, connected to each other by complex and huge orbital systems and pipelines, as if covering the earth with a layer of metallic armor. Between these industrial facilities, large swaths of ravines and rifts could be seen – their scale was so large that they were probably clearly visible in space, and countless tracks and cables extended into the depths of those rifts.

Hao Ren blinked, realizing that those were continuous mining fields and also the truth behind the "wood grain" he had seen when observing the moon before.

Lili threw the last two ice cubes into her mouth, chewed them crunchily, and swallowed them before squeezing out a few words: "This is…"

"This is the main camp of the survivor rebels," Nolan replied. "The lunar surface is their source of industrial raw materials and their arsenal. A large number of weapons of war are constantly manufactured there. The space station between the Earth and the Moon is their command center and frontline fortress. The army gathers and dispatches through this fortress, and then departs to the planet's surface to carry out combat missions – I have observed this entire process. They appear orderly and well-trained, and various industrial and military facilities are mature and stable, obviously, this stalemate has lasted for centuries."

"I didn't expect these rebels to be right under our noses," Nangong Sanba raised his eyebrows. "We need to consider a contact plan… Now that we've found their base, shouldn't we go take a look?"

"How are you going to go? Tie two nuclear bombs to your butt, ignite them, and launch yourself?" Nangong Wuyue rolled her eyes at her brother. "Nolan can't fly yet!"

Hao Ren stroked his chin: "Actually, I have some space-faring cruise mis… in my dimensional pocket…"

He was met with a barrage of eye rolls before he could finish, so he had to swallow the rest of his words: "Okay, okay, I know you guys might not be used to this plan… but to be honest, it's quite exciting to sit on those things if you remove the warhead…"

This time, no one bothered to respond to him.

"Ahem, Nolan, turn your antennas towards these space bases," Hao Ren could only cough awkwardly, taking the initiative to change the subject. "Capture their communication signals. First, figure out how this 'survivor society' operates from their information network, and also determine whether these survivors can be contacted peacefully. How long will it take you to get back into the air?"

"The engine system and navigation system can be restored within three days, but for safety reasons, I suggest you wait one more day – I can repair some of the weapon platforms, and most importantly, the shield system can be fully restored on the fourth day."

"Three days and four days make no difference," Hao Ren nodded. "Use this time to collect as much information as possible about this survivor society, and develop a contact plan with them before the fourth day. What's the situation with the drone swarm?"

"The first batch of vanguard drones entered the X-Cluster an hour ago, but they are quite far away from us," Nolan replied. "After being attacked, this ship performed an unguided 'blind jump', which directly resulted in us being located in the depths of the X-Cluster – the jump point that the drones can reach is tens of thousands of light-years away. And since we were attacked, the energy environment within the X-Cluster has changed. A large amount of highly active divine energy is patrolling around inside the cluster as if on patrol, they shield most of the hyperspace signals, and this ship's command and dispatch capabilities for the drone swarm have been greatly limited."

"It really is a case of man proposes, God disposes…" Hao Ren sighed. "But it doesn't matter, the drone swarm will know what to do on its own. Use the remaining bandwidth to send an instruction, instructing all drones to move towards the planetary system where this ship is located in exploration mode, setting up production bases and bunkers along the way, and installing high-power antennas in each base. Isn't there interference in space? Then let the drone swarm line up the fortresses in a row and forcibly create a physical communication chain. I refuse to believe that we can't break through the interference layer of the X-Cluster in this way."

"Nolan understands."

Hao Ren rubbed his forehead. The situation was still clouded in gloom, making him feel a little depressed, so he felt that he now urgently needed some good news: "Anything else to report? Preferably something that can lift my spirits…"

Nolan actually had more to say: "Yes, about the First Born."

Hao Ren immediately regretted his request – that's not the kind of thing he wanted to lift his spirits!

But he couldn't not listen to the report about the First Born, so he could only grit his teeth and let Nolan speak: "Then… just tell me."

"According to your instructions, I have been monitoring the First Born's activity on this planet, and released several probes to drill into some natural caves and crustal fissures to find the First Born's neural structure. After twenty-four hours of continuous observation, I discovered some abnormal phenomena."

Hao Ren perked up slightly: "Abnormal phenomena?"

"This ship discovered a large amount of the First Born's biological tissue in the planet's surface crust. From this, it can be confirmed that the First Born of this planet is already in the standard adult state. In theory, the First Born in this stage has quite strong neural activity. If uncontrolled, its neural impulses could even cause physically visible supernatural phenomena on the planet's surface, but in reality, the neural activity detected by the probes is abnormally low," Nolan's voice sounded a little puzzled. "The signals detected at several key neural nodes even show that the First Born of this planet has lost control of this part of its limbs – the tentacles only have the most basic conditioned reflexes, but no more advanced neural impulses."

Hearing this, even Vivian couldn't help but murmur: "How could this be?"

Nolan's voice was unhurried: "Based on the information currently available, this ship believes that the First Born of this planet is – brain dead."