Yuan Tong
Chapter 444 Wreckage
A group of people silently floated through the hole in the center of the wrecked spaceship. Everyone was cautious, even Izhaks.
The vast cavern, shattered armor plates, and hidden spaceship structures looming out of the darkness were enough to unsettle even Vivian, who was usually quite brave. The strange tendrils growing from the hole made her skin crawl. Hao Ren and Izhaks led the way, the latter summoning a ball of demonic fire to dispel the darkness within the cavern. However, the dim light only made the massive tendrils seem more sinister. They intertwined and piled up along the surrounding wreckage, like horrifying shadow monsters crawling out of an abyss.
Elizabeth had led an exploration team here once before. She climbed onto Izhaks's shoulder and pointed out the way, guiding the group to an entrance on the cavern wall. There seemed to have been an explosion there, severing some of the tendrils and revealing a dark passage.
Hao Ren was the first to enter the passage, finding that it contained fewer tendrils, but was still dominated by the "First Born." Thick roots pierced the walls and ceiling, snaking around and connecting to everything. Of course, as elsewhere, the tendrils here were also dead.
Hao Ren released the data terminal: "Check the surroundings."
The data terminal emitted a faint blue glow as it scanned the walls of the corridor for hidden clues, muttering, "This ship isn't registered in the Empire's database. It doesn't seem to be a product of any civilization under Imperial rule, but it looks quite advanced."
Lily followed Hao Ren, tucking her tail between her legs. She held her ice-fire claws up, occasionally poking nervously at the tendrils beside her, as if to make sure the "First Born" was completely dead. As she poked, she muttered to Hao Ren, "It seems really dead... this feels kind of like cement..."
Elizabeth, pointing the way, curiously watched Hao Ren and the others acting as if they were facing a great enemy. "Are these tendrils scary? Have you seen them before?"
"Yes, this thing is very powerful. Mortals are basically instantly killed if they encounter it, but I've only seen it in another world," Hao Ren nodded. "I don't understand how it could be here... can the First Born travel through the void? When did void travel become so easy?"
Elizabeth was astonished. "Very powerful? More powerful than Daddy?"
Izhaks chuckled and nodded. "Much more powerful. I couldn't kill this thing even if I dropped a meteorite on it—I didn't expect one to have died here."
Elizabeth's eyes widened. Remembering that she had led people to explore this place for several days, she finally felt a little scared. Meanwhile, the data terminal had scanned a large area and made some discoveries about the relationship between the tendrils and the ship. "The 'First Born' seems to have grown together with the ship."
"Symbiosis?" Hao Ren was amazed.
"Yes," the data terminal bobbed up and down. "The tendrils have invaded all sorts of ship structures. This isn't a recent development. Based on the distribution of the tendrils and the deformation of the ship's structure, the invasion process should have been going on for some time—it was a growth process."
Vivian created a cloud of blood mist to cover the tendrils, easily corroding a large chunk and collecting biological samples. She showed an interested expression. "I didn't expect the 'First Born' to die naturally... I thought they were tireless wherever they went."
Hao Ren asked curiously, "How did this thing die?"
"Starvation," Vivian said with a smile. "The nutrients in the tendrils are almost completely depleted, and some of the biological tissue shows signs of self-digestion. Compared to the 'First Born' sample I found in the Dream Plane, these tendrils are clearly malnourished."
Hao Ren was shocked. "Starved to death!? Something as buggy as the First Born can starve to death?"
"Don't talk nonsense. No matter how powerful it is, it's still a living thing. It has to consume energy to move, right? It's not like the Goddess, who can create everything from nothing," Vivian dismissed the blood mist, sharing her guess. "I suspect this 'First Born' accidentally fell here. It must have been a plane crash."
Lily, happily "mowing the lawn" with her Fiery Joy, looked up and asked, "How do you know it was an accident?"
Vivian glared. "Nonsense. The 'First Born' is clearly very intelligent. Would anyone with a brain willingly settle in a place where they could starve to death? It obviously crashed into this ship and was injured and couldn't escape."
Lily sized Vivian up. "But before you met the landlord, you always ended up in places where you could starve to death..."
Vivian: "...My situation is different!"
"Alright, alright, can you two stop bickering even when you're busy?" Hao Ren quickly stepped between the two rivals. "Lily, keep scratching the walls. Vivian, you make sense—I also think it was a plane crash. Don't forget there's a huge hole in the ship. Judging by the diameter of that hole, it doesn't look like the ship's occupants opened the door willingly in a peaceful and friendly atmosphere..."
The group continued through the tendril-infested passage towards the depths of the ship. The further they went, the wider the path became, as if they had entered the ship's main corridor from a smaller passage. But the situation here was just as bad: the First Born had completely merged with the ship, its tendrils occupying every corner.
After winding through several intersections in the main corridor, the scene ahead suddenly opened up.
They had arrived at a rectangular hall that appeared to be the ship's main control room.
This hall was also filled with invading tendrils or roots. The black, withered tendrils made the hall seem like a grotesque jungle, and between the gaps in the "jungle" were alloy pillars of varying sizes. These pillars were originally control consoles, but now they had become climbing frames for the First Born's roots.
"This seems to be the 'core'." Hao Ren immediately recognized the special nature of this place: a large number of roots seemed to have spread out from here. Around the hall, much larger main roots than elsewhere extended from holes in the walls, and the intertwined tendrils on the ground were also centered around the hall. In the center of all the roots was a large mass of dead biological tissue.
Only the term "mass of biological tissue" could describe the thing—the appearance of the "First Born" was always abstract. Even if you brought in a company of biologists, they probably wouldn't know how to classify it...
Lily raised her Fiery Joy and cautiously floated forward, sniffing the air with a serious expression. "I smell death..."
"Stop showing off. You're wearing a life support collar, what can you smell?" Hao Ren came to the center of the hall, stopping beside the indescribable biological remains. He looked down at the withered, dead tissue with a sigh. "This 'First Born' is much smaller than the one we dealt with in the Twisted Forest. Its main body seems to be this big. Is this a cub?"
"Severe malnutrition prevented it from growing." As Vivian spoke, she looked towards the center of the wreckage, hesitating for a long time before throwing a small bat forward. As a result, the small bat struggled in the air, slowly drifting away...
Vivian: "...Come back! Come back!"
Hao Ren covered his face. "There's no air here, don't torture your bat."
After Vivian blushed and turned the bat into blood mist to retrieve it, Elizabeth pointed to the middle of the pile of indescribable things. "The energy core was taken out from there. They were wrapped in a layer of fossilized shells and constantly glowing, so I just dug them out."
Hao Ren looked up and found that there were indeed some things remaining where Elizabeth was pointing: some thick shells like plant pods were scattered there, and some broken "leaf stalks" could be seen around the shells.
"Is the 'energy core' the seed of the First Born?" Nangong Wuyue muttered, stroking his chin.
"More than that..." Hao Ren frowned. "I feel like this 'First Born' is different from the one we encountered in the Dream Plane."