Chapter 1 A Winding Mountain Range of Tentacles

They were gigantic tentacles, winding across the land like mountain ranges.

Hao Ren had lost count of how many planets in the Dream Plane he had seen these awe-inspiring things. The first time he encountered it was beneath Holletta, where it was merely a branch root of the so-called "juvenile" First Born, but it had still startled everyone. Since then, these things had been discovered in increasing numbers, practically covering all the ecological planets in the Dream Plane—even those former ecological planets that were completely dead. As the drone swarms expanded across the universe day and night, reports of First Born traces flooded Hao Ren's desk every day. These powerful beings, living within planets and designed to maintain the ecosystems, had once been the caretakers and gardeners of all races in the Dream Plane, but today they had become the nightmare of this universe.

He never expected to see those breathtaking tentacles here, on this unknown, mysterious planet.

The tentacle grew in an arc along the edge of the forest, its massive body forming a natural boundary line, as if the forest stopped abruptly out of reverence for this ancient being. The data terminal quickly zoomed in on the details of the image, and Hao Ren saw that the tentacle actually grew out of a canyon, and after spreading hundreds of kilometers across the surface, it plunged back underground. Numerous branch structures grew from the main tentacle, many of them penetrating deep into the forest and becoming one with it. Their ends reached towards the sky, forming the shape of trees, looking no different from the normal giant trees in the forest.

Perhaps a third of this forest was formed from the tentacles of the First Born.

"What the…" Hao Ren nearly swore when he saw the tentacle, "This thing is truly persistent."

Unsurprisingly, Lily went into a state of puffed-up fur again. Her fluffy tail stood straight up, her eyes wide as she stared at the tentacle on the holographic projection, and suddenly exclaimed, "It… it seems to be moving!"

"Yes, there is a slight蠕动(r蠕动dòng) phenomenon. It's hard to feel from this distance, but this unit believes that if you were standing near this tentacle, you would feel a constant, subtle earthquake… This thing is active."

"I suddenly feel like we can't stay on this planet!" Hao Ren exclaimed, "Immediately notify Nolan to start the Lullaby Program and expedite the repair of the engine system—slow down all other repair projects, at least until we can move into near-earth orbit! We must take the initiative!"

The Lullaby Program was a mental interference technology that could effectively weaken the neural activity of the First Born and suppress their perception. Since it was discovered and validated on Holletta, it had become one of Hao Ren's most important "safety measures" when operating in the Dream Plane. After conducting joint research with Zolm (whose main task was to be the subject of the research), Hao Ren successfully improved the efficiency of this system and reduced its technical difficulty, and then he achieved mass production of the Lullaby System at the Crystal Nucleus Research Station. Now every mothership-class drone unit carried a Lullaby device. After discovering traces of the First Born in the Dream Plane, the standard operating procedure was to immediately apply a mental interference, regardless of whether they were alive or dead. And the Petrified Turtle Rock Platform… of course, it also had a set.

Fortunately, the Lullaby device was part of the shipboard laboratory's support facilities. It was well-protected, and only suffered a slight impact after the ship crashed. It could be put to use now.

But the Lullaby was not a panacea. When living next to a First Born (especially a crazy one), you couldn't rely on them being sound sleepers. The smartest thing to do was to fly into the sky as soon as the ship's engine could ignite—even if there were divine power storms blocking the deep space, it was at least safe within the planetary system. A ship flying in space was always more reassuring than one sitting on the First Born's belly!

Nolan quickly received Hao Ren's order and the data terminal's transmitted information. The ship-girl knew that the matter was urgent, so she immediately reset all energy allocation, directing the power core's limited output to the Lullaby device and the engine repair program.

Hao Ren, on his side, breathed a sigh of relief after hearing that the Lullaby device was successfully activated. He looked solemnly towards the end of the forest, where he could vaguely see a mountain range of blackish-brown with a hint of green. He had previously thought they were ordinary mountains, but now he realized that they were the First Born's tentacles: "There's a First Born here… Could it be that the native civilization on this planet was destroyed by the First Born?"

Halfway through his sentence, a sudden rumble from the distant sky interrupted him.

The rumble grew louder, as if some kind of huge aircraft was flying across the sky. Hao Ren and his group looked up in astonishment and saw six strange, iron-gray aircraft in formation flying towards them!

Air-craft!

Lily jumped up at once: "Landlord, Landlord! There are survivors on this planet!! Look at their aircraft!"

"I see it, I see it," Hao Ren replied, pressing Lily down, while observing the appearance of the aircraft with great surprise and curiosity. They had a relatively heavy design, shaped like two metal shuttles arranged in parallel. Structurally, they didn't look like efficient atmospheric flight devices, but they possessed amazing speed and agility. They were constantly changing positions and subtle headings in the air, demonstrating excellent attitude control capabilities.

These things might have anti-gravity technology.

The six aircraft were arranged in an arrowhead formation, flying across the sky with an indomitable momentum. As they flew over everyone's heads, Lily saw that these things were covered in ferocious missile launchers and turrets, and between the two shuttle-like structures, there was something hanging that looked like a giant bomb.

This imposing formation seemed to completely ignore Hao Ren and his group on the ground. They flew over the ruins of the city and continued towards the other side of the forest. At the end of their course was the First Born's tentacle exposed on the surface.

Hao Ren seemed to guess the intention of these weapons of war.

Sure enough, the six aircraft flew straight towards the tentacle, and began to unleash missiles and artillery fire during a beautiful accelerated dive. At the end of the forest, large clouds of exploding smoke billowed up, and faint explosion sounds reached everyone's ears after a delay.

The tentacle certainly wouldn't sit still and wait for death. Hao Ren didn't see clearly what kind of counterattack the First Born made. He only saw that three of the six aircraft seemed to suddenly hit an invisible wall and shattered into pieces in mid-air without warning. The remaining three aircraft immediately reacted to this situation. With astonishing reaction speed and agility, they pulled up into a near-90-degree angle, and simultaneously accelerated, dropping bombs, and launching the large aerial bombs suspended in the middle of their fuselages towards the winding tentacle on the ground.

Within these brief seconds, another aircraft crashed into the invisible force field created by the First Born, exploding into fragments in mid-air.

The heavy aerial bombs fell to the ground, splitting into hundreds of dazzling white spheres during the process. Immediately afterwards, there was a deafening explosion and a scorching white flash.

Those were clearly not ordinary bombs. They triggered some kind of violent reaction the moment they touched the tentacle. A series of plasma "cavitations" erupted from the impact point, forming hundreds of light spheres with a radius of 100 meters. The heat of the light spheres was astonishing, capable of instantly vaporizing all matter within range. After the light spheres dissipated, they left behind only spherical craters.

The tentacle had some kind of energy field protection, but it was still instantly riddled with holes, and the area around the tentacle was directly razed to the ground.

Seeing the scene from afar and the clearer images captured by the data terminal, Hao Ren suddenly thought of the "blank area" he had seen when he looked towards the edge of the city earlier, which looked as if it had recently been bombed…

So that's how it was.

After completing their bombing run, the two remaining aircraft did not attempt to turn back and continue to expand their results. Instead, they maintained their ascent and acceleration, continuing to fly into the distance, as if their combat objective had been achieved.

The data terminal floated to Hao Ren's side: "Should I initiate communication or something?"

"Just track their signals," Hao Ren shook his head. "Don't communicate rashly—it's hard to guarantee that races in close contact with the First Born are not mentally contaminated by the latter. Even if they're still resisting, it's hard to say if their minds are still normal. Contacting this kind of race requires caution. If possible, it's best to separately contact a few locals without attracting their attention, give them a san check, and then consider a contact plan with their race."

"Understood…" The data terminal bobbed up and down. "Ah, this unit has intercepted their communication signals."

"Oh?" Hao Ren raised an eyebrow. "Translate it and see what they're saying."

"Decrypting…" The data terminal paused for two or three seconds, and quickly completed the decryption. "Communication content is as follows:

N-3 calling Zenith, bombing mission complete, target achievement rate 72%.

Zenith received, requesting loss assessment.

N-1, N-2, N-5, N-6 lost, N-4 sub-engine damaged, N-3 dual turrets overloaded.

Zenith received, formation return, repair and resupply ammunition, prepare for next bombing mission.

N-3, N-4 received, executing climb program…"

Hao Ren blinked: "That's it?"

"That's all," the data terminal replied. "What else could there be—sing a rap song to the base station after completing the combat mission? These reports have a strict format and are required to be concise."

Hao Ren stroked his chin: "I know that, I was just hoping to hear some more useful information… Alright, at least we now know that these aircraft come from a base called 'Zenith'."