ASER - Chapter 237
Chapter 237: Escape
Going in was a definite must. A'Diao probed the relevant data and frowned slightly, "The environment inside seems a bit complicated."
It neither matched her predictions nor was it too outrageous; she just felt it wouldn't be easy to handle.
But that was normal. Sun-form elements were inherently the most mysterious and powerful special energy bodies in the universe. They were fundamentally dominant over other energies, equivalent to an energy orbit integrator. With them present, other energies were basically chaotic, so it was normal for them not to be within her originally calculated data system.
However, A'Diao still decided to abandon the spaceship.
Toilet: "This way, you'll lose some external protection. Are you sure?"
The spaceship's function wasn't just physical protection; it also shielded against some cosmic radiation damage, which the human body's spiritual power system couldn't fully withstand. Technology also had its irreplaceable aspects.
A'Diao was currently accessing the optical computer on her armor, inputting some commands to adjust its functions. She said to Toilet, "When there's no other choice... after all, the harm from not riding it can still be repaired. But if the spaceship is too large and encounters danger inside, that would be troublesome."
In this kind of chaotic star belt region, energy was interconnected. If one thing exploded, a whole cluster would follow, and she definitely wouldn't be able to withstand it.
Toilet watched her operations, somewhat puzzled. "How would you repair it? Relying on your armor? It seems it can only simulate the state of cosmic matter but can't evade many types of radiation, unless you..."
Before it could finish, it saw her take out the fusion weapon, the Blood Dripper. She integrated its freely transforming form into her own body, then released it into her palm through her body's control.
A restriction and a white-bone-style, blood-basin-like maw appeared in her palm. She pressed her palm against the spaceship, and in the instant her body turned invisible... the large, bony mouth sucked in the spaceship in one gulp.
Toilet: "!!!"
Oh right, it had forgotten. The Blood Dripper was a new piece of equipment born from devouring various forbidden items. Essentially, the spaceship wasn't much different from a forbidden item; it was just that this spaceship was larger and possessed more complex technological intelligence.
"By the way, some time ago, you kept feeding it spiritual cultivation bodies. Even knowing it was only suitable for forbidden items, you still didn't hesitate to use various spiritual cultivation bodies for trial and error. Were you preparing for this? Regardless of whether it can digest spiritual cultivation bodies, it has indeed been adapting to their spirituality recently. Spirituality equals–"
"No."
While Toilet was surprised, A'Diao added, "What's a mere spaceship? Can't you think bigger?"
Toilet rolled its eyes, thinking to itself: Don't tell me you want it to become a super terrifying, extraordinary intelligent entity combining technology and spirituality?
Wait, no way!
After A'Diao had the Blood Dripper swallow the spaceship, she fed it another pile of spiritual cultivation bodies.
Recalling the thrifty (stingy) little village girl from back then, who wished she could split one star coin into two, and now seeing her burning through money like this, one could only sigh at how truly magical time was.
After finishing her tinkering, A'Diao's main body had already turned invisible and then flew into the chaotic star belt.
If this had been before her third mutation and breakthrough to the Spirit King level, she definitely wouldn't have dared to do this. After all, back then, her combat power had just reached the Great Spirit King level. And three months ago, in the battle against Dantai Lingyao, she knew she was no match. Dantai Lingyao was no ordinary Great Spirit King; his combat power had also reached the limit of a Great Spirit King, comparable to a Great Demon King level. Even in the primordial era, he was second only to people like Kunlun.
But for the past three months, she had been preparing for this. On one hand, she sent out her avatars to use the information given by Chen Xun to find some sun-form matter residue. There were too many places, and her own avatars weren't enough to explore them all. To save time and maximize efficiency, she shared this information with Qu Xia'er and the other person.
From the exploration results of her seven avatars alone, aside from some places that yielded nothing, she obtained a total amount that filled thirty ovoid containers. This was a considerable amount, but it was far from enough to satisfy her needs. After all, her appetite had grown, and she herself was at a higher realm. Therefore, she used these 30 ovoids separately: half were made into mutated substances and given to Song Ling and the others.
The other half, 15 ovoids, was far from enough for a fourth mutation. A'Diao made it into an oversized sun-form elemental beast. This time it wasn't a bell, but was housed in a more complex □□. However, this □□ wasn't made by her alone; the foundation was laid by the professional, Yu Xuanji. But she was stronger in restrictions, so she handled that part herself, which was like post-processing. Now, the □□ had 18 auxiliary exploration restrictions. Even without considering the value of the elemental beast, the □□ itself was already of transcendent low-grade quality. If the elemental beast was included, it had the prestige of a transcendent high-grade item.
It could search for many spiritual items; after all, it could even search for sun-form matter.
A'Diao controlled the □□. After entering this chaotic star belt, she went about a hundred li deep, but the □□ sensed nothing, failing to detect the presence of sun-form matter.
Toilet: "Strange. The place you calculated is right here in this chaotic star belt. How can there be none at all?"
After all this time, it had long been A'Diao's die-hard fan. It knew that any data results she calculated were never wrong, not to mention with Chen Xun's input.
It shouldn't be like this.
"The fact that there's none at all is what makes this place strange." A'Diao felt that in the depths of the universe, any region with chaotic matter and dense radiation should have some sun-form matter drifting about. After all, it was difficult to decompose or transform and would always exist.
If there was a place where not even a trace of sun-form matter could be sensed, it meant either this place prohibited sun-form matter, or all sun-form matter had been combined and devoured, like one of the theorems of cosmic energy existence.
"If it's prohibition, it means there's an energy body here of equal or even higher caliber than sun-form matter, rejecting its existence. If it's gathered together and not present in the periphery, then there's a vortex-like energy core, a black hole, that has dragged in all the peripheral sun-form matter."
Regardless of which it was, A'Diao was very interested, so she was willing to continue venturing deeper.
The deeper she went, the more types of dangerous radiation appeared on a panel–over a hundred. The further in, the more red warning bars there were, and the longer they became.
Toilet was very worried about this. A'Diao could already feel the pressure. The outside of her armor was constantly being damaged by penetrating radiation. A'Diao could only consume spiritual power to repair herself while using materials on hand to repair the armor.
"Indeed, this is no place for humans."
A'Diao became even more cautious and continuously kept her Yellow Springs Eyes open to observe her surroundings.
Amidst this constant consumption, A'Diao carefully pushed inward. After about twenty-odd days, just when A'Diao herself was about to give up, and after consuming a large amount of resources originally intended for upgrading Toilet, the □□ finally got a reading in the vast, endless chaotic star belt.
The human and the toilet had both become numb, thinking of retreating to save time and resources. Unexpectedly, just as they were about to head back, it reacted.
A'Diao was instantly overjoyed and continued to survey cautiously, following the direction...
A day later, she saw the surrounding, originally brilliant and chaotic star belt become sparse and desolate, as if she had entered an empty, unique star region. But she also sensed its gravitational pull.
The flesh and blood within her body seemed to be dragged by it, but other substances were unaffected.
Strange.
A'Diao: "It should be because my body has been mutated by a large amount of sun-form matter, so it has some of its characteristics."
This discovery indicated she hadn't found the wrong place; the sun-form vortex was ahead.
After some thought, A'Diao specifically collected some nearby unaffected meteorite chunks and then approached.
Toilet watched with its own eyes as this person, face flushed red, used all her strength and mental fortitude to stuff a huge meteorite, over one hundred thousand cubic kilometers in volume, into her auxiliary space. It didn't know who she planned to crush with it.
Toilet: "..."
What an oddball.
An hour later, the device suddenly emitted an urgent sound, and its sensory perception abruptly surged hundreds of times, so intensely that A'Diao's brain almost throbbed in response.
"Not good!"
Her body accelerated, as if erupting with power, trying to rush out, but she was still madly dragged in like a streak of light.
It was a boundary that suddenly intensified countless times, causing A'Diao, who could originally resist the suction, to be invisibly dragged in.
Toilet, which had been watching cheesy soap operas from its inventory in a dimensional space, was startled and immediately looked outside. It saw A'Diao activating her armor's strongest defensive capabilities while spreading her metallic silver wings to fly, urgently trying to escape the mysterious suction force that had suddenly caught her and was attempting to drag her in.
But she failed!
No matter how A'Diao tried to use her speed and angle to break free, it stubbornly dragged her, pulling her with an inward spiraling trajectory towards a certain dark space.
The closer she got, the clearer A'Diao could see. The area ahead, which appeared dark, actually contained countless energy bodies being dragged and devoured by swirling black threads, then merging into the core black mass–it was pitch-black and distorted, like an irregular, ever-changing dimensional space.
And on the outer ring of this black hole was a layer of profound and terrifying solid energy–that's right, it was sun-form matter.
"So terrifying, there's so much!"
A black hole was a terrifying celestial body in the universe. Its 'smallness' was relative to the universe. By A'Diao's current calculations using her Yellow Springs Eyes, just the outer solidified shell of sun-form matter could fill tens of thousands of ovoids, let alone the total amount.
So terrifying! If it were all mine, ah!! Just thinking about it is bliss.
Toilet shrieked: "You're still calculating how much matter it has!! What's more terrifying is that you're about to be sucked into the black hole!!!"
It utterly despised A'Diao's cheap look whenever she saw treasure, her eyes lighting up.
Toilet's squawking voice was quite shrill. A'Diao sobered up immediately. She saw she was only about a kilometer away from the black hole's core. At the current vortex's dragging speed, she would probably be pulled in within thirty to forty seconds.
Damn it!
A'Diao immediately took out the massive meteorite chunk she had collected earlier from her space.
Her body, using a magnetic attraction secret art, stuck tightly to the back of the meteorite. This meteorite was not mixed with sun-form matter and thus wasn't affected by the suction. Although A'Diao was being pulled, she had bound herself to this massive meteorite, increasing her total mass with it. Consequently, this weight offset most of the suction, allowing her to approach the black hole's periphery at an extremely slow speed.
Oh my god, that's great.
Just as A'Diao was sighing in relief, she suddenly noticed a very strange object about thirty kilometers away, amidst the swirling stellar currents being dragged by various forces.
Because the areas scanned by her Yellow Springs Eyes were mostly material bodies containing some sun-form elements, or pure sun-form radiation. Only this one... was a composite metal body.
Being composite, it could be said to be artificial.
Damn it, that was a probe created by human civilization, and it was super high-end. At least in A'Diao's knowledge, even Tang Song, the most technologically advanced of the Three Kingdoms, didn't possess the capability to produce such equipment.
And where her Yellow Springs Eyes reached, the area it scanned... Not good!
A'Diao's expression changed. She immediately moved to the other side of the meteorite, took out several smaller meteorites, and deliberately stuffed some sun-form matter into them. Then, from an angle where the probe couldn't see, she released these small meteorites into the rotating star belt behind her. This way, it looked like a large meteorite was slowly approaching the black hole with a group of smaller ones. Simultaneously, she activated all her concealment methods and made herself completely invisible.
And while A'Diao was accomplishing these things...
The rotating star belt carried this string of meteorites into the probe's direct line of sight. The massive meteorite continuously changed its angle as it slowly rotated.
This probe also captured a rough image of it.
While filming, it was also observing.
While it observed, in a distant space, within a grand and ancient structure, a group of intelligent-looking beings were examining data. A young man pushed up his glasses and said calmly, "This meteorite is a bit strange. Download its data and see if it matches its attraction speed."
Soon, they calculated it.
"No anomalies, consistent with expected behavior."
"No anomalies."
"Don't report it for now, don't report it for now."
After the results came out, the young man then went to do other things, chewing on the end of his pen.
None of them knew that a person was clinging to the area scanned by the probe.
And the invisibility restrictions and camouflage abilities this person possessed exceeded the probe's detection capabilities.
After avoiding this crisis, A'Diao felt as if a fishbone was stuck in her throat.
Where did this probe come from?
Could there be a more advanced intellectual group beyond the Three Kingdoms?
"Could it be the Arbitration Council?" Ever since learning that the genius creation of Human-Demon technology came from the Human Arbitration Council, A'Diao had habitually blamed them for things.
Toilet: "Regardless of where it comes from, if you want to get the sun-form matter, you definitely have to avoid it. But it's constantly probing there. If you make a move, you'll be exposed. What do you do?"
It could see that A'Diao's style was always 'if you can't beat them, lie low to the end.' She wouldn't risk grabbing the sun-form matter and running, because that way she could only get one batch. And since she had finally found this place, how could she settle for just one haul?
What to do?
First, two key points had to be considered.
1. How much sun-form matter could she take away now? First, she had to resist the black hole's suction and hold on for a short time. And within that short time, she also needed the destructive power to strip solid sun-form matter from the black hole's outer ring. For example, how much sun-form matter could she cut off with one strike?
2. If the Arbitration Council was behind this probe, without knowing the opponent's strength, what were her chances of evading their pursuit of her in the universe?
Currently, it seemed the other party had clearly found this sun-form black hole earlier than her and had been probing it for a long time. Their technological level in this area was definitely higher than hers. In that case, their cosmic tracking techniques might also be terrifying. It would be difficult for her to teleport back to her lair in space. What if she was hunted down in space...
Moreover, no matter how she calculated it, the amount of sun-form matter she could grab on her own in one go would, at most, still be only a thousand ovoids (Enough? Not enough, not enough!).
The hardness of solid sun-form matter was too high; she couldn't get much of it.
This was a dilemma, making A'Diao feel resentful inwardly–couldn't there be something easy, like a pie falling from the sky? There were always complications.
It was like that Orchid Water Abyss incident. It seemed like she had suddenly discovered a treasure land and gained an advantage, but in reality, it was arsenic wrapped in honey.
Not to mention this current situation; she had inexplicably ended up facing such a terrifying opponent.
Toilet calculated the distance and time for the meteorite to reach the black hole.
"Fifteen minutes until it reaches the black hole."
If she couldn't think of a solution before reaching the black hole, she would have to escape first and then find a way to re-enter later...
This was very troublesome and might even expose her. Because when she escaped, the lack of her presence in the stable system would cause fluctuations in equilibrium. If this kind of data was detected by the other party, with their advanced technological level, they should quickly figure out something was fishy. Then they would set up defenses and investigate, making it difficult for her to enter again.
This was the time for emergency thinking.
With her current physique, she wouldn't break out in a cold sweat no matter how nervous she was, but her pale face suddenly showed a slight flicker in her pupils.
Got it.
In just three seconds, she made a decision.
What decision?
In the vastness of space, in different distant locations, were two spaceships. One was intelligently controlled, the other controlled by an avatar. A'Diao had intentionally left them as backup support during her cosmic exploration, maintaining a certain distance to avoid exposure.
Her caution was self-evident. She was capable of doing things like grabbing a huge meteorite midway as a backup, let alone preparing avatars and spaceships in advance.
At this moment, A'Diao deliberately had the two spaceships chase each other, creating the illusion of a pursuit. Then, one of them intentionally activated its space jump function. Swoosh! One ship traversed a space-time tunnel, and the other followed in pursuit.
They couldn't jump directly to the destination; it had to be an accident.
How accidental?
Have the rear ship attack the front one. Boom! It hit its energy core precisely, interrupting the space jump. The ship jumped out prematurely, and the rear ship, seeing this, also jumped out...
And this location happened to be just outside the hundred-kilometer periphery of the chaotic star belt.
Boom!!
As the two spaceships fiercely bombarded each other.
The front spaceship was blasted, collided with a large falling meteorite, its angle shifted, and it hurtled towards the chaotic star belt...
The speed of such a meteorite fall was already extremely terrifying. It crashed just like that, and so...
BOOM!!!
From A'Diao's decision until now, only ten minutes had passed.
Ten minutes later. A butterfly can flap its wings and cause a hurricane, let alone two spaceships.
This huge meteorite smashed directly into the chaotic star belt. It should have been like a stone dropped into a clear pond, but ripples of energy disrupted the entire star belt's energy. Chains of explosions occurred in a chain reaction, a massive bombardment.
Oh wow, just like fireworks.
These fireworks were brilliant! And the further inward the explosions reached, the more terrifying the energy involved became–so terrifying that A'Diao had to mobilize all her power to form protection around her brain region and dantian.
At this time, she was only a little over three thousand meters away from the mysterious and dark black hole space. But the temperature was too terrifying. A'Diao felt her armor melting, and her Yellow Springs Eyes were about to give out; her eyes ached severely. Her focus had been on the sun-form solids on the black hole's outer shell, but she suddenly discovered something else existing within the black luminosity outside the black hole.
Moreover, it was motionless, bound by nine thick void chains condensed from a pitch-black substance. It was a coffin.
It was very plain, a neat and square bronze coffin. At first glance, it looked like a large, moss-covered brick.
It was originally invisible. The explosions had disturbed the restrictions on the chains, thus revealing its existence. Otherwise, even A'Diao hadn't noticed it before.
A'Diao was shocked: "Barbecued corpse meat?"
Toilet: "You're nuts!"
However, A'Diao soon discovered that this pitch-black substance was actually a type of cosmic primordial stone, another extreme cosmic substance on par with space-time primordial stones: Spirit-Suppressing Primordial Stone.
This stuff was generally used for sealing.
But under the heavens, for something to deserve being sealed by it, and with such a large amount used to forge the sealing chains, what was sealed inside was probably no less than Sun Wukong or Chiyou.
While A'Diao was alarmed, she had no mind to pay attention to more. She seized the time to protect herself. Then, after glimpsing the probe being destroyed by the explosion's shockwave, she immediately detached from the huge meteorite, instantly burst out with escape velocity, and headed towards the mass of sun-form solid that had also been shattered by the explosion.
The Blood Dripper opened, its blood-basin maw sweeping across in one go...
Mine, mine, mine, it's all mine!
Toilet watched as this rascal's body was being madly destroyed because it couldn't withstand the terrifying destructive force, yet she was as happy as a 200-jin fatty, frantically harvesting the massive quantities of sun-form solids.
However, A'Diao still knew her limits. Just as crucial parts of her body were about to be completely annihilated, she finally prepared to escape completely. But before that... she turned around and inadvertently glimpsed that due to the power released by the black hole's distortion, the restrictions on the chains were broken, and the chains snapped. A'Diao's heart trembled, and a certain unspeakable greed was born.
Were the little angel and little devil in her heart arguing?
Little Angel: "Survival first, don't be greedy. What if there's nothing good inside?"
Little Devil: "What if it is something good?"
Little Angel: "What if it isn't?"
Little Devil: "I'm not listening, I'm not listening, I'm not listening! Slap, slap, slap!"
Without a word, the little devil pounced on the little angel and spanked her bottom.
Mine, mine, mine, it's just mine!
A'Diao decisively transformed the Blood Dripper in her palm into a white bone chain, made it invisible, and it shot down with a whoosh. Before contacting the bronze coffin, she brought her fingertips together. The white bone chain spat out some ancient substances, which reconfigured... instantly becoming an identical bronze coffin.
At the same time, tendrils extending from the white bone chain also wrapped around the real bronze coffin. As it somehow altered space molecules and turned invisible, it was perfectly swapped in an instant. The tendrils then gave the fake bronze coffin a push, sending it into the black hole to be slowly devoured.
Completed within one second.
The second after completion.
A'Diao, like a joyful yet timid Corgi, fled as if flying, dragging the bronze coffin and carrying a massive amount of sun-form matter fragments.
Gone.
Both scared and excited.
Toilet: "..."
Seriously, though a bit of a sneaky survivor, her brain and methods were truly effective.
It's just that her appearance while fleeing after stealing something looked too much like a thieving dog.
And less than three minutes after A'Diao's frantic escape.
The moment the probe was destroyed, the people in the mysterious zone detected it. The news was uploaded in seconds. Not long after, a figure of light, so formidable it directly tore through layers of cosmic space, arrived in the chaotic star belt. He saw the messy black hole area and also the bronze coffin being devoured.
His face twisted in alarm. He immediately manifested a giant palm, attempting to grab a corner of the bronze coffin.
Alas, it was just that one corner. Just as the palm was about to touch it, a terrifying suction force from the black hole's surface dragged the palm, and the palm instantly disintegrated energetically...
After all, it was only energy, not real material molecules, and least able to withstand the black hole's disintegration. To avoid being dragged in himself, this powerful expert had to give up, watching it merge into the black hole.
His expression was uglier than if he had eaten shit. After a flicker in his eyes, he searched outwards and found fragments of the probe, but he didn't detect any other residual auras. Because it was too vast and too chaotic, he simply couldn't find anything. If he wanted to search, he would have to collect all the material chunks here and take them back for examination. That amount of work would probably take the next three hundred years.
Besides, he didn't have that much space.
Helpless, he could only send a message to a certain person.
"It has entered the black hole. The source of the incident is temporarily undetermined. It's uncertain if someone manipulated events. Difficult to investigate."
"What should be done?"
Comments
Post a Comment