Chapter 213: Leaving No Trace
Chapter 213: Leaving No Trace
In the depths of space, a vessel emerged from curvature travel and left a distorted trail behind it.
It then plunged directly into the atmosphere of a nearby planet.
One said, "This place should be safe."
Guy was still shaken.
"Are you sure?"
Ever since reuniting with Derek, his planet had first been attacked by the Supernova Corps, forcing him to begin wandering the stars with Derek and One.
After that, they encountered the machine civilization during its relentless expansion.
They were chased across countless light years and nearly lost their lives several times.
Their luck had been terrible.
"It should be..."
Even One sounded uncertain.
Ever since joining Derek, he felt as though his life had entered a path of no return.
Wherever Derek went, disaster followed.
At one point, One had suspected that Derek was some kind of weapon governed by causality.
He had thought that was already the limit.
Then Derek reunited with Guy.
That was when One realized how little he understood.
When Derek traveled alone, each encounter with the Supernova Corps involved only one soldier.
After he met Guy, the scale changed completely.
The entire machine civilization appeared before them.
Quantum probes filled the universe.
Wherever the three of them went, the probes followed.
It felt as though the entire machine civilization was chasing them through space.
The journey had been unbelievably dangerous.
Forget stopping to build a faction.
Simply surviving until now was already an achievement.
Derek released a deep breath.
His taut nerves finally relaxed.
"We are finally safe."
He and Guy had long grown accustomed to game worlds spiraling out of control.
Neither of them found it particularly strange anymore.
But the moment the ship entered the atmosphere, a violent shock ran through the vessel.
Boom!
An immense force seized the ship and dragged it toward the planet’s surface.
"Again?"
"What is happening?"
One’s expression darkened.
Yet he had been mentally prepared for this all along.
He spoke with the resignation of someone who had already accepted his fate.
"The ship has been captured by a powerful magnetic field."
Derek hurriedly asked, "Can we escape?"
One spread his hands, leaned back in the pilot’s seat, and rested them behind his head.
"One look at me should tell you the answer."
A short while later, the ship struck the ground.
Boom!
"Huh? We are alive!"
Guy quickly checked himself.
He was completely unharmed.
The ship was intact as well.
His despair vanished at once.
Derek opened the hatch.
"Let us go outside and see what happened."
The three of them stepped out.
Not far away, a shuttle had crashed into the ground.
A man sat upon it wearing ancient style armor and holding a spear.
The moment One saw the equipment, his expression changed.
"A member of the Divine Realm..."
Derek looked puzzled.
"You know him?"
One shook his head, then nodded.
"He belongs to the Divine Realm Civilization."
"Is he strong?"
"Very strong."
Guy asked curiously, "How strong?"
"Probably only slightly weaker than the warrior who attacked your planet."
That comparison was perfectly clear.
Derek and Guy understood immediately.
Then both began trembling.
They were finished.
A deep hum filled the air.
Energy surged as Aether slowly rose into the sky.
He looked down upon them like a god observing insects.
"You creatures are unfortunate to have encountered me."
His shuttle lacked the ability to perform curvature travel.
After being forced to land on this barren planet, Aether had believed he would be trapped here.
Then fate offered him a way out.
A curvature vessel had delivered itself directly to him.
Perhaps the universe still favored the Divine Realm Civilization.
Unfortunately, he had no idea what kind of people fate had just placed before him.
Just as Aether prepared to kill the three of them, a streak of blue light crossed the sky.
It struck the surface with incredible speed.
Boom!
The ground shook.
Aether looked toward it in surprise.
"What was that?"
Derek’s expression brightened.
The three exchanged glances.
They knew this sight all too well.
Unless they were mistaken, that was a quantum probe belonging to the machine civilization.
There was still hope.
One realized they might survive.
He quietly signaled to Derek and Guy.
Both nodded and prepared to flee at any moment.
A deep hum spread across the planet.
Vast quantities of vacuum energy erupted from the surface.
The intensity made Aether’s expression turn grave.
He immediately prepared for battle and no longer paid attention to Derek and the others.
In the next instant, Aether suddenly looked upward and retreated at high speed.
An enormous figure descended from the sky and struck the ground like a meteor.
Bang!
A machine life form emerged from the dust.
Its body gleamed with a metallic sheen.
Crimson light flashed within its mechanical eyes.
Its appearance was savage and deeply oppressive.
Its gaze swept across the area and immediately locked onto Aether.
"A member of the Divine Realm. It seems my luck is excellent."
It truly was the machine civilization.
Derek and the others rejoiced inwardly.
With two powerful sides fighting, insignificant people like them might have a chance to escape.
As expected, the machine life form completely ignored them.
Before long, it was locked in fierce combat with Aether.
The three hurried back into the ship.
"Quickly!"
One restarted the vessel without hesitation.
It shot into space and escaped disaster once again.
Aether was not so fortunate.
The arrival of a quantum probe meant the army of the machine civilization would soon follow.
Aether alone could never resist such a force.
His death was only a matter of time.
From a higher dimension, Caelum observed everything as the unseen force behind the situation.
"Those two..."
The only thing that surprised him was that Derek and Guy had managed to escape again.
Under those circumstances, either the machine life form or Aether could have killed them with a single particle beam.
Yet neither considered them worth the effort.
They were allowed to flee with their lives.
Their luck was extraordinary.
With that small diversion over, the situation within the machine civilization had reached its most dramatic stage.
Ravager had misjudged the strength of the opposing factions.
The purge did not proceed smoothly.
While the machine civilization continued expanding outward, Ravager’s rebellion caused it to split completely into two major factions.
One was the radical faction led by Ravager.
The other was the conservative faction.
The conservatives gathered every machine faction that opposed the radicals.
Their combined strength was enough to stand against Ravager’s forces.
Progenitor’s death became the spark.
War between the two factions was about to erupt.
A massive civil war swept across the entire Dawnstar Galaxy.
Ravager was forced to slow the pace of expansion and redirect his attention toward the internal conflict.