Chapter 94: The Package

The City-Class ship was the last large vessel of the Luka fleet.

After its Energy Shield failed, the Specter Race obliterated the remaining Luka ships in less than ten minutes.

Xiao Yu observed silently. The final Luka ship, a Village-Class vessel, meandered frantically through the battlefield littered with debris. Occasionally, it collided with small fragments of wreckage, sparks flaring against its shield.

It sped toward Tianyuan IV at over 6,000 kilometers per second. But its efforts to escape were futile.

Within seconds, the Specter Race caught up with it. Three seconds later, its Energy Shield extinguished.

The ship, lifeless and cold, drifted like a corpse. Yet its momentum carried it forward, and at its current speed, it would reach Tianyuan IV in about a decade.

This was the last Luka ship. Its destruction marked the complete annihilation of the Luka fleet.

A fleet that had possessed overwhelming strength capable of crushing Xiao Yu was wiped out in an hour and a half by a Level 2 Specter Race. The power of the Specter Race left Xiao Yu deeply shaken.

After eliminating the final Luka ship, the Specter Race turned toward Xiao Yu’s fleet.

“The final moment has come, hasn’t it?” Xiao Yu thought silently.

He desperately wished for a miracle: that the Specter Race would leave after destroying the Luka fleet, or perhaps that they retained their intelligence and would recognize him as a descendant of humanity.

But Xiao Yu himself knew these hopes were a fantasy.

“I probably don’t have that kind of luck,” Xiao Yu mused bitterly. “For a small Level 3 Mechanical Civilization like me to die at the hands of the infamous Specter Race isn’t entirely disgraceful.”

“Hey, Luka Two, any last words?” Xiao Yu asked.

“Last words? I just hope the punishment from the Evil God in hell will be a little lighter,” Luka Two replied with a wry smile. “I betrayed my civilization, so I’ll never make it to the paradise of the Great God.”

“Don’t forget, those who didn’t betray the Great God died even earlier than you,” Xiao Yu said mockingly, gesturing toward the wreckage scattered across the battlefield.

Luka Two closed its eyes, sat down on the ground, and fell silent. It seemed to be performing some sort of ritual in the few seconds before the Specter Race’s arrival.

Xiao Yu sighed and looked toward the distant stars. Among them, a faint star glimmered.

“Goodbye, Mother,” Xiao Yu whispered his farewell to the Sun.

Then he turned his gaze toward the rapidly approaching Specter Race.

The Specter Race emitted no visible light, so Xiao Yu couldn’t see them. But through his instruments, he could clearly sense their presence.

“Are you the unyielding souls of my deceased kin? Consumed by resentment and hatred, is that why you refuse to rest, why you slaughter every life you encounter? I’ve been trying to avenge you all. But, dammit, I’m just too weak. I don’t even know who our true enemy is.”

“Forget it. The Specter Race grows quickly. I hope you’ll at least reach Level 4 someday. Then not even the Guardians or the Sweepers will be your match.”

“And then… wipe out all life in the Milky Way. If humanity is extinct, then the galaxy has no reason to exist either.”

Xiao Yu’s thoughts brimmed with madness. “Once you’ve annihilated all the civilizations in the Milky Way, our vengeance will be complete. The civilization that destroyed humanity must be somewhere in the Milky Way.”

“Dear kin, goodbye,” Xiao Yu murmured, bracing himself for death.

The next second, the Specter Race plunged into Xiao Yu’s fleet.

Facing the Specter Race that had annihilated the Luka fleet in just an hour and a half, Xiao Yu felt no desire to resist. He understood that any attempt would be futile.

At the forefront of his fleet, the Energy Shields of dozens of Village-Class ships were the first to fail. At that moment, Xiao Yu finally comprehended the Specter Race’s attack method.

It was a pure energy assault of incredible power. This energy attack was fundamentally different from the destructive principles of Energy Cannons. It appeared that the Specter Race harnessed an intensely potent form of negative energy within their bodies. This negative energy wasn’t the commonly discussed dark matter or antimatter but rather a strange energy with negative energy levels, akin to the negative mass particles that cause Hawking radiation in black holes.

If Xiao Yu’s Energy Shield was akin to a cup of warm water, this negative energy was like ice near absolute zero. Upon contact, the negative energy neutralized the energy of the shield, similar to how ice absorbs heat from warm water.

The ship’s engines supplying power to the Energy Shield were instantly overloaded, burning out in less than a second. As the engines failed, the shields collapsed. Xiao Yu’s instruments detected a massive pulse of electromagnetic radiation sweeping through the ship, frying every circuit inside.

That ship was dead.

The first wave of casualties comprised 50 ships, including 18 Town-Class and 32 Village-Class vessels. They lasted only 1.3 seconds.

The second wave included 38 ships: 10 Town-Class and 28 Village-Class vessels. These lasted 2.6 seconds.

“Hmm?” Xiao Yu noticed something peculiar. The destructive power of the Specter Race seemed to be weakening. Puzzled, he watched their movements.

It didn’t align with their earlier performance. To destroy the Luka flagship—a Province-Class ship—they had taken less than two minutes. By that logic, they should have been able to wipe out Xiao Yu’s fleet much faster.

Gradually, a theory formed in Xiao Yu’s mind.

“It seems… they don’t intend to destroy my fleet. It looks like they’re unintentionally damaging my ships because they can’t fully control their energy. Furthermore, their control over their energy is improving—the number of destroyed ships is decreasing, and their survival time is increasing.”

The third wave of destruction confirmed Xiao Yu’s hypothesis. This wave saw the loss of only 20 ships, all Village-Class, with several Town-Class ships appearing to be attacked. However, their Energy Shields dimmed rather than failed entirely, stabilizing after the initial overload. Aside from dimmer shields, these ships were unharmed.

Through his ship’s instruments, Xiao Yu sensed that the Specter Race seemed to be “encasing” the affected ships.

A glimmer of hope sparked within Xiao Yu. “Could they really be my kin? Perhaps they didn’t come here to destroy me but to eliminate the Luka fleet on my behalf?”

“But if that’s true, why didn’t they leave after destroying the Luka fleet? Why are they encasing my ships? What do they intend to do?”

Xiao Yu had no answers.

The fourth wave saw only three ships destroyed. Meanwhile, hundreds of other ships were encased by the Specter Race.

Xiao Yu watched in silence as the Specter Race encased his fleet, ship by ship.

After the fourth wave, the attacks stopped entirely.

More and more ships felt the strange energy wrapping around them. Within an hour, even Xiao Yu’s flagship, the Beijing, was encased. Aside from a brief flicker in its Energy Shield, the Beijing remained unharmed.

Through the Quantum Communication System, Xiao Yu saw that Luka Two had opened its eyes. Its expression was one of utter shock as it exclaimed, “My god! The Specter Race is doing something other than killing? This is incredible! This discovery alone would earn at least 30,000 Alliance Contribution Points if reported to the Guardian Alliance!”

“Could it be… Master, are you the Great God’s chosen one?”

Xiao Yu scoffed at Luka Two’s words and ignored it.

Half an hour later, all 100,000 surviving ships in Xiao Yu’s fleet had been encased by the Specter Race.

Then, Xiao Yu noticed another startling phenomenon.

The lifeless remnants of the Luka fleet began moving toward Xiao Yu’s position—or perhaps it was Xiao Yu’s fleet that was moving toward the Luka wreckage. Within ten minutes, the two fleets had merged. The Specter Race began encasing the relatively intact Luka ships as well.

Then, Xiao Yu observed a strange change in the starlight around him.

The stars ahead emitted a vivid blue light, while those behind glowed a deep red.

“Blue and red… this is blueshift and redshift!” Xiao Yu exclaimed in shock. “Such intense blueshift and redshift!”

Blueshift indicated approach, and redshift indicated retreat. This phenomenon revealed that Xiao Yu’s fleet was moving at an incredible velocity.

Xiao Yu made a quick estimate. Encased by the Specter Race, his fleet was traveling at approximately 99.5% of the speed of light. This rough calculation suggested the actual speed might be even higher.

“My kin… these Specter Race beings… they seem to be taking me somewhere!” Xiao Yu concluded, stunned.