Chapter 227: Human Information

The scheduled time had come. For the spoils he hadn’t had time to collect, Xiao Yu showed no regret. He immediately maneuvered his massive fleet and swiftly began the return journey.

This place was far too dangerous. Every extra second spent here increased the risk. At any moment, a massive Molian Civilization fleet could arrive. With his current combat strength, if even twenty thousand Molian warships showed up, Xiao Yu wouldn’t be able to hold them off, not even with Four-Dimensional Shields. The difference in civilization level was that stark.

“The gains are already massive. I can’t let greed get the better of me,” Xiao Yu reminded himself, accelerating his retreat once more.

Within the star system, curvature travel was impossible. However, even at conventional speeds, it would only take two days to reach the system’s edge.

Xiao Yu’s plan was simple: reach the system’s edge, exit the star’s gravitational influence, and then enter faster-than-light travel. From there, he’d escape far away, find a quiet, overlooked corner of the universe to slowly digest the spoils of this war.

This time, the fruits of war were indeed bountiful. Xiao Yu had captured over four thousand scientists from various civilizations, acquired tens of millions of Molian mechanical storage devices, a Province-Class Molian warship, and over ten thousand Molian lifeforms.

These things alone could support Xiao Yu’s technological development for the next several centuries, perhaps even millennia.

After two days of conventional travel, Xiao Yu’s fleet reached the star system’s edge and successfully rendezvoused with the ships he had stationed there in advance. Together, the full force of over three hundred thousand warships entered curvature drive travel.

Once the fleet transitioned into curvature travel, the massive, still-radiant star behind them disappeared from Xiao Yu’s view.

A wave of reflection stirred in Xiao Yu’s heart. Here, a war of staggering scale had taken place, one that buried at least over a hundred thousand of his own ships, and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Molian beings.

“War… truly is the most effective catalyst for a civilization’s evolution. I imagine that even if this universe didn’t have anything like ‘luck’ or ‘destiny,’ it still wouldn’t know peace.”

Xiao Yu silently mused, shifting his thoughts to future planning.

“I wonder whether the Molian Civilization has the ability to track ships that enter curvature travel. If they do, that’ll be a bit of trouble. But there’s no time to worry about that now. I need to get out of this sector of space first.”

Xiao Yu hadn’t chosen a fixed destination. For now, his goal was simply to get hundreds of light-years away, then slowly search for a suitable star system to settle in.

Once safely within curvature travel, Xiao Yu finally felt a degree of peace settle over him. He began carefully analyzing the data he had harvested.

The first thing he turned to was a set of information he’d acquired early on: data about human civilization. Back then, Xiao Yu had exchanged one hundred thousand tons of white dwarf alien beast flesh for this intel. But a string of incidents followed, and he never had the chance to examine it in detail, until now.

Under Xiao Yu’s command, a document opened before him.

He devoted a portion of his computational power, and within ten seconds, he had fully digested its contents. Then, a towering wave of fury erupted from his heart.

“Is this all true? Is this really true? It must be. The Molian Civilization has no reason to lie to me about this.”

“This data… according to the Molians, it was obtained during a war, accidentally intercepted from another civilization. They didn’t say who that civilization was, but it’s certain that it wasn’t a Level 6 or higher civilization. If it were, the Molian Civilization could never have emerged victorious. Very good… very good…”

“My kin… are you still trapped in some forgotten corner of the universe, enduring endless suffering?”

What unfolded before Xiao Yu was a horrifying revelation.

Line after line of translated text streamed through his mind, rendered into language he could understand.

“During a routine spatial reconnaissance mission, our civilization discovered a biological aggregation belonging to the target civilization. It was located near the edge of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, approximately 26,000 light-years from the galactic center. The host star is a yellow dwarf, spectral class…, mass…, relative coordinates calculated against fifty baseline neutron stars are…”

“Upon arriving in the system, we detected anomalies. This civilization, which is at an early evolutionary stage, barely stepping into Level 2 displayed certain peculiar traits. Within their DNA sequences, we found some extremely unusual elements.”

“For example, the double-helix G-segment N-base at position T exhibited clear signs of artificial modification. This gene appears related to intelligence. Similarly, gene 358 of S-segment 124 also showed signs of alteration, this one seems to involve some transformation between physical and psychic energy.”

“Conclusion: the means of modification far exceed our technological capabilities. This may be a trial civilization, one that a higher civilization has genetically modified for experimental purposes. While there remains internal dissent within our civilization regarding this theory, the likelihood of it being a trial civilization is estimated at 70%. To avoid alerting the presumed higher civilization, we did not dare launch an overt invasion of the planet, instead choosing covert biological extraction for experimentation.”

“Nor were we the only ones. Around the planet, we detected signs of at least fifty other civilizations, some even more powerful than our own. Yet there appeared to be a shared unspoken understanding, none dared to carry out an overt, large-scale occupation. We refrained from conflict near the planet as well. Once each party had captured enough subjects, we quietly withdrew.”

“We deployed robots to unremarkable locations, war zones, slums, underdeveloped regions, and captured approximately 500 biological units from this civilization.”

“The following are detailed experimental results.”

“Dissection experiments indicate that this species possesses low physical resilience. Under live conditions, applying a stimulation of five times baseline intensity to the heart results in death. Pathological responses are as follows…”

What followed was a massive block of detailed physiological data and images.

In the images, a young human male with yellow skin lay on what appeared to be a metal examination table. His eyes were shut tightly, face contorted in agony, jaw clenched as though enduring excruciating pain. His entire body had taken on a sickly gray-blue hue. His chest cavity was completely opened. The alien responsible had conducted the surgery with disturbing precision, only the chest cavity had been opened, with no damage to the internal organs.

His heart still beat vividly red. A strange tube was inserted into it. Not just the heart, his lungs, spleen, kidneys, and stomach all had various unknown apparatuses attached.

One image after another, disturbingly thorough and clinical, documented every detail of the subject’s physical response from the beginning of the experiment to his eventual death.

“Next is detailed vitality analysis of other organs.”

The subsequent images showed a different subject: a middle-aged black woman.

“Respiratory system analysis as follows…”

“Energy absorption system analysis as follows…”

“Immune system analysis as follows…”

Each series of images detailed, with precision and cruelty, how a living human being lost their life in agonizing pain.

“Experimental conclusion: On the physical level, this species has little value. All identified gene modifications pertain exclusively to mental and cognitive capabilities. Our internal scientists proceeded with more focused experimentation on these aspects. Data follows.”

“Cranial studies indicate unusually high brain activity. Furthermore, their consciousness exhibits a weak binding to the physical body. In certain conditions, the consciousness appears capable of temporary detachment. This phenomenon has never been observed across 300+ intelligent species or 380,000+ non-intelligent lifeforms our civilization has studied. Based on this, the following experiments were conducted:”

“1. Mental Power Enhancement Experiment. Our goal was to increase conscious strength and attempt controlled detachment from the body. However, the experiment failed. All subjects died from cerebral swelling. The detailed pathological progression is as follows…”

This was followed by yet another batch of images.

These differed from the previous ones: the subjects appeared physically unharmed, but all had their skulls opened to expose the brain tissue.

Each brain was grotesquely swollen, protruding beyond the skull as if they wore some horrific cap of flesh. Every subject’s face was twisted in agony, one particular image showed a subject who had bitten off half of their own lip, unable to endure the pain.

“2. Forced Consciousness Detachment Experiment. Following the failure of the mental enhancement trial, we conducted this experiment to determine whether separated consciousness could survive independently. It also failed. All participants died during the process of extraction, unable to withstand the agony. Even near-lethal doses of pain suppressants failed to suppress the suffering.”