Chapter 853 - 475: The Final Struggle (Part 2)

Even if it meant using a transport to shield them and remotely piloting the transport.

It was equivalent to treating his scout bugs like remote drones, piloting the carrier forward.

Strange Eye also pulled back his mind and his gaze. Maybe he could finally rest for a while, and when they needed him again, he’d reopen his vision.

However, when his sight swept toward the Great Void, suddenly, his whole body froze.

"Move! The Void—the Void is expanding again!"

His shout made everyone jerk their heads in terror toward the direction of the Great Void.

Just as Strange Eye said, the Great Void continued to expand, which meant this region was no longer safe!

"Buzzz!" The shrill alarm blared.

What terrified everyone even more was that the entire hull seemed to be wailing, screaming.

It was as if their luck had been used up right at this moment.

The twisted gravity tugged and almost bent the whole starship in half. Even with the United Front’s top-tier materials and tech, facing the suction of the Great Void—something that didn’t even count as an aftershock—was like a chopstick being bent. It snapped in an instant.

...

Meanwhile, in the rear starfield.

"Commander, we can only still contact seven Fire Seed ships. And the Great Void has begun to expand again at a speed far beyond our predictions..."

"To the extent that the beacon coordinates we originally set may all have become kill-zones where there’s no chance of survival..." When the technician delivered this report, the entire headquarters fell into a suffocating silence.

They had already done everything they could. Tens of thousands of starships, crystallizations of their highest technology, and the billions of ’pioneer teams’ dispersing beacons across every star system—they had thrown in all their strength.

They couldn’t afford to think about the future, couldn’t afford to think about what came next; all they could think about was how to survive the catastrophe before them.

Yet now, it seemed they couldn’t even get through what was right in front of them.

"All we can do is believe."

"Belief is all we have left."

In the rear’s campus, the teacher said, "The day after tomorrow is the Holy Day gala, the day the United Front was founded. Kids, are you happy?"

"Happy!"

"Are you excited?"

"Excited!"

"Little Fuge, have you finished your speech?" The teacher continued, addressing the smallest Little Fuge in the class.

"I’m ready! When the time comes I’ll have Dad and all the uncles and aunties come watch my speech!" The little girl raised her hand, her voice crisp and sweet.

She reached out and gently touched the amulet on her chest.

The day after tomorrow, Dad and the others would come home...

That was their promise sealed with a pinky swear.

...

"Warning, warning!"

"Engine damaged, rear power bay damaged, living section damaged! Main section heavily damaged!"

"Warning, warning! Critical damage, critical damage! Recommend jettisoning main section, rely on the front half that is still temporarily intact!"

"Recommendation: jettison main section!"

"Recommendation: jettison main section!"

The piercing alarms shrieked; in an instant, chaos inside the starship reached its peak.

At this point the ship was roughly divided into two parts: the forward observation deck, the front half; and the rear half, mainly used for living quarters, material storage, and protection of the Magic Element Beacon.

So normally there weren’t many crew in the observation deck, at most only a few people.

That was why, right now, the jolt and fall left Yi Shan’s mind in total disarray.

"Abandon...the main section?"

"No, we can’t! Dominic is still back there, the beacon is still back there!"

He struggled to his feet, seeing Strange Eye desperately fighting to control the ship; but Strange Eye’s expression was even more twisted now.

The huge eye covering half his body flushed completely with blood, as if wailing in agony.

"Go—get out of here!"

His voice began to tremble and ramble, collapsing into incoherent muttering.

The jolting ship felt like its gravity systems were failing, but Strange Eye kept his eye pried wide open, staring outside, staring at that Void, while he forced the ship to veer sharply.

"I saw it...I saw it..."

"I shouldn’t have looked, shouldn’t have looked..."

At a certain moment, he let out a shriek that no creature of this world should be able to make. His eye burst then and there, oozing black pus and blood.

He had been contaminated, twisted by something beyond anyone’s capacity to comprehend.

"Run...we have to..." With the last scrap of sanity he howled, massive tentacles slamming wildly against the hull and stabbing into his own eye sockets, trying with everything he had left to force a course change.

"Strange Eye, Strange Eye!"

Navigator Avril, who had only just recovered after smashing into the ceiling, rushed to him, tore the control stick from his hands, and shouted to Yi Shan, "Hurry, go check the main section’s status! In five minutes I’ll have to disassemble the ship and abandon the main section!"

Yi Shan clenched his teeth so hard they creaked and bolted toward the rear.

At that moment, the scene in the back was pure Mortal World Purgatory.

The starship here looked as if it had been forcibly torn and twisted in two.

Just moments ago, the people in the living area had been chatting about the future, their dreams, their lives to come. In the next instant, supreme gravity tore and twisted them apart.

Especially the beacon preserved in the Demon Element containment device—it had cracked!

The catfish-faced Fishman agent was desperately shielding his beacon, but no matter how he tried to plug the ruptures, the Demon Element leak was out of control. In that moment, all of them were exposed to the Demon Element.

Worse, the beacon itself was damaged, and that was what truly plunged him into despair.

"Impossible! Why? Why here of all places, why now of all times!" The catfish Fishman’s eyes were bloodshot to the point of tearing. His final mission was to escort the beacon safely to the designated location.

But now, with the beacon already damaged, even if they managed to reach the designated planet, it would be meaningless.

It felt as if all hope was shattering right then and there.

He couldn’t even care that, under the high-concentration Demon Element contamination, his own body had begun twisting into grotesque deformity.

Not just him—Insect Emperor, who had rushed here to release his offspring, the doctor Ghost, Niu Tou resting in the rear, the space wraith, and Tree-man Dominic who had just returned from a mission—everyone here was exposed to that high concentration of Demon Element.

They all began to howl and twist in agony.

The Demon Element drove their bodies into uncontrollable distortion and hyperplasia. Even Tree-man Dominic had seemingly been forced to root himself into the entire living area, as if devolving, turning the whole section into nourishment for his root system while he frantically absorbed the Demon Element.

"Catfish! The beacon—is it just this special, ultra-high concentration Demon Element, nothing more?" Tree-man Dominic looked at the one closest to the Demon Element tank. By now the catfish Fishman had almost become one huge tumorous mass of flesh, seemingly already dead.

But upon hearing Dominic’s words, a last spark of hope flared in his pupils.

"Yes... it’s the ultra-high concentration Demon Element loaded in a specific container. That’s the core. As for the container and the tanks, those aren’t the key..."

"As long as the Demon Element doesn’t massively leak, then even if we die, this living section...no, even the entire starship can still serve as a beacon..."

"Boom!"

The gravity field went out of control in an instant, alarms screeching so sharp they stabbed the eardrums.

"We still have a chance..."

"I can absorb the Demon Element!" the Tree-man roared immediately. "Right now I can absorb Demon Element and lock it into my seeds! Help me—help me block the power bay’s explosion! Just give me one last minute!"

"Give me one minute!"

"Boom!"

The engines and all backup power in the rear half of the ship detonated one after another, producing a colossal, directional explosion.

The heatwave was about to sweep the living section from the rear.

The catfish Fishman’s gaze swept over each terrified, despairing face. There was no fear in his eyes, only a deep, father-like resolve.

"I’ll hold back the blast for you!"

"Remember your mission!" he roared, and that warped, ever-growing mass of flesh threw everything it had into plugging the gap. "Stay alive...and finish it!"