Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 175: The Truth…

Yao Yuan left the Hope in the Red Lightning. In a matter of minutes, he joined the rest of the troopers who were guarding the mother nest that was heading towards the sun.

With a one-hour-long disturbance, the alien plant had consumed 1/3 of the mother nest… It was true, even with the disruption from Xi Kong’s song, the mother nest hadn’t stopped evolving. At the height of Xi Kong’s song, half of the mother nest had been consumed by alien plant, but it had started to fight back.

The moment the song stopped, the mother nest was jolted into action. It showed a drastic increase in cellular activity. The alien cells were consuming the alien plants at record speed.

Simultaneously, a great amount of dead cells and metallic alloys, water vapor, and air were steadily removed from the mother nest. It had shrunk by 30 percent, and it was still shrinking.

Everyone watched all this unfold with nervous hearts. The time finally crossed the 2 hour threshold, so the mother nest was hurtling towards the sun with exceptional speed. The propulsion from the propeller kept increasing; its speed was now 270 kilometers per second. The acceleration was still increasing, but it wasn’t as strong as it was in Moon 2’s orbital range.

Thus far, the mother nest had flown past the first 2,000,000 kilometers. That was only a small part of the total distance, which was 140,000,000 kilometers. Then again, the aim of the operation wasn’t to push the mother nest directly into the sun but to let the mother nest reach an irreversible acceleration. It would be hard for an organism this big to decelerate after constant acceleration. Even when it does stop, it will be too near to the sun not to be affected by its gravitational pull. It would also have to contend with the Hope’s sniping of its reemerging reactors. That was the true purpose of Celestial Wolf Operation.

"Let’s stop… We shall return to the Hope," Yao Yuan ordered as the mother nest continued to drift on its trajectory.

All that was left to do was wait.

The biggest difference between the particle flux propeller and traditional combustion engine was their longevity. The traditional combustion engine was limited by its fuel, but the energy source for the particle flux propeller was at the 4th industrial revolution level. Its battery was the size of a match box, but it could provide the energy output of a small electricity plant.

This energy source was none other than a mini polymerized reactor. In other words, the acceleration could be trusted to keep constant. Even though the acceleration speed was expected to decrease as time went on, the mother nest was slated to reach 300 kilometers per second in the next 3 hours and 320 kilometers in the next 10 hours. That would also be when the propeller would run out of fuel…

So Yao Yuan was correct, all they could do then was wait.

After Yao Yuan and the troopers returned to the Hope, they went to take a well-deserved rest. The Hope’s surveillance kept on running…

"2 hours and 22 minutes in, all traces of alien plant has disappeared like the simulation said it would. The mother nest is beginning its evolution. The time it’ll take is unknown…"

"3 hours and 47 minutes in, a mass cellular collapse within the mother nest. It’s shedding off extra weight, according to our calculation, its current mass is about 1/30 its original mass. This increases the propeller’s acceleration. It is now at 600 kilometers per second and still increasing…"

"4 hours and 56 minutes in, the cellular collapse has ceased. It’s current mass is 1/90 of its original mass. Current speed is at 1,400 kilometers per second…"

"5 hours and 4 minutes in, the propeller is starting to get digested. The mother nest is showing a green coloration. We suspect that it is mass producing new supercells…"

"5 hours and 32 minutes in, the evolution into supercells has been completed…"

When Yao Yuan woke up, it was already 6 hours since the initiation of Celestial Wolf Operation. He quickly took a quick shower before resuming his duties in central command.

"…Currently all the cells in mother cell are supercells, it’s going at 1,500 kilometers per second, and it is about 12,000,000 kilometers away from the sun. It’ll be another 9 hours before it reaches irreversible speed," Bo Li mumbled beside Yao Yuan.

Yao Yuan looked at the mother nest that appeared on screen… It was about 1/90 of its original size. With a green color coat, it looked less like exposed flesh but one with green-colored skin.

"How’s its internal energy reaction?" Yao Yuan asked.

"This part is weird because there is no energy reaction. We can’t pick up any traces of it…"

"…then we shall wait to see what it does next."

This wait lasted for 2 hours. The mother nest seemed to have hibernated.

Suddenly, when everyone thought things were going to be fine, a cyst grew on the back end of the nest. It unfolded to reveal a giant particle flux, resisting the nest’s acceleration.

"The target is slowing down drastically! Current speed 1567, 65, 64 kilometers… per second, the number keeps on dropping!"

Yao Yuan yelled, "Don’t get flustered. Ready the main cannon, aim at the cyst!"

"Yes. Captain’s orders…"

Like how it was planned, the Hope started utilizing its main cannon to snipe at the mother nest. Due to the distance between them though, even with the cannon shot’s speed, it would take several hours to fully monitor its impact. Thankfully, with the aid of the central mainframe, in the next 14 hours, 3 shots were fired. By then, the acceleration of the mother nest was at 600 kilometers per second…

However, one thing of note was that after the evolution, the mother nest had a harder time responding to the cannon shots. Perhaps it was still unfamiliar with the particle flux’s operation.

That gave Yao Yuan the impression that this supercell might not be as strong as they feared.

However, a new development came over from the biology lab…

The supercells that were bred in the petri dish had undergone another evolution. They had evolved to adopt the alien plant’s shape. The new cells had a trademark as well!

Other than that, this new cell would begin expanding. If not for the laser that kept the cells under containment, the Hope would have been eaten from within!

"…What you’re saying is that this new cell violated the law of mass conservation and grew without consuming anything?" Yao Yuan asked in surprise.

Ivan shook his head/ "That’s not exactly correct. To be precise, it consumed the ions in the air to grow. It no longer needed to rely on solid substances; it could transmute water and energy from atoms found in the air. The cell can keep on growing if it’s exposed to air."

Yao Yuan’s face sunk because this was the perfect evolution for the mother nest. As it neared the sun, the solar wind would provide it with enough materials to grow into an invincible monster!

"Why did it start evolving only now? I thought the previous supercell was already its final form," Yao Yuan asked.

Bo Li, who stood beside him, answered, "Probably… it was still decoding the password then."

"Decoding the password?"

"Yes, the alien plant’s genetic code so to speak. This plant is a creation from a high level civilization, meaning its code is most likely hard to decipher, so it took the alien cell this long to unlock it."

"I understand."

Yao Yuan stared solemnly at the mother nest on the screen. He finally understood why the mother nest was having delayed reactions to the cannon shots. It was busy decoding the alien plants to fully absorb the plant’s technology as its own and transform into the scary cells found in the biology lab!