Chapter 133: Black Sky Beetle
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
YZZ 7526 was just a medium-size planet that was once a human mining colony. Its population could not compare to the commercial planets and was even considered one of the poorer planets during the time of the ancient civilization.
According to the map, there were five main cities on this planet, with small satellite towns surrounding each of them.
Those cities all shared a common trait, and that was its proximity to major mining sites.
The humans who had once lived here subsisted off mining, so their cities were naturally situated near mining sites, making it more convenient for them to commute to and fro.
The Catalyst-cla.s.s destroyer had landed near one of the five main cities, coded 04. Xia Fei did not head right into the city like everyone else but chose the other main city about 2000 kilometers away, coded 02, instead; this was where he planned to begin his search in the ruins.
He could tell clearly with the map that the ruins of City 02 were far more spectacular than the abandoned City 04. It was at least thrice larger in terms of landma.s.s, making it the second-largest metropolis on the entire planet, meaning that it had been highly prosperous in the past.
The majority of the cadets chose the ruins of 04, which meant that they could help watch out for one another, but it also meant that the purpose of their exploration would be greatly reduced.
Xia Fei was not an idealist by any means, but his goal here was certain: He wanted to profit from this operation.
Previously, Quantum Holdings and Vampire had emptied his pockets, and he did not have more than two hundred million star coins left in his bank account at this point.
While two hundred million star coins sounded like it was a decent amount, Xia Fei still needed to save for more medicinal ingredients he would need in the future. The medicinal ingredients that he would take every time were almost always astronomical in price, and the two hundred million star coins was not even enough for him to glance at them.
There was Quantum Holdings, too; Xia Fei had expended a lot of his hard-earned money on Earth’s first interstellar trading enterprise, and it was presently unable to make it in the black as of yet. Since it could not bring back any profits to Xia Fei in the meantime, if he wanted it to make more money soon, he would have to upgrade it as fast as possible and create popular products that were in short supply. This would thus require him to increase his investment in the company.
Even the daily expenditure of maintaining Vampire cost Xia Fei quite a lot. If there was any shortcoming to a top-tier special ops frigate, it would be that the a.s.sembly was too high-end, and the means needed to maintain it would be far beyond the average frigate. Just the cost of changing some of its worn-out parts was enough to keep an average frigate well-conditioned for a year.
Just thinking about this gave Xia Fei a headache. In this realistic galactic society, everything required money. Xia Fei’s intention was not to be a normal warrior, but he was still so far from his goal, which meant that he must spend exorbitant amounts just to improve himself.
He needed to earn money so he could earn even more money.
Xia Fei’s heart was bellowing loudly as his legs ran nonstop toward the ruins of City 02. His two eyes sparkled as if his destination was not some ruins but a mountain of gold.
Not long after he set off, the day slowly turned to night, and darkness descended upon the wilderness.
The strange noises around him gradually grew denser, and Xia Fei knew that the majority of the insectoids were active at night. With the arrival of their favorite time to do activities, the insectoids could hardly contain their excitement as they crawled to the surface from underground.
Xia Fei pushed a b.u.t.ton on his Windshade Mark IV combat suit’s mask, and the two thin night-vision goggles appeared. The darkness of the night became as clear as day to Xia Fei, though because he lacked any source of light, the world he saw through the lenses was just a light hue of red as if he was standing on some bizarre land.
There were two heavy beetles somewhere four to five hundred meters ahead of him scavenging for food. Each had thick, s.h.i.+ny black carapace, a pair of sharp mandibles, which looked like two large sickles the way they snapped together viciously.
Their bodies were around the size of small cars, with either having six thin and short legs that made them sway from side to side as they crawled. They were extremely slow. The pair of black and white feelers on their heads looked like two antennas that kept rotating flexibly in the air. Right under these feelers were two, pitch-black orbs. They had no eyelids, and those two eyes the size of basketb.a.l.l.s were plainly exposed.
Xia Fei stopped and hunkered down to observe these two insectoids. Checking through his communicator, he identified them as black sky beetles. Cla.s.sified as danger level 1, they were considered low-tier.
Xia Fei’s two eyes suddenly changed, releasing a sort of sharp and bright glint, then he unleashed his Beast Spirit Codex stage 3 on them.
Having just successfully made the breakthrough and completed his cultivation of the Beast Spirit Codex to the third stage ten hours ago, he reckoned that this was the perfect opportunity to test it.
Countless informative commands were, thus, sent forth from his gaze in the form of brainwaves to those two insectoids’ minds, traveling like unceasing streams toward them, with every interval of the brainwaves being bigger and faster than the last.
Xia Fei started, from where he was, at the two large insectoids just a short distance away from him as they slowly ambled toward him.
The brainwaves rapidly penetrated these insectoids’ heads, and after battering their brains incessantly, some feedback from the insectoids’ brains was sent back his way.
It was as if these two insectoids had been frightened by this, for they started dancing intensely from where they stood. Their six stubby legs kept trampling the ground as if they were trying to break free from the hara.s.sing brainwaves. It could only be imagined just how tortured and messy their minds must be at that moment.
What was strange was that Xia Fei had followed the Beast Spirit Codex’s secret technique to send silence commands at them, but the two insectoids were stubbornly defying them. They teetered on the edge, putting up a fitful resistance to Xia Fei’s commands.
Xia Fei had discovered at this point that, after he had infiltrated these insectoids’ brains, the secret technique’s effectiveness would reduce rapidly, unable to achieve the strongest effect.
Xia Fei knitted his eyebrows. This strange display was beyond what he had initially expected. The Beast Spirit Codex’s techniques were designed to be used particularly on exotic beasts, and the insectoids were considered as a race of beasts, so he could not understand why it would have such a poor effect on them.
He abruptly increased the strength and frequency of his signal, attempting to swiftly whittle down the enemy’s resistance and establish some initial contact with them.
That was when an unexpected scene occurred.
The two insectoids suddenly slumped onto the ground, all their limbs madly thras.h.i.+ng about despite their feeble and weak states. They were akin to epilepsy patients who suddenly experienced a seizure, seemingly in a state of moribund.
Presently, Xia Fei had already exerted the maximum energy that he could use, and this immense mental energy consumption left him breathless. His head was abuzz.
*Boom boom!*
Finally, as Xia Fei’s powerful brainwave a.s.sault directly broke through the two insectoids’ brains, it was as if a double-kick had been unleashed. Two, crisp explosion sounds could be heard, and the insectoids’ heads split in half. A thick green liquid slowly oozed out from their brains.
“They are dead?” Xia Fei was mildly stunned. He had not expected that completely unleas.h.i.+ng the Beast Spirit Codex would result in the brains of these insects to suffer such fatal damage.
Shaking his head, Xia Fei let himself regain his spirit as he paced over quickly to the side of the two black sky beetles.
Their brains were protected by their black carapace, and seeing the injury they had sustained, he concluded that the brainwaves he had produced promptly caused their brains to expand, and the pressure ultimately surpa.s.sed the limit that their heads could withstand before ultimately exploding open.
He lightly dipped his finger in one insectoid’s green brain juices and sniffed.
The liquid was as sticky as glue, and it smelled like spoiled cow’s milk, making him have the urge to vomit.
Phantom suddenly appeared next to Xia Fei, rubbing his chin in a thoughtful manner.
“A penny for your thoughts?” Xia Fei asked.
Phantom shook his head. “I’m uncertain. I only feel that your brainwaves have a very limited effect on these insectoids. It’s like having two completely different frequencies; the frequency of your brain waves differed from that of these insectoids, so you failed to implant your commands on them.”
Xia Fei nodded. “I agree with that as well. It’s as if my commands were a foreign language to them, and they were completely incapable of comprehending it. Could the insectoids have a separate brain system that is different from beasts?”
Phantom mulled over this for a while. “I can’t determine that, either. How about this: Capture another insectoid, cut them open and, using the Beast Spirit Codex, observe their Beast Spirit Fire. If the insectoids are different from beasts, that will be an important discovery in the history of neurological research.”
A dead centipede could still move its limbs; though the brains of these two sky beetles had already exploded, their limbs were still spasming. Xia Fei ruthlessly kicked one of these limbs and unsheathed his Chasing Light, continuing his run toward City 02.
After clearing a distance that was no more than a dozen kilometers, a pair of black sky beetles appeared once more in a dilapidated building somewhere ahead of him. It seemed that these insectoids enjoyed moving in pairs, or perhaps they shared a spousal relations.h.i.+p; it was really hard to tell.
Xia Fei was not in a rush to attack this time. Instead, he used the ocular cognition technique from the Beast Spirit Codex to peer into their Beast Spirit Fire.
Doing so, all he saw was a light-green flame rising from within each insectoid’s body.
The flame was not only small but also appeared weak. It was a stark contrast to their huge bodies as if a light breeze was all it would take to extinguish their flames.
It stood to reason that such large lifeforms ought to have a more vigorous Beast Spirit Fire, yet their flames were so weak that they were barely perceptible.
It would take but a moment to cover the few hundred meters of distance the insectoids had with Xia Fei, yet these black sky beetles remained oblivious that death was upon.
Chasing Light pierced the head of one black sky beetle, cleaving it cleanly in half with a vertical slash; that st.u.r.dy carapace was as weak as tofu in the face of his cyan blade.
The blade speed and precise cut Xia Fei demonstrated meant he was able to vertically and horizontally cut the brains of these two insectoids respectively with surgical precision, all so for the convenience of examining them from different angles.
Xia Fei had encountered insectoids before when he was in the Wild Star Region, but he had never once killed one of them with his bare hands.
To his surprise, Xia Fei discovered that the heads of these two insectoids also leaked out the same green, viscous liquid that he had previously seen. It turned out that the insectoids’ brains were filled with these juices.
Phantom was in shock, somewhat awkwardly rubbing his head. “I didn’t know that this was what’s inside the heads of insectoids. I’ve seen insectoids before, but I never got the chance to cut the head open of any of them.”
Xia Fei helplessly shrugged. No wonder the Beast Spirit Codex had little success with them. The facts were clear; the brain structure of these insectoids was completely different.
He pulled out a small, s.h.i.+ny, diamond-shaped, black crystal from inside their heads. Every insectoid would have such a crystal growing inside, and according to the difference in their type and rank, the crystals would differ in color and size as well.
No matter what, each of these crystals could be exchanged for a point when brought back. These training camp points were fairly valuable, and harvesting more of these crystals could greatly aid in alleviating the monetary crisis Xia Fei was presently facing.
Pus.h.i.+ng the questions he had regarding insectoid brains to the back of his mind, Xia Fei began his extermination spree.
Xia Fei left behind a trail of corpses as he ventured further in the direction of City 02 from this wasteland.
When dawn broke, vast ruins appeared at the foot of the mountain. Everywhere he looked, there was large concrete debris, rocks, and long-rusted steel remains.
Though this city had long been laid to waste, Xia Fei could tell that it had once been quite a majestic sight to behold just from the proportion and extent of the remains before him.