Chapter 95#
Fu Yucheng’s process of entering the Medusa flagship could be described as very smooth.
He flew the small aircraft, bypassed the high-temperature blue energy pillar, and arrived near the flagship.
In deep space, the flagship resembled a massive silver fallen leaf, quietly floating in the vast, deep blue universe.
Then, just as Yao Ning had said, he felt a strange attraction. That pull guided the small aircraft, slowly bringing it closer to the giant silver flagship and into an entrance on its side.
The aircraft moved slowly along an extremely smooth tunnel, and before long, it arrived in a silver-white circular hall.
The circular hall was high and vast. The aircraft landed in the center of the hall like a thumb-sized hummingbird resting on the room’s floor.
Fu Yucheng hesitated for a moment, then tucked “Calamity Blue Moon” and “Death’s Wings” into his back waist—Perseus had already been activated, and he had taken these two Soul Weapons with him when he left the Tower of Light.
Then, he slowly stepped off the aircraft.
“Swish—swish—” With a few soft sounds, a table and two single sofas suddenly rose from the silver floor of the hall.
Fu Yucheng couldn’t help but be slightly stunned.
In that brief moment, several human figures quickly appeared beside the sofas. They looked like a butler and several maids.
These tables, chairs, and figures were all silver-white.
Fu Yucheng frowned slightly. It seemed his guess was correct—this entire flagship was made of liquid-state morphing metal that could manifest as anything.
The silver butler bowed slightly, his mechanical voice devoid of emotion, speaking standard Mandarin: “Mr. Fu, please have a seat.”
Fu Yucheng nodded to the butler and sat down gracefully.
Just as he sat, two silver teacups appeared on the table next to him.
The butler reached out, a teapot appearing in his hand. He leaned over slightly and poured a steaming stream of tea into the cups: “Mr. Fu, please enjoy some tea.”
Fu Yucheng stared at the clear red tea, hesitating slightly.
It smelled like high-quality black tea.
The butler smiled: “Since Mr. Fu has already come here, could you still be worried that this tea is poisoned?”
Fu Yucheng glanced at him and smiled: “Not really. I was just wondering if Medusa’s tea is any different from human tea.”
“Medusa?” The butler mulled over the word. “Ah, yes, that’s the name humans gave us. Mr. Fu, please rest assured, this pot of tea was prepared specifically for you. It’s safe to drink.”
Fu Yucheng no longer refused, picked up the teacup, took a sip, and praised: “Excellent tea.”
“It is indeed excellent tea.” Along with this voice, a circular doorway slowly appeared in the silver-white wall of the hall.
A man stepped out slowly.
He was a very handsome man, tall and agile, with black hair and eyes and fair skin. The corners of his eyes drooped slightly, giving him a gentle and elegant appearance.
However, his pair of pitch-black pupils still possessed a faint, inorganic metallic luster—this was an artificial body.
Fu Yucheng put down the teacup and said calmly, “You’ve finally come.”
This gentle-looking, handsome man was naturally the “Supreme Commander” of the Medusa.
The Commander nodded: “I didn’t originally want to meet a human. But I feel that you deserve this respect.”
He walked over steadily and sat elegantly on the sofa opposite Fu Yucheng, pouring himself a cup of black tea: “You are the first human in two centuries to cause me any loss.”
Fu Yucheng stared at him and slowly shook his head: “You’re wrong. The person who caused you loss wasn’t me, it was us.”
“Is that so?” The Commander savored the words, then suddenly smiled again. “Then I should correct you on one point as well. It wasn’t ‘us,’ it was ‘me.’”
Fu Yucheng frowned at him. The Commander smiled without speaking, slowly sipping his tea.
Within a moment, Fu Yucheng began to understand.
Not “us,” but “me.”
The Medusa civilization… was not a collective of multiple life forms. A flagship, eleven starships—this morphing metal could manifest into countless human forms, but the spiritual source was only one.
It was the Commander before him.
The Commander placed the teacup on the table and raised an eyebrow: “It seems you’ve understood… You are indeed very clever. My civilization form is very different from human civilization. Those figures you just encountered—the butler and the servants—they are just a part of me, tiny tentacles of my spiritual power spread out.”
Fu Yucheng nodded: “So that’s how it—”
Before he could finish the word “is,” the deep blue scimitar had already drawn a ghostly arc of death, sweeping across toward the Commander!
The Commander didn’t dodge. A small part of his head slowly slid off, revealing a smooth silver section.
That half of the head rolled several times on the floor and then merged into the silver ground.
The remaining half of the Commander’s head frowned with its only eyebrow: “You want to kill me?”
He looked at Fu Yucheng with one eye, seemingly somewhat puzzled: “But you should understand, the spiritual power of a Type III civilization exists completely independently of a physical body… My bodies are infinite; you cannot kill me.”
As he spoke, his head had already returned to its original state.
Fu Yucheng said coldly: “Spiritual power is also a wave, and it possesses wave-particle duality… If this wave resonates with a Soul Weapon, it can naturally be annihilated.”
The Commander smiled slightly: “You, as a human, have interesting ideas.”
He seemed to have gained a bit of interest in Fu Yucheng: “How about we play a game—I’ll use my spiritual source to play with you and see if you can wound me.”
Fu Yucheng was slightly taken aback. Before he could grasp the other’s meaning, the Commander lightly clapped his hands: “One, two, three—start.”
The surrounding scenery changed rapidly. In an instant, the silver hall disappeared.
…
The sun was blazing, the green shade was like a canopy, and cicadas were chirping.
Fu Yucheng sat on a small swing and blinked.
His body… seemed to have become smaller. These immature hands clearly belonged to him when he was seven or eight years old.
The small swing swayed gently. The person behind him pushing the swing spoke in a low, gentle voice: “A-Yuan, be careful.”
That was his elder brother’s voice.
Fu Yucheng froze for a moment, then almost stiffly, slowly turned his head.
His brother’s handsome and gentle face carried a bit of a smile: “A-Yuan, what’s wrong?”
Fu Yucheng murmured: “Brother…”
He suddenly jumped off the swing and hugged the other’s waist tightly: “Brother, A-Yuan missed you so much.”
The brother stroked the child’s slender neck and whispered: “I missed A-Yuan too.”
With a crisp “crack,” the brother snapped his younger brother’s neck without hesitation.
The Commander looked down at the other’s incredulous expression and whispered: “First round, you lose.”
The scene changed again.
…
It was raining…
Was this the industrial zone?
But how could it rain in the industrial zone?
Fu Yucheng lay on his back on the ground. Fine raindrops fell on his eyelashes, condensing into tiny, down-like water droplets, white and misty.
Right, when the industrial zone needed to cool bursting pipes, it would spray a large amount of water mist for local cooling. To the nearby residents, it was just like rain.
He had encountered this situation before… when was it?
It was… the day he met his teacher.
Fu Yucheng closed his eyes and struggled to sit up. He was in an alley, leaning against a slippery wall, half his body sitting in dirty mud.
A figure appeared at the alley entrance.
The person was holding a broken old umbrella, appearing in the misty rain.
He seemed to have noticed Fu Yucheng and quickened his pace, unconcerned by the mud splashing and staining his trouser legs.
Fu Yucheng murmured: “Teacher?”
The teacher bent down and reached out a hand: “Child, come back with me.”
Fu Yucheng’s expression became somewhat dazed. He seemed to want to resist this warmth, knowing something was wrong, but he couldn’t control himself.
He took his teacher’s hand and stood up.
The teacher stroked his head and pulled him into an embrace: “Poor child.”
Fu Yucheng looked up, about to say something, when he suddenly felt a chill in his chest.
A rusty umbrella tip pierced through the young boy’s thin chest from behind.
The Commander held the limp, frail body, looking at those incredulous eyes, and couldn’t help but shake his head: “Humans… are truly hard to understand.”
…
Fu Yucheng opened his eyes again, his expression still somewhat bewildered.
He managed to prop himself up and stand.
Before him was a vast, endless expanse of white ice. Fine snowflakes, like willow catkins, fell gracefully from the lead-gray sky, soft and cold.
In the distance, a youth ran over, holding a plump fish: “Yu-ge, look, I caught a fish!”
Fu Yucheng was dazed for a moment and couldn’t help but close his eyes.
The youth ran close, a smile on his snowy-white face: “Do you like grilled fish? Shall I grill it for you?”
Fu Yucheng managed to regain his senses and gave a low response: “Mhm.”
The youth happily set up a grill, then hesitated: “Yu-ge, can I borrow your knife to gut the fish?”
Fu Yucheng hesitated, then unfastened the scimitar from his waist and handed it over.
The youth’s lips curled up slightly.
As expected, it’s still like this…
This person’s spiritual power had already suffered two heavy blows. And this time, it would be the end.
The Commander reached out, wanting to take the deep blue scimitar.
In the next instant, he only felt a chill at his neck.
He saw his own headless body fall softly, hot blood spraying across the ground and quickly freezing into a pool of dark red ice.
Fu Yucheng slowly stood up, looking down at the youth’s head: “You using his face to act makes me feel disgusted.”
…
In a whirl, all the scenes vanished.
The Commander had his eyes closed, his eyelashes trembling—his spiritual source had been seriously wounded.
After a long time, he slowly opened his eyes and coughed a few times: “Cough… You did it on purpose. You deliberately fell for it twice, allowed me to wound your spiritual power, all to make me let my guard down in the end…”
Fu Yucheng didn’t answer, only lowering his gaze, his face as pale as paper. His spiritual power was too deeply wounded for him even to have the strength to speak.
The Commander panted lowly for a couple of breaths, then suddenly swung his hand fiercely!
Fu Yucheng gritted his teeth. He wanted to dodge, but he had no strength left.
In that lightning-fast moment, a massive force took him and suddenly pulled him back at an impossible speed, narrowly dodging a string of willow-leaf blades!
A pair of massive, deep blue wings slowly unfurled behind Fu Yucheng.
“What is this thing?” The Commander stared at the wings, his expression momentarily bewildered, then he shook his head again. “Whatever it is, playing tricks on my turf is meaningless.”
He slowly closed his eyes. Countless arrows began to emerge from the walls of the hall… These razor-sharp arrows turned from flawless silver to a glowing, boiling red. Trailing like streaks of flowing fire, they lunged toward Fu Yucheng like a torrential storm!
There was no way to dodge!
Fu Yucheng’s mind raced. Death’s Wings suddenly folded, enveloping him within!
A series of crisp “clangs” rang out as the crimson arrows fell to the floor and then slowly merged back into the ground.
The Commander stared at Fu Yucheng and suddenly smiled: “You have some skill.”
Then, he slowly raised both hands. With this gesture, the silver floor rippled like waves…
Abruptly, a massive silver dragon burst from the ground! The dragon opened its roaring, flaming maw and lunged at Fu Yucheng in a series of rolls!
Fu Yucheng knew that on this giant flagship, the opponent’s tricks were endless. He was no match… The only way was to kill the opponent.
The silver dragon pursued Fu Yucheng madly. He could only rely on Death’s Wings to dodge in a desperate scramble, several times narrowly escaping being hit by the surging flames from the dragon’s mouth!
He couldn’t go on like this… There was no time.
Xiao Mo was still holding on, protecting the Dyson Cloud…
Fu Yucheng gritted his teeth fiercely. His spiritual power surged violently, and the massive Death’s Wings suddenly transformed into a sky full of blue feathers!
He had lost his only protection.
The Commander was slightly stunned: “Are you looking for death?”
In the next instant, these drifting deep blue feathers wove into a massive net of death, firmly pinning the Medusa Commander to the wall!
Fu Yucheng whipped his hand back, and “Calamity Blue Moon” whistled as it left his hand!
In an instant, the blade’s light flashed!
He would use “Death’s Wings” to pin the opponent’s body and spiritual source firmly… and then use “Calamity Blue Moon” to completely annihilate him!
At the same time, having lost his weapon and protection, the dragon’s sharp, glowing fangs pierced through his left shoulder blade, effortlessly lifting him up!
Fu Yucheng completely ignored the tearing pain in his shoulder, his eyes fixed only on the whistling “Calamity Blue Moon”!
In the blink of an eye, “Calamity Blue Moon” reached the Commander!
…He was going to succeed!
But at that very moment, the blue feathers covering the Commander’s body surged violently and quickly re-formed into a pair of massive, deep blue wings!
The wings suddenly unfurled, blocking the path of “Calamity Blue Moon”!
“Clang!”
“Calamity Blue Moon” fell dejectedly to the floor, and “Death’s Wings” was also broken, blue feathers fluttering everywhere.
A failure on the brink of success.
Fu Yucheng’s mind went blank: “How could…”
Why would Death’s Wings protect Medusa?
…How was this possible?
The Commander slowly slid from the wall to the ground.
He closed his eyes, resting against the wall for a moment, then struggled to his feet and slowly walked over to Fu Yucheng.
At some point, the massive silver dragon had disappeared.
Fu Yucheng fell to the ground, his shoulder a mangled mess of blood and flesh. A large pool of fresh blood spread rapidly beneath him.
He lay on the silver floor, his black hair in disarray, his handsome face covered in blood and grime. He looked so desperate and battered, yet so lost and confused.
Why?
Why did Death’s Wings betray him to protect Medusa?
Fu Yucheng felt as if he were trapped in a thick fog… He seemed to understand something, yet he understood nothing.
He had a feeling that if he could just cross this fog, everything would become clear…
But why?
The Commander looked down at Fu Yucheng, a hint of pity appearing on his gentle and handsome face: “Originally, I left a way out for humanity—that captive agreement. But now, it seems that’s no longer necessary.”
He waved his hand lightly, and a virtual screen slowly rose from the floor. On the pale blue screen was a reflection of the entire solar system.
That small red sun, against the backdrop of the deep universe, was like a fragile crystal piece—so lonely and small, yet so brilliant and beautiful.
For some reason, the Commander hesitated for a moment. He shook his head and finally raised his hand, pressing toward the red button next to the screen.
Fu Yucheng lay on the ground, struggling to lift his head: “Wait… Can you answer one question first?”
The Commander paused slightly: “…What else do you want to ask?”
Fu Yucheng panted lowly, his voice extremely hoarse: “The solar system is just an insignificant little star system in the universe… The sun’s stellar class is very low, and its position is on the edge of the Milky Way; almost no one would notice it… Why did you find your way here?”
The Commander was stunned, seemingly not expecting this question.
He hesitated for a moment before saying: “I don’t know. My spiritual source remembers the coordinates of this star system, remembers a specific point in time… so I came. And then I found that humans are excellent nutrients for spiritual power.”
Speaking of this, the Commander smiled: “But no matter how good the nutrients are, I don’t want them anymore.”
He raised his hand, his index finger descending toward the red button.
Fu Yucheng said in a low voice: “Admiral Mo, have you forgotten everything?”
His voice was very soft, but the Commander suddenly froze.
That slender finger hung dangerously over the button, less than a centimeter away, yet it could no longer press down.
The Commander’s expression became bewildered: “What… what are you talking about?”
Fu Yucheng coughed a few times, barely suppressing the thick metallic taste of blood in his throat: “Admiral Mo, don’t you remember your own name? Or should I call you directly—Mo Hanchuan?”
The Commander stood frozen. Suddenly, a very strange feeling arose, as if something distant was calling to him from the depths of his mind.
Mo Hanchuan… Mo Hanchuan…
Incredibly familiar…
Why was it so familiar?
That name was…
Fu Yucheng stared fixedly at the other’s expression and rasped: “It seems I guessed correctly.”
The Commander murmured: “What did you guess correctly?”
Fu Yucheng looked at him for a while, then closed his eyes and slowly spoke his full conjecture.
“Admiral Mo, two hundred years ago, you accidentally discovered the truth of the Battle of Kuiper… You suspected that Rong Qian had sacrificed his compatriots to satisfy his own lust for power, compromising and begging for mercy from Medusa. Later, because of Du Yueheng’s death, you and Rong Qian completely fell out. He stripped you of your spiritual power and exiled you to Earth.”
“You lived a hard life on Earth, filled with resentment. One day, you accidentally discovered that your adopted son possessed the ability to control time… You were overjoyed and, relying on your adopted son’s ability, recovered your spiritual power.”
“And your ability was S-class Absolute Replication… You suddenly had an idea: you wanted to go back to the past and change everything. You wanted to become strong, you wanted to return to the day Medusa arrived in the solar system, defeat this Type III civilization, and save humanity. So, you replicated your adopted son’s ability—Time Control.”
“You wanted to reverse humanity’s tragedy, you wanted to bring back your old friend Rong Qian, and you wanted to save Du Yueheng.”
“Later, many more things happened. You took the remnants of the Fourth Fleet and left the solar system. During your deep-space voyage, you discovered that you could grow your own spiritual power by absorbing the spiritual power of others… To deal with Medusa, you had to become stronger and more ruthless than it. You might have hesitated and struggled, but in the end, you chose to strike your own fleet members.”
“Day after day, year after year, you became stronger, colder, and more numb… You began to stop being like a human. And in your fleet, there were no other living people left, only you. One day, you found you were strong enough that you didn’t even need a physical body anymore… So, you began to attempt space-time jumps.”
“But for such a massive fleet, a space-time jump was no simple task. You took your Fourth Fleet through the long years, back and forth in the river of time, searching and constantly evolving… Gradually, you forgot who you were and where you came from… In the end, you only remembered two things—the cosmic coordinates of Earth and the time point when Medusa arrived in the solar system.”
“That day, you finally succeeded.”
“You appeared at the exact time and place. You arrived in the solar system and met Rong Qian’s deep-space fleet in the Kuiper Belt. But you no longer remembered this former close friend.”
“You had your first information contact with humanity. Your signature was a short wavy line—the first letter of your former surname, Mo: ‘M.’ But you no longer remembered its origin. Your friend Rong Qian, after receiving this information, gave you a designation that also started with ‘M.’”
“Medusa.”