The Deep Space Transmitter of Terra-Nova was usually a silent ear, listening to the static of the universe. Today, it was a siren.
Jiang Chen stood in the dim light of the command deck, his hands hovering over the interface. He wasn't broadcasting a signal of distress for himself. He was broadcasting a lie.
[Signal Emulation: High-Noble Distress Beacon.][Signature: House Yan - Galactic Cultivation Alliance.][Message: "Engine Failure. Life Support Critical. Requesting Immediate Assistance."]
"House Yan is one of the Twelve Pillar Families," Emperor Xia said, standing beside the console. His projection flickered slightly; maintaining the planetary stealth field while allowing this single beam out was taxing his concentration. "If a patrol ship hears this, they won't just send a mechanic. They will send a retrieval team hoping for a reward."
"That's the point," Jiang Chen said. "We don't want a warship. We want a fast courier. Something with a high-grade Void-Skipping Drive."
He adjusted the frequency. The Architect AI modulated the signal, adding the subtle, imperceptible spiritual tremors that only high-level cultivators could detect—the "scent" of a dying noble.
"The trap is set," Jiang Chen leaned back, the cables in his chest relaxing. "Now we wait to see who is greedy enough to bite."
Three light-years away, in the debris field of the Oort Cloud of a neighboring system, the silence of space was shattered by violence.
The Matriarch drifted through the asteroid belt. She was in agony. The Dark Matter Bomb she had swallowed was gone, vomited up hours ago, but the gravitational trauma remained. Her internal organs were bruised, her echolocation distorted. She was blind, angry, and leaving a trail of neon-purple blood that crystallized instantly in the vacuum.
She was not alone.
A fleet of golden ships, shaped like floating pagodas, emerged from warp. The flagship bore the insignia of the Heavenly Star Sect—a powerhouse within the GCA known for hunting void beasts.
On the bridge of the flagship, Grand Elder Feng watched the wounded leviathan on his scrying mirror. He was a Half-Step Nirvana expert, an entity capable of glassing a planet with a thought.
"Look at her," Feng sneered, stroking his long white beard. "A Tier 10 Matriarch. Normally, we would flee on sight. But she is crippled. She is bleeding Void Essence."
"Elder," a disciple warned. "Even wounded, a Tier 10 beast is a calamity. Should we not call for reinforcements?"
"And share the core?" Feng laughed. "Her core alone could power our Sect for a millennium. We take her now. Activate the Star-Binding Chains!"
The fleet engaged. Hundreds of massive, rune-inscribed chains shot from the pagoda ships, lashing onto the Matriarch's hide. They burned with the heat of captured suns, searing into her flesh.
The Matriarch roared—a silent, psychic shriek that shattered the minds of the lower-ranking disciples instantly.
PAIN. RAGE.
She thrashed. Even injured, her strength was absolute. She whipped her tail, smashing a frigate into dust. The explosion was a brief spark against her massive bulk.
"Hold her!" Feng screamed, stepping onto the hull of his ship. He summoned a Galaxy-Cutting Blade, a projection of Qi three miles long. "Strike the wound!"
He slashed. The blade hit the bruise left by Jiang Chen's bomb.
The Matriarch convulsed. The pain cleared her mind of confusion and replaced it with pure survival instinct. She didn't try to run anymore. She turned.
Her maw opened. She didn't inhale gravity this time; she exhaled Anti-Matter.
A beam of pure void energy erupted from her throat. It wasn't aimed. It was a shotgun blast of erasure.
It caught the Grand Elder's flagship.
Feng's protective treasure—a mirror forged from a neutron star—shattered instantly. He had underestimated the difference between a Tier 9 and a Tier 10. One was a monster; the other was a law of physics.
"Retreat!" Feng screamed as his legs dissolved into nothingness.
The beam vaporized the flagship and three escorts. The surviving ships cut the chains and fled into warp, leaving their Grand Elder and half their fleet as dust.
The Matriarch floated in the debris of her attackers. She was bleeding heavily now, new wounds layering over the old. She consumed the wreckage of the cultivation ships, eating the metal and the corpses to knit her flesh.
She was hurt. She was tired. But she had learned a lesson: The little things that stung were everywhere. And she remembered the specific gravity taste of the one that had poisoned her first.
She turned her blind, scarred head back toward the deep dark. She began to swim.
Terra-Nova Orbit
"Contact," Ye Bai whispered.
A rip in space appeared ten thousand kilometers off the bow of Terra-Nova. A sleek, silver vessel emerged. It was shaped like a spearhead, emanating a powerful, rhythmic pulse of spiritual energy.
[Vessel ID: GCA Courier - 'Swift Wind'.][Crew Estimate: 50.][Drive Signature: High-Grade Void Engine.]
"This is Patrol Captain Luo," a haughty voice broadcasted over the open channel. "We have locked onto the distress signal of House Yan. Identify your location. Our sensors show nothing but empty space."
Jiang Chen sat in the dark Command Bunker. "Lower the Veil. Just a crack. Show them the bait."
On the surface of the planet, a small section of the invisibility field dropped. It revealed a fake crash site—a pile of burning debris and a distress beacon on a floating asteroid platform tethered to the planet.
"We see you," Captain Luo said, greedy anticipation leaking into his voice. "Preparing to board for... rescue operations."
The GCA ship moved in. It didn't scan for a planet because it didn't expect a planet to be hiding in interstellar space. It docked with the asteroid platform.
The airlock cycled.
Captain Luo, a Void Shattering expert, stepped out with ten elite guards. They wore robes woven from starlight. They expected a dying noble to rob.
Instead, they found General Han.
Han stood in the center of the platform, his Mark VI Void-Walker armor blending with the shadows. He held his helmet under his arm.
"You are not House Yan," Luo frowned, sensing the lack of Qi from the giant. "You are... a mortal? How are you breathing in this thin atmosphere?"
"I have three lungs," Han said calmly.
"Where is the noble?" Luo demanded, his hand drifting to his sword. "Where is the reward?"
"The reward," Han put on his helmet, the eyes glowing green, "is that you get to keep your lives if you walk away from the ship."
Luo laughed. "A mortal threatening a Void Shattering cultivator? I can unmake you with a thought!"
Luo raised his hand. Gravity twisted.
Han didn't wait. He moved. The Space Marine physiology, augmented by the Dark Matter armor, allowed him to move faster than the eye could track. He ignited his Chain-Glaive.
VROOOM.
Luo's gravity field hit Han, but the armor—infused with the anti-magic properties of the Void Beast carapace—absorbed it.
Han closed the distance. He didn't cut Luo. He backhanded him.
CRACK.
The blow, delivered with the force of a hydraulic press, shattered Luo's personal barrier. The Captain flew backward, smashing into the airlock door.
"Ambush!" the guards shouted, drawing spirit weapons.
From the shadows of the asteroid, fifty more Iron Legionnaires decloaked. Their bolters were trained on the cultivators.
"Don't kill the ship!" Ye Bai's voice came over the comms. "We need the drive intact!"
The battle was short and brutal. The cultivators were powerful—throwing fire, lightning, and sword beams—but they were fighting in a confined space against soldiers who were built to tank damage.
A cultivator stabbed a Marine through the chest. The Marine grunted, his secondary heart taking over, and smashed the cultivator's skull with his rifle butt.
"Secure the bridge!" Han ordered, stepping over the groaning Captain Luo.
He dragged the cultivator by his collar to the window.
"Look," Han pointed.
The Veil fully dropped.
Luo's eyes widened. He saw the planet. The massive engines. The endless city lights. The sheer, impossible scale of Terra-Nova.
"What... what are you?" Luo whispered, terrified.
"We are the traffic," Han said.
The Engineering Bay
Hours later, the GCA ship was gutted.
Jiang Chen stood in the engineering bay of the Swift Wind, looking at the engine. It wasn't a machine. It was a vat of golden fluid, suspending a pulsating, organic organ.
[Analysis: Void Gland. Origin: Extracted from a Juvenile Void Beast.][Mechanism: The Gland channels Qi to fold space.]
"They don't build drives," Jiang Chen realized, disgust coloring his tone. "They butcher animals and hook them up to batteries."
"It is barbaric," Emperor Xia agreed, looking at the organ. "But it works. This drive can jump five light-years instantly."
"Can we replicate it?" Ye Bai asked. "Without... butchering?"
"We have the STC Data," Jiang Chen said. "And we have the Matriarch's biological data. We don't need the organ. We can 3D print a synthetic version using the Dark Matter ore."
He touched the glass of the vat.
"System. Reverse engineer this. I want a Synthetic Warp Drive capable of moving an entire planet."
[Project: HYPERION Initiated.][Time to Completion: 5 Years (Internal).]
Jiang Chen turned to the captured Captain Luo, who was bound in suppression cuffs.
"You are going to tell us everything," Jiang Chen said. "Where the trade routes are. Where the patrols are. And most importantly... where the GCA keeps its maps."
Luo spat. "The Alliance will burn you. You are nothing but insects hiding in the dark."
"Insects survive the winter," Jiang Chen said. "Dinosaurs don't."
He turned to his team.
"Five years. We retrofit the Planetary Engines with the Warp Drive. Then... we stop drifting. We jump."