Rebirth of the Super Battleship

Watching Planet one slowly fade into the distance, watching Aquila three grow dim, Xiao Yu felt a sudden wave of melancholy in his heart.

Another long journey had begun. Aquila IV was 2.5 light-years away from Aquila three. At Xiao Yu’s current speed, it would take roughly ten years to reach it.

Xiao Yu’s maximum velocity had already reached seventy thousand kilometers per second. In truth, in space travel, so long as the spacecraft hadn’t yet encountered relativistic limits and fuel was sufficient, acceleration could theoretically continue indefinitely. His earlier slow speeds had mainly been due to fuel constraints.

But that problem had been largely solved with the construction of the Hebei. The Hebei now had a total mass nearing one hundred million tons, half of which consisted entirely of nuclear fusion fuel. Additionally, Xiao Yu had built dozens of massive cargo ships, each the size of a Province-Class vessel. Aside from Alien Beast fingers, Swarm materials, and some essential construction supplies, they were packed to the brim with nuclear fusion fuel. Because of their simple structure, building these cargo vessels wasn’t particularly taxing.

Constructing large ships wasn’t as simple as piling on steel plates. It involved materials science, propulsion systems, large-scale energy shield technology, and matching weapons, power systems, and many other subfields. Xiao Yu had once calculated that if Earth’s scientific progress continued at its previous pace, it would take humans over two hundred years to advance from City-Class to Province-Class starships.

In other words, the ability to build Province-Class ships meant a civilization had already reached the mid-to-upper level of a Level 3 Civilization. From there, the path to becoming a Level 4 Civilization was no longer distant.

That was why Xiao Yu was so eager to head to the Aquila IV system—because it might hold the secrets of the Grand Unified Theory.

Even the Luka Civilization, which was only in the early stages of Level 3, had once possessed a Province-Class ship—later destroyed in an attack by the Specter Race. In truth, that ship had been obtained by trading their Alliance Contribution Points through the Guardian Alliance.

Within the vastness of space, Xiao Yu’s fleet slowly accelerated.

His fleet consisted of over one hundred thousand large ships and dozens of cargo vessels. Most of the ultra-miniature starships had either been scrapped for materials or discarded—there was no need to carry such things on this decade-long journey.

During this long voyage, Xiao Yu planned to construct a few more City-Class ships built from Alien Beast flesh, and simultaneously complete partial upgrades and refits for the County, Town, and Village-Class ships—replacing conventional materials with Swarm components.

Once completed, Xiao Yu’s overall combat strength would increase severalfold.

At this point, he hadn’t yet left the Aquila three system. Through his telescope, he could still clearly see the towering ridges of the Arrow Beast homeworld. Recalling the days spent living alongside the Arrow Beasts filled Xiao Yu with quiet emotion.

All throughout space, traces of the war with the Swarm were still visible—bug limbs, ship wreckage. Now, they had mixed together, some orbiting planets, others orbiting Aquila three. Their total number exceeded tens of billions.

Due to the instability of their orbits, it was foreseeable that in the next several million years, the Aquila three system would become a hotspot for meteor impacts. The Arrow Beast homeworld would frequently experience meteor showers.

“Under a brilliant night sky, surrounded by stars, with countless meteors streaking across the heavens… that must be a beautiful sight.” Thinking this, Xiao Yu looked back one last time at the Arrow Beast homeworld—then resolutely turned away, refusing to look again.

He had passed beyond the orbit of Planet three. From this point on, the Arrow Beast homeworld was no longer visible to the naked eye. Aquila three still blazed brightly, its power and majesty unmistakable.

For now, Xiao Yu was still being bathed in its solar wind. In just over a month of travel, he would reach its solar wind boundary and enter interstellar space once more.

That day came quickly. Xiao Yu’s fleet officially left the Aquila three system and surged onward toward Aquila IV.

Time flowed on. With each passing second, tens of thousands of kilometers were left behind. At such velocity, collisions between Xiao Yu’s ships and the dense interstellar dust of the Aquila Nebula produced a strange phenomenon.

Under the impact of high-speed particles, large amounts of X-rays were emitted. Alongside the X-rays, visible light was also released. This light appeared as a faint pink hue—so much so that the Hebei’s blue energy shields were completely overshadowed. From a distance, it looked like Xiao Yu’s ships had turned pink—surreal and beautiful.

Watching this, Xiao Yu was speechless.

“Pink ships? That’s just ridiculous. If any Earth-era otakus saw this, who knows what wild fantasies they’d start having. Unfortunately, while the ships may be pink, they don’t carry any cute girls—just cold, merciless killing machines. And a bunch of weird-looking Luka aliens, at least by human aesthetic standards.”

Thinking of the Luka, Xiao Yu diverted a bit of attention to check on the status aboard New Homeland and The Paradise.

Ever since the incident with the white dwarf Alien Beast, all the Luka had entered hibernation—including those who hadn’t mutated. Since Xiao Yu had no idea when he might find a cure, and since the unmutated Luka didn’t want to grow too far apart in age from their friends and family, they too had chosen to enter hibernation. They hadn’t awoken since.

Time slipped by quietly as Xiao Yu immersed himself in shipbuilding. Beyond the refitted City-Class vessels, ships like the Xingtai and Handan were also undergoing intensive upgrades. Ten years passed in the blink of an eye. Once again, Xiao Yu’s fleet approached the edge of a star system. Upon entering the solar wind region of the Aquila IV stars, the ship’s colors finally returned to normal—no more embarrassing pink.

The Aquila IV system was composed of five stars. They were divided into two groups. One group consisted of two stars displaying binary system traits—rotating around a common barycenter. The other three were entangled together, moving chaotically.

Xiao Yu named the stars alphabetically: Star A, Star B, and so on. The two-star binary system he called the First Group; the chaotic trio, the Second Group.

While each group moved internally, the system as a whole also rotated around a shared barycenter. Collectively, the five stars orbited the galactic core of the Aquila Nebula.

Such was the complexity of stellar motion.

The five stars together formed a structure so dizzyingly chaotic, it made one’s head ache just thinking about it—yet it also seemed to hint at a hidden order.

This stellar configuration was inherently unstable. It was entirely possible that one day, a star from the First Group could be gravitationally captured by the Second Group, or vice versa—only to later be flung out again.

Generally speaking, systems of three or more stars were highly unstable. Their orbits were only predictable in the short term. Long-term predictions—at least for Xiao Yu—were impossible.

That meant a star could suddenly shift course and come barreling toward his fleet. In short, Aquila IV was not a place to linger.

Even Xiao Yu began to question this journey.

“Could a place like this really be connected to the Grand Unified Theory?” he wondered, slowing his fleet slightly and cautiously approaching the stars.

As he drew closer, Xiao Yu made a shocking discovery.

In this chaotic system, he had actually found a planet. A small rocky world—only about the size of Mars.

“What a pitiful little thing.” Seeing the poor planet orbiting slowly under the constant tug of the surrounding stars, Xiao Yu couldn’t help but sigh.

In this celestial arena, where even stars couldn’t maintain stable orbits, what chance did a dependent planet have? This poor world was doomed to be tossed about endlessly—never finding a true home. If its luck ran out and it passed too close to a star, it could be torn apart by tidal forces.

However, the absence of large asteroid belts in Aquila IV suggested the planet hadn’t been shattered yet. Unless, of course, its debris had been swallowed directly by a star.

“I’ll use this little one as a landing point,” Xiao Yu decided after a moment of thought. He began maneuvering his ships toward the tiny, lonely planet.