Chapter Thirty-Four: Plants of the Starry Sky

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Buzz, buzz, buzz!

The mining vehicle was drilling rapidly. As the alloy drill bit collided with the rock strata, fist-sized shards of stone flew in all directions, creating a crisp, rhythmic clatter.

Behind the mining vehicle, five Huokui soldier puppets, clad in basic civilian exoskeletons, stood ramrod straight. They held tungsten combat shields in their left hands and tungsten spears in their right, scanning their surroundings with vigilance.

Song Chi remained aboard the Sky Vault, which kept its dark matter energy shield activated. Though the survey was nearing its end, he maintained a high level of caution. If the scanner was accurate, the object emitting the peculiar energy fluctuations had to be within these last two fragments.

Suddenly, Song Chi caught a glimpse of a dark shadow flashing in his peripheral vision. Before he could sound a warning, the shadow darted behind one of the Huokui soldier puppets with terrifying speed.

The fully armed soldier puppet did not even have time to react before it was whipped several meters away, its exoskeleton armor left with a deep, caved-in dent.

It was far from over. After the first strike, more dark shadows erupted from the fragments below, rapidly attacking every intruder on the surface.

Song Chi clearly saw the exoskeleton of another soldier puppet rendered completely useless by a single lash from a dark shadow. These shadows were, in fact, long, pitch-black vines covered in sharp, menacing barbs.

It was fortunate that the Huokui soldier puppets were golems, lacking the pain receptors of conventional carbon-based life.

Song Chi drew a sharp breath. He was glad he had been cautious enough not to deactivate his dark matter energy shield; otherwise, the several lashes that had just struck the Sky Vault’s hull might have left holes directly in the shuttle’s frame.

Outside, the recovered soldier puppets stood back-to-back, their tungsten spears thrusting out to collide with the incoming black vines. Each impact produced a sharp, metallic ring. These black vines were of unknown origin, yet they proved even harder than the weapons forged from tungsten.

Two more soldier puppets aboard the Sky Vault leaped down to reinforce their besieged comrades. Simultaneously, under Song Chi’s control, the Sky Vault slowly ascended, hovering dozens of meters above to provide cover.

Although the ship-mounted firepower was not immense, it was enough to cause some minor interference for the black vines.

The secondary ship-mounted cannons rained down fire while Song Chi quickly analyzed the battlefield situation.

Judging by the hardness and lethality displayed by these black vines, they were clearly at the First Rank. Moreover, they were not merely nascent First Rank entities like the soldier puppets; they were likely at the peak of the First Rank.

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Ten minutes later, a hypothesis formed in Song Chi’s mind. Behind these countless black vines, there was likely a single consciousness. Their coordination and cooperation were far too seamless; while they firmly suppressed the seven fully armed soldier puppets, they were still able to divert several vines to attack the nearby floating land mining vehicle.

Such fluid, unified attacks would be impossible without a central command core. Furthermore, the vines themselves reminded him of a specific type of organism.

"Star Sea flora."

Extensive root systems, hardness comparable to metal, and the ability to influence the life energy fields of the starry sky—all these matched the characteristics of the Star Sea flora he had encountered in the past.

Having reached this conclusion, Song Chi quickly formulated a countermeasure. If this truly was a Star Sea plant, then once its core vitality was completely extinguished, these troublesome root systems would naturally wither.

With this in mind, Song Chi fixed his gaze on the floating land mining vehicle below.

This unknown Star Sea plant had clearly been disturbed by the operations of the mining vehicle, prompting it to launch a counterattack from the core of the fragment. If that was the case, did it not imply that directly beneath the spot where the mining vehicle had been working lay the本体 (main body) of the unknown plant?

Pondering this, Song Chi shifted his focus to a hole over a meter deep in the fragment below. That was exactly where the mining vehicle had been excavating just moments before.

Once he had a theory, Song Chi was not one to hesitate. He immediately put it into action.

The secondary cannons continued to support the soldier puppets, but the Sky Vault pivoted, its bow-mounted psionic main cannon aimed directly at the half-excavated rock pit.

Psionic light coalesced as the charging sequence began.

Perhaps sensing an existential threat, or perhaps disturbed by the energy fluctuations generated during the main cannon’s charging, the black vines attacking the seven soldier puppets suddenly split in half, rapidly surging toward the Sky Vault hovering above.

These black vines, covered in sharp barbs, were astonishingly long. Even though the Sky Vault was already nearly a hundred meters in the air, it was still not out of their range. In less than two seconds, nearly ten black vines had whipped their way up to the hundred-meter mark.

Snap, snap, snap!

The vines struck the Sky Vault, which shimmered with a dark glow, causing the hovering shuttle to sway. Song Chi remained unmoved, ignoring the attacks and maintaining the main cannon’s charge.

If this were a Second Rank Star Sea plant, he would have fled immediately. But at the peak of the First Rank, it was not enough to threaten his dark matter energy shield—at least not in the short term.

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Why had Song Chi been so persistent in keeping the Sky Vault’s energy shield active? Was it not precisely to ensure his own safety?

As an orange-quality energy shield, reinforced to the First Rank, if it were so easily shattered by a creature of the same rank from a different civilization, it would hardly be worthy of its "Orange Glory" quality.

Two more seconds passed. When the ball of psionic energy at the bow’s main cannon reached its zenith, it signaled that the charging was complete.

"Beep!"

He pressed the fire button, and a dark, psionic energy sphere, several dozen centimeters in diameter, shot downward. Its speed was such that it struck the center of the rock pit below in the blink of an eye.

Boom!

Amidst the violent explosion and flying stone, the dust settled to reveal that the rock pit, which had been only a meter deep, was now nearly four meters deep.

Song Chi had anticipated that a single blow would not be entirely decisive. The psionic main cannon’s current reinforcement level was only LV5, and being a standard-issue colorless main cannon, its power was naturally limited.

He pulled back on the joystick while simultaneously maneuvering the Sky Vault to ascend further, dodging the lashes of the vines.

Although the dark matter energy shield was sturdy enough, there was no need to soak up damage that could be avoided.

After the psionic main cannon’s blast, it required a short cooldown period. The half of the black vines that had split off could no longer inflict devastating damage on the soldier puppets on the fragment. Song Chi could safely pause the secondary cannon’s fire to focus on maneuvering the Sky Vault to evade and reposition.

Once the eight-second cooldown passed, energy fluctuations surged once again from the main cannon port at the bow of the Sky Vault, and the psionic main cannon began to charge once more.