Xyrin Empire

In the yard, a group of sunbathers lay scattered all over the place, and if any ordinary person could see the true scene inside, their worldview would probably collapse in an instant.

Everyone with wings at home came out to sunbathe their feathers…

Of course, those without feathers were sunbathing other things, such as Qianqian sunbathing blankets, Lilina sunbathing her hair, and Little Baobao grabbing a mouse to sunbathe its belly.

Bingdisi was the most experienced among the winged ones. She knew over sixteen hundred feather care tips and had devised a set of stretching exercises specifically for wings. This female hooligan seemed to have lived for billions of years without ever doing anything serious. I wonder how bored she must have been to accumulate so much quirky, absurd knowledge—yet, despite the jesting, she managed to fool all the winged creatures in the house with what I considered jaw-droppingly ridiculous knowledge, including the Mercury Lamp.

And half of the creatures lying on the ground or hanging on the walls had actually pulled out notebooks and were diligently taking notes!

The Mercury Lamp was also lying on the grass not far away, mimicking Bingdisi by spreading her wings to the fullest, trying to ensure every feather equally basked in the sunlight according to Bingdisi's instructions. Her expression was one of intense focus, though, unfortunately, she had limited writing skills, unlike others who could take notes. But she had her own solution: drawing. She abstracted Bingdisi's knowledge points into a cluster of skewed lines that looked like ambiguous children's doodles. Curious, I leaned over to check, and after a long pause, managed to say: "Is this the new recipe for KFC spicy chicken wings?"

"Idiot!" Mercury Lamp exclaimed without looking up, then quickly sketched a pair of simple wings, added a smiling round ball on top, and drew some crooked lines connecting them.

"What is this?" I pointed at the suspicious lines, "Chicken wings cooked?"

"Idiot, idiot, idiot!" Mercury Lamp's wings flapped on the ground, "This is heat! Wings need sunbathing, so there's heat!"

I was dumbfounded and smacked my lips; it was incredibly childlike and whimsical—by the way, why was Mercury Lamp's drawing style so akin to Big Sister's?

"Stupid human, I also want the oil you apply on wings," Mercury Lamp lay there, her little legs swaying in the air as she doodled and muttered, "In the future, you must comb my feathers like you do for Alaya."

What could I say? Of course, I quickly agreed. This girl rarely made such requests voluntarily: she could easily ask for gifts but found it hard to accept others' care. In short, she was bent on proving that she could do everything herself, a stubborn trait shaped by her life's experiences. However, this stubbornness had greatly improved; at least she now allowed me to comb her hair in the morning, and now she even allowed me to tend to her wings.

Curious, I gently touched Mercury Lamp's black wings. They looked similar to Bingdisi's, just much smaller and lacked that mysterious, faint energy halo. Though visually less impressive, they had a delicate charm. Considering Mercury Lamp's height was only 92.3 cm, these wings weren't small after all.

They felt fluffy and soft to the touch, and surprisingly warm, which left me taken aback while also making me empathize with Luo Zhen's plight.

"Would it hurt if I plucked one out?"

I suddenly asked impulsively.

Immediately, every winged creature in the yard, including Monina, Bingdisi, even Uncle Kenser, shivered in unison and shouted together: "Don't talk about such terrifying topics!"

Mercury Lamp didn't shout; instead, she expressed her will with action: a chomp.

"It hurts," I said, tears streaming down my face.

"Good to know. Our wings are quite sensitive," Bingdisi gestured with a fist at me, "But the feathers that fall off naturally aren't an issue. In a few days, I'll make you a pillow. I had a fight with Owelia a while back, knocked off at least half a pound of her feathers, and some of my own too… But it doesn't matter, you'll find them the same while you sleep."

With an expression as if struck by lightning, I nodded in thanks to Bingdisi, thinking how unfathomable the rogue goddess's daily life was: running out of pillows and getting into a fight to collect fallen feathers to make pillows and dusters all at once. Seems everything has become self-made these days?

Wisely, I did not refuse Bingdisi's goodwill, even though I had little interest in a pillow made of her feathers—my instinct told me it would be no more comfortable than a heap of sponges—but this female hooligan's goodwill couldn't be refused lightly as she's quite a mad woman…

Recklessly refusing could lead to her making an uproar until the end of the world.

Seeing my reluctantly nodded approval, Bingdisi nodded brightly, then shouted: "Okay, front sunbathing is over, let's turn over… "

Instantly, a clatter ensued all around, including Mercury Lamp who was experiencing feather care for the first time, several wings flipped over in unison, reminding me again of KFC.

Thinking it over, I decided not to mess around with this winged bunch anymore; their lives were just too distant from ordinary people.

Just then, Sandora's spiritual connection suddenly switched on, rescuing me from the dual dangers of boredom and a distorted worldview: "Ah Jun, come to Shadow City for a moment, the log analysis is done."

Leaving behind a group of bird people (and a wall; 123 and Kenser were still hanging on the wall) and the big fox sunbathing by the door, letting them fend for themselves under the sun (hope I used the phrase correctly?), I quickly teleported to Shadow City.

For easier data analysis, the database and data terminal Visca brought back were placed in the core of the Xyrin Nest within the Shadow Fortress. This magnificent pyramid structure is Bubbles' palace, where she spends more than half of her time personally overseeing it. This massive pyramid is also one of Taville's experimental restorations of Old Empire technology: a site for non-stop multi-level co-processing arrays, a name that sounds vastly overwhelming but essentially enables multiple Xyrin Hosts to work together, an impressive technology previously limited in mother nests because mass-produced hosts had limited computing power, and Bubbles, as the mother host, couldn't always act as a bridge server, thus previously our so-called "host coordination" was restricted to below ten. Now, this colossal pyramid can host hundreds of Xyrin Hosts simultaneously; it is divided into ten levels, each holding dozens of hot-swappable host slots. Thinking about it always reminds me of a hive.

Anyway, with this huge palace, the efficiency of the hosts has skyrocketed many times over, and Bubbles is very pleased and is considering further expanding the Shadow Space. Our next target is to establish another small constant star system in Shadow Space, far from any Imperial Base, to serve as a nursery for Dingdang's experiments—the city administration team and community committee of the Shadow City are utterly tired of rounding up the bizarre divine-made creatures running out from the World Tree daily.

Sandora and I arrived at the Crystal Hall at the heart of the mother nest, the "bedroom" of the children's mother, which, compared to the shabby temporary mother nest I first saw three years ago, has become incredibly grand. The dazzling crystal walls and clusters could almost blind someone's dog eyes, and Bubbles, just like that day three years ago, was dressed in a thin, white gown, quietly suspended in the crystal prism at the center of the hall, resembling a sleeping angel; yet now I'm not the easily fooled youth from three years ago, I'm no longer touched by this girl's pretended delicate side.

With my biceps, I can easily assume this girl is most likely in Demacia now.

Sandora knocked on the crystal prism, waking Bubbles from Demacia's ocean, who blinked at me for a while and suddenly frowned: "Her dad, you smell like a girl's scent, and there's some unfamiliar fragrance."

Sweating profusely, under Sandora's cold gaze, I recounted the incredibly bizarre daily activities of the winged bird people collectively sunbathing in the Outer World.

"So that's how it is," Sandora nodded understandingly, "It's quite normal, they're all very fond of their wings. Star Domain reportedly has wing beauty contests; Bingdisi participated in one several million years ago but unfortunately was eliminated right after the preliminaries."

"Is there such a thing?" I exclaimed, "Aren't her wings pretty?"

"Mainly because she couldn't win against the judges in the first round of eliminations…"

I remained silent, already knowing that when that female hooligan participates in any competitive event, the outcome is always like this.

"Enough small talk, you should take a look at this first," Bubbles interrupted my chat with Sandora, projecting a massive hologram in front of us. It showed the database component stored in another server room inside the Mother Nest, which was dismantled from the crashed Eternal-class Mother Ship.

The so-called database was actually an unremarkable black cube, a part of a complete device, roughly one meter square, with dark blue lines that pulsed like breathing light on its surface. The recording and encoding method it used was extremely complex, something I still hadn't grasped. All I understood was that these storage devices installed on warships had extremely high security. Once its auxiliary read-write equipment was offline, the database would lock down its internal information, and even if you had countless advanced passwords, it wouldn't disclose a bit of confidential information related to the warship's navigation.

Even with Bubbles' computing power, it took two days to crack the contents of the database, proving how formidable this device was.

"The Hope," Bubbles articulated each word distinctly, "That's the name of the ship, it's called the Hope."

I immediately exclaimed, surprised, "It looks so ordinary; I didn't realize it was a flagship?"

I drew such a conclusion solely based on the name because of the Xyrin Empire's typical warship naming convention: the majority of the commissioned ships only had numbers and no names. Even Eternal-class warships would only have a name if they qualified as flagships or held notable battle achievements or extraordinary commemorative significance.

This is easy to understand when you consider the incredibly rapid pace of those limitless militaristic factions producing ships. The Empire's fleet is often described as overwhelming in numbers. A stationed fleet in any star zone, even just counting the medium-sized warships and above, can number in the tens and thousands. For instance, the Royal Fleet stationed in the Milky Way, with over 800 Eternal-class Mother Ships (assuming there's no war; otherwise, this number could only increase daily), and numerous Frontier-class, Expedition-class, and other main battlecruisers, totaling several hundred thousand strong. These are not small fighters; they're behemoths that can decimate the main fleet of any civilization in battle with ease. If stationed on Earth, even the smallest of these ships could be humanity's ultimate weapon for Solar System defense—but could we possibly give each of these vessels a unique name?

Believe me, truly committing to this would mean our ancestors' entire 5000-year long history of accumulated Chinese characters wouldn't suffice. Even naming a ship something like the "Ostrovsky Iron Pillar" wouldn't be enough.

More critically, I wouldn't be able to remember those ship names at all—even if someone could come up with so many of them.

Therefore, given the unabashed rate at which the Imperial Soldiers produce warships, making it impossible for each ship to receive an independent name, the Imperial Army adopted this stringent naming rule: All warships below Eternal-class only have numbers, while the Eternal-class warships might be named based on their achievements, power, and expertise, and only starships with planetary battle capabilities would unconditionally receive names.

Moreover, it's said that Conqueror-class Doomsday Ships also lack names, not because there are too many to name, but rather they are quite rare. A star system with even one Conqueror present nearly attains the status of a capital star zone. In such cases, naming unique ships seems wasteful. Anyway, when we mention Conqueror, we all know which one is being referred to; even if we don't, the command chain can figure it out.

So, upon hearing that the Eternal-class warship that crashed on Mars was named the "Hope," my first conclusion was that it must be a flagship, even though from the debris, it didn't seem to have the volume or the reinforced modules a flagship should possess.

Additionally, an Imperial warship, coming from the Destruction Fleet under the hands of the mad little Visca, had such an artistic name, which seemed quite unbelievable as well.

However, Bubbles shook her head, disproving my assumption: "No, it's not a flagship; it's just an ordinary commissioned ship. 'Hope' was the name later given by its occupants."

"Later occupants?" I furrowed my brow, immediately thinking of those unknown extraterrestrial humans who died within the remnants of the ship, "Are you saying those mysterious people?"

"Assuming no one else unauthorized modified the ship's log, then it's them who executed the naming action," Bubbles nodded vigorously within the crystal prism, "The original number of the ship was trivial, but those mysterious extraterrestrial carbon-based beings naming it the Hope makes it a bit intriguing."

"Hope…" Sandora pondered aloud, "In the universe, wisdom races always like to use such terms to bless their aircraft, but this is limited to ordinary civilizations that faced terrifying cosmic catastrophic environments. A civilization like the Empire wouldn't use such a meaningless term to name a war machine. Them naming the ship 'Hope,' does it mean they frequently faced lethal threats?"

"Maybe it just sounds nice?" I shrugged, "Cultural differences can be very significant. Some races might be very casual about naming: if the Qianqian virus spreads, wouldn't it be believable if our next Interstellar Coalition flagship is named 'Muhammad bin Laden'?"

"Not at all serious," Sandora gave me a sideways glance, "Alright, regardless of why those extraterrestrial humans named the ship 'Hope,' Bubbles, have you found the origin of the ship? Which world did it come from, and who attacked it, resulting in it breaking apart?"

"Take a look at this, I've put a lot of effort into recovering this data, it was almost completely erased."

Bubbles said with a sense of achievement, then projected a video in front of us.

It was footage captured from an external observation device on the Eternal-class Mother Ship, recording the ship's final moments. There was video footage, as well as intermittent audio, which seemed to be broadcast from the captain or some other commander.

The video displayed a chaotic, dark red space, indicating the ship might be traversing a high-density primordial dust cloud. Such cloud clusters are common in the universe, often used as temporary coordinates for docking ships. The first half-minute of the video maintained this tranquil image, with the captain or some commander consistently chatting about trivial matters with his assistant.

Halfway into the video, the display suddenly showed a violent quake, and then a dazzling flash of white light erupted from the lower part of the frame on the warship's exterior deck.

Soon after, there was a rapid and violent series of explosions. The picture shook as the ship reached a dangerously critical state, but up until that point, there was still no sign of an enemy on the screen—in space battles, it's normal that the distance makes the enemy ship invisible, but not seeing any trajectory of the attacks exploding on the ship's armor and shield makes one wonder: Were the enemies using extended-range attacks, possibly with super space-time technology?

The audio signal carried a quick and heavily distorted voice that shouted, "It's those fanatics! They're intercepting the ship! Quickly activate the super space-time jump engine! We mustn't find an appropriate coordinate!"

"The protection shield has been breached, the enemy has super space-time missiles!"

"The energy output of the main energy furnace is critically damaged, we don't have enough energy left to initiate a super space-time jump!"

"It's activated, the Ancient Spire just activated! We got a coordinate!"

"Jump! Jump! The ship's main cannon is exploding, abandon it, jump now!"

In an instant, amidst a glaring white light and an enormous explosion, everything fell silent.

"That's quite a bit of information, darling." Sandora remarked. (PS: Dear readers, your recommendation votes and monthly tickets are my greatest motivation. Your support is my greatest motivator.)