Chapter 112: The Ring Has Been Captured!
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Just as Zachlan had predicted, the high priest had failed.
His corpse turned into dust, leaving no trace behind.
The humans had patched the void realm, so the normal use of the void realm and the signing of contracts with void realm existences were not affected.
However, it would be extremely difficult to directly "enter" or even "control" the void realm.
The high priest didn't know about these things. Before he died, he was still thinking about what the Oracle meant.
He could vaguely sense what the Oracle meant, but he would rather not believe it.
In the end, he still died with fanaticism.
He sacrificed an ancient civilization and all its vassals to exhibit the biggest fireworks for the galaxy.
The other civilizations even took a long time to realize that a lost empire had been swept into the trash heap of history.
The ring seemed to have been waiting for this moment for a long time. It was finally able to collect its debt.
This time, it believed that even the fellow who had stopped it before would not be able to stop it.
The ring formed by the entire civilization of the Watcher had shocked all the civilizations, including the Voyager, who was ready to watch the show unfold.
They didn't expect that their old rival would create such a big mysterious ring after going through the settlement.
They felt that their fleets were powerless now that the ring had grown to such a size. If this ring came knocking on their door, they could only flee in a hurry like before and escape to a farther place.
As for the younger civilizations, they were quickly enveloped by an atmosphere of despair.
"Is this the end of the Milky Way?" Through their own means of observation, they also saw the unbelievably enormous ring.
At this moment, they realised that they were so weak. In the face of these dangers, they were no different from ants.
However, Zachlan, who was hiding on a certain planet, was not overwhelmed by despair. Instead, he gathered all his believers and said to them, "The Milky Way needs us now. The Enlightened Ones had left behind this world. We can't let them down. Now that our compatriots have made a mistake, we survivors must atone for their sins, even if we have to fight to the last person!"
Following his speech, many spaceships suddenly appeared in the galaxy where he lived in seclusion, and their numbers increased.
These were the battleships brought by the believers who were willing to follow him. Their numbers might not be much compared to a Lost Empire, but they were all firm believers.
They were truly fighting for their beliefs. Even if they had to sacrifice their lives, they would not regret it. Their enemy was the evil god ring that had bewitched their compatriots.
After that, Zachlan made an oath to the entire Milky Way:
"I'm Zachlan, a person who attempted to lead his believers to escape from the settlement! Our civilization has been destroyed, but we will not deny this sin! Now is the sacred moment. We will abandon all the timidity and depravity of the past and use the ring to verify our faith!"
All the civilizations received the news. In the star map, they saw a faction led by Zachlan, who called themselves the Last Watcher, appearing near the border of the already extinct Watcher.
Their fleet was identical to the Watcher's, but it was decorated with traces of war. These were all wounded warriors, believers who had fought for their faith over a long period of time.
Even though the Watcher had already dissipated in the sea of stars and their civilization had fallen into the long river of history, the unwavering warriors of faith were still summoned by Zachlan to attack the ring.
Perhaps no matter what, there would always be a group of people who would respond to Zachlan's summons.
The moment they appeared, they warped to the place where the ring was, the former home system of the Watcher, the Heavenly Throne.
However, the warp failed. The ring that was large enough to cover the galaxy seemed to have some kind of power that could interfere with the warp, just like the superluminal suppressor commonly used by the Lost Empires. Violent psionic storms wreaked havoc across the entire system, even blowing away a circle of atmosphere from the gas giant planet. Perhaps it was because of the massive psionic storm that the warp engine was unable to form the 'uniform space-time' required for teleportation.
However, after the warp failed, the last Watcher fleet did not stop moving forward. They directly warped to the galaxy near the ring and then used the most basic superluminal method, hyperspace navigation, to head for the ring. Even the ring couldn't stop this hyperspace channel because it was the foundation of the birth of the galactic civilization.
The other civilizations also witnessed the scene, but most of them remained silent. After all, the Watcher had indeed brought about an apocalypse that seeming impossible to resolve.
Then, they turned all their attention to the lost robotic empire in the corner of the galaxy, praying for them to respond.
Finally, just as the last Watcher fleet was about to reach the entrance of the hyperspace channel, the lost robotic empire finally reacted to the crisis.
A familiar and powerful signal instantly covered the entire galaxy, and then all civilizations heard the familiar mechanical voice.
[Detected that the End of Reincarnation has occurred. The custody agreement has been activated.]
[Executing war policy. Target: Ring; Attitude: Purify]
[Note: Please do not approach the Ancient Heavens galaxy.]
The mechanical voice was as cold as ever, but it was like the sound of nature in everyone's ears. They hoped that this time, the Administrator would be able to get rid of the ring like before.
Zachlan hesitated for a while under the influence of the signal, then he ordered the fleet to stop at the entrance of the hyperspace channel.
It wasn't that he was afraid of death, but he was afraid of being a burden to the Administrator. But if the Administrator was no match for the ring, they would still go in and fight to the last moment.
However, the familiar warp wave did not come. No fleet followed the Administrator's announcement and warped to the galaxy where the ring was located.
Zachlan couldn't warp into that place, so he felt that the Administrator should be the same. Their warp engines wouldn't work too differently. Logically speaking, the only way to enter was through the hyperspace channel, but no fleets appeared nearby.
At this moment, he thought of many possibilities.
For example, was it because this artificial had actually fallen into an infinite loop, repeating between the processes of "warp, unable to warp, warp..." .
The seemingly impossible thing was the most likely thing to happen after a long period of disappointment.
However, he soon realized his mistake.
There were no warp waves, but there was another special wave that was being detected by various civilizations.
This kind of fluctuation signal seemed to be in a special spatial state and could be detected, but in fact, there was nothing at the source of the signal. The signal came and went quickly, but through the ever-changing position of the signal, all the civilizations realized that the target of the signal was the ring!
"This is... A sub-space signal?" Some cutting-edge scientists speculated about the source of this signal.
Although these civilizations had theories related to sub-space, no one had actually proved the existence of it.
At this moment, the special signal from a strange source made some sensitive scientists forget the threat of the ring and began to think about what entity was moving through this unknown method.
Just as the ring was about to drag its huge body away, the strange signal reached the vicinity of the galaxy.
A small black screen appeared in the sky above the galaxy.
At first, no one noticed this small black screen. After all, compared to the size
of the ring, this small black screen was indeed unnoticeable. However, there were still many attentive observers who discovered the black screen and quickly detected that it was a holographic projection.
Although this holographic projection looked like some kind of creation, what could a projection do?
The civilizations were still puzzled, and the scientists were also speculating, but someone immediately exclaimed, "The ring... It's disappearing!" The huge ring that was the size of a galaxy and looked like an embodiment of the void realm was missing a piece, and the smooth incision was still corroding as time passes.
In just a short while, more than half of the ring was gone. The speed of its disappearance was even faster than the speed of light.
The ring seemed to have noticed the abnormality as well. It was struggling
non-stop. The remaining part of it was flickering, as if they were about to disappear from this universe.
However, the mysterious projection did not give it such an opportunity. The speed of the ring's disappearance suddenly increased, and the entire ring disappeared without a trace.
After that, the projection also disappeared without a trace, as if nothing had happened.
However, the enormous psionic waves could no longer be detected in the galaxy. The ring that threatened the entire galaxy seemed to have really disappeared just like that.
Most of the civilizations had yet to recover from their shock. Their instincts
told them that it was the Administrator who had done it. They had said that they would clear the ring, no matter how big it was.
But what they were more concerned about was how the Administrator did it. This was beyond their understanding of the Lost Empires.
Zachlan also witnessed the whole process in disbelief. From this, it could be seen that this so-called Administrator's lost empire was much more powerful than their former civilization, the Watcher. It was as if it was a civilization that should not exist in this galaxy.
The Voyagers found it hard to accept, too. They had thought that they were already at the top, and as long as they eliminated their old rival, no one would be able to stop them.
However, this scene shattered their fantasies and even forced them to postpone the construction of the special giant project on their mother planet.
They realized that they would definitely be purged for what they were about to do.
And they were far from being a match for the Administrator. "What is the origin of this artificial intelligence civilization?" Zachlan and many of the scientists in the Voyager were making similar guesses.
However, the Observer and the Silent still didn't make any movements. These two lost empires still maintained their noble attitude and did not care about the Milky Way.
The Observer focused on the few unique species that they had just discovered, while the Silence didn't care about the outside world at all.
Right now, they still didn't know that there was actually an extraordinary civilization in the Milky Way.
However, after these doubts, the Milky Way burst into cheers.
They had once again survived the Milky Way crisis, and their understanding of the galaxy had deepened.
They understood that they were lucky to have a powerful Lost Empire that was willing to stand at the forefront to provide them with a protective umbrella. If this umbrella gets broken one day, then their ending could be imagined.
Thus, these civilizations came to a consensus: Perhaps they needed to build a large community that could carry everyone.
They could put their conflicts and alliances on the table, resolve their conflicts with less intense methods, and make progress together.
Even though this would be a very long process, the embryonic form of this community could perhaps be prepared or even established now. Sooner or later, they would be able to reach a certain level of unity. At least when faced with the threat of the entire galaxy, they would be able to quickly unite as a whole and resist the enemy together. And all of this was thanks to the person who took the 'threat' away..