370: Chapter 371 The Curtain in the Starry Sky

"These ugly human bugs sure run fast."

Nine million kilometers away, inside the command bridge of a Philiphimus ship gleaming with cold metallic luster, a high-ranking general stared at the empty cosmic coordinates. His voice was thick with undisguised contempt and mockery as he spoke slowly.

The limbs of this general were far thicker and more hideous than those of the deceased Gamox. On his cylindrical head, twenty eyes were densely arranged.

As soon as he finished speaking, projections began to appear one after another in the command bridge. In an instant, the projections of over a hundred generals filled the space.

"Unfortunately for them, they cannot escape."

"Indeed. They are merely fragile carbon-based organisms, yet they warrant the deployment of a hundred of our warships for a suppression campaign. Even if they flee to the ends of the Universe, they will ultimately remain our prey!"

"That trash Gamox, despite possessing a Tier 3 mothership and ten million soldiers, was actually defeated by a swarm of low-level bugs, losing both his ship and his life. He has utterly disgraced our Polyphemus."

"This ten-eyed slave was never worthy of marrying the Empire's princess..."

One general said with envy in his eyes, "It's just as well that he's dead. Once we've wiped out these human bugs, I will personally petition the Emperor for the honor of having the princess betrothed to me. Only I am worthy of Her Highness."

Another general expressed confusion and said in surprise, "Zaxidile, don't you know? The princess already has two offspring with him."

"I don't care."

"Hahahahaha..."

The cheerful laughter of these generals echoed through the projections.

At this moment, a general with twenty-four eyes said in a deep voice, "As you all know, according to the detected intelligence, a variable has appeared among the humans."

The twenty-four-eyed general's voice drowned out the laughter. The originally noisy command bridge fell silent, and the image of a young human male suddenly emerged in the central projection.

The gazes of all the generals focused on the projection of this human youth. The mockery in their eyes lessened, replaced by a touch of gravity.

"It is precisely because of him that those human bugs actually gained the ability to resist the Capricorn Quantum Supercomputer, even escaping our surveillance. What's worse is that their intelligence was just enhanced..."

The central projection screen changed, showing the final scene from the core of the human commander's flagship.

Clearly, they possessed a very deep understanding of the humans' internal affairs.

"Lord Gaoermuir, since that's the case, let's leave no room for error and simply eliminate this variable," Zaxidile, who had spoken earlier, said.

"A low-level civilization is, after all, a low-level civilization. Once we capture him, I'm going to turn him into a decorative ornament to display in my room."

The command bridge was silent for a moment, followed by a few sounds of agreement.

Gaoermuir ignored Zaxidile's boastful words. His twenty-four eyes quietly scrutinized the face of the human youth in the projection.

In the projection, Lin Fang's face was enlarged until it occupied the entire field of vision, every detail exceptionally clear.

Gaoermuir's eyes flickered, and he finally said, "This human—we must capture him alive. Perhaps the Emperor will be interested in him."

As soon as these words were spoken, the hundred or so Polyphemus generals were all shocked. Why would their supreme Emperor be interested in a single human?

However, Gaoermuir's words were not something they dared to contradict. Instead, they had to apply themselves to this task, so they all voiced their agreement.

Just as they were preparing to pursue the human fleet along the warp coordinates, an energy signal appearing at the human fleet's original evacuation point caught the attention of these generals.

Are there still human bug ships that haven't left yet?

Eight starry sky fortresses with faint red glows still emitting from their bases appeared in the projection. They had actually not been taken away by the humans and were left behind here.

One general laughed loudly upon seeing this. "These bugs were so scared they even abandoned their weapons."

But just as his laughter rang out, the simple waveguide devices at the base of the eight starry sky war fortresses suddenly activated. A massive amount of energy pulses appeared. Their purpose was not to fire at the Philiphimus, but to act upon the light particle beams used for spatial imaging.

Tens of thousands of light particle beams converged and resonated precisely in space. Relying on the non-scattering properties of the cosmic vacuum and using the eight fortresses as anchor points, they rapidly constructed a two-dimensional projection curtain spanning a million kilometers.

The principle was identical to a ground-based laser holographic projection, only it utilized the high-power energy of the starry sky fortresses to expand the imaging range to an interstellar scale.

The moment the projection curtain took shape, no exaggerated phenomena appeared on the screen. Instead, a bizarre white human face pattern emerged. There were no extra textures, only a pure white base color. The composition was minimalist to the extreme, yet because the projection scale was so vast, it firmly occupied the entire observational field of all the Philiphimus ships.

Two pitch-black pupils stared directly at them, as if a frigid wind had blown into the starry sky.

"What is this?"

The Polyphemus generals panicked. Extremely sensitive to light, they felt a sense of unease throughout their bodies. Even though they wore implanted armor capable of resisting cosmic radiation, they still couldn't shake this skin-crawling sensation.

Especially for the supreme general Gaoermuir, who possessed twenty-four eyes, his neural perception far exceeded that of all his subordinates. The moment he saw that white human face, the discomfort in his mind instantly swept through his entire body.

Gaoermuir immediately let out a miserable scream as brown blood began to seep from his twenty-four eyes.

He seemed to see his father, who had been dead for many years, standing before him, but his face was hideously distorted.

"Destroy them!" Gaoermuir's shriek was shrill, completely devoid of his previous majesty as a supreme general. His limbs flailed wildly, as if trying to wave away the approaching illusions.

In the billions of years of Polyphemus civilization history, no such bizarre situation had ever been recorded in the annals. What kind of attack had the humans actually used?

The energy rays of over a hundred Philiphimus ships instantly crossed the starry sky. The terrifying energy directly reduced the eight war fortresses to fragments, exploding in the Universe.

The massive two-dimensional projection immediately dissipated into the cosmos.

Simultaneously, the hundred-plus Polyphemus generals and the countless clan members inside the ships fell into their final struggles. The situation had reversed in an instant.

"Why? I don't understand..."

Gaoermuir attempted to find a solution, enduring the pain to desperately check the data. At the moment before his consciousness sank completely into darkness, he finally captured a strange term mentioned only in fragments.

Gaoermuir's entire body trembled. Recognizing the existential threat to his race, he murmured in a voice that sounded both terrified and strangely enlightened: "It's actually... a meme..."

—

When the human fleet, which had fled several light-years away, returned to this patch of starry sky, everyone fell silent. Ains looked at the youth beside him in amazement.

"Fang, when did you install these waveguide devices in the fortresses?"

"During the first round of repairs. Seeing as we were about to lose, one always has to make some preparations. Of course, the fewer people who know, the better."

Lin Fang glanced at him and replied, "I know what you want to ask, but there are more urgent matters right now."

Then Lin Fang looked ahead with a serious expression.

"Little Black, how is it going?"

[Boss, the intelligence of the Philiphimus Civilization uses a very complex language protocol. I can't crack them yet; it will take some time.]

[But after the previous intrusion, I can rely on the source code I obtained to simulate corresponding information.]

"Good. Launch the meme virus to their home world then."

Lin Fang waved his hand. This eerie thing was naturally better off being as far away from himself as possible.