170: Chapter 170 The Prince on the White Horse Will Slay All Demons

Advanced civilization, originally such a wonderful word.

But our advanced civilization was picked up,

pieced together from the wreckage and ruins of others,

and cultivated in solitude on an isolated island where stars could never be seen.

To gain this power, we lost the most important thing: we lost the starry sky.

How I wish I lived in that erroneous space-time.

In the space-time where π = 3.14, I only needed to look up slightly to see stars filling the sky.

What a wonderful sight that was.

The romance of a sky full of stars surpasses the loneliness of tens of thousands of years here.

I know that it is hard for me to escape this doom of living on the Great Moth Star, filled with darkness, despair, and loneliness.

But whenever the night is deep and quiet, I cannot help thinking, cannot help fantasizing.

Fantasizing about everything in that erroneous space-time of 3.14.

Fantasizing about everything on that azure planet called Earth.

I fantasize about being able to stand by the seaside, listening to the sound of the waves and feeling the sea breeze caressing my face.

I fantasize about being able to set foot on the mountain peak, admiring the lush greenery covering the mountains and fields.

I fantasize about Earth with its changing seasons, the drizzle of spring, the hot wind of summer, the fallen leaves of autumn, and the white snow of winter.

I fantasize about living there, living on that beautiful planet.

But now, my fantasies are being destroyed.

Because through the advanced civilization observation equipment of the Moth Star, I see that beautiful planet being destroyed bit by bit by humans.

They start wars, they pollute the oceans, they cut down forests,

and with greed and violence, they destroy this most precious azure miracle in the entire universe piece by piece.

This reminds me of a fairy tale I once read in a cultural document transmitted from Earth.

Just like in fairy tales, where Prince Charming is destined to rescue the beautiful princess from the hands of demons.

Now, Earth is that beautiful princess constantly ravaged by humans, the demons.

And we Mothmen are that destined Prince Charming.

We are destined to rescue the beautiful princess, we are destined to save Earth, and completely wipe out those demon-like humans.

Prince Charming is destined to marry the beautiful princess.

And we Mothmen are destined to live on this azure planet, treating her well, cherishing her, and respecting her.

Treating her a thousand times, ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times better than humans do.

Prince Charming and the beautiful princess will live happily ever after.

And between us Mothmen and Earth, it will also be like this, happy forever.

...

Elena Chen gently closed the yellowed printed paper and put it back into the folder.

In that instant, the entire room fell into an absolute silence as if all sound had been drained out of it.

Rockefeller III sat in his chair with his hands crossed and placed on the table, not speaking for a long while.

In his life, he had read countless reports:

petroleum exploration data, congressional hearing records, balance sheets of hostile financial conglomerates, copies of the Soviet five-year plan brought by KGB defectors,

but none of them, like this essay written at this moment from tens of thousands of light-years away by an alien scientist who had never seen a sky full of stars, sent a bone-chilling cold rising from the very base of his spine.

Samuel Astor slowly placed the folder he had been clutching in his hand onto the desktop, his fingers trembling slightly as they released the edge of the cover.

Isabelle DuPont clasped her fingers together and rested them on her knees, her lips tightly pursed as her gaze shifted from the folder in Elena's hand to the projection screen, still frozen on the translation of the last line of the essay.

Jacob Rothschild took off his glasses, placed them beside the open files on the table, and gently pressed his glabella with the pads of his fingers.

William Vanderbilt V unscrewed his never-absent flask and screwed it back on, repeating this twice without saying a single word.

They finally understood.

The reason the Mothmen did not descend upon Earth by forcibly projecting their consciousness was not because they couldn't,

they could do it, and could do it at any time,

but because they were unwilling.

Forcibly projecting into an incompatible shell could only allow survival for two to three months; what could be done in that amount of time?

It was enough to kill a few specific targets, enough to cause a few instances of chaos, but far from enough to wipe all of humanity off the face of Earth.

The true goal of the Mothmen was never revenge, never negotiation, nor reaching any form of coexistence with any Earth faction.

Every communication record, every page of technical manuscripts, and every piece of cultural exchange material translated by automatic translation programs left behind in the Crane Family archives all pointed to the same ultimate goal:

completely wipe out all humans and become the masters of this azure planet themselves!

And to accomplish this matter, they needed a place where they could stay long-term,

and they also needed a shell that could operate stably over a relatively long period of time.

They needed a perfect shell vessel.

Human shells had been thoroughly rejected after repeated experiments by three generations of the Crane Family spanning nearly a century.

But the shells of Grey Alien could work.

That essay used no diplomatic rhetoric and left no room for human fantasy.

It defined the status of humanity with extreme precision:

Demons.

Demons that needed to be completely wiped out.

The Mothmen were Prince Charming, the destined saviors bound to marry Earth, this beautiful princess.

Wiping out humanity and taking over Earth was not a strategic goal for this civilization that spanned ten thousand light-years of lonely void, but a fairy tale ending.

Rockefeller III slowly withdrew his hands crossed before the table, rested them on the armrests, and shifted his gaze from the projection screen to Soren Holmstrom. When he spoke, his tone remained steady, but his phrasing was more direct than any previous question.

"Soren, can every single word in this essay be cross-verified in other communication records of the Crane Family?"

Soren displayed summaries of several communication records from different years on the encrypted tablet side-by-side on the projection screen, nodded after browsing through a few pages.

"Yes."

"In fact, since the 1950s, the Crane Family has repeatedly received document fragments with a highly consistent style and content during routine communications with the Moth Star."

"The Moth Star side has never concealed their ultimate intention: to wipe out humanity and take over Earth."

"It's just that Solomon's grandfather and father always regarded this account as 'long-term strategic income' and never raised any objections in internal family memorandums."

Samuel Astor lifted his hand from the edge of the table and rested it on his knee, his lips moving slightly before closing again.

Isabelle DuPont's face was pale.

Jacob Rothschild put his glasses back on the bridge of his nose, pushing the frames up with fingers that were still trembling slightly.

William Vanderbilt V finally unscrewed the flask, took a sip, tightened the cap, and placed it on the corner of the table, not touching it again.