66: Gray wind

That silver-white giant ship, with a design full of chaotic aesthetic beauty as if it had sailed directly out of a myth, existed against the pitch-black backdrop of the universe for less than a minute.

Its appearance was fleeting, yet it brought a visual impact sufficient to shake the soul.

Just as Lei Wen was still dazed by its magnificent stature, a ripple like water waves suddenly appeared on the surface of its massive hull.

Following that, the entire giant ship, like a sugar cube dropped into water, began to become transparent and blurry from the edges, finally dissolving silently into that deep darkness.

It hadn't truly disappeared.

Instead, it had activated some kind of cloaking force field that Lei Wen could not understand.

Before Lei Wen even had time to ask, Grey Wind's voice, carrying a hint of credit-seeking and showmanship, rang out in his communication channel.

"Done! My self-improved cloaking force field isn't bad, right? Theoretically, it can perfectly deflect electromagnetic waves of all bands! It's just a bit energy-intensive... Oh well, it's not like we're lacking that bit of energy anyway."

Lei Wen looked at the empty space before him, then looked down at the beautiful blue planet beneath his feet, and couldn't help but break into a cold sweat.

The size of that giant ship just now was truly exaggerated.

That giant ship alone was over thirty kilometers long, while the Babel Space Station was only fifty kilometers in diameter.

It was almost as big as more than half the space station.

Such a massive object suddenly appearing in Earth's synchronous orbit, even though it only existed for a short minute, was already at a level where it could be vaguely seen with the naked eye from Earth on a clear day.

He could almost imagine that in that very minute, the alarms at major observatories on Earth must have been sounding in unison, and countless astronomy enthusiasts were staring dumbfounded at their telescopes, wondering if they were hallucinating.

"I hope 'white flower' can handle this commotion well..." Lei Wen prayed silently in his heart.

Just as he was distracted, a small patch of nanocloud, like silver stardust, flew silently from the location where the giant ship had disappeared to right in front of him.

This nanocloud rapidly spun, condensed, and deformed in front of him.

Within just a few seconds, it assembled out of thin air into the shape of a graceful young girl.

It was exactly the stunningly beautiful girl with long silver hair and azure eyes that Lei Wen had seen in the game interface.

She was still wearing that silver-white liquid metal bodysuit that felt like a second skin, perfectly outlining her youthful and energetic body curves.

On her face, which was too beautiful to be real, there was a playful and cute smile.

She was just floating in front of Lei Wen, her feet off the ground, suspended in space.

"Hi!" She spun lightly in the air using power from who knows where, then flew straight toward Lei Wen like a butterfly, almost pressing against his spacesuit helmet.

Her pure, sapphire-like eyes curiously examined Lei Wen.

Before Lei Wen could even speak, her machine-gun-like chatterbox opened up again.

"Wow! You look a bit different now! You look a lot more mature! Did you get a new body? This material looks so fragile, not even an energy shield; what if you get hit by a meteorite? And this helmet of yours, what a big fishbowl! The view must be great, right? But why make it transparent? Won't that let enemies see your scared expression?"

"Oh, right, right! Why didn't you speak just now? Was my entrance too cool, and it scared you? I knew it! I practiced for such a long time! You have no idea how bored I was, all by myself in that pitch-black place; every day, besides sleeping, I just practiced various cool entrance poses..."

"And why did you call me out? Are we going to fight? Tell me quickly, who are we fighting? Is it that group of abstract-looking Solin worms? Or that bunch of soft-bodied creatures who only know how to hide in their shells? Could it be the Dimensional Demons? Those guys are indeed a bit tricky... But I recently upgraded my weapon system again; I guarantee I'll beat them so hard they won't even be able to find their own DNA!"

Lei Wen felt his head buzzing from this dense "information bombardment."

Looking at the girl in front of him who was chattering non-stop, yet whose face was beaming with the joy of reunion, the heavy pressure in his heart caused by the approaching Far Star Fleet dissipated quite a bit without him realizing it.

He even had an illusion.

As if he had returned to his college days, when he could sit in front of a computer and play games without a care in the world.

And Grey Wind was that companion of his, who, although a bit noisy, was forever trustworthy.

After Grey Wind had chattered on her own for about ten minutes, seemingly having finally poured out the words she had pent up for many years, she stopped, still seemingly wanting to say more, and blinked those big azure eyes at Lei Wen, waiting for his response.

"Are you done?" Lei Wen asked her helplessly.

"Hmm... done for now!" Grey Wind nodded heavily.

"Alright." Lei Wen took a deep breath; he knew this was no time for reminiscing.

He decided to get straight to the point.

"Grey Wind, I need your help." His voice became incredibly serious.

"I need you to help me deal with a fleet that is about to arrive here."

"A fleet?" Hearing that there was a fight, Grey Wind's eyes instantly lit up. "Alright, alright! How many of them are there? How's their equipment? Are they on the level of a Fallen Empire? Even if it's that bunch of old geezers, it doesn't matter; let me find a galaxy to develop in for a bit, and I guarantee I'll flip their nursing home upside down!"

"There aren't many of them, only ten ships." Lei Wen replied. "Composed of cruisers and destroyers."

"Ten ships?" Hearing this number, a look of disappointment appeared on Grey Wind's face. "Only ten... and they're just cruisers and destroyers? That's not even enough to fill the gaps between my teeth."

She patted her chest, which didn't actually exist, and said in a tone full of powerful confidence, "Don't worry! As long as it's not a fleet composed of dozens of Titans and hundreds of battleships, a mere few destroyers and cruisers... I can handle them all with one hand... oh no, one strand of hair!"

Lei Wen looked at her brimming confidence and felt a little more at ease.

But he was still a bit worried.

"They are a fleet from the Faleim Scientific Conglomerate."

"Faleim?" Hearing this name, Grey Wind tilted her head, seemingly searching her vast database for relevant information.

A moment later, she revealed an expression of sudden realization.

"Oh—! Aren't those your subordinates? That bunch of long-eared guys who think they're so smart! I remember them! You were the one who sent them to explore my L-Cluster, why fight them? Did they rebel? Ah! If that's the case, doesn't that mean you can only rely on me now? Guhehehehehe..."

She let out a weird laugh that made the hairs on Lei Wen's body stand on end.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, just because I can only assemble into such a small mothership right now." She continued immediately.

"Actually, every single one of my nano-subunits is equivalent to a nano-scale super-battleship capable of independent combat!"

"Let me tell you a secret!" She leaned in mysteriously to Lei Wen's helmet and lowered her voice (although the voice sounded directly in the communicator inside Lei Wen's helmet), "My individual subunits are not just this size in four-dimensional space! They can expand to the limit in the eleventh dimension; in terms of size, they are bigger than this blue planet, and inside there are various layered structures, capable of forming optical paths longer than the combined diameters of dozens of star systems. Impressive, right?"

"So don't look at a subunit as only having a nano-level scale; the civilization that created us was not one bit inferior to your former long-eared subordinates when it came to dimensional theory and research into the microscopic world!"

Grey Wind's words shattered Lei Wen's perception a bit.

Every nanobot is a dimensional weapon that can expand to the size of a planet?

Earthlings couldn't imagine what kind of ability this was at all; they couldn't even fantasize about it.

This was no longer science fiction.

This was fantasy.

"Right," Grey Wind seemed to suddenly remember something, and she curiously looked around. "What is this place? It looks so desolate; apart from this blue ball and that grey ball nearby, there is nothing. It doesn't seem to be Faleimland, and I can't even see any hyperspace lanes. Which corner of nowhere have we run off to?"

Her series of questions finally hit the core point.

Lei Wen looked at her azure eyes, which were filled with pure curiosity, and fell into silence.

How should he explain all this to her?

Tell her that the universe she was familiar with, the player she knew, and everything she had experienced were just a game on his computer?

Tell her that where she was now was a real world, and he was not the ruler of that vast empire, but just an ordinary creature of a primitive civilization from her perspective?

This truth was simply too absurd.

And perhaps too cruel.

But after a brief thought, Lei Wen finally made his decision.

He chose to be honest.

Intuition told him that Grey Wind could be completely trusted.

She was not just a unit in a game, a powerful weapon.

She was more like an old friend who had accompanied him for a very, very long time—a bit noisy, but infinitely loyal.

With friends, there should be no deception.

"Grey Wind," he took a deep breath and said in an unprecedentedly solemn tone, "What I am about to tell you might be a bit... complicated, and might even be hard for you to understand."

"But please believe me, every word I say is true."

He looked into Grey Wind's still-clear eyes and began to slowly tell his story.

Starting from how he was playing a game called "stellar universe" on a planet named Earth.

To how he guided a civilization named the Faleim Scientific Conglomerate toward ascension.

Then to how he discovered with horror that the world in his game had actually descended into the reality of the universe in an incredible way.

And all the efforts he had made in these past few years to deal with the impending crisis...

He told the girl made of nanobots in front of him everything he had encountered so far, all his secrets, all his fears and hopes, without reservation.

This was the first time he had revealed his innermost thoughts to a second "person" other than "white flower".

During his narration, Grey Wind, contrary to her usual behavior, did not interrupt him.

She just floated there quietly, her azure eyes looking at Lei Wen without blinking.

There was no surprise on her face, no confusion, and none of the intense emotional fluctuations Lei Wen had anticipated.

She just listened quietly.

As if listening to an old story with a hint of novelty.