Chapter 14: Mechanical Civilization, Section 3

A violent shockwave instantly swept through the entire ship. Even trapped in their thick seats, people could feel the terrifying tremors, akin to those of a blender. With a loud *pop*, a cloud of blood burst forth from the control room.
The pressure beyond human limits forced these pirates to spit blood…
The blood mist appeared for only a moment before being obscured by pressure once again, turning everyone’s faces red as they twisted in pain. Yet not a single person blinked; all eyes were fixed on Li Feng’s main screen!!
For that was their hope—the large armor-piercing missile carried by Hei Fa.
Accelerating at full power, Li Feng was terrifying. In just an instant, it had flown over the asteroid, vanishing deep into space driven by the violent particle stream. Meanwhile, a huge oval object, like a meteor with a long tail, slammed into the asteroid’s surface.
“Boom!!!”
A massive explosion erupted in the silent starry sky. Even if the large missile launched from Li Feng couldn’t explode, its destructive power was still astonishing. Through Li Feng’s greatly amplified main screen, almost everyone could see the asteroid’s surface deformed by the immense force, forming a terrifying crater the size of thirty football fields!!
“Click!!” The red light indicating the missile’s central system went out instantly…
God… Everyone closed their eyes in agony. At that moment, their hearts trembled. Though they had experienced countless fierce battles and narrowly avoided death many times, they still couldn’t control their emotions.
Because they knew that red light represented the missile’s core. Its extinction meant all of its power systems had been destroyed, leaving Hei Fa without any protection.
To carry out Hei Fa’s insane plan, the genius mechanic Jack lived up to his high salary. Not only did he fulfill all of Hei Fa’s demands but also installed anti-gravity engines temporarily inside the missile. Although these still couldn’t counteract the neutron star’s terrifying gravity, they could significantly reduce its effects. Combined with the ship-grade composite armor taken from Li Feng’s storage, this formed Hei Fa’s first line of defense.
But now, that defense was gone.

There’s nothing to do; no matter how much protection there is, a missile hitting an asteroid will inevitably cause a terrifying impact. In such an environment, not to mention a single missile, even warships would likely not remain intact. The situation before them had actually been calculated by Black Hair long ago. Yet, once it truly happened, people still couldn’t bear to accept such reality.

“Head… are you okay now?”

Blood-eyed stared blankly at the screen, murmuring to himself. Beside him, Sulei and Lily were already in tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

At the same time, 800 meters beneath the asteroid’s surface…

A completely deformed missile shell lay there quietly. Aside from its outer armor, all its components had been crushed into various grotesque shapes by the pressure. The solid energy crystals used as fuel were scattered everywhere, with temperatures surprisingly high. If it weren’t for the absence of air in space, intense combustion would have occurred long ago.

Yet its interior was completely empty. From the missile’s rupture, a huge hole with a diameter of five meters was visible. It was pitch black inside, making it impossible to see anything. Only strange energy fluctuations could be sensed emanating from within.

Black Hair felt as though his body was being squeezed into a thin pancake. Immense pressure pressed in from all directions, making even breathing a luxury. His strength was draining rapidly, and the surroundings began to distort. Sweat streamed down his cheeks, dripping onto the mech’s control panel with a crisp sound.

What a nightmare… Black Hair simply couldn’t bear to recall what had just happened.

For this mission, he had chosen the engineering mech equipped in the Gale Ship’s cabin instead of the Nightmare. It turned out to be the right decision. Without the special protective devices of the engineering mech, the impact of the missile landing alone would have reduced him to dust. Black Hair had always believed that his genetically modified body could withstand such impacts, but only after facing it firsthand did he realize how absurd his thinking had been.

That power, far beyond human imagination, was beyond his body’s capacity to endure. The moment the missile shell ruptured and deformed, Black Hair smelled death once again. Fortunately, the mech’s dedicated shock-absorbing devices came into play. He immediately severed the connection to the missile’s core and used the missile’s shell as a shield to crash into the depths of the asteroid’s surface, while he followed behind it, entering that place.

It turned out his decision was absolutely correct. The missiles, as he had intended, absorbed most of the impact force and turned into ruins, while he successfully reached a depth of 800 meters beneath the planet’s surface. Here, rocks were no longer the main structural component; instead, it was mostly a metal-like substance. Mixed with the hard soil and rocks, it reflected a cold glow under the lights of the engineering mech.

Without even looking, Kurokami could tell it was a metal that had been compressed and purified to the extreme—its refinement far surpassing all known human materials. The engineering mech’s specialized detection devices had already confirmed this. But the composition of this metal remained a mystery. One thing was certain: its hardness exceeded that of diamond!!!

Whenever geological structures containing this metal appeared, the mech’s drilling bit would emit a terrifying grinding sound and could go no further. Kurokami had no choice but to dig another passage alongside it.

What if the entire planet was made of this metal structure…? This terrifying thought suddenly flashed through Kurokami’s mind.

Sweat streamed down his forehead in rivulets as he immediately focused on the monitor inside the mech, where he could see the shape of the passage he had dug… It was a long arc!!!

“Bang!” He collapsed heavily into the chair, feeling all his strength drain away.

These metals… weren’t naturally scattered in the soil—they formed… a huge shell!!! The shell of the entire asteroid!!!

Although he had long known this asteroid was an artificial planet, it wasn’t until he actually saw its shell that Kurokami realized his estimates were completely wrong.

From Earth’s technological standpoint, creating an artificial planet wasn’t impossible. But there were strict limits on its size—generally, it would only be slightly larger than an aircraft carrier, sufficient to serve as an important supply base drifting in space for a long time.

But this planet wasn’t like that. If Kurokami’s prediction was true, its diameter would reach a terrifying 30 kilometers—far exceeding that of a neutron star!!! (Generally, neutron stars are the densest objects in the universe, making them also the smallest.)

This… is impossible…

Kurokami finally began to doubt his own judgment. As far as he knew, artificial celestial bodies with a diameter of thirty kilometers were simply impossible to exist in this world. Not only was there no suitable propulsion system, but the materials required to create such objects were also incalculable in quantity. Moreover, with human technology, it was utterly impossible to reach a stage where such massive celestial bodies could be manufactured.

Could this asteroid be the product of some other unknown civilization?

Suddenly, Kurokami thought of this, and excitement appeared on his face once again. His fingers flew rapidly across the control panel. The engineering mech immediately increased its digging speed to the fullest extent, sparing no energy. This time, however, it wasn’t competing with those mysterious metals but rather exploring along their surfaces.

The scene before him gradually blurred, and Kurokami could feel his breathing becoming labored. Yet his mood was extremely excited. He simply refused to believe that this planet didn’t have any entrances, maintenance passages, weapon bays, or anything similar. As long as he could find a gap, he could use his abilities to penetrate inside the planet.

As for whether he would still have the strength to do anything else after entering, he no longer cared. The vast unknown before him completely captivated him, driving him to push himself to the limit.

Seconds passed by. Just as the energy reserve bar in the upper right corner of the mech’s control screen turned red and Kurokami’s patience was about to reach its limit, he finally discovered a gap—a valve only five meters square. Due to prolonged exposure to high pressure and corrosion, the valve’s surface was completely black, with no visible mechanical controls. But this posed no problem for Kurokami. As long as the interior of the valve could still function, no mechanical operation could withstand his abilities.

“Bang!”

His left arm turned into a dense mass of black threads once more, extending through the special channels of the engineering mech. It pierced straight into the surface of the valve. After a brief pause, it sank deep inside. Immediately afterward, Kurokami’s expression changed drastically.

Like a raging tsunami, the moment the black threads entered the valve and reached the control mechanism, an overwhelming flood of information surged into his mind—so vast in quantity and intensity that it far exceeded his imagination. Even his genetically modified brain could not handle it. Severe pain swept through his body in an instant, causing him to groan in pain as his face turned pale.

Big drops of sweat rolled down his forehead. For a moment, Kurokami thought he was dead.
But no… absolutely not… he had to hold on. If he fainted now, all his previous efforts would be in vain. Kurokami knew that these wildly flooding pieces of information were part of this artificial planet, and he had to accurately locate the control valve among this vast ocean of data. And he had to do it quickly—he doubted he could last even another minute.
His strong willpower once again performed a miraculous feat. Kurokami’s face was contorted from intense pain, yet he gritted his teeth and persevered. Just as his will was about to give out, his expression suddenly lit up, and the valve loosened abruptly. The massive engineering mech tumbled in like a rolling drum. Instantly, the immense pressure made everything dark before his eyes.
“Bang!!” The valve closed again.
Success…
It was unclear how much time had passed. Kurokami’s vision returned to normal, and feeling his extremely weak body, a sense of relief welled up in his heart.
All his efforts, all his hardships—were for this mysterious planet. Now, let me see what secrets you hold that are worth exploring…
Fumbling his way to the control panel, Kurokami turned on the backup power switch for the engineering mech. The lights inside the cabin instantly turned red. The mech roared as it rose from the ground.
It was a long corridor with no end in sight. There was no lighting in the corridor, so Kurokami could only rely on the mech’s built-in lighting to explore. To his delight, he no longer felt that terrifyingly strong gravity in this environment!!
What did this mean?
It meant the asteroid’s mechanical systems were still functioning properly, and the anti-gravity device was still working. Thus, it was predictable that the asteroid remained intact to this day!!
An intact artificial planet, a fully equipped space base—such vast assets filled Kurokami with excitement just by thinking about them. In his enthusiasm, the mech’s speed increased significantly. Scans across various wavelengths were activated, leaving no suspicious area unexamined.
The corridor was very long, seemingly endless. The dark environment was silent, with only the sound of the mech moving. But Kurokami wasn’t in a hurry at all. Because he had already found information about this corridor from the countless data he had received earlier.

This is a maintenance passage. As Black Hair had guessed, it was one of the paths used by the original owners of the asteroid to maintain its surface. Therefore, no large weapons were installed in the passage; instead, there were over thirty sealed valves. Of course, under normal circumstances, these sturdy valves were equivalent to the armor of a warship. But for Black Hair, they were nothing more than decorations.
What he was concerned about was the other end of the passage. According to the information, at the end of this corridor lay a vast space, where there might just be something of interest to Black Hair…
A maintenance workshop.