The moment he finished saying that sentence, Liu Shiheng suddenly became conscious of his predicament once more—he could genuinely die at any moment. His nerves tightened again.
Yet nothing happened. After drifting off for a brief moment, Ne chuckled and skipped over the topic entirely.
And so, their aimless conversation carried on for over two hours, to the point where Liu Shiheng had relaxed so completely that he was slumping back against the chair.
"How about I just listen to you tell a story instead, Uncle Ne? You mentioned earlier that you had an interesting one," he suggested.
In fact, back then, Ne had also mentioned that the story was about secrets...
"Oh, all right," Ne agreed readily, then said slowly, "In that case, how about I tell you a travel story about an extraterrestrial?"
"It happened a very long time ago..." he began.
"No, wait, stop!" Liu Shiheng snapped back to his senses and shouted to cut him off.
"Too late, Young Master. The story has already begun."
Ne's voice sounded like a sudden judgment, drifting near and far. With no one in sight, there was no telling whether he was smiling or wearing a sinister sneer.
"Don't, Mr. Ne, don't! I don't want to hear it anymore, I—"
In sheer panic, Liu Shiheng raised his hands to cover his ears, even if it seemed pointless.
His hands rose, lifting to the front of his face... but no matter how hard he struggled, they could not move any higher.
In his terror, he wanted to turn and flee out the door, but his legs wouldn't move either.
Then, Liu Shiheng slowly floated up, gradually suspended in midair. The surrounding air became viscous and powerful, wrapping around and lifting him. It caused no harm, yet rendered him completely immobile.
He was like an insect caught in an invisible spiderweb.
And then: "A long, long time ago..."
Ne started over, continuing:
"Exactly how long ago is no longer known. A spacecraft exploring outer space—for reasons unknown to us, perhaps intentionally, perhaps not—landed on an azure planet.
"During the process, the ship was severely damaged in an accident, but one creature inside survived.
"It stepped out from the ruined vessel, treading upon the ice, snow, and flowing waters here, and began observing this alien world.
"I suggest you not imagine it as a Black Armor or a Red Shoulder. You can picture it looking like a human, or at least mostly similar...
"Because in their nation, it was nobility, a formidable existence.
"Well, for convenience of the telling, let us give it a name—Nikola, for instance," Ne said.
On the land where it first set foot, Nikola spent its initial period of fear in concealment and exploration. That period actually lasted a very, very long time, until finally, it departed.
From the ice and snow, it stepped onto soil and gravel.
That was another continent.
Nikola encountered new species. It began secretly observing the creatures that ruled this planet, discovering they were quite similar to itself.
It touched the plants and flowers with its hands, waded through streams with its feet...
Eventually, Nikola realized it could likely rule this world.
Compared to this world, it was simply too powerful, and its super-spacecraft held reserves of source energy beyond imagination. Yet that seemed unnecessary, and even more meaningless.
Moreover, on a few accidental occasions, from human conversations and bizarre rituals, Nikola heard that hidden in the unseen depths of this world, there existed entities beyond imagination.
They called them "gods"—all manner of gods.
"Well then, what should I do?"
When Nikola returned to the continent of ice and snow and found that its spacecraft could not be repaired by any means, much less rebuilt, it knew it would be buried on this blue planet.
Indeed, by the standards of its homeland, Nikola was very old, nearing death. Otherwise, given its status, it would never have boarded an exploration ship—that was a duty relegated to "tools."
"Perhaps I can walk every inch of this land, try living here. I will speak with humans, and seek an audience with their gods."
With this thought, inside the vessel, Nikola performed a cruel operation on itself.
It became even more humanlike. Then, from another direction, it prepared to leave the continent of ice and snow once again.
This time, it made an astonishing discovery.
"This is... the remains of a Yanxiu!" Nikola, who was itself a mature Yanxiu, suddenly sensed it, found it, and began to weep.
This was precisely one of the things they had been bitterly searching for!
They searched for source energy planets, dead iron planets, and this—and this was the greatest of all.
Ecstatic, Nikola returned to the craft and, using every method at its disposal with the already damaged equipment, transmitted a signal across the sea of stars to the coordinates of its homeland.
After that, it did not stay behind to wait, for waiting would take far too long.
Once more, Nikola left the continent of ice and snow to explore this world, hunting down the remains of Yanxiu, taking them away, and sealing them away.
Humans would never find them.
And those coming from its homeland would find them, for they would ultimately turn this planet upside down.
During this process, Nikola began blending into human life under various identities... It served as a tribal king, the coachman to a real monarch, the captain of an ocean-going fleet, a tavern bartender, a knight, a poet, and a missionary. It had even been loved by a few young women.
Nikola knew it would complete the collection, because it would traverse every corner of this land, and there was still time.
And so greed took root. It suddenly hoped to use this world's native resources and human methods to expand toward neighboring planets... If time permitted, perhaps new discoveries could be made.
After all, those planets were situated around a world where Yanxiu had once existed; there was a high probability that related things existed there.
Thus, while slowing the pace of its collection, Nikola began learning the entirely new knowledge system of this world.
Nikola was brilliant, and compared to humans, it possessed a long lifespan, allowing it to dedicate vast amounts of time to study, research, and contemplation.
Later, Nikola became a renowned university professor and a great scientist.
Out of all the identities it had ever held, this was the most prominent.
Regrettably, despite immense effort and substantial assistance, research into interstellar exploration progressed at a crawl. Nikola had already wasted too much time, so it chose to give up, for the prospect was far too distant.
"I shall die before your arrival.
"Therefore, I will seek out and seal away all the true wealth of this world, lest an accident in the course of history give rise to a power capable of defying us.
"You must understand that because of the source energy fluctuations I brought, certain wills are awakening, and I cannot inherit them a second time. Thus, someone here will eventually inherit those legacies. However, lacking source energy, they can never achieve awakening... much less ever grow into mature entities.
"These are my achievements and sacrifices; you shall sing praises of them in the future.
"I shall record this, awaiting the day of your arrival..."
Everything seemed to be going smoothly. What Nikola had never anticipated occurred in the early twentieth century, in its final, frail years.
In terms of time, it was impossible for the spacecraft from its homeland to arrive so early after receiving the signal—it should have taken at least several more decades.
Yet another vessel exploring space—a 'small boat crewed by tools'—accidentally fell upon this planet as well. Upon crashing, it had even broadcasted information to other ships in the surrounding sector...
Damn them. Those two or three foolish tools actually ventured far from their ship to fight, drained their own source energy, and were ultimately slaughtered by humans.
Their deaths mattered not in the least.
Yet they gave this world dead iron and source energy...
...as well as the subsequent "tool ships" that arrived scattered across the globe.
Already decrepit, Nikola was powerless to prevent any of this. With the last remnants of its life, it began frantically scouring the final few lands and the remains hidden within them...
"I believe I have succeeded."
In the final moments of its life, Nikola returned to the continent of ice and snow and, inside its spacecraft, carrying the glory of its race's torch within its heart, passed away.
Chapter 523