The Corroded Pandora

Staring blankly at the expectant Pandora in front of me, I suddenly understood—even the "War Song Princess," known for her belligerence, must be tired after nearly sixty thousand years of war.

After a moment of thought, I replied, "Of course I can take you away, but where will you go after you leave? Pandora should have already told you... it actually exists in name only. It's questionable whether the territory you once ruled still exists."

Pandora said without hesitation, "Of course I'll go with you—to that carbon-based civilization planet called Earth."

"Huh?" I was stunned.

Pandora wants to come back to Earth with me? Who came up with this script?! Could it be that after the Pandora Heavy Armored Legion, another massive army of alien migrant workers is going to march into Nanfu Street?

"Pandora, you're not serious, are you? There are so many of you..." I tried to make Pandora change her mind. One Pandora Heavy Armored Legion had already changed a third of the faces around me. If another Pandora Legion came, I probably wouldn't expect to see any Earthlings when I went out in the future. Although Pandora's army, like other Legions of the Empire, had non-sentient units as lower- and middle-level members that could be recycled into subspace, even if they were all taken back, the remaining commanders were not a small number. So many people rushing to Earth to buy pirated discs... cough cough, it seems I've become a bit neurotic because of Sikaro...

"Are you worried about my identity as the Shilin Emperor? Don't worry, I'm just temporarily staying with you. I won't interfere with your sovereignty—I can swear in the name of the Empire!"

...I wasn't worried about that at all. What I was worried about was if another group of pirated disc vendors like Sikaro appeared, the first interstellar war would probably break out between the Imperial Army and the city management.

But looking at Pandora's pitiful appearance, I couldn't bear to refuse her outright—she had nowhere else to go.

Also, is the supreme leader of the Empire really like this? Has this Pandora become a bit abnormal during the sixty thousand years of war?

Finally, I softened: "Alright, you can come back with me, but you have to agree to my conditions."

"Yay—" Pandora cheered, then stood up, took two steps back, and happily pounced on me...

Crack— A crisp sound, Ah— A tragic cry.

Broken, broken again...

Recovering from injuries again...

It seems that what Pandora told me about strengthening my body was true. At the very least, my recovery ability is much stronger...

Today is the third day since we arrived in this world ruled by magical beasts. In Pandora's base, I learned more details about their experiences.

It turned out that about sixty thousand years ago, when Pandora returned victorious from the Helenda Star System expedition, she happened to discover this planet. At that time, Pandora only planned to stay here for a few days, so she led her personal guard away from the main force of the Legion and came here. Unfortunately, on the second day after they landed on this planet, contact with the outside world was cut off (the entire Empire fell into slumber). Not only that, various equipment they carried also malfunctioned inexplicably. Not only were they unable to leave here, but their normal combat power was also greatly weakened, leading to a bitter struggle with the local magical beasts for sixty thousand years. Although the individual combat power of most of those magical beasts was not as good as that of her soldiers, they were vast in number and reproduced quickly. What puzzled Pandora and her commanders even more was that these magical beasts seemed to be inexhaustible. No one knew where they came from, only that every once in a while, a large number of crazy magical beasts would attack from all directions, leaving countless corpses before collectively retreating. Since they only brought a small portion of their military force when they came, it was already difficult for Pandora and her subordinates just to fight these magical beasts to a draw, let alone disperse their forces to investigate the source of these magical beasts. In these sixty thousand years, the only thing they knew about these enemies was that they all seemed to be corrupted by a force called the "Abyss," which made them so violent.

"The Abyss is the most dangerous thing in the universe," Pandora said with a particularly serious expression when she said this. "It is not energy or matter in the usual sense. To be precise, it represents a strong will, filled with pure destructive and annihilative desires. This force constantly wanders in the universe, and whenever it stops, this will begins to affect the surrounding things—whether it is carbon-based life, silicon-based life, or energy life, or even our semi-energy, semi-construct life, they will be affected by this force. What is even more unbelievable is that it can not only affect sentient life, but even things without consciousness cannot escape misfortune—when the 'Abyss' arrives, planets will deviate from their orbits, stars will burn wildly, gravity will be abnormal, various constants will be disordered, and finally everything will head towards destruction... It can be said that the Abyss, it is destruction itself."

When I went to ask Pandora about the Abyss, the little girl's face also showed a solemn expression. She said, "Although the data I can access is incomplete, it is certain that the force mentioned by Emperor Pandora does exist, and according to the data I currently have, the Abyss has always been the main enemy of the Empire."

...I didn't expect there to be such a glorious history of maintaining universal peace.

"Fortunately," standing on a cliff near the base, Pandora looked at the distant mountains like smoke and said, "It can finally end. Leave this damned place."

"It's incredible that you were able to persevere for so long," I sincerely sighed. "If it were me, I would have gone crazy long ago."

"I'm already crazy," Pandora turned to me and smiled sweetly, her wild curly hair drawing a golden halo. "Do you know? As the spiritual pillar of these warriors, I bear more pressure than anyone else. Even the spiritual power of the Shilin Emperor cannot remain clear for long in this situation. So, when the war lasted for fifty thousand years, my spirit collapsed once. At that time, I even planned to let the entire Legion self-detonate collectively and perish with this planet..."

I looked at Pandora in horror. The other party had a warm smile, and her eyes did not look like she was joking at all.

"Fortunately, at the last moment, I regained a moment of clarity," Pandora said with a warm and happy smile. "At that time, I thought that if I continued to live, I might bring great disaster to my warriors—they were too obedient to my orders. Even if I, who had gone crazy, asked them to commit suicide collectively, they would not have any questions, so I decided to end myself.

"I entered the Abyss..."

"The Abyss?" I was increasingly surprised. "Are you referring to that force that causes trouble everywhere in the universe?"

Hearing my words, Pandora couldn't help but chuckle: "Hehe, it's really interesting that you call such a terrifying thing a force that causes trouble... You're right, it's that thing. Although in most cases the Abyss is just an invisible and intangible force, they also have their own lair. When the power of the Abyss materializes, this entrance will appear... As a Shilin Emperor, I naturally have some special abilities. Using this ability, I alone found a materialized Abyss entrance and rushed in... Even if I die, I will make them suffer a little!

"In the Abyss, I saw many things you will never see in your life, and evil forces beyond your imagination. I don't know how many enemies I killed, and I don't know when I will run out of strength and die, I just fought day after day.

"I thought that my already shaky spiritual power would soon completely collapse under the effect of the Abyss, and then turn into a war beast that had lost all thought or be torn to pieces by the strange enemies in the Abyss, but—guess what happened later?"

I swallowed, looking nervously at the smiling Pandora. Whether it was her reckless behavior before or her sudden rambling to me now, it made me feel very wrong. The mental state of this Shilin Emperor seems to be really abnormal. Perhaps her last trace of sanity was completely destroyed in the Abyss? Is she actually a puppet controlled by the Abyss now? Or is she simply a seemingly normal lunatic?

I didn't answer for a moment, and Pandora didn't mind, but continued to talk to herself: "Later... I was really corrupted by the Abyss..."

When Pandora said this, she suddenly smiled faintly at me, and then slowly raised her right hand. Immediately, black materialized energy like flames spread from her fingertips, quickly enveloping her entire right half. In just a few seconds, Pandora's right half completely turned into black flames. This strange energy flame burned fiercely, and the shape of a human body was completely invisible. Her right hand, which she had just raised, turned into a terrifying claw half a meter long, with black smoke rising from it