To Hell with Fengyuan Star

Inside the cabin, Gu Ding had already climbed into the Escape Pod. Under the effects of the hypnotic gas, he quickly fell into a deep sleep. He knew that in this situation, he would only get in Sea Emperor's way, so he could only leave everything else to him.

Sea Emperor also entered a state of high-speed computation. Due to the limitations of Gu Ding's genetic level, many of his permissions had not been unlocked. Even his basic detection function could only extend about a hundred meters. On top of that, the network had been affected by the electromagnetic disturbances caused by the Interstellar Storm, making it impossible to obtain real-time information about the storm from the outside network. He could only rely on the ship's own detection radar and the predictions he had made from the beginning.

He drove the Young Eagle into extreme-speed flight, trying to get as far from the center of the storm as possible. Due to its high-speed operation, the ship began to show signs of instability, but everything was within Sea Emperor's expectations. The Young Eagle was merely a cheap modified model with severely limited performance. It was already doing remarkably well to function like this. Asking more of it was simply unrealistic.

Half an hour passed before the detection radar finally responded. It was a meteor swarm brought by the Interstellar Storm. Sea Emperor calmly calculated the trajectory of every meteor, then slightly slowed the Young Eagle. At extreme speed, the Young Eagle's flight path would develop minor deviations. Sea Emperor did not want it to be struck by the meteor swarm because of such errors, so he would rather sacrifice speed and weather this wave first.

Within minutes, the meteor swarm had drawn near. Meteor fragments of all sizes packed the void in a dense mass. Sea Emperor's statistics showed that there were 11,281 fragments in total. He had already precisely calculated every one of their trajectories, as well as the Young Eagle's optimal flight path.

The meteor fragments were too densely packed. Although the ship was not large, it could not completely avoid every meteor's assault. Sea Emperor activated the ship's energy shield and carefully controlled the Young Eagle's trajectory, dodging the impacts of hundreds of large meteors.

With a boom, the ship's shield was quickly struck by a meteor fragment, and the energy barrier visibly dimmed. Sea Emperor immediately adjusted its direction. After being hit, the ship's course needed to be fine-tuned again.

Simply maintaining the energy shield consumed a huge amount of energy. Every impact multiplied that consumption several times over. According to Sea Emperor's estimates, the Young Eagle's shield could withstand at most twelve impacts of that level before its energy was completely depleted.

Even along the optimal route Sea Emperor had calculated, this meteor assault would inevitably require them to endure eight impacts of that same level. About twenty minutes passed in a flash. The Young Eagle finally held on and completely passed through the meteor swarm, with only a thin layer of energy shield remaining.

After deactivating the energy shield, Sea Emperor pulled up the star map of the nearby region. He knew they had to quickly find a planet where the ship could temporarily shelter. Preferably, it would be a planet with oxygen, because the Young Eagle required sufficient energy to produce oxygen. If its energy ran dry, the oxygen aboard would only last Gu Ding three days, and that was assuming the hull remained intact. If the hull was damaged and oxygen leaked out, Gu Ding might not even last twenty-four hours.

Sea Emperor silently prayed, "Please, don't let there be a second meteor swarm."

If a second meteor swarm appeared, the ship's energy would very likely be completely depleted. Then Gu Ding's situation would become dangerous.

But things often moved in the opposite direction from what people hoped for. Sea Emperor's prayer received no response from the gods—the second meteor swarm soon appeared on the ship's radar.

This meteor swarm was more than three times the size of the previous one. Sea Emperor began frantically calculating survival strategies.

"If we take it head-on, the ship will definitely be destroyed..." Sea Emperor carefully analyzed every possibility. "Then all I can do is lower the Escape Pod's temperature, put Gu Ding into suspended animation, reduce oxygen consumption, and send the Escape Pod toward a nearby planet. The Escape Pod's propulsion is too weak. If it encounters a meteor swarm, Gu Ding's chance of death will be one hundred percent."

"The ship has less than thirty percent energy left, and there's no suitable landing planet nearby. A suitable planet not only needs oxygen, but also gravity on the same order as Deep Sea Star's, while its temperature cannot exceed the limit humans can endure. Humans really are fragile creatures..." Thinking of all these conditions, Sea Emperor could not help but sigh.

"There's no choice. The most energy-efficient method is to drift along with the meteor swarm. It's just that Gu Ding probably won't make it to Fengyuan Star." At that thought, Sea Emperor could not help but curse. "To hell with Fengyuan Star! Staying alive matters more than anything!"

Over these past days, he had learned quite a few human catchphrases, most of them not particularly pleasant. The facts proved that humans were not the only ones who picked up such phrases quickly—even a Super Intelligence like Sea Emperor learned them fast.

Having made what he believed was the most correct choice, Sea Emperor controlled the Young Eagle to avoid several meteors. On the Young Eagle's radar, he found a relatively nearby meteor with considerable mass. He altered the ship's course, guided the Young Eagle onto that enormous meteor, then shut down the Young Eagle's engines.

He did not wake Gu Ding, because Gu Ding would consume more oxygen while active and would also need sufficient food to replenish himself. In a sleeping state, he could save not only some oxygen but also more food. Sea Emperor did not know where Gu Ding would ultimately end up. Faced with such an unknown situation, preserving more oxygen and food would allow Gu Ding to survive longer.

Throughout the entire Young Eagle, nearly all equipment had stopped operating. Only the Escape Pod containing Gu Ding still had an oxygen supply, while the ship's radar retained its densely packed red dots.

Sea Emperor kept the radar running because he needed its feedback to compare against the star map from before their departure and determine where he and Gu Ding were. Since SkyNet's network had been blocked by electromagnetic interference, Sea Emperor could only use this clumsy method to determine their location.

If they remained along the route shown on that previous star map, Sea Emperor could use the various pieces of information marked on it to find a planet suitable for the ship to land on.

But Sea Emperor's hopes were quickly dashed. The Young Eagle stayed on the meteor for three days, and the path of this meteor wave soon drifted away from the route on the previous star map. Worse still, this meteor swarm left the Tianhe Star Region and plunged headlong into the Gloomy Star Region, infected by all manner of viruses.

Along the way, Sea Emperor could not find even a single planet suitable for the ship to land on. He could only follow the meteor swarm into the Gloomy Star Region...