Egg from the Starry Sky

Pulling the dagger from the mutant beast's neck, he wiped the blood clean on the two-meter-long creature's hide, paying no mind to the five claw marks still seeping blood on his back. Mu Fan grinned.

Lucky break—this was a lone mutant beast wandering the jungle's edge, dangerous but not lethal. In his eyes, the blood and wounds on his body mattered far less than the few hundred kilograms of meat lying on the ground!

He could never remember being full. Mu Fan squinted nostalgically, then shook it off. Forget it, filling his stomach came first. This food, rationed carefully, could last a few days. He lowered his head, ready to haul his spoils away.

No, there was a sound! A deafening, scalp-crawling boom of breaking the sound barrier crashed down from the sky, and suddenly a shadow fell over his prey on the ground.

Mu Fan jerked his head up. A streak of fire, a rainbow of flame from the heavens, tore through the night sky like a God's Sword, stabbing straight into Luoqie Star's earth!

Mu Fan could only stare dumbly as the awe-inspiring fireball plunged into the depths of the jungle.

Wait... the depths of the jungle?

Mu Fan's eyes flew wide. The moment he realized he might not be safe, the fireball struck the ground. A violent shockwave, born from the impact, blasted outward from the jungle three kilometers away, sweeping everything before it with irresistible force. Trees toppled in waves.

Mu Fan's jaw hadn't even closed before bang—he was knocked flat.

A massive plume of dust rose. The flames died out in the jungle. Over forty kilometers away in the city, people just heard a loud bang, dismissed it as another routine meteorite fall, and went back to their drunken nightlife.

Crack.

"My teeth... can I still eat meat?" A crisp sound of teeth clacking came from beneath the rubble. Mu Fan shook his head hard left and right. When the two slanted tree shadows in front of him merged into one, his brain finally caught up.

Lying with his head on the ground, staring at the sky that had returned to stillness and darkness, he let out a loud howl—"My meat!!"

With a spring, Mu Fan's explosive body bounced up from the ground. This time, he ignored the fresh cuts and the dirt caked all over him even more directly, looking around. Good, the meat hadn't been blown away. He plopped back down, relieved.

"What was it? A meteor from outside the planet, or falling space junk?" A flicker of thought passed through Mu Fan's bright eyes. "I'll go check it out first, then come back for it."

Treating the darkness as nothing, he moved forward. The violent impact had already scared off any nearby fierce beasts. The farther he went, the more severe the tree fall became. Mu Fan moved nimbly toward the crash site.

Ahead, he could already smell the scorched wood. Leaping over a giant tree as thick as a man's embrace, Mu Fan saw the massive, spiderweb-like crater. At its center lay something quietly sparking now and then... a "Black Egg"? Yeah, a black egg. Mu Fan was satisfied with his own assessment. His limited vocabulary made it hard to find a better word.

Carefully sliding down the crater's edge, Mu Fan stared curiously at the black egg lying still at the very bottom, step by step approaching. The occasional sparks on the egg couldn't even illuminate its true color. A pitch-black, egg-shaped object about a meter long lay before him.

"There are circuit sparks, so it's probably metal." Mu Fan grabbed a broken branch nearby and tapped it. Thud. Hollow inside. He touched the leaves on the branch he'd picked up—warm. "Hm, the surface temperature has already dropped."

Mu Fan pressed his gloved hands against the black egg's surface, feeling the heat through his palms. Slightly hot. He gave it a light push, and the black egg shifted in the giant pit.

"About 200 kilograms." Mu Fan stood up, looked around, and used the surrounding rubble to smother the occasional sparks on the egg. Then he clenched his fist, let out a grunt, and lifted the black egg straight off the ground, hoisting it onto his right shoulder. With a few quick, springy leaps, he bounded out of the pit with strength that belied his frame, then dashed straight for his food. On the outskirts of Luoqie Star's District 22, under the night sky, no one noticed the slender figure running along the wilderness road, one arm carrying a big black egg, the other dragging a dead mutant beast.

Mu Fan grinned, his eyes sparkling. Go home, eat meat, then see what good thing he'd picked up. Was this a gift from the stars?

The thick night clouds, the planet-wrapping layers of space junk, the wilderness far from the city, the deserted jungle edge—everything perfectly concealed this tiny incident on this distant planet.

At the edge of the Local Star System, 0.7 light-years from Luoqie Star, the silent, eerie void was filled with chaotic rubble drifting aimlessly. Deep within the Meteorite Belt, a massive black rift suddenly tore open the space. Three silver-white Heavy Warships emerged. Their sleek, smooth hulls bore no markings, but the Heavy Particle Cannons mounted externally, like vicious dragons, and the dense array of variously shaped gun barrels protruding from the hulls, proclaimed the terrifying combat power of these three ships.

"Family Head, the fleet has jumped to the outer domain. We've lost the trail! Your subordinate failed in his duty, please punish me!" On the flagship, the captain in dark blue military uniform knelt on one knee. Before him stood a tall, middle-aged man in the same blue uniform. Behind the lenses on his nose bridge were a pair of cold, authoritative eyes. The elder expressionlessly glanced at the kneeling captain, paused for a few seconds. "Our Huangchuan Family has lain dormant under the Empire's banner for a hundred years. Amid the Empire and Federation's open and covert struggles, how many once-noble houses have now vanished into smoke. Playing it safe, huh. That bunch of Emperor Star nobles have completely degenerated. Opportunity has now fallen into your and my laps. If we don't seize it, there will be no second chance. Chuan Shisan, which galaxy is our fleet in now?"

"Family Head, we have now jumped into the Star River Federation's territory. We are currently in a small Meteorite Belt, undetected by Federation forces. Please decide, Family Head." An officer to the middle-aged man's right quickly operated on a holographic projection screen, and a small three-dimensional star map appeared before everyone.

"Chuan Yi, get up. It shouldn't be the Empire Hawk Eye and their lackeys. If it were them, they wouldn't enter Federation space. We can rest assured. To avoid exposing the fleet, go back and speed up the preparations." The middle-aged man addressed as Family Head pondered briefly before saying, "Return."

"As you command, Family Head!" The captain rose, returned to the command post, and issued orders. "Activate Jump Engine, power 175%. Activate Huangchuan Iron Curtain Mode. Load Node 1 space coordinates. Perform coordinate vector calibration. All personnel—return!"

The black rift that had just vanished reappeared, tearing open horizontally like a giant vertical pupil. The white light flowing over the warships eerily turned pitch black, and then they slowly sank into the rift. The vertical pupil closed. The Meteorite Belt returned to its usual silence.

If anyone from a Federation science lab had been there, they would have been utterly stunned. Small Static Space Transmission Channel Technology—this was only a field the Federation had just begun to touch, yet someone was already using it in practice. But all this went unknown.

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PS: Thanks to the reader Dare to Make All Saints Bow for the tip, and thanks to readers Bai Yiduo and Remnant★Snow Without Trace for their tips!