Deposed Crown Prince: After three years of service on the frontier, the entire court knelt and begge

Chapter 1408 Confession

The consequences of the complete unsealing of the Star Network Hub seemed to be a nightmare he could not bear, ten thousand times more terrifying than the destruction of the base, the collapse of the council, and the annihilation of his own consciousness!

Looking at Xiao Dingshan, Xiao Ce's curiosity had actually reached its peak.

However, Xiao Ce remained strong and calm!

He watched coldly as the man struggled frantically in his final moments, his gaze sharp, giving him no chance to catch his breath or play any tricks!

“My patience is running out, my time is running out. Tell me what I want to know, or I'll leave now and do whatever I just said. I certainly won't be coming back! You should trust me, I will always keep my word!”

"You have only three seconds to choose."

The chilling countdown tolled like a death knell:

"three."

"two."

In his remaining right eye, the frantic fear, struggle, and resentment receded like the tide, leaving only a near-dead silence of desolation and... a desperate compromise.

"one..."

"I said!"

Xiao Ce did not interrupt him, but continued to look at him coldly.

Xiao Dingshan slowly said, "You should know that things like the Star Network Hub and the Hidden Dragon Armory are actually none of my business..."

Xiao Ce watched as Xiao Dingshan slowly began to speak, showing that he was also willing to communicate.

He'll nod!

Xiao Ce continued, "Didn't you say you were once space hunters? Didn't you come with those things?"

Xiao Dingshan shook his head, then said, "Of course not..."

"He...he's not someone you can imagine...nor is he the 'god' you think is manipulating you from behind..."

Xiao Dingshan's voice was broken and intermittent, as if he was resisting some kind of invisible pressure: "He is... a traveler like me, who was exiled, or rather... fell here."

Xiao Ce's eyes narrowed slightly. This beginning was unexpected, but he did not interrupt.

"But... he arrived... earlier than me..."

Xiao Dingshan's only remaining right eye stared blankly at the cold alloy ceiling above the cell, as if piercing through the physical barrier and plunging into the vast depths of the universe, lost in painful memories.

"So long ago... that humans on this planet were still practicing slash-and-burn agriculture... or even earlier... in that era, concepts like 'Xiao Kingdom' and 'Slavic' had not yet emerged..."

"He arrived here aboard his mothership... far larger and more advanced than the Hidden Dragon Arsenal... we call it 'The Ark'." Xiao Dingshan's tone carried a complex mix of emotions: awe, envy, and an unspeakable fear. "Not for conquest, not for colonization... he seems to be... on the run, or... searching for something lost..."

"He, or rather they... took advantage of the planet's then-barren environment and abundant resources... to build the Hidden Dragon Arsenal..."

Xiao Dingshan's metal head turned slightly, looking at Xiao Ce with a mocking expression: "You think that was your opportunity? It was nothing more than what he left behind... a massive, fully functional... arsenal and refuge! It was his preparation for a possible 'purge' or... return journey! The Star Network Hub... is the core navigation and communication hub he spun off after that 'Ark' crashed! It connects to the highest authority of the Hidden Dragon Arsenal!"

Xiao Ce's heart sank. The true master of the Hidden Dragon Armory? The source of the Star Network Hub?

This answer lifted some of the fog, but led to a deeper darkness. He suppressed his turbulent thoughts, his voice low and steady: "What was his name? Where did he come from? And why...did he fall?"

"A name?" Xiao Dingshan's voice was filled with sarcasm. "For beings like us, names are meaningless... You can call him 'Pioneer,' 'Lost One,' or... 'Stardust Remnant'... As for where he came from... it was a distant star system you can't comprehend, an ancient civilization that long ago turned to dust in the struggles of the universe... He might be the last survivor..."

"As for their fall..."

Xiao Dingshan's tone suddenly turned eerie and terrified: "No one knows exactly what happened! His power... his technology... far exceeded my understanding! But he... along with his enormous 'ark'... one day... suddenly... fell silent..."

Xiao Ce looked at Xiao Dingshan and asked, "How did you know?"

Xiao Dingshan said to Xiao Ce, "I only learned about these things later..."

As Xiao Dingshan spoke, he was lost in a vortex of memories...

"Xiao Ce, you should know our profession. Our profession is space hunters..."

"The so-called interstellar hunters are nothing more than a pack of... hyenas in the vast sea of ​​stars."

He gave a self-deprecating smirk and continued, "Our mothership, the Creation! It's the core of this base you see here, drifting along an ancient, forgotten interstellar trade route."

"The goal? It's to sniff out the coordinates of those unmarked, resource-rich, wild planets, package them up, and sell them to more greedy buyers who crave new territories or need raw materials."

He paused for a moment, as if trying to organize those distant and chaotic fragments of memory!

He has decided to tell the whole story, which means he is no longer hiding anything!

"On that day... the Creation spacecraft's deep space scanning array captured an extremely weak yet exceptionally clear signal pulse."

It pierced through clouds of stardust and dark matter, carrying an... indescribable attraction.

It wasn't the communication code of any known civilization; it was more like... a beacon's call, a silent declaration about 'abundance' and 'no man's land'.

The source points to this... the edge of the galaxy that we later called the 'cage,' which is your blue planet.

Xiao Dingshan paused for a moment, then said, "However, it can't really be considered your planet."

Xiao Ce's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly, but he did not give him an answer.

A signal... a signal from the Star Network Hub! Is it actively calling out? What is its purpose? A decoy?

Once Xiao Dingshan seemed to have decided to start talking, he stopped hiding anything and continued speaking.

“We were driven by greed, or rather, seduced by the ‘pure energy’ contained in that signal, which was far beyond our technological understanding, and changed course.”

Xiao Dingshan's tone was filled with bitterness: "The jump process went exceptionally smoothly, as if some force was guiding it from the shadows. When we entered the planet's gravitational well, everything was still so... normal."

“A pristine atmosphere, a rudimentary carbon-based biosphere, a standard template for colonization.”

His voice suddenly turned sharp, filled with anger and fear at being betrayed!

"Just as 'Genesis' was preparing to enter low Earth orbit and deploy its probes... something unexpected happened! There was no warning! No precursor to any energy fluctuations!"

"It's like...like crashing headfirst into a solidified, transparent cosmic gel! No, worse than that! It's a...rule-level 'quagmire'!"

Xiao Ce leaned forward slightly: "The level of rules?"

"Yes!"

The fear in Xiao Dingshan's eyes was almost overflowing: "The engine's propulsion beam instantly became viscous and sluggish, as if being dragged by billions of invisible hands."

"The energy shield twisted and disintegrated in a 'field' we couldn't comprehend, like thin ice thrown into boiling water. The most terrifying thing was... space itself!"

"We attempted an emergency jump to escape, but our spatial coordinates... were locked! The once clear and stable spatial folds became blurred and chaotic. Forcibly activating the jump engine would have torn us into subatomic fragments!"

"We are trapped, like insects trapped in amber, firmly imprisoned on this planet... no, imprisoned in an extremely strange 'force field bubble' on the planet's periphery! This 'bubble' is where we are now, unable to break through."

“You’ve been to that place. It’s the core area of ​​the Creation Base, the wreckage of our spaceship ‘Creation,’ which is also our only prison.”

Ce could only imagine that despair. For interstellar civilizations that heavily rely on space travel technology, losing mobility and the ability to escape is tantamount to a death sentence.

"Later we tried everything."

Xiao Dingshan's voice lowered, filled with the weariness of defeat!

"A high-energy particle cannon bombarding that invisible barrier? The energy is like a mud ox sinking into the sea, not even causing a ripple. An antimatter annihilation bomb?"

"The shockwave from the explosion was strangely 'absorbed,' as if the force field was connected to a bottomless black hole of energy. Once they were more than ten kilometers away from the Creation Ship, they would immediately lose all signals and crash like kites with broken strings, or... be dissolved by something."

“We even tried using the most primitive chemical propulsion, and the result was the same... That force, disregarding the laws of physics, acts directly on existence itself, imprisoning all attempts and actions to ‘leave’.”

The air in the cell seemed to freeze along with this description.

Xiao Ce could sense the profound helplessness in Xiao Dingshan's narration. In fact, they had already received this information from the so-called Creation Council at their creation base...

"Just when we were almost driven mad, waiting in despair for our resources to run out and we would die..."

A sickly, desperate glint flashed in Xiao Dingshan's right eye: "We've come up with a... not-so-ideal solution. Since our physical bodies can't leave, or more precisely, our consciousness can't leave."

"These genetically enhanced flesh and blood bodies and mechanically modified beings are indeed capable!"

Xiao Ce instantly understood: "Consciousness upload? Simulated human?"

“That’s right!” Xiao Dingshan’s metal jaw opened and closed.

"This is a branch of our technology tree, used for extreme environment exploration and long-term deep space travel. We strip away consciousness, digitize it, and inject it into a specially designed biomimetic carrier that can perfectly simulate the biological characteristics of the target planet's environment!"

"Inside the simulated human. These carriers are driven by bioelectricity and chemical energy, with an extremely low energy level. Theoretically, they will not trigger the confinement force field that targets high-energy entities."

His narrative took on a touch of technical fervor, which was then extinguished by the cold reality: "The process... was extremely painful. The stripping of consciousness was like the soul being torn apart and reassembled, and one had to endure the risk of distortion during the datafication process."

"But we had no choice. The first group of pioneers, carrying android replicas of our core members' consciousnesses, went out..."

"The initial euphoria was quickly replaced by a deeper shock."

Xiao Dingshan's tone became extremely complex: "This planet appears unremarkable from near-Earth orbit, but when we set foot on its land... we realized that it is definitely not a barren wasteland! It is an energy labyrinth disguised as a primeval jungle! A super ruin shrouded in a huge mystery!"

Xiao Ce's breath hitched slightly: "An energy labyrinth? Ruins?"

To be honest, Xiao Dingshan had been talking nonsense all along, because of similar or even related news.

He'd heard about it before...

However, he was now excited!

Yes, everywhere!

Xiao Dingshan's voice carried the restlessness of discovering a treasure yet being unable to access it: "Deep within the earth's veins surges a massive, heart-stopping tide of psionic energy."

Upon hearing Xiao Dingshan's words, Xiao Ce exclaimed in surprise, "Psionic Tide?"

Xiao Dingshan nodded, then said to Xiao Ce, "That's right, it's the psionic tide... it's a way of describing energy on our side, and its purity and activity far exceed any samples we've collected from other planets!"

“Mountains, rivers, and even certain plants and animals bear ancient and powerful energy imprints... but these energies are woven into the structure of the planet itself in an extremely sophisticated way, flowing naturally like breathing, yet remaining hidden.”

"Our proud detectors are like blind men touching an elephant when faced with this perfectly natural 'camouflage,' completely unable to analyze its origin and operating mechanism."

He paused, seemingly savoring the feeling of defeat: "What's even stranger is...lifeforms. The planet's native life forms, including...humans."

He glanced at Xiao Ce with the look of a superior civilization looking down on a lowly, yet incomprehensible monster: "Their individuals are clearly incredibly fragile, and their physiological structures are primitive and backward!"

"But...their collective consciousness, their very spark of civilization, seems...to have subtly resonated with or connected to this planetary-level energy in some way that we cannot comprehend. Like...a faint candle flame connected to a stellar furnace buried deep underground! This is too illogical!"

"This completely violates the fundamental laws of energy conservation and the evolution of life..."

Xiao Ce could understand Xiao Dingshan's initial words...