LSDWTWHA chapter 54

Chapter 53

After hanging up the communication, Su Su curled his lips proudly. He looked handsome, and in order to think of a rebuttal to the other party, he had to endure listening to the other person ramble on for quite some time.

It wasn’t just Yǒu Lái Wú Huí who would act pretentiously before a live broadcast to win favor. He could smooth talk as well; after all, he had also taken language classes.

He was far better than that phony Yǒu Lái Wú Huí; at least his words came from the heart.

As he got closer to the destination, Su Su accelerated again. This time, he switched to shark form. Although not as fast as a swift, he was light and silent. While he couldn’t completely conceal himself like Huà Fán Wéi Jiǎn, as long as he avoided the blind spots, he could easily dodge the A-level and S-level insectoids along the way.

Su Su’s sense of direction was at this moment exerting an absolute advantage. Despite being on a completely unfamiliar map and not knowing the exact location of his destination, he didn’t take a detour while evading the insectoids and accurately found the lair of the mother insect.

This avoided a lot of unnecessary combat, reduced ammunition consumption, and prevented early exposure of his position, allowing Su Su to gain the upper hand in the final battle.

“How did he do that? The mother insect’s position refreshes randomly every time. Even if someone practiced on this map, they might not accurately identify the location of the mother insect. How could he immediately deduce that the mother insect was hiding here?” an observing pilot questioned.

They hadn’t even realized that in the conference room, everyone’s focus had already shifted to Su Su.

Compared to the playful game maps, they were more curious about what a gifted player could achieve in a high-difficulty training map.

“It must have been deduced based on the movements of the insectoids. Although he bypassed their main force, he never deviated from their attack route. Every so often, he would approach and observe, adjusting his direction of advancement,” another more experienced pilot responded.

Observing the insectoid movements and deducing the mother insect’s position was a skill only possessed by veteran pilots. The speaker had only recently pieced together this knowledge after two years, but someone else seemed to have it naturally.

“I remember during the initial match, his route recognition was astonishing, as if he had a high-precision locator in his head. Putting aside everything else, based on his route recognition abilities alone, bringing him into the expedition force’s assault team would be worth it,” the pilot who had begun serving as the assault team commander had his eyes lit up.

Their assault team often faced operations in unexplored unknown areas, and their positioning devices were frequently interfered with or damaged during battles. Getting lost in the unknown universe could sometimes be more terrifying than encountering insectoids.

If Su Su really joined their team, even without piloting a starship, just acting as an observation officer responsible for navigation on the mothership would significantly reduce the casualties of the assault team.

“He’s not suitable for the assault team,” Qi Hanyi said.

As soon as the Admiral spoke, the pilots immediately echoed, “True, after all, he’s still a newbie. To join the assault team, he should spend at least two years on the battlefield to accumulate experience.”

“This kid looks young and gifted; throwing him into your assault team would be a waste. Who doesn’t know that about a third of your team dies every year?”

“If you ask me, he’s more suitable for our reconnaissance communication team. We need someone fast like him.”

“Nonsense, he’s clearly suited for our assault team. Look how he just soloed an S-level insectoid, with proper training and a better starship, becoming a main attacker would definitely be no problem.”

The group began to argue chaotically again. They each held respectable ranks and could lead starships, but in reality, they were all not that old—military leaders coordinating strategies on the battlefield but young men and women who could argue and make noise off it.

Listening to the clamor among the group, Qi Hanyi felt that even though the competition had not ended, it was as if the person on the screen would report to their expeditionary force tomorrow.

However, he didn’t consider any of the positions they were discussing. If he just wanted an ordinary pilot, why go to such lengths? From the very beginning, even before knowing Su Su’s true identity, he recognized that Su Su’s talents went far beyond that.

His mental force perhaps was already unfit for piloting a starship. He hoped that Su Su could take over, becoming the new owner of the Bai Ze.

While he was caught up in this noisy discussion, Su Su found the nest of the mother insect.

From a distance, Su Su could clearly see the massive body of the SS mother insect. In comparison to Su Su’s starship, its size was like that of a person standing next to an ant. Its enormity resembled a black, writhing mountain stretching across Su Su’s path.

Su Su’s position was likely at the rear side of the mother insect, allowing him to see its vast and soft abdomen, with the underside resembling a pulled-up plant, drooping with roots of varying lengths.

The tail of the mother insect was a reproductive organ, but since it hadn’t yet found a new planet to parasitize to provide nutrients, there were currently no insectoids hatching from this location to conserve energy within its body.

Su Su had seen methods to kill the mother insect in the documents; that required breaking open its abdomen to find a light blue energy crystal, usually about the size of a starship. That was the “heart” of the mother insect, and a specialized bullet could destroy it. Su Su had loaded one such bullet when replenishing ammunition.

The destruction of the energy crystal would release terrifying energy reserves and trigger an energy storm, tearing the entire mother insect to pieces.

Thus, what Su Su had to do first was find this energy crystal.

However, as he approached the mother insect, suddenly, a multitude of huge transparent spheres appeared in his field of vision, as if a child had created a series of soap bubbles with a bubble gun, swirling everywhere.

Su Su didn’t know what they were, but he instinctively felt danger. He darted through the ocean of bubbles, evading them like a fish, trying to stay clear of these bubbles sticking to his starship. Meanwhile, he observed his surroundings, trying to find the insectoid attacking him.

Following the direction in which the bubbles floated, he spotted his enemy. This enemy looked somewhat abstract, resembling a floating golden ring surrounded by glowing light. The halo pulsed in size like a breathing rhythm.

As the insectoid moved, bubbles of equivalent size were produced from its ring.

The bubbles increased in number, each larger than Su Su’s starship, as if they had consciousness, controlled, floating towards Su Su, quickly enveloping the space around him.

“Surrounded by the golden ring’s mucus bubbles, it seems ‘White Scale Shark’ is done for,” the pilots in the conference room acknowledged Su Su’s thoughts and choices, but they didn’t believe he could really succeed in killing the mother insect.

“Indeed, the bubbles from the golden ring insect are composed of highly corrosive mucus. If they touch the starship, they will corrode the hull from the outside in. Back when I was on this map, my squad got wiped out multiple times in its hands.”

“And this mucus interferes with the starship’s environmental perception and affects visibility.”

“Unlike artillery shells, which have trajectories that can be predicted, these bubbles drift around randomly; it’s hard to dodge.”

“Yeah, no matter how fast a starship is, it still takes time to change direction. It’s not like it can fly wherever it wants. Trying to avoid these annoying big bubbles is quite a hassle.”

“But he’s about to break free.” A pilot who hadn’t played this map before reminded.

“Wow? Really!” the pilots exclaimed.

“He’s too agile, is this really the agility achievable by an S-level starship? Many SS-level starships can’t do this, right?”

“I just remembered, the propulsion method of this form is somewhat unique; the propulsion isn’t set at the wings and tail. Instead, it’s through mechanisms and power devices throughout its body, mimicking how fish swim in water. If controlled well, it can indeed be as agile as a fish in water.”

Even so, the pilots remained pessimistic about Su Su: “No matter how agile he is, dodging the encirclement of the bubbles doesn’t mean he can avoid the spikes of the black spear insects. Just one hit would probably scrap his starship immediately.”

“Also, those silk-worming worms; getting caught in their threads is impossible to escape.”

“And the ice butterflies; getting too close will freeze both the starship and its pilot together. Ships of that level simply can’t withstand it. He’s not like the Fire Phoenix, which can use light flames to thaw.”

At that moment, Su Su couldn’t hear their discussions, unaware of what he was about to face; he simply focused on dodging the bubbles’ ambush. Switch to shark form, Su Su darted between the bubbles with nimbleness, evading left and right.

Just as he was about to escape the bubble-covered area, before he could relax, a powerful sense of crisis suddenly came from behind. Su Su shot upwards suddenly, hastily colliding with a bubble above him, and mucus immediately covered his starship.

Right where he had just dodged, something flew past at high speed, and Su Su barely caught a glimpse. But he sensed an extreme danger, the kind that could kill in one strike.

Then came more attacks, a barrage raining down on Su Su.

Su Su could only speed up to evade, attempting to identify what was attacking him. Finally, when a black spike struck a nearby rock, causing it to shatter, Su Su saw them—black spikes like arrows, flying towards him faster than artillery shells.

He ran around the bubble-covered area, and as the attacking insectoid pursued him, it finally revealed itself. It was a purely black insectoid, covered in sharp, conical protrusions like a creature made of sharp metal, too sharp for a casual glance.

Its color was close to the pure black coating of Huà Fán Wéi Jiǎn; if it wasn’t illuminated by the golden ring insect’s glow beside it, Su Su wouldn’t even have noticed its presence.

Su Su didn’t know this insectoid was called the Black Spear Insect, but he could sense the danger of those black spikes; coming at such a terrifying speed, just one hit could puncture through his starship.

But Su Su had no intentions of engaging these male insects; his goal was always the massive mother insect in the center.

Guiding his starship, Su Su dodged the incoming attacks while strategically moving closer to the mother insect. Closer, one hundred star distances, ninety star distances, eighty star distances.

Suddenly, his peripheral vision caught a flash of ice blue. He looked in that direction, and his breath caught for a moment. Among a multitude of strange insectoids, this one appeared somewhat beautiful. It was semi-transparent ice blue, with gigantic wings resembling butterfly wings, slowly fluttering.

It quietly nestled beside the mother insect, not even making a move to attack as Su Su’s starship approached; it seemed entirely gentle and harmless.

But soon, the sharply dropping temperature in the starship cockpit and the piercing alarm from the temperature control system alerted Su Su to the danger.

Escape! Su Su piloted his starship, running headlong away from the butterfly, the opposing direction. In just a few seconds, he was nearly frozen stiff.

However, just after changing direction, Su Su found himself seemingly stuck in a quagmire, unable to move an inch.

Strange, there was nothing unusual visibly surrounding him, but he felt as if he was encountering enormous resistance.

The starship’s view was somewhat interfered with by the mucus, so Su Su adjusted the light beam. Under the stronger lighting, he finally saw them—fine threads, like spider webs, densely floating in space, and he had already become entangled layer upon layer while moving around earlier.

Following the direction of the silk entanglement, a dark red, elongated insectoid swam towards him like a water snake.

It opened its massive mouth, resembling a black vortex, sucking Su Su’s starship into it.