Chapter 138: Beginning the Rescue (1)

Words : 1569 Updated : Sep 21st, 2025

This was the first time Xiao Yu received a response from the Arrow Beasts. At this moment, Xiao Yu finally understood why he hadn’t been able to get a reply from them all along. The reason was simple: responding to Xiao Yu’s messages would expose their location. Until they confirmed that Xiao Yu had sufficient strength to protect himself, it was only natural for them to be cautious. Xiao Yu immediately responded, “Can you fly? I’ll maneuver the Village-Class spaceship to hover above this mountain peak. Get here immediately!” “I can fly within the atmosphere! But there are too many bugs in the sky. I don’t dare move! Where are you? I can’t see you!” Xiao Yu received a message laden with urgency. “No problem. Just take to the air and let me see you. I’ll cover you, and you’ll be fine!” Xiao Yu replied while closely monitoring the situation around him. Simultaneously, he called for the other nearby spaceships to converge on his location. While waiting for reinforcements, Xiao Yu’s Village-Class spaceship launched the first wave of attacks. Here, the landscape featured a peak that wasn’t very high. It was densely forested, making it an excellent hiding place. However, Xiao Yu had no effective way to deal with ground targets. As a result, he vented his fury on the Swarm flying in the sky. The bodies of the Swarm were exceedingly fragile when faced with Xiao Yu’s weapons. Essentially, a second-long burst from the laser cannons was enough to pierce a Swarm bug’s head. Kinetic weapons, on the other hand, required roughly a thousand rounds to kill one. Within the atmosphere, the power of kinetic weapons was significantly reduced. The presence of the atmosphere and air resistance made it impossible for kinetic projectiles to maintain the high velocities of over 10,000 kilometers per second achievable in space. Here, their top speed was about 30 kilometers per second. At these reduced speeds, the bullets often lacked the energy needed to penetrate the Swarm’s hard outer shells. Even so, with the vast quantity of kinetic weapons available, a continuous barrage still inflicted considerable damage on the Swarm. As he launched the attack, Xiao Yu kept a close eye on the movements in the sky. Three minutes after the assault began, Xiao Yu spotted a shadow rising straight up from the opposite side of the mountain. As soon as the shadow appeared, the surrounding Swarm seemed to go berserk, surging toward it. The shadow stabilized in midair and began attacking the surrounding Swarm. Xiao Yu saw that it was a massive sphere about three meters in diameter, covered in writhing tentacles. Each tentacle strike shattered the body of a Swarm bug. This attack style was identical to what Xiao Yu had observed from the Arrow Beasts in the Aquila Two star system. However, while the Arrow Beasts in the Aquila Two system could destroy one of Xiao Yu’s Village-Class spaceships in a single blow, this particular Arrow Beast was significantly weaker. “This must be a juvenile Arrow Beast,” Xiao Yu thought to himself as he activated dozens of laser cannons on his Village-Class spaceship for precision strikes. It was as if the scent of blood had attracted a horde of mosquitoes. Xiao Yu saw countless flying insects rising from the ground, the skies, and within the mountain peaks. They surged toward the Arrow Beast that had exposed itself. Around the Arrow Beast’s location, the Swarm practically formed a solid sphere, engulfing the juvenile Arrow Beast. Occasionally, Xiao Yu could glimpse a tentacle whipping fiercely, smashing through the Swarm. Xiao Yu realized he had miscalculated. A single Village-Class spaceship could, at most, eliminate fifty flying Swarm bugs per second. Yet, there were thousands of them here! The reinforcements were still at least a minute away. Whether the Arrow Beast could survive that long was uncertain. “I can’t let this Arrow Beast die because of me,” Xiao Yu gritted his teeth and maneuvered the Village-Class spaceship to charge forward. Countless flying bugs swarmed toward the Village-Class spaceship. The Swarm bugs on Planet Three were primarily melee-oriented sub-insects. Xiao Yu could see many ferocious insects raising their sharp forelimbs, striking violently at the spaceship’s energy shield. In this situation, the spaceship’s fuel consumption had reached an astonishing level. “We can’t drag this out any longer!” Xiao Yu decided instantly, pushing the spaceship’s engines to maximum power and ramming forward. Simultaneously, he sent a message to the Arrow Beast: “Get ready! When I get close to you, I’ll open the spaceship’s hatch. Seize the moment and get inside quickly!” “I... I’ll do my best!” The Arrow Beast replied. The Village-Class spaceship was far from comparable to the Hebei. It didn’t have the ability to charge through tens of millions of Swarm bugs unyieldingly. In fact, even against these mere thousands of bugs, it was already struggling. If the situation didn’t change, its destruction was only a matter of time. In this situation, the Village-Class spaceship managed to force its way into the Arrow Beast’s encirclement. As soon as Xiao Yu caught sight of the Arrow Beast again, he opened the spaceship’s hatch and urgently shouted, “Get in quickly!” “Okay!” The Arrow Beast shook off the few bugs clinging to it and dashed into the Village-Class spaceship. Countless Swarm bugs followed in pursuit, but Xiao Yu quickly closed the hatch. However, Xiao Yu was a little too late—at least three bugs, each about a meter long, managed to enter the ship along with the Arrow Beast. Only County-Class spaceships and above had combat-capable robots onboard. The robots on Village-Class and Town-Class spaceships were designed solely for routine maintenance and lacked any combat abilities. Xiao Yu watched as one of the robots was cleaved in half by a bug’s sharp forelimb, rendering it inoperative. Another bug scratched at the spaceship’s interior wall, leaving a deep, two-meter-long gash. “Hurry up and kill them! I can’t eliminate them inside the spaceship!” Xiao Yu anxiously ordered. “Got it!” the Arrow Beast replied. Xiao Yu saw it struggle to move its scarred tentacles. Like a python, it coiled around the three bugs, squeezing with tremendous force until they were torn into two pieces, their remains scattered on the floor of the spaceship. A large amount of dark green liquid spilled from the corpses of the Swarm bugs. Although they were undoubtedly dead, the severed parts of their bodies continued to twitch slightly. At this moment, Xiao Yu focused entirely on piloting the spaceship out of the atmosphere. The energy shield had already entered a low-energy state and could only withstand this level of attack for another three minutes. Xiao Yu was burning with anxiety but had no alternative. Under normal circumstances, three minutes would be more than enough for Xiao Yu to accelerate the spaceship to over 500 kilometers per second, allowing it to reach outer space from ground level in just a few seconds. However, within the atmosphere, the dense air severely hindered the spaceship’s acceleration. Achieving such speeds was impossible here. Fortunately, the reinforcements arrived just in time. With the assistance of hundreds of precision laser weapons, the spaceship narrowly broke free and escaped into space, reuniting with the main fleet. Xiao Yu steered the spaceship into a County-Class vessel, finally breathing a sigh of relief. At this point, Xiao Yu had the leisure to converse with the Arrow Beast. To his surprise, the spherical Arrow Beast he had originally seen in the ship’s cabin had transformed. It now resembled a four-legged animal covered in fur, much like a quadruped beast from Earth. Its size had also shrunk to just one meter. The Arrow Beast lay on its side inside the cabin, motionless as if resting. Its current appearance resembled a large cat. “You can freely change your appearance?” Xiao Yu asked in astonishment. “Yes,” the Arrow Beast replied. “The form you saw earlier was just my combat state. Maintaining that form is very tiring. This is my true form. ... So, are you the technological civilization my kin mentioned—the one coming to protect us? But your strength doesn’t seem that impressive. You don’t even match up to me. I’m skeptical of your ability to protect us.” Xiao Yu chuckled and replied, “My basic combat units are these spaceships. I have no less than 100,000 of them at this level. Additionally, I have ships hundreds or even thousands of times larger and more powerful than this one. I’m sure you’re aware that these detestable bugs are all birthed by a single mother insect. That mother insect has already been driven away by me. As for these smaller bugs, eliminating them is just a matter of time.” The Arrow Beast’s tone immediately turned excited: “Really? You even managed to drive away the Queen of the Swarm?” Xiao Yu laughed and said, “Of course. When I was traveling from the outer star systems, I happened to encounter the Swarm Queen and fought it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t kill it, and it escaped. I was worried about the situation here, so I didn’t pursue it and hurried to this planet instead. If you don’t believe me, just wait four days. In four days, the meteor shower in the sky will stop, and the number of bugs invading your planet will cease to increase.”

Chapter 138: Beginning the Rescue (1)

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