Chapter 532: The Return  

A strong beam of light was released into the weakly vibrating space. As it streaked across space, ripples were formed on its surroundings.

A few hours later, the figure suddenly stopped moving. The space-time bubble then opened up, revealing a shadow. Of course, it was Luo Yuan.

He turned his head back and still, there was no trace of the spaceship.

This was because he had overtaken the spaceship!

Traveling at superluminal speed, it was considered good as he could accurately determine its direction. Since he could not see and capture the object, Luo Yuan could only briefly estimate the spaceship’s location based on both their speeds as well as the distance between them. Uncertainties were taken into consideration so that he would not miss it.

If he had not made any mistakes in the calculations and the spaceship had not changed its path, then the spaceship was about 30 light-minutes away from him. That being said, the spaceship would need about one hour to reach him.

Luo Yuan slowly closed his eyes, spreading out his Sense. Meanwhile, his four-dimensional brain was processing quickly. Using his body as the center, he could sense the dust in outer space as well as the gas molecules in the area that was hundreds of millions of kilometers away.

Apparently, there was not much difference between him and God. He even managed to sense the region that was billions of kilometers away.

It was a tremendously huge distance. If Pluto was the boundary of the solar system, he could have sensed it entirely. Such a distance, one would have to travel for about one light-day at the speed of light to reach it.

However, Luo Yuan had waited for half an hour and soon, he could then see the shadow of the spaceship. It was not because there were errors in his calculations but because the spaceship had changed its path a few minutes ago. At the same time, it was decelerating at a speed that was hardly detectable.

"Is the spaceship looking for me?" Luo Yuan slowly opened his eyes and he was startled!

Luo Yuan could not believe it. However, he could confirm that he was right as he saw that the spaceship had executed a big arc, flying towards him. It seemed like the spaceship was about to stop, looking for him who had disappeared.

The people did not know that he could get back to the spaceship even when the spaceship was flying at half the speed of light. Therefore, they thought of stopping the spaceship so that he could get back to it.

However, it was not easy to stop a spaceship that was traveling at half the speed of light. Deceleration alone would need about a year. They could not switch off the power and the engine during this period of time. At the same time, constant combustion was needed as it would assist in power boosting.

The energy released by the spaceship was like the explosion of a bomb when it was traveling at half the speed of light. If the engine was being switched off directly, a few seconds later, the speed would be reduced from half the speed of light to one-hundredth the speed of light. Decelerating in this way, even the spaceship would instantly collapse, let alone humans staying in it.

In addition to that, the spaceship would spend another two years to accelerate, at the very least. These two years were undoubtedly the most precious time as humans were still living under the Glassian threat.

...

In fact, Luo Yuan had underestimated his influence upon humans. Be it fear or respect, his powerful image was engraved on everyone’s’ mind. Such an impression had reached its peak ever since Luo Yuan had become a giant and exerted his ability to easily control the virtual reality’s global server.

It was a crazy world and a crazy era as well. Be it before the apocalypse when everyone struggled to survive or after they had entered the outer space to escape, humans always felt insecure.

It seemed like the people had been emboldened by him.

It was not obvious previously as humans were already used to Luo Yuan’s existence. Everyone revolved around his strong, cold Will.

Right when someone noticed Luo Yuan had disappeared, their anxieties instantly arose.

Unexpectedly, the decision was made smoothly during the top management meeting. Nobody was against it. Even those who were eager for power began getting anxious.

Humans who entered the outer space for the first time were akin to babies that had just started walking. They were lost and confused. What they needed was neither a compromise nor an argument, they needed a diplomatic and decisive man. The top management of the government was not prepared to handle an epoch without Luo Yuan.

...

"A high-energy object is detected in front of us. Referring to the data given, the high-energy object might be our commander!"

"Coordinates: X:233445,Y:289300,Z:238209!"

"The distance between the spaceship and the high-energy object is 3,542,000,000 kilometers." At the control center, a sound coming from the artificial intelligence system was heard.

At the same time, the artificial intelligence system had exported the video of the object.

It was a blurry shadow. It seemed like it’s surroundings were blurred, associated with a faint glow. Looking at the center, one could only identify that it was a shadow with a human figure.

"It’s impossible!" Bi Jianping and the top management were shocked. Based on the video, Luo Yuan had disappeared five days ago. The spaceship had traveled for five days and the distance traveled had exceeded 50 billion kilometers. They were now suspecting that Luo Yuan was ahead of them. It was indeed beyond comprehension as it was unbelievable.

Chen Xinjie followed behind them, remaining silent. She was breathing fast, staring at the shadow. Although she could not see a clear image of the shadow, she could somehow confirm that the shadow was Luo Yuan.

At the moment, Bi Jianping asked, "What’s the probability?"

"The probability is 15%. The electromagnetic wave and light detectors have become turbulent. There is also a weak interference of high-frequency waves in space. Therefore, it is difficult to gather more information. Should we change our flight path to meet our commander?" The artificial intelligence system asked.

Waves in space? Bi Jianping freaked out. He had spent years on the spaceship and he knew that space waves or the so-called gravitational waves were one of the common dangers that existed in space.

The existence of waves in space was not something rare in the universe as it could happen anytime. Normally, such waves were harmless. The height between ripples and the trough of the waves would usually be the diameter of an atom. Be it the spaceship or creatures, it could do no harm to them.

There were many reasons why those waves were created. Most of them resulted from the vibration of objects that had strong gravitational forces, such as the explosion of a nova, crashing of neutron stars or the absorption of massive objects by a dark hole. These universal disasters were at a distance that was thousands of light-years away or might even be coming from another galaxy. The distance was too far. The energy would be significantly reduced when it was transmitted to the spaceship.

Nobody had ever witnessed a living being that could create them. If the mysterious shadow was not Luo Yuan...

As he thought of this, Bi Jianping immediately said, "Wait, let’s confirm first. Just in case..."

Everyone had thought of this. They were frightened. Even Chen Xinjie could not confirm that the shadow was Luo Yuan. She knew that Luo Yuan’s abilities were indeed beyond imagination, but not to such an extent.

"How about sending an aircraft to see what’s happening!" Li Jian then suggested.

"We don’t know the opponent’s intention. We shouldn’t act rashly!" Tian Jinping’s face turned grave, shaking his head.

Right this moment, there were some abrupt changes in the frightening shadow that remained stationary previously. He/it quickly flew forward and the speed was getting faster. Everyone stared at the screen nervously. At one side of the screen, the data of the shadow were being recorded. Despite one could not understand the data, the significant changes in speed were apparent.

The speed of this shadow had reached 1,000 kilometers per second. In 10 seconds, the shadow had accelerated to one-thirtieth of the speed of light. As he accelerated at such a fast speed, even the critical metals were like soft mud to him.

This ability was indeed terrifying!

The atmosphere in the control center became heavy.

What made people feel strange was that it was flying in a direction that was similar to the one of the spaceship. It looked like it was trying to escape, but it wasn’t!

"What’s it doing?" A thought ran through everyone’s mind.

As time passed, the shadow was flying close to the speed of light and it was almost the same as the speed of the spaceship. The next moment, the shadow disappeared from outer space.

At the same time, the spaceship trembled a little. Everyone shivered as they thought that it was an unknown attack. Everyone’s heart sank.

"What’s happening?"

"The commander has returned to the laboratory!" The artificial intelligence system paused for a moment before it replied.