Xyrin Empire
Chapter 525: Oh, the Tide of Immigration

Chapter 525: Chapter 525: Oh, the Tide of Immigration

Chapter 525: The Migration Tide

"Don’t say that feudal superstitions kill people, look at how mighty the Spartan warriors are, but faced with a scammer, don’t they also become trash with a combat power of 5?"

"Wow, Wood, you really dare to pull a fast one."

Watching a group of Spartan warriors actually calming down, each one with a straight face listening to the "Netherworld Maid," that is, a certain dim ghost, gathering in the surprisingly large living room at home, Lin Xue sneakily approached and said in a low voice, "Are you trying to play Hades by any chance? I don’t mind being Athena and having a showdown with you."

"Why don’t you get yourself together with the Bronze Five Strong first—wait, you watch Saint Fighter too?"

"Pfft, Miss Lin has been into everything from Pleasant Goat to EVA; there aren’t many girls who can surpass me in this aspect except for those at Bubbles’ level... cough cough," perhaps realizing that boasting about widespread anime knowledge wasn’t something to be particularly proud of, Miss Lin changed topics mid-sentence, "To be honest, don’t you feel a bit guilty for fooling these heroes?"

"How is it fooling them?" I unabashedly preached some twisted logic, "To these folks whose only asset is their biceps, Otherworld and Netherworld are no different; they’re both places they can’t return from. It’s better to let them believe they’ve come to the residence of ghosts after death than to have a bunch of noisy people looking for a fight on the streets, right? And seriously, do you think these Spartans can understand the concept of Parallel Space? Or does my Miss have any better ideas for deception?"

"Who’s your Miss, dummy!" The words that Lin Xue used to say without thought suddenly made her face flush red, and Miss Lin, with a shy expression, furiously jabbed a fruit knife at my major artery before darting behind Big Sister.

Me: "..."

She just stabbed at my major artery, didn’t she?

"Alright, Master, they’re all lined up!"

Thanks to Anwina’s effort, these tall and muscular Spartan warriors finally stood in formation in the living room. After fulfilling her task, the little spectral maid’s first move was to dash behind me, her cold little hands tightly gripping my shoulder: "Wah wah wah, Master, strangers... strangers are so scary!"

I patted the little maid’s head while explaining to the Spartans: "Hey, there’s not much entertainment in the Netherworld, usually just watching this silly lass being adorable to pass the time."

men, wearing only shorts and bare-chested, stood in formation, ignoring my words.

They’re just like the Xyrin Soldiers, hmph, just wait, I’ll make sure Sicaro has you guys fortune-telling on Erli Bridge within three days!

Over seventy tall and muscular men took up a lot of space even in the unusually spacious living room. Though these warriors stood with strict military discipline, not glancing around, many of them showed confused expressions while lining up, especially the Centurion named Beodoni.

"Do you have any questions?"

Beodoni stepped forward upon hearing the question and said solemnly, "Where are the other dead? Where are the wandering souls of our enemies?"

I was taken aback, then realized: If this place is the Netherworld, then as a temple of the Netherworld God, the living room is indeed too small. Such a tiny space, how could it accommodate the daily death rates of the war era!

It’s also clear now how unreliable the folk stories about Naihe Bridge are. All the dead from around the world crowding a single bridge, how daunting must the ordeal of reincarnation be, akin to several rounds of college entrance exams? The legendary Meng Po must be an international subsidiary food industry to handle the soup needs of so many dead ghosts, right?

Okay, the above was nonsense.

What I really meant to say: Who the hell says ancient people were less intelligent! Even a Spartan in underwear can accurately question the contradiction between the Netherworld population issue and the traffic conditions!

"Ahem, strictly speaking, this is one of the entrances to the Netherworld," I explained awkwardly, while mentally urging Sivis to hurry up with the teleportation, "For the harmonious development of the world of the dead, we deliberately separate potentially hostile individuals for transfer."

"Good, the dead are past; we shall seek revenge after resurrection!" Beodoni nodded.

As Beodoni’s voice faded, the group transmission device leading to Shadow City activated as well. The entire living room floor suddenly turned into a shimmering lake, started rippling, and such a spectacle had even the Spartan soldiers fidgeting unbidden. However, their strict military discipline kept them calm as they quietly waited to venture together into the Netherworld (...).

I turned my head and saw Mercury Lamp sitting bored on the armrest of the sofa, curiously scrutinizing the Spartans here, while Shana, seemingly not getting along with Mercury Lamp and equally idle, was sitting huffily on another armrest, looking like she had just had an argument.

I stepped forward a few paces, unceremoniously pulled Shana off her perch, and simultaneously scooped Mercury Lamp into my armpit, "You two, come over here, too."

Mercury Lamp was caught unawares and immediately landed a punch, "Idiot! What the hell are you doing?"

Shana’s response was even more straightforward, delivering a knee strike aimed directly at my lower back.

Then, both girls attempting to resist cradled their arms and knees in defeat.

"Special as you two are, you still need to come check this out!"

Ignoring their feeble attempts at fighting back, I dragged Mercury Lamp and Shana into the transmission force field. The next second, the scenery in front of us shifted rapidly, and we found ourselves already in Shadow City.

A massive all-metal plaza spanning tens of thousands of square meters was our destination. Around us were hundreds of fully armed Heavy Soldiers lined up neatly, and Sivis, dressed in his garrison uniform, was striding over and saluted in front of me, "Your Highness, the first residence area has been set up and is ready for use!"

"These are my soldiers," I turned to Beodoni who was already dumbfounded by the surrounding sights, and then, under his astonished gaze, I pointed to the Giant Battleship slowly cruising through the sky, "That thing—that’s the Netherworld Ark."

Pointing to a Giant casually strolling by not too far away, "And that’s Anubis."

"By the War God! We’ve really arrived in the Netherworld!" Beodoni was so overwhelmed that he couldn’t focus on what I was saying, his eyes darting all around instead.

Sandora, who had come along, nudged my arm, "Ah Jun, Anubis and the Netherworld Ark are both from Egypt."

I blinked, "Eh? Aren’t Sparta and the Pharaoh from different systems?"

Sandora shrugged, "Ah Jun, if you don’t mind this alien giving you another lesson in human history, I can tell you the tale of the Nile River..."

Embarrassed, sorrowful, I deeply regretted the three years of high school I slept through and the history textbooks that had gone up in wisps of smoke.

To cover my embarrassment, I quickly changed the subject, "Right, Sandora, are those Giants also part of our military units? I don’t seem to recall we had such soldiers?"

Sandora spread her hands, "That’s why you should occasionally pay attention to the reports on the info chain, Ah Jun. They’re transmigrators discovered yesterday afternoon by the Asida Sisters near Antarctica."

I: "?"

"A bunch of Skytopians..."

I: "!"

To avoid cursing out loud, I shifted my focus to the Spartan Formation. Stunned by the sight of walking Giants, eerie soldiers, and a flying warship, they had become entirely convinced they had arrived in the Netherworld after dying in battle. Eager for the "resurrection" promised by the "Lord of the Netherworld," these Spartan Warriors who feared not death were now much more subdued: They were still waiting to come back to life in order to die once more.

"Spartans, follow my Commander to your new barracks. We’ll have a meeting or something in a few days—You, come here." I turned to a Commander following behind Sivis, "Take these underpants... cough cough, Spartan Warriors to the residence area, first teach them how to operate automatic doors and use the water dispenser, emergency phones, and I’ll send more details to your Memory Core."

"An immense honor, Your Highness!" This regular officer was evidently thrilled to be directly commanded by the Emperor Himself, accepting a simple guiding task like he was joining a Suicide Squad.

"Beodoni, follow him, he’ll be your temporary leader for the next few days, yes, that’s a Netherworld Fighter..."

The Commander, who had just been full of generous pride, immediately felt embarrassed.

"Now we’re finally seeing a bit of a World King’s demeanor," Mercury Lamp suddenly spoke up after the Spartans had been led away by the Imperial Officer, "It’s really impressive, that thing, is it a spaceship?"

The doll girl was referring to the warship currently patrolling the sky, the magnificent behemoth that even the cold Mercury Lamp found deeply intriguing.

I shrugged, "That’s just a skiff, look up at those things in the sky that look like moons, do you see the patterns on their surfaces?"

Mercury Lamp squinted at the bright discs in the sky and said curiously, "Aren’t those just moons? Your world sure has a lot of moons."

"Those are our main spaceships, Planet Battleships, and those patterns are the ports for the kind of small spaceship you just saw, they are in maintenance—look, one of them is about to launch."

As I finished speaking, a "moon" directly above us started to move slowly, and as rings of light spread out from its side, the distant Planet Battleship gradually stretched into an ellipse and then, suddenly turned into a bright line of light, disappearing from our view.

It had left Other Space.

Although Shadow Base was still only the size of a city right now, its "Void Space" was theoretically infinite, with Shadow City merely the stable material part. Those "Zero" level Planet Battleships could usually be docked in the "outer space" of Shadow Space, acting as celestial bodies for this world. However, it’s only during a large-scale operation that over a dozen Planet Battleships would return to Shadow Space to stand by.

"Recently, many Planet Battleships have returned to the vicinity of Shadow Fortress because transmigrators like you are flocking to our universe. Our army is basically scurrying all over the universe now, hey? Mercury Lamp? Are you listening?"

At this moment, the doll girl was completely stunned. Although she was only observing from a distance and not up close, she could imagine what a Planet Fleet was like from my description, and the little girl, lost in thought, didn’t respond to what I said.

Almost as a reflex, I placed my hand on Mercury Lamp’s head and rubbed it forcefully twice.

The next second, a certain Leader found himself covered in "feathers".

"Idiot! You’re too rude!" Mercury Lamp, looking angry, flew in the air, "Don’t think I’m acknowledging anything about you just because I’m following you! If you do something this offensive again, don’t blame me for not being nice!"

I picked feathers from my head under the stifled laughter and watchful eyes of Shana and Sandora, grumbling, "You impolite doll, I have no idea how your feathers seem to be inexhaustible—Sandora, collect these feathers, we’ll tie them into dusters when we get back!"

The previously proud Mercury Lamp immediately fell from the sky.

"Could we take a closer look over there?" Shana had a hesitant look on her face ever since the beginning as if she had something to say, it was only now that she seemed to muster the courage, "Just hearing about it is simply too incredible... I’m not just curious! I just want to see what a Planet Battleship looks like for myself!"

Just be upfront about your curiosity; I’ve seen enough of this insincere act from Lin Xue.

However, this seems to be a good opportunity to deal with Mercury Lamp. For this proud doll, there aren’t many methods available. I can’t use force on her, and conventional means don’t get close to her, so I have to rely on unconventional tactics, like this: look, I have Planet Battleships, I have an Interstellar Army, so you better just behave obediently!

"Mercury Lamp, get on my shoulder."

"Why?" The doll girl in mid-air looked at me warily, the trauma from being clamped under my armpit on the way here hadn’t faded yet.

"To show you the ’moon’," I raised my hand and pointed to the sky, "In this space, two thousand meters above ground is a chaotic zone lethal to ordinary life, how could you approach that warship without my force field protection?"

Mercury Lamp and Shana looked at me suspiciously at the same time, "Don’t you have a spaceship?"

Can I honestly say that I just wanted to experience what it feels like to have Chairman Shui riding on my neck, soaring into the endless starry sky?

Sandora kept jabbing at my lower back from behind, this girl could totally guess what I was up to, and now she was tirelessly meting out punishment, "Ah Jun, you loli fan!"

In the end, we took a shuttle to the nearest planet battleship just above the ground.

The shuttle used a class coordinate engine, a kind of spatial drive that could progress at 50% light speed without generating a sensation of acceleration, so Shana and Mercury Lamp didn’t feel the takeoff process at all, and before their eyes was already the vast hull of the planet battleship.

Or should I say Earth’s crust?

The endless alloy ground and its mixed rock shell was a unique landscape characteristic of the "Zero" surface, which was modified from an ordinary planet. The surface stretched infinitely, and at the distant horizon, one could see a slight curvature—the only characteristic that at this distance still made it feel like a planet. The small ships I previously called "wooden boats" hovered like dormant swarms of bees burrowed atop the upper deck of the planet battleship, stunning Shana and Mercury Lamp. And the sight of the giant battleships slowly peeking out from the huge rifts on the ground elicited exclamations from the latter.

"Look at the direction we came from."

I turned the shuttle around so that the two tourists could see Shadow City.

It was just an insignificant bright spot, this distance was just a bit shorter than that between the Earth and Moon. If it weren’t for the "Sky Curtain" above Shadow City also serving as a beacon, we probably wouldn’t even be able to see a bright spot here: the space of Shadow Space had no light.

"You’re pretty impressive..."

For the first time, Mercury Lamp said something that seemed like a compliment.

"With your army, can you help me find my father?"

There she goes, still thinking about her dad who knows where he’s ended up.

"I can’t guarantee that." You shouldn’t speak too absolutely, especially to a girl with a hint of paranoia and a volatile temperament like Mercury Lamp. The first two meant she could go off at any time because of a "deception" from you, and the last one meant her explosion would be infinitely justified, "I can only say I’ll send you back to your own world. As for Luo Zhen... Although theoretically an alchemist of his level would have achieved immortality, you should be prepared. Nowadays, even ascensions can fail the trial by lightning."

Mercury Lamp immediately gave me an uppercut, then hugged her arms and grimaced, "Don’t... Don’t you dare curse my father like that... He must still be there... Hiss..."

This form of Mercury Lamp was unexpectedly cute—suddenly, I felt that I really should send a team of agents to Otherworld now to help find her dad, Luo Zhen.

And then wipe him out.

"Can this thing send me back to Earth?" Shana, however, was still focused on the planet battleship, her voice wavering slightly as she spoke about the unimaginably colossal and grand construct. I nearly forgot that the girl named Shana was not only a tsundere, flat-chested, loli, but also a warrior. As a warrior, it was natural for her to be shocked by something like the planet battleship that represented the ultimate force, "It looks like they really can reach every corner of the universe."

"It seems you haven’t quite understood," I knew immediately Shana got the concept wrong from the start, "This trans-dimensional travel business, how should I put it, isn’t about coming to another planet. You know about parallel space theory, right?"

As I said this, I embarrassed myself a little—after all, the girl in front of me was a genius honor student who took down a row of middle school teachers in one breath.

"Nonsense, of course I do," indeed, Shana immediately raised her little face, quite dissatisfied with my questioning, "Are you saying I’ve come to a parallel world?"

"Roughly, the specific theory is a bit more complicated. So these ships can’t send you back, you’ll have to wait for a major device to complete its current process."

Hearing my answer, Shana’s face immediately fell, and she sighed softly.

She seemed really keen on getting back—should I send a temporal assault team to take out Yuji while they’re looking for Luo Zhen?

While I was busy disciplining... cough, teaching Mercury Lamp to respect the Emperor, our agents scattered around the world began to detect the turbulent aura of the transmigrators. The largest-scale wave of trans-dimensional travel in history was surging...(To be continued. If you wish to know what happens next, please visit www.qidian.com. More Chapters are available, support the author, support genuine reading!)