Chapter 1322 - 368: Pitch Black (Part 2)

In the very beginning, starting from the Pioneer Fleet’s third jump.

Every time Chen Ming made a jump, he would dismantle the earliest jump’s base.

Because he didn’t have enough resources to sustain them, nor enough Dusk to manage so many bases.

But starting from the seventh jump—the one where he was forced to jump because of the Mechanical Race.

Chen Ming’s situation became different; he was no longer constrained by base resources.

So from that jump onward, all subsequent temporary bases could be left in place.

And the Insect Race, sailing along with the Pioneer Fleet and expanding outward from these temporary bases, could concentrate all valuable materials they mined during expansion at those bases.

The advantages of centralized management go without saying.

Not only did it make it easy for Chen Ming to directly call on them with Spiritual Energy.

But when a situation arose where large-scale deployment without relying on Spiritual Energy was required, it also made transport easy to initiate.

Like right now.

Of the two Star Gates, one was set up in orbit around the Gaia Planet that Chen Ming was about to develop, which would need massive resources.

The other Star Gate was erected at the seventh jump’s base, now crammed full of resources mined back by the Insect Race.

This was the plan Chen Ming had laid out.

The Star Gate fully unfolded.

And the high-efficiency Energy Crystal transmitted along with the Star Gate was converted via a conversion device into the Energy that supplied the gate.

The Star Gate was slowly powering up, a mirror-like surface spreading within the gate’s frame.

With no external interference, the mirror surface soon solidified completely.

A Main Ship of the Insect Race emerged, its bow pushing out of the mirror.

Close behind were more Insect Race Main Ships of the same model.

They were all Hercules-B Level bio-freighters the Insect Race had produced over the past half year.

They were the result of extensive modifications and refits to the Mechanical Race Mother Ship that had been assimilated by the Insect Queen.

Of course, Chen Ming still used Spiritual Energy to sever his own direct control over these Insect Race Main Ships.

It wasn’t that Insect Race warships were inadequate.

In terms of transport and loading capacity, the Hercules-B Level was in no way inferior to the Empire’s own Main Level freighter, the Astra Level.

In fact, the Hercules-B Level could exploit the physical characteristics of Insect Race bodies in coordination with port cargo structures to transport goods efficiently, and manufacture dedicated isolated compartments inside its storage cavities according to cargo size and scale, maximizing carrying capacity.

And the Insect Race didn’t just have Hercules-B Level as a single model.

Strictly speaking, the Hercules Level itself had more than one freight variant.

When Chen Ming had the Insect Queen refit the Main Ships, he naturally took different roles into account.

The combat variant, the Hercules-A Level, had combat power that was absolutely respectable among ships of the same class.

The reason Chen Ming didn’t directly control the Insect Race Main Ships was to avoid giving up the slot occupied by the first Main Ship under his control.

His choice had already been made.

And these Main Ships were only for transporting resources anyway.

Resources to fuel the Star Gate’s subsequent operations, and for colonial construction.

Chen Ming’s plan was very clear.

His Spiritual Energy would only provide the initial batch of Energy, used solely to power up the Star Gate for the first time.

All transport of materials after that would be fully handed over to the Insect Race and the Star Gate.

He had said long ago that he wanted to build a colony that could keep running even without him.

Judging from now, at least he had successfully taken the first step.

At the very least, with this batch of Insect Race Main Level freighters arriving, the material consumption of starting up the Star Gate for his colony would no longer be a problem.

And when the first batch of Insect Race Mother Ships had all entered the Star System and begun transporting materials down to the Planet, the Star Gate continued to operate.

It would remain open until all supplies at Temporary Base No. 7 had been transported, at which point the gate would temporarily shut down.

Later, when Chen Ming transmitted the Star Gate to Base No. 8, it would be restarted.

Until everything piled up like mountains at all the Pioneer bases had been transported to Gaia.

Meanwhile.

The follow-up Pioneer Fleet had also jumped to the Primordial Star System once the vanguard scouting units confirmed the Star System’s safety.

Resources were in place, labor was in place, command had long been in place.

The remaining tasks no longer needed Chen Ming’s close attention.

He handed the mission off to Brilliant, then turned to study a problem he would have to face sooner or later.

The Wormhole.

The Wormhole objectively existed there; Chen Ming could not possibly act as though it were nothing.

Sooner or later he had to figure out what lay beyond the Wormhole.

So why hesitate at the cutoff point—better to start trying to explore the Wormhole right now.

The Empire possessed the technology to seize a Wormhole’s core Singularity and use that Singularity for Manufacturing, and of course also had technology for exploring Wormholes.

And when Chen Ming studied the technologies related to Star Gates, he naturally mastered these as well.

If you want to explore a Wormhole, you have to pass through it.

This process requires facing the Spatial Power twisted by the Wormhole.

That force is not something ordinary warships can withstand; you need to mount a spatial stabilization device on the ship similar to the one-way locking device he had just used on the Wormhole.

As long as you can stabilize the Spatial Power twisted by the natural Wormhole, you can pass through it safely.

Or, relying purely on the ship’s own structural strength to push through isn’t impossible either.

At least in the past, there were successful cases of doing just that.

And when Chen Ming heard this, he immediately guessed which faction’s ships had such capability.

Obviously, it was the Fourteenth Legion’s specially modified Offensive Level.

With that level of defense, brute-forcing the Wormhole’s effects was not an issue.

Of course, Chen Ming wouldn’t actually go that far; although he had not previously prepared anything specifically to deal with Wormholes, starting from scratch while handling the Scavengers and preparing colonial resources had already been enough time.

Chen Ming had already acquired spatial stabilization devices through channels within the Empire, and installed them on three Cruisers.

One was the Supreme Point he piloted, the other two were Stardust under his control.

He was going to pass through the Wormhole personally, and head to the other side.

There wasn’t any special reason—he simply wanted to.

In the past, Chen Ming was very afraid of death, because it meant he would miss many interesting things.

Now that he had finally gained the capability, and was no longer afraid of death, he naturally wanted to personally experience many scenarios he couldn’t before.

Like right now.

The three Cruisers soon arrived once more before the Wormhole.

The locking devices surrounding the Wormhole were one-way locks; they didn’t affect passage through this side of the Wormhole.

Although coming back through the Wormhole would indeed be troublesome, Chen Ming felt he probably wouldn’t need this Wormhole to return.

He only needed this Wormhole to send him across.

Chen Ming had prepared himself mentally, and physically as well.

He activated the spatial stabilization devices and entered the spiral Wormhole that looked like a miniature nebula.

The Wormhole’s Spatial Power tugged and tore at his ships, but every bit of it was offset by the spatial stabilization devices, leaving Chen Ming’s body unaffected except for a slight sense of nausea.

From another angle, though, if the Wormhole’s force was enough to cause even the body Chen Ming now possessed to feel a faint nausea, it was obvious what effect it would have on ordinary people.

So in Chen Ming’s experience, those who passed through Wormholes to investigate what lay beyond were generally soldiers hardened by rigorous training, or scientists who endured such severe reactions for the sake of research.

Chen Ming’s mind wandered through these random thoughts while he waited silently.

And in the midst of that wait.

His long-dormant danger-sensing Spiritual Energy finally stirred.

He sensed a danger that completely engulfed him and a sharp, piercing hazard appearing simultaneously in his perception.

He immediately snapped to attention and checked the Supreme Point’s returning readouts.

He found that the ship’s computed Wormhole exit coordinates were starting to drift, pulled by some strange gravitational effect.

Chen Ming didn’t know what was happening, but he was already prepared to face danger.

And at the moment the three ships passed through the Wormhole.

A pitch-black expanse, as if all light had been devoured, appeared before Chen Ming’s eyes.

No—that wasn’t a pitch-black world.

It was a Black Hole, appearing beyond the Wormhole.

Appearing before Chen Ming.