Chapter 959 The World Changes Color (1/2)

It was an age of darkness.

The stars were ablaze. Thousand-year-old optimistic theories and calculations made by old sages and the savants of old had been declared moot, prosperity and peace reduced to nothing, and all because the world of serenity saw the arrival of the worst uninvited guests—even as the Evil Gods of Chaos bewitched what few miserable and ignorant races to trigger tragedy after tragedy, they projected their shadows upon the vast worlds, stirring tides that were darker than black.

It was also a time for resistance.

The world was breaking. Grand fires of war were spreading across the stars, for ancient sentient machines awakened from dust and innumerable civilizations rose up to resist against the Evil Gods, which eclipsed despair and death along with their infinite spawns bent on consuming every living soul. They fought shoulder to shoulder alongside other civilizations of Order to protect the stars, with even more succeeding them and joining forces to triumph against that darkness to return the light of civilization to the stars.

It was a moment of being broken.

The war escalated and there seemed to be no end in sight to the slaughter. Like candles blown, the stars of the galaxies were dying and leaving only silent blackness. Planets fell to infernos and were consumed into nothingness, and yet the curses and hate of countless life did not stop the Evil Gods, rallying them instead as they approached like frenzied beasts drawn by the scent of blood.

The anguished cries of the innocent and the raging roars of resistance echoed and intertwined beyond the stars. Millennia of war and fighting back had united all civilizations of Order, but also allowed Chaos to grow and pile to a frightening state—the Evil Gods' legions had dominated all shadows, gathering and pressing towards them, and every civilization could only face them in direct conflict.

For they had no space to retreat.

The era of glory and prosperity had ended; the era of torment and despair had begun.

On the other side of the dark emptiness of space, a broken space station silently and swiftly advanced. It was missing a huge chunk as if it had been bitten off by some violent beast, and there were no signs of life inside either—its electronic equipment had all ceased functioning. All was deathly silent, much less having any sort of presence.

Beside a bright star, twelve Void cruisers were vigilantly pausing by the edge of the fireball, positioned at the fringes where the solar winds reached—in other words, where the interstellar medium originated. The patrol fleet solemnly scanned the oncoming space station, even releasing drones to probe it.

”No Chaos presence.”

”No living presence.”

”All functions incapacitated. No electrical energy, Psi, or arcane forces detected.”

”Estimated time of destruction: 1,700 years ago. Its last warp had burnt out its last energies, then floated in the vacuum, squirming inch by inch and eventually reaching us. ”

As the drone approached and dived deep inside the broken space station, the reports became detailed as the recon team piloting the drones cried in surprise.

”Wait…there are a lot of plant seeds here!”

”There are some here too! Weird, the space station doesn't seem to be designed with lifeforms in mind, solely maintained by automated intelligent mechanisms…though even that is broken.”

”Ah! I've found a gene vault! Heavens, there are so many! Could this vault have been the DNA of the creatures of an entire planet?!”

As the discoveries increased, the patrol fleet compiled the data and quickly realized that the ferris-wheel space station was a torch that carried the information of an entire civilization.

Or perhaps a gravestone… or a will.

By supplying power and partially energizing the space station, the recon team managed to extract the civilization and history of the space station from its unencrypted, even willfully cooperative, operating system.

They were a race that had just reached the skies, passing through the atmosphere. It had been barely a hundred years since they launched their first satellite, and experienced severe difficulties exploring the natural satellites and moons of their homeworld. They were a species which were amateurs when it came to both mundane universal technology or supernatural forces—the most insignificant and inconspicuous species there could ever be on Stellaris.

Then, this ordinary race was attacked by the spawns of Chaos.

***

The fleet quietly studied the records as their unmanned machines connected to the data vault of the space station, transmitting various footage. They saw the darkness that blanked the sun engulfing every star while the suns died and planets diminished. They saw the glorious war and resistance of civilization in space, the fleet of Order being consumed entirely by the infinite beasts. The race had been debating if aliens existed over the past decades, and now, the most convincing evidence had appeared directly upon them in the cruelest way possible.

They were fearful, hopeless and undoubtedly keen on fleeing—but how would they escape? They did not have any technological champion, and there was no time left, because the spawns of the Evil Gods were upon their doorstep, and about to come in months or at most, years.

The massive space station that carried the earliest of warp engines was the final voice of that civilization to the world.

”Would this be the torch of our civilization, or our tombstone?” Amongst the vault of data about every species on a planet, every seed and every living gene, an engineer who must have designed the space station had asked that question blankly before the apocalypse arrived. ”Is there a purpose in doing all this? Those freaks are too powerful, the Federation-built airships are all simply going to waste…”

”All the same…” another engineer calmly replied, ”at least we've resisted.”

”At least, we have chosen to hope.”

***

In the end, 1,700 years later…

The broken space station floated past the vigilant patrol fleet, whose warships encircled and gently activated psionic barriers to slow and eventually stop it.

”At the very least, we've met you…” a plant race individual murmured, closing his eyes. ”You're not alone, for we are with you.”

The warships of five different races were in service. There were those that resembled plants, cicadas, spiders, primates, and jellyfish—the Tehran system was a stronghold and a logistics base closest to the frontlines in the war between Order and Chaos, with the fleet of over a hundred different civilizations anchored. To their rear was the bright galaxies protected by the Stellar Guard, while before them was Chaos and Evil, where specters and darkness bred.

And now, that worn space station had wafted to them from the darkness—the last torch and tombstone of a civilization, the will written calmly in the knowledge of destined death.