~Alert!~Alert!~
"SC Earth Omen is activated from an outside force! Someone is hacking us!"
"W-What is going on?! All doors and paths are opened!"
"Everything is hacked here… How? What is Terra AI doing? She should know about this!" The military commander Roysan shouted, a somber expression spreading on his face.
The headquarters of Dragon City was in shock and panic.
"Inform leaders to gather, and put our best team to prevent this invasion! Quick."
"S-Sir, the main extract point of SC Earth Omen is opening. The star cruiser's engines have started. It will launch after ten seconds."
"Sir!" Another member shouted and quickly relayed, "Terra AI is calling here."
"Accept!" The commander instantly replied.
Soon everyone heard Terra AI's voice.
"Don't worry. This is not hacking from a foreign force. I am just calling the spaceship to my base for some checkups."
Commander Roysan sighed a relief hearing that and wryly said, "Please inform us beforehand about such things."
~Dhrrrr~*
A slight vibration spread everywhere in the city while a giant spaceship about five hundred feet long and a hundred feet tall came out of the ground in the forest, just a few kilometers away from the city's outskirts.
…
At the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, tons of space stations, artificial structures, giant planets, and more were floating in space.
Milky Way Alliance Headquarters, Status Chart Section.
The AI overseeing this headquarters suddenly reported in the Status Chart Section.
"Passive connection to planet 484's AI has been lost. Connection reestablishment is impossible. According to code 1129, an inspection team must be sent to that planet."
Sitting in his office, Admiral Nejir raised his eyebrows hearing the report and responded, "Are you sure it's not just going through an emergency reboot?"
"I only reported after confirming everything, Admiral. Please make a team of at least five Inferior-Seals Exceeds from your army and send them to the target planet for inspection."
Admiral heard the report and frowned, "An AI under you severed its connection, and you couldn't do anything? The AI there should be a few generations lower in terms of specs and core. What happened?"
"Unable to deduce full information. But there are only limited possibilities. The most likely one is that the AI there received a major upgrade, causing its capabilities to surpass mine."
"Impossible!" Admiral Nejir stood up in shock! At first, he thought that the AI there must have done a complete reboot or some emergency maintenance."
However, an upgrade? This was simply bullshit.
"Planet 484, Earth. Their civilization tier reached C-grade only because of our help, but to upgrade an AI to your level, they need to be at least A-grade, which is impossible."
Admiral Nejir was muttering to himself.
"Correction, Admiral. The AI there has a better core than me after whatever upgrade it went through."
Admiral Nejir's orange eyes glowed as he went into deep thought.
"You should hurry, Admiral."
"I know." Admiral Nejir stood up and left his office.
…
Dragon City's people were also startled.
"Are our leaders going to a meeting after a long time?"
"Previously, they had a meeting with Red Goblins, and some even came to visit here, haha. I wonder who will come this time?"
Red Goblins. They were a civilized race of C-grade civilization whose home planet was in a different solar system, a smaller one. It was the nearest solar system to Earth's solar system.
People of Earth went there to cooperate with them on some matters.
After all, Earth was preparing to expand in space and build more planets.
Earth Union was only taking it slower due to the population crisis. The Earth's population was too low, just 4 billion.
Many people were leaving Earth instead of staying here. As a matter of fact, many Earthlings' current target was Red Goblin planets and other human planets. Many were already living there.
Job opportunities outside of Earth only existed outside Earth's solar system.
…
"Ship is here. Get in the elevator and reach the top floor. I will open the ship's tractor beam to pull in," Terra said.
"Got It," Rei said with a nod as he and others walked inside the elevator in the hall.
"She is really fine, right?" Lia said with slight worry as she saw Alice unconscious in Rei's arms getting princess carried.
But what she did was a feat not many could do.
The process was brutal when she used her ability on Terra AI's core.
All veins in her body protruded, and she was in great pain, but she didn't let go of the hand touching Terra AI's core because she knew the evolution process would stop if she removed her hand.
If that happened, Rei would have to wait one more month to do this plan, which might not even work again.
That's why she endured until the end before finally losing all strength and going unconscious.
"She worked hard," Rei said, looking at Alice with a gentle smile.
"Yep," Leo nodded with sweat drops still on his forehead.
If Alice failed to keep her hand during the evolution and something happened to Terra because of that, they would've landed in trouble big enough to ruin their whole lives.
…
"Why is the spaceship moving up instead of returning here?" Commander Rayson said with a frown. "Terra, what is going on?"
"Hello, Terra?"
Leaders had also gathered for a meeting regarding Terra AI moving their only FTL engine spaceship.
Commander Rayson immediately informed the leaders, causing another shock as the spaceship had left Earth by then.
The whole Earth Union was in uproar and anger, especially the leaders!
An hour after the spaceship left, they even got a message from Milky Way Alliance.
"We are fucked, I think." A man with a dark skin tone said with a somber expression.
"Should we tell our space station to shoot the cruiser? We have some shuttles and weapons there."
Everyone looked at the guy who spoke and sighed.
It was not possible. SC Earth Omen had a more powerful weapon system and even a barrier system that they hadn't even succeeded in developing despite trying to reach out to some nearby civilizations.
"We lost our best AI, causing many facilities to lose some support. And we also lost our best spaceship…" said a man with blond hair and a beard with a dark expression plastered on his face.
"Did we find any information on why Terra did that? And who helped her?"
"Nothing so far."
Silence.
Nobody, not even guards at the door, was speaking.
The meeting hall was silent, with everyone looking grim. They didn't expect they would have to see such days.
"Fuck."
…
Meanwhile…
"Interesting, I was expecting some sort of blockage, but they just let us go?" Rei was confused, but he didn't have any problem with this development.
They had already left Earth and were moving.
"FTL is activating in three seconds. Our destination is Space outside of our Solar System," Leo said with an excited smile.
"So, what's our first destination?" Rei asked curiously.
"It's a place where you would immediately go there if you knew," said Leo with a grin.
"What kind of place is it? Some other planet?" Lia asked, wondering what kind of place Leo was talking about.
"Haha, we will reach there soon. Just wait," Leo said, and immediately afterward, the spaceship entered the FTL zone (Faster Than Light).
"T-This…" Lia was wide-eyed as she saw space transforming before her eyes. At first, she could only see stars and planets from the spaceship, but now, all of that has disappeared.
A scenery of multiple thick colorful lights passing quickly appeared.
"The place we are going to is 0.6 light years away after we exit our solar system, so.." Leo said while looking ahead, and soon, the strange scenery of FTL vanished.
0.6 light years away from planet Earth, a strange portal opened as SC Earth Omen ship emerged from it, leaving the FTL zone.
"Behold, the Exceed Shrine!" Leo said with a wide smile.
Meanwhile, Rei and Lia were dumbfounded.
Just a few tens miles away from them was a wonder of space—an exotic structure that looked godly and majestic. This Exceed Shrine was built on an island made of some strange dark gold material. There was no soil.
Several small spaceships, shuttles, and other space vehicles were parked at the space station near the Exceed Shrine.
"I knew about Exceed Shrine but didn't know we could reach here so soon," Rei said, amazed at the sight before him. "It's marvelous!"
"Mhmm, How can a building float in space like this? So magical," Lia said with a spark in her eyes. "If I stayed back, I would never see this."
"Terra, could you park the spaceship in that space station?"
Terra showed her projection of a beautiful village girl and said while shaking her head, "This spaceship is registered here since it has been parked in this space station many times. The authorities there would immediately inform Earth."
"If we stay here for too long, we will be discovered as well," Terra added thoughtfully.
"Hmm?" Rei was surprised. "Terra, your expressions. I'm sure you were not this expressive before."
"It's because of Alice," Terra said with a smile.
"Woah, such a natural and beautiful smile," Lia said, impressed and a bit envious.
"I could smile before, but it was only through my computing functions. That's why I didn't smile by activating some codes. But now…"
"It feels like there's more to me than just science and maths," Terra said, sounding cheerful and jubilant.
"So, what should we do now? Do you got any idea, Terra?" Leo asked.
Terra nodded, her eyes flashing with a digitized light. "The ship's FTL engine has enough fuel to travel 400 light years. To avoid getting caught, we will go to another Exceed Shrine that's 317 lightyears away from here."
…
While Rei and others left after entering FTL again, a person working there frowned. She had one of the highest access to the space station's AI.
"Miss Valen, I feel like someone entered inside me and stole all my data. But I can't find any traces," said the AI of the space station.
"I also noticed some change in your data frequency, but there's no trace of that interference anymore."