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Yang Ming squinted, ready to enjoy the marvelous sensation for those ten seconds, when his eyelids suddenly twitched softly.
Goo-goo-woo——
Yang Ming wondered if he heard wrong.
He abruptly turned around, only to see the interior of the cabin turning into overlapping shadows; as he closed his eyes, a scene swiftly flashed before him.
A deep starry sky, a splendid nebula, all of these were meaningless backdrops.
It was as if, right in front, in the darkness directly ahead, the girl quietly floated there, curling her broken body, seemingly in a cosmic slumber.
The, the Valkyrie?
Goo-goo-woo——
"I want to devour you."
"I want to devour you."
"I want to devour you."
The whisper of Po Suo echoed continuously, and behind her seemed to emerge a phantom of a planet; when Yang Ming tried to look more closely, the light and shadow before him gently trembled, and everything vanished.
The jump was completed.
A faint reverberation drilled into Yang Ming's ear, as if it were the Valkyrie's murmur in a dream.
"Become one with me, Yang Ming."
Yang Ming's skin crawled with goosebumps.
...
Was even an Antimatter Bomb incapable of killing the Valkyrie?
As everyone knew, the principle of an Antimatter Bomb was to use the annihilation of antimatter and matter to produce high-energy gamma rays, converting almost 100% of the mass into energy.
The strongest weapon developed by Earth's civilization, the hydrogen bomb, could only achieve less than 0.7% mass-energy conversion!
Ah, yes, dismissing mass while discussing power was simply nonsense.
The Antimatter Bomb that Brother Ji detonated at the time might not have had such a high mass; the small landing craft that he and Lina were on was attacked at close range without evident damage.
If the research vessel left any wreckage, and if the wreckage contained cells of the goddess, it was possible for the goddess to revive!
That was the most terrifying aspect of the Ancient God Life Form.
They were aggregations of cells, capable of using individual cells as spores to undergo infinite division, growth, and reconstruction.
Even if the Valkyrie wasn't dead, she must be in her weakest state now, and he might have a chance to completely eliminate her!
It wouldn't work either, the vicinity of the research vessel explosion point must already be surrounded by the Empire's army for investigation. Having barely escaped, going back would be like serving himself on a silver platter, wouldn't it?
Yang Ming moved swiftly inside the pirate ship, his thoughts a tangled mess.
It was as if, he felt he had reached the doorstep of a happy life, only to push open the door and find it inhabited by a knife-wielding Valkyrie.
A stream of curses rolled through Yang Ming's mind, pushing open the door in front of him to reach the bridge of the ship.
It was more of a comprehensive living room than a bridge.
Only one-third of the space was dedicated to a control panel, with a vintage wooden ship's wheel in the center; the rest was filled with weapon racks, tables, and dining chairs.
More than a dozen figures surrounded Kolev, who was frowning at the projection screen in front of him, seemingly looking at the accounts.
"You all leave first, I want to have a chat with my friend," Kolev said, "Mimili, stay."
The over ten pirates each nodded in response and left the bridge in a stifling atmosphere.
Yang Ming concealed his anxiety and smiled as he approached.
"How's it going, Kolev?"
"A complete mess," Kolev opened a bottle of wine beside him, poured a bit into an empty glass for Yang Ming, "I'm sorry you had to see me at the most embarrassing moment of my life."
Mimili pouted slightly from the side.
Yang Ming pulled out a chair and sat down, smelling the wine and taking a sip.
"Where are we heading now?" Yang Ming asked.
"The middle section of the second spiral arm, where a few small countries converge, preparing to check out the black market nearby," Kolev shrugged, "Honestly, I'm a bit lost now. The news of my escape will soon spread among the circles, and those who betrayed my daughter, those ruthless pirates I personally trained, will undoubtedly come after Mimili and me. I can imagine them being restless."
Yang Ming nodded, "Yes, Mimili might not be a threat to them, but you're different."
Mimili almost rolled her eyes to the top of the cabin.
"What else can I do?"
Kolev glanced at Mimili and continued,
"Now I can only appear publicly, go to the black market where pirates gather, catch up with my old friends, and publicly declare that I've quit the pirate circle, only wanting to find a quiet planet to spend the rest of my life with Mimili."
Yang Ming frowned and said, "Will they believe you?"
"Of course they won't," Kolev said, "But Hanton, you must understand, I still have a certain amount of prestige. When I express that I don't wish to oppose Kimo and the others proactively, they must consider how their subordinates feel. Pirates can be extremely cruel to enemies, but they must have enough regard for their own people, or else they'll eventually die under the barrels of their subordinates' guns."
"And then?"
"Perhaps disappearing entirely is a good choice."
Kolev said, "Mimili isn't cut out for this; she's better off opening a beauty salon."
Mimili bit her lip, looking down.
"No, no," Yang Ming laughed, "Parents always have filters for their children. Mimili is a born pirate, I assure you."
Mimili looked slightly surprised, not expecting such an evaluation from Uncle Hanton.
Kolev frowned deeply, "But she failed."
"Everyone fails; life's main theme can't be success. What's important is whether we choose to try again or choose to sink into despair after failure."
Yang Ming said softly,
"You can't expect Mimili to be as scheming as those underlings you trained. She was only sixteen or seventeen at the time and is now only twenty, whereas those underlings of yours are rogues who have followed you and ventured across land and sea for decades."
Kolev's expression softened slightly.
Mimili looked at Yang Ming with a bit more gratitude.
"You have a talent for comforting people," Kolev remarked.
Yang Ming asked, "When we made consecutive jumps earlier, did we pass through somewhere? Did we cross the Empire's border?"
"Oh, what's wrong?"
Kolev said,
"Didn't you study elementary school physics, Hanton?
"The principle of jumping is moving in a straight line; the universe we exist in is a four-dimensional structure, contained within a five-dimensional world.
"Why four-dimensional? You can visually perceive the length, width, and height, the three-dimensional attributes of an object.; in the five-dimensional world looking at us, they can see our length, width, height, and temporal state intuitively.
"Our universe is a plane in this five-dimensional world; you can imagine it as, this plane becomes a series of complex polytopes, which we cannot accurately calculate using our methods, after being reduced in dimensions. When we make jumps, we're navigating quickly within these polytopes.
"We live in the four-dimensional world, but are also part of the five-dimensional world, just as the cube you see is enveloped within our universe, so we can utilize a few rules of the five-dimensional world."
Yang Ming shrugged, "So why not fold a piece of paper and use a pen to pierce two overlapping holes?"
"Oh, your knowledge of physics is so primitive," Kolev shook his head, "That's just an analogy."
"What you mean is, during the jump, we could potentially pass through some distant voids in another dimension."
"Yes, we can't determine the exact location of these voids, as they're exceedingly abstract."
Yang Ming sat there, lost in thought.
How to deal with the Valkyrie?
Heading into Sherman Empire territory now was obviously impractical; if he went later, the Valkyrie might have already regained her strength.
He already had the upper hand now. The Valkyrie might need some time to regain her strength.
That was the opportunity.
He had to become stronger.
He could have a powerful pirate group, or perhaps not just a pirate group, the Intelligent Mechanic Army was also a great choice.
He had to wield more powerful forces, individual and combined; if he could use the legion's main cannon to "bully" the Valkyrie, all the better.
At that moment.
Yang Ming's nerves, which had relaxed, tensed up again, constantly contemplating the road ahead.
Kolev covered his forehead with one hand, his aged face full of exhaustion, clearly contemplating the future for him and his daughter.
"Let's officially collaborate, Kolev."
Yang Ming suddenly spoke, raising his right hand as if in an arm-wrestling challenge.
"I was thinking the same," Kolev grinned, his dry right hand reaching out to grip Yang Ming's firmly.
...
(P.S.: Everything beyond the scope of modern physics here is purely speculative fantasy. It's not real. If it were things like black hole radiation, perhaps I could concoct a hypothesis, but for jumps, subspace, curvature engines, I'd have to resort to a Baidu link.)
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