Chapter 3: The Quantum Leap and the Birthplace

“So full… so hungry… hunt, hunt!”

The massive creature’s colossal body drifted through the fringes of the cosmos, constantly devouring all manner of cosmic matter. From fleeting meteoroids to minor planets, it consumed everything in its path.

Even when encountering more substantial planets, it would shatter them with a single strike of its tentacles, then proceed to feast.

As it swept through the void, the egg sac trailing behind it grew increasingly bloated. The creature itself felt its flight speed gradually diminish.

Eventually, a sudden premonition struck the creature: it was about to give birth.

It desperately needed a suitable birthing ground, a place rich in resources. According to the star charts gleaned from the devoured humans and their spacecraft, the nearest minor star system was approximately twenty light-years away.

However, this distance was far too vast. If it were to simply fly there, it would undoubtedly give birth to its offspring midway.

How pitiful that would be! Its children would be born only to fly through the empty cosmos, their tiny bellies aching with hunger!

The massive creature racked its brains, searching for ways to increase its speed. Finally, after analyzing the salvaged technology from the spacecraft wreckage and combining it with human memories, the design for a Quantum Transporter materialized within its mind.

After a brief analysis of its fundamental operating principles, the creature mimicked the human designs. It set an anchor point on the star chart and, utilizing its own energy and the principles of quantum mechanics, used its front tentacles as a conduit to directly open a Quantum Gate leading to that star system!

Yet, this passageway was initially too narrow. The creature spent some time expanding it until it was large enough to accommodate its immense form.

However, the larger the passageway, the more unstable the spatial coefficients became. Fortunately, the creature, drawing inspiration from the technology, devised an alternative solution: creating a larger passageway by centering it around three Quantum Gates. While such a feat seemed utterly impossible by human scientific standards, it was due to their underdeveloped technology.

For the massive creature, with sufficient power, it could even tear through space directly to forge a Wormhole Channel. However, this proved somewhat difficult for the creature while it was pregnant, making human quantum technology a far easier and simpler alternative.

The sole drawback was that a Quantum Channel, unlike a wormhole, did not allow for instantaneous transmission. Passing through a Quantum Passageway still required a period of Quantum Transport. The larger the volume, the longer the transport time.

For a creature of its immense size, such a journey would likely take at least a day or two to complete. But it didn’t matter; compared to a twenty-light-year journey, the creature felt it could certainly wait.

Finally, after what felt like an immensely long transmission, the dark, featureless cosmos was replaced by a world that began to glow with vibrant light.

‘Is this the homeland from human memories…?’

‘It looks delicious!’

The massive creature excitedly scanned its many eyes around. The cosmic wasteland it had previously inhabited never boasted such colorful nebulae or sparkling, scattered stars.

There were only a few aging stars on the verge of collapse and some shadowy, ravenous entities that constantly vied with it for food.

Fortunately, it had eventually consumed those shadowy entities. Compared to luminous stars, their taste seemed to be far inferior. Through the memories of the creatures it had consumed, the massive creature learned that these things were called black holes.

Moreover, humans seemed to be terrified of black holes, probably because they were such voracious eaters. This meant humans should be particularly afraid of it too, since it was also an incredibly voracious eater!

Upon realizing this, the massive creature couldn’t help but inwardly applaud its own cleverness, then began flying towards the position it had previously marked on the star chart.

The Quantum Gate’s exit point had a slight deviation from its intended destination, but this variance, being within 0.05 light-years, was just barely acceptable.

After flying for a short while, the massive creature could discern, with its multiple eyes, the planets orbiting a nearby star. This brought immense joy, for its children’s food supply was now secured.

The massive creature did not choose to directly assault the planets brimming with food. How could its newborn children eat such soft things? It circled briefly, then selected a planet that clearly contained High-Energy Crystals.

It descended on the planet’s far side, away from the star, and directly embedded its swollen egg sac into the planet’s interior, injecting half of its eggs into the planetary mass. Perhaps it was due to the planet’s inherently fragile constitution, but inserting and withdrawing the sac required no effort at all.

‘This is good, though. It will make it easier for the children to emerge.’

Subsequently, the massive creature departed from the planet, drifting leisurely towards another.

Meanwhile, on the mineral planet, the crew aboard the spacecraft had waited for Arijes for quite some time, yet he had not returned. They grew increasingly anxious, especially since Arijes’s communicator was off. They couldn’t help but wonder if something had happened to him.

“Perhaps we should go down and check?”

“Yes, that’s fine. Be careful, and notify me immediately if anything seems amiss.”

One of the team members nodded, grabbed an Alliance automatic Gauss Rifle, and slowly walked towards the mining shaft.

While their mission was to find someone, they were still in space. Even though the Alliance had confirmed this mineral planet had no indigenous life forms, no one could guarantee that some strange alien creature hadn’t nested there during the unsupervised period.

As the saying goes, ‘caution is the parent of safety,’ and carrying a weapon offered a greater sense of security.

The team member cautiously approached the mining shaft, then carefully peered down. The stairs along the shaft’s edge were intact, but under the helmet’s light, it was clear that the stairs were damaged at a depth of nearly twenty meters.

“Hello, can you hear me? The ladder here in the mining shaft is broken. I suspect Arijes fell. Go bring the Space Cable from the ship, and I’ll go down to check.”

“Understood. Copy that.”

A short message replied from the spacecraft. Upon receiving it, he leaned against the edge of the mining shaft, quietly gazing at the two twinkling stars in the sky. They were his home—beautiful, peaceful, and serene. Though they couldn’t compare to the powerful empires at the heart of the cosmic empire, they offered a superior sense of tranquility.

“How wonderful…”

Unnoticed by him, deep within the mining shaft, massive creatures were using their sharp claws to hook into the extremely hard rock walls, relentlessly climbing upwards…