1499 Out of Control!
Xia Fan hastened to the Black Egg’s command deck. Inspecting the star map, he found that the Black Egg would enter the Forbidden Region in another ten minutes. If he didn’t take countermeasures now, the Spatial Navigation Bureau would notice him.
“What’s happening? Are we entering the Forbidden Region?”
Traveling Buddha ran into the command deck, but this guy was basically coming to watch the show, carrying his teapot, teacups, and even a box of snacks. He plopped himself onto the sofa on the command deck.
“So hurry up and tell me, how do you plan to get in there?” Traveling Buddha asked excitedly, fearing that he would lack some good entertainment.
!!
“It’s not that simple,” Xia Fan smiled. “Let’s put that aside for now. Pour me a cup of tea first.”
“Alright!” Traveling Buddha poured out a cup of tea and handed it to Xia Fan.
Xia Fan drank it down and handed the cup back to Traveling Buddha. “Good tea, as expected. You really know how to enjoy yourself. I won’t hide it from you. I plan to charge right in.”
“Charge right in?” Traveling Buddha’s eyes brightened. “Is that possible? Won’t those guys from the Spatial Navigation Bureau note down your ship’s ID?”
Xia Fan shook his head and smiled. “They have to be capable of that first. If I make a blind warp, they won’t be able to note down anything.”
*Clap clap clap!*
Traveling Buddha clapped his hands excitedly. “A blind warp! Interesting, interesting! Ever since you’ve left the Demon Chasm, you’ve been doing more and more ambitious things!”
A blind warp was a random warp without a set target. This option was naturally very dangerous, for when the Black Egg made a blind warp, it could appear anywhere in the star region. For example, if the warp point had a planet, the Black Egg might crash right into it!
Even more frightening were black holes or white holes. Warping straight into a black hole would leave one in tears without anywhere to cry.
Xia Fan adjusted the system, and several seconds later, the AI support system declared, “Preparations for random warp complete. Beginning countdown.”
Bang!
When the countdown ended, the Black Egg immediately disappeared from space, and the world outside the window became fantastical, as if millions of comets were rushing past.
Several minutes went by. Xia Fan suddenly began to work the control panel, pressing various buttons and even preparing a spatial shock bomb!
“My God! What are you doing?” Traveling Buddha started sweating as he asked in confusion.
Xia Fan gave him his classic sunny smile. “Don’t panic. This is a skill Engineer Grandpa taught me. At the very end of a warp, if you find that things are going poorly, just use a spatial shock bomb to send you off course. In this way, you can avoid disaster. While you damage the ship as a price, you keep your life.”
Traveling Buddha was gobsmacked. Even that was possible!?
The moment they left the warp tunnel, if he found that they were headed for a black hole, he would use the spatial bomb and send the ship off course himself.
There was no problem with the principle, but only someone very unusual could have thought of such an unreasonable method. Sure enough, nobody who lived under the dome was a good person. The Disasters had all taught Xia Fan things that went against common sense!
——
But Xia Fan ultimately didn’t use the spatial shock bomb. The Black Egg smoothly left the wormhole. In front of them was a strange region of space. An earthen yellow planet floated directly in front of them. The planet had a magnificent ring around it, like an outer space ribbon.
“Success! We really got into the Forbidden Region!” Traveling Buddha looked at the star map and excitedly said. “This is my first time in the Forbidden Region. I’ve always wanted to come here, but my dad never let me.”
Traveling Buddha’s face suddenly turned strange. He noticed that Xia Fan was staring out the window at that giant planetary ring and then looking at their location on the star map, his facial expression constantly changing.
“It can’t be this much of a coincidence, right?” Xia Fan opened his mouth in shock and muttered.
“What? What are you trying to say?” Traveling Buddha asked in confusion.
Xia Fan pointed at the planetary ring and said, “It’s just bizarre. This is exactly the place I wanted to go.”
Traveling Buddha frowned. “I don’t understand navigation, but is there anything bad about coming straight here? If we ended up light-years away, we would have had to waste a ton of time trying to get here.”
Xia Fan shook his head and grimly said, “The probability is too low. The chances of getting to the place I want through a random warp is infinitesimally close to zero. In short, something fishy is going on. We have to be careful starting right now.”
Traveling Buddha nonchalantly waved his hand. “This guy, here I was saying that you had gotten bolder after coming back from the Demon Chasm, but now you’re starting to be all paranoid again.”
—
Xia Fan said nothing and continued to operate the Black Egg. He slowly brought it closer to the planetary ring while inspecting the data from the radar, his entire person going solemn.
“Look, there seems to be something there!” Traveling Buddha pointed at the edge of the planetary ring while hugging his teapot.
Xia Fan looked over, and then he looked at the radar. He instantly paled!
“Oh no! It’s an electromagnetic storm!” Xia Fan shouted.
He had barely spoken when that inconspicuous light at the edge of the planetary ring erupted in size! White and blue points of light mixed together into a storm that spanned space as it shot toward their ship!
*Deedeedee!~*
The warning system finally sounded the alarm, proving Xia Fan’s suspicions true. There was no doubt that this wasn’t normal. Nothing had been normal from the moment they entered the Forbidden Region!
“Curses!” Xia Fan swore, and he hastily shut down the ship’s electronic systems. The most terrifying thing about an electromagnetic storm, the thing that made it a nightmare for warships, was that the powerful electromagnetic waves would destroy a ship’s energy and electronic systems. It was easy to imagine what would happen to a warship without energy or with disabled electronic systems.
Fortunately, Xia Fan was a speedster. His hands flew across the control panel, shutting down the electronic systems in the blink of an eye. But while the systems were shut off, it would still take a few seconds for the systems to completely shut down.
At that moment, the intimidating electromagnetic storm arrived. The edge of this spherical storm was heading straight for the ship!
“Prepare for impact!” Xia Fan shouted.
Suddenly, the Black Egg shuddered, and all of the displays on the ship turned into static. The blue outside the window was dazzling, like a blue bolt of lightning had completely engulfed the vessel.
“Warning! Losing control!”
“The ship is going out of control!”
The AI system was still working hard. Alas, the AI’s voice only resounded twice before completely disappearing. The electromagnetic storm had probably destroyed the computer’s core.
In short, the Black Egg had turned into an out-of-control asteroid, carried along by the electromagnetic storm on an unknown trajectory.
“Damn it! It’s a directed electromagnetic storm!” Xia Fan cursed as he grabbed the handlebars of the command deck.
There were two kinds of electromagnetic storms. The explosive type erupted from the center and spread out in all directions.
The second was a directional storm. The electromagnetic storm would shoot toward a target like a missile.
“Good God! It really is like my grandpa said! The Forbidden Region is full of weird things!” Traveling Buddha also cursed.
Traveling Buddha was talking about a proverb of Ashen Moon that elders would often tell the fun-loving younger generation: Don’t try to adventure in the Forbidden Region! The Forbidden Region was the Forbidden Region not merely because of the Cosmic Gate, but because of numerous unexplainable cosmic phenomena. The risk levels here were incomparable to those in the rest of the universe!
The same proverb also applied to several places in the Outer Frontier, but unlike the Forbidden Region, these places were all very remote, not smack dab in the center of the Three Federations, the very heart of Ashen Moon!
This horrible situation lasted for several minutes. The Black Egg wasn’t just accelerating, it was spinning. The ship’s hold was in complete chaos, and the electronic systems that had not fully had time to shut down were severely damaged.
Finally, the storm stopped. The only good thing about a directional electromagnetic storm was that it came quickly and left quickly. An explosive electromagnetic storm would last for a very long time before ending.
After the blue lightning around the ship dissipated, Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha gasped in surprise. It turned out that the electromagnetic storm had brought the Black Egg into the planetary ring, and straight toward the earthen yellow planet!
By the time Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha realized that, they were only several hundred meters from the ground!
“My God!” Xia Fan cursed angrily. Tightly grabbing the handlebar, he shouted, “Brace for a second impact!”
The Black Egg had quite the momentum, but it was in completely the wrong direction. The out-of-control ship was driving straight to the surface!
*BOOM!*