Chapter 105: Ancient Battlefields

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

Anyone who was familiar with history would know about the war between the Pan-Human Alliance and insectoids that had happened over two thousand years ago.

The cause of the war was a bit absurd. A distinguished insectoid aristocrat bought a beautiful human woman as his personal slave, helping him with various tasks, such as dressing and eating. After spending some time together, they fell in love.

The love-stricken insectoid abandoned everything he owned and brought his beloved from the Wild Star Region, which was thriving with danger, to her home planet to see her parents. The two of them intended to travel the universe until they died of old age.

Unfortunately, it never played out as they wanted, for harsh reality hit them in the face. At that time, the humans were already rattling their sabers with the insectoids and were competing to secure as much resources from all over the universe. Both sides had a lot of troops around the border, and everyone knew that a war was inevitable. It was only a matter of when and who would start the war.

Unfortunately for the insectoid aristocrat, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The moment he hit the border, he was captured by the Alliance and sentenced to death for espionage, and the woman was sent back to her home planet.

This was originally just a small confrontation and was not enough to trigger a war.

However, when the speech given by this woman was broadcasted on television was sent to the insectoids’ headquarters by one of their spies, the warriors of their species could no longer contain their anger and they thirsted for war.

The lady claimed to have been kidnapped by the insectoid aristocrat and was subjected to abuse day in day out. She claimed that their love was part of her plan to escape, painting the insectoids in a bad light by describing how evil they were and how she managed to devise a plan of escape from the evil insectoid aristocrat to make her way back home.

Without knowing the truth, the public was in outrage. Their opinion of the insectoids took a turn for the worse, requesting the Alliance to wipe out these horrible beings from the universe forever.

This was great news for the generals and marshals in the Alliance army, for the woman’s story had been orchestrated by them.

Their aim was simple; before the war started, the story of a weak lady escaping the grasp of an evil insectoid, who bullied her, was the best way to inspire sympathy and fighting spirits in their soldiers, as well as a great cover for their mobilization.

What the human army did not anticipate was that, when the story reached the insectoids, it would be used as a weapon against them, telling the story of how ridiculous and cheap humans were. The war, which had been brewing for many years, finally erupted amid the anger of soldiers from both fronts, and this war lasted for over three hundred years.

From the start to the end of the war, the whole exchange lasted three hundred twenty-seven years, five months, and eleven days. Countless soldiers and warships fell victim to the war, hiding away in a corner of the vast space forever.

After three hundred years long of back and forth, the economy and morale of both fronts reached an all-time low. Neither party had it in them to continue fighting the war, and that marked the start of the long peace negotiations.

This seemed like something from an extremely absurd comedy. Three hundred years of war, countless lives lost, and in the end, nobody gained an inch of land. It was just the contrary; both sides lost land. The Wild Star Region, which was split evenly into both sides, became a military buffer zone, becoming a paradise for pirates and thugs.

Of course, this was what Xia Fei had learned from the secret documents in the library. Just like any other government, the human alliance would never admit their wrongdoings, only whitewashing the facts with pretty words.

Xia Fei recalled the details of the war as he boarded an Amarr-executioner frigate. This was rented from Andy for five dollars a day. He would be using this to fly toward the battlefield from over two thousand years ago in hopes of finding parts that he needed.

Xia Fei had poured blood, sweat, and tears into the Lunar Eclipse, and he obviously did not want to leave it in the Wild Star Region. By the looks of it, those ancient battlefields were his only choice.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come along with you? It’s totally fine; I can ask someone else to cover my jobs,” said Sarah to Xia Fei as she walked him to the entrance to the ship.

Xia Fei replied with a smile, “I’m just salvaging some parts using the salvager. I can do that alone; go ahead and do your jobs.”

Sarah nodded, not inquiring any further.

Allen said something to Sarah as he looked at Xia Fei, lighting her sad eyes up and turning her frown upside down. It appeared that she had heard something that made her happy.

Xia Fei waved to Allen and Sarah as he flew away toward the war ruins from two thousand years ago.

The executioner-class frigate from Amarr was the smallest frigate in the universe. It had incredible maneuverability but lacked armor and shields.

Andy stocked the ship with two ship detectors and two salvagers, allowing him to scan and salvage warship wrecks.

The Wild Star Region had countless ancient battlefields. The one Xia Fei was heading toward was seven hundred and forty lightyears away from the base. There was once a human fleet that was ambushed by insectoids here, leaving behind hundreds of small ships.

Seven hundred lightyears was an incredibly short distance in space, and Xia Fei reached his destination in just one warp with his executioner-class frigate.

From afar, he could see countless wreckages floating around in space, with tiny metal fragments around them, giving away a sensation that it was from another age.

As he steered into the wreckage, Xia Fei turned on both scanners to scan the different wreckages. The results quickly showed up on the screen.

Xia Fei had entered his checklist beforehand, and the computer would signal him automatically whenever such a part showed up.

As it was relatively close to the base, it had been raided by countless people in the two thousand years it existed. Xia Fei spent almost an hour scanning the entire battlefield, only to find a few non-essential pieces.

He could buy these parts at Andy’s, too, but in the end, he could save some money by salvaging, so Xia Fei did not give up any of these pieces.

With a smile on his face, Xia Fei crossed out a few items on his checklist. As he had just started salvaging, he was incredibly interested in finding scraps in space and was thoroughly enjoying his time.

“How long are you going to spend on this? Might as well buy a new ship and leave the Lunar Eclipse here,” said Phantom as he appeared from the Moore Stone.

Xia Fei rolled his eyes. “If I ditch the Lunar Eclipse, where would I be able to find another top-tier warship like it? Are you all right? Moreover, I’ve spent seven hundred million star coins on the ship; I can’t just give it up like that.”

Phantom sighed, then returned to his world. “Then, have fun salvaging; perhaps you’ll gather everything you need in eight to ten years’ time.”

Xia Fei pursed his lips, ignoring Phantom.

The ship warped once again, arriving at another wreckage. It was not much better as he only managed to salvage one piece, much worse than his last run.

The novelty of salvaging slowly receded and Xia Fei started to get bored. This time, he took a good look at the wreckage distribution map that Andy had given him.

The map had all known ancient battlefields labeled. The ones in the green were safer as they were relatively close to the base, but these safe zones had been raided by countless others, meaning that the salvaging rate was going to be exceedingly low.

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The yellow regions were those areas with some risk. It might be that the regions were not all that stable or were under pirates’ control. Red zones represented death zones, and the black zones should be avoided at all costs.

Xia Fei lit a cigarette and considered all his options. He decided to skip the green areas as the rates would be too low.

The ship warped again, arriving at a yellow zone nearest to Xia Fei.

This ancient battlefield was huge, and from the number of wreckages and the condition they were in, it must have been a horrible battle. Countless insectoid and human warships were stacked on top of others. Both parties were exchanging fire incredibly close—perhaps even too close.

The scanner was activated immediately. A red beam of light came out from the top of the ship, reporting the status of each of the wreckages and the usable parts to the AI computer.

Xia Fei changed his strategy this time around. He decided to ignore pieces he could buy, leaving just the thirty-four different essential pieces on the search list.

The ship navigated through the wreckage in search of the parts Xia Fei was looking for.

Twenty or so minutes later, the screen lit up, and Xia Fei found an intact lidar positioning system on a Caldari heron-class frigate. Although the system was a bit old, it was still usable on the Lunar Eclipse.

Xia Fei was exceedingly happy. He tapped on the projected screen to start the salvaging operation immediately.

The salvage happened in three steps. First, the system would confirm the position of the item. Second, a laser would be shot out from the salvager, making a round hole through the thick armor, then it would whittle away anything preventing the piece from getting extracted. Third, a traction beam would attract that part to the ship.

The whole process, which was managed by the AI computer, would only take minutes without any need for intervention.

Another hour or so later, Xia Fei discovered and salvaged another piece that he needed.

Just like that, he jumped from one area to another. Xia Fei slowly discovered the hope of fixing the Lunar Eclipse. He warped from one wreckage to another within the yellow zone, but slowly but surely, he was edging ever close to the extremely dangerous red zone.