Star Hunter.

Chapter 271 Gray Planet

After dealing with the matter at the First Affiliated Hospital, Xilin and Baiye set off immediately without informing Yuanye. If they had, the Yuan family would have been dragged into it. Xilin had no idea who was involved or how many high-ranking officials were implicated. He didn't know how many high-ranking officials of the empire would be involved in the largest dark force in the empire.

It's like a drop of ink falling into a pool of water and merging into it. Although you can't see anything when you look at it again, and the pool water is still pretty much the same as before, that drop of ink is indeed present in the pool water.

Although the star map in the projector in Guan Feng's living room could not be copied and the entire projector was automatically destroyed, the group had good memories and managed to recreate the star map after the projector self-destructed.

"Does such a place really exist?" In the control room of the spacecraft, Sergei looked at the partial projection of the star map on his hand and asked Sirin, who was sitting next to him.

"There should be some. Even if those few planets aren't there, there must be other planets there," Xilin said.

"Indeed, I never noticed. This place wasn't on the star map I had before. It's really mysterious." Serdiye poked the marked area with his finger. "I wonder what's waiting for us there."

Chi Lafang twirled his sun hat with his finger and said, "Whatever awaits us, it's bound to be trouble. Oh, by the way, I heard Black Viper has a lot of robots. I wonder what level their robots have been upgraded to now. If they're still the same scrap metal we encountered a while ago, that would be too disappointing."

Niki, who was playing a game, glanced at him sideways: "Even if they're just a bunch of scrap metal, a thousand or a hundred of them could easily turn you into a sieve with a single shot. Let alone in Black Viper's headquarters, you should write a will first, and then divide up the remaining assets you didn't have time to use."

Chi Lafang paused in his hat-twirling motion. He chuckled and said, "For the sake of my remaining wealth that I haven't had time to spend, I'm not willing to lose my life."

"Then you'd better take it seriously. Don't be careless and mess things up. Someone who can fall asleep during shooting class is really suspicious. Also, don't think I don't know that Amadeo did most of the work on the last mission."

"Shooting class is so boring, it's no wonder I fall asleep. Secondly, you can't deny my hard work! I've also shot down robots!"

Niki ignored Chi Lafang's nonsense and lowered her head to continue playing the game. Amadeo, standing nearby, wagged its tail; falling asleep during battle wasn't a first for Chi Lafang.

"Hey, where are those two guys?" Chi Lafang kicked Amadilo.

Amadeo pointed his tail toward the door. "He's off patrolling the territory."

From the moment they boarded the spaceship, Gray Cat and Snow Wolf Ruby, two territorial creatures, started vying for space. Since they weren't allowed to spray their metabolic waste anywhere on the spaceship, Gray Cat habitually rubbed his scent against various spots, and Snow Wolf Ruby did the same. The two nearly came to blows as soon as they boarded. In the end, Gray Cat won slightly, taking over more territory.

Ruble was afraid the cat would try to cheat, so he would always go out to supervise whenever the gray cat went out to patrol its territory, to prevent the cat from taking over his territory.

As they were talking, the gray cat walked in, tail held high. Behind it followed Ruble, whose expression wasn't exactly pleasant.

"Hey, you've finished your inspection?" Amadeo greeted them.

Ruble was quite annoyed whenever this was brought up. "If this cat weren't a team member's pet, I would have killed it already!"

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The gray cat jumped onto Xilin's shoulder and was licking its paws. Hearing Ruble's words, it raised its paw and pointed at Ruble, saying disdainfully, "I don't know how many cats like you I've eaten when I was a kid!"

Xilin smiled, recalling the first time he met the gray cat; this guy had indeed eaten quite a few wolves. He flicked the gray cat's ear: "Alright, stop arguing. This time we're all on the same side."

The gray cat snorted, "They're both canines, but this guy is just so annoying. Red Wind is much better."

Ruble bared its teeth, ready to bite off the cat's ear if it said another word!

The gray cat was indeed about to speak again, but was interrupted by an alarm.

"What's wrong?" Chi Lafang, who was half asleep, was jolted awake.

"It's nothing, I just received a message." Niki put down the game console, converted the received signal into characters, and decoded it to find the following message: If you want to find Black Viper, come here first, or you'll regret it.

The people in the control room stared at the message in silence.

Niki continued decoding. Along with the message came a simple star map, marking a specific planet. It wasn't the vanished area, but rather a place some distance away. The common thread was that it was a forgotten corner; even though everyone could find that planet on their star maps, no one ever paid it any attention. Moreover, information about that planet was scarce, summed up in one word—poverty.

After a long pause, Xilin asked Baiye, "Has our whereabouts been leaked?"

Bai Ye shook his head. "Besides the few of us, no one knows where we're going."

If it wasn't Black Viper, and there was no leak, then who sent this encrypted message?

Undoubtedly, the person who sent this message knew Xilin and his companions' whereabouts and purpose very well, but the group couldn't figure out who would do such a thing.

"What should we do? Should we go?" Sediye looked at the group.

"Same as always, let's vote." With a flick of her finger, a screen appeared in front of each person, displaying three options: "Go," "Don't go," or "Abstain."

In the end, the answer was always "go".

"It seems everyone thinks the same way, that's a good thing," Serdiye laughed.

Having decided to go, they readjusted their flight path and flew towards that planet.

Before arriving at that planet, the group searched for information about it, but strangely, they all got the same results: the information was also quite limited. The more this was the case, the more bizarre it seemed to them.

With their limited abilities, they only managed to uncover this little bit of information, and they can't even be sure if it's true or not.

"Even on the poorest planet, even if it's so barren it can't survive, there should be records in the database. But the information we've found so little is as if someone has erased all the other information," Nikki said. Her face, which looked like that of a seven or eight-year-old, was full of seriousness, which seemed quite contradictory. If Xilin hadn't already known that this woman was over thirty, he would definitely have thought that she had a special experience like Tang Qiuqiu.

"In any case, it's better to be cautious."

"Bring your equipment."

The group was discussing their strategy. Ruble and Amadeo joined in, looking serious. Only the gray cat seemed relaxed in the control room; it didn't care about the strangeness of the planet. To it, it was all just a hunting game. Not only was it not nervous, but it was also quite excited, hoping for some fresh food to satisfy its hungry stomach. The sea monster eggs that Xilin had collected earlier had already been divided up by it and Blueskin, and now it was craving them.

Following the star marker provided in the message, Xilin and his team found their target planet. The planet wasn't very large. The environment was also unfavorable; although humans could survive on it, life certainly wouldn't be good.

According to the probe's scan, this is indeed a planet with extremely scarce resources. There aren't even any monitoring satellites or protective networks around it, indicating that its development is poor, even quite backward.

"How is the planet?" Amadeo asked.

"Very poor. Extremely poor. Apart from the urban areas where the metal content is relatively high, the metal content in other places is pitifully low. It's all gray soil, which lacks many elements. Very few plants can survive in this kind of soil. There are less than a hundred species of plants that have evolved to adapt to the soil on the planet, but each one is very resilient. Survival of the fittest," Nikki explained.

Viewed from space, the planet appears gray in most places, giving it a depressed and lifeless appearance.

The footage from the monitors shows what's happening on the planet's bright side. The reason almost all the metal on the planet is concentrated in the cities is because they are practically steel cities; rather than cities, they are large fortresses, as if guarding against something.

Finally, the group saw what the cities needed to defend against.

Not far from the city, there are many fast-moving dark shadows. These are animals that have adapted to this planet. Standing about three meters tall, they have long claws that can dig through the gray soil to find small animals hiding underground. They can also use their claws to attack humans, who are also on their menu.

These fast-moving black monsters can be found in many places on the planet.

"Tell me, what did that mysterious figure send us here for? To help clear out the monsters?" Chi Cifang said, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed, looking at the screen.

Bai didn't answer, but instead asked Niqi, "Besides that message and the star map, is there anything else?"

Nikki shook her head. "That's it. That's what's strange about me."

Just then, the receiver received another message, which Niki quickly decoded.

"Welcome here." Serdiye read out the decoded message, then looked at Niki with a puzzled expression. "And then?"

"That's all." Niki was also helpless. Was the other party just playing with them?

Nikki rubbed her ears; she liked to rub her ears when she was irritable. She continued, "Since that person had the technology to send us the message, the planet shouldn't be in this state."

"Indeed, the backwardness of this planet is far beyond the technology that person possesses."

"Can't you find the origin of the information?" Bai Ye asked Ni Qi.

"We can't find it. That guy is cunning; there are signal traces in almost every city on this planet."

"So he's a master. He's really not from Black Viper?" Chi Lafang said, stroking his chin, his eyes narrowed to slits, making it impossible to see the expression in them.

The group remained silent and did not immediately land on the planet, but stayed outside it.

Xilin looked at the gray cat on his shoulder. Even though the cat was trying to act serious and like nothing had happened, Xilin knew from the frequency of its whiskers twitching and the curve of its tail that it was smug.

What are you so proud of? There's only one answer.

"Do you know where the source of the attack is?" Xilin pinched the gray cat's ear.

The gray cat twitched its ears to brush away Xilin's hand, but didn't speak. Did not speaking mean it agreed?

Everyone and everything in the control room looked at the gray cat, who could no longer hide her true feelings and her mouth opened wide uncontrollably.

"How could it know?" Ruble was very reluctant to believe it.

Bai Ye unfolded the scanned map of the planet and placed it in front of Gray Cat. "Do you know where he is?"

The gray cat proudly raised its paw and pointed to one of the cities. "I only know he's in this city, but I don't know exactly where he is. However, as long as he posts again, I can find him and catch this hiding 'mouse'."

Bai Ye looked at Xi Lin, who nodded in agreement.

"Let's go to that city," Bai Ye said to Ni Qi.

"Okay." Niki controlled the aircraft and flew in that direction.

Ruble's eyes widened. He believed it? Believed this cat?!

There is a metal electric fence above the city to prevent some threatening birds from entering, and there are also people specifically assigned to keep watch.

Every now and then, some simple flying vehicles would fly out. These vehicles looked very clumsy, but they were very practical in this environment. Although they were not very agile, they had good defensive capabilities and could withstand attacks from some flying birds and beasts.

Some groups of people would also go out hunting in armored vehicles, as people in the city lacked meat.

Humans and beasts—this is a two-way hunting process. Both are on the other's menu.

The people in the metal city are generally quite strong, whether men or women, even the young children, and you can see a murderous glint in their eyes. The environment shapes the people; their living conditions have shaped their personalities.

Like Tangqiuqiu, these children grow up carrying guns and knives, learning from their elders how to fight monsters—it's an essential part of their lives.

Xilin and his group didn't want to be too high-profile; they didn't want to reveal too much before figuring out the situation. However, each metal city was self-contained and quite hostile to outsiders.

The last few people didn't go directly into the city. Instead, they found a place to stay first and figure out the situation of all parties on this planet. Otherwise, if they rashly entered the city, they would be caught like turtles in a jar, which would be terrible.

At night, the aircraft quietly landed at the designated location, where hills provided cover. In addition, the aircraft landed in stealth mode, so no one noticed them.

Although no one discovered them, those monsters had exceptionally keen senses.

"Those guys outside got here pretty fast," Sediye said, looking at the scene on the screen.

"I'm going to find some food!" The gray cat jumped off Xilin's shoulder and ran out.

"I'll go too," Ruble said, not wanting to be left behind, and ran out.

"Uh, I'm going out for a bit too, I'm hungry." Amadeo wagged his tail and followed.