Cataclysm: Undead Dragons and Zero Empire

In the vast universe, Lin Zimo finally found a starport.

Without a star map to guide him, the vast starry sky was just a series of destinations for him. So much so that in order to search for traces of interstellar civilization among these unfamiliar stars, Lin Ziming gave up entering a faster-than-light state.

He began warp jumps, tearing the veil between the real universe and the warp with psionic energy. He could break free from the cosmic space that bound all entities and traverse using the chaotic nature of the warp.

It was a strange feeling, like a land animal jumping into the water to swim. Lin Ziming did indeed leap out of the entire universe, but in reality, it was equivalent to jumping from the inner surface of a ring to the outer surface.

For Lin Ziming, a traveler, subspace travel is a process of passing through, but for his destination, it appears suddenly without any process.

Subspace travel is a destructive act on the structure of the universe. The beginning and end are like holes poked in a piece of cloth by a sewing needle, which the universe needs time to heal.

Subspace is essentially an undeveloped composite of cosmic matter, so chaotic that it lacks complete and solid physical laws and can even contain souls and consciousness existing outside the physical body.

Therefore, since the subspace is independent of the spacetime reference frame of this universe, Lin Zimo must be extremely careful to ensure that the time of entering and leaving the subspace is consistent with that of this universe, otherwise he may easily appear in the distant past or future.

Lin Ziming had a heavy burden when he traveled through subspace before his death, but for some reason, perhaps because he was influenced by the nature of subspace, he can no longer feel any burden. He feels as relaxed as a whale swimming in the ocean.

However, the subspace of this universe is no longer similar to what he remembered. It seems that during the long period of his eternal sleep, the universe has undergone some negative changes, which have affected this subordinate chaotic region of the subspace.

As Lin Ziming traversed the subspace, some inexplicable entities wanted to follow him away, much like small fish swimming alongside a whale. They could swim more comfortably with the help of the powerful current brought by the whale.

Lin Ziming was wary of these unfamiliar entities. When he traveled through the subspace, he temporarily released "Death of Zero", and the disguise of the silver-white shell was removed, revealing violent death fire.

"Death of Zero" incinerated those entities closest to him, leaving no trace behind. Lin Zimo's flight path became a deathly black-red, so profound in the subspace that it became an unfathomable darkness.

The entities that tried to approach fled as if they had encountered something they would avoid at all costs. His psychic perception was completely free of any other activity, and the world finally became quiet.

Lin Ziming sensed the weakness in the veil, so he escaped the subspace and returned to the real universe. Sure enough, he found himself in a star system and could discover a prosperous shipping route.

All sorts of ships sail through space, their end connected to a giant starport suspended in planetary orbit, like a human spine wrapped with a large number of "nerves" and "blood vessels," with ports distributed on the skeleton swallowing and spitting out a large number of ships.

Lin Zimo finally encountered a long-lost interstellar civilization. Although the technological level of this starport seemed to be far behind that of the civilization he had lived in, it did not prevent him from getting familiar with the current order of this universe.

As a massive entity, Lin Ziming suddenly entered this Heng galaxy without concealing himself, and the gravity detector immediately detected the gravitational effect he brought, just like placing a pebble on a flat handkerchief, which would create an observable indentation.

Since there were no signal markers, Lin Ziming triggered the Starport's emergency defense mechanism. He sensed the spread of alarm signals, and a large number of spaceships cruising at sublight speed in space initiated faster-than-light jump programs and were about to enter the hyperspace channel.

Starports fixed in planetary orbits had no way to escape. They quickly shut down their channels of communication with the outside world, the gaps in their skeletons closed, and the ships that failed to escape in time flew into the shadows on the back of the planet, trying to use the celestial body as a protective umbrella for their small boats.

A large opening appeared at the end of the starport, from which warships took off in droves, their target Lin Ziming who was approaching. Like a shooting star flying backwards, they drew a brilliant trajectory in space.

I had no intention of fighting you... Lin Zimo flapped his wings and flew rapidly toward the starport, while the warships were completely unable to keep up with his maneuverability and actively launched space torpedoes to block his flight path.

At that moment, a vast wave of psionic energy erupted from Lin Ziming, causing all the space torpedoes in flight to explode instantly, creating a beautiful fireworks display in space, with each of the scattered sparks resembling a distant star.

An invisible psionic force gently gripped the warships propelled by their engines, bringing them to a standstill in space. Ripples spread across their outer shields, and the impact of their massive acceleration dropping to zero caused their outer armor to twist and crack under the strain—a far more thrilling experience than simply landing on a planetary surface with the anti-gravity system shut down.

Lin Ziming swept past the immobilized fleet, making a sharp turn around the starport, and anchored on a natural satellite attached to the starport, as if he had returned to the days when he was high on the moon, looking down on human civilization.

With his psychic powers at his command, his will descended upon the starport, revealing all its secrets to him, leaving no room for privacy.

Lin Ziming's gaze swept across the starport, and his impression of modern interstellar civilization began to deviate slightly. Perhaps the competition for interstellar resources had become so fierce that he could see slums in a building like a starport.

Many of the spaceships are dilapidated and look like they've been in service for many years, perhaps even changed hands several times. What seemed like a magnificent feat of reaching for the moon to the primitive civilizations on Earth appears here as nothing more than another kind of arduous life.

Starport has some large harbors, decorated very exquisitely, with metal panels that look like they are frequently cleaned, but more of the harbors are bloated, like an overgrown body with many tumors growing on it.

Spaceships, like garbage trucks, collect resources outside, far from official shipping lanes amidst the coming and going of moored ships. The ion-spark-spraying platforms are charred and aged, like an anthill growing in a starport, allowing diseased blood to flow between the different racial divisions.

Inside Star Harbor, there are numerous workshops that process mountains of garbage. Lin Ziming saw the packaging of low-end daily necessities flowing out of those production lines. The production environment was even less safe and hygienic than the underground factories that have been banned in human civilization.

On those production lines, stiff corpses are performing repetitive labor, as if they will never lose their jobs and will still have employment opportunities even after death.

Under the colossal shadow of interstellar civilization, Lin Ziming saw the word "monopoly," and he saw civilians who remained silent even when the alarms sounded. They were inhaling something like hallucinogens, their heads steaming like they were the most common kind of life in a garbage dump.

In any case, the so-called interstellar civilization he sees now is hardly a pleasant prospect.