Chapter 98: Helpless

The term ‘human’ had a very broad meaning in this world. Any creature that looked like Lei Yaotian was generally categorized as a ‘human’.

The only difference was the specific race these ‘humans’ belonged to.

Just like on Earth, everyone was called human. But within the human family, there were many other races, big and small.

For example, there were the ‘Sakara people,’ who had pointed ears and resembled elves from fantasy plane worlds, and the ‘Eidunke people,’ who looked just like the humans from the world Lei Yaotian came from… and so on… These beings, who looked basically the same but had small differences, were all basically called ‘humans’ across the universe.

Furthermore, in this world, carbon-based lifeforms made up about sixty percent of all the species in the universe. The rest were those strangely shaped lives that could rival monsters and ghosts, as well as those mechanical lifeforms or silicon-based lifeforms.

For instance, the ‘Divine Glory Empire,’ near the Barren Star Domain, whose military outpost Lei Yaotian had taken over, was one such country that fell within the ‘human’ category. And within the cosmic ‘human’ nations, including the ‘Divine Glory Empire,’ the ‘Mandarin’ from Lei Yaotian’s original world was very popular, which was nothing short of a miracle…

Of course, the writing system was different from Lei Yaotian’s original world, and this was something that caused Lei Yaotian a lot of pain. After all, if he hadn’t seen the video diary and if Wangcai, an intelligent butler, hadn’t appeared, Lei Yaotian probably wouldn’t have been able to operate those military outpost instruments.

He didn’t recognize any of the words on them, after all.

Getting back to the story, when the Iktans saw those ‘humans’ rushing out of the forest, many of them began to scream their lungs out.

Some even collapsed on the ground, staring blankly at the approaching artificial human soldiers, having already forgotten what fear was.

Elder Mensa leaned on his cane, trembling as he looked at the soldiers, his heart filled with despair.

“Has the Star God truly abandoned us Iktans?” Elder Mensa’s mind was full of this doubt.

“We can’t just wait to die, let’s fight them!” Although Menlo’s legs were also shaking uncontrollably from fear, he mustered his courage and shouted loudly to the fellow tribesmen armed with weapons beside him.

Unfortunately, even though Menlo felt this way, his fellow tribesmen did not share his sentiment.

The few tribesmen next to Menlo all threw their weapons on the ground, covered their heads with their hands, and screaming, ran back into the crowd, as if only by staying with everyone could they feel slightly safer.

Menlo stood alone in front of everyone, let out a deep sigh, and also threw his weapon on the ground.

“Crunch! Crunch!”

The artificial human soldiers riding hover bikes were very fast. In the blink of an eye, they reached the Iktans, spread out, and surrounded them.

“Do not put up pointless resistance, and do not make any rash moves. If we discover any suspicious actions from you, we will open fire and eliminate you without mercy!” One artificial human sergeant flipped off his hover bike, walked up to the Iktans, and coldly shouted at them.

Luckily, these artificial humans also spoke the universal ‘Mandarin’ of the universe, so there was no need to worry about the Iktans not understanding.

Moreover, the Iktans did business everywhere and basically could speak and understand all the mainstream languages in the universe.

“P-please… don’t shoot, we are willing to cooperate with you.” Elder Mensa trembled as he walked forward, leaning on his cane.

The artificial human soldiers showed no expression towards these green, ET-like creatures wearing black robes.

Only the artificial human sergeant nodded in satisfaction after hearing Elder Mensa’s words. “You are now our prisoners. Remember your status and do not resist pointlessly. Now, line up in two rows and follow us back obediently.”

The artificial human sergeant shouted this loudly at the Iktans.

“Go back with them?” All the Iktans felt their hearts sink. “How will these people treat us? Take us back to kill us? Or torture us slowly?” This was the question on every Iktan’s mind.

But under the gunpoints of the surrounding soldiers, the timid and cowardly Iktans obediently followed the command. They neatly arranged themselves into two rows and then, under the escort of the artificial human soldiers, slowly walked towards Lei Yaotian’s base.

Menlo felt a wave of bitterness in his heart. He couldn’t help but look back at the food and fuel everyone had gathered, as well as the materials they had just pieced together to build a settlement. “The future looks grim.” Menlo did not know what fate awaited them all, including himself.

…

“I received a report. The soldiers have captured all those creatures. They are bringing them back to the base now. According to the report, those creatures’ appearances are quite different from ours.” Wangcai was relaying the message reported back by the artificial human soldiers to Lei Yaotian in real time.

The engineering robots were still working non-stop, showing no intention of stopping.

However, most of the artificial human soldiers scattered within the forest and the surrounding area had been called back.

These artificial human soldiers were fully armed, standing in neat rows facing the forest, the direction from which Menlo and the others were coming.

“Excuse me, are you soldiers of the Divine Glory Empire?” Elder Mensa mustered his courage and asked.

“No!”

The cold-faced sergeant next to Elder Mensa answered expressionlessly.

“Then, may I ask which race you belong to?”

This time, the artificial human sergeant did not answer Mensa’s question. Instead, he gave him a cold look.

Elder Mensa’s heart raced. The artificial human sergeant’s gaze held no emotion; it was completely cold and showed not a flicker of fluctuation. When he looked at Mensa, it was as if he were looking at a piece of rotten meat.

This terrified Elder Mensa greatly.

“It seems the fate awaiting our tribe is not very good.”

The rest of the journey passed in silence. Elder Mensa lost the courage to ask any more questions.

The artificial humans quickly marched these Iktans into the forest, then through it, arriving at Lei Yaotian’s busy base located by the lake.

“So many soldiers!”

After emerging from the forest, the Iktans were immediately met with the sight of those neatly lined-up, fully armed artificial human soldiers with cold, fierce eyes.

“Menlo, didn’t you scan the area earlier! How did you not detect that there were already other lifeforms stationed on this planet!” Mensa slowed his pace, waiting for his son Menlo to catch up, and quietly scolded him.

“Lord Father, I did scan. But I truly did not detect these ‘humans.’ Besides, you know how old and outdated our ship is. The instruments on such an old ship are bound to have some malfunctions.” After hearing his son’s words, Elder Mensa sighed.

“This massacre targeting our Ikto Race was just too sudden, too quick, and too intense. We simply didn’t have time to use the family’s warships. What’s worse, the guards we hired all betrayed us. Otherwise, even if we had managed to get just one commercial warship, we wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.”

What Elder Mensa said was not without reason. As the largest trading race in the universe, every major merchant family would order one or dozens of super-large commercial warships to facilitate interstellar trade.

As an elder of the Ikto Race and the leader of a large merchant guild, how could he not have such large commercial warships under his command?

It was just that the conspiracy to massacre the Iktans came too quickly.

Iktans spread across every corner of the universe were being hunted down. There was simply no time to react. If Mensa and the others hadn’t been at the port picking up goods and learned about the massacre then, quickly boarding an extremely outdated ship from a fleet, they probably would have already met the Star God.

However, because the ship they could board belonged to a low-level biological civilization, the technological level of the ship was not very high. Even the propulsion energy for the ship used an extremely ancient type of ‘fuel.’

Seeing so many fully armed ‘human’ soldiers, the Iktans bowed their heads and walked forward fearfully, not daring to look around.

Many Iktans had already started imagining what kind of torture they would face later.

On their escape journey, they had met many fellow tribesmen who had also fled. They formed a fleet of over a dozen ships. Some among them had witnessed scenes of their fellow tribesmen being tortured by other creatures on different planets.

For example, Iktans being impaled through the mouth with an iron rod, coming out the other end, and then being roasted over a fire… or other cruel methods, all of which were horrifying.

Therefore, many had gone crazy or lost hope for the future.

Such rumors had been heard by everyone. So these Iktans couldn’t help but think they might face similar torture.

But due to their inherent cowardice and timidity, even though they knew they might suffer such torture, they still obediently followed the artificial humans’ orders and allowed themselves to be escorted, without any thought of resistance.

“Young Master, they’re back!” Wangcai spotted the artificial humans escorting some creatures towards the base from afar and immediately notified his master.

“They’ve been captured already? They didn’t resist at all?” Lei Yaotian was truly surprised that those creatures had given up so easily. He had thought there would definitely be a fight. This was completely unexpected.

“Let’s go! Let’s go see what these creatures are really like!”

Lei Yaotian had always been curious about alien creatures. Now that he had such an opportunity, how could he not take a good look? And so, with Wangcai and the numerous artificial human soldiers guarding him, Lei Yaotian walked towards the group escorting the Iktans.