Xyrin Empire
Chapter 345 - Chapter 345 Chapter 345 Turmoil

Chapter 345: Chapter 345 Turmoil Chapter 345: Chapter 345 Turmoil “Make yourselves at home, make yourselves at home…”

I eagerly invited the somewhat bewildered ambassadors from various countries to take a seat, which only made them more bewildered…

Beside me, Sandora maintained a proper smile as she furiously twisted my waist behind me, turning my facial features upside down in an instant. The ambassadors from across the table immediately wore expressions of horror. Surely this bunch, who had always considered us aliens, didn’t think I was about to transform, did they?

The ambassadors, wearing odd expressions, looked at each other uncertainly. But eventually, upon my gesture, they all settled into their seats. I have to say, even the most seasoned politicians can’t hold a candle to Granny Liu when suddenly thrown into an alien base.

“First off, let’s skip the welcome to Earth nonsense.”

I interrupted before anyone else could speak, so the leader of the delegation looked down.

“Then also skip the talk about coming with peaceful intentions.”

A white man became decidedly uncomfortable.

“After that, don’t mention anything about cultural exchanges and other misfit topics.”

Half of the ambassadors went silent.

“Lastly, I’m not Korean.”

Everyone exchanged puzzled glances.

“Oh, that’s great. Apparently, there’s no such place as South Korea in this world; I had begun to think they were everywhere.”

The ambassadors immediately penciled “South Korea” down as an extremely dangerous and annoying civilization within the universe–haven’t you noticed how even our alien friends are unenthusiastic about those two words?

“I know you all have many questions,” I said, seeing a portly man with military medals seemingly eager to decorate his front teeth raise his hand to speak. I decisively cut him off. Even though he might have been a military man, I could smell the politician’s odor from his oversized figure. To prevent myself from falling asleep to political rhetoric on the spot, it was best not to let him have the floor. “But I’m not used to your nonsense. As you can see, this place is filled with elite Imperial Army forces. We believe in the most efficient solutions, not in spraying saliva at each other. So any superfluous diplomatic speech will not get any response from me. I hope you can understand.”

Humph, so I’m being arrogant, so what? I’ve grown up watching sci-fi movies; I don’t believe these guys would dare to be pretentious with the threat of intergalactic war looming over us!

Alright, I admit it, I was merely in awe of the politicians’ diplomatic jargon…

The ambassadors looked at each other, repeatedly put on the back foot, which caused these politicians–who were used to taking the stage–a great deal of discomfort. However, before setting off, they had been repeatedly admonished by their superiors to avoid any conflict with “aliens,” no matter what happened during this encounter. After all, humankind was nearly driven mad by the biohazard, and the last thing they needed was to annoy a group of alien tourists.

Nevertheless, the words “Imperial Army” I mentioned also made these human ambassadors tense up; in such a strained moment, the presence of an otherworldly military force on Earth just didn’t seem like cause for celebration.

After a slight hesitation, the leader of the delegation, an Asian man, finally spoke. Having regained his composure following the initial shock, he now spoke in a calm and respectful tone: “In that case, we too prefer straightforward and candid communication. As the first official contact between… erm, two races, we are willing to opt for an open and transparent exchange and hope that your side will adopt the same attitude.”

With a look of frustration on my face, I said, “We are willing to be open and honest, but as for the matter between the two races… uh, for the sake of a friendly atmosphere, we hope we can overlook this issue.”

In reality, I wanted to say that I was human too, but I feared he wouldn’t believe me.

At this moment, the slightly overweight white man sitting opposite immediately seized the opportunity to speak. Speaking in not very fluent Mandarin (presumably because we were all speaking Mandarin, they had taken it as the universal language of the stars?), he said, “If that’s the case, then the first thing we want to know is, where are you from? And why have you come to this planet?”

These two questions could be said to be of the utmost concern for these ambassadors; in fact, it could be argued that if they could get the answers to these two questions, their mission for coming here today would be accomplished.

Even after seeing the Imperial Soldiers patrolling around the base and the warplanes swooping past, they believed they had already found the answer to the second question.

“For the first question, I’m afraid that may exceed your current scientific framework. You can consider that we come from another universe, although ‘parallel space’ could also explain it though not accurately, but it could serve as an answer. We come from the… uh, Xyrin Empire, which is a civilization that cannot be explained by your science. My lover and I are the current rulers of the Empire. As for our purpose here…”

At that point, I gave Sandora a look, and she nodded her head, then pressed a few buttons on the table: “We received a distress signal that you sent out.”

After Sandora finished speaking, the meeting room immediately echoed with a rustling SOS call: “…zz… we are… the zombies have already… someone was bitten… infected… zz…”

The recording ended there, unable to continue, and then background music started playing–recorded from Resident Evil.

The ambassadors looked at each other, and then the black uncle who had pulled out the lollipop earlier stood up: “Did you come here in response to the distress signal sent out from Earth?”

“Correct. According to the provisions of the Pan-Civilization Protection Pact, any civilization capable of space travel has a responsibility and obligation to assist any evolving Wisdom Race in crisis. Therefore, we came to your world.”

And this was no bluff. The Pan-Civilization Protection Pact, which sounded harmoniously infuriating, was indeed real and up to now is still considered universally recognized law across many technological worlds. And who else but the Xyrin Apostles had the ability to legislate for the entire universe?

Such a reply startled the ambassadors for a moment, naturally prompting some skepticism. However, this skepticism was quickly proven to be completely unfounded: As an “Alien Civilization” that had never interacted with Earth, we had no reason to spin this lie to them, and furthermore, lying brought us no benefits, right?

Humans, when in total despair, would cling to even the faintest glimmer of hope as immense hope; compared to Interstellar Bandits taking advantage of Human Civilization at a time of impending doom to loot and plunder, they would rather believe that there are indeed kind-hearted aliens coming to help them out of goodwill.

Although both these speculations sounded equally nonsensical.

As for that so-called distress signal, the ambassadors ultimately determined it to be the result of an extremely coincidental situation where a radio call, which should have died in the atmosphere, was amplified and then dispersed into space, and happened to be received by aliens passing nearby, leading to our descending from the sky.

As for what exactly this confounding coincidence was, let those scientists who hadn’t been wiped out figure that headache out!

Something worth mentioning was that the Defense Minister of a particular country proposed the idea of finding the sender of the distress signal and posthumously recognizing them as a Hero of Humanity, a proposal that received unanimous approval from all the representatives present…

“So, now that a consensus has been reached, first off, we would like to know where the virus first appeared. Was it a problem with biochemical research in a certain country?” I said as I activated the holographic projection in the middle of the round conference table, presenting the entire planet before everyone’s eyes, “Among the many carbon-based civilizations we’ve discovered, it’s not uncommon for a race to be wiped out due to such reasons.”

“At the onset of the disaster, we did entertain such guesses, but this possibility has been ruled out. The virus outbreak originated in a desert,” said an ambassador, pointing at a location on the holographic projection, “It’s uninhabited here, we can swear there’s no biochemical research base of any country here. In fact, we already have some conjectures about the origins of this virus… they might be Alien Objects.”

“Alien Objects?” I raised an eyebrow, feeling the matter was starting to get interesting, especially seeing the serious expressions on the faces of the ambassadors from various countries opposite me. It seemed that many national governments were already endorsing this idea of “Alien Objects,” right?

“That was about a month ago,” a diplomat dressed in a white robe stood up, took off his glasses, then wiped his dry forehead, “A huge mass from outer space fell onto that desert. It was enormous, with an average length of over 120 kilometers! And it possessed an astonishing mass. Normally, a space object of this scale impacting would definitely lead to the extinction of the entire Earth’s ecology, but its fall was far below the theoretical speed, almost as if it was making a controlled, emergency landing…”

This time even Lian Shandora was intrigued, “An emergency landing on Earth by a spaceship from outer space? Now that’s interesting…”

“We’re only speculating that it’s a spacecraft from outer space for now, but the real situation remains uncertain.”

The other party said with a bitter smile.

I exclaimed in surprise, “Really? You haven’t gone to check it out?”

“Of course, we sent an exploration team to study the space object, but… not a single person came back alive. Then, centered around that desert, the zombie virus began to spread. We sent out several more research teams afterward, but apart from even greater sacrifices, we gained nothing.”

“The source of infection comes from outer space…” I muttered, “This is truly a dramatic development. Sandora, do you have any clues?”

The latter shook her head, “Carbon-based life has a hard time surviving in outer space, even something with as strong a Life Force as a virus can’t withstand cosmic Radiation Energy for long. Moreover, even if there were viruses capable of surviving in outer space, I’ve never heard of anything that could turn humans into Half-Undead. There’s a barrier between forms of life, even those that are carbon-based. If they come from two different planets, their genetic coding rules would be vastly different. Meaning, a virus from Planet A is almost impossible to infect any life form from Planet B. And didn’t Bubbles send over the latest research materials this morning? No foreign genetic residues were found on the zombie samples; their genes underwent Mutation on their own, so we can pretty much rule out viral infection.”

“So, the thing that’s infecting humans isn’t from that crashed object?”

The Asian man leading the team said in astonishment. He had no doubts about Sandora’s analysis–compared to humanity’s rudimentary science, these “Aliens” were definitely far superior. Thus, all human delegates chose to believe our judgment–after all, they couldn’t make any sense of it themselves.

Sandora was still shaking her head, “I only said that we can rule out the possibility of a virus, but if it’s some kind of toxic substance or Radiation Energy carried by the object itself that leads to genetic mutations in humans, then that’s very plausible.”

“That thing has a Possibility of over ninety percent of being the source of infection,” I said, “But even if you haven’t unraveled the secret of the crashed object, you must have collected some intelligence, right? At the very least, you should have a picture. With more information, we can develop a response plan more quickly.”

“Of course,” the team leader immediately replied, “Although we haven’t collected any concrete scientific data, we still have quite a few satellite and drone photos. I have the relevant information on me…”

As he spoke, the leader took out a small USB from the pocket of his jacket and then suddenly became embarrassed.

“This…” He hesitated, lifting the USB in his hand, “Do you use USB?”

The Fifth Class Contact Rule: When meeting with Aliens, it’s best to exchange information in the most primitive way that both parties can understand. An old photograph would be better than a USB drive.

Clearly, this dear team leader had not thought of this beforehand; he thought he could find a computer with a USB port in an Alien base!

“What a bother,” Sandora sighed, motioning a Xyrin Soldier to take the USB from him, then inserted it into a slot on the table beside her, “More than one civilization has made such a low-level mistake.”

A synthetic mechanical voice echoed in the conference room as the slot closed, “Unknown data carrier detected… Beginning decomposition… Analyzing carrier principle, assessing corresponding technology… Decomposing encoding method… Decoding successful, generating corresponding interface… Interface ready.”

Sandora nodded at me, “It seems we don’t need to stuff a copy of windows XP into the heads of little girls in the Mother Nest after all.”

Me: “…”

Alien high-tech stunned everyone once again. The binary data storage technology that humans had painstakingly researched for decades was thoroughly understood within ten seconds. Now, as a Xyrin Apostle of Earth, should I be crying or laughing at this moment?

The central holographic projection at the conference table was replaced by the high-definition photos taken by humans. Just like the leader said, there were satellite and drone photos from every angle. It looked like the threat was only to living beings, as the automated machinery that approached didn’t seem to be affected by the radiation energy.

“This photo was taken by our satellite,” said the Defense Minister of some country, pointing at a photo, which immediately zoomed in to fill the entire holographic projection. “Its overall shape is arc-like, about one hundred twenty kilometers in length, and only a few kilometers thick. There are many noticeable fractures along the edges, looking like a piece from a dish or a ring… Uh, how do I exit fullscreen?”

I palm my forehead, “There’s a small screen in front of you, tap the cross icon…”

After the Defense Minister awkwardly exited fullscreen, another young man in a suit stood up, indicating that these photos were not only taken by one country. Perhaps this is proof of the unity of all humankind?

“This photo was taken by our drone, from very close by. We found very complex metal structures inside and several unexplained isolated spaces that might be something like chambers, but they are all empty…”

“This photo is the last image transmitted by our research team before we lost contact with them. They had reached the lower part of the Alien Object and tried to enter, but by that time, they were already affected by some kind of radiation. Dr. Feng, who led the expedition team, pressed the shutter in a dazed state and sent back the photo. We saw a corridor and a lot of messy pipelines…”

Sandora and I were watching the passing images with utmost seriousness. The situation was not good. Those mechanical structures… were all too familiar.

Visca, who had been snuggled up in my embrace and sleeping soundly, at some point woke up. At this moment, with groggy eyes, she was looking at the photos of the disintegrated wreckage. Then, she suddenly tugged gently at the front of my shirt and whispered, “Brother, brother, that… looks like the Star Ring outside of the Visca Barrier Star…”

I broke into a cold sweat right then and there… If the radiation energy inside the Star Ring of the Visca Barrier Star was released, it would easily obliterate an entire ecosystem without any pressure.

This… Does it seem that the biotic crisis humanity is facing is also Visca’s responsibility?

Well, it can’t be said that way. After all, it wasn’t done intentionally by Visca, or rather, it was the result of this crazy girl without realizing the consequences, and why her Star Ring would fall on Earth is unknown to anyone. It would be unfair, both emotionally and logically, to blame Visca, who was oblivious to the whole situation from the start.

Does it count as littering that inadvertently hit the roadside flora?

“Alright, we’ve got a general grasp of the situation,” I say, waving my hand after viewing the photos of Star Ring Fragments taken from various angles. “Is there any more intelligence?”

“If it’s about that Alien Object, that’s all the data we’ve collected. The rest are the results of our research on the Zombie virus, but those…”

“We don’t need them.”

I spoke bluntly, and upon hearing this, the expressions of the representatives from various countries remained calm…

“For the remaining matters, we need to have some internal discussions,” I put Visca down on the ground and then announced the end of the meeting. “The gentlemen are welcome to take a brief tour of the base, led by our personnel. After that, we will decide on the best solution… Well, that’s it…”

After I hastily concluded my speech, I grabbed Sandora without another word and left, ignoring the expressions on the faces of the international representatives behind us. Visca was causing way too much trouble!

Let the Ambassadors take this act of leaving guests hanging after a meeting as one of the alien customs…(To be continued. For further details, please visit www.NovelFire.net. More chapters are available, support the author, and support genuine reading!)