Voyage of the Stars.

Chapter 1488 Four-Handed Serpent Civilization

"Commander, you have awakened. For the next four thousand years, you will be in charge of the fleet's operations."

In the dark void, a massive fleet was rapidly traversing at warp speeds of 213.75 times the speed of light. The speaker was an intelligent being with four arms, but it had no feet. Instead, it had a lower body like a snake's tail, which it swayed as it moved, twisting its body like an upright snake.

Due to its physical structure, the equipment inside this warship is different from that of human civilization. Instead of a flat, hard floor suitable for walking, the interior of the spaceship is made of a sticky, soft, gelatinous material. This floor allows the serpentine body structure to increase its traction area when moving, thus enabling it to move quickly.

Of course, the "stickiness" only applies to humans; for these life forms, this substance does not stick to their skin.

Although they have entered the interstellar age and their technology allows them to float freely, they still prefer to use the floor-like structure they had when they first entered interstellar space, just as humans are accustomed to adjusting the gravity environment inside their spaceships to that of Earth.

"Hmm, how's the fleet doing now?" The snake-tailed man, referred to as the commander, shifted the shape of his round mouth and emitted a low hissing sound.

He was the fleet commander, the leader of the entire civilization, and the commander-in-chief of the alliance.

The person speaking to him was an administrative official.

As the fleet commander and leader of the civilization stretched out of the hibernation pod, the administrator opened an information screen, pointed to a void area on the star map, and introduced: "The fleet is all normal. Our target is 3 million light-years away. It will take about 4,000 years to reach the dark matter halo of the target star system. However, there is some gravitational anomaly feedback at this location. Logically speaking, there should be no gravitational anomaly points in this vast void. Our initial guess is that it may be caused by the collision of dark matter islands."

"Okay, I understand. Let's go to the command center together! Oh, and send a message to the other civilizations too, tell them to wake up their leaders. If it's a dark matter island, our alliance can resupply there, and we can cancel our original plan to drift at the speed of light for a while." The civilization leader said with a smug grin, while heating himself up next to the microwave heating device, allowing his body to slowly recover from its stiff state.

After feeling that he had recovered enough, the leader of the civilization slipped out of the cabin and, after gesturing for the latter to follow, curled up his body and climbed up a round pole in a spiral motion.

Obviously, this round rod is equivalent to a staircase for the life forms of this civilization. Since they do not have feet, their staircases must also be different from those of humans.

After spiraling upwards along the round rod and then swimming a distance across the soft rubber floor, the two life forms arrived at the spaceship's command center.

Upon arriving at the command center, the commander and leader sensed something was amiss. Sure enough, upon inquiring, he heard a staff member report: "Your Excellency, the latest telemetry signal from the gravitational ladder indicates that there were not one, but four, gravitational signal anomalies, which are only about two hundred light-years apart. This is unlike the gravitational waves generated by the collision of dark matter islands."

"What did the experts say?" the leader hurriedly asked, while he immediately twisted his body and slipped to his captain's seat to sit cross-legged, inputting commands to bring up the corresponding star map for viewing.

"Based on that gravitational fluctuation, experts immediately ruled out the possibility of a dark matter island collision after analysis, and proposed two other possibilities. The first is that it could be the remains of a civilization, possibly a cosmic-level civilization. The second is that it could be a war between level six civilizations, perhaps an organization like ours undertaking a long-distance voyage, perhaps troubled by resources, and turning against their comrades." Hearing this speculation, the leader stretched his limbs and decisively said, "Stop guessing. Immediately dispatch probe ships to the target location to investigate. At the same time, order the residential ship cluster to reduce its speed to two-thirds of its original speed, and awaken all the soldiers working on the warships from hibernation to prepare for battle."

"Also, synchronize the message with the civilizations in the alliance, so that their fleets can move forward with the civilizations. Whether it is a dragon's den or a tiger's lair, they will know once they venture in."

"understand!"

"Roger that!"

Seeing that his subordinates were carrying out orders, the intelligent life form who was the fleet commander, leader, and commander-in-chief of the alliance sat cross-legged on his seat and pondered to himself: "If it is really a cosmic civilization relic, then it is our opportunity. If it is a civil war of some large-scale maritime organization, then it is also a good opportunity to replenish our supplies."

His confidence stemmed primarily from the fact that his civilization was the dominant power in the entire galaxy before embarking on the Great Voyage. During this period, it not only unified the entire galaxy but also fought its way through dozens of galaxies after setting out on the Great Voyage.

In this process, their Four-Handed Serpent Civilization not only became invincible, but also absorbed the technological achievements of many other civilizations, pushing all their technology to the pinnacle of Level 6 civilization.

The civilizations under the alliance's command are battle-hardened veterans.

This experience led the leader of the Four-Handed Serpent Civilization to believe that his civilization's combat power was invincible, at least at the level of a Level 6 civilization, absolutely number one in the universe. Therefore, he had no fear of encountering other Level 6 civilizations. In fact, he was already scheming about how to harvest the Level 6 civilizations within the Great Voyage Organization currently engaged in civil war in the star system ahead.

"Commander, it would be best to be cautious," the administrator whispered a suggestion.

"Be cautious about what? You've been saying that for years!" The commander swayed his slender waist in dissatisfaction, then said in a disdainful tone, "Lord Coron, you should just take care of administrative matters. Your so-called unique technology is nothing but hearsay, just the delusions of some incompetent civilization. The wonder of the universe is that it can be understood by intelligence. How could there be a unique technology that one race can understand but another race cannot? It's pure nonsense. Don't mention this matter again."

"I understand, Commander." Coran swayed his slender waist and silently responded. He was also somewhat shaken. Perhaps the leader was right. Otherwise, how come they hadn't encountered the so-called unique technological civilization after traveling so far on the Great Voyage? The best explanation was that the unique technology did not exist.

The proud Four-Handed Serpent civilization and its accompanying Great Voyage Organization set sail for their target with a mighty fleet at the command of their commander-in-chief.

However, the probe's further findings left them somewhat bewildered.

(End of this chapter)