Star Rank Hunter

Chapter 408: Star of Tomorrow

Recently, various rumors circulating throughout the GAL had left the public in a state of panic. Even though a few prominent figures stepped forward to calm the masses, something continued to stir in the shadows.

Hunters outside the big four regiments had already begun migrating. They naturally liked to roam around the galaxy, but the rumors—wherever they had originated—made them nervous, and it was always better to prepare in advance. Various scattered adventurer organizations also started making preparations. Some groups took this opportunity to rake in money and expand their ranks, deliberately releasing fake news to stir the pot and turning completely baseless claims into mysterious legends.

Local governments across the star sectors tried their hardest to control this hidden unrest, but with little success. Over on the military’s side, someone had leaked the movements of the Eight Great Legions, claiming they were searching for something terrifying. This only worsened the anxiety of an already suspicious public. Judging by the military’s posturing, it didn’t look like a drill. Furthermore, military enthusiasts who knew a thing or two about the Eight Great Legions found overwhelming evidence in a leaked video clip. Although the footage wasn’t online for long, experts verified its authenticity, giving the whole affair a distinct “no silver is buried here” feeling—a clumsy cover-up that only exposed the truth.

Inside his base, Ci Jincheng hadn’t closed his eyes for days. He had sent a copy of the newly gathered information back to the Ci Family, where a project team would analyze and follow up on it. Meanwhile, he conducted his own research using his own methods. After a few days, Knight and the others were left speechless when they saw him. Was this heavily decadent man—with bloodshot eyes, unkempt hair, and a face full of stubble—really Ci Jincheng? He used to care deeply about his appearance, which just went to show how much pressure he was under.

Knight and the others understood. Given his status, he knew many things that were difficult for ordinary people to uncover. The recent movements of the various legions indicated that the purge of Miracle was not going smoothly. The rumors spreading through the GAL weren’t entirely false. Someone was leaking information—perhaps people from Miracle, or perhaps another faction entirely.

Regardless of whether the news was true or false, it all pointed to one thing: a disaster was coming.

Lately, Knight and the others practically spent all day in the training room, conducting adaptability exercises under various conditions. There was no telling what the environments of their future destinations would be like. If they didn’t prepare now, they wouldn’t have time to adapt later, and they would be the ones to suffer.

Cillin, much like Ci Jincheng, holed up in his own laboratory. He had almost completely deciphered the records left behind by Chamonidine. As the decoding progressed, he was getting closer and closer to the original form of the Dream Tapir.

The connection between the earliest, most primitive parasitic form and the later, modified Dream Tapir was crucial. Perhaps by studying its initial, original state, they could better understand this formidable parasite.

Even the people at Miracle might not have complete information on the Dream Tapir’s earliest, original form. Most of that data had been wiped out twenty years ago during the Tapir Extermination operation. Even if it hadn’t been entirely purged, whatever remained was definitely scarce. Yet no one could have expected that, a long time ago, a little-known Hunter had recorded this exact phenomenon. He had documented this creature, but passed away before he could formally name it. It wasn’t until the Dream Tapir was unearthed and modified by Miracle that this parasite became known within a small circle.

Czedow had successfully retrieved the sample from Aikenseth. However, Cillin didn’t immediately begin analyzing it; instead, he sent Czedow to help Ci Jincheng.

At first, Ci Jincheng wasn’t very willing. He preferred to delve into his research alone, and he also felt that an assistant would just get in the way. If it were Cillin, that would be fine, as Ci Jincheng acknowledged Cillin’s abilities. But Czedow was too unfamiliar to him, and to be honest, Ci Jincheng didn’t fully trust AI robots. However, as he gradually witnessed Czedow’s capabilities, he slowly began to accept him.

Czedow perfectly analyzed problems that even professionals struggled with. Ci Jincheng realized it made sense—how could anyone brought along by Cillin be incompetent?

Days passed in this tense atmosphere. Cillin didn’t have the energy to manage the messages and communication requests on his communicator, so he let Wheeze handle them. Whether it was Ji Feng, Natta, Eudy, or Yin Wushe, they all received the exact same reply from the cat: Cillin was busy, and unless it was a matter of life and death, they could talk after he was done.

One day, the base welcomed another new member.

He still had that face that made women overflow with maternal instincts, still liked to look down his nose at people just as before, carried an unconcealable arrogance, and maintained his awkward, stubborn personality. The newcomer was none other than the man who, alongside Kang Man, had once been known as the Twin Stars of Seven Lights—Pride Zweig.

“Yo, Pride, what brings you here now? I thought you’d only contact us once everything became a reality,” Knight said, rubbing his neck and rolling his shoulders. He had just finished being “tortured” by Purisa and still had bruises on his face. However, such injuries would heal quickly, and for someone as accustomed to them as Knight, it was nothing to make a fuss over.

Pride, on the other hand, was different. Seeing Knight’s miserable state, he curled his lips in a look of sheer disdain.

“If I didn’t come now, I probably wouldn’t have another chance in a few days,” Pride answered impatiently.

“Your Fourth Army has been pretty active lately,” Knight said with a frown. As far as he knew, the Fourth Army rarely mobilized, but when it did, it meant things were truly troublesome.

“It is what it is,” Pride said nonchalantly as he walked. “Aren’t your Third Army and Ci Jincheng’s Seventh Army doing the same? Everyone knows what the current situation looks like. A disaster is likely unavoidable, so all we can do is bluff the public for now. On my way here, I heard that the Second Legion captured another batch of Miracle’s higher-ups. However, just like the ones caught before, these executives committed suicide in a very bizarre manner. Right before they died, they only left behind one sentence: ‘The nightmare is coming.’”

The Second Legion was affiliated with the Yu Family. The captured higher-ups had actually all interacted with the Eight Great Legions in the past, but now they seemed completely dead set on madness. Pride’s older brothers in politics, Ji Moni and Zweig Feihang, both stated that these people were captured on purpose. If they truly wanted to escape, they could have fled far away. Instead, they chose to be caught, having injected themselves with a drug beforehand. Once the time was up, they would die, their entire bodies turning gray and stiff before crumbling into a pile of ashes.

Pride’s grandfather said that these people seemed to be protecting someone. This person hiding in the shadows, who had evaded the Eight Great Legions’ joint investigations and sieges, was very likely the one controlling the activated Dream Tapir mother body. As long as the mother body was under control, the other Dream Tapir child bodies would obey orders and endlessly spread the virus. Unless the mother body commanded them to stop, the child bodies carrying various deadly viruses would continue their endless transmission.

“Let’s not talk about such depressing things,” Pride said, waving a hand. He was especially disgusted by these matters. He had loathed the Miracle company for a long time, yet some people had stubbornly refused to listen and insisted on getting involved. Now look at them—it was a total mess that had implicated a massive swath of people. This time, it wasn’t just some members of Miracle who fell into the net; the military had also purged a batch of personnel from the top down. Pride didn’t know about the other legions, but at least in his Fourth Army, half of the high-ranking generals had been replaced.

“How is Ci Jincheng’s progress? Didn’t he say he found a sample a while ago?” Pride asked.

“The pace has picked up, but personally, I don’t think he’ll find a solution in time,” Knight replied.

“Ci Jincheng must be under a lot of pressure right now,” Pride guessed.

Knight felt his shoulder ache again. Just bringing up the topic made things feel incredibly heavy.

“You’ll know once you see him,” Knight said.

Pride was still wondering why Knight had made that expression when mentioning Ci Jincheng. However, when he finally saw the man with his own eyes, his jaw hung open for a long time.

“How long... has it been since he last rested?” Pride asked Knight.

“I don’t know. These days he basically lives inside that lab. It’s better now that Czedow is helping him, but back when he was working alone, he looked exactly like the primitive cavemen recorded in historical texts,” Knight replied.

‘How terrifying...’ Pride shivered. He was incredibly glad he hadn’t studied that field.

Looking around, Pride asked, “Didn’t you say that little bastard Cillin came back? Where is he? Don’t tell me he’s slacking off.”

Pride had already gone to the training room to greet everyone, dropped his things off in the lounge, and had now seen Ci Jincheng in person, yet he still hadn’t caught a glimpse of Cillin, whom he was quite curious about.

They hadn’t seen each other in years. Pride had read the current investigation reports on Cillin; from the looks of it, the guy had become even more punchable.

Knight was just about to answer when he spotted Wheeze squatting on a metal shelf in the corridor, watching them.

“Wheeze, is Cillin finally out?” Knight asked the gray cat.

Wheeze looked at Knight and Pride, let out a yawn, and then, tilting its chin up, lazily replied, “Mhm.”

Knight’s eye twitched. Was this cat competing with Pride to see who could raise their chin higher? In the past, Knight had thought that there couldn’t possibly be another idiot like Pride in the world. He never expected to run into a creature that dared to tilt its chin and glare right back at him. Furthermore, its tone was overwhelmingly dismissive. Knight didn’t know if the disdain was aimed at him or Pride. Regardless, he could practically feel two intense glares of sheer arrogance and contempt clashing in midair.

These two species were incompatible. That was Knight’s realization.

Just then, Cillin walked over. He looked like he had just washed up, and his spirits seemed a bit better. He was currently holding a compressed biscuit and a cold drink, munching away.

“Pride?” Cillin said, chewing on his biscuit.

He didn’t even need to see his face; just looking at the guy competing with Wheeze over who could raise their chin higher was enough to recognize the ever-arrogant Pride from his memories.

“Ah! Cillin, you stole my biscuit!” Wheeze, who had just been engaged in an intense glaring contest with Pride, completely ignored the man the moment Cillin arrived. It had smelled a familiar scent.

“This is my portion,” Cillin replied calmly. He then pulled out another heated biscuit and tossed it to Wheeze. “Here’s yours.”

Wheeze caught the biscuit and twitched its ears. Now that it had food, it completely ignored Pride.

Pride looked at the man in front of him and was just about to say something when Knight cut in, “Cillin, you’ve been cooped up in the lab for ages, just like Ci Jincheng. Get some extra rest. Your brain needs it.”

Hearing Knight’s words, Pride swallowed the sarcastic remark he had habitually prepared. Everyone was busy trying to find a solution, and it wasn’t easy for anyone. Every new result was a glimmer of hope. Truthfully, even though Pride had zero interest in that field of study, deep down, he truly admired them.

Although Cillin didn’t look quite as exaggeratedly awful as Ci Jincheng, he still carried an air of exhaustion.

“Yeah, I’m going to grab some sleep after I finish eating. We made some progress, so I’ll continue after a nap. You guys chat, I’m heading inside.” After a brief greeting with Knight and Pride, Cillin ducked back into the lab. He planned to rest his eyes for a bit before resuming his work.

That string of genetic information had already been cracked, allowing him to take a short breather. Next, Cillin needed to integrate the results Ci Jincheng and Czedow had produced over this period for a deeper analysis.

Not long after Cillin entered the lab, Ci Jincheng stepped out. After washing up, he didn’t even have time to chat with Pride. Cillin had just sent him a crucial piece of genetic data, meaning their upcoming workload would be even heavier. Ci Jincheng knew his own limits, so he and Cillin had agreed to rest first and recharge their brains before diving back into the research.

As for Czedow, he remained busy with the work Ci Jincheng hadn’t finished. For him, working continuously like this for ten years wouldn’t bring any sense of fatigue; as long as he had enough energy, he could keep going. Just as Ci Jincheng had said, Czedow was a massive asset.

Two days later, Allen arrived at the base. Allen was just a former alumnus of Cillin’s from Seven Lights.

Allen already knew a few things about Cillin’s situation. Since his days at Seven Lights, Allen had grown quite close to the Andrea Family and had always kept a close eye on the movements of Kang Man and Pride. However, tracking someone with a background like Pride’s was difficult, and as for Kang Man, he had been recruited by the Ci Family right after graduation, essentially vanishing from the public eye. Later, through Lung’s connections, Allen collaborated with Ci Jincheng and personally went to the front lines to report on the Seventh Army, where the Ci Family was embedded.

Allen was currently running Star of Tomorrow, an electronic publication with a GAL contribution rating in the sixties. It was far inferior to established giants like Infinity and Luxury, whose ratings exceeded eighty. However, it drew much more attention among the youth, as its featured figures and stories all centered around young people, ranging from small children to those in their thirties.

The people highlighted in Star of Tomorrow weren’t widely known to the GAL public, nor were they untouchable bigwigs. Young people loved following the publication simply because the subjects were close to their own age. Everyone liked reading about their peers. Some parents enjoyed it too, often using its outstanding figures to spur on their own children.

Ever since Allen’s father handed Star of Tomorrow over to him, Allen had been traveling constantly to meet his subjects in person. For a while, he had even run off to interview new recruits who had made significant contributions in the military. The Seventh Army, which housed the Ci Family, enjoyed a much better public reputation within the GAL than the Fifth Army, outshining several other legions in civilian goodwill. This was one of the reasons Ci Jincheng had agreed to cooperate with Allen.

Allen’s goal was to elevate Star of Tomorrow’s contribution rating in the GAL out of the sixties. He hoped to push the electronic publication into the seventies or even the eighties under his management. Correspondingly, he had to put in a massive amount of effort. He personally went to the front lines time and time again, experiencing events firsthand and contacting the subjects directly to report the absolute truth. Those kinds of figures were the most attractive and admirable.

Allen’s father hadn’t given him permission to come this time; it was entirely Allen’s own idea.

In fact, most of the people here had come of their own accord without their families’ approval, such as Pride, who had snuck out, and Knight.

The Feigler Family had repeatedly demanded that Knight return, but he just kept repeating the same few sentences. After arguing with his old man for the ninth time, Knight ignored the incoming calls on his receiver and dove headfirst into the training room for the next phase of adaptation training. Every time they finished a new phase of training, they emerged covered in injuries. On top of adapting to different gravitational environments, varied atmospheric compositions, and so on, they also had to deal with Purisa’s attacks. It was no wonder they all looked half-dead every time they came out.

Amid everyone’s tension and the military’s increasingly frequent deployments, a sharp alarm suddenly rang through Ci Jincheng’s base one day, bringing everyone’s activities to a halt.

“This alarm...”

“Fuck! It’s starting!”

The people in the training room and those who were resting all rushed toward Ci Jincheng. On their very first day at the base, Ci Jincheng had taught them what the various alarms meant. The one blaring right now was the notification that a disaster had begun.

Aside from the base alarm, Knight also received a message from the Feigler Family. It was yet another demand for him to return. After a quick glance, Knight replied with the same few words as the previous times, shut off his receiver, and hurried over to Ci Jincheng with the rest of the group.

As the alarm blared, Cillin’s private communicator also went off. Several messages from different people popped up on the screen—there were messages from Ji Feng, Eudy, Angenia, Yin Wushe, Shi Huajing, Yu Linglong...

All of these people reported the exact same thing in their emergency transmissions to Cillin: the Dream Tapir had officially appeared.