Age of Cosmic Exploration

The Black Star slogan hadn’t really caught on with the troopers because it wasn’t that impressive, and because it too steeped in the Black Star Unit’s history.

After all, the slogan had been the Black Stars’ for almost 50 years!

This was pretty much the Black Stars’ death march slogan. When Ying wailed the slogan, it meant that he was already prepared to not return alive!

As Ebon’s rail cannon went roaring away, Ying knelt down to use his angled leg as support for his rifle. Then he began to snipe the bigger monsters among the crowd... In a matter of seconds, the area was dripping with monster blood and guts.

The Gaussian rail gun was doing its work. It had a firing speed of 30,000 shots per second, and the bullets had an initial velocity that could reach up to a maximum of several thousand kilometers per second. Basically, the bullet would find itself outside of the ozone layer a second after it was fired. Its power couldn’t be underestimated!

Despite the monsters’ scary appearance, they were nothing compared to the raw power of the 4th revolution weaponry. Their exoskeletons might look tough, but they were anything but when faced with these reinforced weapons.

Ying’s shot took down a 6-meter-tall creature, and Ebon followed it up by annihilating the smaller underlings around it. In just a blink of an eye, a sizable gang of monsters became nothing more than a heap of fleshy mess!

Only then did the Survivors and Ren Tao begin to come to. They too lifted their guns and shot at the adversaries. Without surprise, the monsters fell under the bullets like paper mache. Even Ying’s team was shocked at how fragile these creatures were.

There was a chance that they would live! However, before they could relax, a visible layer of electricity appeared around the bigger monsters. The layer rendered all of their bullets useless.

"Damn, electromagnetic shield! Looks like the big creatures aren’t for aggressive purposes!" Ying yelled. He turned to realize that his team had already spread out to deal with the onslaught. The creator’s particle isolator in their combat suits had only a 1 meter radius. In other words, they had to get close to communicate with one another.

Shaking his head, he pulled out his sawblade and rushed headfirst towards the bigger creatures that were at the enemies’ backline.

As Ying rushed forward, the framework in his combat suit sensed his motion as well as rise in adrenaline to activate a supermagnetic growth field. Originally meant to promote plant growth, this technology’s actual usage was to desensitize g-force!

Yes, g-force!

When an organism achieves sudden acceleration, g-force will be formed. G-force is created due to the density difference between cellular fluids and rigid cell structure. Therefore, under extreme acceleration, the density of the cellular fluids will get so overwhelming that the body will implode from within. This is the reason why g-force can be a valid cause of death.

For mankind in the 3rd revolution, g-force was a mystery. In fact, many countries were investing into g-force technology when Earth was still around. However, the research went nowhere. There was no way to prevent the damage caused by g-force when the human body reaches the acceleration of several thousand meters per second.

That problem was solved in the 4th revolution though. The technology to manipulate the human body at a cellular level had arrived!

One such technology was the electromagnetic growth field. Electromagnetic waves could be used to get into humans’ deep tissue. Other than increasing plant growth rate, the technology could be used to counter g-force during acceleration.

The technology was used to push not only the solid parts of the human body, like bones, but also the fluids forward during acceleration. The forward motion was found out to be the most effective direction to offset g-force!

This was why mankind could survive piloting the combat jet even though it could reach up to several hundred kilometers of acceleration per second!

The technology was replicated in the Black Star troopers’ space armor. During particle flux acceleration, the Space Armor Prototype 1 would use its electromagnetic growth field to offset the increasing g-force. With these devices in place, the space armor could allow its wearer to reach up to 200 meters acceleration per second!

Not only that, the electromagnetic growth field has another important use. Due to the difference in the weight of the electromagnetic and gravity fields, time flows differently. This has seen real world experimentation in the twentieth century.

Like how the growth field can speed up a plant’s growth, it can make a human’s response rate go faster. The increase is, however, dependent on personal ability.

As a Homo Evolutis, Ying’s reflexes had seen a tremendous increase under the effect of the electromagnetic growth field!

As he leaped forward, the internal AI of the space armor activated the particle flux to support Ying’s running start. He found himself several hundred meters away from where he was just seconds ago, and he was still accelerating. He zipped down a straight line about 8 seconds before jumping upwards, his sawblade glinting in the moonlight.

His blood curdling, Ebon whipped his rail gun away and rushed towards Ying, brandishing his own sawblade.

The other Survivors were glued to their feet. They were firing their guns in an area around them aimlessly. During Ebon’s mid-acceleration, a group of 1-meter-tall monsters leaped into the air, covering the area above Ebon’s head with their writhing mass before dropping down and smothering him.

"We’re totally done for! These monsters are endless, and our bullets are useless against their electromagnetic shields..."

The 5 Survivors unconsciously moved to gather around Ren Tao. In their heart, they knew that both Ying and Ebon were a lost cause, so in a desperate bid for survival, they placed their bets on the sole remaining skilled Homo Evolutis, Ren Tao.

Their close proximity caused Ren Tao to hear the person’s despairing exclamation. "Move out of the way! Have you guys gone through several months or several days of training? Such shame! Those are your families down there! I’d die before I let any harm come to my sister! Get out of my way, you’re blocking my blade!"

Ren Tao lifted his sawblade and tore through the monster crowd. The space armor gave him the boost he needed, so he reached Ebon’s side in 7 seconds! He then unleashed a side that no one had seen before. As a Thinker, Ren Tao had spent most of his time on the battlefield strategizing, so it came as a shock for everyone when they saw their strategist tear through the mass of fleshy monsters.

As the bodies of the monsters fell, Ren Tao’s brain started calculating. With the combined power of all the Homo Evolutis and the space armors’ aid, it was fully possible that they could live to see another day!

Suddenly, the ground shook. Ebon emerged from underneath the a monster mountain with his eyes blazing. Swinging his sawblade, he rampaged through the battlefield. Like a steamroller, he rammed a bloody trail through enemy ranks. An alien darted towards him, baring its claws, but he cleaved it perfectly in half.

Like the God of war, Ebon was showcasing his might on the battlefield!

In his rampage, a few aliens managed to claw at Ebon, but those barely slowed him down. Ren Tao observed that the space armor not only increased their reflexes and offset the g-force, the armor was interlaced with special alloys created by the alien plant. That gave it a shell that was indestructible by the aliens’ standard!

Since this was the Black Star troopers’ first actual combat, Ren Tao was pleasantly surprised at how unstoppable they were!

At that moment, an electromagnetic shielded alien was cut in half, revealing a perfectly unscathed Ying standing above its dying body.

Ren Tao’s voice rang out as he riddled an alien that appeared before him with bullets... "We can win! The backup will bring about 10 skilled Homo Evolutis and 100 Survivors... With that support, we can absolutely win this!"