Chapter 494: Chapter 492: Unable to Lure Away

As the tree’s vines coiled around the launched spaceship and dangled it before the creature once more, music began to play from the vessel.

Sure enough, the great tree paused.

"It worked!!"

"It’s reacting! Quick, have another ship draw it away."

The warriors chosen to pilot the ships were mostly those whose Riot Values had already reached eighty percent or higher.

They could lose their sanity and undergo Beastification at any moment, so they had signed agreements, willing to sacrifice their lives to bring honor and compensation to their families.

It was a grim task, but some things just had to be done.

If this great tree were to attack the planet, the death toll would be far higher.

Losing just a few Beastman Warriors with high Riot Values was considered minimizing the casualties.

Besides, it wasn’t a suicide mission.

If they could successfully lure the great tree away, they might even have a chance to escape in their pods.

Right now, everyone was nervously staring at the recorded footage being transmitted back from the ship.

The great tree was slowly loosening the vines that bound the Main Star.

Several ships, their sound systems blaring, tried to take turns guiding the great tree away, but the maneuver was incredibly difficult.

The great tree had so many vines that it captured all the ships.

With no other choice, the pilots had to eject in their escape pods, taking the music with them as they fell into Deep Space.

After a moment’s hesitation, the great tree Cosmic Beast extended its vines and reeled in the escape pods as well.

Then, it placed all of them before it and stared blankly.

"What is it doing?"

"Does it like listening to music? Or is it thinking about something?"

Everyone was incredibly tense.

The plan to lure it away had failed. Judging by the number of its vines, sending out even a hundred more ships would be useless.

No matter how many ships they sent, it would capture every single one.

At this rate, the most they could do was stall it.

The Chief offered some reassurance. "For now, it seems the music is still effective. We won’t need to send any more warriors out on luring missions.

First, have someone figure out a way to deploy more machines equipped with sound systems. As soon as one is destroyed, we’ll immediately launch the next.

We must keep it occupied. I’ll request aid from the Empire as soon as possible and have other planets send reinforcements."

No one objected.

This was already the best possible outcome.

If they could just keep it occupied, perhaps they could hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive and kill it.

At the thought of the various uses for a Cosmic Beast’s corpse, a flicker of excitement even ignited within them.

Seeing there was nothing more for her to do, Jiang Qin left. After all, she couldn’t be of any help here.

...

「Peace returned to the cities across the Main Star.」

Many people were unaware of the crisis the planet was facing. When nothing happened after the alarms faded, they simply assumed the danger had passed.

Only the powerful were still desperately trying to find a way off the planet.

After all, the tree was like a blade hanging over their heads, a constant threat to their lives.

If there had been a way out, everyone would have fled long ago.

「The next few days passed pleasantly for Jiang Qin at the Lan Family’s residence.」

She was never disturbed. Lan Yidan and her partners were very considerate, always sending a message to Lan Yuyan before coming over.

If she was resting, they wouldn’t come by, instead just asking Lan Yuyan to bring Zhaozhao over to play with them.

The little girl had received so many gifts these past few days she was practically buried in them.

When she grew up, sorting through all these gifts would be a massive undertaking.

As for the task of monitoring the great tree, that naturally fell to Yuan Ling.

Their intel was synced with the internal reports of the Federation’s top brass.

"How is it today?"

Yuan Ling shook his head. "It’s just stopped there. Still no movement, just quietly listening to music."

"I have no idea what this tree is trying to do. Did it really come all this way just to listen to some music?"

"Maybe... the singing is what it’s after?" Long Hao laughed as he said it, finding his own guess ridiculous.

Yun Xie, however, turned to Jiang Qin. "Qinqin, what do you think?"

Others might have found it preposterous, but Yun Xie was already accustomed to his partner’s unique nature, so he didn’t think the guess was outlandish at all.

In fact, he thought it was quite possible. He just hadn’t seen the tree himself, so he couldn’t draw any firm conclusions.

"I’m not sure either. We know so little about Cosmic Beasts. We can’t even be sure if they’re sentient."

After all, most of the Beastmen who have encountered a Cosmic Beast ended up dead.

To this day, no one has been able to kill one, nor has anyone managed to communicate with one up close.

What people know about them comes mostly from survivor accounts, occasionally captured footage, and the corpses of Cosmic Beasts found adrift in space.

So, who knows if they can even be communicated with.

Judging by their tendency to destroy everything on sight, they seem to operate on pure animal instinct.

"But one thing is certain: it really does like listening to Qinqin’s songs."

Over the past few days, the Federation hadn’t just been sitting idly by.

They had run experiments and discovered that the tree showed no interest in devices playing songs by other artists.

It wasn’t excessively rough, though. It would usually grab the objects and play with them for a bit before accidentally destroying them.

Compared to other Cosmic Beasts that destroy everything on sight, its temperament was practically gentle.

This was probably why Jiang Qin and the others had been able to survive their earlier encounter.

But it wouldn’t accidentally destroy the devices playing Jiang Qin’s songs. It would only shatter them to bits with its violent shaking after the music had stopped.

This confirmed for them that the great tree had a clear fixation on Jiang Qin’s singing.

"If we still can’t lure it away after two days, the Federation will launch an attack.

All supporting forces have already arrived."

"If a fight breaks out, won’t it go berserk?" Cang Hong asked.

"We have to fight, even if it goes berserk. It’s growing more impatient. If we don’t act soon, it might go on a rampage anyway."

The group fell silent.

Jiang Qin forced a smile. "All right, let’s not worry about it. Let the higher-ups handle the big problems. Making these decisions is what the officials are for, so let them have the headache.

There’s no use us thinking about it here. We’d be better off figuring out the safest way to leave if it comes to that."

"You’re right. This is a problem for the Federation’s Chief to worry about. Nothing we think will influence their decision."

"You guys go ahead and eat. I’m going to skip. I’ve had a breakthrough in my research, so I’m going back to work."

"Call us if you need any help."

"Okay. Qinqin, I’m heading back to the lab."

Jiang Qin nodded and had Shi Lichuan go with him.

Lately, Yuan Ling had been holed up in the laboratory they’d built in the basement. He rarely left, only coming out occasionally to see them.

He spent most of his time studying the spaceship they had brought back from the Mechanical Clan.