Cataclysm: Undead Dragons and Zero Empire

The silver-white dragon bone cleaved through the starry sea, and the turbulent currents in the subspace were split apart when they encountered Lin Zimo, as if an axe blade was advancing to cleave the chaos of the sea, and the black and red flames were like the broad cloak of death.

The core coordinates, stripped from the branch consciousness of the swarm of bees, acted as a lighthouse, guiding him across the star field and ultimately leading him to a galaxy that was not even recorded on a star map.

There are no navigation records, no residual energy signals, and not even reference coordinates for interstellar navigation here. It is as if it is a corner forgotten by the universe.

When Lin Zimo emerged from the subspace, what met his eyes was such a desolate star system.

The star that was the center of gravity has long since died out, becoming a dense, cold black dwarf star. Its surface is covered with interstellar dust accumulated over billions of years, and even the faintest radiation has dissipated. The entire star is in its lowest energy state.

This is the power of time; the entire galaxy is plunged into eternal darkness, with only planets reflecting distant starlight and their blurry outlines visible.

There are no asteroid belt collisions, no endless storms from gas giants, and even the nebulae are stagnant, devoid of any motivation to be captured by gravity, as if time has frozen into solid amber here.

Lin Ziming spread his spiritual energy throughout the entire galaxy, like spreading an invisible giant net, sweeping over every corner, but there was no trace of anything. The place was as quiet as a tomb, with only cold stars silently revolving in their predetermined orbits, as if even the gravitational waves carried a heavy feeling.

The coordinates pointed to a planet in the galaxy, a celestial body completely encased in thick ice. From space, it resembled a gem suspended in the darkness, with continuous ice ridges crisscrossing like giant waves frozen in time.

This planet is similar in size to the home of human civilization, but its gravity is much lower, making it unable to maintain a thick atmosphere. In the cold and desolate galaxy, the surface receives very little temperature and is almost frozen solid.

After using his psionic energy to penetrate the atmosphere, Lin Ziming explored this seemingly ordinary planet until he sensed an anomaly beneath the ice layer.

He did not land on the planet's surface. His massive keel body was enough to create powerful gravitational interference, shaking the planet's core. Lin Ziming hovered outside the planet's orbit, his psionic energy flowing like a rushing river across space, extending downwards along the planet's gravitational field and touching the cold underground world.

At this moment, the psionic energy transformed into countless probes that pierced through the ground, instantly penetrating the solid ice. They then discovered that beneath the endless ice layer lay a body of liquid water—a vast underground ocean beyond human imagination, maintained in a liquid state by the combined effects of the planet's residual geothermal heat and internal pressure.

However, this ocean also showed no signs of life. Psionic energy spread through the seawater, drawing out the terrain for him: a gentle seabed covered with thick sediment, steep trenches that were bottomless, and scattered piles of rocks like silent tombstones.

On the seabed, a neat structure stood out starkly. It was definitely not a naturally formed geological formation, but a complex of buildings composed of countless regular geometric shapes. In the silent atmosphere, it resembled a dead behemoth, which was probably Lin Ziming's target. He gathered his spiritual energy and swept it over this underwater ruin.

The entire city was in ruins, with most buildings collapsed into rubble, leaving only broken walls and twisted supporting structures standing silently in the sea.

Countless years of accumulated sediment cover most of the city. Some buildings still bear traces of marine life, but they have long since become fossils and lost their vitality, telling the distant truth that this planet once nurtured life.

Lin Ziming could vaguely make out the city's layout. All the buildings were incredibly simple in style, without any decorative design. They championed the harmonious unity of geometric patterns and mathematics, which reminded him of the ancient history and the circular world before the eternal slumber.

The psionic energy moved like a ghost through these ruins, skimming over collapsed walls, penetrating the sedimentary layers that buried the relics, and capturing any information that might remain.

A relatively intact building ruin came into Lin Ziming's view. On the outer wall was carved a symbol that had become blurred: three intertwined rings with a regular grid pattern behind them.

This symbol instantly awakened Lin Ziming's memories. It was the emblem of the empire, a symbol of the great civilization he had once served, engraved on every important facility, every warship, and even the armor of every soldier in the empire.

He had seen this emblem before, on his incubator, in the corridors of the ring world, and on the prow of a Titan warship. Now, seeing it again in the underwater ruins of this desolate planet, long-dormant memories surged violently.

As the psionic energy explored the ruins further, this evidence led him to discover more and more symbols belonging to the Empire. These traces, like pieces of a puzzle, gradually pieced together a picture of the Empire building its base here.

Lin Ziming was certain that the city was not originally built on the seabed, but on the surface of the continent, before the sun of this star system went out and before the planet lost its atmosphere and magnetic field.

The information detected by the psychic powers all proved that there was a large-scale landslide around the city, buildings were generally tilted, and the cracks in some walls were obviously caused by violent geological movements.

Lin Ziming speculated that in the distant lost history, this planet experienced an unprecedented continental shelf landslide, which sank the entire continent along with the city into the sea, completely sealing the ruins.

Perhaps it was this coincidence that allowed traces of the city to be preserved to this day, instead of turning to dust in the long time that the stars would have vanished.

This discovery made Lin Ziming's thoughts clearer. The fact that the origin of the swarm of killer bees coincided with the imperial ruins was definitely not a coincidence.

The Empire's war that swept across the entire universe must have been a victory for them, to the point that the Zerg became part of the ruins, and this place may well be a laboratory belonging to the Empire.

Lin Ziming saw no trace of the residential area, or that the giant world built in space over a long period of time had disappeared, leaving him, a later explorer, with only the ruins beneath the ocean.

In the center of the vast ruins, Lin Zimo found a large building that still stands. After hundreds of millions of years, the main structure has not collapsed, which is enough to prove the empire's level of materials science and engineering.

The building is several times the size of the surrounding ruins, and its exterior is engraved with imperial insignia. Given the layout of the city, it's possible that the construction of this base was all to serve this building.

With all energy resources exhausted and no longer any possibility of hindering external exploration, Lin Zimo probed into it with his spiritual energy, feeling a slight sense of urgency to unravel the mystery.

He hoped he could find clues to history, even if the sun had already set.