Chapter 1 A Trap

Somewhere in the Shattered Star Ring, three small warships bearing the Black Star Army insignia cruised through space. All the ships were Flash Shuttle-class, known for their speed.

The task of this unit was to track suspicious transport fleets. The Black Star Army had deployed such tracking teams in multiple star systems within the Shattered Star Ring, creating a vast network.

Inside the command room of the lead ship, the captain carefully watched the star chart in front of him, which marked the team's patrol route. Any suspicious units detected within their jurisdiction, or new tasks assigned from above, would appear on the chart.

"I heard that two days ago, a suspicious transport fleet was spotted in the neighboring star sector. The clues were fragmented, and they seemed to have lost track of it. Do you think it might have wandered into our jurisdiction?" A lieutenant chatted with a colleague.

"That would be great! Just tracking a suspicious fleet counts as a contribution. We've been patrolling here for months without a real mission. If we're unlucky, who knows when we'll get a chance to earn merit."

The other person's tone was envious.

The patrol duty was monotonous, and the captain didn't stop his subordinates from chatting; he felt the same way. Although he was just a grassroots member of the army, he had a strong desire to advance. As long as he accumulated enough merit, he could exchange it for elite training qualifications from the army, investing in himself to facilitate promotion.

*Beep beep*—

At that moment, a red dot emitting ripples suddenly appeared on the star chart, accompanied by a prompt. This was a field investigation mission issued by the monitoring department, usually indicating that a spatial buoy had detected a suspicious unit.

"We've got a mission!"

The captain's eyes lit up, thinking that his chance had come. He immediately ordered the fleet to change direction and head toward the marked coordinates.

The three ships turned immediately, their engines spewing out rainbow light, and shot into the depths of space.

After traveling for some time, the team arrived at the target location. They skillfully activated their detection devices, and thirty or forty spatial ripple traces appeared on the radar view.

These were traces left by high-speed warp jumps, each representing a ship. These traces would disappear over time, but they had not completely dissipated yet, extending far out and indirectly indicating the heading of these dozens of ships.

"A total of forty-one warp trails, a small to medium-sized fleet. Follow the traces and catch up!" The captain ordered without hesitation.

The team opened full power and advanced along the warp trails, quickly tracking for two hours. A barren asteroid came into view.

The traces ended here, indicating that the target had exited warp mode here.

"Report, the target's traces have disappeared. They may have temporarily stayed on this planet to collect resources, or they may be hiding on the back of the planet in ambush. Please advise on the next course of action." The lieutenant glanced at the radar, which showed no warnings, and spoke.

The captain pondered for two seconds and said, "Ship Two, scan the planet's surface. Ship Three, go around to the back of the planet. Ship One, where I am, will stand by and keep the engines running, ensuring we can retreat at any time."

"Roger."

The three ships immediately split up and acted. It wasn't long before they had results.

A fleet was discovered docked at a vein on the planet. The faction markings on the outer armor represented a local commercial consortium. They were currently collecting underground gas resources. The scale was exactly the same as the number of warp traces, precisely the target the team had been tracking.

"Issue a broad-spectrum communication, requesting to verify their identity codes," the captain said.

Transport fleets from the Super Star Cluster Alliance used various methods to deceive and cross borders. Disguising themselves as other organizations was one of the most common methods. If the army's tracking team caught up with a suspicious fleet, they would usually ask to check the other party's identity first. If it was a misunderstanding, they would let them go.

Generally speaking, it was the duty of the civilization security team to inspect the identity of passing fleets. The Black Star Army, as a private armed organization, did not have this authority.

However, might makes right. Now that the Black Star Army was tracking down the Modo Civilization's transport fleet throughout the star field, normal organizations would give face and were unwilling to cause trouble for themselves. Most of the civilizations in the Shattered Star Ring would not have any objections either, turning a blind eye.

Occasionally, the tracking teams encountered the real deal, and the enemy would strike first, but this was an unavoidable risk. Therefore, the tracking team would generally not engage in combat, and would maintain constant communication with the intelligence department. In this way, even if the tracking team encountered an accident and lost contact, they could still transmit the message back, allowing the monitoring department to confirm the target's enemy status.

At this time, the tracking team sent a communication request to the transport fleet, but it was like a stone sinking into the sea, and the other party did not respond.

The captain immediately became vigilant. "Something's wrong, prepare to retreat immediately, report the situ…"

But before he could finish speaking, his brain suddenly went blank, and his vision became chaotic. This state lasted for a moment before his thinking returned to clarity.

However, when he saw the scene in front of him again, his entire body stiffened. Terrifying fear erupted from his heart, instantly destroying his rationality.

He saw that the surroundings had turned into a prison. His body was firmly fixed in a confinement pod, unable to move.

He was shocked.

One second I was still in the command room of the shuttle, how did I suddenly get here?!

Before he could figure it out, his head spun again, and the surrounding environment changed again. He was actually in a transparent glass room, surrounded by a group of huge black beetles, stirring restlessly.

Looking through the walls of the transparent room, he was instantly terrified. He saw towering giants walking outside the room, so tall that he couldn't even see their heads.

Everywhere he looked, everything seemed to have grown countless times larger.

"What the hell..."

The captain subconsciously muttered to himself, but he didn't hear his own voice. Instead, he heard a slight hissing sound.

He was slightly stunned and lowered his head to look at himself. A chill suddenly rushed to his brain, and he was so frightened that his soul almost left his body, in disbelief.

His body had actually turned into a black beetle, just like the bugs around him!

In that instant, he understood something.

It's not that the world has become bigger, it's that I've shrunk!

At this moment, orange-red high-temperature flames descended from the sky, filling the entire glass room, freezing his thoughts in a blazing whiteness.

*Boom*—

In just one breath, all the black beetles were burned to ashes.

An operator in a white coat moved the experimental flamethrower and glanced at the debris in the glass box, giving an "ok" sign to the group leader not far away.

The group leader nodded and reported to the communication screen: "Reporting Commander, target eliminated."

"Mm."

In the main ship, the commander of this fleet nodded and turned to look at the scene outside the porthole.

He saw that two of the three shuttles in outer space had already been destroyed by their sudden attack, turning into fireworks in the universe. Only Ship One, the command ship, was deliberately allowed to escape the scene via warp jump.

And within the escaping ship, the souls of all the crew members had been replaced!

"The plan is going smoothly."

Nodding slightly, the commander turned to look beside him. A Mo Crystal-colored mirror floated in the air, about fifty centimeters in diameter and no more than three centimeters thick.

The Twin Soul Transmigrators were standing in front of the mirror, their palms submerged in the mirror surface up to their wrists, as if they were being swallowed. The mirror surface rippled.

This mirror was a Universe Treasure of the spectacle type called the Soul Transference Device!

"That's enough, stop!"

The commander shouted.

Hearing this, the Twin Soul Transmigrators slowly retracted their palms, and the surrounding soldiers immediately stepped forward, moving the Soul Transference Device away and placing it in a highly precise safe, away from the Twin Soul Transmigrators.

Seeing this, the Twin Soul Transmigrators glanced casually at the mechanical turrets that stretched out from the walls and ground, aiming at them, and let out an indifferent laugh.

These turrets were security devices to prevent them from making any unusual movements, controlled by remote intelligence. The Soul Transference Device only worked on biological souls and was useless against mechanical intelligence.

The commander then retracted his gaze and looked in the direction where the shuttle escaped, muttering:

"The suicide squad prepared in advance has already infiltrated the enemy's interior. Coupled with this bait of ours, it should be enough to lure him out..."

...

"A tracking team in the Qian Guang Star System was ambushed while tracking a suspicious fleet. Two ships were destroyed on the spot, and only one ship escaped..."

In the Black Star Army's headquarters in the Shattered Star Ring, Nilo finished reading the report in a low voice, looked up at the several cadres in the room, and said:

"Everyone, what do you think?"

Mia said decisively: "The situation is obvious. This transport fleet took action, so we can basically confirm that they are from the Super Star Cluster Alliance. Immediately dispatch the troops around the incident location to track the target."

"I think it's a bit strange. The Super Star Cluster Alliance's troops generally don't take action, because once they engage, they will expose their identity. Most of the time, they try to shake off the pursuers. The reason why encounters happen is usually because they didn't discover the pursuers and were accidentally caught up... But since they took action, they shouldn't have left any survivors. That's how it's been in previous cases."

Tomar muttered.

He had followed Laki for decades to learn magic. Although his teacher was a salted fish, his talent was too good. Now he had become a high-level cadre and had a good relationship with Nilo, so he was considered Nilo's team.

"Perhaps the surviving ship escaped in time, and the Super Star Cluster's troops knew that the intelligence would definitely leak, so they didn't want to waste their energy chasing after them and preferred to spend their time escaping," Mia guessed.

"That makes sense." Tomar didn't doubt him.

"Let's ask the survivors about the specific situation first."

Nilo thought for a while and instructed the assistant to contact the captain of the surviving ship. After a while, the communication screen was connected, and the person in the picture was the captain of the tracking team.

"Tell me about your experience from beginning to end. I want to know all the details."

The captain in the picture's eyes flashed, nodded, and put on an expression of lingering fear and anger, and recounted his experience.

The soul under this body had already been replaced by a suicide soldier prepared by the Modo Civilization. The effect of the Soul Transference Device was not simply transferring the souls of two bodies. The "possessed" soul could also inherit most of the target's memories. After all, the body's brain was also a memory storage device, like a library.

But this memory would not naturally merge with the new soul, but needed to be slowly sorted and read, and there would be some omissions. Generally speaking, the more distant the memory, the easier it was to be missing, and the recent memories were basically complete.

There was rejection between different souls and bodies. Operations such as reincarnation and possession could also be done by some psionicists or psychic power users, but the success rate was extremely low. Voding and Morning Star were examples.

The Soul Transference Device could greatly increase the success rate of soul transfer, approaching 100% under normal circumstances, but it would be affected by the target's strength and the user's strength. At the same time, the rejection between the body and the soul would be greatly reduced when the soul transfer was completed using the Soul Transference Device, and there would be no strong rejection reaction.

And soul transfer was only one of the functions of the Soul Transference Device. This thing was very magical and had other effects.

After listening to the report, Nilo said a few words of encouragement and was about to end the communication.

At this time, the "survivor's" eyes flashed, pretending to be sad and angry, and shouted:

"We are now the closest troops to the enemy. I hope to continue this mission, continue to pursue, and avenge my partners!"

"...Okay."

This request was reasonable, and Nilo had no reason to refuse.

He hung up the communication, and Tomar spoke again:

"Nilo, since the target knows that their whereabouts have been exposed, they will definitely change their plan and no longer go to the transport line, but escape separately. I suggest taking the second plan."

This situation was not the first time it had happened. If the transport troops were exposed, they would basically be regarded as abandoned pawns. Even if they continued to track, they would not be able to find the Super Star Cluster Alliance's secret stronghold.

"That's right." Nilo turned to look at Iso beside him, his tone embarrassed. "This... Mr. Iso, I'm sorry to trouble you again."

"It's okay." Iso waved his hand, not caring.

The so-called second plan was to use Iso's ability to let him go to the scene of the incident and use the relevant clues as a medium to conduct on-site predictions, foresee various future possibilities, and grasp more clues.

The clearer the prediction you want to obtain, the more medium you need. This method has been tested and is effective. For the past few months, Iso has not been staying in the headquarters alone, but has been conducting multiple on-site inspections under heavy protection, using this method to find many targets for the Black Star Army.

Nilo nodded and said loudly:

"Time is of the essence, immediately prepare the ship and send Mr. Iso and the escort troops to the scene of the incident."

...

On the other side.

A certain star field, a certain planet, a certain base.

Manison stood with his hands behind his back in front of a virtual screen, squinting at the content on the screen.

This was secret information from the Old Star River base, from his informant who had been planted inside the Modo Civilization many years ago.

It only contained a short message:

——The Twin Soul Transmigrators have been transferred away from the base. The Soul Transference Device has been taken from the warehouse by the army. Destination unknown!

"The Soul Transference Device... If I guessed correctly, the Modo Civilization activated this Universe Treasure to deal with him. Perhaps I can..."

Manison muttered to himself, a strange light flashing in his eyes.