Chapter 916

"Hello, sir, I don't know what you're talking about. This is humanity's base on Mercury. We are merely a civilization that has just stepped beyond our home planet, learning how to extract resources from stars."

"We're sorry, but we currently lack the capability to send you home. Yet the door of human friendship remains forever open to you."

Shi Ler stood beside the hospital bed, smiling at Luonan—but Luonan remained unmoved. He turned his head and looked at the several humans outside the observation room.

One of them looked very young, wearing a hoodie printed with cartoon patterns, curiously peering in through the observation window.

Another wore a uniform and held a shield of red and blue, arguing with a man in powered armor. Several others in researcher uniforms were comparing data from files.

Outside the entire ward, everything appeared perfectly normal: everyone had their tasks, communication flowed smoothly. Merely observing this scene, one might believe they had truly been rescued by strangers and brought to a hospital.

But Luonan sat up on the bed, sneering coldly as he said:

"Skrulls, you always think yourselves clever, yet you fail to see the glaring flaws exposed by your words, gestures, and staged surroundings. This trap is so childish it's laughable."

"You claim to be human, yet the moment you saw me, you accurately named my race—and even my rank."

"Many civilizations across the universe have heard of the Kree Empire's name, but most know only fragments. Only one race understands us deeply, for we once waged a thousand-year war. Isn't that right, dog of the Skrull Empire?"

Luonan appeared relaxed, showing not the slightest sign of weakness. Leaning against the wall behind the bed, he said: "This is merely your first grave mistake. Your second flaw is this: you claim to be human."

"Human… human…" Luonan murmured the race's name several times, then spoke: "Perhaps in the distant reaches of the universe, few have heard of this race. But in our local galaxy cluster, which civilization hasn't heard of humans?"

"Too many cosmic deities originated from Earth. Too many powerful cosmic entities are tied to it. Yet curiously, this is an extremely weak race that has yet to leave its homeworld. This has become a cosmic legend throughout the galaxy cluster—even the most remote indigenous tribes have heard this tale."

"Indeed, from your Skrull perspective, how backward could a civilization possibly be? Not knowing how to harness solar energy—isn't that backward enough? Building a base on Mercury—isn't that primitive enough?"

Luonan scoffed. "But all this is your assumption. You've been too far removed from the age of barbarism. After you fled your home star system like stray dogs, too many historical fragments were lost to the cosmos. Now you can only guess at history."

"You assume a weak race like humanity could only build a base near a star, only construct a basic life-support system to keep ordinary humans alive, only use primitive lamps hanging from the ceiling for lighting…"

"But you don't know that humanity, like the ancient Kree, has yet to leave its homeworld. They couldn't even launch a chemical-fuel rocket to their own planet's nearest moon without spending years. Let alone build a base on a planet near the sun."

"Heat from a star means nothing to you, but to humans, it's deadly. A life-support system capable of sustaining life under extreme heat is basic technology to Skrulls—but for humans, it's nearly impossible."

Seeing Shi Ler's darkening face, Luonan pressed on: "And let's not forget your oversights in the details."

"The translation system I'm using is an undamaged Kree military model, loaded with tens of thousands of languages used across interstellar society—especially all civilizations in our local galaxy cluster, including human languages."

"But you don't know that humanity is a multilingual civilization. Though we've recorded many human languages, members of multilingual cultures often use loanwords or phonetic borrowings from other languages during conversation—especially new terms, which, after vocal shifts and tonal changes, cannot be perfectly translated."

"Yet just now, as I lay here listening to your greeting, every word spoken by the people outside the observation room was perfectly translated by your system. Not a single untranslatable word. Not a single distinctive intonation."

Luonan spread his hands. "What does this prove? It proves your human vocabulary database is identical to ours. Which means you don't know the local vernacular."

Luonan shook his head. "This is you Skrulls—cleverness backfiring, classic case."

"You pretend to be weak humans to lower my guard, win my favor. But who doesn't know that Skrull shapeshifters can mimic any race in the universe?"

"Do you think I'd be unprepared for this?" Luonan stared at Shi Ler. "It's far more believable that the Skrull Empire has sunk so low as to launch suicide attacks on other starports, than that a weak race like humanity traveled across countless light-years, braved explosions on a ship with no atmosphere, and somehow rescued me."

"Enough, you thief!" Shi Ler's face grew colder. He narrowed his eyes at Luonan. "Shut your mouth. Stay right there."

"Thief, thief, thief… you only know this word. For thousands of years, you've repeated it, as if you're innocent victims." Luonan's tone grew lower. "Your education has made you incapable of understanding: the so-called gifts you bestow on other races aren't helping the universe prosper—they're creating more massacres and genocides."

Luonan interlaced his fingers and lowered his head. "You think the thousand-year war began because the Kree stole your technology and turned on you."

"But if you were truly powerful and benevolent, you shouldn't have chosen between the Kree and the Cotati."

"You asked each side to build a wonder to judge their civilization's potential. We built the Great Blue City. They built the Cotati Garden."

"Which structure was superior is lost to history. But you chose the Cotati not because their garden was more beautiful—but because they were willing to flatter you, lay down their weapons, and become defenseless gardeners."

"You didn't choose the civilization with greater potential. You chose the obedient dog."

"You thought you were helping the Cotati to bring new strength to the universe, to make it flourish. But you never considered what the Cotati would do once armed with your superior weapons."

"Would they cry out ideals, like you?" Luonan shook his head. "No. They'd use your resources and technology to raise their blades against us. The more you give, the more Kree will be slaughtered."

"The Kree are not lambs to be slaughtered. Faced with this foreseeable tragedy, we must resist with every means possible—to defy the coming doom."

"We took your ships and technology—not to steal or plunder, but because you must pay the price: the price for your eternal arrogance, your condescending posture, and the destruction you will inevitably bring upon yourselves."

Shi Ler stared at Luonan. Outside the observation window, the others had stopped talking and moving. They all fell silent, watching Luonan. Luonan did not look at them. He continued:

"If you cannot give enough, then don't give at all. All civilizations struggle in darkness. Without a savior, they won't blame anyone—blame is meaningless."

"But if you descend upon them, offering hope, granting them brief prosperity yet failing to truly save them—you only plunge them deeper into despair."

Luonan's eyes, beneath his eyelids, sank into deep darkness as he looked at Shi Ler. "Skrulls want to be the cosmic father. But the resources and technology you scatter so freely yield nothing but more wolves like us."

"If you're not truly selfless—if you still choose among civilizations, picking only the one most beneficial to you—then you will only reap one thousand-year war after another. In the end, you will perish: not selfless enough, not selfish enough."

Shi Ler fell silent for a moment, then gently adjusted his glasses. "Perhaps the Skrull Empire knew full well that helping the Cotati civilization had already dug the Kree's grave."

"Perhaps, when forced by circumstance to choose one civilization over another—when you were trapped in strategic calculations and cost-benefit judgments—the ideals you claimed were reduced to nothing but slogans."

"But when you saw the Skrull Empire's flagship crash into the Kree Empire's First Starport without any warning… did you feel joy?"

Shi Ler noticed that as he asked this, Luonan's fingertips had stiffened slightly.

"Because this shameless act has finally sealed the end of their once-idealistic mother-empire era."

"From the moment they chose to start the war to prove their might, the old Skrull Empire was already dead."

"Then, Mr. Luonan…" Shi Ler looked at Luonan, speaking in a whisper. "I only want to ask you one question…"

"Before you were certain of this—before you believed he might still be alive, might still fulfill his ideal—what were you truly afraid of?"

"Before this, before you confirmed this point, before you thought he might still be alive, might still fulfill his ideal—what exactly were you afraid of?"