When a whale falls, myriad lives are born.

Lu Chen and Aili made their way to the rear compartment.

First, he stuffed the mother locust meat roll into the armored belly compartment. Then, he and Aili tried to squeeze together into the cockpit. After quite some time, they still couldn’t both fit inside. After all, Lu Chen’s scavenger armor had limited space, its design prioritizing cargo capacity over comfort, and it was never intended to accommodate a teammate.

Finding the cockpit too cramped, Lu Chen began to reconsider taking Aili along for the expedition and asked her, “Aili, do you know why I’m bringing you on this journey into the crustal caverns?”

Aili lightly pushed up her slender silver-framed glasses. Her icy blue eyes reflected Lu Chen’s imposing figure. With her petite body standing straight and her delicate, slightly baby-faced features set in a serious expression, she answered earnestly, “It’s to find the Shadowless Whale, attempt to control it, and if possible, capture it alive!”

Lu Chen probed further, “And if we can’t capture it alive?”

Aili hesitated briefly before replying, “Then we’ll have to kill it. I’ll do it myself!”

Lu Chen grinned and patted her on the head. “All those answers are wrong. This is your first time leaving the ship—it’s extremely dangerous out there. From now on, you’ll follow my orders in everything.”

“Yes, Captain!”

Having pondered it a while, Lu Chen decided to bring her anyway. He picked Aili up from behind and held her to his chest as he squeezed into the cockpit and sat down. Effectively, Aili was using him as her seat. There was simply no other way for two people to fit in such a cramped cockpit.

Sitting on three of his legs, Aili felt a bit uncomfortable, shifting her position in search of a more pleasant spot. Lu Chen, growing anxious, quickly stopped her.

“As long as you don’t fidget, anywhere’s fine. But if you keep moving, neither of us will be comfortable.”

“Yes, Captain!” Aili of course understood what he meant, though she was a little surprised. She hadn’t expected the captain to react to her human form. Impossible, she thought—after so many days of observation, it seemed the captain couldn’t possibly be a typical man.

“You’re a beastmaster and a magus; I’m a mech-seer. We’re both great interstellar adventurers. This sort of physical reaction is nothing we can’t handle.”

Lu Chen quickly regained his composure, fastened the harness, and secured them both tightly in the cramped cockpit.

“Let’s go!”

The scavenger armor stepped out of the hatch and onto the crust of Fog Sea Star.

The gravity here, near the planet’s core, was twice the ship’s standard. Lu Chen felt weighed down and even more confined. Aili frowned slightly, her body leaden as if filled with molten metal, held fast to Lu Chen, visibly uneasy.

“It looks like we’ll need to make this quick,” he said.

Without hesitation, Lu Chen piloted the armor into the canyon cave guided by the Old White Whale.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “This is my third time caving since setting out across the sea.”

The armor entered through a narrow opening—tight at first, just enough for the armor to pass, then, after dozens of leagues, the space suddenly opened up.

Lu Chen immediately switched on the wide-beam searchlights.

They revealed a vast cavern, a hundred meters high and over three hundred meters wide, its layout remarkably similar to the ship’s interior. The four walls bore the marks of crude, perhaps artificial, chiseling—rough and childlike in execution.

Directly ahead lay a complex square area resembling the ship’s display screens and control panels. Below it stood a stone structure built to look like a humanoid suit of armor.

Something about the shape struck Lu Chen as familiar.

His scavenger panel indicated the target was nearby, so close that it covered his own position marker.

The armor’s radar, however, showed nothing.

Lu Chen glanced up at the cavern ceiling. Nothing.

Aili spoke up, “Captain, the Shadowless Whale is here.”

“Here? Which direction?”

“All around us.”

Lu Chen closed his eyes, extending his resonance sense to pinpoint the whale’s location. Before he could, he sensed an ancient presence and the pressure of a level-forty spirit beast.

Though there was no warning prompt, Lu Chen felt his skin prickle, hair standing on end, a chill running down his back.

Clearly, the other party had invited him in. If there’d been ill intent, an attack would have come already.

After a moment’s hesitation, Lu Chen gave up on fishing or capturing, opting instead to obediently offer up the mother locust meat roll.

“Elder, I traveled to the mother locust planet and killed the queen herself just for the chance to meet you. Please, show yourself.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than a mournful whale song echoed through the cavern.

Clutching his ears, Lu Chen felt his scalp tingle, his heart gripped by the sorrow that spanned the ages.

It was then he saw it—a behemoth the color and texture of dead wood, impossibly ancient, a whiskerless white whale coiled around him.

“So that’s why the target’s body is everywhere, covering my marker on the scavenger map.”

Lu Chen studied it.

Ordinary white whales were sleek, much like blue whales but more supple, with long white whiskers trailing from their jaws.

But this Shadowless Whale was more akin to a serpent—or, more precisely, to a Chinese dragon.

Yet it was utterly mutated. Its whale whiskers had all fallen away, its wrinkled, tumor-ridden skin stretched over twisted bones.

Within its body, a glowing white whale pearl illuminated its vast, aging form from within.

All around, countless birds and shellfish of species Lu Chen had never seen gnawed at its cratered flesh.

Its deep eyes, sustained by only the faintest hope, clung to the meat roll of the slain mother locust, showing a sorrow a thousand years in the making.

With what seemed its last strength, it devoured and digested the locust’s remains.

Lu Chen’s item identification promptly provided details:

[A mother white whale, mutated by childhood exposure to close-range nuclear radiation; level forty. Its mutated whale pearl can absorb all light, sound, electromagnetic waves, and spiritual sense, enveloping its entire body and making it exceptionally skilled at stealth.]

In that instant, Lu Chen understood.

The so-called Shadowless Whale was in fact one of the white whale calves from the Alexei!

A thousand years ago, after the ship crashed into the mother locust’s nest, and after Alexei had stabbed the nuclear device to prevent its detonation, the whale calves were irradiated at high levels and mutated.

That mutation granted the white whale its stealth ability, transforming it into the Shadowless Whale.

They say the poor survive by mutation; apparently, spirit beasts are no exception.

Her age now far exceeded the normal limit for a level-forty beast, and she’d lingered here only to see Alexei one last time.

Clearly, Alexei had not only saved the whale calves but also, while herself a captive, had struggled to raise them during their years of torment and mutation.

Most likely, she’d reared them to adulthood on the mother locust planet before finally bringing them to Fog Sea Star to thrive.

These were Alexei’s other children.

Now Lu Chen understood why the white whales despised the interstellar locusts: it was their swarm that had lured the ship to crash, triggering the endless tragedy that followed.

Similarly, the white whales hated humans—the humans who had betrayed Alexei.

At this point, capturing the Shadowless Whale alive was no longer possible.

What Lu Chen could do was fulfill her last wish—send her off on her final journey.

And then, take her whale pearl.

That, undoubtedly, was the true treasure.

With this in mind, Lu Chen opened his bracelet’s light screen, enlarging and playing the video logs of Alexei from the ship.

The ancient Shadowless Whale gazed silently at the screen, at the insectoid who had saved and raised her through mutation.

In those twisted, ugly, ancient eyes, tears began to well and fall…

At the same moment, her memories drifted back to the cavern a thousand years ago.

Aili did her best to read the fragments of memory that surfaced and conveyed them to Lu Chen in the simplest human language.

The story matched Lu Chen’s own speculations.

After the radiation leak in the cavern, half the white whales died immediately or within a year. The rest, all mutated to varying degrees.

To protect and raise over thirty of these mutated calves, Alexei was forced to submit to the mother locust.

But such peace lasted only a few years.

Eventually, conflict between Alexei, the mother locust’s offspring, and the mutated white whales intensified, forcing Alexei to send the young whales to Fog Sea Star and leave the rest to fate.

Fortunately, under the leadership of the Shadowless Whale—whose name was revealed to be Kveir—the white whales, though weak, rose to the top of the food chain on Fog Sea Star.

“Her name is Kveir.”

But from that day on, the Shadowless Whale never saw Alexei again.

Until now, reunited at last through Lu Chen’s projected screen.

After her eyes shed the final tears, the body of the Shadowless Whale collapsed.

In the ruins that rose from her falling form, her weary eyes drifted shut.

When a whale falls, new life is born!

Amid the joyous feast of birds and shells, a radiant whale pearl gently rolled into the armor’s palm.

Within the pearl, Alexei’s light and shadow were reflected.

Gray bone settled, while shimmering fragments of skin slowly ascended from the canyon’s crevices.

Faced with such a tragic and magnificent millennium funeral, Lu Chen and Aili could not help but feel a deep sorrow.

They watched the video of the insectoid who endured ridicule and scorn, yet never betrayed humanity.

Alexei was a good person—this was all Lu Chen could say of him.

Still, Lu Chen’s attention was drawn to the whale pearl in his hand.

No clever fishing, no thrilling capture—he was still, at heart, a simple scavenger.

Usually, when a spirit beast dies of old age, its beast core shatters and disperses.

But for some reason, the Shadowless Whale’s death had left her pearl whole and intact.

Perhaps it was due to the effects of nuclear mutation.

Fukushima would be envious.

Lu Chen examined the pearl in the armor’s palm: nearly a meter in diameter, weighing a thousand catties, a perfect reflector, gleaming with crystalline white light.

He slowly infused his own spiritual energy into it.

Suddenly!

The shell of the whale pearl split apart, becoming crystalline dust that drifted upward, penetrating the cavern ceiling and ascending through the earth and stone.

Yet strangely, a heavy weight remained in the armor’s palm.

Item identification instantly provided a new assessment:

[Shadowless Whale Orb, mutated whale core, non-toxic. It can absorb all light, sound, electromagnetic waves, and spiritual sense, enveloping the flesh suffused with its power, granting complete invisibility.]

Incredible!

Lu Chen immediately brought the Shadowless Whale Orb into the cockpit and touched it himself.

It was now the size of a ping-pong ball, weighing about a kilogram, its surface icy and smooth.

Neither the naked eye, radar, nor spiritual sense could detect it.

Now the question was, how to get it out?

The Leonin had illegally entered Fog Sea for this catch; on the way out, the Fishermen’s Alliance patrol ships would surely intercept and search the vessel.

Even hiding it in a storage bag was risky...

“This Shadowless Whale Orb is a treasure, but how can we get it out? Besides the Fishermen’s Alliance, there are other adventurer groups watching us. The orb may be invisible, but it’s tangible—no way to avoid a shipboard search!”

Lu Chen fretted.

Suddenly, Aili put forth a bold suggestion.

“Why doesn’t the captain swallow the orb?”

“Huh?” Lu Chen thought he’d misheard.

“My cultivation is only at level twenty. Wouldn’t forcing down a level-forty whale orb cause problems?”

Aili, however, replied with utmost seriousness, “This is an orb, not a core. The captain dared drink Sister Golia’s demon blood; surely you can swallow the Shadowless Whale Orb.”

Lu Chen considered carefully.

Swallowing a one-kilogram orb wouldn’t affect his weight much. The orb could block spiritual sense and radar, and no one could feel his stomach... Who would ever discover it?

“The orb’s non-toxic. As long as there’s no rejection, if I really can’t digest it, I’ll just carry it out myself.”

Aili, more relaxed than usual, smiled. “Don’t worry, Captain. You possess the body of universal resonance, capable of holding all things. A little whale orb is nothing.”

Lu Chen looked at her innocent face.

“You’d better not be joking!”

With that, he gripped the orb, gritted his teeth, and shoved it into his mouth.

It was tasteless, cold, smooth, and heavy...

But it got stuck in his throat and wouldn’t go down.

It even felt as if it was embedding itself into his flesh.

That was good—at least there was no rejection.

The only problem was, he couldn’t get it into his stomach!

His surging spiritual power and inner breath only pushed outward, not inward.

“Damn, if this keeps up, I’ll suffocate here.”

Aili grew anxious as well. “Try some lubricant!”

Left with no choice, Lu Chen scrambled out of the cockpit, grabbed a backup barrel of spiritual oil from the storage bay, pinched his nose, and chugged it down.

But the orb fit perfectly in his throat; the oil wouldn’t wash it down.

With no other option, Lu Chen gathered his resonance power in his palm, tilted his head back, and struck himself on the throat.

Smack—

With the force of resonance and the aid of the oil, the orb finally slipped into his stomach.

He gasped for breath.

In a fit of pique, he squeezed Aili’s cheeks.

“You little fool, you nearly killed me!”

Aili replied seriously, “Isn’t childbirth worse for women?”

“Well, that’s true.”

Lu Chen couldn’t argue.

With the orb finally inside him, things became much easier.

He gathered his power and guided the orb to sink into his dantian.

Escorted by both spiritual veins and inner breath, the Shadowless Whale Orb quickly dropped into his dantian and merged with his qi sea.

Lu Chen felt fine—not in pain, just aware of a foreign fullness.

He quickly gathered his spirit, infused it into the orb, and used his resonance to attempt a complete fusion, dispelling the alien feeling of being part human, part beast.

In that instant—

Lu Chen’s mind buzzed!

He felt a thousand years of agony from mutation, the Shadowless Whale’s deep longing for her lost companion, the desperate will that kept her alive for the chance to reunite.

If he hadn’t seen Alexei’s story, he would never have understood this feeling—never empathized, never fully merged with the orb.

Moreover, he had avenged the whale, slain the mother locust who tormented Alexei, and allowed the whale to see her old friend once more through the light screen. That was why, on her deathbed, the Shadowless Whale had willingly given him her orb.

The fruit of today’s events, sown by yesterday’s cause.

Lu Chen couldn’t help but sigh.

At that moment—

In Aili’s eyes, and on the scavenger armor’s radar and thermal imaging, he vanished entirely.

He was gone.

————

Fourteen thousand words on the first day—next chapter will be out tomorrow morning!

(End of this chapter)