XaiJu
pancakeswitch
pancakeswitch

patreon


The Heavenly Martial Empress Returns Chapter 307: The Life In The Solar System

-----

Colorful coral-like growths underground, trees with hardened tentacle-like appendages, and strange plant-like things that weren’t really plants.

There was also weird purple grass expanding under the ice everywhere, where little creatures resembling a mix of anchovies and shrimp ate. They were aliens! 

“There are really living beings in here! But they do seem rather… well, how could I say?” Yanisse was amazed but also a little disappointed. “Primitive.” 

“Yeah, they do seem a bit… eh, well, simpler,” I nodded. “But this is really big. Let’s take some pictures to send to the scientists back home.” 

We explored a little more, until… 

RUMBLE!

Something gigantic emerged—a massive version of those little fish-shrimp creatures, with a crimson shell and massive jaws, over fifteen meters tall, opening its jaws and trying to suction us. 

“Oh, there’s bigger ones! Is this an apex predator? Amazing!” Yanisse said. 

“Yeah, let’s ignore it, though,” I said as I quickly tapped it, sending it flying away while trying not to kill it. Thankfully, it was extremely tough. 

“There could be more life around here, but yeah, I suppose it’s better to return outside for now,” Yanisse nodded. “I think we’ve seen enough.” 

“Alright!” 

We moved back to the surface of Europa, where we met with the rest of our family. They were having their fun on their own. I saw Urbosa and Merkite throwing ice at one another, while Mursha and Bloodclaw took a liking to the geysers, bathing in their hot waters.

There were a lot of other dangerous chemicals in all of this ice, of course, but… well, we’ve become strong enough to be capable of resisting their toxicity or even becoming immune to it all. Our bodies can even absorb what could be beneficial, so perhaps even bathing in that warm ocean could be beneficial for our skin or something. 

“So, where are we going now?” wondered Urbosa. “What other planets are left?” 

“There’s Saturn next. It’s a wonderful planet,” I said with a nod. 

We quickly flew into the skies, rushing toward Saturn. Its wondrous rings and appearance quickly made everyone show awe as they saw its beauty. 

“Wooow! So many rings! What are those?” Orion wondered. 

“The rings formed out of floating space debris. Some can be really huge,” I said. “Probably bigger than mountains. It’s a mix of both rocks and ice.” 

“Oooh…” Athena was surprised. 

“Can we go touch them?” Kalana wondered. 

“Yeah!” Rainbow Eyes nodded. 

“Okay, sure thing. Let’s go explore the rings, then,” I nodded. 

We moved toward the nearest rings. The children quickly hopped onto the endless floating debris, jumping from one to another in zero gravity.

They spun around using the rocks as support while playing. It seemed to quickly turn into a beloved place for them to have fun. 

“Aside from the rings, I guess Saturn isn’t that different from Jupiter, huh? Well, I think it’s smaller,” Yanisse said. 

“Yeah, kind of, but it’s still pretty nice. Thanks to these giant gas planets, Earth was safe enough to create life,” I explained. “They always ended up attracting any big, dangerous meteors toward their gravity fields instead.” 

“Hm, that’s really interesting!” Peperina said. “I wish I could know more about my own world’s star system. Is there even one, though? It feels like the tower just swallowed the planet.” 

“I don’t know either…” I said. “We would have to check further.” 

“Ah, well, it was just a passing thought. Don’t give it any mind,” Peperina shrugged, taking photos. 

“Let’s go inside to see what’s there…” I said. “Maybe we could find something unique?” 

“Other than more tornadoes and gases?” asked Yanisse. “I doubt it, if it’s the same as Jupiter…” 

We flew down, entering Saturn’s atmosphere. We were immediately greeted by “rain” composed of liquid metallic hydrogen, which was warm to the touch, albeit extremely dangerous to normal people, of course.

To us, though, it was just another wonder. I think back in Murim, there was something similar to this type of place… Murim is surely a harsh place. If a mortal walks into the wrong path, they’ll die instantly—not even against beasts, but just from what they can find in nature itself. It was definitely a terribly hostile world. 

The atmosphere’s color was mostly clear brown, with a lot of clouds flowing and winds everywhere. The lower we went, the more we saw something—a huge ocean made of this same liquid metallic hydrogen. It was constantly boiling and generating more and more gases.

I dove inside to check its interior. Swimming through such dangerous material wasn’t that much of an annoyance to me. As I looked into the depths of this liquid, I found something—a gigantic rocky core.

If I wanted, I could probably punch this core and boom, this planet would be gone… but that would probably create a catastrophe that might even affect Earth, so let’s never do that. 

“Mom! Mom! I saw something!” 

“Huh?” 

I heard Kalana’s telepathic message as I swam out of the sea and looked up at her and her siblings, who were suddenly… 

“GROOOHHH…! GRUOOOHHHH…” 

“Huh?!” 

They were riding a gigantic alien thing! It resembled a… manta ray, but it was brown with reddish fur over its body. It had four bulging, yellow eyes and a huge mouth that produced a thunderous sound. It was as big as twenty meters, and it looked annoyed they were riding it.

Wow, so there’s life in freaking Saturn?! Not Jupiter, but Saturn?! 

“There’s life in here!” Athena said. “So amazing! It’s a living being that evolved to adapt to the immense pressures of this world. It seems to be able to fly through the winds rather dexterously as well, and it probably feeds on the rich minerals within the air, such as the liquid metallic hydrogen. I believe it might synthesize it into energy, which is also a reason why it’s so tough!” 

“GROOHHHH…” 

I was honestly amazed, perhaps even more than when we saw life inside Europa’s oceans. I quickly flew toward the giant creature, calming it down by placing my hand on its forehead and sending waves of calming energies. 

“GRRRRR…” 

-----


More Creators