Metal Evolution - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Superatom Fragment, The Big Bang!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Night had descended and this small deserted island stood erect like a giant in the boundless Pacific Ocean. The turbulent waves rolled in, and the thunderous rumbling sound was similar to thousands of troops galloping on the coast.

In the depths of the crescent-shaped channel, a not so small-sized vortex was releasing a strange sucking sound as it spun at high speeds and continuously swallowed the turbulent seawater. At the bottom of the vortex was a huge underground cave.

Xue Yue was currently trapped within the cave at this moment and suffering from painful torture. The huge amount of seawater pouring down carried a strong force of impact and he was like a helpless mouse that undulated and drifted along with the current.

After several impacts, Xue Yue’s head was bleeding while he had plenty of fractures all over his body. In particular, earlier his back had hit against the submarine’s stabilizer wing. The hard and sharp steel plate cut a big hole down his back where blood seeped out.

“This can’t go on. If this continues, I will be tossed around till I die!”

Xue Yue’s heart was full of despair. The seawater impact had exceeded his imaginations and he might not get to wait until the cave was filled up before he was killed alive.

“Cii—”

“Ahh!”

Xue Yue screamed out loud and felt a sharp pain in his stomach. When he stretched out his hands to touch, he discovered a large hole in his belly where blood and intestines were showing.

“My stomach has been cut by the steel plate! Am I about to die?” Xue Yue was feeling desolate. His belly had been cut to the extent his intestines came out. If this continued, he would surely die.

“No, I can’t die! I can’t die here!”

Xue Yue angrily roared and he became determined. “You want me to die? I won’t follow suit!”

Shortly after, he exerted all his energy to swim towards the submarine. At that very point in time, he could not be bothered to care much. Even if he had really absorbed the submarine, it was better than getting hit to death alive.

Moreover, if he did not absorb it, he would definitely die!

Whoosh, whoosh—

Fortunately, he was not far from the submarine’s tail and was only four to five meters away. But even so, he had used a great deal of effect to climb over. As he looked at the approaching propeller, Xue Yue clenched his teeth and went straight in. He grabbed onto one of the propeller’s blades and held onto it tightly with both arms.

Sure enough, when he was curled up in the propeller, the seawater impact was greatly reduced. However, he did not feel happy due to the severe pain in his stomach and the blood that seeped out continuously. In addition, a familiar feeling of numbness and itching started to rise from his hands and slowly went up his wrists.

It was just like two small snakes following through his blood vessels and slowly climbing up.

“Is it happening again?” Xue Yue gasped heavily and felt nervous to death. If possible, he did not want to experience that sort of suffering again, where he would rather be dead than alive. But at the current moment, did he have another choice?

“Forget it. Dead or alive, I’ll leave it up to fate!”

Seconds and minutes elapsed and the strange feeling was transferred to his heart, similar to an ant crawling and biting his heart. Moreover, there were more and more ants crawling towards his heart and that sort of feeling was hard to explain in a mere few words.

Gradually with the passage of time, the feeling became increasingly evident. The numbness and itching became more intense every second, just like a tide. Xue Yue gritted his teeth and forced himself not to cry out. However, it was too difficult and hard to endure.

“Ahh!”

Even though Xue Yue had amazing willpower and had experienced it once, he still could not help but scream out. More importantly, the suffering did not last for a long time, but this time…

Xue Yue’s body slightly twitched, his clenching teeth produced grinding sounds, and the tendons on both his arms had burst out.

“Urgh… urgh… urgh!”

The suffering he felt made him forget to breathe and the water level in the cave had completely submerged the propeller. As for Xue Yue who was hiding inside, he was also submerged underwater.

But even so, he was unaware of it!

…

Not knowing how much time had passed, the changes in his heart seemed to be complete, but Xue Yue had lost consciousness. He only vaguely sensed a strange warm current, with his heart as the core, starting to flow all over his body. It went towards his legs, hands, back, chest and so on.

When the warm current completely spread throughout his body, Xue Yue’s body temperature suddenly started to rise. In a mere few breaths, it was unknown how many degrees his temperature had increased. Moreover, his skin became red just like he had been steamed inside a steamer.

The feeling of numbness and itchiness continued to spread towards his heart, and a warm current flowed from his heart towards all parts of his body. Xue Yue’s heart was similar to a conversion station— transferring the numbing and itching feeling into a warm current, then output to his entire body.

With the continuous output of the warm current, Xue Yue’s body temperature continued to rise!

“My… my body… what’s wrong with it?”

Xue Yue groaned unconsciously. At the beginning, what transferred to his heart was not pain, but a strange, uncomfortable and indescribable numbness and itching feeling. But right now, what he felt throughout his body was intense pain, an unimaginable intense pain.

Xue Yue woke with a start and his whole body faintly trembled, as if there were tens of thousands of ants biting every single part of his body. The type of pain caused his complexion to turn pale.

If someone was standing by and watching this scene, they would discover that Xue Yue, who was submerged in the seawater, was similar to a piece of flushed red iron. Appearing reddish on the surface with an extremely high temperature.

The seawater surrounding Xue Yue had evaporated into white gas and bubbles popped out from the water, making a sizzling sound.

“Pain! It’s so painful!”

“I can’t take it… I can’t take it anymore!”

Xue Yue revealed a ferocious expression and he exerted all his strength to move away from the propeller fan blade. But no matter how hard he struggled, it seemed like he had been firmly glued to the blade and could not separate from it.

“Ahhh—”

His whole body spasmed and every muscle was twitching, just like a twisting earthworm. His skin was flushed red and the tendons throughout his body had bulged out and twisted, appearing very frightening.

Xue Yue could no longer bear the intense pain and his eyes rolled back, losing consciousness.

…

Billions of years ago, before the universe appeared and before the birth of time and space, there was an atom with infinite mass, infinite volume, infinite temperature and infinite density—known as a superatom!

The superatom was also known as the cosmic egg, which was understood as the egg that gave birth to the universe!

As for when and how the superatom was born and what it was composed of, no one knew the answer. No one had any methods to research it. It seemed as if it had always existed there and it ought to be there!

13.7 billion years ago, this superatom that somehow appeared, exploded into countless pieces. Alas, after a long evolution, it formed the gorgeous and boundless universe of today.

And this was called The Big Bang!

What no one knew was that after the superatom explosion, almost all it’s fragments turned into pure energy. With one remaining fragment that was of one-billionth the size of a superatom that did not get converted. Instead, it was left over after The Big Bang.

After the great explosion, time, space, and matter bagan to form one after another. This superatom fragment had also drifted along the universe while it slowly absorbed the free matter in the universe!

In the beginning, the universe was very empty with only hydrogen and helium atoms as the other elements had yet to be born. As a result, the superatom purely absorbed these two atoms. Following the formation of stars and explosion of super planets, other elements began to form in succession. Thus, the superatom started to absorb other elements and other matter.

The superatom fragment would absorb any matter it encountered and dark matter was of no exception. After this matter had been absorbed, it would adhere to its outer layer and wrap around it.

As the universe evolved, the superatom absorbed. The speed where it absorbed other matter was extremely slow, where a hydrogen atom would only be absorbed in several years time. But as time went on, it started to absorb other matter at a faster speed.

After 13.7 billion years of absorption, the superatom fragment was no longer a small speck as it was in the beginning. Instead, it grew to become a giant with a diameter as big as an ordinary rock planet.

At the current stage of its growth, the speed where it absorbed cosmic matter was shockingly fast. A gas planet as big as Jupiter would not last more than two weeks before it was completely absorbed.

Planets as big as super planets and as small as meteorites of tens of meters in diameter were all objects of the superatom fragment absorption. Wherever it went, nothing would remain, and it became a vacuum zone of the universe.

Until three million years ago—

While the superatom was of Earth’s size absorbing a gaseous planet, it had been inexplicably transported to a massive black hole. It was the most extreme, terrifying, and ultimate celestial body in the universe!

Under the tremendous gravity of the black hole, the superatom fragment that was extremely small had no power to resist and was swallowed by it.

The gravity inside the blackhole was unimaginable. The closer it was to the center, the greater the gravity was. Within this blackhole that contained extremely destructive force, how could the matter adhering to the superatom fragment withstand the force? Alas, all of it collapsed inwards and even the superatom was no exception.

The space between matter was compressed to the extreme and even the electrons were pressed close to the nucleus. But it did not end here. After the nuclei were tightly compressed together—

The nuclei of lighter elements squeezed together to form slightly heavy elements, and the slightly heavy elements were then squeezed once again to become even heavier elements. These heavier elements were then squeezed again to form heavy elements.

And this process of heavier elements squeezing together had continued to repeat…

Of course, it was worth mentioning that the superatom situated at the center was something that could not be destroyed even during The Big Bang. Obviously, the blackhole could not deal any damage to it. What changed was only the cosmic matter absorbed by the fragment for the past 13.7 billion years which then adhered to become the outer layer.