Why.. WHY THIS WAS HAPPENING TO ME???

The sound of teeth grinding cannot be hidden while I ignored the hologram screen full of red exclamation marks.

Despite that, I sighed heavily since I can only sit and wait in this situation, “Hahh… I remember this began 25 days ago when I discovered this place.”

My eyes closed and I started recalling the memories from that time.

…..

And that was how I got into this situation. Despite no longer watching the transmission, I knew that Graham was laughing hysterically after seeing the miserable sight of me just then.

Bang!

The captain’s chair was thrown off with a hard kick and my body gasping in air hurriedly with a short breath while I could feel that my eyes reddened.

I-I cannot die like this. This betrayal, I will pay it back a hundredfold!

"ATA, find any possible escape route that could be taken!” Ordered me with the last straw of hope in myself.

[“Affirmative!”]

Not long after, ATA reported in its frosty female voice, [“No possible escape route found! Any kinds of direction have been completely blocked by the enemy’s Hyperspace interference!”]

“No… that cannot be…” My hope was crushed into smithereens at that moment, and hopelessness was what remained in my head.

The enemy had an advanced disruptor, therefore rendering my spaceship useless even if it entered the Hyperspace. They might not have a spaceship as advanced as the military but it was still newer and more weaponized than my spaceship.

[“The enemy are preparing their weapons. The plasma cannons are estimated to finish charging for less than a minute and will reach us in less than a few seconds! Estimating that the energy shield of the ship will only last less than ten seconds.”]

“This won’t be the end of me! There are still so many things I want to accomplish in life!” I bit my nails as I downcasted my eyes at the floor, then a last desperate thought emerged in my mind.

“Aha…. Ahahaha…. If I was going to die anyway, it’s better to take the gamble! ATA, overdrive the engine and thruster, set the ship destination to the wormhole!” In a madness tone, I commanded my last desperate struggle to live.

No matter what, I need to survive this predicament, and only then could I get my revenge!

[“As you commanded!”]

The ship then changed its direction to the wormhole, luckily it was only a few thousand kilometers away and no enemy's spaceships were detected. Suddenly, a red triangle exclamation mark appeared on the hologram screen, indicating that the enemy’s spaceships were launching their missiles, plasma cannons, railgun, etc.

I controlled the spaceship as good as I could, thereby managing to get away in the smallest margin possible, barely avoiding the enemy’s weapons. Unfortunately, a lot of them managed to graze and hit the energy shield, making it dimmer and dimmer as time went.

“Is that all what they got? I was expecting more than i—Shit!”

Boom!

A big plasma cannon just hit the ship and caused the energy shield to shatter, making the remaining of the explosion impacted and blasted the ship.

[“Warning! The thruster and the back part of the ship had gotten badly damaged! Activating emergency mode.”] ATA’s voice rang out as lots of red warning signs popped out.

I was too focused on controlling the ship, therefore making me not able to divide my attention to the red warning signboard which telling different kinds of damage all over the ship. But in the end, I realized that I was just one person, even managing the ship to only received this much damage was already a miracle.

At long last, my spaceship managed to get into the wormhole. I could feel the ship got elongated for a moment before a strange feeling pervaded me.

“Is this what it feels to get into a wormhole? What a weird feeling. If I were to survive, I will be back!” That was the last sentence I uttered in this place.

Inside the dim control room on the bigger vessel of the pirate ships. A one-eyed bald man was laughing hysterically non-stop while holding his stomach.

“Jiahahaha… what a shame, if I was to see his expression up close, it will be more hilarious!”

Not long after, one of his official henchmen that seemed to be Graham’s right-hand man reported from the side, “Boss, I think he’s dead. The sensor was no longer able to detect his spaceship.”

“What? You buffoon! Even if all the weapons were to hit his garbage ship, there’s no way there are no remains of it! Search around that place!” Graham's mood instantly slumped as he reprimanded his henchmen harshly.

“Y-yes… Did you all hear what the Boss said? Search around that place!” The official henchman commanded the operator below.

“”Yes!!””

Suddenly, one of the operators replied in confusion, “B-Boss… there seems to be a wormhole there, I think that brat Victor gets into the wormhole."

Hearing what the operator said, the official henchmen questioned demandingly, “There’s no way that a wormhole exists in a place like this, moreover ones that a spaceship was able to cross over. If you were giving false information, I will personally execute you!”

“N-no… sir! I had checked the scanner multiple times and ask other ships for the same result but all of it pointing out that there’s a stable wormhole there.”

Seeing that the operator was telling truthful information, the official henchman gazed at his Boss before asking fearfully, “Boss, what should we do? Should we chase after him into the wormhole?”

“No need… He’s a foolish man that risks himself by playing with fire. In any chance that he survives, we just need to position a few ships outside of the wormhole. After all, this place was a gold mine.” Graham nonchalantly stated with a greedy smile.

The existence of the wormhole was only speculated and proved in a lab, thereby no one ever got into the inside of a wormhole. There was once a group of scientists tried to get into a supermassive black hole in the middle of the Milky Way with a spaceship, but the spaceship just froze along with all the crews inside when crossing the Event Horizon.

This made anyone reluctant to do a crazy thing like what Victor just had. Making him an anomaly to the space era.

Minutes, hours, or even eternity might have passed in the outside world, and it felt like the flow of time becoming faster and slower randomly. That was what I felt inside the wormhole which seemed to never end.

As time passed, hazy vision started to pervade over my eyes, the sound of anything could no longer be heard in this place, rendering me deaf and half-blind. I couldn’t even think clearly, as even maintaining my consciousness was harder than climbing Mt. Everest without any tools.

The light in the room was so dim, I could feel space seemed to distort here and there, it was as if the laws of physics were changing somehow. These phenomena were happening for an uncounted amount of time as the hologram time on the spaceship didn’t increase for even a second.

After who knew how long, there was finally a hole at the end of the wormhole tunnel. The hole was filled with a cloud of golden-colored dust which seemed to be the origin place of the Golden Star Dust. At last, the spaceship left the wormhole completely after crossing the end hole.

“F-fi…nally leav…ing that da..mn pla-ace….” I then lost consciousness and fell into the floor.

I couldn’t hear nor move any part of my body. My eyes were heavy as if I never slept for a year. This sense had been encumbering me after getting into the wormhole and it only went worse and worse before it exploded.

The only reason I tried to hold my awareness was that I knew that if I were to fall unconscious at that place, I might not be able to wake up ever again.

……

Now, only the sound of the A.I. ATA voiced a reporting from the surrounding, ["Rebooting System… Checking the anomaly on the ship… The main thruster and few other side thrusters found to be damaged and unusable! Finding the Nuclear Fusion generator to be jammed… Activating emergency battery fuel…”]

[“Searching any possible terrestrial object to land… Found a strange… Error! Unknown landmass had been detected… Forced landing initiated!”]

[“Preparing atmospheric entering… Scanning the atmosphere of the strange landmass… The Atmosphere contained 75% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 0.9% Argon, 0.1 % miscellaneous gasses and 3% unknown gas?”]

[“Initiating the use of the atmospheric friction to slow down the ship… Activating booster to minimize impact...”]

[“Surface gravity discovered to be around 2G… With an average surface temperature of 13°C, ranging between -2°C to 28°C…”]

[“Detecting a foreign fauna and flora scattering across the place… No species resembling anything on the database…”]

[“Preparing impact from the land…”]

Boom!

[“Landing successful… Examining Victor’s body… Life support stable… Shutting down the system….”]

[“……..”]