Kevin Walker had naturally already thought of what to say, and after surviving the disaster, he spoke with deep emotion: “Honestly, I’ll never trust those scientists again in my life, and I’ll never travel anywhere outside Earth’s cities again. This was a nightmare. You have no idea—if I hadn’t decided to take a shower first, I would’ve died with everyone else.”

  “Sigh, surviving isn’t easy either. There was some compressed food left, and I originally planned to just hide in there and wait for you to rescue me. Who could’ve expected earthquakes and all sorts of apocalyptic disasters to follow?”

  “When the food ran out, I had no choice but to try scavenging for prehistoric beast corpses near Base 0078. Sometimes I could even kill a few small prehistoric beasts.”

  “If I hadn’t brought resources to start cultivating, and if I hadn’t made some breakthroughs, I would’ve died here long ago. I never dared to stray far from Base 0078. Earlier, when I saw the battleship land over here, I took the risk to come over—never thought I’d almost get eaten…”

  “You really are lucky, to have seen a prehistoric cosmic behemoth and survived a prehistoric beast tide.” Emily Thompson listened quietly as Kevin Walker spoke.

  Her subordinates kept sending her all sorts of information from Base 0078, confirming everything Kevin Walker said. Emily Thompson listened quietly, carefully cross-checking and analyzing; everything seemed fine. But when Kevin Walker finished, she still sighed softly.

  “Officer, please, don’t tease me. Behemoths? Beast tides? If I’d seen those, I’d have died a hundred times over.”

  “Forget those big monsters—even the herbivorous little beasts we learned about in school, every time I tried to catch one it was a life-or-death struggle. You don’t know the habits of these prehistoric beasts—they’re so damn wicked. The little beasts in their territory, they can eat, but if you try to hunt one, they’ll eat you.”

  “And, well, the trees are okay, just huge, but some thorns and plants are terrifying. And… those bugs are actually really scary too…” As he spoke, Kevin Walker seemed to recall the horrors of surviving on Mars, every word tinged with blood and tears.

  Kevin Walker seemed like someone who’d gone stir-crazy alone on Mars, and now, finally seeing people, he could finally pour his heart out. Whenever Emily Thompson asked a question, he could go on and on without stopping.

  In fact, this kind of talkativeness was what Emily Thompson liked best. Whether intentional or not, the more someone said, the more likely they were to slip up, so she listened very carefully to everything Kevin Walker said.

  Very soon, Emily Thompson was able to confirm one thing: this Kevin Walker really had survived in the prehistoric forest, because there were too many things he mentioned that you couldn’t learn from books—only personal experience could explain them.

  Still, his luck was remarkable, to have survived so close to the outbreak point of the prehistoric beast tide. He really did seem like a lucky one…

  “Reporting, Commander, the space probe is ready. Also, the military has notified us that the Xie family and several others have requested searches and rescues for their family members. Colonel Bruce has also authorized a North American rescue team to land…”

  Just as she was listening intently to Kevin Walker, Emily Thompson suddenly stood up. She might have seemed calm when blocking Bruce earlier, but in reality, she was even more anxious than Bruce, because Bruce letting others in clearly meant he didn’t truly understand what the star core of a prehistoric cosmic behemoth represented.

  It wasn’t just a matter of immense energy; it was something her family had ordered them to obtain at any cost. The full power of the family had already been mobilized.

  Emily Thompson knew there was no time to lose. She cast a still-suspicious glance at Kevin Walker, but finally waved her hand: “Send him back with the supply ship. We’re moving out. We absolutely cannot let them find the star core first.”

  Emily Thompson still had some doubts, but hadn’t found any major issues. Now, all her attention was on the star core. Especially since other factions had sent people as well—she could block some of the other governments and fleets, but there were some people she definitely couldn’t stop. She could only try to be faster than them.

  Kevin Walker seemed a bit reluctant: “Officer, what’s your name…”

  Kevin Walker played his part perfectly. Seeing such a valiant and beautiful officer leave, he looked disappointed and wanted to chat more, making several soldiers shake their heads and snort, thinking, “This little brat wants to hit on the flower of our army?”

  In fact, even after boarding the supply ship and as the spacecraft left Mars, lying there seemingly asleep, Kevin Walker was secretly relieved that his caution had paid off.

  Especially when the other side mentioned the star core at the end, he couldn’t help but look inward at his own spiritual sea of consciousness, where the little Taiji was sitting cross-legged atop the star core. If he’d shown anything unusual before, it definitely would’ve caused trouble. If they’d checked carefully and someone really could detect the anomaly in his spiritual sea, that would’ve been disastrous.

  The next three days were the most restful and peaceful sleep Kevin Walker had had in a long time.

  After landing on Earth, when a government official came to apologize and offer condolences, Kevin Walker made a small request. He was supposed to start university after his trip, but ended up trapped on Mars for over a year. Now, he just hoped to be able to attend school smoothly.

  As for Kevin Walker’s small request, the other party agreed readily—after all, Kevin Walker had been admitted to East China Martial Arts Academy through the normal process.