"Status Report: Sixty Seven Percent Damage. Functionality Available: Thirteen Percent to the Cone. Five Percent on the Port. The left-wing is detached and beyond repair. The right-wing is lost and beyond repair. Oxygen Level: Forty-Nine Percent and Plummeting. Forty-Eight... Forty Seven..."
One man stared into the void in space as he kept hearing the numbers of the oxygen level available on his ship depleting.
After all, without oxygen, a mere human like him couldn't survive in the inevitable hands of the Universe.
Yet his situation still hadn't changed.
Whether that oxygen level continued decreasing or not, being 'stranded' in an unknown location that hasn't been parameterized by the Outer Map is considered to be waiting for your own death.
Dead Zones.
It usually refers to the locations of certain zones in the Universe that haven't been 'discovered' by the masses, or simply life-threatening that have been given the code as 'dangerous'
In this case, both of which haven't been discovered yet are dangerous.
"I'm fucked..."
The man watching the void, muttered under his breath.
It was indeed a fucked up situation.
Glancing towards the side of a metered technology where the oxygen level available on his ship was decreasing, a disbelief sigh escaped his lips.
"Curse this stupid war! I've been fucking abandoned by them! Curses!"
His situation could only stem from the fact that the planet he was on, from a galaxy, was at war with another galaxy.
Just like any other planets out there under those galaxies' influence.
Wars are something very common in Outer.
Even so, the current war he was enlisted, The Intergalactic War, had taken warfare to another notch.
And for what reason?
A freaking stupid romance.
A man in a high position, a center-like figure in that one galaxy, fell in love with a woman from another galaxy, yet the two galaxies' central figures hated each other for who knows how long, forbade the love between this man and woman.
That's not all, the very same figure that he had served chose to abandon his loyal servants, including him, which led to this devastating situation
Fast forward, the man stranded in the Dead Zone, known as Case, lost everything in the process.
His wealth, in-charge planets, his crew, his army, and lastly, himself.
"I, The Great Tenth Commander Case Kellys, am really dying this way? Come on, man. I didn't even fucked the Queen yet!"
Case groaned as he remembered the Queen he served, her pretty face, and huge badonkeers that could shake up an entire planet, slowly slipping away from his grasp.
It was disheartening thinking that made him quite saddened, and quite frightening thoughts since fucking the Queen is treason.
"My goodness..."
Glancing at the oxygen meter once more, which has become dangerously low, with a percentage of ten percent, Case squinted his eyes for a moment before letting out a tired sigh.
As his voidship continued to violently shake, Case began to focus on the task at hand.
"Due to the damage to my ship, repairing it, even alone, is already hopeless. It will definitely explode after some time, and I'm really lucky that I'm still alive, after all it's been through. Another concern I have to worry about is this Dead Zone..."
Sliding his chair across the other side of the ship to look for the situation, Case analyzed his situation further.
"I have one space suit left in there with a hundred percent oxygen tank. However, I should leave it as my final card, a last resort, in case the other plan didn't work. But... if that happened... I might just be drifting into the void, waiting for my death..."
Slapping his cheeks, Case' mind went racing ahead.
"Which brings me to my second plan, the most understandable one. I have to land on a planet somewhere in this Dead Zone and hope that it's habitable. Once I do, I can create a distress signal back to King or somewhere beneath him and wait for rescue..."
The plan was very simple.
Unless Case waits for his death in the void using the space suit until its oxygen tank runs out, he must find a suitable planet to survive in his current situation, hoping it has not been encroached by Strangers.
"Those bastards are the problem…"
Strangers is a term for Outer Monsters.
These are the entities that roam the entire Universe, and it is a more suitable word for it if one is in the Dead Zone.
But Case has no time to think about Strangers or the damn other entities that dwell in the current Dead Zone.
He has to make haste and do it now.
"Five Percent..."
With that warning hitting his ears, Case began to move, operating the whole ship all by himself.
"Warning: Oxygen Level incredibly low."
Oxygen masks fell from the ceiling as Case caught one of them while beginning to search for something somewhere within the Dead Zone.
Finally, lists of planets appeared on his digital scanning map.
"Planet 01 in the Dead Zone. Extremely Hot, Not Suitable for Landing. That's already a no-go. The ship will immediately get scorched entering its atmosphere..."
Upon seeing that the whole planet was scorching red, with a slight piece of information provided by his scanning map, Case moved to the next available planet.
"Planet 02 in the Dead Zone. Suitable for landing, yet it is filled with nothing but cold waters. The ship isn't suitable for landing in such terrain anymore. The scanners seem to be scanning multiple leviathans in there. Are you kidding me?"
Feeling cold shivers running down his spine as he watched the screen right beside his digital map detecting those creatures from the water, Case greatly encouraged himself not to go down and then be eaten after the struggle he was about to do.
He moved to the next planet.
"Planet 03 in the Dead Zone. Strong winds with Strangers that seemed to be very adept at flying. It is suitable for landing, but fighting those things with this sorry shape of a ship is no good."
Case instantly came to a realization.
"Okay, I'll be dead if I ever land there."
Slightly disheartened while removing the negativity from his mind, Case landed his eyes on the fourth planet he had found in his scanner.
"Planet 04... No signs of high cold waters, tough terrains, perfect for landing, and very unnoticeable Strangers. At least they are invisible to the eyes. That's good. This reduces the nervousness I have when I'm about to make a choice. As long as I don't see such monsters, nothing should be a problem."
Case saw it as a sliver of a chance.
His eyes brightened, and he felt confident.
He was trying to gamble on this last resort that didn't even have a concrete plan in the first place.
But it was the best one there is at the moment.
"I mean, what could go wrong?"
Sliding his seat across the other panel of the ship, Case touched the handle that controlled what was left inside his spacecraft.
Looking forward to the planet he was about to use for landing, Case checked the situation around his parameters once more before fully clenching his resolve.
"Now or fucking never!"
Feeling the cold chills of the void touching his skin as the oxygen level dropped to one percent, Case pushed his hand forward.
"Full Throttle!"
The never-ending void that seemed to look through him at every fiber of his skin was there to witness either his downfall or his success.
Twinkling stars that were light years away and cosmic objects that were merely hovering through the dark expanse left afterimages through Case's cracked and broken windows as he went full dive into the planet.
Whooosh—!
Yet just as he was expecting a very terrible crash into that planet, something worse than he couldn't even possibly imagine appeared right in his very front.
As he ran out of oxygen while the ship was hammering forward, Case's eyes turned cold as the 'planet' he was looking out of earlier didn't appear to be the same as a few seconds before.
"What the..."
The 'planet' he was using to land seemed to 'twitch' very noticeably.
Soon, it 'opened' revealing a 'pupil' staring directly into him at the quiet expanse.