Chapter 1399: Call of the Stars (Twenty-Five) _1

Until they left the newspaper office, Quill and Rocket Raccoon were still immersed in shock at the state of the world. Their long interstellar journey had broadened their horizons. Although they had witnessed numerous disasters, most were crude and simple.

Either it was the extinction of life on the mother planet due to altered orbits, or the destruction of civilization due to solar eruptions. Natural disasters in the cosmos far outnumbered man-made ones. It was hard to imagine a race being directly transformed into another life form, and even being able to maintain its original social order.

This wasn't completely surprising, but more like an exclamation of curiosity, also known as "the beauty of absurdity".

The two made their way towards Central Park, New York, along the shady road next to the newspaper office. They weren't planning to go back and investigate, but just walk through the park back into the city, looking for other possible clues.

At this time, however, Rocket Raccoon cast his eyes on Quill's arm. He had to lean forward, pat Quill's face with his claws and say, "Have you noticed? You've scratched your arm 16 times in three minutes. If you intend to remind me of your terrible experience that night by doing so, all I can say is, well done, you've succeeded. I now feel like vomiting."

"Don't mess around." Quill thought that the raccoon was trying to liven up the mood again. He tightened the backpack on his body, looked at the sunset on the horizon, and said, "Given that we might not find a way out of here anytime soon, we need to find a long-term base. It should ideally have some security measures so that you can hold me in when I go crazy."

"I'm not joking." Rocket Raccoon raised his voice. Being doubted made him uncomfortable. So he jabbed Quill's face with his claws until Quill tilted to one side.

Quill's temper flared, and he resolved to teach the raccoon a lesson about the foolishness of messing with someone larger in size. So, he attempted to grab Rocket Raccoon, but before his hand could touch the raccoon, Rocket Raccoon let out a scream.

"Don't play rough now, bro, that's just uncool." Quill complained, "I didn't even touch you. In a baseball game, this wouldn't even count."

"No, no, I mean, did you even see which hand you stretched out?!" Rocket Raccoon screamed.

Quill looked down at his hand and noticed that the hand he had stretched out was the one he'd already severed. He sighed and said, "Okay, seems like I haven't gotten used to the one-handed life yet. But you should count yourself lucky. Otherwise, you would have been thrown to the ground by now."

"But you touched me just now!" Rocket Raccoon said tremblingly, "You just grabbed my tail, with your hand!"

"Huh?"

Quill let out a perplexed sound, but an illusion clouded his mind again, rendering him unsure of which of his hands was missing.

Once he snapped back, he looked at his remaining hand and said, "I feel both hands are there, yes, I can feel them."

Then, he lifted the half-remaining arm and, as if grasping the air, he patted Rocket Raccoon's head.

Rocket Raccoon bristled instantly because he really felt a hand ruffling his head. The feeling of skin gliding across fur was so comforting that he twitched his ears unconsciously, then let out a terrified scream and began tap dancing on Quill's shoulder.

"Has my hand come back?!" Quill looked at his severed arm in disbelief as if he could see a brand-new hand there.

No, not just a hand. The angle at which he bent his arm was not enough to allow his hand to touch Rocket Raccoon's head—the distance was too great.

"A distant hand, what would that be classified as? Telekinesis?" Quill wondered.

But Quill couldn't help testing out his newfound abilities. He waved the remaining half of his arm forward. Instantly, the pile of fallen leaves in front of him seemed to be gently gripped by the air, and slowly floated up. When he sent the neural command to let go, the leaves fell gracefully.

That was his hand, Quill was sure of it.

"Oh my God, you never told me you're a telekinetic master!" Rocket Raccoon bounced in shock on Quill's shoulder and then, like a drummer, incessantly patted his head with his claws.

"I just acquired this ability, just now, just in..." As Quill said this, he couldn't help looking back. At the end of the road, the horizon was no longer bathed in the sunset. Nightfall had silently descended.

"This is an evolution." Quill frowned, staring at his arm. His wealth of experience made his imagination more abundant. He said, "You must first lose part of your limbs before you can evolve."

"That news report about tourists self-mutilating in the middle of the night mentioned the relatives of the victims couldn't believe that a midnight tumble off the cliff would cost the victims an entire foot and several fingers. Maybe that was a harbinger of evolution."

"So you call turning into a slimy tentacle monster evolution?" Rocket Raccoon said incredulously. He grabbed Quill's ear with his claw and said, "Look around you. Even among interstellar civilizations, these creatures are considered ugly and bizarre!"

"No, no, no." Quill issued a string of denials. His mind raced, and then he said, "Let's assume, just assume, that those things are not the result of evolution, but failures."

"A failure?"

"Exactly." Quill looked down at his non-existent but palpable hand again, adding, "And I am the successful product."

"Assuming they are just remnants of failures and I have succeeded, what's the difference? Why do they become almost powerless monsters, only following instincts, while I... I gain abilities that strengthen me, at least for now."

"What's the difference between you and them?" Rocket Raccoon frowned, shaking his own beard before saying, "Did you tell me before that you have an alien bloodline? The prince of... what's it called... Spartak Empire... your father?"

"I don't think that's the key. The people of the Spartak Empire are indeed much stronger than humans, especially physically. My body is far better than a human's. How else do you think I was able to bounce around less than a day after smashing and slicing an arm?"

Mentioning this again, Rocket Raccoon felt slightly nauseated. He took a deep breath and said, "At least your will is much stronger than a human's. Humans would certainly be gasping for air from crying."

"That is an advantage the bloodline of the Spartak Empire has given me." Quill readily admitted, "It's a nation constantly at war, a bit similar to Asgard, only not as strong. Perhaps through evolution, they've eliminated the sense of pain. I haven't felt much pain since I was a child."

"But what I'm trying to say is something I haven't told you before. When I was working at NASA, I had a dispute with an astronaut of considerable importance, meaning he was part of the bureau's leadership."

"I was so angered by my dismissal that I stole a spaceship, specifically a Kree Empire ship that NASA had seized earlier, and steered it towards the cosmos. But as you know, a ship that crash-lands on Earth wouldn't likely have a good end, regardless of whether it was made by the Kree Empire. This place is practically a graveyard of spaceships."

"That ship malfunctioned halfway, and I crashed on a foreign planet, after which I was taken in by Yondu. But amid all this, there was an important sequence of events. After the spacecraft crashed, and I fell unconscious, I saw an illusory figure of light beckoning to me."

"He referred to himself as the 'Lord of the Sun'...or something, I've forgotten. He said my heart was filled with hatred and I was not fit to shoulder the responsibility of Star-Lord. He hoped I could let go of my hatred and receive his power. I turned him down because at that time, all I wanted to do was to avenge my mother."

"Subsequently, I saw him a few times when in mortal danger. I was certain he left some imprint on my body or in my heart. That might be the fundamental reason why I was able to repeatedly cheat death."

Having heard this story, Rocket Raccoon hesitated for a moment, speculating, "This so-called Lord of the Sun might be a Cosmic Sorcerer or some other God. He wanted you to become his spokesperson."

"It's possible it could be that."

"You declined, but he might have left you with part of his power as a form of bribery, or to induce you to have second thoughts. Have you ever felt his power before?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know whether my physical abilities, which surpass that of ordinary people, and the luck that has kept me from dying despite being seriously injured and unconscious several times, are from my Spartak Empire lineage or from the power of the Lord of the Sun."

"Seems like you really are unusual." Rocket Raccoon stroked his chin, saying, "At least there is a huge gap between you and ordinary people. I've never heard any normal human being able to merely fall unconscious after crash-landing on an alien planet in a spaceship. That's almost impossible. At least your body is far stronger than these fragile humans."

"That could very well be the significant reason why I ended up a successful product." Quill surveyed his surroundings. One could still see the silhouettes of monsters on the horizon. He said, "The vulnerability of humans physically and mentally left them incapable of withstanding this form of evolution, whereas creatures stronger, tougher, and more determined than them, would sprout after surviving the initial calamity."

"Is this some kind of elimination mechanism?" Quill asked himself, "Eliminating the ordinary, the weak, the unstable and selectively retaining on suitable bodies just those that are capable of yielding results?"

Quill's tone was slightly shaky, as he was shocked by his own hypothesis. It was a form of natural selection on a larger scale, not following the slow, long-term evolution over tens of thousands of years, but picking out the most suitable in the most direct way.

Who was manipulating all these?

At the thought of it, Quill was overcome with guilt and a sense of sin, No, no sentient life with the ability to establish order could create such majesty. This had to be unconscious, natural, terrifying and beautiful all at once.

Quill looked around, surrounded by ruins. In this hurried symphony of evolution, there were no human victors. Everyone fell to fear and became remnants, while in the echoes of the aftermath, outsiders were blessed and became the fortunate ones to emerge.

As Quill came to this point, not a trace of joy could be found in him. Instead, he felt an anger that made him clench his teeth, not for the poor deceased losers though.

Because he seemed to vaguely hear through the damp night air of New York, a call echoing from the depths of the stars.

Specific to his current situation, the call was somewhat flippant and mocking — "What a strong, good doggie you are."

Quill wanted to chop his remaining arm off.