Voyage of the Stars.

Chapter 1438 Feeling the Malice from the Universe

The rhomboid crystal contains a wealth of information, mostly about the Pioneer Civilization, written like an inscription yet not quite. The content includes numerous accounts of the Pioneer Civilization's history, as well as narrative-style information recorded from the perspective of the War Immortal Civilization, making it resemble a history book.

It is a history book compiled by the War Immortal Civilization for the pioneer civilization.

After these texts were deciphered, most of the previous doubts were resolved.

After the arrival of human civilization, the once cold and lifeless tombs finally began to change.

"The pioneer civilization?"

A message, clearly imbued with intelligence, emanated from the rhomboid crystal, and this message was obviously directed at human civilization.

After asking the question, without waiting for a reply from human civilization, the source of the information continued: "Oh, so you are just a civilization that carried the creations of the pioneers. It seems that you are the later ones who have benefited from the pioneers' grace. If the pioneers saw you, they would be very happy."

Upon seeing the rhombus-shaped crystal initiate a conversation, the humans immediately replied: "Are you from the War Immortal Civilization? Did you succeed? Where are you?"

Before the rhombus crystal could reply, the Star Guardian, who was also sharing the conversation, interrupted: "Hey, War Immortal Civilization, have you forgotten about me? And since you can talk, hurry up and tell me what's going on."

The rhombus-shaped crystal said, "I am merely a program left behind by the War Immortal Civilization, operating according to its set parameters. Judging by the timeline, my creator has been gone for a billion years. However, my database contains your information, Star Guardian. As far as I know, my creator should have gone back to retrieve you. But why are you still here?"

"Damn it!!! I've been sleeping and waiting the whole time, and they never came!" Starry Sky Defender said angrily. However, he also knew that the system wouldn't lie, so there was only one explanation: something had happened to the War Immortal Civilization on their way back.

Thinking of this, the Star Guardian suppressed his anger: "Fine, fine, since you can speak, tell me what happened between you and the Pioneers. Weren't you together? How come you succeeded while the Pioneers perished? Did you eat them?"

"Judging others by your own petty standards!" the rhombus-shaped crystal retorted, then explained, "My creator and the pioneers were indeed together, but after arriving here, they each conducted research in a separate void. It was a difficult time, and the details are written on the tombstones. Since you have the pioneers' relics, you should have seen them."

Indeed, I saw it.

According to the inscription, a total of 450 civilizations came here with the pioneering War Immortal civilization. After arriving at their destination, each of the 450 civilizations began researching vacuum zero-point energy in a different part of the void, but in the end, only the War Immortal civilization succeeded.

In reality, they did share research findings, but ultimately only the War Immortal Civilization reaped the rewards of success. The reason was that the pioneering War Immortal Civilization group, unlike the current Galactic Grand Expedition Group, did not have a civilization like the Divine Matrix Civilization; by the time they arrived, their resources were already heavily depleted.

Therefore, what limits their development is not time, but resources.

According to the inscription, the research went smoothly at first, but after reaching a certain stage, it stopped progressing. This situation is almost exactly the same as what the two major expeditionary organizations, the Galactic and the Abyss, are currently experiencing.

Due to a prolonged period of stagnation and limited resources, the Pioneer War Immortal Civilization Group eventually faced a crisis. However, they did not give up but instead launched the Fire Seed Project, continuing their research while conserving resources.

But supplies were dwindling day by day.

Until one day, they discovered that they could no longer support the energy consumption of both the research project and the Spark Program simultaneously.

They dismantled everything they could and burned everything that could be converted into energy, but they still couldn't find the answer. Gradually, one civilization after another despaired.

They abandoned the Spark Project and instead poured all available energy into their final research, determined to give it their all.

And so, in the final moments, one civilization after another fell. They all failed, but before they themselves perished, before their last available energy was exhausted, each civilization sent a message to the civilization that still had its "last breath."

The message was simple: tell the nearest civilization your coordinates, and tell them, "Come on, take our last laboratory, burn it for energy, and keep moving forward until you all fall."

The 450 civilizations of the Pioneer War Immortal Civilization Great Voyage Group continued to survive for some time by feeding on the "corpses" of their fallen comrades.

As the leaders of the entire group with the strongest combat power and the most advanced technology, the War Immortal Civilization and the Pioneers persevered to the end. However, the Pioneer Civilization also eventually fell. Like other civilizations, they gave their last laboratory to the War Immortal Civilization as "material".

At that time, the Pioneer Civilization did not know that the War Immortal Civilization would succeed, and the War Immortal Civilization itself did not believe that it could succeed, because when the Pioneer Civilization fell, the War Immortal Civilization did not have many people left.

The reason why the War Immortal Civilization was able to survive to the end, besides its advanced technology, was the heroic decision made by its individual lives at the last moment when the civilization was on the verge of extinction.

In short, it can be summarized in one sentence: individual lives in the War Immortal Civilization lined up to die, each one transforming themselves into energy to support the civilization's scientific research.

Life is equal, but their people know that there is hope only if the great scientist lives to the end. If that still doesn't work, then it is the universe that is about to destroy its own civilization, and they will die without regret.

Therefore, they chose to sacrifice themselves, starting with ordinary people, then moving on to officials at all levels, various sociological researchers whose work is not particularly relevant to the current stage of research, and then to all sorts of people unrelated to the research.
Even the War Immortal Civilization, which held on until the very end, made a desperate gamble. They burned everything they could into energy, leaving the entire civilization with only a supercomputer used to assist in research and a group of aging scientists.

By this time, the War Immortal Civilization could no longer even afford to use dark matter and dark antimatter.

In fact, other civilizations did the same when they entered the final stage. In order to prolong their lives, they no longer converted matter into dark energy and dark antimatter, because doing so would consume too much energy in the intermediate conversion process.

It would be better to obtain energy directly through the annihilation of matter and antimatter, which would allow us to prolong our existence for a longer period and barely sustain the energy required by various laboratories.

However, what the War Immortal Civilization did not expect was that it was this decision, or rather, their prolonged existence, that allowed them to hold on until the influence of dark matter and dark antimatter dissipated, just before the death of their last batch of researchers.

They succeeded.

And this is what the rhombus crystal wants to tell all civilizations: the culprit behind all failures is dark matter!

Dark matter and dark antimatter, which are derived from matter and used as energy, are also dark matter. Whenever dark matter appears, the entire void will be affected, and the correct answer will never be found.

Everyone lives in "water" and has built a powerful civilization by relying on "water". They have crossed thousands of miles of starry river by relying on "water", but even damp firewood cannot be lit, let alone start a fire in water.

(End of this chapter)