Voyage of the Stars.

Chapter 1491 The Dreamy Lyre

The Lyra spacecraft has been completed, but it hasn't left yet because it's waiting for the string-based computer to be completed as well.

Sharpening the axe won't delay the work of chopping wood; human civilization doesn't want to embark on its journey in an incomplete, dreamlike Lyra without a matching shipboard computer.

After all, the road ahead is fraught with danger and unknown. Who knows if we will encounter a cosmic-level civilization such as the Rebooters or the Returners? Although it is not certain that we will fight, we must be strong ourselves. Only with strong military power can we speak with confidence.

This principle applies at all times.

Imagine if the Dayan civilization didn't have strong combat power, how could they possibly talk to the Returning Void Ones, and the Restarters would never pay them any attention.

In this cruel universe riddled with holes, force is not only the guarantee of civilization's survival, but also the foundation for realizing ideals.

From the perspective of basic human morality, the actions of the Galactic Heart civilization are despicable, shameless, and utterly heinous. Yet, they remain alive and well, even giving their flagship a righteous title, asking who agrees and who disagrees.

So, is a civilization that has left the universe in this riddled state evil? Of course not. If that were the case, all life would be evil, because it is the development of civilizations formed by life that has accelerated the emergence of vacuum decay and the fourth phase transition, a catastrophe that can destroy the entire universe—all of which are the work of life.

But life is also saving the universe, or rather, saving itself.

Without any intervention, the universe will also come to an end as it expands. Cosmic-level civilizations and god-level civilizations simply define their actions of saving the universe as correct. But there are many kinds of correctness. Every god-level civilization or organization believes that its own ideology is the ultimate correct one.

That said, as the probes drew closer, the Four-Handed Serpents finally saw the dreamlike Lyra, which the Galactic Heart civilization had described as extremely mysterious.

The four-armed snakes reacted and felt differently upon first seeing the Dream Lyra.

"This"

"what is this?"

"Is this a warship?"

"Devil?"

"Is it a biological warship?"

As the Dream Lyra came into view, the Four-Handed Serpents and the intelligent life of the sixth-level civilization under their Great Voyage Organization were stunned. They had imagined many shapes for the Dream Lyra, such as a beautiful streamlined shape, a sphere, a square shape, or even a long strip. They had never imagined that the Dream Lyra would actually look like this.

But what does this look like?

Or rather, can this still be called a shape?

"Is it my imagination? It seems to be constantly wriggling!" A four-handed snake engineer stared intently at the big screen. He saw the Dream Lyra seemingly slowly flowing through the starry sky. He saw every edge of the Dream Lyra churning, twisting from one side to the other, churning from the outside to the inside, and some edges surging out from the inside.

During this process, he saw large holes appear on the surface of the Dream Lyra, appearing from nothing. But as the surface shifted, those holes would self-heal into a piece, a creeping edge.

Under the surrounding light, the Lyra Dream exhibits various color gradients.

Under the detector's scan, the four-handed snakes knew that it wasn't a color gradient, but rather that after photons encountered the surface of the Lyra, some were swept inside by the Lyra's exterior and then flew out in another direction after making countless turns, while others somehow returned along the same path. During this process, the energy carried by the photons was sometimes amplified and sometimes weakened. As the light waves interacted with the Lyra's surface, diffraction or interference occurred, resulting in varying degrees of diffraction, reflection, and interference across the entire wavelength spectrum.

So at first glance, you see this dreamlike and enchanting phenomenon.

The surface of the Lyra Dream resembles a continuous, moving brocade, or like countless continuous squid mantle muscles curled up.

Its appearance is always dynamic, churning, twisting, turning, and flowing inside and out, accompanied by changes in various colors, making it look truly dreamlike.

Like something in a dream, within reach yet out of reach.

If you try to track changes in its appearance, you'll get lost in a world of distorted topological rules.

At first, the four-armed snakes didn't think much of the Lyra, but after one glance, they wanted to look again. They told themselves that they would stop looking after one more look, but after turning their heads away, they couldn't help but look back.

It's so dreamy, so beautiful, it feels like being in a dream.

But as they watched, some of the four-armed snakes felt a sense of oppression. They felt as if they had entered a maze-like world along with the constantly twisting surface, a world where the dynamic of twisting and turning continued everywhere.

I can't describe the feeling in words; I just felt very oppressed.

It seems there are profound truths hidden within, and one wants to seek these truths but has no way of doing so. In the end, one can only watch as truths flash before one's eyes, trying to grasp them but ending up with nothing.

For a moment, confusion and regret filled the depths of these four-handed snakes' consciousness.

Most of these four-handed snakes are engaged in space research. Subjectively, they want to use their limited wisdom to understand the secrets of the flowing exterior of the Dream Lyra.

Other four-handed snakes were already gripped by a kind of panic, because what they saw in the churning and swirling exterior of the Dream Lyra was not a maze, but scenes from their own nightmares, as if their souls were bound, or as if they were drowning under a heavy weight.

Some of the four-handed snakes directly regarded the Dream Lyra as a huge microscopic demon. That demon rolled in the starry sky, revealing all sorts of absurd shapes. One moment it was a ball of fire, and the next moment it turned into a terrifying smiling face that covered the starry universe. Tentacles grew on the smiling face, layer upon layer, making them feel an indescribable unknown fear.

This is of course not real; it's just a terrifying image that the four-armed snakes conjured up in their minds, which is why they saw monsters they had never seen before.

Those who have experienced the terrifying scenes of microscopic demons directly see the microscopic demons.

Seeing all sorts of things, the four-handed snakes, whose mental state was not good, were trapped in a desperate and oppressive atmosphere. They felt that although they were standing in the warship hall, all sorts of terrifying unknown things were floating around them, and the fear of the deep space of the universe that had been buried for many years jumped out again.

These four-armed snakes felt like mere ants in the vastness of the universe, their efforts futile. From the darkness of deep space, countless twisted, terrifying laughs seemed to echo, and the starry sky began to spin, becoming part of those dark, twisted tentacles.

They felt their consciousness getting tangled in an endless tumble.

Discomfort, depression, and loneliness seemed to have taken over their souls; it seemed that nothing in this universe mattered anymore.

"Don't focus on it!" After an unknown amount of time, a voice rang in the minds of the four-armed snakes, awakening their knotted consciousness.

(End of this chapter)