I handed over to another world

The red circle displayed on the holographic projection is exactly at the designated position.

"It's now!"

Chen Lin shouted, "Activate the gravity distorter to simulate the spatial characteristics of the Morning Star spacecraft!"

"Simultaneously broadcast their coordinates and engine frequencies to the entire frequency band!"

Professor Sun and a group of researchers around him pressed the start button at the same time. The entire starship trembled slightly, and they soon saw the gravitational distorter array in the distance emitting a dazzling white light. At the same time, a special space wave spread outward at the speed of light.

At the same time, all communication channels were repeating detailed information about the Morningstar spacecraft.

The Devourer's reaction was immediate - its tentacles suddenly retracted and its entire body turned towards the direction of the Morningstar spacecraft.

That low-frequency vibration sounded again, but this time it clearly carried a different "emotion".

This is clearly the excitement of discovering bigger prey!
“It’s hooked!”

Xu Ruolan said in disbelief, "I never thought this could actually trick it!!"

Chen Lin looked at the holographic projection in silence. The main body of the Devourer began to deform, gradually stretching into a shuttle shape, and then the space was torn apart again. It was chasing the Morning Star spacecraft at an astonishing speed.

The command center was silent. Everyone stared at the star map with bated breath. The red dot representing the Devourer and the purple dot of the Morningstar spacecraft were getting closer and closer...

Suddenly, the two spots of light disappeared at the same time.

"Space jump! They all performed a faster-than-light jump!"

The monitor reported.

Professor Sun immediately analyzed the remaining spatial fluctuations: "The Devourer has locked onto the Morning Star spacecraft's jump trajectory and is catching up!"

Li Changhu let out a long sigh and slumped down in his chair: "We...we succeeded?"

Chen Lin did not relax his vigilance: "It's just for now... Dr. Xu, continue to monitor any abnormal space activities."

"Vice President, go count the casualties and organize rescue operations for damaged ships... Professor Sun, I want a brand new analysis report on the Devourer's behavior patterns."

He looked around the command center, at every tired but hopeful face: "Today, humanity united and repelled the most powerful enemy we have ever seen. But this is only the beginning, we must be prepared for the next contact."

A report from the outer patrol fleet suddenly came over the communication channel: "Found the wreckage of the Morning Star spaceship! Repeat, found the wreckage of the Morning Star spaceship!"

The holographic projection switched to the image sent back by the patrol fleet - a spaceship torn in two was floating in space, and the logo of the Morning Star Community was still clearly visible on the hull.

"It looks like the Devourer has found its dinner."

Li Changhu smiled bitterly.

Chen Lin did not laugh: "This means that the Devourer is still nearby. Pass the order, all units maintain the same alert level."

“At the same time, a victory announcement was made to the world – but with the emphasis that the crisis was not yet completely over.”

When the first ray of victory shone into the command center through the observation window, Chen Lin stood alone in front of the window, looking at the twinkling stars in the distance.

He knew that behind this victory were countless sacrifices and unanswered questions - why was the Morning Star Community so afraid of the Devourer? What secrets were they hiding?
And where did the Devourer, a monster that seemed to possess both biological and mechanical characteristics, come from?

But at this moment, he allowed himself to briefly enjoy this hard-earned peace.

Humanity survived, and that's enough - at least for today.

……

Chen Lin stood in front of Zhang Fengwu's cell, and the heavy alloy door slid open silently.

The light in the room was dim. Zhang Fengwu sat on a simple metal chair with his back to him. His hands were restrained by quantum binding rings, and his whole body looked like a solidified sculpture.

"The Morning Star Community's observation ship was destroyed by the Devourer."

Chen Lin went straight to the point, his voice calm and low.

Zhang Fengwu's shoulders trembled slightly, but he did not turn around.

"You knew that a long time ago, right?" Chen Lin walked closer slowly, "You knew that the Devourer would attack them first."

Zhang Fengwu was silent for a few seconds, and finally turned around slowly. His face was paler than the last time they met, and his eye sockets were sunken, as if his life was drained by some invisible fear.

"I warned you..." His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time, "but you still went to provoke it."

"We're just protecting ourselves."

Chen Lin stared at him. "And you, the Morning Star Community, never intended to let humans survive from the beginning."

Zhang Fengwu pulled the corner of his mouth and revealed an almost desperate smile: "Do you think... we are 'experimenting' you? No, we are running for our lives."

Chen Lin frowned: "What do you mean?"

Zhang Fengwu raised his head, his eyes empty: "The Devourer is not a naturally formed monster...it was 'made'."

"By whom?"

"By a civilization older than Morning Star." Zhang Fengwu's voice was barely audible. "A civilization that has already become extinct."

Chen Lin's pupils shrank slightly: "You mean, the Devourer is some kind of... weapon?"

"No, it's the 'Cleaner'." Zhang Fengwu shook his head slowly, "Its mission is to wipe out all existence that may threaten the 'Creator'... and the Morning Star Community... once violated a taboo."

"What taboo?"

A trace of fear flashed across Zhang Fengwu's eyes: "Let's try to copy its technology."

Chen Lin's heart was shocked.

"So it's hunting you?" "No...it's hunting all 'polluters'." Zhang Fengwu smiled bitterly, "It's just that humans are now marked as well."

"mark?"

"We used quantum weapons to simulate space wrinkles... The Devourer will remember these main 'features'." Zhang Fengwu's voice became lower and lower, "It will not let us go."

Chen Lin was silent for a moment, then suddenly sneered: "So you and the people from Morning Star deliberately guided it to the solar system, hoping that it would destroy humanity and protect Morning Star from disaster?"

Zhang Fengwu did not deny it.

When Chen Lin walked out of the room where Zhang Fengwu was held in solitary confinement, he nodded slightly to Secretary Zhao who had been waiting for a long time beside him. Secretary Zhao immediately understood what he meant. Chen Lin didn't need to worry about the rest of the matter anymore, as he would complete everything that followed.

……

Soon, even more explosive news came - the engineering team of the patrol fleet found an intact black cube in the wreckage of the Morning Star spacecraft, and its surface was covered with glowing patterns similar to neuronal synapses.

When the cube was brought back, it suddenly activated automatically, projecting a breathtaking holographic image.

Hundreds of galaxies marked as "harvested" rotate in the image, with the precise civilization index and harvest date next to each mark.

The solar system was specially marked as "Experimental Area-47", and the remarks column read: "Quantum technology potential level 8.7, it is recommended to induce the development of antimatter weapons as bait for the next stage."

The screen finally flashed a strange structure consisting of seven galaxies - these galaxies were artificially connected by some giant structure to form a perfect hexagon, which was the origin of the Devourer.

"This is not an ordinary observation ship..." Professor Sun's fingers trembled as they traced the light patterns flowing on the surface of the cube. "This is the 'Civilization Observer Terminal' of the Morning Star Community. Every civilization marked by them will be equipped with such a monitoring device."

By analyzing the data, humans saw for the first time the true nature of this mysterious civilization: it belongs to a hive mind structure, individual Morning Star people have no individual consciousness, and their entire society is composed of a "master brain" and countless "nodes", which achieve instant thought sharing through quantum entanglement.

After dozens of generations of transformation, their bodies have become half-organic and half-mechanical beings, with pulsating fiber optic blood vessels visible under their skin. They also have a distorted belief that the universe is an experimental field created by higher-dimensional civilizations, and that the only way to avoid being eliminated is to constantly "harvest" other civilizations.

What's even more terrifying is that these guys from the Morning Star Community are good at creating holographic projections disguised in various forms. When they come into contact with humans, they usually appear as glowing humanoid outlines. Presumably, Zhang Fengwu was lured into acting as a traitor because he was bewitched by the appearance of the Morning Star Community.

Xu Ruolan's team discovered a triple-encrypted core database deep in the cube, which contained a harvest log. The log showed that the Morning Star Community used "technological gifts" to induce 12 civilizations to over-develop weapons technology, thereby attracting the Devourer to change its course.

Soon, even more shocking human experiment files were discovered, which recorded in detail how Zhang Fengwu and other agents implanted algorithms that would cause spatial instability into the Red Dragon Association's quantum research, ultimately leading to the deformed development of human civilization, and then being completely destroyed when the time was right...

More and more things are being discovered one after another. 72 hours after the cube was activated, the quantum communication array of the Red Dragon Association's main ship in outer space suddenly locked onto a signal from 0.3 light years away.

In the picture, a Morning Star Node with peeling metal skin on its face warned in a blunt Earth language:

"We miscalculated... The Devourers are not natural phenomena... They are vacuum cleaning programs left over from the last cosmic cycle..." His mechanical eyes suddenly burst into sparks, "We shouldn't wake up the sleeping Reapers... Code 7-9-0-4 can delay..."

In the last frame before the communication was interrupted, a huge metal sphere flashed in the background, and a light pattern exactly the same as the black cube appeared on its surface.

In the absolutely confidential strategic room, Chen Lin personally browsed through all the decrypted data. When he opened his eyes, the blue light of the data stream still lingered on the edge of his pupils.

"Immediately establish the 'Eyes in Deep Space' task force." His voice was hoarse. "If the Devourer is a tool created by an older civilization, then the Morning Star Community may be just a microorganism in a laboratory dish like us."

……

Chen Lin's fingertips drew an arc on the holographic projection, and a hexagonal structure composed of seven galaxies slowly rotated above the conference table.

The strange starry sky pattern was reflected in the pupils of the twelve strategic committee members.

"According to the Morningstar database, the Devourers have a special hunting mechanism for high-energy civilizations." Professor Sun called up a set of data streams. "When a civilization's energy utilization rate reaches Kardashev level 1.5 - equivalent to being able to build a complete Dyson cloud - their cleanup protocol will be triggered."

Xu Ruolan suddenly stood up, and her holographic pen sketched a simulated map of the solar system in the air: "But there is a contradiction here - the Morning Star Community has clearly reached the level of 2.3 civilization, why has it survived until now?"

The projection switched to an encrypted video: thousands of metal spheres floated around the Morning Star mother star, forming some kind of complex damping field. When the Devourer's tentacles approached, blue lines lit up on the surface of these spheres at the same time, causing the entire star system to suddenly "disappear" for five seconds on the gravitational wave map.

"Quantum invisibility curtain..." Professor Sun's glasses reflected the flickering blue light. "They used the Dyson sphere as a cover, but what they actually built is a cosmic-level cloaking device."

Three months later.

Gigantic nanoweaving machines are at work in the asteroid belt, assembling billions of solar-collecting units into honeycomb structures.

But unlike regular Dyson spheres, the inner layers of these hexagonal modules are coated with a quantum coating reverse-engineered from the remains of the Morningstar.

"The energy shielding rate has reached 63%." The engineer reported to Chen Lin in space, "But there is a fatal problem - according to this specification, the earth will not receive enough sunlight."

Li Changhu in the holographic communication suddenly interrupted the conversation: "Good news just came from the 'Aurora' base in Antarctica. They have improved the Morning Star's gravitational lens technology." The screen switched to show a transparent halo surrounding the earth. "This thing can refract sunlight into harmless dark radiation, and then convert it back into visible light through the atmosphere."

Chen Lin looked at the giant silver net gradually taking shape in space, and suddenly asked, "Have you deciphered the coordinates that Zhang Fengwu left behind?"

Xu Ruolan's voice came from the encrypted channel: "We found the abnormal gravitational source of the Orion Arm... this."

A creepy scene emerged in the projection - three hundred and twenty-seven metal spheres arranged in the shape of a DNA double helix, and the surface of each sphere was engraved with the same light pattern as the black cube.

"They are still dormant." Professor Sun called up the spectrum analysis, "but the quantum readings inside the sphere show that these devices send a positioning pulse to deep space every 12 years."

One year and four months later, when the Dyson cloud completed the last piece of the puzzle, the entire solar system underwent a wonderful distortion.

Images sent back from the Pluto Observatory show that the sun is covered with a layer of flowing mercury, and all electromagnetic waves turn into chaotic noise after passing through this medium.

"The results of the cosmic background radiation scan are out."

The monitor's voice was filled with disbelief, "From the perspective of an observer three light years away, our sun has suddenly turned into a red giant star that is about to go out!"

The command center erupted in suppressed cheers, but Chen Lin stared at the screen of the Devourer tracking system - the red mark that once locked onto the solar system was now wandering around the edge of the Oort Cloud like a headless fly.

"Don't let your guard down."

He pressed the fleet-wide communication button, "Remember, we are not running away, we are weaving a web."

"The solar system is at least safe now, but this is only temporary..."

Chen Lin breathed a sigh of relief for a rare time. This series of events took a total of one and a half years to complete. The entire Devourer incident and the problems of the Morning Star Community were finally resolved. He just felt tired.

After entering the interstellar era, there are so many things to deal with... (End of this chapter)