From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 740 "Precognition"

boom----! !

The next moment, a pulse wave that could not be accurately described by color, almost transparent, suddenly burst out in all directions outside the ring, except for the ring plane itself, originating from the solidified point of light at the center of the ring!
This pulse wave is not simply a beam of energy; it is more like a "state" or "information" that propels at faster-than-light speed and reshapes the rules of physics.

Its speed is so fast that before it actually erupts, a causal fallacy occurs, namely, a “premonition” or “pre-echo”.

On Proxima Centauri b, a terrestrial planet located within the habitable zone, assuming observers exist, they would be horrified to discover that the stars in the sky, along with the background stars, suddenly and collectively flashed brightly without warning, as if the entire universe had been illuminated by an invisible flashlight.
Mountains, earth, clouds, and even their own bodies all take on a strange, almost transparent quality in this instant, as if reality itself has been briefly "negated" or "covered up".

This strange phenomenon was fleeting, so fast that one might suspect it was an illusion.

This is precisely the "pre-echo" effect produced by the enormous disturbance to the continuity of spacetime caused by the upcoming faster-than-light pulse wave.

It violates the traditional law of causality, causing the "result," that is, the "image" swept by the pulse wave, to precede the "cause," meaning that the pulse wave arrives at the target.

Immediately following, the real pulse wave swept in with unstoppable force.

When it swept past Proxima Centauri b, it did not cause an explosion or impact; the planet itself remained intact.

However, any life form existing on the surface, inside, or in orbit whose life signal matches the preset "Divine Seal Blood Moon" characteristic spectrum is instantly and silently "erased".

Their nervous systems are completely disintegrated at the microscopic level, their consciousness vanishes into nothingness, leaving only cold shells.

This is an extreme purification targeting a specific life form.

This "transparent" death pulse, traveling at speeds exceeding the limits of physics, almost instantly after the "omenological" phenomenon ended, traversed a vast distance of 4.25 light-years, rushing towards the solar system of "Dead Space" and towards Earth.

On Earth.

In the hemisphere during the day, countless people watched in horror as the sun's rays suddenly became incredibly blinding, the sky seemed to be painted with a strange, flowing glow, the outlines of all objects became blurred, and the shadows cast underwent bizarre distortions and overlaps.

In the night hemisphere, the stars lose their luster, the moon appears as a pale ghost, and the entire night sky is shrouded in an indescribable and omnipresent faint light, as if the universe itself is whispering.

This is also a "premonition/echo," a lament and warning emanating from spacetime itself before destruction arrives.

This extraordinary celestial phenomenon, far beyond comprehension, stirred a primal fear and awe in all who witnessed it, from ordinary people just beginning a new life to Imperial auxiliary troops steadfastly holding their posts.

They didn't know what was happening, only that some unimaginable force concerning the very nature of the universe had been activated.

Then, at the very next moment when the visual and psychological impact of this "omen" reached its peak—

That truly invisible purifying pulse swept silently across the entire Earth and every inch of the solar system.

There was no sound, no explosion, and no shockwave.

There was only one indescribable, subtle feeling, as if the soul had been gently "touched" by some supreme being, which vanished in an instant.

Immediately afterwards, the sky returned to normal, the stars returned to their original positions, and the sunlight was no longer dazzling.

It was as if nothing had happened.

But all those in the know understand that a judgment and purification targeting a specific entity, on a galaxy-wide scale, has been completed.

For the first time, the grand apparatus of the human empire revealed its divine majesty and power to the multiverse.
As for the single apartment where the young woman who longed to join the Imperial Warrior Legion lived;
She sat cross-legged on the comfortable sofa, while the holographic screen in front of her still displayed the stunning replay of the large device 01 disappearing in the sea of ​​stars via a short warp. The comment section below exploded with various exclamations and speculations.

She was intently browsing through netizens' wildly imaginative ideas, trying to piece together the possible destination and purpose of that giant ring.

at this time--

An extremely strange feeling seized her without warning.

It didn't come from external senses, but from the depths of her consciousness.

Time seemed to be stretched and distorted at this moment.

The screen in front of her, the layout of the room, the city lights outside the window
Everything around me felt incredibly "familiar," yet it carried a chilling sense of "mistake."

This feeling is hard to describe, like you are absolutely certain that you have read a comment on the screen about "the ring may have gone to Proxima Centauri" at the exact same moment, in the exact same posture, and you can even "predict" the next moment and the subtle changes in your breathing rate.

It was a powerful, illogical sense of déjà vu, but its intensity and clarity far surpassed any previous one. It was as if her consciousness had briefly slipped into a crack in time and glimpsed a fixed image of the future.

She even subconsciously wanted to reach out and touch the comment that was "about to appear," but only when she raised her arm halfway did she suddenly realize that the comment had not actually been refreshed yet.

This momentary misalignment between her perception and reality caused her to feel a slight dizziness and inexplicable panic.

However, this eerie feeling came quickly and went quickly, receding like the tide.

Just as her consciousness returned to the "normal" flow of time—

Buzz————!
It wasn't transmitted through the air, but rather through some more fundamental vibration that acted directly on her bones, nerves, and even the depths of her soul.

Meanwhile, outside the window, both the pitch-black sky and the lights of the night were filled with an indescribable source and color of "light," which was extremely dazzling.

This "light" did not shine continuously; it was merely a fleeting moment, like the blink of an eye in the universe.

It was so fast that the retina barely had time to retain a afterimage. Only that instantaneous, supreme brilliance, seemingly able to penetrate walls and flesh, was imprinted in the mind, and the lingering, low-pitched, almost non-existent yet soul-stirring "humming" echoed in the ears or perhaps inside the skull.

The girl suddenly covered her ears, even though she knew the sound wasn't coming from outside.

She gasped for breath, still shaken, her heart pounding. The eerie "premonition" and the subsequent, incomprehensible flash of light had left her mind blank.

Immediately afterwards, the already heated comment section on the screen in front of her completely "exploded".

"What was that just now?! Did you guys see it?! The sky flashed!!"

"It wasn't lightning! Absolutely not! The entire sky, no, the entire field of vision, was glowing!"

"Holy crap! My screen flickered too! It's not my imagination!" "It's that ring! It must have been caused by that giant ring-shaped celestial body built by that empire!"

"It wasn't just the light! I had a strange feeling just now, like I knew what was going to happen next, and it actually happened! It was so eerie!"

"Upstairs +1! I felt it too! It was like time suddenly stopped!"

"A physics graduate student here, just now, said something rather tentatively: based on the instantaneous global (or even the entire solar system) synchronization phenomenon, and that eerie 'premonition,' it's very likely that some effect outpaced the speed of light. This is a phenomenon at the level of causality! Just what level of weaponry did the Empire use?!"

"Faster than light? In the physical universe?! How is that possible?! Existing faster than light technology is all a 'shortcut' created by warping space. Like the Federation's ships in the past, creating a warp bubble to envelop themselves was already the limit, and the energy consumption was terrifying! That just now was clearly a radiation effect that indiscriminately covered the entire star field! How much energy must that have consumed?!"

"Is the energy of one star enough? Probably not. Ten? A hundred?! My God, where has the Empire's technology tree gone?!"

"By the Emperor, I now believe we are truly under the Emperor's protection."

The comments section quickly shifted from initial shock to terrifying speculation about the underlying principles of the phenomenon, and further to awe and reverence for the unfathomable depths of the empire's technological prowess.

Comments flashed by, dissecting the terrifying power that defied the laws of physics contained in that brief moment, leaving one's scalp crawling.

"."

The young girl stared blankly at the rapidly scrolling comments, not fully understanding the technical discussions about faster-than-light travel, causality, and energy levels.

But she clearly remembered the eerie "premonition" that came from the depths of her consciousness, and the brilliant light that seemed to penetrate everything and flashed by in an instant.

All she knew was that she seemed to have gained a deeper, more fundamental understanding of the power possessed by the colossal entity known as the "Human Empire"—

It was a power that could touch time, "manipulate" the rules of physics, and was fueled by stars; it belonged to the realm of gods.

Inside the Aegis 7 space station.

In the living quarters allocated to survivors and former associates of the Ishimura, Isaac Clark and his wife Nicole sat by the window in the common room, witnessing the strange flash that momentarily filled their view and experiencing the brief yet profound sense of cognitive dissonance brought on by the "omen/preecho."

The two exchanged a glance, both seeing shock and a hint of understanding in each other's eyes.

Having experienced the mental pollution caused by the Divine Seal, Nicole possesses an unusual sensitivity and vigilance towards this phenomenon that transcends conventional perception.

Meanwhile, in another area of ​​the space station, in a high-level office, Tychus Finley casually propped his heavy boots on the desk, a cigar dangling from his mouth, and nonchalantly flipped through an analysis report on the space station's recent resource consumption.

Suddenly, that eerie "premonition" struck him, making him feel as if he already knew what some boring data would be on the next page of the report. Immediately afterward, the lights throughout the space station flickered extremely subtly, almost imperceptibly.

The pitch-black backdrop of the universe outside the window seemed to be illuminated and then extinguished in an instant by an invisible giant light.

"Mom!"

Startled by this sudden and incomprehensible situation, Tychus nearly fell off his chair, and the cigar in his mouth fell onto his firm chest, burning him so badly that he grimaced and quickly brushed it off.

Still shaken, he looked around to make sure nothing was wrong with the office before scratching his head and complaining to thin air:

"What's going on now?! The noise they're making is getting scarier and scarier each time. My heart can't take this kind of torture!"

His contrasting appearance of a tough guy being frightened would surely make anyone who saw it burst out laughing.

And finally.
The perspective shifts to the Proxima Centauri system, which has now returned to calm.

The magnificent ring of the large device 01 still rests in the void at the edge of the galaxy.

The once dazzling spot of light at the center of the ring, which resembled a miniature sun, had been extinguished, and the surging energy flow on the outer patterns had returned to silence, as if the destructive energy that had shaken space and time and carried out purification across light-years had never existed.

The ring itself was unharmed; even the breeze on the grassland inside it remained gentle, the birds continued to sing, and the lights of the settlements remained warm.

Only the sophisticated sensors covering the ring are still silently recording the data from the recent launch, and confirming that all locked "Divine Seal Blood Moon" life signals within the galaxy have fallen into complete silence after the pulse wave swept through.

This star field was as if it had just undergone a silent, top-level surgery, with the lesions precisely removed while the healthy tissues were completely unaware of the scalpel's passage.

Only the boundless stars, as eternal witnesses, gazed upon the first "whisper" of this ultimate weapon of the human empire, and its awe-inspiring silence.

Inside the control center, you could hear a pin drop; only the system maintained a low hum.

On the enormous main screen, the radiation process of the supermassive neutrino pulse wave is being displayed in a breathtakingly detailed way.

An ever-expanding, nearly transparent spherical ripple is moving synchronously in every direction of the vast universe, originating from the Proxima Centauri galaxy where the large device 01 is located, and at a terrifying speed far exceeding the speed of light in traditional physics.

The star map was rapidly rendered, representing the spheres at the forefront of the pulse wave, like ripples created by a stone thrown into still water, but its expansion speed was almost instantaneous, covering the entire Orion Arm.

The data stream scrolled wildly beside it, showing how the pulse wave radiated to a distant depth of about 2.5 light-years from the origin in an extremely short time.

Its speed of advancement is so fast that space itself seems to lose its meaning of distance in front of it.

Subsequently, as if the energy had finally reached a certain predetermined boundary, or its unique propulsion mechanism had reached its limit, the expansion speed of the wavy sphere on the screen began to slow down at a speed visible to the naked eye, and its brightness and energy indicator also decayed in sync.

Finally, at the edge of the large device 01, about 3 light-years away, the sphere representing the purification wavefront completely faded and dissipated, merging into the background star map as if it had never existed.

But this brief silence contained unparalleled destructive power.

The automatically generated evaluation report on the side of the screen coldly announced the results—

With this ring as its core, within a spherical cosmic domain with a radius of 30,000 light-years, all flesh and blood beings whose life signals matched the preset biometric spectrum of "Divine Seal, Blood Moon, Corpse Variant" were completely annihilated, "incinerated," and permanently erased from both the physical and conscious levels the instant the pulse swept across.

Meanwhile, in front of the center console, Halsey and Cortana's images seemed to show little emotional reaction to this grand spectacle of destruction.

They were focused intently on the several hard light screens floating in front of them, on which flowed a waterfall of feedback data on the effects of the pulse emission, energy distribution maps, spatiotemporal disturbance coefficients, and preliminary assessment reports on the impact on pre-set life forms.

Their fingers flew across the keyboard, filtering, labeling, and analyzing, like the most sophisticated instruments, focused on transforming the massive amount of information obtained from this unprecedented launch into valuable knowledge and technical parameters that the empire could use for its future.
(End of this chapter)