A genius? I just love studying.

Chapter 343 They are coming
The operation of the law nodes is a continuous, dynamic, and precise process, and its core principles consist of four steps.

The node's detection matrix operates silently, capturing the ubiquitous quantum fluctuations in the vacuum.

Each fluctuation is accompanied by a slight distortion of spacetime and instantaneous, random changes in physical constants. At this time, the value of α may fluctuate slightly around the standard value of 0.0072973525693, with a fluctuation level of 10^-20.

The computational core identifies all upward jitters from these random jitters and immediately calculates what force needs to be applied to prevent these upward jitters from being smoothed out by the inertia of the universe, and instead to continue and amplify them.

This force must perfectly align with the fluctuations of the universe itself, like pushing a swing at the right moment to make it swing higher and higher.

At a precise moment specified by the computational core, the energy injector injects a portion of energy, not to create a high-alpha field, but to fund the detected, naturally occurring high-alpha fluctuation.

Tens of thousands of nodes perform the above three steps simultaneously.

Through quantum communication, they ensure that all nodes amplify the same pattern of fluctuations.

These magnified points are interconnected and superimposed through the fields they generate, eventually weaving an invisible and continuous network around the solar system, which is the barrier system proposed by Chen Hui.

Within the area covered by this network, the fine structure constant is stably maintained at a new, high value that is lethal to ordinary materials.

It has no effect on the network. Only when something tries to cross the barrier will it discover that the out-of-control rules have been modified, but by then it will be too late.

The theory was perfect, but the project was in dire straits.

The law node successfully operated for a fraction of a second on a laboratory scale, but disaster struck when the team attempted to deploy the first full-power node near Jupiter's orbit.

At the moment the node was activated, instead of forming a stable modification field, it triggered a violent spacetime turbulence, as if the universe itself did not allow its fundamental constants to be altered in this way. An invisible restorative force emerged, tearing the node's field to shreds and causing the device itself to overload and collapse.

With his exceptional memory, Chen Hui quickly found the key in the ruins of experimental data.

The universe appears to possess inertia; it refuses to change and uses exponentially increasing energy to correct the constant distortions caused by the law nodes.

Chen Hui's design of the law nodes is like trying to build a dam in a raging torrent. The higher the dam, the stronger the impact of the water flow, until it collapses.

Even more frightening is that calculations show that the energy required to maintain a barrier that covers the solar system will increase exponentially as the range expands, eventually reaching an energy level that exceeds the total mass of the entire Milky Way!
This completely contradicts the original intention behind its construction.

Time ticked by, and everyone in the laboratory felt a sense of despair. ALX had already passed over Earth, and they didn't know when that civilization would make its move.

They hold the ultimate secrets of the universe, yet they cannot transform them into walls to protect their home.

"Perhaps we can just cover Blue Star."

Engineer Lin Hao suggested.

Chen Hui shook his head firmly, "The ecological environment of Blue Star is not just Blue Star, but a system formed by the entire solar system and even the Milky Way. If only Blue Star is left, it will not be of much significance to us either."

"We need the entire solar system, not just one blue planet."

"But……"

Lin Hao was very confused. He knew that Chen Hui was right, but time was not on their side.

When Qian arrived at the laboratory, this was exactly what he saw. His heart sank even further, but soon he put on a relaxed smile and walked into the laboratory. “Don’t worry, everyone. Research on antimatter weapons has made great progress. Perhaps the situation is not as bad as we imagine.”

“That’s right. If they were really that powerful, why would they need to send ALX to test us? They could just wave their hand and wipe us out.”

Old Zhao also chimed in, "Don't let his usual carefree attitude fool you, he's got a keen eye for things. Besides, by the time they arrive, it might be decades from now. Who knows what Blue Star will be like then? Maybe they'll get a big surprise."

"I think everyone should take a break first and balance work and rest."

Everyone in the lab knew, of course, that the two elderly people were trying to comfort them, but hearing their words, they inexplicably felt a sense of relief.

……

In the dark depths of space, far from the solar system, a civilization known as the Web Weavers exists in a form that resembles a collective consciousness permeating a complex network of energy.

They do not live on planets, but reside in a huge man-made structure, a network of stars, which is like a nest woven by stars, quietly drawing energy from the stars and monitoring the vast sea of ​​stars.

Once ALX is pulled away from Earth by the gravitational slingshot sequence, its energy signature, propulsion technology details, communication coding patterns, and even its overall social mobilization model for responding to crises are all captured, amplified, and transmitted back to the core by the invisible monitoring nodes on the periphery of the network hub.

There, a dozen or so humanoid creatures with tentacles on their heads sat around a large round table. Their tentacles extended to a transparent sphere in the center of the table, receiving data transmitted back by the detectors.

"This civilization has broken through the threshold of ignorance and officially entered the starry sky. It is currently in its nascent stage, but its technological development trajectory is steep, its social coordination is good, and it has the potential for extremely rapid leaps. Based on its development speed and creative thinking, there is a 73.8% probability that it will develop into a regional destabilizing factor within the next 0.5 to 1 standard galactic cycle, and there is a possibility that it will conflict with the interests of the Weaving Network."

"Based on Article 11 of the Potential Risk Control Agreement, we recommend implementing a bud pruning program!"

The decision-making process was free of arguments, hesitation, and even emotional fluctuations; it consisted only of the exchange and collision of pure information flows, and of a consensus based on cold logic and long-term risk calculations.

For the web weavers, the uncertainty of a neighbor who has just learned to walk but runs at an astonishing speed is itself a threat. In the dark forest of the universe, they are used to extinguishing the flames as soon as they appear, rather than waiting for them to spread.

The resolution to eliminate the network was reached within the network hub at a speed exceeding the speed of light.

The execution command is issued.

This time, it was no longer a tentative exploration, but a clean and swift extermination.

Once they confirmed that the Earth civilization did not possess the capability to pose a threat to them, they did not hesitate any longer.

At one of the external ports of the network hub, the spatial structure begins to undergo subtle distortions.

It's not efficient to send out a large fleet; even for them, the fleet's speed is only 0.4 times the speed of light, and it would be decades before they reached the solar system.

A carefully calibrated stream of superluminal particles spanning tens of light-years was activated.

This stream of particles carries enormous energy and is designed to produce an extreme resonance effect with specific nuclear fusion reactions inside stars. Like an invisible spear, it is not aimed at the blue planet itself, but at the lighthouse of the solar system, the star that gives life and energy to the blue planet, the Sun.

……

On the frigid frontier of the solar system, beyond Neptune's swaying icy rings, across the silent plains of the Kuiper Belt composed of ice fragments and rocks, all the way to the top of the heliosphere, the void frontier where the solar wind and interstellar medium finally clash and annihilate.

Here lies the end of sunlight, the limit to which the final echo of home can reach. Voyager-γ, humanity's farthest nerve ending reaching into deep space, silently sails here.

Long before ALX flew past Earth, China had already dispatched 10,000 deep-space monitoring stations to sail around the solar system, and Voyager-γ was one ten-thousandth of them.

This outpost, built on the ancient Voyager probe concept but equipped with the latest generation of quantum sensing and fusion energy, has one of its core missions to monitor all unnatural energy fluctuations in the universe.

It is not in the traditional shape of a spaceship, but rather resembles a complex and somewhat strange metal spider web.

At the center is the ancient chemical fuel main engine, long since shut down and now serving only as a structural support. Around it extend three enormous mesh antennas inlaid with superconducting materials, like ears that capture invisible ripples.

Further out are thin solar panels, as thin as cicada wings. Even in deep space far from the sun, they can still absorb energy from other stars to power themselves. In addition, there are several spherical precision sensing modules that rely on miniature fusion reactors for power.

Here, all is silent except for the eternal, near-absolute-zero hiss of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and the occasional, rhythmic heartbeat from a distant pulsar that brushes past the sensor.

The monitoring station's system calmly processes this almost blank data stream at a frequency of billions of times per second, year after year.

Its existence is to listen to the breath of the universe, and even more so to guard against unnatural footsteps that may come from the dark forest.

Suddenly, not with sound, but with a violent, pure torrent of information, it instantly overwhelmed the Traveler-γ's core processing matrix in an incomprehensible way.

The main sensor of that highly sophisticated quantum fluctuation sensing network did not record any energy patterns it was familiar with.

It was not a faint signal of comet evaporation, nor the afterglow of a supernova explosion, nor any known high-energy particle storm.

This stream is too clean, eerily clean.

Its energy spectrum exhibits sharp, artificially sculpted peaks, and its energy carrier mode is so efficient that it violates known physical decay models, as if the noise of the universe has been forcibly smoothed out by an invisible hand, leaving only a channel carrying a pure intention of destruction.

What triggered the highest level of alarm instantly at the core logic of Traveler-γ was the initial trajectory backtracking analysis.

The source point was located tens of light-years away in a star field that humanity had never explored in detail, and the propagation speed... The model kept giving errors, and repeated calculations coldly pointed to one conclusion: faster than the speed of light!
"An unknown superluminal particle stream has been detected."

"Energy signature: Unnatural. Threat level: Unassessable."

"Source coordinates: xxxx, distance: approximately 56.3 light-years."

"Propagation speed: violates current physical models, preliminary estimate is 17.2 times the speed of light (error ±0.05)."

"Target trajectory projection: (

……

……

Pointing to: the sun!

Voyager-γ issued an early warning to Earth immediately, attempting to analyze the structure of the particle stream, looking for any possible harmonics, codes, or... weaknesses. However, the structure of the data was too profound, like trying to analyze atoms with the naked eye.

It attempted to send the most urgent quantum warning, containing all the raw data, to its home planet—a home that appears as a mere pale blue dot to its sensors.

At the very moment the information began to be compiled and transmitted, an even stronger information component, originating from the particle stream itself, forcibly intervened in the Traveler-γ system, like a persistent infection.

At the last moment, Voyager-Gamma's sensors recorded abnormal data from the direction of the Sun, showing an exponential surge in energy readings. The star that gave it its initial energy and guided its course was about to be ignited and weaponized.

Then, everything fell silent.

Voyager-γ was not destroyed; it remains intact, floating at the edge of the heliosphere.

But the superluminal stream of particles had already passed it and was heading straight for the solar system.

The universe it listened to, that familiar background noise, seemed to have been permanently polluted by something.

It lost all quantum connection with its home planet, and only a deathly silence remained on the regular radio channels, a silence more profound and complete than any silence it had experienced during its decades of voyage.

It's like a sentinel in the darkness witnessing a deadly arrow hurtling towards its homeland, unable to cry out or stop it, only able to record, in solitude and eternity, the silence of that moment and the chilling malice from deep space.

……

In the Tiangong Laboratory, Chen Hui stood in front of the main control console and fell into a long silence.

The seventh full-scale simulation failed, and the energy overflow value once again broke through the safety threshold. His idea was brilliant, but it didn't seem to be something that could be achieved at present.

"Perhaps we should try a simpler solution first."

Even He Peng, who had always stood firmly on Chen Hui's side, couldn't help but have second thoughts.

He had worked with Chen Hui on many research projects, but no project had ever been able to hold Chen Hui's attention for more than two years. This had never happened before since Chen Hui became famous.

Whether it's a problem that has stumped mathematicians worldwide for over a century, or the dream of flying to the stars that no one has been able to achieve for thousands of years, nothing has stumped Chen Hui.

But now, they have failed thousands of times and have been stuck here for more than two years.

Chen Hui stared at the waterfall of data on the screen, his eyes flashing with countless complex and profound symbols.

He devised countless solutions in his mind, but they all failed before the cold mathematical logic of the universe. He could unify forces, but he could not get the universe to accept this modified state. It was like he wrote the most perfect legal provisions, but he could not get everything in the world to abide by them.

beep...beep...beep...

Suddenly, a rapid alarm sounded throughout the laboratory.

Qian Lao's secretary, Xiao Jiang, rushed into the laboratory in a panic, bringing Chen Hui a huge piece of bad news, like a stone that had been hanging in his chest finally falling to the ground.

The Traveler-Gamma monitoring station has lost contact due to a failed heartbeat detection!

(End of this chapter)