Everyone's playing Red Giant? I, Black Hole, devour everything!

The Seventh Star Sector, the Black Hole Legion's assembly area.

Su Li was chatting excitedly with Lu Xuejian on the communication channel, her voice filled with barely suppressed excitement.

"Xuejian, what do you think we should eat after this battle? I've heard the braised pork at that private restaurant is especially delicious, but I'd like to try crab roe tofu, and what's that called again?"

"Oh, right, Longjing shrimp!"

Lu Xuejian's voice remained as calm as ever: "Didn't you say last time you wanted to eat him out of house and home? Why are you only thinking about these few dishes now?"

"Oh, take your time. It's no fun to go broke in one go," Su Li said with a grin.

"And as you saw, with his frigid temperament, it's already a miracle that he agreed to treat me to dinner."

"What if I ask for too much and scare him away?"

Lu Xuejian paused for a second, then said softly, "He won't run away."

"Xuejian, you talk like you know him so well." Su Li's tone suddenly held a hint of amusement. "Has something already happened between you two?"

Lu Xuejian's ears burned from what she said, but before she could retort, Lin Tian's voice switched to the channel.

"Stop talking, let's go."

Su Li chuckled, and the relativistic jets at the two poles suddenly surged, propelling the entire miniature black hole forward like an arrow released from a bow.

Lu Xuejian followed closely behind.

Lin Tian's primordial quasar was at the very back.

The gravitational field, like a large net cast out, firmly protected the two miniature black holes within its perception range.

……

Three hours later, the first squad of the Amaterasu Society of the Sakura Country arrived at the outer perimeter of the resource point.

The team leader was one of the vice presidents of Amaterasu-sha, Tatsuya Murakami.

His neutron star has a mass of 3.1 times that of the Sun, close to the Oppenheimer limit, and has reached the limit in the neutron star path.

There are even rumors within Amaterasu-sha that if Japan hadn't yet found a way to break through the upper limit of neutron stars, Ryuya Murakami would have been Japan's first black hole observer long ago.

At this moment, Murakami Ryuya is standing about one light-year away from the resource point, using a gravitational field to probe the structure of the dark matter halo in front of him.

"Murakami-senpai, the probe data is in," a subordinate reported over the communication channel.

"The density of the core region of this dark matter halo has reached more than five thousand times that of a standard star sector, and it gets denser towards the center."

"If our neutron star were to force its way in, it would probably be torn apart by gravitational tides."

Tatsuya Murakami frowned.

Five thousand times denser.

The number was even more exaggerated than he had expected.

But since we're already here, we can't go back empty-handed.

"Don't venture deep into the core area. Deploy your looting formation in the middle layer of the dark matter halo," Murakami Ryuya ordered. "Our target isn't the core, but the outer dark matter. Grab as much as you can before the black hole arrives, then retreat!"

"Hi!"

Sixteen hundred neutron stars began to unfold in a fan shape, frantically devouring matter in the middle layer of the dark matter halo.

Tatsuya Murakami himself was also busy.

His neutron star chose a relatively low-density gap and slowly approached the inner layer of the dark matter halo.

He wasn't looking for a risk; he just wanted to see what was hidden at the core of this dark matter halo.

Then, he saw it.

At the very core of the dark matter halo, in the region where all detectors failed due to excessive density, his gravitational field detected an extremely strange signal.

That is not a natural celestial body.

That was some kind of unnatural structure.

Its shape is very regular, like an elongated hexagonal prism, with its surface covered with densely packed symbols.

Murakami Ryuya didn't recognize any of those symbols.

"This is... an ancient ruin?!"

Murakami Tatsuya's pupils contracted sharply.

Almost instinctively, he wanted to turn his neutron star around and move closer to the hexagram.

But at that very moment, another signal was detected at the edge of his gravitational field.

A signal he never wanted to encounter again in his life.

Deep and heavy, like a death knell tolling from the depths of time and space.

That's a black hole.

Murakami Tatsuya's face turned pale instantly.

"How did they get here so fast?!"

"Attention everyone!! Lin Tian's Black Hole Legion is here! Immediately shrink your formation! Prepare to retreat!!!"

Murakami Tatsuya's reaction was remarkably swift.

The instant he detected the black hole signal, he almost instinctively gave the order to retreat.

In a very short time, the 1,600 neutron stars began to shrink their formation, suddenly curling up at the edge of the dark matter halo.

All of this constitutes a perfect emergency evacuation, according to any textbook of space tactics.

However, it was of no use.

An immense, indescribable gravitational field descended from the sky, like a fishing net cast by a god.

Sixteen hundred neutron stars were frozen in place at the same instant.

"What's going on?! My celestial body—it's immobilized!"

"The gravitational field strength has exceeded the limit! The detector readings are all in red!"

"It's a quasar! It's Lin Tian's quasar! It's here—it's right above us!"

Terrified screams filled the communication channels of Amaterasu.

Murakami Ryuya desperately activated his neutron star, trying to break free from that restraint.

No matter how he adjusted the frequency of the gravitational field or increased the output power of the pulse, it was all in vain.

"How could... how could it be so fast?"

Tatsuya Murakami's voice was trembling.

A faint voice came from the communication channel.

"Is it fast? I think it's alright."

That was Lin Tian's voice.

In the void, the quasar slowly emerged.

Its light was gradually reduced by gravitational lensing, no longer illuminating the entire star sector as before, but simply hanging there quietly.

Beside it, there are two miniature black holes.

It was Su Li and Lu Xuejian.

"Murakami Tatsuya, right?" Lin Tian's voice rang out again, with a hint of amusement in his tone. "Bringing 1,600 neutron stars to seize resource points, quite a move."

Murakami Ryuya gritted his teeth.

He had witnessed Lin Tian's massacre in the Seventh Star Sector and knew how terrifying the gravitational field of a quasar could be.

But he just couldn't figure it out—from the core of the Seventh Star Sector to this resource point, even with a speed-up card that lasts for billions of years, it would still take at least six hours!

Amaterasu-sha is only three hours away from the border.

He had clearly calculated the time difference, and planned to plunder the outer dark matter before Lin Tian arrived and then retreat calmly.

But now, Lin Tian was standing right in front of him.

"You... how could you be so fast?" Murakami Ryuya almost blurted out. "Even with a 10 billion-year acceleration card, it would take at least six hours to get here from the Seventh Star Sector! How could you possibly have arrived in three hours?!"

Lin Tian chuckled: "You're right. Using speed-up cards to travel is subject to the limitations of the universe's will. Even a speed-up card with a speed of billions of years can't break through its design limit to accelerate a route."

Murakami Ryuu was also puzzled: "Then how exactly did you do that?"

Lin Tian spoke slowly.

"Because I didn't rely solely on the speed-up card."

"A black hole itself is the strongest gravitational field in the universe. It can warp the surrounding spacetime, greatly compressing the space in front of it and stretching the space behind it."

"In this way, the equivalent travel speed can far exceed the speed of light."

"With the addition of the acceleration card, the sailing speed can completely exceed the design limit of the acceleration card."

"This is called a warp drive. You probably haven't heard of it, have you?"