The Wallfacer: Everyone wants to break through my wall.

According to the previous standards, at this point the directing department should have ruled that the Trisolaran fleet had won, based on the reason that "the human fleet was fleeing," and ended the virtual space exercise.

"The directing staff said they haven't abandoned human civilization," said another member of the Trisolaran fleet, who had already informed the directing staff of this situation.

The members who had complained earlier were stunned and asked incredulously, "If running away like this, watching us destroy the solar system, isn't that escapism? Then what is escapism?"

Not only this member, but other members of the Trisolaran fleet also found it difficult to accept.

The member who had previously reported the matter to the directing department explained, "Their spaceship has blueprints for a gene bank and cloning machines that can carry tens of thousands of people. Given enough materials, it is not impossible for them to rebuild human civilization in other parts of the universe using 3D printers."

"When gathered together, we are a blazing fire; when scattered, we are a sky full of stars. This is the response the human fleet gave to the directing department, and the directing department has accepted it."

Within the Trisolaran fleet, someone let out a cold snort, burning with anger.

"Hmph! Moving at 99.99% of the speed of light, and still using an extreme design that doesn't slow down—their gene bank and cloning machine blueprints on their spaceship are nothing but excuses to deceive people! They're on the run!"

Not only him, but all the members of the Trisolaran fleet believed that this was just an excuse for the human fleet to cover up their true intentions. The ships that the fleeing players were piloting showed no signs of slowing down, as could be seen from their structure.

"What is our next move? Those ships that are escaping at 99.99% of the speed of light are still manageable; we can eventually catch up with them. But we can no longer pursue the human fleet ships that have escaped into the black hole."

"Black holes are the most extreme things in the universe. We have no ability to destroy them, and even if we get inside, we can no longer destroy enemy ships that entered the black hole before us."

Someone asked the commander of the Trisolaran fleet with a helpless expression, "These people have a very professional understanding of black holes. They can't be completely ignorant. If the enemy hides in a black hole, it means that all their weapons will be ineffective."

The ground state spacetime that destroyed the solar system is also ineffective against black holes; they cannot harm their adversaries inside a black hole by any means.

After a moment of contemplation, the commander issued a new decision.

"Don't worry, there's nothing inside the black hole. The fact that the human fleet has escaped into the black hole means that the gene bank and cloning blueprints carrying tens of thousands of people on the ships are all meaningless. Civilization cannot be rebuilt, and their actions will be classified as an escape by the directing department. We will win the final victory."

"So, we can just ignore those enemy ships that escaped into the black hole?" someone asked.

The commander replied, "Yes, just hunt down those enemy ships that can escape at 99.99% the speed of light, and don't give them a chance to rebuild."

In fact, the commander wanted to pay attention, but unfortunately, on a physical level, no matter how hard the Trisolaran fleet tried, they couldn't do it. They could only focus their attention on the human fleet outside the black hole.

……

Sixteen thousand light-years away from the Milky Way, a spaceship is traveling at 99.99% of the speed of light.

“Sad Wind, do you still remember what we initially agreed on?” Zuanren suddenly asked.

"What's the matter?"

The sad wind, who was playing Tetris, was stunned.

The Zaunite said, "It's about what we should do next after we leave the Milky Way with 99.99% of our strength, eventually reach our respective destinations, or reach a safe zone."

Beifeng carefully recalled what happened before entering the virtual space exercise.

"I remember it was... to increase the human population and then rebuild human civilization in order to avoid being labeled as fleeing."

“I was just thinking about it. If we hide inside a black hole, and there’s no material we can use, it means we won’t be able to reproduce humans or rebuild human civilization,” said the Zuan man.

"We're alright, but I'm afraid others will also choose to hide in the black hole. If that happens, the directing department will definitely label us as fleeing, not as a strategic retreat."

Thanks to the reminder from the people of Zuan, Beifeng also noticed the problem.

"Oh no... what should we do then?"

The Zuan man replied, "Let's modify the spaceship first. The galactic black hole has an accretion disk, where the material is highly concentrated. After the spaceship retrieves a large amount of material there, it can then enter the black hole."

"Why can't we start salvaging the materials now? Why wait until we're near the galactic black hole before we start collecting them?" asked the bewildered man.

"We are currently traveling between galaxies at 99.99% of the speed of light. If the speed were to decrease, how long would it take us to cross a distance of tens of thousands of light-years?" the Zuan asked speechlessly.

The span between galaxies is measured in units of hundreds of thousands of light-years. If they cannot maintain their current speed of 99.99% of the speed of light, and the length contraction effect is reduced, who knows how long it would take them to cross the vast scale between galaxies.

Just as the Zaunites had initially predicted, their ship slowed down due to interstellar matter, and as they plunged into a galaxy, their speed dropped from 99.99% of the speed of light to 10% of the speed of light.

The Zaunites and the Gale found a star system on the edge of the world to settle down temporarily, and then began to build infrastructure and clone it.

Cloning in the virtual world is actually a form of resurrection; fallen human fleet teammates are gradually resurrected by the Zaunites and then put into infrastructure development.

Chapter 201 A Tiny, Reclusive Civilization

While the Trisolaran fleet was still in a very distant place, the Zaunites spent one or two hundred years building a large number of antimatter production facilities and placing them in the orbit of the sun.

After gathering enough antimatter, the Zaunites and the Winds of Sorrow set sail again for the black hole at the center of the galaxy, while the rest expanded, colonizing other star systems to obtain more antimatter and continuing their original escape strategy.

As time passed, the last batch of human ships outside the black hole were destroyed by the Trisolaran fleet. The Trisolaran fleet then requested the directing department to end the virtual space exercise. The remaining human warships hid in the black hole. They no longer had the ability to rebuild their civilization. Humanity had failed.

However, the director's answer stunned the Trisolaran fleet: the human side had rebuilt a new human civilization inside the black hole.

Inside the black hole, they used the spaceship's computers to form a data platform, entering a semi-dormant state where their minds were immersed in the network, while their bodies remained in the incubation tank, living out their natural lifespan.

With a small nuclear fusion reactor, it wouldn't be a problem to supply this virtual human civilization inside the black hole for hundreds of thousands of years.

The hundreds of thousands of years inside a black hole are enough for the universe to experience heat death countless times.

The entire virtual space exercise has reached a stalemate.

Because of this incident, the high command of the Space Force is debating endlessly: should the reconstruction of human civilization inside the black hole be considered a draw or a victory for the human fleet?

"I believe that the Trisolaran fleet failed to annihilate humanity, let alone completely destroy human civilization. Therefore, this can be considered a failure for the Trisolaran fleet, and the human fleet won this virtual space exercise."

The Space Force leadership, which supports the human fleet's victory, has stated its position.

The other side countered sharply, "I disagree. They are merely fleeing, a group of refugees trapped in a black hole. Once humanity enters a black hole, it is destined never to leave. The entire civilization is forever trapped within it. As this rebuilt civilization grows and expands, its demand for resources will inevitably increase, but their material remains constant. Even if it continues to the end in the most rational way, all the material that carries this civilization will become unusable subatomic particles. Can a civilization destined to have no hope be considered rebuilt?"

Civilizations that hide in black holes are destined for destruction. The entropy within the civilization will continue to increase, but there is no new matter inside the black hole for the civilization to transfer and dilute the entropy.

Therefore, when the entropy of a civilization accumulates to an extreme, that civilization will inevitably collapse, and the entire civilization will perish.

This new human civilization, rebuilt by hiding inside a black hole, can only last for a few hundred thousand years at most. After that, this civilization, immersed in a small world, will inevitably face destruction.

However, this reasoning was insufficient to completely convince the Space Force leadership, who supported the human side.

"But the universe is also destined for heat death, and human civilization will face the same fate outside a black hole. Inside a black hole, the length contraction effect will allow this rebuilt human civilization to last much longer than civilizations outside the universe, until the black hole can no longer sustain itself and explodes. Human civilization will continue to exist until then."

The objector countered, "What's the point of such continuation? How much meaningful time can civilization be extended using black holes? It's nothing more than a hibernation pod for civilization."

The commander of the Asian Fleet, who was chairing the meeting, coughed lightly as he spoke.

"I think we should get back on track. No matter how much we deny it, the civilization that the human fleet rebuilt inside the black hole, even if it was a hopeless civilization, was still a real human civilization. That is an undeniable fact."

"On the other hand, the Trisolaran fleet is destined to be unable to threaten human civilization. Without entering the black hole, the Trisolaran fleet is destined to be submerged in the long river of cosmic history. Even if the Trisolaran fleet chases into the black hole, due to the spacetime environment inside the black hole, they will never know where the enemy ships that entered the black hole before them are. Under the infinitely stretched spacetime, they will be unable to get close to the enemy."

"Objectively speaking, the Trisolaran fleet failed to achieve their mission of destroying human civilization. Although the human fleet performed poorly, they achieved their goal of ensuring the continuation of human civilization, which is destined to last longer than the universe itself."

"The Trisolaran fleet failed, but the human fleet did not. The outcome is obvious."

The commander-in-chief's words greatly encouraged the high-ranking officials who had originally supported the human side's victory, and their views were endorsed.

At this moment, the commander-in-chief of the European fleet also spoke up, "I need to remind everyone that if we declare the human fleet the winner just like that, in future virtual space exercises, the human fleet will only need to hide in the black hole, and the Trisolaran fleet will face defeat. The meaning of virtual space exercises will disappear. It will no longer be a place for humans to deduce space war strategies and tactics, but just a game that simply encourages escapism."

"I think it's acceptable to declare the human fleet the victorious, but the directing staff should be required to declare all warships that fall into black holes as dead in future virtual space exercises. This extreme strategy of escaping into black holes cannot be a widely adopted strategic idea in the human world."

No one raised any objections. Although they ultimately won against the Trisolaran fleet by escaping into the black hole, it was all too tragic.

It's fine in the virtual world, it's just a strategic simulation. But if it were to be done in reality, most people in the space force would not want to do it this way.

The decision made by the Space Force's top brass was relayed to Lin Feng through the directing department.

"Oh……"

Lin Feng simply gave a curt reply.

"You don't object?" Edith asked, somewhat surprised.

Lin Feng looked puzzled. "Why would I object? Players are quick-witted, they can still come up with... oh, no, they can still come up with a lot of new ideas. If there were a clear strategy, players wouldn't be as enthusiastic as they are now."

"But some people have already given up, and many players have lost interest in space battles," Edith reminded them with some concern.

After being crushed by the Trisolaran fleet for so long, the player community's desire to defeat their opponents has diminished, as has their enthusiasm for weapons.

"It's alright, this is part of the plan."

Lin Feng waved his hand dismissively.

As he spoke, Lin Feng sent an email to Edith's personal terminal. The email contained detailed information about the sub-light-speed spaceships used by the players in this virtual space exercise.

Although this is a virtual product, its reference value is not low.

"Giving this to Davis and his team should be of great help to the sub-light speed spaceship we are currently developing."

"Once we complete the design of this spacecraft, our pace toward the outside of the solar system will accelerate, and it will only take five or six years to reach the nearby Trisolaran system."

Edith's eyes lit up as she recalled the recent giant magnetic orbital engineering project, which could achieve sub-light speed travel without requiring large amounts of antimatter.

She nodded solemnly.

"Ok."

Chapter 202 We Have to Pay for the Taylor Group Again

At the Solar System Fleet Joint Conference, Lin Feng did not participate. Edith was ordered by Lin Feng to represent him at the conference.

The meeting, which Lin Feng did not attend, was much quieter and more polite than usual.

"Next, we will address the issue of the 'Giant Rail Array Project' proposed by the Taylor Group." The rotating chairman tapped the gavel lightly, releasing a document.

Representatives of human forces, just looking at the name of this project makes your scalp tingle and your temples throb.

The representative of the Mexican space city rubbed his forehead and glanced at Edith, saying, "Obviously, this is another extremely massive engineering project, and we'll have to foot the bill for the Taylor Group's wildly imaginative ideas again, won't we?"

The fact that the Taylor system labeled the project as 'giant' and even discussed it at the Solar System Fleet Joint Conference meant that the construction required far exceeded the Taylor system's resource limits.

When it comes to the Solar System Fleet Joint Conference, what other reason could there be? It's simply because the Taylor system can't handle such a large project on its own and needs to ask them for money and resources.

What is the value of this project?

León, a representative of autonomous space cities that gained independence from Spain, is a prime example.

This project reminded the representatives of various human forces of the giant ships of the past. Although the giant ships were extremely expensive, they were indeed very meaningful projects.

For the current project, they plan to first assess the resource consumption before making any decisions.

Edith explained, "Its essence is a series of magnetic ring structures standing in space. When these magnetic rings are arranged in a straight line, they form a giant magnetic track that can accelerate the spacecraft. Theoretically, as long as there are enough magnetic rings, the spacecraft will be able to reach a speed close to the speed of light without any fuel."

"The spaceship's engines only need to decelerate. After being given near-light speed by the giant magnetic orbit, it gradually reduces its speed until it reaches its destination, at which point it can travel freely within the destination star system."

"This is a solar system version of a space elevator. If it can be built, the cost for humans to travel to other star systems will decrease, both in terms of time and material costs."

Edith skillfully gave the representatives a brief overview of the main uses of the giant magnetic track.