The stars, but they become the gray wind

But from the perspective of Fesenia, the adjutant whose head was covered in blood beside Kemp, the scene was completely different. The red-haired girl with a halo on her head suddenly appeared in the command center of the fortress in a flash of light. She tilted her head to glance at Kemp, who was in a trance and on the verge of death, and then stomped her feet lightly. All the burning flames, smoke, gas, and even the leaked coolant in the fortress were instantly frozen. Even the small-scale explosions that were constantly occurring in various places in the fortress stopped at once.

Under the action of the von Neumann self-replicating machine, which was only the size of an elementary particle, the molecular thermal motion in most areas of the fortress was suddenly slowed down, and the entire fortress began to freeze.

"Yes, it's exciting, but shouldn't this boring farce end? I'm feeling a little suffocated watching this farce from so far away."

The girl snapped her right fingers, and a substance like silver sand appeared on the wound on Kemp's body that was still bleeding, directly sealing the wound.

"Who... are you?" Fesenya found that the wound on her forehead seemed to have stopped bleeding.

"You don't need to know for now. I just want to ask you a question. Do you want to protect this fortress and everyone inside?"

You just need to answer yes or no.”

"Of course I do...but...who are you?"

"I can help you protect this fortress and everyone inside, but... there's no such thing as a free lunch."

"What do you want to do?" Fesenya had a bad feeling about the guy in front of him who had unknown origins.

"The main point is that the collection should be rewarded with 弍咎邻V散绮衣(三)."

The girl snapped her fingers again. At the same time, all the soldiers and officers in the fortress who were hurriedly fleeing towards the escape pods were horrified to find that a strange flash of light suddenly appeared around their bodies. Then, thousands of officers and soldiers were directly teleported to the cargo hold and outside the medical room of the retreating Imperial fleet transport ship tens of thousands of kilometers away. The conscripts and the orderly who managed the warehouse looked at the thousands of people who fell to the ground collectively, covered in dust and injuries, because of the unexpected teleportation, and were at a loss as to what to do.

"Okay, I've saved your life, and I'll take the reward."

There was a sudden and violent tremor in the fortress beneath Fesenia's feet, and he hurried to check on Kemp's condition.

"Why are you panicking? He's not going to die yet. Seriously... that pile of liquid metal outside is too much of a nuisance. I'd better just peel it off first."

"Xixi, come and give me a hand!"

I don't want to lug around a bunch of liquid metal that looks like garbage.

"We're in space anyway, so just throw it in any direction. If you really don't like it, you can use the gravity control function of the tractor beam to compress it."

"Ok."

Fesenia, who was holding the unconscious Kemp, was completely unable to understand the situation. The girl in front of her with light wings and a halo on her head did not look like a human at all. The control center was already covered with ice, which seemed to be the work of the girl.

Both the control center of Iserlohn Fortress and the Imperial fleet evacuating the battlefield stared in horror at the huge silver-white ship that suddenly appeared in the center of the battlefield.

The silver-white giant ship used some invisible force to grab the Vulture City Fortress weighing 40 trillion tons, and the liquid metal covering the outside of the Vulture City Fortress was quickly peeled off from the surface of the fortress as if it was extracted by an invisible pipe, and condensed into a large sphere on the giant ship that was nearly three kilometers long.

Chapter 242: The Star Ring (6000 words)

In the Iserlohn Corridors, a scene unfolded that was unbelievable to both the Alliance and the Empire. The massive Vulture City was being towed by an unseen force, a ship nearly three kilometers long. While this vessel was undoubtedly a giant for both the Alliance and the Empire, it was still pitifully small compared to the 45-kilometer diameter of the Vulture City Fortress. Yet, this ship, so tiny compared to the fortress itself, was capable of dragging the 40-megaton fortress along.

The tractor beam acted like a straw, siphoning the liquid metal protective layer on the surface of the fortress. More than trillions of tons of liquid metal were quickly peeled off from the surface of the fortress, revealing the bare fortress body underneath. Under the influence of gravity, the siphoned-out liquid metal from the fortress took on a standard spherical shape next to the spacecraft.

A tractor beam with a strong directional gravitational field was irradiated on the spheres made of liquid metal. The liquid metal spheres began to be compressed under the action of the directional gravitational field. In order to save time, Kalisi directly turned on the directional compression gravitational field of the tractor beam to the maximum. In an instant, 7000 trillion times the gravity acted on the liquid metal spheres. Under the action of the trillion times stronger gravity, the volume of the liquid metal spheres began to shrink rapidly, until finally, trillions of tons of liquid metal extracted from the Vulture City Fortress were compressed into a small ball with a diameter of only a few centimeters under the action of trillions of times the gravity - a small ball of extremely dense neutron degenerate matter.

The Allied and Imperial fleets on the battlefield witnessed this incredible, even horrifying scene. The liquid metal on the entire fortress's surface was drained in a matter of minutes. Trillions of tons of liquid metal were compressed before their eyes into a tiny ball of neutron-degenerate matter only a few centimeters in diameter. If such unprecedented means and weapons were used on Iserlohn, also a fortress, what would be the consequences? Thinking of this, Yang Weili silently took off his hat.

On the Time-Like Infinity, Kalisi was dealing with the unstable mass of neutron degenerate matter. This directional strong gravitational field generated by the tractor beam for compressing objects can create hundreds of billions to trillions of times the gravity in a short period of time, compressing all matter within the range of the tractor beam into a neutron degenerate state. However, the neutron degenerate matter violently squeezed out by this method is not stable in nature. Just like the neutron degenerate matter inside a neutron star, it will explode immediately after escaping the extreme gravitational environment of the neutron star. The neutron degenerate matter created by this simple and crude method also has the same problem. As long as Kalisi turns off the tractor beam now, the small piece of neutron degenerate matter with a diameter of only a few centimeters will explode immediately, producing a gamma-ray burst and a terrifyingly destructive explosion that is no less than a small-scale supernova explosion.

Kalisi released a small amount of von Neumann self-replicators stored on the ship into the gravitational duct of the tractor beam. The Grey Wind self-replicator, which was only close to the size of a quark, came into contact with a small ball of neutron degenerate matter and began to adjust its stability. The pure neutrons that made up the degenerate matter were adjusted to a zero-element material that could exist stably under normal temperature and pressure. After confirming that this piece of stabilized zero-element matter would not explode immediately due to the closure of the directional strong gravitational field of the tractor beam, Kalisi directly threw such a small piece of zero-element matter into the cargo hold of the spacecraft through the tractor beam.

"Okay, now that the garbage is disposed of, it's time to deal with this thing itself."

The fortress that had lost its power floated in the vacuum, facing Iserlohn in the distance. The high-powered tractor beam of the Time-Like Infinity easily dragged the fortress that had lost its power and moved slowly behind its own hull. The fortress's mass of tens of megatons seemed to be non-existent in front of this small spaceship.

"Those 12 engines at the back are too ugly. Let's remove them." Aze said to Kalisi.

"I agree. It looks like a shower head, and it's really ugly."

"It's better to just cut those things off first."

"I've already sent a drone over there."

A large number of engineering drones flew out from the cargo hold under the Timelike Infinity and approached the 12 propulsion engine devices at the tail of the Vulture City Fortress. Eleven of them were still intact. Green beams shone on the shut down engines, tearing and separating the main body of the engine at the atomic level. The 12 main propulsion engines were quickly cut off from the tail of the fortress and thrown into space under the action of inertia. The 12 engines that a country had spent several months installing and debugging became a pile of useless space junk.

At Iserlohn Fortress, the entire group, led by Kageron, watched with utter horror. Most of the Allied commanders had dismissed the alien vessel as nothing more than a common warship equipped with some kind of advanced jump drive, its armament unremarkable. And now, Kageron felt a strong desire to slap those officers and generals who had treated it that way—you call this thing's armament unremarkable? Just based on its performance, a single vessel like this could have destroyed the entire Iserlohn Fortress, draining trillions of tons of liquid metal from its surface in minutes, and doing so with ease. Such a weight and volume of liquid metal, forcibly compressed into a tiny ball of pathological baryonic matter—this kind of thing, let alone Kageron, even the normally effortless Schinkob, could have swallowed an egg with his mouth wide open at the sight.

"This is..." Mulai looked at the screen in silence.

"It might be some kind of gravity control technology. It's indeed a small piece of real neutron star material, and they seem to have a way to keep it stable. Otherwise, the moment it's put into the spacecraft, it will explode into a fireball.

Yang dusted off his hat and explained to his subordinates present.

"I've always suspected that their technology is much more advanced than what they showed us. It seems that what happened today has proven my suspicions correct, right?"

"It's a good thing they didn't sell this technology to the Empire or the Alliance. If such a terrifying technology were used on Iserlohn Fortress or any similar military facility, it would render the once impenetrable fortress vulnerable."

.........

However, although this scene was too shocking for the Alliance and the Empire, it was just an ordinary thing for Aze. The planetary fission process of Sky Star was much more intense than this. In the end, the core of the entire planet would often collapse under the directional gravitational field of the ultra-high-power tractor beam, let alone an artificial celestial body of only 40 megatons. For most Sky Star spacecraft with an output power comparable to that of a star, the tractor beam power on board could easily tear off continental plates with a diameter of hundreds of kilometers on the planet and compress them into neutron degenerate matter, although this behavior was almost of no practical use under normal circumstances and would interfere with the process of fissioning a planet.

Furthermore, degenerate matter created purely by strong gravity often presents instability issues. Such degenerate matter often requires artificial manipulation before it can be used as a usable material. For example, during the fission of the planets of the Sky Star, large amounts of electron-degenerate matter are often obtained in the planetary core under extremely high temperature and pressure. If this electron-degenerate matter is not promptly processed, it is likely to explode directly after losing the high temperature and high pressure environment, decaying into various conventional heavy elements.

This process itself does not cause any problems, but the process of electron-degenerate matter decaying into conventional heavy elements will inevitably cause some waste of matter and energy. For Sky Star, which likes to utilize all the matter and energy of the entire planet extremely efficiently, it should try to avoid unnecessary losses. Therefore, in the process of collecting planetary cracking materials, those purely automated composite colony ships will maintain extreme pressure and gravitational environment on the planet's core before destroying and hollowing out the core of the entire planet to ensure that the electron-degenerate matter in the planet's core will not produce an uncontrolled explosion.

Aze had other ideas about the Vulture City Fortress. There was nothing around the planet in the Void Gate galaxy that was surrounded by the Barrier Star Ring. In Aze's opinion, it was too monotonous. Aze planned to add a small satellite to it as an extra decoration.

The small satellite chosen as the decoration of the Void Gate System was Vulture City. Rather than letting the Empire waste it as a disposable artillery shell, Aze would transform it into a celestial artwork, just as a small practice in artistic celestial engineering. Although it was far inferior to the daily works of the celestial engineering artists on Sky Star, Aze had no intention of competing with those artistic celestial engineering designers and sisters. She just wanted to add some decoration to the bare planet in the Void Gate System.

For example, now she has begun to order tens of thousands of drones to carve some very regular geometric patterns and lines on the bare surface of the Vulture City, which has been drained of the liquid metal ocean.

"It's worth coming all this way here. I'm not very good at handling things that are too big. Those little owls on Kagakula are more suitable for me."

…………

At the same time, on the distant planet Kaga Kula, Kra sneezed, and the silly little owl shook his head.

She looked around and didn't feel any cold wind blowing over her. She raised her right paw and scratched her head in confusion.

"It's not cold, it's strange, why did you sneeze suddenly?"

"That winged goddess should be back on time, right?"

"The information you brought back is truly unbelievable." In the communication screen, Reinhardt said as he looked at Kemp, who was lying on the hospital bed with bandages all over his body and a respirator on his face, and had just woken up from a coma.

"I am incompetent. Not only did I fail to capture the Irren Fortress, I also lost the Vulture City Fortress. I am willing to accept the punishment."

"You did your job well, being able to save most of the fleet under those circumstances. You didn't even flinch during this battle. You were bravely wounded in the fight, so I won't hold you accountable for now."

"Thank you, sir. I will definitely keep it in mind."

Reinhard closed the communication interface and turned to review the footage captured by the Imperial Fleet on the battlefield before its retreat. The liquid metal ocean on the fortress had been drained and compressed into a small ball of neutron star matter. The enemy also carved a large number of geometric artistic patterns and designs on the surface of the Vulture City Fortress, which they were taking away as a reward. In exchange, the enemy seemed to have easily rescued thousands of officers and soldiers in the Vulture City Fortress, as well as Kemp and the other two.

Seeing that their most advanced fortress was casually modified by the other party like a toy, even Reinhardt's expression was a little unbearable. The description of them by his friend Gilfias before was indeed quite accurate. These guys were like gods and angels high above the world, doing things casually.

Before the expedition began, Reinhardt had no hope of success, and failure was only expected. However, what he did not expect was that the failure of this expedition would become so absurd that it was really surprising.

After the Vulture City Fortress's attempt to collide with the Iserlohn Fortress failed, the fortress and the entire fleet were only one step away from being completely annihilated. If it weren't for the mysterious alien lady who had never been seen before who suddenly appeared and rescued thousands of people in the fortress and took away the entire fortress as a reward, the losses caused by the failed expedition would have been even greater.

As for the commander of this operation, Reinhardt did not intend to punish the seriously injured Kemp. The failure of this expedition was just a good opportunity for him to eliminate Xuft and a group of insects related to him from the empire's military research system and departments.

Although Reinhardt was lenient towards Kemp, he was not so kind to Schft.

Reinhard looked as if he was about to call Schft to account. Schft confidently defended himself, "There's nothing wrong with the battle plan I proposed. The responsibility for this defeat lies with the commander-in-chief and the commander of the entire fleet!"

Xu Fu tried to shift all the blame onto Kemp.

"When did I ever say I was here to hold you responsible for this failure? Ksla! Read his charges to him."

Admiral Ksla announced to Xufu with a serious face: "Admiral Xufu, you are under arrest! The charges are bribery, embezzlement of public funds, tax evasion, dereliction of duty, and leaking military secrets!"

After he finished speaking, he waved his hand, and the six military police behind him immediately grasped Xuft's shoulders and hands. Xuft's expression changed drastically upon hearing this. It was impossible for anyone else to know about the shameful things he had done except him. "Where's the evidence?"

He tried to defend himself, but several military police handcuffed his wrists and forcibly took him away.

Reinhardt looked with disgust at Xuft who was still trying to struggle when he was escorted away. At this critical juncture, what he needed least was a parasite like Xuft in such a critical place as the Science and Technology Department. He needed to inject new vitality into this old machine of the Science and Technology Directorate in a timely manner.

Although more advanced technologies have been presented to humanity, neither the Empire nor the Alliance has any idea about the principles of these unknown alien technologies. However, these unknown technologies undoubtedly require unconventional young talents and technical experts to help analyze them, rather than parasites like Xuft.

In the Iserlohn Corridor, the surface of the Vulture City Fortress was covered with countless geometric patterns, lines, and etchings. The originally smooth armor plates of the Vulture City's currency seemed to have turned into a stone slab for carving. The officers and soldiers living in the Iserlohn Fortress could see new geometric patterns and etchings appearing on the surface of the Vulture City Fortress, which had lost its power, almost every few hours.

"It looks like a random painting on a canvas the size of a celestial body." In the command center of Sherlen Fortress, Julian commented on this large-scale and incomprehensible artistic creation.

"But...why do you want to create art in such a dangerous place?"

"Maybe it's just a danger to us?" Sinkob leaned casually beside the holographic display table with a cup of coffee.

"The environment on both sides of the Iserlohn Corridor is dangerous to us because our technology is not enough to cope with the catastrophic space environment in the unnavigable space."

"But they can navigate unimpeded in the gravitational environment close to a black hole... If the unnavigable space separating the Alliance and the Empire is an insurmountable chasm for us, then for them it might just be a puddle they can easily step over, right?"

"But even so, creating art in the middle of a battlefield while two armies are engaged... isn't that a bit..."

"You are wrong about one thing, Julian Mintz. For us, this has never been the center of a battlefield where two armies are fighting." A rather gentle girl's voice sounded from the radio in the command center.

"The communication... has been hacked by an unknown person!" reported a communications soldier in the command center.

"Who are you?" Julian asked cautiously.

"Just an amateur art enthusiast who did it on a whim. Qi Ling Wu Qian Scar VII Qi Yun"

"I want to correct you. This isn't a battlefield where two armies are fighting. To us, it's just a small, insignificant mound where two ants are fighting."

“When you’re creating art on the spur of the moment, do you care if there are two ants fighting nearby?”

"My fellow sisters and I also like beautiful things. We really find it hard to understand your endless behavior of destroying the beautiful things you have created."

"It's such a waste to use this thing as a cannonball or a rock. Why not carve it a little to make it more beautiful and use it as a piece of art for me to practice and appreciate?"

"You sound like an artist?" asked Schickob tentatively.

"Just me? I can't even be called an artist. At best, I'm just an amateur art enthusiast. I can't compare with the real artists among us sisters."

"Being able to carve geometric patterns and etched patterns on an artificial celestial body that is more than 40 kilometers in size is a work of unprecedented scale in human history." Sinkob joked.

"Your civilization's technological level and resource utilization efficiency are simply too low. If something like this were placed in our civilization, at best it would be a shabby amateur art practice."

"As for those sisters who can truly be called artists in our civilization, I would like to let you appreciate their works."

Several new communication access messages appeared on the holographic display under Julian and Senkob. Senkob clicked on the communication message and found that it contained a series of pictures and texts.

"This is?"

“Please enjoy the works they created.”

Julian next to me clicked on one of the pictures. It was a gas giant planet that looked ordinary at first glance, but there seemed to be a ring of ice crystals, dust particles and micrometeorites orbiting the planet on the ecliptic plane, which is quite common in the universe.

"Zoom in and observe that ring of stars." A girl's voice came from the radio to prompt.

Julian followed the prompt and zoomed in on the star ring. Soon, he discovered the peculiarity of the star ring around this planet. Normally, the star rings orbiting gas giants are composed of a large number of irregularly shaped asteroids, meteorites, ice crystals and other materials, but the star ring of this gas giant is composed of countless standard cubic ice crystals. The length, width and height of each cube are exactly 200x200x200 kilometers. Tens of billions of cubic ice crystals distributed on the same plane form a giant artificial planetary ring with a diameter of more than 20 kilometers orbiting the gas giant.

"Its creator named it the 'Magic Cube Ring'. How about that? Isn't it interesting?"

"This... is your artistic creation?" Julian was shocked by the scale of this "artistic creation".

He swiped the screen to check the next picture.

"Crush the stars for raw materials and forge rings for the stars. This is what one of them said."

"Nude Art House," that's what they call the residence they designed for themselves."

What appeared before Julian was a ring-shaped world that blocked the light of a red dwarf star and trillions of hexagonal Dyson cloud components. The magnificent scene even made him hold his breath for a moment.

“The artists of our civilization like to shape the stars into the shapes they need, making the entire universe appear more orderly and regular, rather than heading towards endless chaos in the increase of entropy.”

"Carrying out such a large-scale project...it must take a lot of time, right?"

"Creations on the scale of the Celestial Art House will only last two to three years at most. Our participation in the production of all the materials needed to sustain the survival and development of our civilization has long since ceased to exist."

"Don't you have a social life and politics?"

"That kind of thing is nothing more than extremely childish behavior that only exists in the infancy of civilization. When technology advances to the point where it is no longer necessary to maintain the social structure of individuals, and society disintegrates, there will be no society or politics."

"We only do what we like. In our view, your civilization is undoubtedly just an ignorant wild animal, stuck in endless and meaningless internal friction with its own kind."

"Look, what has happened to your civilization in the nearly 1000 years since it entered space? Tens and hundreds of years of chaos followed, and the period of stable development that finally emerged was wasted by your own internal conflicts."

"For most of its development, your civilization has been in a state of extreme disorder. There was even one individual who openly reversed course. During those so-called periods of stable development, what were you doing? Oppressing and harming your own kind? Obstructing the development of science and technology? Stifling innovative ideas?"

"Are you referring to Rudolf? But he was a person who lived hundreds of years ago, right?" said Schönkob.

"Weren't you the same not long ago and now?"

"Hundreds of years of endless fighting over trivial matters have only increased losses, and resources that could have been used to elevate civilization to a higher level have been wasted on such meaningless things."

"You have made it impossible for a species like humankind to maintain rationality, order, and healthy development because of you."

Chapter 243: The Ring World of the Galactic Center Black Hole (6000 words)

A huge, futuristic city rises from the surface of the planet Kagakula, and in the center of this rising city stands a tower reaching into the sky - the Kagakula No. 1 Space Elevator.