The stars, but they become the gray wind

At night, on the royal car returning to the palace, Mary breathed a sigh of relief when she thought of the dangerous scene that had happened on the boat.

"I didn't know how it would end for a moment, but fortunately, the incident didn't get out of hand, no one was injured, and the passengers on the ship were evacuated safely." Mary said to Charlotte who was sitting next to her after letting down her guard.

"Yes, if you are worried or afraid of anything in the future, you can come to me at any time, and I will definitely help you." Charlotte looked at her sister in front of her tenderly.

"Okay! Sister!" Mary also showed a sincere smile to the gentle Charlotte.

.........

More than 20 minutes later, when the car carrying the two of them slowly drove into the palace, Charlotte in the car keenly felt that the atmosphere in the palace was a little wrong. It seemed that something had happened in the palace at this time. Groups of gendarmes and guards with guns were running around anxiously in the courtyard of the palace, looking for something in the courtyard. A large group of vehicles of Ministry of Internal Affairs personnel were gathering at the gate of the palace, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs personnel waiting at the gate of the palace also exuded an atmosphere of anxiety.

"Her Highness Charlotte!"

As soon as Charlotte opened the car door and got out, she heard an anxious call. Mary's maid Olivia trotted to her, her face full of worry.

"Olivia, what happened?"

"The police and military police just came here and said that His Royal Highness Prince Edward... Prince Edward was attacked by unknown persons... and unfortunately died."

"Phosphorus Balin Jiusan Liuyu!!!"

"It seems that he was attacked by an assassin while working alone in the office... When the secretary found out... he was already... already..."

Olivia looked at Charlotte, whose expression gradually turned into shock and disbelief, and she didn't dare to say anything more.

"Sister?" Mary stuck her head out from the car door. She was still in the car and had not heard the conversation between Olivia and Charlotte.

"Sorry, Mary, you and Olivia go back to your room first, and Beatrice, you come with us." Charlotte, shocked by the news, tried to maintain a gentle smile to her sister, and asked Beatrice to follow Mary in case of any accidents.

"Yes... yes." Feeling the tense atmosphere in the palace, Beata agreed hesitantly.

"Olivia, please, please protect Mary." Charlotte whispered to Olivia, then ran anxiously towards the palace gate.

.........

In the bedroom, the white-haired queen lying on the hospital bed listened with an expression of disbelief as the Minister of the Interior in front of her reported to her the news that her grandson and first heir to the throne had been assassinated and unfortunately died.

“Is…is this true?”

"I'm sorry, please accept my condolences." The Home Secretary bowed to the Queen with a sad face.

"This... this... how could this be..." After confirming the authenticity of the news, thinking of her grandson Edward who was still chatting with her a few days ago and suddenly left her forever, the old queen lying on the hospital bed could no longer hold back the tears flowing from her eyes. Drops of crystal tears slowly slid down her face and fell on the quilt she had been wearing when she was alive.

At the door of the next room, Richard stood in the shadow of the room light, looking at his grandmother crying in front of him, turned around silently, opened the door and walked out of the room.

The moment he walked out of the room and closed the door, Richard could hardly contain his extreme joy and almost wanted to laugh out loud, but just before he laughed out loud, a familiar call interrupted him.

"Brother Richard?" Charlotte looked at Richard who turned around with a smile on his face, feeling a little bit unbelievable.

"Oh no, I was careless and let it slip."

"Since you are here, Charlotte, that means Mary is okay too, right?" Richard looked at his sister in front of him with a somewhat malicious smile.

"That's fine. After all, it's better not to be too greedy. It's not unacceptable that Edward is the only one this time."

"Brother...what are you talking about?" Charlotte looked at her brother in front of her with some disbelief.

"When I heard that you were going with Mary, I was a little panicked, because I had a very high opinion of you. I'm glad I didn't lose you this time." Richard still looked at Charlotte with an inscrutable smile.

"Brother...you..." Charlotte looked at Richard, who seemed to have become a stranger in front of her, and slowly took two steps back.

At this moment, two dull footsteps were heard behind Charlotte, and a man with a scar on his Indian face walked out from the shadows in the corner.

Charlotte turned her head to look at the Indian-faced man who exuded a dangerous aura, and stared warily at the sharp axe and pistol hanging on both sides of his waist. A gust of wind blew from an open window in the corridor past Charlotte and the man who exuded a dangerous aura not far away.

"Charlotte, do you feel this wind? This is the wind that will bring change to the kingdom." Richard opened his arms happily and announced to Charlotte in front of him.

"But... there's a high wall here, trying to keep them out. This wall is the conservative wall that's obsessed with continuing the kingdom's old order."

"And I am longing for the ever-changing wind of reform. So, Charlotte, which side are you going to stand on?" Richard invited Charlotte in front of him with an almost threatening tone.

In a dark corner of the corridor that none of the three noticed, a purple-haired figure with an optical camouflage force field was standing there. In her hand was a loaded 12.7mm anti-material sniper rifle, the muzzle of the gun pointed at the man with an Indian face behind Charlotte.

She narrowed her eye, which was pressing against the optical sight above the gun, and her right index finger was already on the trigger of the anti-material sniper rifle.

On the other side of the earth, on Taylor Island, Aze was a little confused as he watched Renlong busying around in the newly built laboratory.

"Uh... you even built a lab specifically for this, Master Wu Jiuba?"

"Well, I think it would be better to prepare a dedicated laboratory for the next experiment. After all, what I plan to do is really not something simple."

"So could you please explain to me first what you are planning to do?"

"Well... this... is a bit complicated to explain." Renlong put down the tablet in his hand, pulled over a chair, and sat on the chair with a backrest.

"First of all, have you heard of the quark confinement effect?" Renlong asked Aze in front of him.

"Quark confinement? Is that the theory that says elementary particles aren't infinitely divisible?"

"Yes, that's right. For a long time, people believed that hadrons were the most fundamental units of matter. Since high-energy physics hadn't been able to separate quarks from hadrons for a long time, like separating neutrons and protons in atomic nuclei, and there was no evidence to prove the existence of free quarks, physicists came up with the hypothesis that quarks were "imprisoned."

"But with the advancement of technology, and with the availability of larger particle accelerators and more advanced sensors, physicists have been able to bombard nuclei with high-energy particles at higher energies and discover the point-like particle structure inside nuclei."

"This suggests that elementary particles may also be divisible. Not only particles like hadrons, but also leptons and stratons may be divisible."

"This brings us to what I want to create next: [chromonuclear materials], materials made using the quark confinement effect."

"Color-nuclear materials, in principle, exploit the quark confinement of hadrons. Quarks cannot exist in isolation within hadrons. Because strong forces exist between color nuclei of different "colors," color-charged quarks are confined to other quarks, reducing the total color charge to zero. The forces between quarks increase with distance, making it impossible to detect isolated quarks. Their energy levels make it virtually impossible for them to escape their confinement."

Greywind, a von Neumann probe capable of operating down to the Planck scale, can split hadrons to create truly independent quarks. By exploiting the mutual attraction between colors and manipulating the arrangement of quarks of different "colors," it can create infinitely extendable, zero-color micro-elements. This, while enhancing the strength of the strong nuclear force, can also prevent the resulting material from becoming too dense.

"The color-nuclear force material created in this way essentially utilizes the strong interaction force to constrain hadrons. In practice, there are some other enhancements. Of course, in terms of properties, the color-nuclear material cannot be considered a large proton or neutron. It is very different from the neutron star matter we normally understand."

After finishing his long speech, Renlong looked at Aze who looked dumbfounded as if he was listening to something incomprehensible.

"Uh... Anyway, do you understand?"

"Absolutely...no, can you be simpler?????" Aze, with an embarrassed face, knocked his head which was like a piece of paste and answered.

Chapter 64: How to Accelerate the Collapse of a Colonial Empire

Just as the Kingdom of Albion was plunged into national shock and mourning because its first heir to the throne, Prince Edward, was assassinated by unknown persons, at the same time, on the other side of the world, on Taylor Island in the North Pacific, Aze and Renlong were gathered around a laboratory bench, staring at a bright silver curved plate the size of a fingernail, which was held in mid-air by an anti-gravity force field and slowly rotated.

"Is this the material you mentioned for the Lingba Wuling Jiu Sanchu color core?"

"Well, this is a very small piece of color core material. Of course, such a small volume of color core material is directly arranged according to my needs and then printed into an integrated shape."

"With our current industrial capabilities, we can't actually produce a large volume or mass of color-nuclear material. If we want to produce enough to cover the entire Alicorn with a 20-centimeter-thick layer of color-nuclear material, we'd probably have to decompose the entire Eurasian continental plate to create the raw material."

"Uh... disintegrating the entire Eurasian continent... is the production of this thing so outrageous?"

"That's already pretty good. Even just creating this tiny piece of color-nuclear force material, the size of a fingernail, has already consumed all the energy stored in the island's deuterium-deuterium fusion and cold fusion reactors for several weeks. If we really want to mass-produce this material relatively cheaply, we might need to find the right environment for a neutron star to mass-produce and manufacture it."

"This thing isn't something a planetary civilization that hasn't reached space could possibly create. By comparison, the fact that we can use the energy output of a few fusion reactors over a few weeks to create a small piece of color-nuclear force material the size of a fingernail is nothing short of a miracle."

"Of course, this is also thanks to the fact that Grey Wind, a von Neumann probe that can operate on matter at the Planck scale, is indeed advanced enough. Otherwise, with our current industrial capabilities, it would be a fantasy to want to create such a small piece of color nuclear force material." Renlong said to Aze with a data tablet tucked under his arm.

"However, since we can't mass-produce this material now, is it really necessary to waste so much energy just to produce such a small piece of material the size of a fingernail?" Aze asked, looking at the bright silver arc-shaped material on the laboratory table that was constantly scanned by a large number of instruments.

"It's actually quite meaningful. At least now we know our own limits and can better cope with various emergencies that may arise in the future."

"What's more, we can create such a piece of material with very stable and excellent properties. Even the strongest high-energy gamma rays or antimatter cannot cause any damage to this structure that is already halfway out of the material level. The fact that we can create it, in a sense, also symbolizes how high our technological level can reach." Renlong commented confidently.

"Hmm... makes sense. By the way, have you sent the manufacturing process and research data of this thing to Kalisi and the others?"

"Not yet. I see they are having fun and probably don't have much time to read my long research reports and materials. However, speaking of Carissa..." Renlong suddenly paused here.

"Huh? What happened to Carissa?" Aze asked with a strange expression.

"Nothing much...it's just that you should know about the micro-wormhole teleportation ability that comes with Kalisi, right?"

"I know. I heard from Yuuki that the teleportation effect of that thing is similar to the high-dimensional space chamber of the Necromancer's Death Mark Assassin."

"Well, what I want to talk about next is the micro-wormhole transmission system on Kalisi's body, which has the same effect as the Necrons. I have roughly figured out the principle of that thing." Renlong took out the data tablet tucked under his arm and operated it for a while. A holographic projection interface was projected in front of Aze.

"Remember the energy source of the nanomechanical units at the most microscopic level that I mentioned to you earlier?"

"Vacuum zero-point energy?"

"Yes, and the key lies in the method of obtaining zero-point vacuum energy. By bending space to achieve the effect of folding it in half, and then crushing the folded space, it creates an existential contradiction within the space itself and annihilates each other. Kalisi's micro-wormhole teleportation ability essentially omits the final step of annihilating space itself. It replicates all the steps of the above layer except the last one on a macro level, simply folding two points in space and connecting them, rather than allowing space to directly annihilate on a macro level as it does on a micro level."

"Wait a minute...if, Calisi's micro-wormhole teleportation ability omits the last step on a macro level..."

"So... what if... we don't skip the last step? Since nanomachines like Grey Wind can cause spatial annihilation on a microscopic level, that means it's actually possible on a macroscopic level, right?"

"Indeed, if Calisi's microwormhole transmission system had not omitted the last step, then there would undoubtedly be a huge amount of vacuum zero-point energy that would be released instantly on a macro level, and then... it would most likely be an explosion of terrifying power." Renlong said thoughtfully.

"Um...how big is it exactly?"

"Probably... it could completely evaporate the Earth's atmosphere and ocean waters within a second..."

"Fuck, is it so outrageous? Wait, doesn't that mean that Carissa's micro-wormhole transmission system is essentially a super bomb that can turn into a huge bomb that can blow up the entire earth at any time?" Aze suddenly discovered a key point that he had overlooked before.

"That's certainly true, but you can understand it this way: what might be considered a toy to an interstellar civilization could be a terrifying bomb far more powerful than a nuclear weapon to a planetary civilization."

"Just like a warp drive, for an interstellar civilization, it might just be a very common means of transportation, but the energy output by the warp drive itself is enough to destroy an entire galaxy."

Ren Longyi said in a rather helpless tone.

"Hiss... that seems so... but running around with a teleportation device that can turn into a huge bomb at any time, no matter how you think about it, it still seems a bit outrageous." Aze said with a breath of cold air.

"Well, sooner or later you'll get used to the fact that these little toys can turn into bombs at any time." Renlong patted Aze's shoulder, who was covering his face and thinking, and comforted him.

"Hmm... I see." In the London Palace, Calisi, who was hiding in a corner of the palace with an optical invisibility field, looked at the information sent by Renlong and nodded as if she suddenly understood.

Although using this microwormhole teleportation ability is almost instinctive, I'm not entirely sure how it works. If that's the case, then it makes sense. So that's it, vacuum zero-point energy. I didn't expect the essence of Gray Wind to reach the Planck scale. Even the teleportation ability I use can actually become a powerful explosive at any time if I want it to? Interesting, truly fascinating. Carly's face, obscured by the optical cloaking field, revealed an unconcealable look of delight.

"Okay, okay, I'm happy to know that you've learned something new, but could you please not be so arrogant and just solve this trivial matter that is insignificant to us first?" Yuki's unhurried voice came from the communication channel of the thinking network.

"Don't worry, what else could be going on here? Isn't it just that Richard assassinated his own brother and is trying to threaten Charlotte to support him and take the throne of power?"

"This guy's ideals are good, but his methods are too despicable. He doesn't really think that he can reform the country just by relying on assassinations by various spies, military suppression and a military government established by the army, right?" Carlisle looked down on Richard, who was obsessed with power and would do anything to achieve his goal.

"Relying solely on a military government established through a coup d'état to carry out top-down reforms will ultimately lead to chaos."

"Maybe it's because Richard became arrogant during the years he served as governor of the New World, suppressing various unsystematic armed resistances of the indigenous people. He thought he could suppress domestic opposition voices with the army alone, just like he suppressed the indigenous people." Yuki commented objectively.

"Haha, what a pity! Even if this military government initially came to power with ideals, the strongest walls are breached from within. Countless examples have shown that military governments are corrupted by power and wealth faster than democratically elected governments, and the harm they cause is far greater. The military is the last line of defense for maintaining national stability. If even they themselves become corrupt and have no bottom line, then the world hegemony that the Kingdom of Albion has established so far will soon be over!"

Carlisle said with a gloating tone.

"Anyway, it's just a colonial empire. Its essence is to divert internal conflicts through external plunder. When all the territories and resources in the world are divided up, it's only a matter of time before this colonial system of external plunder and internal repression collapses." Yuuki criticized the current situation of the Kingdom of Albion mercilessly.

"Well... However, the collapse of this colonial system will still take quite some time. Although the interior of the Kingdom of Albion is already shaky, at least on the outside, it still appears to be thriving."

"What we can do is to ensure that when it collapses, the handover to the successor is as smooth as possible."

"Of course, if you sympathize with the indigenous people around the world who have been deprived of their wealth and living space, it is not impossible for us to speed up its collapse." Kalisi, who was hiding in the shadows in the corner of the palace, looked at several palace attendants who were walking by with a sad atmosphere not far away, and suggested to Yuki.

"That's not necessary. Anyway, we can always do things like destroying a backward colonial system. There's no need to rush." ​​Jie Cheng has always been the most rational among the group, and it's obvious that he is not someone who is easily swayed by emotions.

"Hmm... I guess it's a good thing you came with me, right? If it was Renlong's secretly irritable sister, she'd probably drag me along with her to send this backward colonial empire to the skies as fast as she could, right?"

"Uh...if it's her, it seems like she would really do that?" Jie Cheng on the other end of the thought network showed an embarrassed and sweaty expression.

"But speaking of it, what should we do next?" Yuki asked Carisi.

"Well... now that Edward, the first in line to the throne, is gone, Mary, who has priority in the succession, is left helpless. This is simply the result of the Duke of Normandy's insistence on adhering to the old system. Richard was naive and self-righteous enough to believe he could rely on a military government to carry out reforms. Charlotte, on the other hand, is a bit too idealistic. Honestly, while Charlotte does a good job of projecting a country's image abroad, she's definitely not suited to leading a country."

"So, you plan to..."

"Since no one is suitable for that position, then it's not a bad idea to completely abolish it from now on."

"Perhaps Charlotte can indeed lift Wu Siliu up and sit in that seat, but we can guarantee that by the time she does, that seat will have become a dispensable mascot for the country."

"Oh...are you planning to have the royal family of the kingdom hand over power and completely become a mascot of the constitutional monarchy?"

"Anyway, given the current situation, if the royal family is unwilling to hand over power, then their ultimate fate will be the same as Louis XVI's guillotine."

"Unfortunately, due to long-standing historical inertia and the reluctance to change the old order, the royal family will absolutely not hand over power unless a gun is pointed at their heads."

"Rather than letting the kingdom's royal family eventually become the next Louis XVI, why don't we force them and give them a choice: choose to be a powerless national mascot that still guarantees continuity and prosperity, or choose the guillotine of Louis XVI?"

"I think, under the threat of absolute military suppression and naval guns pointing at their heads, they will make a rational choice." Kalisi said in a rather aggressive tone.

"Things will be much simpler from now on. Just like the Berlin Wall in our world, that high wall separating the Kingdom and the Republic will eventually fall, and the colonial hegemony that Albion has established around the world will also disintegrate in due time. We can ensure that its disintegration is more peaceful, without creating a power vacuum and triggering a new round of disputes."

"It seems that you already have a very detailed plan. I thought you were not good at long-term planning." Yuki said with emotion as he listened to Carlisle's plans for the future.

“I’m not good at long-term planning because I can’t predict how the future will develop.”

"But here... I can use the historical principles I've already summarized to help them avoid taking detours."

A few days later, in a solemn church in London, representatives from all over the Kingdom of Ajujubeen and various foreign countries wore black clothes to represent mourning. Most of the representatives had serious expressions and stared at the heavy coffin in the center of the church, which was guarded by a team of guards.