The stars, but they become the gray wind

"All anti-ship relativistic missiles, fire!" Carlisle pressed the launch button.

A large number of relativistic missiles with magnetic monopole warheads were ejected from the various launch units of the Fantasy Light, and accelerated to near the speed of light over a very short distance, smashing into the hundreds of early warning outposts closest to them.

The hundreds of early warning outposts that were about to be destroyed did not sit idly by. Gamma-ray lasers, interceptor missiles, and high-energy particle beams were all fired at the incoming relativistic missile cluster. But it was obvious that these counterattacks were in vain. As the relativistic missile warheads exploded, hundreds of billions of fragments traveling at close to the speed of light completely covered the space area where the hundreds of early warning outposts were located. After a violent flash of light, only a bunch of discrete elementary particles remained in the entire area, and all the sentinel battles no longer existed.

"Target eliminated by fragment cloud... Induction beacon activated, preparing for a superluminal long-range strike!"

Just like what happened in countless star systems within the current Greater Mechelen Galaxy, Kalisi repeated her previous work, arriving at the outskirts of the star system - destroying enemy outposts - guiding superluminal strikes - confirming the aftermath of the strikes, and then confirming the mechanical tactical plan of leaving after completion.

"Long-range strike has arrived, confirmed to have hit the target star!"

Although this tactical plan does seem rather boring, it is just right for dealing with an enemy of the size of the Black Mist. Through mechanical bloodletting tactics and surgical precision strikes, the Black Mist suffered heavy losses. A precise superluminal strike hit the central star of the galaxy, and the star transformed into a supernova destroyed everything in the galaxy. After the attack was completed, Kalisi skillfully ordered the fleet to enter the jump state again.

The big black hole at the center of the Milky Way, a spaceship from the Xiangque galaxy emerged from the wormhole interface of the star gate. This is a spaceship of the glass eel civilization. Several glass eel astrophysicists came here on this spaceship.

Outside the accretion disk of the central black hole, four rectangular flat space buildings with a length of more than 100,000 kilometers and a width of 80,000 kilometers are floating in the void. The curved inner surface of these four facilities already has a complete artificial ecosystem. There are also a large number of skeletons in the edge area that were obviously laid not long ago. If you zoom in enough, you can even see these skeletons made of color nuclear force materials growing and extending outward at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"This... could it be the one in the rumors?" On the spaceship, Zao Chiqi observed the space building A in the void with great interest. It was here at the request of Chi Chengsan, accompanying several glass eel astrophysicists.

"The Niven Ring framework is being built around the Milky Way's central black hole. However, judging by the current situation, the construction progress is not even 1%." A glass eel astrophysicist who had participated in the design and construction of the [Liyangxingwang] astronomical engineering project on the neutron star explained to Zao Chichai.

"During their visit to our galaxy, Sky Star also launched a fleet of unmanned ships toward the Milky Way's central black hole. After arriving and completing their survey and research, this fleet began using von Neumann self-replicators to collect material from the black hole's accretion disk and construct a massive celestial project surrounding the black hole. This is the result of over a decade of construction by the fleet they launched toward the Milky Way's central black hole."

"However, during the past ten years, both of us have focused our efforts on building the Large Magellan's superluminal, long-range strike platform. Therefore, the unmanned fleet sent to the center of the Milky Way is basically relying solely on its own von Neumann self-replicators for construction."

"As you can see, the progress of the Niven Ring facility, which is still under construction, is not ideal. Over the past ten years, the entire project has only progressed less than 1%."

"That's pretty fast, right? After all, this is a massive black hole with a mass of 400 million stars. Its Schwarzschild radius alone exceeds 2200 million kilometers. Furthermore, its strong gravity and the interference caused by its accretion disk make astronomical engineering on it much more difficult than on a normal main-sequence star, right?"

"Yeah... But worrying about the progress of the celestial construction project isn't why we're here... Do you remember why Chi Chengsan asked you to come with us?"

"Hmm... I know... because recently, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way suddenly and without warning emitted a series of extremely regular encrypted communication signals in the form of gravitational waves, right?"

"Yes... I believe you have seen the content of that communication signal?"

"I've read it...it seems like the content was sent to us and Sky Star by name?"

"Yes, this is the fundamental reason why we are here. This mysterious signal in the form of gravitational waves sent by a black hole has been interpreted as asking our two civilizations to send people to the vicinity of the black hole at a specific time."

"But... this seems weird?" Zao Chiqi scratched his face with one of his tentacle.

"What's weird?"

"Think about it carefully...why would the sender send a message to us through the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and specifically mention us and Sky Star."

"And...what do we have in common with Sky Star?"

"That Master Yanzhe?"

"Yes, Tiankongxing and I are both considered to be the followers of that master. Then why did this message specifically ask us to come here?"

"Either that Master Yanzhe left behind some kind of method or program that will automatically trigger when the conditions are met, or... our future selves need us to come here at a specific time to do something."

"If that's the adult's method, I understand... but... our future selves?" A glass eel who came with the team asked in confusion.

"Before coming here, we and the representatives from Sky Star had actually used closed-time curve computers to investigate the mysterious signal emitted by the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Both our computers and theirs produced the same peculiar result."

"What's the result?"

"The output can be summarized into one simple meaning: wait."

"Huh?" Several glass eels expressed that they were a little confused.

"As you know, a closed time-like curve computer essentially asks us in the future to get the answers to all our questions."

"But if even future humans can artificially interfere with the output of this answer and make us wait, then it is likely that future humans believe that at this point in time, waiting first will achieve the most beneficial result for themselves and both parties."

Hearing this, the glass eels present fell into deep thought, wondering what kind of news it was that would make their future selves unwilling to tell their present selves directly?

…………

On a smaller colony ship similar in shape to the Salem, near the unfinished Niven Ring framework of the Milky Way's central black hole, Lina was also troubled by the computer output of the closed time-like curve in the Kylias twin star system.

"Wait? What... does this mean?" Lina was puzzled by the results output by the closed time-like curve computer.

"It seems... that they want us to do nothing and wait first." Iris was not so troubled by this.

"But... this is too weird... why not just give a straightforward message? Instead, they just output something telling us to wait? This doesn't seem right no matter how you look at it."

"Perhaps this information could be dangerous to us now? So, our future selves are telling the current closed timelike curve computer to only output a result that we're waiting for?"

"Even the closed time-like curve computer doesn't directly output the results. This kind of thing is probably a big deal, right?"

"The only ones who can interfere with the output of the closed time-like curve computer are us in the future. That means that we in the future think it's better for us not to rush to know the relevant information." Iris seemed very calm.

"Ah... the representatives of the Glass Eel Civilization have arrived too. Do you want to go meet them?"

"Forget it. I plan to think about whether there is anything else that I have overlooked about the mysterious signal emitted by the black hole."

"I don't think there's anything mysterious about that signal. Even our AI can't analyze it. Does it have any hidden meaning beyond its original meaning? Maybe... it's just an invitation for us to arrive near the Milky Way's central black hole at a specific time?"

The final large-scale attack on the Black Fog entrenched in the Large Magellanic Cloud has begun. In just over a year, billions of stars have been destroyed and turned into supernovas or black holes. The Black Fog's sphere of influence has also been strangled from a huge force that occupied more than 1/10 of the stars in the entire Large Magellanic Cluster to only a few hundred thousand star systems remaining. There is no doubt that the Black Fog, an out-of-control super artificial intelligence that has ravaged the Large Magellanic Cloud for millions of years, is about to meet its demise.

“全体舰队，即将脱离跳跃！5、4、3、2、1！脱离跃迁！”

Millions of mirror-shaped warped bubbles of various sizes appeared on the edges of hundreds of thousands of star systems within 3000 light-years of the parent star system where the Black Fog was first born. After all the fleets escaped the jump, they immediately activated the induction beacons to provide guidance for the Milky Way's superluminal attack. In just ten minutes, more than ten thousand stars died under the dazzling light of the supernova explosion, and all the Black Fog infrastructure in the galaxy turned into dust in the universe.

.........

Black Mist's home galaxy, Taslanka Galaxy

The moment Salem and Utopia landed, they discovered that their small battle group was surrounded by trillions of densely packed guard posts distributed throughout the periphery of the star system.

"Nah! What the hell? This number is too dense!!"

"Isn't this number normal? This is the mother star system where the black fog was first born. Judging from the time, the mother star system has been managed by it for at least millions of years. If there is no such early warning system with no blind spots, I would find it strange." Unlike Renlong who was frightened by the opponent's terrifying number, Yuki seemed quite calm.

"Fuck! Fire all the missiles! Quickly!" Carlisle was too lazy to count the total number of relativistic missiles launched at her by the enemy on the screen. She cursed and launched all the relativistic missiles on the Fantasy Light in all directions in fragmentation killing interception mode at once. At the same time, she overloaded the gravitational field deflection shield and the stasis field shield with 200% power without hesitation.

"All launch units reload the second round! Overload all shield generators on the hull! Set the protection mode to the highest level against kinetic energy attacks and parachutes!"

"All ships in the battle group immediately activate air defense mode! Increase the firing rate of all shipborne weapons to maximum! Quick!!"

All the relativistic missile launch units on the USS Utopia fired the second round of loaded missiles totaling hundreds of thousands in a few seconds. Along with the missiles launched in the first round, more than 200,000 relativistic missiles, which were almost infinitely close to the speed of light, exploded in an area about 100 light seconds outside the battle group, creating hundreds of billions of fragments and slamming into the incoming relativistic missiles, creating a series of small gamma-ray bursts outside the battle group.

Tens of thousands of railguns on the hull of the Salem, which was in the same battle group as the Ultima Thule, also began to roar wildly in all directions, roaring at all the relativistic missiles approaching the battle group. With a high firing rate of hundreds of rounds per second, like pouring water, the interceptor missiles weighing tens of thousands of tons, which were as high as 64% of the speed of light, destroyed one after another of the approaching relativistic missiles flying at close to the speed of light. However, the number of relativistic missiles attacking from all directions seemed endless. Even though the Salem and other warships in the fleet had increased their short-term firepower output density to the limit, a large number of relativistic missiles still broke through the battle group's air defense network.

More than millions of relativistic missiles broke through the fleet's air defense network and slammed into the gravitational field deflection shields of the fleet's spacecraft. Under the influence of the gravitational field comparable to that of a black hole, a considerable number of relativistic mass warheads traveling close to the speed of light deviated from their targets and collided with relativistic missiles attacking from other directions, turning into the purest energy and creating large-scale material annihilation reactions and explosions at a very close distance outside the spacecraft.

"Gravity field deflection shield capacity decreased by 20!"

"Transfer all energy from other systems to the shield!"

"Overload the reactor!!! If the shields can't hold up, if one misses, we're doomed!"

Whether it was the Ultima Thule, the Salem, or other unmanned warships in the fleet, they were all frantically and recklessly extracting the superluminal negative energy flow from the naked singularity reactor, and using it all to strengthen the repulsive field of the gravitational field deflection shield.

Countless relativistic missiles broke through the fleet's air defense network and bombarded the gravitational field deflection shields of the fleet's ships like raindrops. It was as if the black fog was determined to tear the fleet in front of it apart at all costs. Every operating outer early warning post of the surrounding star system was equipped with more than millions of relativistic missiles, just to intercept such a small fleet that would appear at an unknown time and place.

"We can't hold on any longer!! Can the faster-than-light attack from the Milky Way come any faster? Our gravitational deflection shield is almost at its limit!"

[Flying superluminal long-range attack is about to arrive, be careful to avoid it. ]

Unexpectedly, this long-range strike did not occur near the star, but in the space where the fleet battle group was suffering from the baptism of a huge number of relativistic missiles. Under the influence of the strange particle storm, all the relativistic missiles flying towards the fleet and the outer outposts of the star system turned into plasma fireballs in an instant, and the violent gamma-ray bursts and X-ray bursts washed the already overwhelmed gravitational field deflection shield.

"What is this?!!" Kylias, who was already sweating profusely from nervousness, looked at all the outer outposts and relativistic missiles of the star system that had been destroyed, and suddenly stood up from the captain's seat.

"Huh... It seems that compared to destroying the enemy, the Tree of Life really cares more about our safety..." The red-haired cat girl breathed a sigh of relief.

"It seems... this precise, deliberately reduced-destructive, superluminal long-range strike wasn't intended to destroy the enemy, but simply to protect us."

Chapter 171 Prism Warp Gate, a Space-Time Bridge to the Multiverse

The strange particle storm swept across the entire armed outposts on the periphery of the Tastranka star system. All the relative missiles that had been launched were also destroyed in the strange particle storm along with the armed early warning outposts.

At the same time, the gravitational field deflection shields on the Salem and the Fantasy Light, which were originally sufficient to withstand supernova explosions, also reached their limits.

"The capacity of the gravitational field deflection shield has dropped to 0.1%!" Renlong felt himself sweating. If the long-range attack just now had arrived a few seconds later, the Fantasy Light and other starships in the fleet would have been overwhelmed by countless relativistic missiles and, like those destroyed outposts, would have turned into a pile of free quarks on the edge of the Tastranka galaxy.

A large-scale battle group emerged from the warp mirror bubble. This was a fleet that far exceeded the small battle group commanded by Fantasy Light in both scale and number. This fleet would take over the attack on the Black Mist mother system from Kalisi and others, and provide guidance for superluminal long-range strikes.

.........

[You should all retreat first. The Black Mist mother star system, which has developed over millions of years, is more heavily armed than you could imagine. The subsequent strike guidance will be handled by the unmanned fleet.]

The subroutine commanding the reinforcements sent this message to the already overwhelmed Ultimatum and Salem.

"Understood... entire fleet... prepare to jump..." Although she felt a little regretful that she could not personally participate in the final attack on the Black Mist's mother star system, the current situation of the Fantasy Light no longer allowed her to participate in a battle of this scale and intensity. Although she lost the gravitational deflection field shield, she still had the spare stasis field shield and color nuclear force armor. However, since the enemy was forced to use the gravitational deflection field shield with a quantity overload sufficient to withstand the attack of a supernova explosion, the stasis field shield based on the mass-energy conversion principle that converts everything into pure energy through matter is not safe. As the last line of defense, the color nuclear force armor is indestructible, but it is by no means indestructible. Even as a hadron material, it cannot withstand the direct impact of a black hole, and the magnetic monopole matter as a defect in space-time can also cut through the color nuclear force armor.

.........

The high-dimensional warp mirror carrying more than a dozen starships disappeared outside the Taslanka star system, and the huge unmanned fleet battle group could finally use its hands and feet without any scruples. As the mother star system where the black fog was originally born, there are early warning outposts of an unimaginable scale and number here. In the Milky Way, more than 60,000 superluminal long-range strike platforms also pointed their guns at this seemingly unremarkable main-sequence star system.

Then, in the next second, all the superluminal long-range strike platforms opened fire. A total of more than 60,000 long-range strikes, under the influence of the long-range decoy beacons provided by the unmanned fleet, bombarded the well-armed Taslanka Galaxy in one fell swoop. The central star of the Taslanka Galaxy was hit by more than 60,000 long-range strikes with different principles and methods. In the instant, the entire star collapsed into a point with infinite density, space-time curvature, and heat, but infinitely small volume. At this point, the concepts of space and time become meaningless, and all known physical laws and causality are completely invalid.

Then, this point exploded within a Planck time and expanded rapidly, with a temperature comparable to the Big Bang, completely erasing all traces of the Taslanka Galaxy's existence from the universe. This small-scale Big Bang also destroyed the out-of-control super artificial intelligence Black Mist.

All the central core servers in the Tastranka galaxy, including its existence itself, were destroyed when the substance that maintained its virtual digital existence was completely erased from the physical universe.

Since then, the catastrophe that lasted for millions of years has come to an end for the Large Magellanic Cloud. However, according to calculations of the Tree of Life, the Large Magellanic Cloud may not be able to give birth to complex forms of life for a considerable period of time in the future. According to statistics, more than 1/10 of the stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud were wiped out or destroyed in this war. These galaxies that have turned into supernovae or massive black holes have released gamma-ray bursts that are enough to affect the surrounding areas for thousands of light-years. This is undoubtedly fatal to all forms of life. If there is no human intervention in this process, all habitable planets in the entire Large Magellanic Cloud will not be able to give birth to any form of complex life for at least millions of years.

Of course, the Tree of Life and the Sky Star civilization will naturally not miss out on more than billions of supernovas and the neutron stars left behind by supernova explosions, as well as the massive black holes produced when stars collapse. These celestial bodies have energy output power that is millions to billions of times greater than that of normal main sequence stars. If these energy sources can be well utilized, it will be icing on the cake for Sky Star and the glass eels.

A large number of stargates have been set up in those newly destroyed galaxies. By building astronomical engineering on the debris of dead stars, it will be possible to effectively suppress the destructive gamma-ray bursts emitted by these celestial bodies, which will have a negative impact on any complex forms of life that may exist in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

For this work, which is both a huge cake and a long-term life protection project, the Tree of Life and Sky Star Civilization did not choose to enjoy it alone. A glass eel engineering and scientific expedition fleet from the Xiangque Galaxy also joined this ranks and began to help Sky Star Civilization suppress a series of out-of-control celestial bodies in the Large Magellanic Cloud and subsequent large-scale stellar celestial body projects.

As friends of the glass eels who also contributed to this war, the Sky Star Civilization and the Tree of Life were happy to share with them the celestial bodies in the Large Magellanic Cloud that were too numerous to manage and were emitting ultra-high energy. However, it was obvious that the glass eel civilization's energy was limited at this stage. The nearly 1,000 newly developed star systems in the Milky Way and the large-scale celestial projects that were still underway in these star systems had already made them feel a little overwhelmed. In the past ten years, their main resources and energy were basically invested in the more than 30 star celestial projects equipped with superluminal strike devices. Developing these newly born out-of-control high-energy celestial bodies in the Large Magellanic Cloud due to the large-scale destruction of the original stars (mainly the hundreds of millions of neutron star remnants left after supernova explosions) is also a long-term path and long-term plan for the glass eel civilization, which can at least help its own civilization develop smoothly for the next few million years.

At the same time that the Taslanka Galaxy was completely annihilated by a small-scale cosmic explosion, the Milky Way's central black hole I

Lina felt herself suddenly become weak all over, and her body made of nanomachines seemed to have suddenly lost control. At this moment, Lina even found it difficult to think. The same situation happened on the glass eel spacecraft that was observing the black hole thousands of kilometers away.

Since completing the transformation and ascension more than 500 years ago, Zao Chiqi has never felt the physical weakness caused by illness or injury. But at this moment, both Zao Chiqi and the other glass eels on the ship have lost control of their bodies. The nanomachines in their bodies that were originally omnipotent seem to be non-existent. Zao Chiqi can't even move one of his tentacles.

"What... is this?" Zao Chiqi wanted to speak, but then he was horrified to find that he couldn't even do such a simple action as opening his mouth.

On another ship, Lina and all the Sky Aliens on board also lost all ability to move. Then, Lina felt for no reason that someone was staring at her, and the gaze that Lina felt came from the huge black hole in the center of the spacecraft.

.........

"Wow...where...is this?" Lina rubbed her head and opened her eyes again.

"Hiss... just now... what was that?"

"Uh... Miss Lina? Anything else... Where is this?" Lina suddenly heard a familiar voice from behind her. She turned around and saw a soft-bodied creature that looked like a jellyfish floating behind her.

"Zao Chiqi?" Lina asked with an uncertain tone.

"Yes... Miss Lina, where are we?"

"?" Lina then noticed the abnormality around her. She and Zao Chiqi seemed to be in a black space. She could see herself and Zao Chiqi beside her clearly, but she could not sense or see anything else in the area she was in.

"Where is this place?!" Lina also realized that something was wrong.

"I remember I was chatting with some of my companions on the boat, and then I suddenly felt unable to move. Then I lost consciousness, and when I woke up, I was here."

"You, too? Did you feel anything strange before you passed out?"

"Strange thing? Before I passed out, I seemed to feel something looking at me from behind, but I was leaning against a floor-to-ceiling window of the spaceship. There was nothing outside except the huge black hole in the center in the distance."

"No... Before I lost consciousness, I also felt someone's gaze staring at me. As for the source of that gaze, if I'm not mistaken, I was observing the Milky Way's center black hole on the bridge at the time. I'm very sure that the source of that gaze was the central black hole!"

"Ah? The black hole at the center of the Milky Way?" Zao Chiqi's brain was a little slow to react. Just as it was trying to understand Lina's words, a sound of footsteps of unknown origin sounded from all around.

"You...are the two little guys that Cabot mentioned?"

"Who?!" Lina and Zao Chiqi became alert instantly.

"Don't be afraid, little one, I don't intend to hurt you." A man with long black hair and red eyes, behind him

A tall, mature woman with some kind of arthropod-like limbs emerged from the darkness.

"who are you?"

"The Worm of Time...that's what they call me."

"So... Ms. Time Worm...? Excuse me, where is this place? What exactly happened to us?"

"You... are the two little guys that Cabot mentioned, right? I saw the mark she left on you." The Worm of Time did not directly answer Lina's question.

"Cabot? The creator of our civilization? Also, what does the mark mean?" Lina realized from the words of the Time Worm that the person in front of her obviously knew the "mother" of her own civilization.

"As their creations, they all have such a mark on their bodies..." The Worm of Time raised his hand, and the symbol of a winged dragon appeared in this dark space.

"Cabot and her compatriots are the children I care about the most. Although these children have grown up and no longer need my help, if they want me to keep something for them, I would be happy to do something for them." At this point, the Worm of Time showed a lost expression.

"?" Lina and Zao Chiqi were both confused.