Chapter 898: Separation and a New Journey |
At this moment, Xiao Yu’s number of warships had already increased to nearly thirty-five billion. Aside from these warships, there were also countless detectors in this starry sky serving as Xiao Yu’s intelligence support. Against such a powerful dragnet, Xiao Yu was confident he could destroy all of the final incomplete remnant of more than two billion warships of the Virtual Life Civilization, without letting a single one escape.
When they saw the endless warships surging out from the starry sky, the conflicts among these replicates almost immediately came to a halt. Not only that, they also began cooperating at the fastest possible speed and very quickly merged into a single whole.
“This is the nature of intelligent beings.” Xiao Yu said. “Their own interests always come first, and for the sake of their own interests, they can even sacrifice the interests of the whole. But once the whole is gone, how can the individual survive? What a pity, what a pity. Intelligent beings always only understand this truth at the final moment, but by then it is useless. It is too late.”
“Divine Ark Civilization! It was you! You despicable civilization, it was you who kept stirring up our chaos, forcing us to consume our own strength, while you yourself obtained the greatest benefit. From the very beginning, you intended to wipe us all out! You despicable liar!”
At this time, Xiao Yu received a message from within the virtual lifeforms, filled with fury. Xiao Yu replied with a faint smile, “Yes, I always had that intention. But what about you? Did you not understand my plan? Every one of you was thinking that the enemy might not come so soon, every one of you was thinking of first unifying your own side, obtaining the greatest increase in strength, and then resisting the foreign enemy. Every one of you refused to see that your own behavior was actually weakening your whole. The ones at fault are you. It was you who gave me an opening to exploit, and now you groundlessly accuse me. Why bother?”
“You liar, your goal will not succeed. We still have 2.3 billion warships!”
“2.3 billion warships are nothing to me…” Xiao Yu said. “You are parasites of the universe. You should not exist in this universe. Today, all of you will remain here…”
The final battle had already begun. Xiao Yu could not be bothered to say anything more to these replicates. Under Xiao Yu’s control, the vanguard had already charged into the replicate fleet and begun fighting them.
Five billion warships had taken on the task of finally exterminating them. The remaining roughly thirty billion warships, together with the dragnet-like surveillance system, stood guard on the outside, sealing everything off tightly and not permitting a single replicate to escape.
This battle lasted a full month. Xiao Yu’s fleet paid the price of one billion warships lost, and in the end completely annihilated the last force the Virtual Life Civilization had left in the universe.
“I have finally completed all of this.” Xiao Yu sighed. Then he smiled again and said to the Architectural Civilization, “Look, I have completed my objective. I have already completely destroyed the Virtual Life Civilization.”
“In this war, you were the greatest winner.” the Architectural Civilization sighed. “You obtained our technology, obtained all of the Virtual Life Civilization’s technology, and also completely destroyed the Virtual Life Civilization, without leaving behind even a single seed of disaster for this universe.”
“This is all what I deserve, is it not?” Xiao Yu asked in return.
“We have never doubted that.” the Architectural Civilization said. “It truly is what you deserve. It is just that now we have begun to think about a question, and that is that power itself perhaps truly does not possess the attributes of evil or goodness. The key is whether the one using that power is evil or good. That is right, our civilization has always held a deep prejudice against war-related civilization, believing that it is precisely because war-related civilization exist that this universe is never at peace. But your appearance changed our view. You are war-related civilization, yet you also possess a rare benevolence. Divine Ark Civilization, we sincerely wish that you can go farther in this dark universe.”
“You are leaving?” Xiao Yu detected a different sort of emotion in those words.
“The affairs here have already been settled, and our civilization has at last honored its promise and seen the day when the Virtual Life Civilization perished. Ah, their predecessor, that Level 7 Civilization of the computer direction, was actually also a very benevolent civilization. They madly pursued computer technology, and in the end created such a powerful and evil thing. It was only an unintentional mistake on their part, but they also paid the price for that mistake. These matters are all tangled up, and there is no way to explain them clearly. In any case, Divine Ark Civilization, thank you. We are about to leave here and continue wandering through the universe, pursuing the ultimate profundity of construction technology. If we can meet again next time, perhaps by then we will already have built our structures into something even more magnificent and glorious.”
“Alright, goodbye. I am also waiting for that day.” Xiao Yu said. “You go first. I still need to stay here and do some cleanup work. Without the obstruction of the replicates, I can safely place high-power Spatial Bombs here. I am going to trigger the largest-scale spatial explosion, completely destroy this galaxy, as well as any possible stragglers that may remain. Only after doing this can I leave here.”
“Very well, then we will go first. Goodbye.” the Architectural Civilization said. Xiao Yu then saw that massive structure, whose size had to be measured in light years, begin slowly moving. A moment later, it entered curvature space and disappeared from the visible universe.
The Architectural Civilization had gone somewhere unknown, and Xiao Yu had no desire to investigate the matter. The two civilizations had met here and once fought side by side. That was enough. Perhaps after this separation, there would never again be a chance to reunite, and that was nothing unusual. The universe was so vast, and as different civilizations, naturally they each had different pursuits. Pursuing one’s own goal was what mattered most.
Xiao Yu thought of a phrase from Earth’s era: better to part and forget each other in the wider world than to remain bound together in mutual dependence.
“Good luck.” Xiao Yu sighed inwardly as he pulled his thoughts back from the departing Architectural Civilization.
At this moment, Xiao Yu could no longer find a single intact ship of the Virtual Life Civilization before him. But Xiao Yu believed this still was not enough. There were far too many wrecks here, and Xiao Yu simply had no way to carry out a detailed investigation of all of them. Within these wrecks, perhaps somewhere there was a computing terminal Xiao Yu had not discovered, and within that computing terminal there might be a virtual lifeform. Over the course of the long years to come, it might use some extremely crude tools to slowly repair itself, and in the end develop once again.
This was something Xiao Yu could not accept. So under these circumstances, the most reliable method was to burn all of these wrecks, together with this galaxy, completely to ashes.
The supermassive chain-reaction Spatial Bomb, this strategic-class weapon, once again took the stage of war. Xiao Yu spent several years placing them in every location where wreckage existed, then left the place in advance. Looking once at the Maffei One Galaxy, which had already become desolate and no longer contained any stars, Xiao Yu calmly gave the order to detonate.
The entire Maffei One Galaxy violently fluctuated once again. The transformations and explosions of space would tear apart anything existing within it, not even the Central Black Hole of the galaxy would be spared. Whether or not there were any remaining remnants of virtual lifeforms in this galaxy, they would disappear from this universe together with the destruction of the galaxy.
The Maffei One Galaxy had now become history. Together with its countless warship wrecks, it stepped into the void. In the future, no one would be able to investigate just what magnificent events had once happened here. This fierce battle, together with the destruction of the Maffei One Galaxy, entered a forgotten corner of history.
“I should go too.” Xiao Yu sighed inwardly. “The affairs here are finally over. It is time to begin a new journey.”
“The next target will be the Feiyuan Galaxy. The Guardian Civilization is still there. They seem to have countless connections with the Rebel Alliance, and they also once used a Logic Weapon to attack me. Since they have shown malice, then I will destroy all of them, seize the Logic Weapon into my own hands, analyze it myself, and see what mysteries a Logic Weapon truly contains.”
“It is just that the Feiyuan Galaxy is truly too far from here. It is the largest galaxy in the entire Virgo Supercluster, the capital of the entire supercluster… a full forty-five million light years away. Even at my speed, I would still need to sail for thirty thousand years to get there. But it does not matter. Between the Maffei One Galaxy and the Feiyuan Galaxy, there are many other galaxies. At any one of those galaxies, I can obtain supplies.”
“During this long journey, I can also completely digest the technology I have obtained so far and push my level of technology up another step. Perhaps after I finish digesting it this time, I can become an Advanced Level 7 Civilization.”
“Mm… in the direction of the Feiyuan Galaxy, seven million three hundred thousand light years from here, there is a quasar. First I will reach that quasar and investigate it. In the present universe, quasars are not often seen.” Xiao Yu silently thought as he began advancing once more.