Chapter 927: The Invisible War |
In the large-scale structure of spacetime, matter in the universe tends to aggregate. It is like island after island, distributed throughout this boundless cosmic sea of stars.
And the Virgo Supercluster is one of the countless islands in this cosmic sea. There are far more than ten million galaxies within the Virgo Supercluster, and these numerous galaxies are gathered together by gravity. The Feiyuan Galaxy plays the most important role among them. On the macroscopic scale, even the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy are under the gravitational influence of the Feiyuan Galaxy, even though the distance between them must be calculated in units of tens of millions of light years.
The Feiyuan Galaxy is this powerful. In this vast and empty cosmic space, it occupies a region more than one million light years across, with at least two trillion stars revolving within it. Besides stars, it also contains endless planets, dwarf planets, comets, asteroids, and other celestial bodies, along with countless clouds of gas and dust. Its star formation rate has reached the astonishing level of more than twenty per year. Roughly speaking, every month, two new stars are born within it. By contrast, the Milky Way Galaxy’s star formation rate is about one per year, a difference of more than twentyfold.
This is a vast stellar world that inspires awe. In Xiao Yu’s theoretical framework, such an enormous galaxy could only have been born from galactic collisions. There may once have been hundreds or even thousands of galaxies here, and then they merged with one another, ultimately forming this immense galaxy. This process is not essentially different from that of the Milky Way Galaxy, because the Milky Way is also devouring its satellite galaxies. The Magellanic Stream stretching between the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way Galaxy is the best proof. It is just that in speed and efficiency, the Milky Way Galaxy falls far short.
Perhaps the Feiyuan Galaxy’s extremely high rate of star formation is also related to these things. One obvious fact is that galactic mergers and collisions disturb the quiet gas and dust clouds within galaxies, accelerating their collapse and thereby giving birth to new stars. Besides this, repeated galactic collisions also bring another consequence. The Feiyuan Galaxy possesses a highly active galactic nucleus. A large number of aging stars and gas clouds revolve around the Central Black Hole within it and are swallowed by the Central Black Hole at extremely high speed, thereby releasing astonishing amounts of energy and light. Unlike the quiet and dim Central Black Hole of the Milky Way Galaxy, the light emitted under the dominance of the Feiyuan Galaxy’s Central Black Hole is almost comparable to the luminosity of the entire galaxy.
Xiao Yu even inferred that the environment around the Feiyuan Galaxy’s Central Black Hole may share certain similarities with the surroundings of quasars, the most violent celestial bodies in the universe.
This would bring a certain degree of difficulty to Xiao Yu’s plan to destroy it. But it did not matter. As long as no one interfered, for Xiao Yu this task would merely require a bit more effort and time.
Xiao Yu’s fleet had already entered this vast galaxy, weaving between different stars and experiencing the exotic scenery of a place at least fifty million light years away from his home.
“The Divine Ark Civilization and Pegasus Civilization should be in this galaxy. But this galaxy is too vast. How am I supposed to find them?” Xiao Yu thought silently. “Broadcast a signal powerful enough to cover the whole galaxy to contact them? Mm, better not do that. In this galaxy, I certainly do not have only one enemy… Revealing my position in advance is not a wise thing. Better to first complete my mission, and then slowly look for them.”
Xiao Yu hoped that by the time he confronted his enemies, his detectors would cover the entire galaxy, to the point where he would roughly know all movements in all regions of this galaxy. This was a massive undertaking. To achieve this, the number of detectors required had to be measured in quadrillions. Xiao Yu had attempted similar actions before, but the range covered by those previous detector networks had never been as broad as this one.
To achieve this goal would consume at least one thousand years of Xiao Yu’s time. But for Xiao Yu, or Level 7 Civilizations like Xiao Yu, or even Level 8 Civilizations, this kind of purely consumptive time had no real meaning.
Xiao Yu’s fleet was like a highly efficient seeder, moving forward while scattering countless seeds behind it. Xiao Yu had stored a great many of these detectors. Back when he was still on the journey, Xiao Yu had already planned all of this. During that period, Xiao Yu had not been idling in peace. The large-scale construction tasks were not merely empty words.
At this moment, Xiao Yu was still more than two hundred thousand light years away from the Central Black Hole of the Feiyuan Galaxy. Yet even from such a great distance, the brightness of the Feiyuan Galaxy’s Central Black Hole was already like looking at the Moon from Earth on a clear night. If this had been the Milky Way Galaxy, its Central Black Hole would be completely invisible from this distance.
The large-scale detector network had already been partially completed, and now every moment, an enormous volume of detection data was being transmitted into Xiao Yu’s mind. During this period, Xiao Yu discovered some low-level civilizations. Their number was so sparse that it was almost unbelievable, something very out of place with the vastness of the Feiyuan Galaxy. Logically speaking, the Feiyuan Galaxy should have had a much larger base number of civilizations. Yet the number of civilizations in the Feiyuan Galaxy was indeed this sparse. Xiao Yu had not yet found an explanation for this.
Besides these low-level civilizations, Xiao Yu also discovered some ruins of mid-level civilizations, including damaged warships and some stars and planets that had clearly been destroyed by collateral effects. But Xiao Yu did not find any trace of those mid-level civilizations themselves. As for high-level civilizations, he found not a single trace of them.
In Xiao Yu’s classification, Levels 1 to 3 belonged to low-level civilizations, Levels 4 to 6 to mid-level civilizations, and Level 7 and above were high-level civilizations. The civilizations Xiao Yu had discovered were only Level 1 to 3 civilizations that were still incapable of curvature flight.
Xiao Yu paid no attention to these civilizations. He was trying to discover more things so that he could better grasp the future situation of the battlefield.
But the Feiyuan Galaxy was abnormally quiet, unexpectedly quiet. There was no atmosphere here suggesting that a great war was about to break out. The stars revolved quietly, the planets revolved quietly around the stars, and everything appeared perfectly normal.
Xiao Yu continued to advance while processing this vast torrent of data. During this constant forward motion, some unusual signs gradually began to reveal themselves to Xiao Yu.
In one corner of the Feiyuan Galaxy, Xiao Yu’s detectors discovered a strange planet. It was called strange because it was far too smooth, almost like a white dwarf. A typical white dwarf has about the same volume as Earth, and the variation in its surface topography generally does not exceed one hundred meters. But this planet was not a white dwarf, of this Xiao Yu was certain.
After discovering this strange planet, Xiao Yu’s detectors tried to move closer to observe it. But in the course of approaching it, they suddenly lost track of it in a daze. It simply vanished out of thin air, and no one knew where it had gone. Xiao Yu mobilized tens of thousands of detectors to conduct a thorough search of that region of space, but never found it again.
Besides this strange planet, Xiao Yu discovered even more unusual signs in other corners of the galaxy.
Some detectors detected unusual gravitational fluctuations, yet when calculated according to existing physical laws, no stellar body with corresponding mass was found at the predicted location. In some places, the speed of light seemed to suddenly change, increasing or decreasing and producing certain fluctuations. And it was not only the speed of light. Some other physical constants would also undergo certain unpredictable changes.
There was no pattern to the locations where these unusual phenomena occurred. They might happen here, or they might happen there. It was only because Xiao Yu’s detector network had been constructed on such a vast scale that he was able to discover these things by chance. Xiao Yu believed that in places beyond the reach of his sight, there must be even more such phenomena occurring.
“Perhaps, in places I cannot see, a war is taking place.” Xiao Yu thought silently. “This may be a clash at the level of Level 8 Civilizations. Their battles are based on the level of Rules. This has already departed from the physical system of this universe. Very likely… this is the Level 8 Civilization on the side of the rebels fighting against the Level 8 Civilization on the side of the Spokesperson and the Guardian of the Way.”
“Matters of Rules are left to Level 8 Civilizations. Matters visible in the universe are left to me. I will complete the mission of destroying the Central Black Hole of the Feiyuan Galaxy, but this is not for your interests, it is for Chen Mo. Only Chen Mo is worthy of making me bleed and sacrifice. As for the rest, none of you are worthy.” Xiao Yu thought calmly.
Xiao Yu had already arrived at his destination. The distance between him and the Central Black Hole of the Feiyuan Galaxy was now less than one thousand light years. But Xiao Yu discovered that, when observed from this distance, the Central Black Hole of the Feiyuan Galaxy had vanished.
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