Rebirth of the Super Battleship

All the puzzles surrounding the first trial had been completely solved. Under Xiao Yu's command, the enormous fleet cautiously approached the dwarf planet.

A dwarf planet is a general term for a class of celestial bodies. For example, Pluto, Xena, Sedna, and other objects in the solar system all belong to dwarf planets, also called Pluto-like bodies. From this point of view, Pluto was truly unqualified to be called the ninth major planet. In the Kuiper Belt, Xena was actually larger than Pluto. If any were to be designated the ninth major planet, it should have been Xena, not Pluto.

Thus, during the Earth era, astronomers demoted Pluto from a major planet to a dwarf planet. Such bodies can achieve a spherical appearance through hydrostatic equilibrium, but their gravity is insufficient to clear other objects along their orbits, making them incomplete planets. In fact, if the moon did not orbit Earth but orbited the sun instead, it too would be classified as a dwarf planet. Besides the moon, several satellites of gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn also qualified for this status.

At this moment, the celestial body before Xiao Yu was just such an object. Sufficient material analysis data indicated that it was roughly composed of iron and nickel, with a primary composition similar to Earth.

During the journey, Xiao Yu had not been idle. The Trolor Civilization had been annihilated during their war with the Sweepers Civilization. This place was the ruin of the Trolor Civilization, which meant he could find much data here about the Sweepers' combat strength and modes of warfare.

This could be regarded as the first informal contact with the Sweepers Civilization. Over the past ten thousand years, Xiao Yu had only ever heard of the Sweepers Civilization by name, never seen them in person. Now, he had finally come into real contact with a trace of the Sweepers Civilization.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the powerful Sweepers Civilization had, like Xiao Yu now, arrived in this place. The difference was that back then, this small universe was still part of the greater universe. And at that time, what greeted the Sweepers Civilization were the tens of thousands of powerful warships that remained to the Trolor Civilization, rather than the field of debris covering everything now.

The might of the Sweepers Civilization was fully revealed. Even after hundreds of thousands of years, the lingering sense of destruction they left behind still made Xiao Yu feel deeply apprehensive.

For example, the large fragment of a warship ahead. It was about ten meters in diameter, appearing to have been forcibly torn from a ship. Inside, one could still see some delicate instruments and mechanisms. These instruments were also incomplete, making it impossible for Xiao Yu to analyze them. But there was one phenomenon that attracted his keen interest.

Yet on this fragment's cross-section, Xiao Yu could find no traces at all for analysis. Furthermore, the fracture formed a perfectly straight line. Although the erosion of the ages had caused this line to deform slightly, after restoration analysis, Xiao Yu could confirm that when the fracture had just been created, its neatness even reached the level of quarks.

In other words, the atomic structure of the material had all been cleaved in an instant. Even examined at the atomic scale, the cut remained perfectly smooth.

Such smoothness was no less precise than that of the droplet-shaped probes Xiao Yu had once witnessed.

This fragment filled Xiao Yu with silent shock. At this moment, Xiao Yu felt very much like the scenes often depicted in martial arts novels: one great hero casually slices through a branch, hands it to another hero to examine, and the other hero, upon studying the cut, perceives some profound mystery and willingly yields in admiration.

Right now, Xiao Yu was precisely being overwhelmed by this 'branch.'

"This must be a space weapon. The rupture of space caused all matter within it to be severed together, even the atomic structures were not spared and were sliced clean in two. Presumably, that weapon called Fractured Space must use the same form of attack." Xiao Yu contemplated silently, feeling all the more anticipation in his heart.

In fact, within this star system, there were countless such fragments, their number virtually endless. Xiao Yu did not intend to let these things slip by, so he dispatched a vast number of micro-scale combat starships and miniature robots, planning to search here to see whether any intact instruments remained that he could recover and use. If he could catch a glimpse of Level 6 Civilization technology, that would be excellent.

However, the outcome disappointed Xiao Yu. All the instruments the robots observed had been completely destroyed, with no possibility of repair. Naturally, Xiao Yu could not glean any insight into the technological standards of a Level 6 Civilization from them.

"Truly worthy of being called Sweepers, to have cleaned up so thoroughly, leaving me not a single valuable thing." Xiao Yu thought to himself, still silently complaining in his heart.

After pondering for a moment, Xiao Yu abandoned the idea of retrieving treasures from this heap of wreckage and instead focused all his mind and attention on the dwarf planet drawing ever nearer.

At this moment, the distance was less than three hundred million kilometers. At this range, the white dwarf star shone far more brightly, roughly with the brightness of a dim yellow moon on an overcast night, appearing exceptionally beautiful.

"This dwarf planet must be the lair of Intelligent Program One… I wonder what sort of trial it has prepared for me?"

The distance continued slowly closing. When it shrank to thirty million kilometers, Xiao Yu received a transmission from Intelligent Program One.

"Very well, you have passed the first trial," Intelligent Program One said. "The great Trolor Civilization left you three trials. Next, the second trial will commence."

"The great Trolor Civilization, in order to test your overall combat strength, instructed me, after all of them perished, to create a fleet… of course, it is not a fleet of Level 6 Civilization. They are only warships with a Level 4 Civilization technological standard, and there are not many of them, roughly only thirty thousand vessels. The Trolor Civilization directed me to inform you: if you destroy these fleets, you will pass the second trial. If you cannot destroy them, you will fail the trial and be forever trapped here."

Before Xiao Yu's eyes, ship after ship rose into the air from the dwarf planet, swiftly forming their battle formations.

"Only a Level 4 Civilization fleet?" Xiao Yu quietly let out a sigh of relief in his heart. "This poses no difficulty for me at all. They have not yet mastered tachyon or negative matter technologies, so their defenses, firepower, and reconnaissance capabilities are all far inferior to mine. It appears this Intelligent Program One perhaps has not evolved an independent consciousness of its own. It is still operating strictly in accordance with the instructions left by the Trolor Civilization. If that's truly the case, then there is nothing to worry about."

Although Xiao Yu had not yet miniaturized negative matter cannons to the point of mounting them aboard his ships and truly transforming the technology into usable combat power, technological progress was comprehensive in nature, and Xiao Yu's overall combat strength was still in a league that Level 4 Civilizations could not match.

Take the tachyon shields for example, Level 4 Civilizations simply did not possess such technology. Or the antimatter engines, antimatter bombs, and faster-than-light reconnaissance, Level 4 Civilizations still conducted battlefield reconnaissance by launching numerous probes into the battlefield and then relaying information to their commanders through superluminal communication, in order to eliminate the latency of radio transmissions. However, this approach had a flaw: on the battlefield, the probes had very limited survivability and were easily destroyed.

This was something Xiao Yu had experienced firsthand in several previous large-scale space wars. But ever since acquiring tachyon-related technology, he had no longer had to concern himself with such issues. Faster-than-light probes could be directly installed aboard ships, acquiring battlefield information in real time, not only vastly increasing reliability but also providing great convenience.

Besides these, Xiao Yu also possessed the most formidable defensive tool: the Four-Dimensional Space Shield obtained from the Taihao Civilization. The Four-Dimensional Space Shield was truly Level 6 Civilization technology. According to Xiao Yu's own estimations, even ordinary Level 6 Civilizations might not have something of this caliber. All these factors combined left Xiao Yu entirely unconcerned about these thirty thousand Level 4 Civilization ships, even somewhat dismissive of them.

"In accordance with your instructions, Intelligent Program One," Xiao Yu transmitted his response. "We shall do our utmost to prove our capabilities, to prove we will not disgrace the name of the Trolor."

Three million ships hovered in space. The Home One did not move, nor did the more than one million ships assigned to guard it. None of the Nation-Class or Province-Class ships moved either. Only a dozen or so City-Class ships, carrying about one hundred thousand other medium and small ships, detached themselves from the main force and sailed toward the pitiful thirty thousand enemy ships.

In Xiao Yu's view, among those thirty thousand ships, the largest barely reached the standard of his City-Class ships, and there were only two of those. There were not even many County-Class vessels. Dispatching a dozen City-Class ships was already the result of Xiao Yu repeatedly cautioning himself not to underestimate the enemy.

The distance between the two fleets grew shorter and shorter. War was about to begin.

At that moment, at the edge of the star system, in the pitch-black depths of space, the Level 4 Alien Beast curled its body into a motionless ball.

An imperceptible information channel was linking its mind with that dwarf planet, through which countless transmissions were flowing swiftly.

"So that's how it is? I understand. I will cooperate with you."