The next moment, a brilliant star appeared in the corner of the view. The sunlight was weakened and filtered to prevent it from hurting the eyes of the people on the bridge. Hao Ren let the MDT adjust the lens of the external monitor to see the situation around the star.
The so-called "Aerymian planet" was long gone. The planet was gradually broken into pieces thousands of years ago. Now, it was a continuous stretch of floating islands orbiting the original planet, like a series of fragmented, but similarly sized, pointed stones floating in space in a procession. In order to mine the last bit of resources from the planet's underground, and to replenish the planet's energy cycle as much as possible, the elves resolutely disintegrated their entire planet, turning it into a fragmented state that could maximize the sun's energy and accommodate more people at the same time. After the rock layers deep in the mantle were dismantled and reshaped into such floating islands, they obtained precious living space and even more precious — a testing ground.
The floating islands had obvious traces of artificiality. Their main body was the rock of the planet itself, but around the floating islands were huge artificial "hoop". The somewhat dim man-made structure between rock and metal not only maintained the stability of the floating islands, but also produced a kind of energy shield to protect the land below, and the energy shield itself could be used to filter the sun. One side of the floating island was flat, and the other side was a huge ugly rock foundation. Between the uneven inverted mountains, ancient and huge mechanical structures could be seen. They were the floating island's power plant, gravity generator, energy station, and material recycling factory. The mechanical structures were probably thousands of years old, and many of them were damaged. But obviously, their creators had no energy and resources to repair them.
"Those are our homes." Hilda calmed down at this moment. She stood up and pointed to the holographic image. "Some of the floating islands far away from the main residential area are testing grounds. Back then, we used to test the space-time core and super-power magic accelerator on them. If we didn't disassemble the planet like this, we wouldn't even be able to find such a testing ground. The magic accelerator needs to be built on a solid and huge foundation, and the conventional space station can't carry it. Once it explodes, it may even tear half the planet apart, so it can't be placed on the mother planet. In history, there was a generation of scholars who built as large a space platform as possible to barely carry this dangerous experiment. But a fusion furnace explosion caused the platform to crash, almost destroying the entire ecology of the northern hemisphere. These experimental projects were suspended until the planet was reshaped. But that is also the past. Now, the space-time core and magic accelerator experiments have been stopped, and we really have no resources. "
"Those floating islands with bright energy shields are ecological islands, and there are ecological domes under the shields. We did our best to preserve the ecosystem of the planet era, and transplanted them into a huge artificial circulation system. These ecological domes provide us with valuable and complex organic matter, and at the same time … they are the only luxury that my people have left. Every Aerymian elf can rest in the dome for 15 days a year, but no more. The capacity of those domes has a limit, and with the aging of some key systems, they are actually about to shut down. If they shut down, I'm afraid we will have to rely entirely on factory synthetic materials to survive, and many people will die. Aerymian elves are a race that evolves slowly. A healthy individual has a lifespan of a thousand years, and the speed of environmental deterioration is far beyond the speed of our adaptation. Whenever an ancient facility shuts down, a large number of old elves... and even young elves die. "
"Those floating islands that are connected by bright beams of light are residential areas. Most elves live on those islands. They are specially designed to have the lowest energy consumption, the most stable recycling system, and the more reasonable architectural planning. In other words... they can last longer. Most of the synthetic factories are on those floating islands. Even if other floating islands, such as the experimental site, are accidentally destroyed, these residential areas can survive as long as possible. "
The spacecraft gradually approached the space islands in low-speed cruise mode. Hao Ren found that there was a group of special individuals on the floating islands. They wandered around the edge of the island chain, and the whole body was dim. Some of the "hoop" at the edge of the island had even been damaged and fell off or disappeared. There were still traces of man-made buildings on the floating islands, but the energy shields over the land had obviously been extinguished. The land without a trace of light looked lifeless, like a depleted space rock.
"What is that?"
"The Land of the Dead." Hilda sighed. "We have created these seemingly magnificent spatial entities, but it does not mean that we have superb technology. These floating islands were built in a desperate way. The technology is not mature enough, and even the theory is not perfect enough. Many of the island structures are different because the original designers themselves did not know which kind of island could last longer. Moreover, many of the floating islands were flawed at the beginning of construction, and could not be repaired in the later stages when they malfunctioned. So, there are constantly floating islands that are destroyed and extinguished, and then they become like that. "
Now even Lily was quiet. She was even a little afraid of the strange scene in front of her. She tucked her tail between her legs, but her ears were straight. "What about the people up there?"
"Most of the time, they can be rescued and transferred to other islands." Hilda nodded. "This will increase the ecological pressure on other islands, so every time after such a rescue transfer, there will be a period of resource restriction act, mainly to limit newborns and reduce per capita supplies. There are also some elderly who will take the initiative to enter the 'World of Prayers' and let their bodies undergo euthanasia to make room for other young adults. There is no other way, we have to let the entire race survive as much as possible. "
"This place..." Hao Ren opened his mouth and did not know what to say for a long time. "It is more serious than I thought."
As an earthling and a rookie inspector who had not had time to experience too many things, Hao Ren could not imagine how many incredible things were happening in the vast void. The disasters and doomsday he had seen in various stories could not compare to the chain of space islands in front of him. Before he came here, he had thought about how he should help Hilda and her people. For example, he could borrow the World Gate system of the Empire and his contacts in Kuiper Station to see if he could send some supplies here, or buy some technology or spacecraft from the vendors of the Fairy Void Consortium that did not exceed the provisions of the "Civilization Non-interference Act" for the Aerymian elves. As an inspector, he had a certain amount of "Imperial Ration Points" every month, but he had not used these things yet. He only heard that these "Imperial Ration Points" could be exchanged for abnormally abundant supplies from the major civilizations of the Macro World, so he came up with the idea.
But now it seemed that all his plans had to be modified.
These Aerymian elves were far from being able to be helped by a little bit of supplies or a little bit of late technology.
"Your creativity and tenacity are indeed commendable," the MDT could not help but say something. "It's just that you have not discovered the mystery of the FTL engine. Sometimes, a fork in the technology tree can destroy a civilization, especially for a race like yours that is innately not rich enough. As long as one technology is not developed in time, there is often no chance for a comeback. I can see that you have worked very hard, but... in the end, you did not succeed. "
Hilda sighed. "Yes, the last teleportation experiment also failed."
As the Petrachelys approached the island chain, it obviously attracted the attention of the Aerymian elves. Hao Ren noticed that the communicator suddenly reported a large number of unknown contact signals. Some bright light spots quickly circled around the back of a few residential floating islands and quickly approached the spacecraft. When the camera zoomed in, Hao Ren saw that it was a triangular spacecraft with blunt edges, gleaming with a grayish-white metallic luster. Each spacecraft's shell was flashing with bright runes. Obviously, it was not the same as the usual spacecraft. Those were probably the spaceships made by the Aerymian elves. Unfortunately, they could not cross the tens of millions of light-years slowly.
These grayish-white triangular spacecraft quickly came to the side of the Petrachelys. Hao Ren slowed the spacecraft to a near standstill, so the "small spacecraft" of tens of meters long stopped as well. They did not make any rash moves such as rapid detour. The pilots inside must be in a state of great shock and nervousness. Everyone on the bridge could even feel their emotions through the cold space and several layers of starship armor.
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