No matter how long I studied it, I still couldn't understand what a Glory Starship was.
Of course, if one only looked at it from the surface, these gigantic planetary fortresses were nothing more than battleships that had been constructed with a slightly special method. Just like Veska's Barrier Star, I had been there more than once, and it felt like a high-tech planetary battleship. But if one ignored the surface, it was more like a creation of the mystical arts.
The materialization of spiritual power allowed me to project my soul in the form of a planetary battleship. I explained the entire construction process of a Glory Starship in a single sentence. Of course, this was a popular theory to accommodate my mortal level of comprehension. If anyone really wanted to know how a Glory Starship came about, I had a highly compressed four-gigabyte worth of detailed information for you to take a look …
It was nighttime on Earth. Of course, since there were no stars here, the day and night on Earth were also artificially controlled. The reason why the surface of the planet was set to nighttime was to make it easier for us to observe the situation of the world's arbitration organization.
In the clear and deep night sky, there were three huge moons hanging in the sky.
They were planetary battleships that had activated their gravitational isolation system and were orbiting far away from Earth. Due to the close distance, from our position, the three pure white disks were like shadowless lamps that covered half the sky. The faint glow they emitted enveloped the land in a gentle halo, giving off a sense of holiness. These three planetary battleships were completely different from the ones I had seen in my dreams. They were no longer exposed mechanical structures that looked rough and ancient. Instead, they were covered in a layer of smooth silver-white outer shell. This was a Glory Starship when it was fully charged and in normal operation. That silver-white outer shell wasn't just for aesthetic purposes. Its defensive capabilities were almost on par with the Gospel after the arbitration mode was activated. Of course, it was still slightly inferior to the latter. After all, Glory Starship wasn't created to be a battleship that served as the vanguard of the battlefield. Its true strength lay in its strategic value.
Even though it took a long time to prepare, it only took an instant for Pandora and the others to transform. Strictly speaking, just a few minutes ago, Pandora and Little Bubble had just finished the great battle of snatching candy. Now, she had transformed into a planetary battleship in outer space according to the schedule, leaving Little Bubble standing on the ground with half a lollipop in her mouth. She looked up at the sky and muttered to herself.
"I thought those three girls would have to transform for at least half a day." Looking at the three giant moons in the sky, I rubbed my eyes and said to Sandora, "How did it end so quickly?"
The three moons appeared in the sky at once! The silver light that suddenly shone down on me almost made me tumble in fright!
"Have you forgotten the essence of Glory?" Sandora glanced at me, "The speed at which thoughts spread is the same speed at which Glory's starship unfolds. The only time it wastes time is the preparation before it unfolds. At that time, the Shiring Apostles need to constantly adjust their spiritual power. It takes them almost a month to change their spiritual power from a closed state to a semi-open state. However, it only takes an instant for them to release their spiritual power. Otherwise, every Glory starship would have to be built in a dock for a few months like a normal planetary battleship without any defensive capabilities. The value of this ultimate weapon would be greatly reduced."
I nodded in agreement with Sandora's words. More importantly, there was another point. If Glory needed a few months to slowly build up, would Pandora, that impatient fellow, have the mood to wait?
I raised my head and looked at the three bright moons in the sky curiously.
The largest one was Gaia, the second was Alaya, and the smallest was Pandora … Ugh, what was with this awkward feeling!? I couldn't imagine three cute girls hanging in the sky and shining on all living things, you bastard! Should I complain about this situation?!
"Pandora, how's the situation?" I did my best to shake off the weird thought of the three girls shining on all living things and the big cute creature saving the world. I used my mental connection to ask the loli general who was in space. Her body had expanded by a billion times, but she was still tragically the last among the three sisters.
"The arbiter has descended, please guide us …"
The reply I received wasn't Pandora's usual emotionless voice, but a low and gentle female voice that seemed to be a combination of several voices, but it carried an inconceivable sense of solemnity.
"The biggest difference between the arbiter and a normal Glory starship is that the moment it is activated, the spirits of the three Wise Ones will completely merge into one, while the Shiring Apostles in their normal Glory form will always maintain their independent self-awareness." Sandora saw the strange expression on my face, and she didn't need to think to guess why I was surprised. "They have already merged into a completely new mechanical consciousness. Although they retain their original memories, don't expect to hear any of their responses."
"Err … Speaking of which, they have temporarily disappeared?" A strange feeling welled up in my heart. I knew that this was as normal as eating and drinking to Schilling, but when I thought about how Pandora's will had already become such a mechanical AI …
"It's not quite right to say that they have disappeared." Sandora seemed to be troubled about how to explain the current state of the three girls to me. "Yup, you can imagine them as a three-person council that is closed off from the outside world. Now, every word you say to them will be reviewed by this council, and the results of the review will be announced by an AI spokesperson that they created. During the entire process, you will be unable to communicate with any member of the council alone, and the members of the council will be unable to respond to you with their own opinions … That's about it. This is also how the arbiter works."
Council, huh …
I raised my head to look. A little lunatic whose head was filled with militaristic thoughts, an idiotic angel with a dull head, and a blue AI whose attributes were still unknown, but whose actions seemed mechanical and inflexible. They formed a council that could judge the entire world …
Sandora, let's go defy the heavens!
It had already been one month and ten days since we left the Black Sun.
That gigantic black star had already completely collapsed about a month ago, just as we had expected. The Black Sun's collapse was completely different from the collapse of a normal star. There was no release of energy or destructive gravitational force at all. Its death was like a soundlessly popping soap bubble, and the entire process was as quiet as a grave — this was also in line with the Black Sun's "Law of Death" attribute.
When the unmanned outposts we had placed near the Black Sun simultaneously reported that the target zone had become a normal Law zone, the Abyssal energies arrived just as expected. The dark star's core had been strengthened for so long, and now it was like a trapped bird out of its cage, brimming with energy as if it had been injected with two hundred milliliters of chicken blood. We had lost contact with one of the unmanned outposts we had placed on the Black Sun's outer shell in almost two seconds. There was no doubt that the radiation of the Abyssal energies alone had caused the outpost to self-destruct.
Fortunately, the barrier that Jingle and Shallow Shallow had jointly set up had worked. The space around the Black Sun had become a stagnant zone, and Jingle had removed the quantum effects of that space, preventing the Abyssal energies from instantaneously contaminating the entire universe through quantum radiation. Then, she set the speed of light in that space to ten meters per second, which was the limit that Jingle could achieve against such powerful Abyssal energies. Now, the Abyssal energies near the Black Sun were slowly but steadily seeping out at this "highest speed in the universe", but against the iron-like laws of the universe, it was temporarily unable to escape that cage.
Shallow Shallow, on the other hand, changed the time curvature of that space that Jingle had fixed. Inside that space, time still flowed normally, but in our eyes, it was 1.5 times slower than the outside world, which gave the natives of the Kepru System precious time to catch their breath.
There was still one day left before the "hot start".
The evacuation of the Proteans was nearing its end. Nearly four-fifths of the Protean "Protoss" had now arrived or were rushing to the few temporary shelters around Kepru. There were some ecological planets that the Empire had urgently built. It was not an easy task to complete such a large amount of work in a month. Even with the construction speed of the Schilling Mainframes, it was impossible to build a shelter for the refugees of the entire system in such a short period of time. In the end, Liliana used the holy seeds that her "benevolent and loving Goddess" had given her to barely build an unstable ecosphere on a few planets, which could be considered as solving the urgent need for survival of these refugees. Now, the Proteans' migration ships and those simple ecological planets formed the eastern region of the largest refugee camp in history. Meanwhile, in the western region of this refugee camp, the simple colony named "New Eden" by Reynolds was filled with human exiles.
Although in the end, only less than one-third of the human population was successfully mobilized (in fact, this number was already very shocking. Not only did Uncle Reynolds' charisma play a huge role in the entire mobilization process, but also the Imperial Army's "gentle admonition" to the local government), the huge human population still made the number of refugees the most troublesome thing. The Imperial Army even mobilized nearly half of the transport ships to send all these people to the safe zone. At this time, I was even a little thankful to the foolish dictator Mengsk. If it wasn't for his suspicions and sensationalist public opinion that made most of the upper-class citizens of Kepru choose to stay in their homes and resist the "invasion", these poor people in the periphery of the Protean System would never have had the opportunity to seek refuge.
"The arbiters are ready. The will of the Empire shall rule over everything."
The world's arbiters had completed all the pre-activation and self-inspection work. Although Pandora and the other two hadn't synchronized their arbiters for hundreds of thousands of years, their cooperation was still not rusty. When they sent this message back, the three planetary fortresses in the sky above our home planet were forming a stable triangular system, slowly orbiting our planet. This kind of orbit that completely violated the normal laws of the universe was obviously propelled by the planetary battleships themselves. As the three goddesses gradually activated their own rule modules, the space we were in gradually produced all kinds of strange natural phenomena.
The phantom of a planet that suddenly appeared in the void, the shadows of groups of spaceships, the inexplicable flashes, and the occasional comet that streaked across the sky — there wasn't a single comet within a few light years!
Those were projections from all corners of the universe. They might not even be from the current era. Just like the phantom of a giant planet that slowly streaked across the sky tens of thousands of kilometers above our home planet a few minutes ago, Shallow Shallow discovered that it was actually a planet that had been destroyed a billion years ago!
"The last batch of human evacuees has left the blockade," a report came from the lower information link. "The second to sixth fleets of the Empire have evacuated the Keplu Star Zone. This area can be locked down at any time."
That was the report in the information link. However, I knew that even now, there were still scattered human escapees setting up their own private spaceships and approaching the blockade of the Empire.
Compared to the highly rational Proteus and the completely monolithic Zergs, human psychology was fragile and fickle. Even in places where Mengsk's influence was the strongest, there were still humans with the mentality of escaping. Most of these people were wealthy, or they were the bosses of private companies, or they were the well-informed descendants of famous families. It was normal for them to own private interstellar shuttles. These scattered escapees had not stopped since a month ago. Even though Mengsk had strictly prohibited this kind of treason, these stowaways continued to pass through our outpost.
And now, there was a communication port waiting for orders in front of me. As long as this port received the final confirmation, the entire Keplu Star Zone would be completely locked down. No one would be able to escape, including the ordinary citizens who were accelerating madly, even at the cost of burning their spaceships to escape.
"Ah Jun, there's no time." Sandora leaned over gently. "This is a necessary sacrifice. We have to be responsible for the entire universe."
"I know." I took a deep breath and tried my best not to think about the people in this Star Zone who were still unable to evacuate and were eager to evacuate. Even if there were hundreds of millions of them, we …
"All Empire outposts, pay attention. I am your Emperor. I now give the order: Keplu Star Zone is completely locked down! Keplu Star Zone is completely locked down! "
It turned out that it only required this little bit of courage to say it out loud.
The Empire commanders were still working nervously but orderly. The command hall was as quiet as ever, but I knew that just a second ago, this Star Zone that was the size of two Milky Way galaxies had been sentenced to death, including the countless remaining lives here.
The lockdown of the Empire's blockade was only the first step. Its purpose was only to prevent the frequent mass exchange from causing unstable cracks in the subsequent "universe division". Two hours later, Jingle, who was in a cabin that had been temporarily built as a temple, began her work: turning Keplu Star Zone into a closed new universe.
This process was the highest authority that the God of World Management had. Even with the attainments of the Schilling people in mysticism, they couldn't explain the principle of this world division. In my perception, everything happened in an instant. The spiritual connection that had been maintained with Earth's shadow city at all times suddenly weakened. That was a phenomenon caused by the sudden appearance of a world barrier between the connections. Through more advanced observation instruments, the abnormality was even more obvious: the volume of the universe had suddenly shrunk, from the original vast and endless, to the size of a galaxy. Beyond the galaxy was an undetectable world barrier. The gravitational wave detection that we sent out from one direction would only take an instant to arrive behind us. This was enough to prove that the entire galaxy was in a closed state. The space here had achieved continuity and closure on a scale of 160,000 light years. Nothing could escape from here.
Perhaps the Mengsk scientists would discover the anomaly in the universe before the formatting process was completed. Who knew if they would regret the decision they had made in the first place?
In the eyes of the exiles who had already left Keplu Star Zone, the change that happened to their home was even more horrifying: it disappeared. It disappeared in an instant!
When the world was divided into two, Keplu Star Zone was excluded from its original coordinates. In the eyes of the natives of Keplu, the place that they used to call home had disappeared in an instant. Not even a blank space was left. The space around Keplu Star Zone faithfully fulfilled the law of spatial elasticity, instantly filling in the blank space caused by the disappearance of the star zone.
"World Division Complete. World Barrier confirmed. The Empire's main fleet that stayed behind has obtained the information cleansing exemption code using their home planet. Hot start process can be carried out at any time."
With such a report coming from the high-level information link, there was no more time to hesitate now.
No one could escape. The Abyss and the civilization here.
"Shallow Shallow, stop the time distortion. Jingle, release the speed of light and quantum effects!"
For a moment, I seemed to feel that a huge and violent energy was sweeping through the entire command hall. But that must have been my illusion. The defense barrier of the home planet was extremely powerful. It could even last for a long time in the Gate of the Abyss. Now that the power of the Abyss had been fully released, it could not infect the blue ball that was closest to them.
The violent negative thoughts began to sweep everything. In the form of quantum effects, they enveloped everything they could find at an infinite speed. But if the energy of the Abyss had its own consciousness, they would be shocked to find that the world that they were originally full of ambition to destroy had become a narrow cage with a radius of only 160,000 light years. And in this cage, there was a ferocious Devourer locked together with them!
Three hours. Just three hours later, the power of the Abyss had evenly covered every inch of space in this cosmic cage. The strong will of destruction was turbulent, spreading an uneasy atmosphere throughout the world. I really did not expect their infection speed to reach such a level. Even the most powerful Proteus warrior could only last for three hours?
"This is a rare research opportunity …"
Next to me, Tawil's projection suddenly let out a long sigh. She was referring to the Proteus people who were turning into monsters under the influence of the huge amount of Abyss radiation. The process of a new species being eroded by the Abyss was a very interesting research sample for her. It might not be valuable, but it was definitely fun.
I rolled my eyes at the mad scientist and then contacted the three sisters who illuminated all things. "Hot start, begin!"
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