Chapter 113: Chu's Constant Missteps

The fleet of the Olive Branch Civilization departed from Xingcheng, each ship massive in size and shaped like rectangular blocks, devoid of any other distinguishing features, resembling giant ink slabs.

These ink slabs reached speeds of up to 11% the speed of light and encountered the "fleet" of the Civilization Federation 47 years later.

Without any communication, both sides opened fire on each other.

In that region, only the gravitational lensing effect of large celestial bodies could obscure and distort light, making the lasers fired by the ships appear curved from a distance. Both sides' weapon systems were still electromagnetic in nature.

However, to achieve greater power, the Civilization Federation's battleships began to form complex combinations.

Some battleships specialized in providing energy, some in providing binding force, and some in targeting.

Each type of battleship performed its designated role, perfectly coordinating in space to form a vast electromagnetic net spanning tens to hundreds of astronomical units.

It is worth noting that one astronomical unit is approximately 150 million kilometers, and the resulting electromagnetic net was indeed a colossal structure.

Taking advantage of their numerical superiority, these battleships surrounded the ink slab battleships of the Olive Branch Civilization from six directions—front, back, left, right, above, and below—and released the electromagnetic net.

This caught the Olive Branch Civilization off guard.

The terrifying electromagnetic net managed to destroy one of their battleships.

However, the Olive Branch Civilization quickly retaliated. Gravitational weapons caused the Civilization Federation's battleships to fall towards a specific location, and these gravitational weapons, assisted by electromagnetic paralysis devices, disrupted the engine systems of the Civilization Federation's battleships almost instantly, preventing them from accelerating to escape velocity.

These battleships eventually collided at the core of the gravitational field, with almost no resistance.

Thousands upon thousands of battleships were destroyed within a year, completely overwhelmed by the Olive Branch Civilization.

Yet, the battle was not over.

The colliding battleships generated powerful gravitational forces in an instant, and these battleships were equipped with gravitational weapons, further intensifying the gravitational weapons of the Olive Branch Civilization.

In just 0.07 seconds, a black hole was born at the core of the gravitational field. These black holes were created by high-energy tearing through space and existed for an extremely short time. However, during this brief period, they began to merge with each other, forming an even larger black hole. Due to the nature of black holes, which can trap light, there was almost no energy loss, and a larger black hole meant a longer duration.

The event horizon of the largest black hole exceeded 100 meters, no longer qualifying as a micro black hole.

That pitch-black void resembled a devouring maw of the universe, swallowing everything in its path.

Under its terrifying gravitational pull, even the closer battleships of the Olive Branch Civilization, accelerating at 1000G, could not avoid falling towards the black hole. As they approached the event horizon, the ships were stretched into long strips and then disappeared into the void.

Black holes.

A Type II civilization was capable of creating such celestial bodies as weapons.

However, this was akin to the 21st-century humans' control over nuclear and hydrogen bombs, a forbidden taboo that could not be controlled. No one could tame this greedy beast; they could only wait for its departure.

Fortunately, it didn't last long.

The black hole only lasted for 27 minutes.

The Olive Branch Civilization lost two more battleships due to this incident.

This was a minor loss compared to their fleet of 200 ships, but it was enough to infuriate the Olive Branch Civilization.

They were facing not even the regular battleships of the Civilization Federation; these kilometer-long and hundred-meter-long ships were nothing but a bunch of junk!

The Civilization Federation had used this junk to destroy three of their battleships.

It was a humiliation!

The enraged fleet of the Olive Branch Civilization gradually dispersed, with each ship maintaining a distance of over a million kilometers from the others.

They formed a square array in space, and in the blink of an eye, all the battleships of the Civilization Federation in the opposite starry sky were shattered into pieces.

It all happened in an instant, without any warning, and they couldn't even discern the nature of the attack.

Only the probes on the wreckage of the destroyed ships revealed what had transpired.

The Olive Branch Civilization released a high-energy particle stream. These particles had mass and were accelerated to 99.999999999999% of the speed of light, almost reaching the speed of light.

The more a substance approaches the speed of light, the greater its inertial mass becomes—a fundamental law of physics.

The high-energy particle stream utilized this principle. Although each particle was only the size of a single particle, its inertial mass exceeded 1kg or even 10kg.

Typically, when we refer to the weight of an object, we are talking about its gravitational mass. Inertial mass is a measure of inertia, and these two forces are proportional under most conditions. This means that when the high-energy particle stream collided with the ships, it was as if they were struck by an object the size of a nanometer but weighing over 1kg.

It might not sound impressive.

It even seemed like a physical human body could withstand it.

However, the high-energy particle stream consisted of countless particles, with over a billion billion particles per square centimeter continuously bombarding the ships.

Even ships with electromagnetic shields were instantly destroyed, and the damage penetrated to the molecular level, shattering even the fundamental particles. The resulting micro-nuclear explosions further eliminated any chance of ship survival.

It was a brief war.

The round trip journey took 94 years, but the war itself lasted only a year and a half.

Unexpectedly, the Olive Branch Civilization emerged victorious.

However, back in Xingcheng, Chu couldn't feel happy. As they collected the wreckage of the ships, they realized that there were no living beings inside; only mechanical computers of the Civilization Federation were in control.

Three of their battleships had been destroyed by a bunch of mindless machines.

This was a significant mistake in decision-making.

"Manager, you should be more decisive. It's clear that the Civilization Federation is prepared to go down with the ship."

"You should abandon that damned perfect plan and show the strength of our civilization to those weak insects."

Discontent spread through the shared consciousness cluster.

They had only granted Chu higher authority a few hundred years ago, and look at the mess he had made—even worse than before.

Chu kept making mistakes.

It must be understood that this was a game of civilizations, and every tiny mistake could lead to significant losses.

Chu was jolted awake by this criticism.

"Indeed."

"If we still cling to our original ideas at this point, we'll only be led around by the nose."

Chu once again thought of Yan Xia. It seemed that what he had done to end this was just the beginning of something else.

Even trapped in that gravitational prison, Yan Xia could still outmaneuver them in this game, while they had been played around by him.

This was the first time Chu felt a sense of dread towards Yan Xia.

Chu shouldn't have been fixated on controlling the Civilization Federation; it had put him in a completely passive position.

"But you're already in my grasp. What can you do to survive?"

"The outbreak of war between the Civilization Federation and us also means that you've lost your usefulness. Even if I kill you now, it's justifiable."

As Chu was pondering this, he was informed that the Civilization Federation's battleship docked at the Xingcheng interstellar port had activated...