Chapter 197: Atomic Chain Hypothesis

At the cut section of the warship, the officers saw a mirror-like surface.

This mirror was not just a simple reflection on a macroscopic level.

Instead, it was incredibly smooth even at the atomic level.

It felt as if some force was squeezing the atoms to the sides, similar to how a sharp knife cuts through a fruit, but without leaving any trace of the fruit's juice or flesh.

One could imagine that their energy shield was also cut in this manner.

Chu's weapon took advantage of the gaps between atoms.

Atoms are connected by "bonds," and these bonds are not physical substances but rather forces.

Typically, there are three types of bonds that connect atoms: ionic bonds, covalent bonds, and metallic bonds.

Ionic bonds are easy to understand; sometimes, electrons move from one atom to another, forming positive and negative ions that are tightly bound by electrostatic forces.

Covalent bonds are more complex. An electron does not always belong exclusively to one nucleus; it moves back and forth between the nucleus and another atom, like a commuter or a student going between home and work or school. This electron is shared between two nuclei, and its continuous jumping connects the atoms.

Metallic bonds have a certain degree of uniqueness. They are based on covalent bonds but with the addition of a free electron. This free electron behaves like a hooligan, not only roaming around your home but also visiting other people's homes, schools, and workplaces. As the name suggests, metallic bonds exist in metals.

These bonding methods are all related to the electrostatic forces between positive and negative particles. These "bonds" are also called chemical bonds, and they are what hold together chemical substances like sodium oxide and hydrogen chloride, which combine two different elements.

Chu's weapon brutally broke these bonds.

On a macroscopic level, this isn't particularly difficult; any precision processing equipment in the Federation can do this. But Chu accomplished this over an extremely long distance.

It's like holding a pair of scissors in your hand and using them to cut a piece of paper 1,000 kilometers away.

Unless your scissors have a blade aura, this is impossible.

Following this line of thought, the warship's mainframe conducted an analysis.

"Given that the enemy's weapon does not exhibit energy reactions, it either possesses a special form of energy beyond our understanding or simply lacks high energy."

"Low energy cannot cut through objects, so there's only one possibility left: the substance that Chu Ming fired."

Subsequently, the mainframe began generating theoretical images based on its analysis.

The warship's mainframe, aside from Ella and the Mechanical God, is the Federation's most powerful computer, with computational power that far surpasses Ella's original form from 10,000 years ago.

If Ella had redesigned the computer's underlying model, the warship's mainframe could easily give birth to super artificial intelligence.

The image played.

It was a thread composed of atoms, with only one atom in the horizontal direction and over a trillion atoms in the vertical direction, resembling an extremely fine hair.

It was accelerated to a speed exceeding 250,000 km/s, cutting through matter at an extremely high velocity.

Of course, if it were just a single atom, it wouldn't have such power.

As observed, these atoms were tightly bound together, with the nucleus of one atom even entering the electron orbit of another. Although they were not tightly connected, they were still very close.

If the atoms on this thread were not as tightly connected, it might appear as a line on a macroscopic level, but on an atomic level, they would be separate atoms, making it impossible to achieve a cutting effect.

Then there's the energy aspect.

These atoms had a much higher energy level than ordinary atoms; they were not natural atoms but rather a creation.

A Level 2 Chu Ming could fundamentally use strings to create elementary particles, and this atom was special.

When it encountered other atoms, it would exchange matter with them, but this exchange did not produce positive and negative ions; instead, it produced positive ions.

Electrons of the same charge repel each other, so when this atom came into contact with other atoms, it immediately pushed away all the surrounding atoms.

This repulsion, combined with the dark energy carried by these atoms, further widened the gaps between atoms, preventing the displaced atoms from recombining.

In 2013, humans on Earth discovered that metals could self-heal, and in 2023, metal healing was proven to exist. Therefore, dark energy played a crucial role in this attack.

The mainframe named this weapon the Atomic Chain.

Of course, this was all based on the mainframe's analysis; they had not actually observed the existence of the Atomic Chain.

But this analysis was enough to stabilize morale, and the most important thing was to figure out how to defend against a possible Atomic Chain attack.

After several days and nights of analysis, the ten ship commanders (the Atomic Chain had cut through the warship, but the soldiers and officers inside were not killed) concluded that there was no solution other than evasion.

Since they were on a warship and not in a research institute, they couldn't directly develop defensive technology against the enemy's weapons.

Even if the warship had a research facility, it was unlikely that they could collaborate with Federation scholars on the ship.

"Evasion is the best tactic; we must launch an offensive."

"We have to go head-on."

"The energy used to launch the Atomic Chain is not excessive. Chu Ming can continuously fire the Atomic Chain to strike us, and our regular flight patterns are energy-intensive. This is Chu Ming's intention."

"Use this energy for evasion and launch an offensive."

On the fifth day of their decision, a message arrived via a tachyon communicator.

"The Federation has prepared weapons that can help us."

"It's ready so soon!"

"Long live the Federation!"

The ship commanders, who had been considering a desperate fight, were now filled with renewed hope.

All they needed to do was send the coordinates of Chu Ming's warship, and then they would wait in silence for the Federation's long-range weapons to take effect.

Given that the commander had sent this information after learning about the enemy, it meant that this long-range weapon could definitely change the situation.

It should have been like this.

However, after waiting for eleven years, nothing happened.