Pillars - 125

After sensing that the black hole had a part of the cosmic dao within it, Zhou Fan backed up and didn't mess with it anymore in case it started attacking him. Although he had become very strong since he had last seen it, he didn't feel completely safe encountering it.

It was something beyond his comprehension and Zhou Fan felt that even a part of it would be enough to harm him. Perhaps once he broke into the next level he wouldn't have to worry about a fragment and instead just stay away from the main body, although he was unable to find it even if he looked.

Although he had backed away, Zhou Fan continued to observe the black hole from afar. Very quickly, Zhou Fan noticed something terrifying. Although very slowly, the black hole was expanding. Its progress was so slow that it was expanding a little less than a mile a year, but it was possible that it would grow quicker as time passed and eventually devour the galaxy.

Despite the fact that a hundred thousand years could pass without any major change happening, Zhou Fan still didn't feel comfortable leaving the black hole to freely grow.

Of course, he couldn't just destroy it. Besides the fact that a piece of the cosmic dao was within it, there was also the fact that it held the entire galaxy together.

Even with his current strength, Zhou Fan had no way to hold the galaxy together himself without focusing all his energy on it. He also knew that he would be unable to create a black hole or something similar to control the entire galaxy's gravity.

Therefore, Zhou Fan thought of another plan. It was possible that he could create a formation or array that would stop the black hole from growing any further than it had.

It would be the most complicated formation he had ever made since it needed to cover such an immense amount of space and do its job with perfection, but Zhou Fan felt that he could do it.

First, he needed to come up with a way to keep the black hole from growing. He considered making a barrier or having an attack formation shave away part of it like it was trimming a beard. After thinking for a while, he felt that the best course of action was using a combination of both methods.

He then needed to decide what type of Qi would work best. Although his first thought was to use chaos Qi, it was far too dangerous to use casually. Instead, he could use an element that was calmer than chaos Qi yet still powerful.

After a few moments, Zhou Fan came to the conclusion that lightning Qi was the way to go. It was more powerful and stronger than an element like fire, but not as chaotic as chaos Qi. With the use of lightning Qi, Zhou Fan felt there was a high chance of success.

The next thing to think about was the exact use of the formation. Zhou Fan felt the best way would be to have a barrier of lightning Qi surrounding the black hole and stopping its expansion, while also having some lightning shave down bits of the black hole in order to completely halt its advances.

If what he was doing was compared to a haircut, it would be as if the lightning Qi barrier was a comb that held the hair, or the black hole, and the lightning that attacked was the pair of clippers that cut the hair, or the black hole.

Theoretically, the formation was simple, but when tried practically, there were some problems. The biggest was the sheer size that the formation would have to be. The black hole was thousands of times bigger than the Zhou Solar system's sun, which had previously been the biggest thing he had seen in the galaxy. The formation would span many lightyear's.

The second problem was the Qi needed to power the formation. Even Zhou Fan felt that he was lacking in Qi to support such a powerful and big formation. Therefore, he would need to find another method to power it.

For the first problem, Zhou Fan thought that he should link multiple formations and arrays together in order to make one that would cover the black hole. As for how to do that, Zhou Fan felt that four really big pieces of rock would be needed. The four rocks would be almost as tall as the black hole itself and be positioned in the four directions of it. They would be arches and they would be covered from head to toe in formations.

After planning it in his head, he felt that the idea should work. The biggest issue would be getting all that rock. Luckily, there were plenty of useless planets in the galaxy that Zhou Fan could use and he could also expand the rocks to their fullest potential, reducing the necessary amount by three times.

Zhou Fan started by collecting the planets closest to the black hole. Like every other planet in the galaxy besides earth and the Zhou World, the planets were useless with no potential for life. Since they would have been devoured by the black hole anyway, Zhou Fan didn't feel too bad.

After an entire month of collecting and expanding, Zhou Fan had many light years worth of rock. Luckily, Zhou Fan barely had to pay attention to width and only look at the height of the arches, although they still had many miles of length.

Zhou Fan split the rock into four different piles and shaped them how he wanted them. They were like giant pillars with a small curve to adjust to the black hole's roundness.

He didn't place them around the black holes just yet and instead began to think of solutions to the second problem. After a while, Zhou Fan felt that the only way to power the formations was to use the immense Qi of the black hole itself.