shoot at each other

The signal originated ten thousand kilometers ahead of Xiao Yu's course.

Xiao Yu had also constructed a triggered hydrogen bomb detonator before. Its basic principle was simple: it constantly emitted a signal to detect if any object came within a certain range, and if it did, the bomb would automatically explode.

Generally speaking, it was nearly impossible to avoid a triggered hydrogen bomb. In the absence of visible light, the detonator emitted only a faint signal to detect nearby objects. Once this signal was detected, it meant that the distance was already close enough to trigger the hydrogen bomb.

This time, if Xiao Yu hadn't arranged his fleet into a radio telescope array by chance, he would have died without ever knowing how he met his end.

It was impossible for Xiao Yu to place hydrogen bombs along his own flight path, so it could only have been placed by that unknown civilization. The purpose was clear: to eliminate Xiao Yu.

A high-yield hydrogen bomb exploding at close range would instantly release intense radiation, disrupting circuits and destroying sensitive components. There was no doubt that if these bombs were triggered, Xiao Yu would meet a gruesome fate.

Xiao Yu and the hydrogen bomb trap were rapidly approaching each other at ten kilometers per second. According to predictions, Xiao Yu would reach the bomb's detonation point in fourteen minutes.

The distance was terrifyingly close.

"Damn it!" Xiao Yu cursed, abandoning all thoughts of concealment. He maneuvered the fleet to unleash its full power, diving downward with ferocious speed.

Over eight hundred ships simultaneously spewed bright flames from their tails, illuminating the dark expanse of space. The radio telescope array was instantly disrupted, and the faint signal from the triggered hydrogen bomb detonator vanished.

Xiao Yu, not daring to be careless, plunged the fleet several hundred thousand kilometers downward before coming to a stop, still shaken. The sudden acceleration and deceleration consumed at least ten percent of his energy reserves, leaving Xiao Yu fuming with anger.

"Why? Does this alien civilization really believe that attacking me would bring them more benefits than peaceful coexistence? Where do they get their confidence? After all, I have mastered controlled nuclear fusion, and our technological levels aren't far apart!"

In thousands of years, Xiao Yu had never felt such fury.

Just a little more, and Xiao Yu would have been dead! He had never faced such peril, not even during the Moon-Collision Event. And to think, this was an entirely undeserved catastrophe—Xiao Yu had originally planned on peaceful coexistence with the other side.

"Do they think I'm an easy target? Fine, I'll take the fight to them!" Xiao Yu vowed, his resolve solidified in an instant.

As Xiao Yu pondered how to launch a counterattack, a small flash of light appeared in the distance, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.

Xiao Yu quickly directed his detection equipment toward it and grew even angrier: "They dare to launch missiles at me?"

Indeed, that bright spot was the flame from the engine of an interstellar missile!

The relative speed of the missile was at least three thousand kilometers per second! This meant it would reach Xiao Yu in about thirty seconds. And there was no doubt that the warhead carried a high-yield hydrogen bomb.

Xiao Yu immediately commanded ten township-class ships to lock onto the missile and aimed high-power laser cannons at it, then decisively pressed the launch button. Instantly, ten high-energy laser beams shot out from the laser cannons, striking the interstellar missile.

Back on Earth, the Americans had developed the Star Wars program, which focused on using space-based satellites to intercept enemy intercontinental missiles with lasers. In short, using lasers to counter missiles had precedent and had been thoroughly researched on Earth.

However, the Americans' Star Wars program never came to fruition, and no country on Earth had ever used lasers to intercept missiles in actual combat, only conducting a few tests to knock down some target satellites.

Now, Xiao Yu was using lasers in real combat.

The speed of the laser is the speed of light. So even if the interstellar missile traveled at three thousand kilometers per second, it couldn't escape the laser's beam. But there was one crucial factor: while the laser itself was fast, the rotation speed of the laser emitter's barrel was not nearly as quick.

This meant that a highly advanced computer was required to instantly calculate the missile's trajectory and then guide the laser emitter to aim.

Additionally, the laser's principle relies on concentrating immense energy on a very small area, which is why it's so lethal. But since the area of effect is small, the laser is unlikely to cause widespread damage to the missile and can only perform precision strikes.

For instance, disabling the missile's warhead, rendering its detonator inoperative. Xiao Yu didn't dare to slice through the missile directly with the laser. The laser cannon had a power limit, and cutting through the missile, which was made of extremely tough material, would take at least two minutes.

But Xiao Yu only had thirty seconds. Gritting his teeth, he unleashed his vast computational power, pinpointed the most likely location of the detonator, and focused the laser on that spot.

The intense laser beam continued to melt the target area until it finally penetrated and destroyed the hydrogen bomb detonator. Xiao Yu then aimed the laser at the missile's engine and began to disable it. Ten seconds later, the missile exploded, disintegrating into pieces.

The explosion was not massive, which indicated that only the fuel in the engine had detonated, not the high-yield hydrogen bomb in the warhead.

Xiao Yu breathed a sigh of relief, but in the next moment, his heart tensed up again.

In the distance, hundreds of light spots suddenly appeared! This meant that hundreds of interstellar missiles were heading toward Xiao Yu!

"Damn it!" Xiao Yu cursed again, commanding all the laser guns and cannons on over eight hundred ships, pushing his computational power to the limit. The central computer's usage rate surged to almost ninety percent as countless laser beams shot out.

In space, countless bright flashes erupted—some from the explosions of missile engines, others from the detonation of warhead hydrogen bombs. The latter occurred because Xiao Yu had accidentally triggered the damaged hydrogen bomb detonators' fail-safes.

Xiao Yu's energy reserves were rapidly depleting, but at this moment, he couldn't afford to worry about that.

The entire battle lasted only one minute. Xiao Yu destroyed all the hundreds of interstellar missiles, but his fleet lost twenty village-class ships and one township-class ship due to three missiles that slipped through the defenses.

"An eye for an eye, I'll show them what I'm capable of," Xiao Yu thought fiercely. The ship's launch racks extended, and following the command, nearly a hundred interstellar missiles were launched, leaving bright trails behind as they sped toward a dark, unknown location at a velocity of almost two thousand five hundred kilometers per second.

Through calculating the trajectories of the hundreds of interstellar missiles, Xiao Yu had roughly determined the enemy fleet's position. He then directed all detection devices toward that area, focusing them with all available power. Finally, he captured some traces of the enemy, and once their position was confirmed, Xiao Yu immediately unleashed his retaliatory strike.

After thirty seconds of flight, thousands of laser beams suddenly shot out from the unknown location, with each missile being pursued by dozens to hundreds of lasers. Eventually, all the missiles exploded helplessly in space.

And in the light of the missile explosions, aided by high-precision optical detectors, Xiao Yu saw a stunning sight.

There, in the distance, was a planet.

From Xiao Yu's position, the planet appeared to be several meters in diameter, suggesting that its size was roughly twice that of Earth, and its mass was about 1.6 times greater. This aligned with Xiao Yu's earlier calculations.

Xiao Yu finally understood the purpose of the previous satellite. All his questions were now answered.

Their fleet indeed had a mass twice that of Earth and a size 1.6 times greater because their fleet was a planet!

Through spectral analysis, Xiao Yu also gathered data on its atmosphere. The planet had a dense atmosphere, primarily composed of sulfur and nitrogen.

The sight before him left Xiao Yu in awe.

Where was this place? It was the vast universe, the endless dark expanse of space! The nearest star was five light-years away. How could there be a planet here?

Gradually, a name surfaced in Xiao Yu's mind.

A rogue planet. In space, there are special celestial bodies that, based on their mass, are undoubtedly classified as planets. However, they do not belong to any star.

Perhaps they originally had a parent star, but in the gravitational battles, they were cast out of their stable stellar orbits and were left to wander aimlessly through space, without a home.

"But in such an environment, how could this planet possibly have a gaseous atmosphere? Shouldn't it have been frozen into a solid state and fallen to the planet's surface? Most importantly, how could such a planet evolve intelligent life? How could intelligent life possibly evolve here?"