Chapter 28: The Tower of Civilization

The Tower of Babel can also be called Babylon.

In the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by humans to reach heaven, but God made humans speak different languages and use different characters, leading to the inability to communicate and the division of the world into numerous races and nations.

This tower was only half-built and never completed.

However, in the year 4819, Ella spent 70 years building a complete Tower of Babel.

This tower flew towards Proxima Centauri b, with a shell resembling a spiral seashell, its surface covered in silver mirrors, and fake windows emitting blinding light, making it sacred and majestic.

Almost as it approached Proxima Centauri b within 30 astronomical units, the civilization on the planet discovered this massive object.

The entire civilization was in chaos.

Their feared alien civilization had finally arrived.

The leaders of the civilization began meeting and discussing solutions over several days.

Attack!

Use all means to destroy that spaceship.

Almost immediately, images of the spaceship spread rapidly throughout the civilization, and some creatures were stunned by its appearance.

"Powerful hunters do not hide; instead, they make the surrounding area their hunting ground."

"One day, the feared civilization will arrive, and it will be a silver-white tower emitting intense light."

"Whether they bring goodwill or malice is unknown, but the tower hangs in the universe without attacking, and it cannot be destroyed. It opens its doors, waiting for people to enter."

"At the top of the tower are the secrets of civilization, and after passing numerous tests, they can be obtained. Are they gifts or poisons from civilization? They are there, waiting to be picked."

"Those who obtain the secrets of civilization will become messengers of higher civilizations, possessing supreme power and control over powerful forces, and they can even enable civilization to leap forward. They will become heroes of civilization, immortalized forever."

This was the information that had been spread throughout the civilization's information network for several decades.

No one had paid attention to it before.

It was just a piece of information that provided emotional satisfaction, like a prophecy.

But now, the real thing was right in front of them, and this information was spreading throughout the civilization at a speed thousands or even millions of times faster than before.

Soon, the higher-ups came to dispel the rumors.

"This is just a coincidence."

"We have thousands of such prophecies, and no matter what situation we encounter with an alien civilization, there will always be one that fits."

"We have mobilized the entire civilization's weapons and plan to destroy it."

"We cannot surrender or retreat; otherwise, it will be the end of our civilization."

"In the universe, there will be no trace of us, and after evolving for hundreds of millions of years and accumulating for tens of millions of years, our civilization will not end like this."

"At this moment, we must be like a spear, piercing the throat of the enemy's scout, making them hesitate and fear."

The intense declaration still echoed in their minds.

A few days later, numerous battleships were mobilized.

The main ship was a perfect sphere, somewhat similar to the "Heart of Gold" from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," but larger, with a diameter of 10,000 meters, resembling a miniature planet.

Behind it was a 2-kilometer-wide propulsion system, which used dark matter kinetic energy.

Dark matter was first proposed in 1922 on Earth.

In the universe, dark matter may account for 85% of the total mass, while visible matter only accounts for 15%.

It was proposed due to the observation of celestial bodies' motion that did not conform to Newton's law of universal gravitation, and it remained a theoretical concept until 2037 when humans were destroyed.

However, after entering the universe, Ella confirmed the existence of dark matter, which has mass, a speed below the speed of light, and extremely weak interactions with light, almost only participating in gravitational interactions.

Dark matter is extremely stable and difficult to detect.

This substance is fundamentally different from visible matter, and it is inert in the universe.

Dark matter is a low-energy substance with only weak interactions, and it is so weak that it barely reacts with quarks.

Ella speculates that dark matter only interacts with strings, and this is just a speculation because Ella's technology has not yet reached the level of discovering strings.

A substance similar to dark matter is inertial neutrinos, but compared to dark matter, inertial neutrinos are still "stronger."

Although dark matter is very low-energy and only interacts gravitationally on a macroscopic scale, it can release a large amount of energy through decay and is a rich resource that can be produced through the fission and fusion of matter.

This gives it the potential to be used as an energy source.

However, utilizing dark matter energy is relatively challenging, even more so than anti-matter energy, and only highly advanced civilizations can detect dark matter and use it as an energy source.

The civilization on Proxima Centauri b is one such example.

However, they are still in the early stages of utilizing dark matter energy.

The spaceships of the Proxima Centauri b civilization are extremely heavy.

This civilization developed without the need for long-distance travel, so they did not develop this technology.

Any technology cannot be developed solely based on theory; civilizations that have traveled through the universe will inevitably have more advanced long-distance travel capabilities than those that have not.

After the spaceship was launched, it headed towards the Tower of Babel.

The massive spaceship had a speed of only 1584 km/s, which was significantly slower than the electromagnetic-powered Hope, but Yan Xia's fleet had already upgraded to a more advanced propulsion system.

After 21 days, the spaceship reached a distance of 10 astronomical units from the Tower of Babel.

This was the range within which the civilization's weapons could reach.

The front of the spherical spaceship began to open like flower petals, forming six petals that were not connected to the main body. These petals became independent ships that flew about 50 kilometers away from the main ship.

Below and to the sides, they formed a semicircle with a diameter of 110 kilometers.

The most powerful spaceship began emitting intense light, and six components started generating lightning bolts at least 100 meters thick.

These lightning bolts formed a circle in space, resembling a magical array, releasing terrifying power.

When the energy reached its peak, the captain of the spaceship shouted, "Fire!"

There was no observable matter.

Just as Yan Xia had used anti-matter against the Hundred-Eyed Race, the "bullets" of anti-matter weapons were invisible to the Proxima Centauri b civilization, as they did not have the equipment to detect anti-matter.

Dark matter energy traveled at 99.28% of the speed of light towards the Tower of Babel.

"Our civilization is sacred and inviolable, and any alien civilization that enters our star system will be destroyed."

The captain's lower tentacles waved, and the front two pairs of legs jumped up, stomping heavily on the spaceship's floor.

All 3,000 soldiers on the spaceship shouted and made similar gestures, which seemed to be a gesture of excitement for this civilization, similar to how humans on Earth would raise their fists above their heads.

At a distance of 10 astronomical units, it would take 84 minutes to reach the target.

There were no screens on the spaceship, but their bodies had been modified, and information was directly transmitted to their neural centers, allowing them to generate images in their minds without the need for eyes.

They waited.

After 168 minutes, they witnessed the terrifying dark matter bomb hitting the Tower of Babel. The explosion released a large amount of high-energy photons, which escaped in all directions, forming a giant light sphere with a diameter of 1,000 kilometers.

This light sphere then collapsed and rapidly condensed into an energy body the size of a molecule, which then exploded again.

This process repeated six times before the attack finally ended.

The total energy released by the six explosions was approximately 270 billion tons of TNT equivalent.

"This is our victory, as we have successfully defended our home against the first attack from an alien civilization."

The captain shouted again, and this spaceship was like a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier from the 20th or 21st century on Earth.

The dark matter energy cannon was the most powerful weapon of this civilization.

At this level, its power was 1,700 times stronger than that of a fission nuclear bomb, and although it was still weaker than anti-matter annihilation by 2,222 times, the gap was not that significant, considering they had only mastered the lowest level of dark matter technology.

This demonstrated the potential of high-energy dark matter energy, which might even surpass anti-matter annihilation.

The captain had turned around, but the information in his mind made his excitement freeze.

After the blinding light, which was comparable to staring directly at a star, faded, the tower still stood tall, completely undamaged, as if the explosion had never happened.

"How is this possible?"