Chapter 282: Utter Meaninglessness

Yan Xia stood on a platform in the clouds; this platform was not large, only about 1 kilometer in diameter, supporting a clock that was 3 kilometers tall. The entire platform and clock gleamed white and gold in the sunlight, resembling an angel's homeland.

He lowered his head to look at the land below, which was an ocean encasing a newly established landmass—the Star Land.

After thousands of years of changes, the Star Land had finally taken shape.

Some biological seeds had also been sown there, awaiting their natural and rapid evolution.

"The essence of the supergravity weapon is that the Olive Branch civilization sets up a device at point B to create a black hole, then synchronizes the opening of the black hole to connect with a wormhole through electromagnetic links?" 

"To think they would use such a method; it's indeed unexpected."

"However, there are still flaws in this. For example, how are the two black holes connected?"

"And is our original conjecture correct?"

"Are they two black holes connected to each other, or is one a black hole while the other is a white hole?"

"If it's the former, then the Olive Branch civilization would consume excessive energy to complete the supergravity weapon; if it's the latter, then the energy consumed would be lower than for the former."

Every question must be thoroughly researched.

Ella, with her white hair and dress, sat at the edge of the platform barefoot, swinging her feet. The clouds around her made her feet a bit damp as she let them dangle into the water below.

"I have found many similar devices. Although we do not grasp their principles fully, we can at least avoid supergravity weapons."

"Yan Xia, have we elevated the Olive Branch civilization too high with our emerald light? Perhaps we were wrong from the very beginning."

This was also a question worth pondering.

Ella asked this because she had not made much progress on this front over the years.

If we are to measure and establish a scale, we must at least find a reference object; however, there seems to be none. Matter appears to transition directly from strings to fundamental particles without any intermediary substances.

"I have already reviewed your latest research. The high-frequency vibrations of strings can be considered surfaces, but they do not exhibit properties beyond the Planck scale or more macro than quark scales."

"We are investigating whether strings can form complex structures at the quark level—a blank space in our knowledge."

Strings themselves cannot be seen by life forms existing in three-dimensional space; what is referred to as "seeing" actually means measuring.

Thus, discovering this scale is not about using microscopes since microscopes themselves are composed of fundamental particles; even light itself consists of photons—fundamental particles. How can one see something that composes photons?

It's akin to seeing a pixel on your display corresponding to a light-emitting component; can you find smaller light-emitting components within that?

The light-emitting component is already the smallest unit within the screen.

This is where finding such things becomes genuinely challenging—just like discovering "strings." It requires extensive calculations and developing specialized measuring devices capable of accurately detecting any subtle changes. These changes must be separated from both fundamental particle physical properties and string physical properties—representing new physical characteristics.

This is difficult to resolve, at least in the short term.

"Perhaps our direction is wrong, but we currently have no way to seek another direction."

Because there simply are no other directions.

The known direction is just this one; other directions can only be guessed at—perhaps after much effort discovering it was all in vain.

And this discussion was ultimately meaningless; they were unable to derive any results. What lay ahead was an expanse of emptiness filled with countless things that could not be found.

...

Yan Xia closed his eyes, trying to calm his emotions. He came to this place partly to clear his mind and not remain so tense.

When one is tense, it is easy to get stuck in dead ends and become overly focused on trivial matters; perhaps a relaxed state could lead to new ideas.

But does time truly allow him such contemplation and waiting?

The Federation was already preparing its second fleet at the end of the cosmic Silk Road. An Li and others had completed construction of a super-counteracting material transfer device capable of transporting dwarf planet-level ships. They would go on to gather information for a second time.

Facing such powerful civilizations left one feeling helpless.

Not only could they not compete with energy on the battlefield but also their technology lagged behind. The technological means employed by others were utterly unimaginable—like a turtle being toyed with by a lion; unable to defeat it or even see it clearly while failing to deliver any meaningful attack against it.

The Federation's super-distance weapons had also been partially constructed.

Ella began charging these super-distance weapons. Typically, charging such weapons takes about 100 years as they cannot absorb that much energy all at once; rather, they consume too much energy overall.

Simply put, while chargers can work, power stations cannot keep up.

Before the Federation's super-distance weapons could even launch, bad news arrived: one-third of Tian Cang Star Domain had vanished, mirroring scenes from the cosmic Silk Road—all life and nearby matter had been decomposed.

A bloom of destruction unfolded.

That star domain disappeared in an instant, as clean as if freshly painted walls.

A suffocating feeling permeated every pore of every Federation citizen; the remaining two star nations began gradually distancing themselves from Federation territories as large numbers of citizens fled towards them—everyone felt that their building was about to collapse.

This was one of the greatest threats faced by the Federation since its establishment.

While they could still deal with Silk civilization within manageable limits because most of their super-distance weapons were energy-based and their warfare style involved close combat without complex tactics—relying solely on numerous warships for direct assaults—the Olive Branch civilization completely exceeded Federation understanding.

Despite having interacted for thousands of years, the Federation still only grasped superficial aspects of Olive Branch civilization.

Even Yan Xia somewhat regretted placing all their chips on Star City because he initially did not consider Olive Branch civilization's structure; most power was controlled by leaders while Star City itself did not possess super-technology or super-weapons.

Although Yan Xia held a supreme rank among gods, he ultimately was not an omniscient deity capable of knowing everything.

The timing for another bloom of destruction remained uncertain, but this recent bloom had already inflicted severe losses on the Federation—numerous warships were destroyed—and they needed time to recuperate which led to postponing information-gathering efforts for a second time.

Ella also focused intently on researching "surfaces," capable of studying them further as well.

The Civilization Federation was teetering on the brink of collapse; changes were occurring too rapidly for them even to respond adequately.

"In this way, destruction is inevitable for the Federation."

"The Federation lacks sufficient time for growth!"