Unnamed star system.
A fleet of starships from different civilizations gathered here. Ou Zhanpeng solemnly marked several locations on the star map: Experiment 1.
Indeed, this was the first experimental star system chosen by the Rorls. It was a common red dwarf star, located 12 light-years ahead of the swarm's defense line. The only habitable planet was already occupied by Star Beasts, and its surface was covered with towering Star Trees.
It was said that once fully grown, these things would launch into space like rockets, sending swarms of new Star Beasts into orbit.
When Ou Zhanpeng heard this, he felt nothing.
So what if they grew into rockets? He wouldn't be surprised even if someone told him that Star Beasts could grow into orbital elevators reaching outer space.
While lost in thought, the Starship received a warning from the Rorls. Ou Zhanpeng quickly piloted his warship to retreat… backward, behind the first planet, using it to shield the vessel.
After all, this was an experiment involving a star. If it didn't work, so be it. But if it somehow triggered an accident, no shield, however strong, could withstand a stellar explosion.
Perhaps thinking the same as Ou Zhanpeng, or perhaps prompted by the Starship's actions, the warships of other civilizations also retreated behind the planet. Only the Rorl warship remained, suspended alone near the star.
It looked a bit lonely, a bit desolate, and a bit comical.
But no one could laugh.
The Rorls quickly broadcast a clear communication: "First experiment, commence!"
The next second, a bright beam shot out from the front of the Rorl warship, like a sword cleaving space, piercing the red dwarf.
The Starship immediately detected extremely high energy reactions, and everyone’s heart pounded in their chests.
What kind of weapon was this?
Although the Starship was hiding behind the planet, it had several satellites deployed outside. Through the signals transmitted by the satellites, it was visible that at the point where the beam contacted the star, the red stellar matter showed noticeable changes.
However, it was merely a slight alteration in the flow speed, like a mischievous child stirring river water. It was far from achieving the desired result.
The beam soon disappeared. Following this, the Rorls announced the commencement of the second round of experiments.
There was no beam or other obvious audio-visual effects. But this time, distinct waves rippled across the star's surface. Even from behind the planet, noticeable changes in luminosity and radiation intensity could be detected.
Yet, that was all.
For the third attempt, two missile-like objects were launched. They vaporized before even reaching the star's surface.
Fourth, fifth… No one knew how many types of weapons the Rorls had prepared. If they had all fired simultaneously, it would have undoubtedly been a visually stunning spectacle.
But what was the point of impressive audio-visual effects if they couldn't achieve the goal of controlling the star?
As time wore on, Ou Zhanpeng grew numb. Everyone felt a sense of impending failure: this experiment would yield no results.
Around the forty-third experiment, another Rorl ship arrived. The Rorls immediately announced the commencement of the forty-seventh experiment.
To everyone's astonishment, the Rorl ship flew close to the star and then opened a wormhole on its surface.
Ou Zhanpeng was initially taken aback, but he quickly reacted and shifted his gaze to the only habitable planet, soon discovering the wormhole's exit just outside its atmosphere.
But was this meaningful?
Before anyone could figure it out, significant changes occurred on both sides of the wormhole.
On the star's side, immense gas pressure propelled a large volume of superheated gas into the wormhole.
On the planet's side, gas at thousands of degrees Celsius poured down like a waterfall, injecting into the planet's atmosphere. The temperature beneath the wormhole rapidly soared, triggering violent atmospheric disturbances.
Subsequently, the ground temperature rose quickly, reaching several hundred degrees in a short time.
While not enough to melt iron or liquefy lead, normal life forms could not possibly survive under such intense heat.
A large number of Star Trees burned and carbonized in the heat, some even launching prematurely.
However, Star Trees that had not yet matured couldn't reach space and crashed midway.
Was this useful?
Including the Starship, everyone was filled with excitement.
However, the wormhole only lasted for a little over a minute before disappearing due to system overload.
Furthermore, the Rorl warship's warp drive was also damaged by the overload, causing the Rorl ship to explode on the spot.
The despair was as profound as the earlier excitement.
A viable method had finally been found, only to end so abruptly?
Or was it necessary to develop even higher-powered, more robust wormhole equipment? Hmm… that seemed like a possibility.
Although throwing superheated gas at the planet through a wormhole was a bit anticlimactic compared to the original plan, it was still far better than having no solution at all.
Ou Zhanpeng suddenly had an idea: if superheated gas could kill the Star Trees in large numbers, could directly altering the planet's atmospheric composition achieve the same effect?
With enough greenhouse gases, turning a habitable planet into a scorching inferno like Venus wouldn't be difficult, and it would be technically simpler and more cost-effective than wormholes.
The only problem was the Star Beasts' extreme adaptability. The sudden influx of superheated gas via the wormhole gave the Star Beasts no time to react.
However, altering a planet's atmosphere was a very slow process. The Star Beasts could likely prepare in advance, leading to the plan's ultimate failure.
More importantly, both wormholes and greenhouse gases could only alter the planet's environment and were useless against Star Beasts outside the planet, which didn't align with the goal of completely eliminating them.
After much deliberation, Ou Zhanpeng kept this idea to himself, pondering that it wouldn't be too late to bring it up if all else failed.
The Rorls were also well aware that this method was unsuitable, and they soon began new experiments.
This time, the Rorls' preparations were unusually long.
They first pinpointed the location of the habitable planet and then busied themselves with something for over forty minutes. Suddenly, the star underwent an extraordinary change—dark red stellar matter began to flow into the sky along an invisible channel, as if a giant syringe were extracting stellar material!
This change stunned everyone, who couldn't fathom what the Rorls had done to the poor star.
The stellar matter rose higher and faster. After a while, the channel suddenly collapsed, but the stellar material did not fall back. Instead, it exploded in mid-air. A portion of it erupted like a volcanic explosion, forming an extraordinary directed eruption.
A directed flare?
Ling Xiao could hardly believe it was real: "How did they do that?"
Everyone was bewildered; no one could answer the question.
Subsequently, the Starship detected unusually strong electromagnetic radiation, with all sorts of rays bursting forth at extreme intensities.
After a few minutes, the energy from the directed flare enveloped the planet. The vast planet was covered by extremely powerful cosmic radiation. Even at the equator during daylight, conspicuous auroras were visible.
The planet's overall environment was significantly impacted. Although the changes were not as drastic as imagined, they broadened everyone's thinking and laid a good foundation for future experiments.
Ou Zhanpeng later learned that the Rorls' method was not particularly advanced. They had simply used technological means to locally counteract the star's own gravity, allowing stellar matter to rise naturally, forming an effect similar to a volcanic eruption.
However, stellar eruptions were far more powerful than volcanic ones.
The planet, protected by its magnetic field, was not significantly impacted and would return to normal with a little time.
But such an eruption was a devastating blow to the Star Beasts floating in the void!
Earlier, Ou Zhanpeng had worried that merely altering the planet's environment wouldn't suffice to eliminate the Star Beasts. Now, with directed flares eliminating Star Beasts outside the planet and other methods dealing with those on the surface, a two-pronged approach would solve the Star Beast problem.
Of course, such a method could only eliminate Star Beasts within a small radius. Only if the star itself became a supernova could Star Beasts be annihilated on a large scale.
The gap between ideals and reality was indeed not insignificant.
However, this was undeniably a good start.
Shortly thereafter, the Rorls conducted another experiment, this time by directly impacting the star with a large, massive celestial body.
While the impact caused a series of anomalies in the star, it was far from sufficient to eliminate the Star Beasts.
But it didn't matter. All participating civilizations, including Ou Zhanpeng, put their minds to work and quickly came up with more methods to deal with the Star Beasts.
For example, using super-strong artificial gravity to attract Star Beasts within a certain range, and then eliminating them with nuclear bombs or other means.
Or attracting the Star Beasts near a gas giant and then igniting the gas giant.
It was evident that it was due to the Rorls' support that Brain Fish had the ability to ignite Jupiter!
Although these methods were somewhat superficial, they were far better than having no solutions at all.
The Rorls were also quite cunning. They didn't engage directly but instead requested resources from major civilizations to manufacture various equipment and provide it to other civilizations, using those civilizations as cannon fodder at the forefront.
Well, calling them cannon fodder was a bit of an exaggeration, but being at the forefront was a fact.
During this period, some civilizations proposed the plan to develop a gene bomb to eliminate Star Beasts fundamentally. However, research revealed that the gene of this thing was a triple helix structure, unlike any known organism.
Furthermore, the gene of the Star Beasts was also different from other organisms. At the genetic level, they were abnormal creatures entirely distinct from mainstream biological populations!
They were not the legendary silicon-based life forms, but their most basic cellular structures were unique.
Speaking of which, Ou Zhanpeng always found it strange. The four major civilizations were all related to the Seers, so it wasn't surprising for them to be the same type of organism.
But the organisms on other planets were also highly similar to humans, or rather, Earth-based life. This couldn't help but spark wild speculation.
With so many habitable planets, were they naturally formed, or were they the result of post-formation intervention by a prehistoric super-civilization?
Were the organisms on these planets naturally evolved, or were they seeds sown by a prehistoric super-civilization?
If all the organisms on all planets were so similar, what force caused this outcome?
Was it merely the laws of natural evolution?
It seemed as if an invisible force was unifying the species populations on different planets.
Although the civilizations on various planets were different, from a biological perspective, they shared the same microscopic structure and likely had a common ancestor!
To this end, Ou Zhanpeng searched the Starship Base archives for a long time but found no relevant information.
Gong Yiding was dismissive of his ideas. He believed that evolution certainly had an elusive underlying pattern, so the evolutionary process from the simplest organic matter to the simplest organisms was traceable.
And the development from simple to complex organisms also followed certain patterns.
This was like hydrogen and oxygen forming water, not oil, which was a law set by the natural forces, one of the most fundamental rules of this universe.
Therefore, it was not surprising that organisms on different planets were highly similar. It was like a chemistry experiment or a physical law. Even if the external environment changed, as long as the experimental conditions remained the same, the results would not differ.
Well, it sounded quite logical, but upon closer examination, it always felt somewhat imprecise.
Shortly thereafter, the human fleet received the equipment provided by the Rorls. A large number of warships rushed to the front lines to participate in the effort to stop the Star Beasts.
At this time, over thirty interstellar civilizations in the entire star domain had all mobilized.
Moreover, various civilizations had mobilized hundreds of civilizations that had not yet entered the interstellar era, providing them with starships and weaponry and sending them to the front lines against the Star Beasts.
Big fish commanded small fish, and small fish arranged shrimp.
Since the Rorls had other civilizations lead the charge, everyone naturally sought other civilizations to act as vanguards.
Furthermore, these civilizations were on the cusp of entering the interstellar era. With the help of external civilizations and by paying a small price, they could leap into the ranks of interstellar civilizations. Why wouldn't they?
The human race had been in interstellar space for too short a time and could only fight firsthand.
The Starship was no exception. Before departing, Ou Zhanpeng approached Gong Yiding, hoping to find a way to detonate a star, thus permanently resolving the Star Beast problem.
Ou Zhanpeng's request made Gong Yiding's mouth twitch. Was this something within humanity's current technological capabilities?
Fusion was definitely out; if it were possible, the Rorls would have done it already.
Antimatter?
Perhaps, but antimatter wasn't readily available. Even the Rorls couldn't afford such high costs.
Of course, the Rorls might have methods for preparing cheap antimatter in large quantities.
Dark matter?
Don't joke. Humans hadn't even discovered what dark matter was, let alone how to utilize it.
The spacetime bubble on the Starship was actually a viable option. As long as the star was enveloped in the spacetime bubble and accelerated into the red giant phase, eliminating the Star Beasts wouldn't be a fantasy.
The problem was that the special energy required for the spacetime bubble was dwindling. Even if there were ample reserves, it was impossible to turn a star with a lifespan of billions of years into a red giant.
The Starship would age and disintegrate long before the star could naturally evolve.
Gong Yiding understood Ou Zhanpeng's intention. He hoped that among the unidentifiable technologies on the Starship, a method to detonate a star could be found.
But Gong Yiding held out no hope for this.
The Seers weren't interstellar terrorists. What use would they have for a method to detonate a star?
Besides, if they possessed the means to detonate a star in one go, wouldn't it be simpler to directly attack the Star Beasts?