The scientific research ship is parked at the boundary of the space air mass, about thousands of kilometers away from the obvious material enrichment zone. Looking from here, the air mass is like a static cloud and mist mountain range, quietly spanning the entire field of vision in front of you, and in
Inside the air mass, in the deepest part of the deep darkness, one could see continuous flashes of light, illuminating the uneven valleys and cracks inside the air mass like veins. I stared in one direction for several minutes, even though due to the huge size of the air mass, people could not see it.
It is impossible to determine with the naked eye where the center of the air mass is at this distance, but my intuition allowed me to focus my sight in one direction.
"It should be right there, it...maybe it's coming to find me."
Sandora glanced at me suspiciously, and there was a bit of worry in her voice when she spoke: "Ajun, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." I immediately laughed and patted Sandora's arm to reassure her. "I'm sure I'm not affected, but you also know that I sometimes have special intuitions. There is something there.
It has been sending out signals, and it seems that it hopes to communicate with us, but...is there any reaction from the radar?"
I said the last words to the busy information console below. A senior assistant technician was monitoring the information fed back by the general-purpose radar. After hearing this, he immediately reported loudly: "Your Majesty, the radar has not found anything! We are not in the air mass.
No matter other than normal gas clouds is found inside, there is no energy response exceeding the gas cloud itself!"
"In other words, only I can receive the information it sends, and I receive it through a vague form of intuition." I shrugged at Sandora. "What Tavel said is right, maybe it is a super-common sense substance."
, it is completely outside the material and information genealogy that the empire has mastered.”
"What did you find inside?" Ilson looked at his servant of God, a burly male protoss wearing red armor with fiery red hair - Judging from this feature, he should be outside the four major gods.
A soldier from the divine system, perhaps the God of Fire. The burly red-haired man immediately stood up straight when he heard Ilson's question and replied loudly: "Yes, Master! We have already explored the gas cloud.
At the core, abnormal space phenomena and a suspected material block with a diameter of one thousand meters were discovered. However, the target was highly active and may be in a certain critical state. We were worried about destroying its stability and therefore did not act rashly. Now it can be determined that the target is in the center of the air mass.
It moves randomly within an area with a radius of two hundred kilometers, but it is not sure whether it is controlled by the outside or has the ability to control itself."
"It's a complete mystery that even gods can't see through..." my sister muttered. At this moment, a report from the frontline staff came from the communicator: "Your Majesty! The first working group has already contacted
The Protoss working group gathers! We saw that thing!"
After the scientific research ship docked, Tavel sent an experienced working team to contact the Protoss staff inside the gas cloud, because he was not sure what the environment inside was like and whether the hyperspace jump operation of the spacecraft would affect it.
To the "Foreign Object", the work boat the team boarded used a conventional drive to reach the destination.
"Take over the screen." Sandora said immediately.
The control hall of the scientific research ship is the same as the control hall of most spaceships in the empire. There is a set of very large holographic equipment in the center. Soon the assistant technician transmitted the scene from the on-site working team, and the situation inside the gas cloud was revealed.
Appeared in front of us. In the picture, dozens of autonomous machines and several assistant technicians wearing special protective light armor were cautiously moving forward in the turbid clouds and fog. Leading the way was a team of divine servants, and their target was
It's a huge... ball in the distance.
Yes, a sphere. We have been searching hard. What we found today after many days is actually a huge sphere. According to the report of the servant of God just now, its diameter is about one thousand meters: He is
The working group that cautiously approached was already huge in comparison. Judging from the picture, the ball was not as manic as everyone imagined, rushing around. On the contrary, it was quiet and... beautiful? Magnificent?
Gorgeous? I can’t tell. The shell of this sphere seems to be alive. Large groups of colorful colors are floating on the sphere slowly, merging, grading, separating, and then entering the next cycle, so bright and colorful.
The ever-changing colors are really different from the cosmic dark spores I imagined at the beginning - I don't know what cosmic dark spores are, but the word suddenly popped up and it seemed very interesting, so I used it like that.
"We are very close. The shell of this thing is highly active, but the non-contact scanning device cannot read any useful data, and all other non-contact devices cannot affect the target. It is like a shadow and can only
"I saw it, but it didn't return any information other than the spectrum. I don't know if it has an entity yet," the assistant technician leading the team reported. At the same time, a staff member wearing protective armor in the middle of the screen waved his hand. It seemed that he was there.
Said "Your Majesty, the color changes on this are regular, indicating that it is a logical man-made product. Judging from experience, this highly active and man-made shell will most likely react to physical 'contact'. And the Protoss'
The staff used other means to determine that the shell was in a critical state, and rash contact may have unknown consequences."
"On what basis do you judge that this thing is in a critical state?"
I glanced at 123’s Servant of God curiously. Although I knew that the God Clan was stronger than the Xiling Empire in terms of overall strength, it stands to reason that the Empire should not be weaker than the other party in terms of scanning technology, or even slightly stronger than the other party - after all, both sides
Each technology tree also has its own expertise. The Xiling Apostle is better at scanning technology. But this time, how did the Protoss judge that the thing that could hide even the empire's most advanced radar was in a critical state?
The red-haired servant of God thought for a moment and replied loudly: "The vice-captain's intuition!"
I:"……"
Everyone: "..."
Erson: "Ahem, the vice-captain of this squadron has amazing intuition. I know her. That guy always relies on intuition, and the accuracy rate is about 10%... When the radar is ineffective, it's just a woman's sixth sense.
It can still be used, right?"
I couldn't help but put my eyes on Miss Lin, who was taking a nap on the table: "Sixth Sense, it's your turn to speak."
"Poke it with your hands. That thing ignores any non-contact effects, doesn't it?" The eldest lady rolled her eyes and looked over. "The traction field can't be dragged away, and the space warehouse can't be loaded. Sooner or later, you're going to have to poke it with your hands?"
"
Me: "..." Although what she said makes sense, she always feels that this statement is more or less worth complaining about.
In the end, we decided to directly contact the sphere that had various weird properties and could not be penetrated even by the imperial scanning equipment and the perception of the gods. However, considering the possible dangers, this work was handed over to the self-discipline who acted with the working group.
The machines and the people in the work team evacuated several kilometers away, opened the shield of the work ship, and were ready to jump into the space folds to avoid possible explosions. This is not to be too cautious or unfounded, mainly because
That round ball is really disturbing - do you just pick something up on the roadside and eat it?
Well, Sandora dares...
The self-disciplined machine carefully approached the huge ball and touched it under the gaze of hundreds of pairs of eyes. At this moment, many people's hearts were raised, and the next second, the huge ball lived up to everyone's expectations.
There was a slight change in the place you were looking at: the ever-changing magnificent colors on its surface suddenly paused. But just when many people thought that what was coming was a big explosion or the collapse of space or the rupture of the sphere or a bunch of small ones popping out of the sphere.
When it comes to monsters and tentacle monsters——
That thing didn't even fart in the end and continued to pretend to be a chameleon.
The working group reported what they detected at the scene: "It was confirmed that the target responded to direct contact, but there was no further change. The sphere did not have any energy, gravity, heat or magnetism or any other properties detected, except for visual effects.
Other than that, we did not find any properties produced by the target. Oh, there is one property. The detector sent a hardness report it sensed, confirming that the outer shell of the sphere is solid, and the type of surface material is probably equivalent to some kind of crystal."
Shandora glanced at me: "Arjun, can you feel anything?"
I was the only person at the scene who might have something to do with the big ball, so Sandora would ask this question, but when the color on the surface of the ball stopped just now, I didn't feel anything, so I shook my head.
"Continue testing. If necessary, you can sacrifice a few self-discipline machines and give it a try." Shandora ordered concisely and clearly, and the working team in front began a series of tests.
They began to let the autonomous machine make a direct physical impact on the ball, release electromagnetic pulses at close range, try to use gravitational pull to affect the target, irradiate various energy beams, and finally even used psionic energy and holy light——
It cannot be said that it has no effect at all. After being irradiated by high-level energy that is close to the source, such as psionic energy and holy light, the shell of the sphere shows a tendency to collapse. This shows that the target can be destroyed, and its intensity is not as strong as we imagined.
, but other than knowing that the target can be destroyed, we did not get any valuable intelligence from the other tests we conducted.
That ball is a stubborn mute, and would rather die than tell us the secrets inside it.
"According to the data collected so far, the target's shell is solid, has hardness and structural strength, can be seen with the naked eye, and can reflect light normally, but other than that, it has no mass, no radiation, and the internal structure cannot be scanned or identified.
Because its mass is zero, it is not even affected by gravitational pull. It is a product that challenges common sense and violates the rules of the world." Sandora looked at the report sent back by the working group. "It actually exists, but too many keys are missing.
Attributes, just like..."
"It's like a damaged data packet, occupying hard disk space but cannot be deleted or moved. There is an empty icon but the content cannot be read." I continued casually.
Shandora nodded: "Either it was 'born' and designed like this, or it was damaged for some reason - I don't mean physical damage, but damage to the source at the information level, and then after the damage
It has not disintegrated, but has survived in the real world."
"It's all possible." Sister nodded and said.
I thought about it and suddenly connected it with a certain knowledge point I had come into contact with before: "Why did I think of the Black Sun?"
"Are you talking about black celestial bodies produced due to the lack of key laws?" Sandora nodded slightly. "I can only say that the surface properties are slightly similar, but black celestial bodies cannot be observed through conventional methods, and they will not be the same as the current world.
Information exchange occurs with anything inside, but the thing in front of us... can be seen with the naked eye, and the hardness of the other party can be felt through physical contact, so it is not a black celestial body."
While we and a group of experts from Tavel were puzzled, the working team at the front had completed all the testing methods they could think of, including crashing an autonomous machine into that place at hundreds of times the speed of sound.
On the outer shell of the sphere: This impact caused a huge wound on the outer shell of the sphere, which fully demonstrates that the target's "material" technology is actually not very high, but the strange thing is that such an entity with no mass at all suffered such an impact.
There was no displacement at all. Well, after some testing, we learned more mysteries: the target can selectively ignore certain physical phenomena in the current world view, such as the law of kinetic energy... Actually, this is nothing.
Strangely, the very existence of the target is already challenging the worldview.
"What the hell is this thing?" Looking at the messy data sent back by the engineering team, Sandora and I fell into deep thinking. After pondering for a long time, I looked up to the sky again and sighed, "What the hell is this thing?
"
"You just said it once." Lin Xue rolled her eyes and looked over.
"I want to go over and see for myself." I found that the working team over there could not think of a better way to test other than blasting the target to pieces with one shot. I finally couldn't sit still and stood up and said, "You guys wait here - I
Drive over in void form."
Shandora didn't say much this time. She knew that I couldn't persuade me to make a decision under any circumstances. Of course, she also knew that if I drove over in void form, I would probably not encounter any danger. It's just that
Before leaving, Bingtis suddenly stood up: "Wait a minute, I will follow you."
"You? Why are you following me?" Shandora looked at her lost friend, and then she thought about it without knowing where she was. She nervously tugged on my sleeve, "You can't touch the solid food of the master."
"...You are really completely ruined..." The rogue goddess looked at Sandora with a dumbfounded look. "I am the highest-ranking god here. This world is still the territory of the gods. Now the head of your country wants to personally explore. Can I not follow you the whole way?"
?”
Sandora was speechless and finally shrugged: "I can't help it. I suddenly feel that you are becoming more and more threatening recently."
Bingtis originally planned to pull me to set off, but Sandora stopped after saying a word, blinked and looked over as if she had discovered an interesting new world, and nodded seriously: "You suddenly
Remind me - my criterion for choosing a mate is that I can fight, resist, and support the family. According to the current situation, there are really not many people who can beat me head-on. In the middle, I need to choose someone who can support the family, resist, and more importantly, be a male.
And..." As she spoke, Bingtis began to look me up and down. Her eyes revealed an unscrupulous aura that only Sister Bing could carry, as if she were picking something in the market: "And in the long run,
Look, in the future, apart from God the Father and King Huron, I am afraid you will be the best fighter in the entire void... Congratulations, you are on my candidate list!"
I:"……"
Everyone: "..."
Anyway, the scene was quiet for a while. Sister Bing's ability to make surprising remarks was no less good than Qian Qian's in some respects. The difference was that the reason for Qian Qian's surprising remarks was that the girl's mind was often unreliable, while Sister Bing's ability to make surprising remarks was that
The surprising reason is that although there is nothing wrong with her brain, she has a problem with her worldview: she dares to say anything she catches, and treats normal morality as nothing. She said this casually in front of Sandora and the others, but she still said nothing.
His attitude of rolling his eyes and saying that the world has nothing to do with him made the people around him feel bruised and paralyzed.
I was stunned there, trying to process Sister Bing's words in my mind for a long time. I found that from a sociological point of view, this should be regarded as a half-confession, but I observed the other person's face - it was still the usual nonchalant expression.
I was a little confused. I didn’t know if this guy was joking, saying it casually, or simply didn’t know what he was talking about: he didn’t seem to be serious anyway.
"Wow, I am so charming?" Bingtis waved his hand in front of my eyes. "Are you scared to death? Okay, okay, I just said it casually. Besides, even if I am serious,
, you are just a contestant who has just been shortlisted, so you don’t need to be in such a hurry, right... Hey, Sandora, let me take away your dry food first?"
After saying that, before we could react, Sister Bing had already grabbed my arm and appeared thousands of miles away (this is an adjective) - right in front of us was facing the huge, incomparable and impenetrable giant circle.
ball.
"You're killing me." I looked at Bingtis with a grimace and complained through the mental connection. The other party just said: She just said it casually, but I have every reason to believe that many people don't just say it casually.
I heard, "If you're optimistic, Sandora will kill me. If you're not optimistic, she will form a team with Qian Qian, Lin Xue, and the others to kill me..."
Bingtis also whistled in the spiritual connection: "Well, life needs some passion. I haven't found a partner in tens of millions of years. Isn't it enough to have a mouthful in front of Na Nizi?"
I:"……"
I found myself speechless a lot today.
In order to quickly get rid of this awkward state of speechlessness, I focused on the stubborn and silent giant sphere with a surface as colorful as a chameleon.
In the end, the biggest question before me is still: What on earth is this!t