Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 367 Barrier!

Li Qingsong didn't expect to get any information from these high-ranking members of the Purple Moon Civilization who had been infected and turned into Demon Eye creatures.

He's not interrogating them anymore; he's just keeping them locked up to make sure they can't commit suicide.

Li Qingsong had other plans for these Purple Moon people.

At this moment, his attention was entirely focused on searching for information related to the Purple Moon Civilization.

Those supercomputing bases, data centers, communication and data processing systems, government systems, management systems, and so on—these databases, which can be described as the information infrastructure of a civilization, store an immense amount of intelligence. This is what Li Qingsong values ​​most.

Countless intelligent robots flooded into these facilities, comprehensively analyzing the data technology of the Purple Moon Civilization. After gaining a preliminary understanding, they established data channels one after another. Thus, this data, which was fundamental to the Purple Moon Civilization, flowed like rivers into the sea to Li Qingsong's own supercomputing system, where it began to be jointly analyzed by the clones and the Primordial AI.

"There's actually something called Demon Eye Communication? A Space-level Demon Eye can communicate with a lower-level Demon Eye in this way, ignoring time and distance? Was the mission for the Purple Moon Civilization to detonate the supernova given to them by a Space-level Demon Eye?"
The simplified gravity cannon technology was also provided by the Space-level Magic Eye? No wonder…

"Well, the Purple Moon Civilization was probably infected by the Demon Eye ten thousand years ago. They were unable to survive the Demon Eye's calamity... Within their civilization, they call that day 'New Birthday'."

The Purple Moon Civilization's calendar has about 559 days in a year, the same as mine. Every year on their birthday, the entire civilization celebrates their rebirth, ah…”

"So this is how the Purple Moon Civilization transformed electromagnetic life forms, making them all lose their self-awareness and become puppets... It's just too cruel, no wonder the Electric Disaster is so hateful."

"Sigh, I won't use that method."

"The Purple Moon Civilization has achieved a lot in materials science. No wonder their warships are so powerful. And quantum mathematics... Wow... So that's how Conjecture 778 was proven? Proving this means that the distance for long-range communication can be increased by at least 10%..."

"Very good, very good. From now on, all of these are mine."

……

For a technological civilization of Li Qingsong's caliber, the so-called reverse engineering is not particularly useful.

For a particular technology, such as the manufacturing technology of high-performance unmanned spacecraft, understanding how it is actually made through reverse engineering is far less important than "why it is made this way".

The former is merely a technique, while the latter is a principle.

Now, having seized a large amount of technological data from the Purple Moon Civilization, Li Qingsong has gained not only the technology, but also the underlying principles!
It's not just the principles at the applied physics level; Li Qingsong also owns a vast amount of data related to the laws of physics at the fundamental physics level, including research processes, data analysis processes, and proof processes.

From fundamental physics to applied physics, from a specific technology to concrete engineering practices and manufacturing techniques, and so on, it covers everything.

From this moment on, all the scientific achievements painstakingly researched and accumulated by the entire Purple Moon Civilization over tens of thousands of years have been transformed into nourishment for Li Qingsong.

This saved Li Qingsong at least a thousand years of dedicated research time. In fact, it could be said that the data he gained directly propelled him from the near-powerful core stage to a true and undisputed peak! It gave Li Qingsong a complete foundation in physics and the qualifications to challenge gravitational civilizations!

Even though the AI ​​system of the Purple Moon Civilization is somewhat inferior to the Primordial AI, in Li Qingsong's view, the Purple Moon Civilization's AI also has its merits and aspects worth learning from.

After integrating it into Primordial AI, it is foreseeable that Primordial AI's performance will experience another surge.

"This harvest has been truly enormous..."

Li Qingsong sighed as he categorized and temporarily stored these scientific and technological materials for later detailed analysis and research.

At this moment, some more important intelligence information, which Li Qingsong was more concerned about, was finally found.

"As expected, after making a deal with me last time and handing over about 200 million humans, the Purple Moon Civilization did indeed have a trick up its sleeve and secretly intercepted some humans."

Now these humans…

A sense of heaviness and anger flashed through Li Qingsong's heart.

"The Purple Moon Civilization actually put them all into a state of hibernation, then launched them into space, and notified the Space-level Magic Eye to handle the situation as needed..."

Calculating the time, more than two hundred years have passed since the spaceship carrying these humans was released.

That spaceship has probably already reached 90% of the speed of light.

Moreover, the spaceship carried enough reserve fuel, and all the crew members were in hibernation, so the consumption of supplies was minimal, and there was no need to dock with a star system for resupply in the short term.

So……

At this stage, I am unable to track that spaceship.

Our speed is less than 90% of the speed of light, so we can't catch up at all.

"Then let's carry out the mission assigned by the Crimson Star Alliance first: rescue the Crimson Star Kingdom, destroy the Demon Eye, and prevent them from salvaging this spaceship carrying humans. That's the first point."

After completing the mission here, we will find a place to carry out large-scale scientific research, charge towards the gravitational level, and advance to become a gravitational civilization. Once we have higher speeds, we will go and salvage that spaceship to rescue our fellow human beings. That is the second point!
Anyway, I have the spaceship's flight path data, so I'm not worried about not finding it. Even if it gets affected by stardust during flight and its course deviates slightly, it's just a matter of expanding the search area; it's nothing to me.

Based on the spaceship's speed and the time required for me to carry out the supernova detonation mission, by the time the supernova explodes in the future, the spaceship will be far enough away that I don't need to worry about being affected by the supernova explosion.

The starry sky is vast and the universe is boundless. Flying in such a vast expanse of starry sky, there is no need to worry about bumping into anything.

Having finalized the two-step plan, Li Qingsong turned his attention to another crucial intelligence report.

After piecing together this complete intelligence from hundreds of thousands of data sources and reviewing it in detail, Li Qingsong let out a long sigh. He finally found half of the answer to the question in his mind about the mysterious disappearance of human civilization.

"How could it be like this..."

Intelligence indicates that thousands of years ago, when the Purple Moon Fleet embarked on a space voyage, they accidentally chose the solar system as a stopover, intending to rest and resupply there.

At that time, the Purple Moon civilization's explorations also found no signs of life or industry in the solar system.

It's just like any other ordinary star system in the Milky Way, unremarkable and with nothing noteworthy about it.

This is precisely why the Purple Moon Civilization chose the Solar System as its resting place.

Thus, the Purple Moon Fleet initiated a deceleration maneuver and slowly entered the solar system.

But when the distance to the sun shrank to about one trillion kilometers, the situation suddenly changed.

The Purple Moon civilization has detected obvious signs of industry on the third planet in this star system!

The industrial traces indicated a relatively low level of technology, only at the initial stage of weak electrical engineering, which was nothing compared to the Purple Moon civilization.

But why did our previous detections fail to find any industrial traces, yet now that we're so close, industrial traces have inexplicably appeared?
What exactly happened? What's going on?

This suddenly became a major problem, even plunging the entire Purple Moon civilization into a state of panic.

This can be clearly seen from the records of the Purple Moon Civilization.

Back then, the then-Purple Moon leader convened dozens of special meetings, mobilizing all of the civilization's remote observation and scientific resources to investigate the matter tirelessly for several months.

The entire fleet made an emergency turn, preparing to restart and accelerate to escape the solar system should things go wrong.

When a large number of probes were subsequently launched to fly away from the sun, expanding the distance to more than one trillion kilometers again, strange things happened again.

A probe a trillion kilometers away observed the sun and that third planet, and the data it detected showed that the planet still had no trace of life or industry.

However, the main fleet, located a trillion kilometers away, detected obvious signs of life and industry.

One trillion kilometers seems to be a clear dividing line. It's as if there's an invisible, intangible barrier a trillion kilometers away from a star.

This barrier intercepts all light carrying traces of life and industry, modifies it, and then releases it into outer space, thus tightly concealing the existence of a weakly powered civilization in the solar system.

Subsequent research has increasingly confirmed the existence of this barrier.

The Purple Moon Civilization tried multiple directions, with some observation points even hundreds of billions of kilometers apart, and made hundreds of thousands of observations in total, all of which encountered the same problem.

Outside the barrier, there are no signs of life or industry, but inside the barrier, they can be seen.

They even pinpointed the location, curvature, and thickness of this barrier. However, the barrier itself remained invisible and intangible, undetectable by any means of measurement. The Purple Moon civilization thus began to speculate about this phenomenon.

The function of this barrier is obvious: to conceal the existence of this weak-level civilization, making it impossible for any external force to detect it.

It was only by chance that we were able to discover it.

And... the civilization that could set up such a barrier and accomplish such an incredible feat must have a technological level far exceeding our own, and must have a very far-reaching plan.

This weak electrical civilization is no ordinary one; it must be connected to some high-level beings!
If it were an ordinary civilization, upon realizing that its solar system was involved with a far more advanced being, the first thing it would do would be to immediately flee the star system, embark on an interstellar voyage, and escape as far as possible, resolutely avoiding any connection with this matter.

But... at that time, the Purple Moon Civilization had already been infected by the Demon Eye.

So they made a decision that was completely different from that of normal civilization.

Since this civilization is very likely to involve some high-level beings, and it is only in the weak stage of electricity, extremely weak, then... from the perspective of the Demon Eye Civilization, is it possible that this civilization could be of some use to the lord?

After some discussion, the Purple Moon Civilization finally decided to risk being drawn into a conflict between some high-level forces, to quietly enter the star system, and to anchor around Earth to quietly observe this weakly powered civilization.

After observing for some time, they took the risk of secretly capturing millions of humans as observation samples. After confirming that they could no longer discover anything by continuing to observe, they quietly escaped the solar system without disturbing the civilization or leaving any trace.

Li Qingsong roughly knew what happened next; it was simply a matter of raising these humans while searching for a way to offer them to the Space-level Demon Eye.

It wasn't until the Destroyer Civilization went to war with the Perseid Alliance that the Crimson Star Alliance and the Space-Class Eye realized this strategic window of opportunity and also decided to wage war. The Space-Class Eye then broadcast throughout the entire galaxy, calling on all Eye-Civilizations to come to its aid. Only then did the Purple Moon Civilization find an opportunity to offer these humans, whose usefulness was unknown, to the Space-Class Eye for disposal, thus beginning a long journey spanning thousands of light-years.

It wasn't until Li Qingsong finally caught up with them, through several wars, that the Purple Moon Civilization was completely wiped out.

At this moment, Li Qingsong finally understood why the Lantuk civilization had initially believed that the solar system was a star system without intelligent civilization.

The information they detected was all true, the intelligence the recorder civilization gave them was also true, and human civilization truly did exist.

The reason for this contradiction is all because of that barrier!
Furthermore, Li Qingsong was certain that the barrier had disappeared when he left the solar system. He had observed Earth from a distance of one trillion kilometers and had seen clear signs of industrial activity.

The disappearance of human civilization can almost certainly be linked to the disappearance of this barrier.

Perhaps... the Purple Moon Civilization inadvertently damaged this barrier, causing its protection to fail and exposing the existence of human civilization. This was then noticed by a high-level force that was watching this place, prompting them to take action and ultimately... erase all traces of the existence of human civilization?
It seems that this is the only possibility.

So, who left this barrier? What was its purpose? Why did they do it? After the Purple Moon civilization unintentionally destroyed this barrier, who then erased all traces of human civilization's existence? And why?
Li Qingsong realized that there seemed to be two forces at play in this process.

The force that left the barrier, and the force that subsequently erased all traces of human existence.

The former appears to be benevolent. This barrier clearly protected human civilization—as evidenced by the devastating blow it suffered shortly after its destruction, with all its inhabitants disappearing and all traces being completely erased.

Li Qingsong also agreed with the Purple Moon Civilization's initial assessment that "the one who left this barrier must be a high-level being."

Even with Li Qingsong's current knowledge as a peak-level civilization with strong cores, he couldn't find any way to set up such a barrier, and he couldn't even imagine it.

Even civilizations at the gravitational stage probably couldn't do this.

Although Li Qingsong had not yet entered the gravitational stage, he had some conjectures about the capabilities of the gravitational stage and inferences based on fundamental physics theories. Li Qingsong was about 80-90% certain about this assessment.

So... the one who left this barrier must be at least a dark force civilization, or even a higher level, possibly a space civilization!

And... is the existence of this barrier, and the unknown civilization that left it behind, related to my special abilities?

Li Qingsong pondered for a long time, but in the end, he could only sigh deeply.

My current strength is too weak, and my understanding of the universe is too shallow, so I really can't figure this out.

"Perhaps we can exchange some information with the Recorder civilization."

He pondered silently: "The matter concerning the Purple Moon Civilization, as well as the war between Crimson Star and Demon Eye, should have some value and should be able to be exchanged for some intelligence."

However, this matter is not urgent for now; I will do it after I advance to a gravity civilization.

After making this decision, Li Qingsong finally turned his attention to the intelligent beings of the Purple Moon Civilization that he had captured.

Led by the Purple Moon leader, a group of high-ranking officials from the civilization were escorted into the interrogation room by robots.

The Purple Moon leader's face was dark red and contorted with rage: "You want to get information from us? Dream on!"

"If you know what's good for you, release us now and submit to the great Demon Eye. Otherwise, your entire civilization will suffer the most cruel punishment!"

Li Qingsong ignored the clamor and simply proceeded to tie these high-ranking members of the civilization to the execution bed, then attached electrode pads to their bodies one by one.

This is a set of punishments specifically developed for the Purple Moon people, based on a careful study of the physical structure of the intelligent life forms of the Purple Moon civilization and combined with their own research findings. It can inflict maximum physical pain on them while ensuring that they will not die or faint, and can only endure these tortures while conscious.

Once secured, Li Qingsong manipulated the robot to gently press the execution button.

what--

Painful, grotesque screams, almost inhuman, emanated from the Purple Moon high-ranking officials. Their bodies writhed and convulsed violently, so tense and strained that blood even seeped directly from their skin.

Huh, huh...

After the first round of punishment ended, although the Purple Moon leader was weak, she still laughed wildly.

"Trying to use torture to pry open our mouths and extract information from us? Dream on!"

We have long since submitted to the great Eye of Deception; we have been transformed by it, both physically and mentally, and are already indestructible! Save your breath; these punishments are utterly meaningless to us!

Li Qingsong felt no emotion whatsoever.

He had long known that punishment was meaningless to the creatures with the Demon Eye.

But...it doesn't matter.

"Who said I wanted to get information from you? The information I wanted, I already got from your information and data system..."

Of course, I know that punishment is meaningless to you, but the very act of causing you pain is the meaning itself…

Yes.

Li Qingsong wasn't thinking of getting anything from them at this moment. He was simply torturing them and making them suffer.

To this end, Li Qingsong even specially modified hundreds of large residential spaceships, laying out a billion torture beds inside, as well as all sorts of torture instruments that pushed the limits of imagination and were specifically designed to torture the Purple Moon people.

Every member of the Purple Moon Clan has a share in this; no one can escape it!
Simply tormenting you is pointless and serves no practical purpose. But I'm happy to do it! I'm willing to do it! You disagree? Go ahead and bite me!
Recalling the joy of welcoming back two million fellow humans, the painstaking effort of building customized living quarters for them, the agony and despair of discovering they had already been infected by the Demon Eye, the torture and abuse suffered by the remaining humans within the Purple Moon Civilization, and their current state of hibernation, adrift in the vast expanse of space…

With the most rigorous, meticulous, serious, and solemn attitude, Li Qingsong treated the research on more new punishments and the increasing suffering of the Purple Moon people as a scientific project. He specially assigned scientists of various races and a certain number of clones, and invested considerable resources in the research.

After repeated experiments, Li Qingsong even developed a nerve-nourishing agent specifically for the body structure of the Purple Moon People, which can quickly repair the nerves of the Purple Moon People that have been broken or necrotic due to excessive pain, keeping them alive.

There are side effects, but only one. That is, the newly recovered nerves will be approximately 20 times more sensitive than before. This means…

The same punishment would inflict 20 times more pain on these Purple Moon people!
Each Purple Moon citizen undergoes 18 hours of torture daily, with the remaining 6 hours being rest time. Li Qingsong uses this medicine to repair their nerves and bodies, increasing their sensitivity while also preventing them from actually dying.

Thus, these hundreds of punishment ships truly became hell for the Purple Moon people, their interiors filled with shrill and twisted screams of agony day and night.

Having settled the Purple Moon people and subjected them to endless torment, Li Qingsong finally embarked on the most important mission he had undertaken in this star system.

Ignite a supernova!
"The war with the Purple Moon Civilization has taken so long; according to the original plan, there simply isn't enough time..."

Fortunately, I obtained the manufacturing method for that simple gravity manipulation device from the Purple Moon Civilization, and with the help of the Green Light Clan, I still have a great chance of completing the mission within the scheduled time.

"Damn Purple Moon people, just you wait, I'll make you watch as I detonate a supernova and destroy the Demon Eye Kingdom..."

(End of this chapter)