Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 371 Interception!

This time, Li Qingsong did not plan to stop midway, nor did he set a specific goal or decide which star to stop next to.

The current flight direction is the same as the direction of the spaceship that the Purple Moon Civilization released their human compatriots. Of course, with Li Qingsong's current speed, it's impossible for him to catch up with that spaceship, but at least he'll be flying in this direction for now, so that when future technological breakthroughs come and he wants to salvage it, he can save some distance.

Before this flying star is exhausted, Li Qingsong will continue to fly, and during his journey, he will continue to make preparations for impacting the gravitational civilization.

Time passed quietly, and the people living in this fleet continued their normal lives.

When there's nothing to do, they live in their own residential spaceships, which have all the necessary facilities for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and entertainment. When there's trouble, there are scheduled shuttle flights between different residential spaceships for convenient transportation.

Everything felt like living on a planet.

More than 300 years have passed quietly under these circumstances.

Of course, this refers to the 300-plus years within the fleet. Because the fleet's speed was so high at that moment, resulting in a significant relativistic effect, approximately 680 years should have passed in the outside world.

Li Qingsong's fleet has already traversed a distance of nearly 600 light-years.

But that's not enough; it needs to be a little longer.

On this day, another plenary scientific conference was held in the Human Building. Distinguished scientists from various races, as well as human scientists disguised as clones, gathered here to comprehensively review the technological progress of the past 30 years and to formulate a charter for technological research and development work for the next 30 years.

"...Over the past 30 years, we have basically completed the analysis and assimilation of the scientific and technological data of the Purple Moon Civilization in areas such as fundamental physics theory, deep space observation, metallic materials, strong nuclear materials, and thruster technology."

However, we still lag behind in areas such as biotechnology, computing technology, radar technology, quantum mathematics, and space mathematics. These shortcomings have already hindered the overall technological progress of our civilization.

I suggest that over the next 30 years…

A human "scientist" was giving a speech on the podium. But at that very moment, for some unknown reason, every alarm that could sound in the entire conference room went off simultaneously.

The piercing alarm instantly filled the entire hall.

All the attendees simultaneously looked up and surveyed their surroundings.

The leader's voice came through the communicator into the hall. The leader, who was usually calm and collected, seemingly unaffected by any change, was now filled with solemnity.

"All attendees, evacuate immediately and proceed to Shelter 773 as instructed! Immediately!"

People immediately stood up and followed the staff to the shelter in an orderly manner.

Although their hearts were full of doubts, no one asked them at this moment.

The piercing alarm wasn't just heard inside human buildings.

At this very moment, all the alarms inside every habitation spaceship, every warship, industrial spaceship, space carrier, research spaceship, ferry spaceship, and so on—every spaceship in the fleet—simultaneously went off.

Hundreds of billions of intelligent beings of various races simultaneously stopped what they were doing and looked up to survey their surroundings.

The bustling commercial street fell silent instantly. Everyone stood frozen in place, as if under a spell, afraid to move or take a step.

Schools, hospitals, squares, playgrounds, research institutes, and so on—all of them are like this.

A sense of panic quietly spread through people's hearts.

The moment the alarm sounded, Li Qingsong sensed something was wrong.

At this moment, Li Qingsong felt a solemnity he had never felt before.

He knew that the worst had happened.

He clearly saw that the universe, which was vast, deep, and tranquil just a moment ago, suddenly became bright for some unknown reason.

The entire universe, in every direction—front, back, left, right, up, and down—illuminated at that moment, releasing a blinding white light. Moreover, the white light seemed to be subtly shifting towards blue!
Li Qingsong knew perfectly well that in blackbody radiation, the higher the temperature of the radiator, the bluer its color!

At that moment, it felt as if his fleet had suddenly crashed into a blue giant star!

Endless heat and intense radiation assaulted the small fleet. In that instant, Li Qingsong felt as if he were a small fish that had fallen into a boiling ocean, with nowhere to escape and nowhere to hide!
The entire universe seemed to be boiling at that moment!

Even before carrying out the mission to detonate the supernova, Li Qingsong had been thinking about a question.

Will the Destroyer civilization be enraged by this and turn against itself?
After comprehensive analysis, Li Qingsong believes that this event has a probability of happening, but it is not very likely.

The reason is simple: the universe is too vast, and one can escape a considerable distance before the effects of a supernova explosion reach the battlefield. Even with the capabilities of the Destroyer civilization, searching for them in such a vast expanse of space would likely be quite a challenge.

Besides, he also has the Space-level Demon Eye and the Crimson Star Alliance keeping him in check.

I am but a tiny shrimp, probably not worth the great effort the Destroyer Civilization has gone to for me.

Coupled with the Red Star Alliance's goodwill towards him, and the clones he had previously reserved in other star systems as a backup plan, Li Qingsong finally decided to carry out this mission.

But now... has he ultimately failed to escape the pursuit of the Destroyer Civilization?
The scene he was witnessing at that moment was something only a space-level civilization could accomplish. And who else but the Destroyer Civilization could have attacked him in anger?
There's no way to escape, and no way to hide.

Li Qingsong gritted his teeth and immediately issued the order.

"Officials of all races and ranks, immediately evacuate the people and send them to shelters!"

His voice was transmitted to the ears of every intelligent being through a broadcast.

The next moment, as if frozen in place, the intelligent beings finally came to their senses, and the administrators bravely stepped forward, shouting loudly and organizing people to quickly move towards the shelter.

At the same time, Li Qingsong also turned up the power of all the spaceships' energy shields to the maximum, and took out all the heat shields and reflectors, laying them on the outside of each spaceship to try to block or reflect the heat and radiation back.

This may be meaningless, but it is the only thing Li Qingsong can do at this moment.

The space where the fleet was located grew increasingly bright and intensely hot. Some smaller, less heavily armored ships located around the fleet had already been melted, and even the larger ships at the fleet's core were showing signs of overload.

Gazing at the starry sky, Li Qingsong sighed softly, a sense of despair quietly rising in his heart.

At that moment, he felt like a primitive man facing a massive tsunami. Faced with this overwhelming power of nature, human strength was utterly futile.

Looking at the intelligent beings already in the shelter, their faces filled with terror as they discussed what had happened, Li Qingsong sighed again.

Those shelters were all located in the most central and heavily protected areas of the spaceship. In interstellar warfare, they could withstand most types of attacks, except for direct bombardment by high-yield hydrogen bombs.

But now, facing this malice that seems to come from the entire universe, the shelters he had painstakingly built were no more protective than the thatched huts before the devastating tsunami.

"I'm sorry, I tried my best, but I couldn't protect you. Sigh..."

All the technologies I've developed and all the technological creations I've accumulated over the years will probably be destroyed here.

The only viable option is to transfer consciousness to clones hidden in other galaxies and start developing again from scratch.

I wonder if my consciousness transfer ability, based on unknown principles, will still be effective under an attack of such scale by the Destroyer civilization…

As death approached, Li Qingsong gradually regained his composure.

Even now, he doesn't regret the choice he made. If he had to do it all over again, Li Qingsong knows he would still choose to carry out this mission.

Being retaliated against by the Destroyer civilization at this moment can only be described as a low-probability event, and it's just bad luck.

If I had abandoned the moral and value traditions rooted in human civilization that I upheld for such a low-probability event, then I would not deserve to be called a human being.

Furthermore, the Destroyer civilization views all intelligent beings in the entire galaxy other than themselves—whether orthodox intelligent civilizations or cataclysmic beings—as enemies, and will launch a devastating attack upon encountering them.

This means that as long as they want to develop in this galaxy, they will one day have to confront the Destroyer civilization.

Therefore, helping the Crimson Star Alliance and thwarting the Destroyer Civilization's plan is also helping oneself. Any civilization with sufficient rationality would make this choice.

"Farewell, my compatriots. If I have a future, I swear I will avenge you."

"Destroyer civilization, you'd better annihilate me completely this time. If you leave me even the slightest opening, in the future, I'll show you what true cruelty is..."

……

Li Qingsong sat quietly in his seat, gazing at the vast starry sky outside the porthole, which had turned pale blue, feeling the violent energy coming from all directions, and quietly awaiting the judgment of fate.

But at that very moment, for some reason, the blue outside the porthole suddenly vanished.

Just as the tide suddenly receded, the color of the entire universe in Li Qingsong's eyes instantly dimmed, changing from blue back to white, then to red, then light red, and finally disappearing completely.

In just a few seconds, the entire universe returned to its vastness and depth. The twinkling starlight reappeared, as if all the previous changes had been an illusion, as if nothing had ever happened. The piercing alarms also vanished almost entirely in that instant.

Ok?
Li Qingsong stood up gently, walked to the porthole, and stared blankly at the tranquil and profound universe outside the window.

A gravitational wave signal was instantly detected by Li Qingsong. After deciphering it, an incomplete message was presented to him.

Only half a sentence.

"Don't stop, don't look back, keep moving forward, keep going, keep going. The Destroyer Civilization was..."

A sudden realization flashed through Li Qingsong's mind.

He roughly knows what's going on.

This message was sent in Yunluo language. This clearly indicates who sent the message.

Red Star Alliance.

Therefore, it must have been the Crimson Star Alliance that stopped the Destroyer Civilization.

Only the Crimson Star Alliance, which is also a space-level civilization, has enough power to save itself.

So... has the Crimson Star Kingdom broken free from the Destroyer Civilization's blockade? Has the Demon Eye Kingdom been destroyed?

Li Qingsong didn't know. He only knew that the Crimson Star Kingdom was taking a huge risk by stopping the Destroyer Civilization's fatal attack on it.

From a moral standpoint, it is reasonable and entirely justified that the Red Star Alliance should risk their lives to rescue him now, since he risked his life to save them in the past.

But Li Qingsong knew clearly that many things were not a given, and that people would do them just because they were supposed to.

Not to mention the interactions between civilizations, how often have we seen acts of ingratitude among individual intelligent beings?

At this moment, the starry sky outside the window remained vast and deep, so quiet it was almost deathly still. But Li Qingsong knew that in those places he couldn't see or perceive, some battles beyond his current comprehension, so dangerous they were beyond his imagination, were taking place.

Standing before the porthole, Li Qingsong said softly, "Thank you. Crimson Star Alliance, I have not let you down, and you have not let me down. You are our human civilization, and you are also my... true friends."

The Crimson Star Alliance has bought them extremely valuable time to escape, and they should take advantage of this time to get away as soon as possible.

However, their fleet had already reached its maximum speed of 87% of the speed of light. Further increasing the speed would not only result in minimal gains but would also lead to a series of unexpected accidents.

All things considered, Li Qingsong could only maintain the current speed and escape "slowly".

Since we cannot interfere with the external situation, all we can do is to manage our internal affairs well.

Li Qingsong immediately manipulated numerous clones, using the Primordial AI as a tool, to repair the spaceships damaged in the previous stages and eliminate potential hazards. At the same time, he directly intervened his control over the various races, coordinating management while also allocating large amounts of resources to ensure the stability of order and sufficient supplies within each shelter, minimizing potential casualties and losses due to this unexpected event.

For the next year, nothing changed externally.

The starry sky remained vast and serene. After careful consideration, Li Qingsong lifted the martial law order, and the various intelligent beings who had lived in the shelter for a full year were finally allowed to leave and begin to resume their normal production and life.

Li Qingsong explained the disaster by saying that the fleet encountered a special astronomical event, and that the disaster had now passed.

Only the high-ranking members of each race knew that the danger had never actually left.

Time slipped away quietly amidst the trepidation of all those in the know, and another 100 years passed in the blink of an eye.

Based on the conversion of relativistic effects, more than 200 years have passed in the external time, and our fleet has already traveled more than 170 light-years.

This distance is probably still nothing to a space-level civilization. But they haven't chased after us for so many years, perhaps... the crisis has been resolved?
With a cautious mindset, and after several discussions, Li Qingsong finally made a decision.

While ensuring that the general direction of tracking human spacecraft remains unchanged, activate the random maneuver mode for the fleet.

So, after hundreds of years of silence, those countless engines started up again, propelling the fleet slowly to change direction with only one ten-thousandth of its maximum power.

With a propulsive force of only one ten-thousandth, the acceleration it can provide to the fleet is a mere 0.12 millimeters per second squared. Converted to gravity, this is only about one eight-ten-thousandth of Earth's, and is even imperceptible to the human body.

Even from the outside, the engines appeared to be completely silent, barely emitting any light. The exhaust plumes were so faint that they could only be detected by specialized instruments.

The engines ran for a full year, giving the fleet a lateral speed of about 3.8 kilometers per second.

After that, Li Qingsong randomly selected a jet direction again and continued to perform weak propulsion for a year, repeating this process, occasionally interspersed with some inertial navigation time when the engine was completely shut off.

This massive fleet was like a headless fly, drifting left and right, up and down in the vast starry sky, with no discernible pattern to its movements.

Thus, more than 600 years quietly passed, which, if converted to external time, is nearly 1300 years, a distance of more than 1100 light-years that Li Qingsong traversed.

But Li Qingsong still felt somewhat uneasy. In the following voyage, Li Qingsong maintained this pattern of random maneuvering and cautiousness, and traveled for more than 300 years, covering a distance of about 500 light-years. It wasn't until the flying star was completely exhausted and the warehouses in the many space carriers and transport ships were completely cleaned out that he finally made up his mind to find a star system to dock in.

In total, since encountering the Destroyer civilization, their fleet has traveled nearly 1700 light-years.

If this distance still isn't enough to shake off the Destroyer civilization's pursuit, then... Li Qingsong has no choice but to accept his fate.

"1700 light-years... Adding the time I spent chasing the Purple Moon civilization a few years ago, and even earlier when I was hiding from the AI ​​catastrophe, the total distance between me and the solar system is now more than 3200 light-years..."

More than 3200 light-years away, the sun is extremely dim here, with a magnitude of only about 16.

The higher the magnitude number, the dimmer the star. On Earth, even in extremely good weather conditions, the dimmest star visible to the naked eye is still around magnitude 6.

Even with the eyesight of a clone that has undergone multiple genetic optimizations, it is completely unable to see the sun at this moment.

It has been completely submerged in the vast sea of ​​stars.

Only with a large telescope could Li Qingsong see that dim yellow star.

After a moment of reflection, Li Qingsong turned his gaze to the stars ahead of the fleet.

The closer you are to the galactic center, the greater the stellar density. Just like the star field where Li Qingsong is currently located, because it is 3200 light-years closer to the galactic center than the Sun, the stellar density has already increased significantly.

The stellar density around the Sun is approximately 0.004 stars per cubic light-year. Here, the stellar density has increased to about 0.01 stars per cubic light-year. This means that, on average, there is one star in every sphere with a radius of 2.9 light-years.

The stars here are also relatively close to each other. The distance between the two closest stars is generally no more than 4 light-years.

This manifests to the naked eye as an increasing number of stars and a more dazzling cosmos. However, it also means that the interstellar space here has a higher density of matter and stronger radiation.

"More stars are good. More stars mean more interference, which allows me to hide better."

With this in mind, Li Qingsong finally chose a star system with a red dwarf as the main star and a total of six planets surrounding it, and began to decelerate towards it.

At this moment, it will take approximately seven more years of deceleration before the final stop. Gazing at the ever-brightening star, Li Qingsong felt a surge of anticipation.

During these years of full-speed escape, Li Qingsong's clones, together with many intelligent life scientists, have completely digested and absorbed all the technological data from the Purple Moon Civilization. They have also gone a step further on the foundation of the Purple Moon Civilization, and have completed the research on all areas of research value within the scientific framework of basic physics, which unifies the three fundamental forces of electromagnetism, weak force, and strong force.

At this moment, unless there is another breakthrough in fundamental physics, Li Qingsong's technology will be unable to make any further progress.

In recent decades, not only those scientists of intelligent life, but even Li Qingsong has reached a point where he has nothing to do.

There's really nothing else to do.

They even completed all the engineering work, including designing experiments and carrying out projects that might help them unify gravity and advance to become a gravity civilization.

The only thing missing now is one thing.

Sufficient resources and energy.

Once these things are available, experimental instruments and large scientific facilities that currently only exist on paper, as well as research in numerous disciplines and fields, can immediately begin.

Under these circumstances, Li Qingsong's fleet finally slowed down to a speed of only a dozen kilometers per second and successfully docked next to the planet.

Looking down at this ordinary, desolate, and lifeless star system, which may never have been visited by intelligent life since its inception, Li Qingsong felt a surge of excitement.

"Let's complete the breakthrough from the strong core to the gravitational stage within this galaxy."

I command... Gravity Engineering, commence!

Amid cheers erupting from each of the habitation ships, one after another, industrial, research, and transport ships departed the main fleet and flew toward each valuable planet.

(End of this chapter)