A genius? I just love studying.

Chapter 345 Barrier
"No, it's not too late!"

Chen Hui smiled happily and looked at the others in the lab, "Look where we are now?"

Lin Hao was taken aback at first, then seemed to realize something, and rushed to the huge observation window of the laboratory, slapping his cold hand on the transparent porthole.

The next second, his breath caught in his throat, not from despair, but because the unimaginable, burning infernal eye was hanging in front of him outside the window.

There is no orbital path of Mercury there, no hazy veil of Venus...

Only the sun!

A massive, violent, eternally burning star filled his entire field of vision.

It was no longer the warm, luminous sphere seen from the blue planet, but rather took on a terrifying, primal form.

The surface of the churning plasma ocean continuously spews out magnificent yet deadly prominences, and dark red tongues of fire lick the void. With each roll, it throws out gaseous waves powerful enough to vaporize planets.

The golden corona shimmered and stretched out against the backdrop of jet-black velvet, extending for hundreds of thousands of kilometers, like the wings of light spread out by a god.

The most central area is blindingly hot, with a white luster that is almost melting everything, silently and purely radiating heat and light onto the alloy outer wall of the space station, which is right next to it.

The cold, artificial light of the laboratory was completely submerged, and the porthole glass filtered out the most deadly radiation, but the indescribable sense of oppression pierced the soul through the physical barrier.

Lin Hao could clearly feel, no, he heard, an unparalleled terrifying hum, a cosmic roar formed by the star's own gravity and nuclear fusion turbulence, stirring up the structure of spacetime, a cosmic pulse he had never experienced before!
"Yes, it's not too late!"

Lin Hao turned to look at Chen Hui, his face filled with a wildly joyful smile.

The others in the lab only then realized what was happening.

It turns out that as early as when they were conducting the experiment, Chen Hui had already ordered the Tiangong-3 space station to be driven in front of the sun, onto the path that the superluminal particle stream was bound to take towards the sun!

Let's take action!

After a brief pause, Chen Hui spoke again, "Keep the news under wraps for now, and notify Blue Star once things have settled down."

Long before the law node was successfully verified, Tiangong-3 had already activated electromagnetic silence, and to this day, the entire Blue Star civilization is still unaware of this news.

He worried that the civilization containing the faster-than-light particle stream would detect this message, and if the faster-than-light particle stream temporarily changed direction, they would not be able to avoid the fate of the sun's destruction.

Tiangong-3 instantly became like a busy beehive, with hundreds of engineers busily putting on spacesuits, taking on the equipment of the command nodes, stepping out of Tiangong-3, turning their backs to the blazing sun, and facing the superluminal particle stream coming from the distant deep space, to begin building a barrier.

This superluminal particle stream arrived with contempt for the Blue Star civilization. It made no attempt to conceal its presence or change direction, so Chen Hui and his team did not need to cover the entire solar system; they only needed to block its path.

It’s still not too late!

"Quick, we can set up ten more nodes!"

Lin Hao shouted into the command channel.

Tiangong-3 is not only a laboratory, but also has a large reserve of materials, enabling it to produce a large number of law nodes in a short period of time.

Although the faster-than-light particle stream showed no signs of changing direction, it would always be reassuring to have the law nodes cover a wider area.

Ten minutes to go!

All the engineers who worked on the project returned to Tiangong-3. Hundreds of miles in front of Tiangong-3, on a sphere with a diameter of tens of miles, hundreds of law nodes floated solemnly, flickering with a faint blue light produced by the annihilation of matter and antimatter.

Each law node has a small matter-antimatter annihilation device to power it. Even though Chen Hui's thinking has changed from confrontation to resonance, the energy required to modify the physical constants is still terrifying. Only matter-antimatter annihilation can provide enough energy.

A radius of several tens of miles is already a huge area, but on a cosmic scale, this area is just an insignificant dot.

blue star,

At this moment, all the people of Earth stopped what they were doing, either standing on the street or sitting on the sofa in their living room after taking a bath and changing clothes, watching the live broadcast of the superluminal particle stream on the screen, waiting for the final judgment of their fate.

Schools closed, factories shut down, and stock exchanges closed.

It was as if the entire civilization had been put on pause. Whether in front of a giant light screen in a bustling city or next to the only public television set in a remote mountain village, billions of eyes were intently watching the screen.

Unaware that the Law Nodes had successfully tested their method, they had given up all resistance.

In the courtyard, Old Qian sighed softly, looked up at the sky, and recalled the glorious and invincible history of China over the past few decades, from having nothing to standing at the top of the blue planet and soaring into the starry sky.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of a more powerful civilization, they were nothing more than slightly stronger ants.

Secretary Xiao Jiang stood beside Mr. Qian, looking at the old man in front of her, and then looked up at the sky, as if she could see the legendary figure on Tiangong-3.

His expression was complex. In the face of death, it makes no difference whether you are a powerful figure who holds sway over the entire planet, a great scientist who has cracked the truth of the world, or a homeless person on the street.

Not far ahead of them, a holographic projection was broadcasting the trajectory of the faster-than-light particle stream.

But what they saw was footage from several seconds earlier.

On the screen is a slightly delayed live feed transmitted from a deep space probe.

Beyond the distant Kuiper Belt, there is only a patch of black velvet dotted with stars, while on one side of the scene, a strange, spacetime-distorting superluminal stream of particles is silently rushing toward us at a speed that defies intuition.

At the central square of Beijing, a dense crowd of people huddled together, gazing up at the 100-meter-high holographic screen.

A tense atmosphere, almost frozen in place, filled the air.

No one spoke; even the children's cries were suppressed by the collective anxiety. A young girl gripped her boyfriend's hand tightly, her nails almost digging into his flesh, but he was completely unaware, his mouth agape, his pupils reflecting the deadly purplish-red.

Ahead of that crimson beam of light, they could already see the blazing sun.

Time seemed to have been stretched into a rubber band.

Inside Tiangong-3, Chen Hui and the others were already standing on the edge of the transparent window, looking ahead.

In the void beyond the Kuiper Belt, a superluminal particle stream, spanning light-years and carrying a destructive will, pierced the heart of the solar system like a ghostly spear that defied the rules of spacetime.

It has no sound, no physical form, and leaves only a twisted and grotesque trail on the most sophisticated gravitational wave and quantum field sensors.

Its energy level is enough to vaporize the entire planet Jupiter in an instant!
As it turned out, Chen Hui's concerns were unnecessary. The superluminal particle stream did not change direction at all, but instead rushed straight towards the sun, hitting the very center of the spherical barrier that Chen Hui and his team had constructed.

It was at the Planck time that it touched the boundary of the solar system.

There was no earth-shattering explosion as expected, no flash of light as energies clashed violently.

The barrier has been activated.

Hundreds of law nodes, distributed across a vast space, completed their final collaborative computation within the same microsecond.

Instead of releasing terrifying energy, they engaged in an exquisitely refined resonance of rules.

The physical constants of the region intruded by the particle stream are quietly rewritten.

The fine structure constant α is as if it has been gently turned up one notch by an invisible hand.

For the particle stream, this subtle adjustment is the collapse of the very foundation of the universe.

The fundamental particles that make up the particle stream lose their superluminal properties the moment they enter, as if they have been pulled down from their pedestal to the mortal realm.

Then, even more devastating changes erupted from the most microscopic level.

The surge in electromagnetic force instantly transformed the previously balanced electromagnetic attraction between the atomic nucleus and electrons into an irresistible and fatal embrace. The electron's orbit collapsed, and it was dragged toward the atomic nucleus by the immense force.

The strong nuclear force that maintains the stability of atomic nuclei proves utterly inadequate in the face of the surging electromagnetic repulsion, forcibly tearing apart the bond between protons and neutrons. The very foundation upon which all matter constitutes the particle stream is instantly emptied.

On the sensor screen, the originally dazzling stream of particles, full of destructive energy, was suddenly de-energized as it touched that invisible boundary, just like the light and shadow projected onto a screen being suddenly cut off.

It was not blocked or shattered, but rather directly erased from its state of existence, transforming into a cloud of the most primordial and uniform elementary particles. Subsequently, even this cloud of particles completely dissipated and merged into the background noise of the universe.

The entire process was completely silent.

There was no explosion, no wreckage, only a vast emptiness returning to nothingness, as if that deadly spear capable of destroying civilization had never existed.

The deathly silence lasted for a full three seconds.

Then, the enormous sound almost lifted the roof off!
Engineers and scientists threw down their data boards, embraced each other and wept, cheering and shouting without restraint.

Lin Hao slumped into a chair, covering his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking violently, tears seeping through his fingers. This was not sadness, but a tremendous sense of relief as he was pulled back from the brink of hell.

blue star,

In front of all screens,

There was no Star Wars-style energy explosion as expected; no flash, no loud noise.

The ferocious, all-consuming stream of purplish-red particles, upon contact with the boundary, silently began to disintegrate and dissipate from its tip, like snow thrown into boiling water.

It wasn't shattered, it wasn't blocked, but rather like a piece of error code erased from the real world.

The front end disappears, the middle section follows closely behind, and the end also vanishes into nothingness in the next second.

The whole process was incredibly fast, yet it was stretched out infinitely in everyone's tense perception, as if an entire century had passed.

In the squares, in classrooms, in homes... the entire planet fell into an absolute, bewildering silence.

People blinked, wondering if they were hallucinating.

The starry sky on the screen was so clean that it was as if the destructive stream of particles had never existed. Only the terrifying curve on the sensor readings next to it, which dropped from its peak to zero in an instant, proved that what had just happened was not a dream.

They didn't know what was happening until, as the deep space live broadcast camera moved forward with the faster-than-light particle stream, it saw Tiangong-3 blocking its way.

"It's Professor Chen!"

Suddenly someone shouted, "He succeeded!"

The central square in Beijing instantly transformed into a sea of ​​excitement!

Deafening cheers, screams, and cries of pain rose into the sky!

The crowd embraced and jumped wildly, throwing hats, scarves, and anything else they could into the air.

It was a pure catharsis, a feeling of being pulled back from the brink of hell, a survival after a catastrophe.

In a courtyard house in Beijing, Old Qian blinked, wondering if it was just his imagination.

He stood in that position for eight minutes until he was sure that no gamma rays were coming from the destroyed sun, then he breathed a sigh of relief and gave a silent smile.

"Mr. Qian, the phone is ringing."

Xiao Jiang was jolted awake by the phone ringing. "It's Professor Chen calling."

"Professor Qian, we succeeded!"

Chen Hui's voice came through the microphone, "The situation is urgent, and we cannot inform you of this news in advance."

"No need to explain, I understand."

Mr. Qian interrupted Chen Hui's explanation, "You are heroes of the entire planet Earth!"

"Now is not the time to celebrate. We need to improve the barrier system as soon as possible to protect the entire solar system."

Chen Hui's clear voice came through the microphone.

"Project Barrier to be launched immediately!"

Mr. Qian followed the advice without hesitation.

As early as when Chen Hui was researching the Law Nodes, Blue Star had already formulated the Barrier Plan. All the raw materials were already prepared, just waiting for Chen Hui's success, so that they could set off from all parts of Blue Star to the edge of the solar system and lay down a defensive line that would cover the entire solar system.

Following Qian Lao's command, the entire Blue Star was like a machine running at full speed, with spaceships carrying law nodes taking off from Blue Star and transforming into a sky full of stars.

Tiangong-3 has now moved away from the sun and is hovering in its lunar orbit not far from Earth, making it an excellent observation platform.

Chen Hui, Lin Hao, and many other engineers gathered again in front of the huge observation window, holding their breath in concentration.

Outside the window, it was no longer the burning inferno of the sun, but the deep and boundless starry sky.

However, this starry sky is being quietly changed.

At first, scattered points of light appeared in the far distance of the field of vision, like diamonds scattered on black velvet.

Those were the command nodes released by the first batch of ships that arrived at their designated locations.

Once activated, the node did not emit a blinding light, but instead steadily flashed a deep, restrained, pale blue light, a sign that its internal small matter-antimatter annihilation device was continuously powered, like a silent blue flame burning in the universe.

Soon, the number of light spots increased exponentially.

From the initial dozens or hundreds, they quickly spread to thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands... They were no longer isolated, but began to interact with each other.

Visible to the naked eye, extremely subtle, almost transparent ripples of energy quietly generate, connect, and resonate between nodes. These ripples are not physical entities, but rather faint manifestations of the rules being slightly disturbed in real space.

Over time, the network of light spots becomes increasingly dense.

They are no longer confined to a corner of the field of vision, but rather extend in all directions like a giant, ever-expanding net. Looking from the direction of Blue Star, it seems as if the entire outer perimeter of the solar system is enveloped by a slowly rotating ring of stars composed of countless dark blue stars.

In just four hours and eight hours, hundreds of millions of law nodes had already enveloped the solar system.

On the star chart, the last two isolated blue dots, located in the distant void at the north and south poles of the ecliptic plane of the solar system, flickered simultaneously and were instantly connected by an almost invisible energy ripple spanning hundreds of millions of kilometers!
hum...

It was not a sound in the physical sense, but a deep and grand resonance originating from space itself, like the pulse of the universe being gently plucked, penetrating the walls of Tiangong-3 and echoing deep within everyone's consciousness.

Looking out the window, the network of pale blue lights that filled the field of vision suddenly brightened at the same moment!

It wasn't an explosive burst of light, but rather the completion of the final frequency synchronization and regular resonance of all nodes.

Their light stabilized, and the energy ripples between them vanished instantly, replaced by a unified, deep, and serene blue halo.

The halo was not evenly distributed, but pulsated slightly like breathing. Its brightness appeared soft and restrained against the backdrop of starlight, yet it contained an undeniable sense of power.

It is no longer a collection of isolated points, but has formed a complete, enormous cocoon of light that gently envelops the entire solar system.

Barrier system, closed loop complete!
From this moment on, the solar system is a cradle of civilization protected by rules.

The Blue Star civilization has officially gained the right to light the way in the Dark Forest and define its own boundaries!

(End of this chapter)