Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 217 Four-Dimensional Fragments
The Minister of Military Affairs quickly left the meeting to mobilize the Devouring Fleet, while the Devouring Emperor's gloomy gaze turned to the Minister of Science.

"I recently heard that you've discovered many interesting things while researching science and technology?"

The Minister of Science respectfully said, "Your Majesty, in the past 30,000 rotations of the Great Ring, we captured 14 four-dimensional fragments and used force fields to pull them in, keeping them always in the central region of the Devouring Empire. Among these 14 four-dimensional fragments, one of the high-dimensional civilization graveyards that was barely surviving within the four-dimensional fragments indicated to the Devouring Empire that something small had intruded into the four-dimensional space."

The emperor of the Devouring Empire asked, "What little thing?"

The Minister of Science shook his head: "Judging from the description of the cemetery, it was probably a microscopic particle with intelligence? We cannot verify this claim at the moment, because shortly after that little thing entered the four-dimensional space, it became ineffective due to the inherent characteristics of the four-dimensional space itself, and turned into an ordinary four-dimensional space particle."

The emperor of the Devouring Empire asked, "Is this a creation of human civilization?"

The Minister of Science hesitated for a moment: "It is very possible. Humans are animals that are neither too big nor too small. They may have explored the microscopic world in great depth, just like ants did back then."

But Your Majesty, this does not affect anything. The higher dimensions of the microscopic world and the higher dimensions of the macroscopic world are not the same thing. Every microscopic particle naturally has a higher-dimensional structure, but only by fully unfolding the higher-dimensional structures of a large number of microscopic particles can a higher-dimensional space be formed.

Based on current observations, human civilization is still operating within three-dimensional space, while the Devouring Empire has already been able to enter four-dimensional space on a small scale.

The Devouring Empire's research progress in higher dimensions far surpasses that of Earth civilization, which knows nothing about higher dimensions, and also far surpasses that of the Trisolaran civilization, which is still working on microscopic particles.

In the Empire's theory, the macroscopic manifestation of each microscopic particle is three-dimensional, but the superstring state inside the particle is an 11-dimensional structure, and high-dimensional space is the macroscopic space formed by a large number of microscopic particles unfolding in specific dimensions.

(Ding Yi's theory of macro-atoms and macro-electrons has already provided a preliminary understanding of this point. Ball lightning and macro-fusion are introductory research results of this theory. The Trisolaran civilization can freely manipulate individual microscopic particles to expand in arbitrary dimensions, but this requires huge resources and is extremely inefficient. This can be seen from the production of sophons.)

Therefore, the Devouring Empire only needs to simultaneously expand the microscopic high-dimensional structures of a large number (at least on the order of 20 powers) of microscopic particles to a four-dimensional state to form a four-dimensional space. Thus, the Empire has mastered the ability to create small-scale four-dimensional spaces.

However, such a four-dimensional space cannot exist permanently.

Since the current energy level of the three-dimensional universe is far lower than that of the four-dimensional universe, maintaining the existence of four-dimensional space fragments requires the Devouring Empire to constantly input enormous amounts of energy to maintain the stable existence of four-dimensional space, which consumes a huge amount of the Devouring Empire's matter.

And this is only four-dimensional space. If a large number of microscopic particles are expanded to form a five-dimensional structure, the energy required is even more terrifying. The Devouring Empire has come to a conclusion through simple calculations that expanding a five-dimensional space the size of a dinosaur's fingernail (it would require expanding 7×10 microscopic particles to a five-dimensional state) would require energy equivalent to about 70% of the total mass of the Devouring Empire.

Therefore, for dinosaurs, it was almost impossible to create five-dimensional space or even higher-dimensional space through technology; four-dimensional space was the limit that technology could create.

According to the historical record of the Devouring Empire's 6500 million-year wandering, there are still many fragments of four-dimensional space remaining in the vast universe. These are remnants from the ancient four-dimensional universe era, and these fragments are disappearing rapidly like snowflakes under the scorching sun.

As for the fragments of five-dimensional space, they could not possibly appear under natural conditions. The fragments of five-dimensional space should have completely evaporated as early as the four-dimensional universe era.

During its long journey, the Devouring Empire has recorded encounters with four-dimensional fragments of varying sizes hundreds of times, especially during its early wandering period 6400 million years ago, when the probability of encountering four-dimensional fragments was exceptionally high.

Therefore, the Devouring Empire's understanding of higher dimensions was very early, which may be a unique advantage of the wandering civilization.

As technology advanced, the Devouring Empire gradually mastered the method of using force fields to capture four-dimensional fragments and learned to continuously infuse energy into them to prevent them from drying out and evaporating. In their interactions with these four-dimensional fragments, the dinosaurs also came to realize the existence of remnants of civilizations within some of them.

Among these high-dimensional civilization ruins, the dinosaurs realized that these high-dimensional civilizations existing in the four-dimensional fragments were actually the losers of the previous civilization war.

The universe has no morality.

If human civilization is an ignorant infant, and the Trisolaran civilization is a toddler taking its first steps, then the Devouring Empire is a college student who has left the village to attend university, even if their grades weren't great, they have indeed seen the whole world.

Upon hearing the news from the Minister of Science, the Emperor said, "If humanity has the ability to unfold individual particles in lower dimensions, it means that humanity's technology has gradually penetrated into the microscopic dimensional structure of matter. Minister of Science, this is a very dangerous thing. What do you think?"

The Minister of Science nodded repeatedly: "His Majesty is right. I will serve as the Minister of Military Affairs' technical advisor and assist him in winning the war of annihilation against the human insects."

The Devouring Emperor nodded slightly: "That's right. Deal with the threat sooner rather than later. After we've dealt with these 2500 insect warships, we should immediately send the Great Ring deeper into the solar system. Continuing the standoff will only allow humanity's strength to continue to expand. If humanity experiences a technological explosion, it will be dangerous for us. You must know that they possess the entire solar system and don't face the resource-scarce predicament that the Empire is in."

“Yes!” said the Minister of Science.

"Furthermore," the emperor drawled, "if you are unable to weaponize the four-dimensional fragments in the long run, then reduce the creation of four-dimensional spaces in the future. Maintaining the existence of four-dimensional spaces requires enormous energy, and the resources consumed by the empire are not abundant."

The Minister of Science looked up and asked, "Your Majesty, what should we do with those ancient civilizations that are barely surviving in the fourth dimension?"

The emperor of the Devouring Empire sat high on his golden dragon throne and sneered: "Why keep some losers from the last era around after they have no more use to the empire? Let them disappear naturally in the universe."

"Yes, I will obey your command."

Although the Minister of Science was reluctant to halt research into four-dimensional space, he respectfully agreed.
However, at this moment, the Pope of the Empire, who had been sitting silently but held a high position and sat beside the Devouring Emperor, suddenly opened his eyes and let out a soft hum, attracting the attention of all the dragons.

There are many religions within the Devouring Empire, and this pope is the leader of them.

There is only one reason why this religion could exist and hold a high position in a centralized, conquering empire—that the god it worships is real.

The pope, dressed in a white robe, stood up and said to the Devouring Emperor, "Your Majesty, I do not recommend stopping the research on higher dimensions. Do you remember that in ancient texts, God once gave a divine oracle to the Devouring Empire: if the Devouring Empire wants to become a great being like God, it must persist in the research on higher dimensions."

The emperor of the Devouring Empire's expression instantly turned serious. He changed his tune to the Minister of Science, saying, "I almost forgot about such an important matter. Since the Pope has spoken, what I just said is no longer valid. Let the scientists continue their research on the fourth dimension. It's just a little energy. As long as we devour more matter for nuclear fusion, the empire can afford it."

"Yes." The Minister of Science knelt respectfully on the ground again, accepting the new order.

(End of this chapter)