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

Chapter 220 White Dwarf Starfish (Three-in-One)

After leaving the Light Speaker civilization's breeding area, Shan Qing spent another three days finding other civilizations being bred by dinosaurs.

As the glowing mushrooms said, the dinosaurs bred a total of thirteen distinct biological groups in the inner ring area.

These thirteen biological groups each represent a unique civilization on a planet destroyed by dinosaurs.

If these alien species were seen by humans, who knows how many papers they could produce and how many PhDs they could graduate.

Shanqing tried to communicate with other cultivated civilizations, but to no avail.

These biological groups generally lack the vitality of a civilization similar to the Light Speakers. They have a very low desire to communicate and have been completely domesticated during the hundreds of thousands or even tens of millions of years of domestication of dinosaurs. They are not even aware of the fact that they have been "domesticated" and believe that they were born this way.

In these diverse civilizations, Shanqing witnessed another side of the universe.

The universe is indeed quite dark.

But it was really lively.

Many times, Shanqing was amazed, saying, "Can life really be born from this?"

But a new question also lingered in Shanqing's mind: why did the dinosaurs go to such great lengths to collect so many individuals of civilization?
Due to individual biological differences, these cultivated and consumed civilizations of the Imperial Government are essentially highly toxic to carbon-based life forms and cannot be eaten at all.

For example, those glowing mushrooms.

These mushrooms are bizarre creatures, nurtured by high-energy particle rays. The star system where these glowing mushrooms are located experienced a supernova explosion, which completely destroyed the remaining planetary surface ecosystem.

The supernova remnant formed after the supernova explosion continues to release high-energy particle rays, and this release cycle can last for millions of years. Under the bombardment of high-energy particle rays for millions of years, the planet's surface is always under a high-energy field.

Under such a high-energy field

These surviving mycelial life forms from the supernova explosion gradually adapted to the new environment, forming early Light Speakers with mushroom-like shapes. After hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, they gradually developed into their own civilization.

According to the descriptions of these glowing Puji, before the Devourers arrived on Light Language Star, the entire planet was covered with glowing Puji, the only creatures on the planet.

They use the brightness and frequency of light flashes as their language, transmitting information at the speed of light.

In the early stages of the Light Language Civilization, there were other types of Light Speakers, such as those that emitted blue light, purple light, or even invisible light, but they all became extinct due to long-term ecological elimination and the weakening of radiation energy from supernova remnants.

If the Devourers hadn't suddenly visited Light Whisperer Star, the Light Whisperer civilization would have naturally perished due to lack of energy input after the supernova ruins cooled down 100,000 years later.

Subjectively, the Devourer consumed the Star of Light.

Objectively speaking, some individuals of the Light Speaker civilization survived due to the domestication of dinosaurs, and have survived to this day, 20 million years later.

Before leaving the Light Speaker breeding area, after obtaining permission from the Light Speaker civilization, Shanqing picked up a glowing Puji and studied it carefully for a long time.

The surface temperature of these 'mushrooms' is around 300 degrees Celsius, while the core temperature can reach thousands of degrees. Their 'caps' and 'stems' are essentially composed of aggregates of particles with high atomic numbers.

It's cute, but you can't eat it, it's too hot.

The glowing puffy will turn into a dark red, magma-like state before and after death, and will completely carbonize after death. This kind of creature is indeed difficult to raise, let alone eat.

The other dozen or so civilizations each have their own unique characteristics.

Some of these creatures are gaseous beings that evolved from gaseous planets similar to Jupiter. They are very light, shaped like balloons, and float in the sky above the breeding area.

Some organisms are purely liquid, living in highly concentrated salt solutions, almost transparent and invisible, and even more 'soft' than jellyfish in Earth's oceans.

There were even microscopic groups of organisms resembling ants. In these microscopic groups, Shanqing saw many display screens, indicating that dinosaurs had attempted to communicate with them.

This is interesting; it was the dinosaurs that abandoned the ants.

It was also dinosaurs that sought alternatives to ants.

It seems that dinosaurs suffered many setbacks in their early development after losing ants, and thus realized the limitations of their civilization and wanted to make up for them.

Unfortunately, this attempt to compensate ultimately failed; these ant-like micro-organisms could not replace the function of ant civilization at all.

But the dinosaurs still took good care of these little insects, as if to make up for that slight deficiency.

These dinosaurs went to great lengths to create fully enclosed farms to raise these 'useless' civilizations, clearly not for food. It seems the mushrooms were right; the dinosaurs were raising these strange and unusual individuals as gifts prepared by the Devouring Empire to offer to the 'gods'.

Shanqing is a staunch materialist who does not believe in the existence of 'God'. He guesses that this 'God' is most likely some kind of advanced civilization similar to the Risk Takers.

If this devouring empire is protected by this god, then humanity should indeed be more cautious.

In cultivation worlds outside of Kyushu, there's a classic saying:
When the youngest is beaten, the older one comes; when the older one is beaten, the oldest one comes.

If the 'dinosaur' is this small one, then it will be very troublesome.

Moreover, with the protection of a 'god,' it was indeed difficult for Shan Qing to make a move. The giant ring also had an owner, so refining it was out of the question.

"Sigh, let's try negotiating with the Devouring Emperor." Shanqing sighed.

These extraterrestrial civilizations, when compared to the developmental stages of humanity, would at best be considered to be at the primitive tribal stage.

Among these diverse civilizations, the Po River civilization before its demise was surprisingly one of the most formidable, given its ability to evolve into a biological nuclear bomb capable of nuclear fission—a truly impressive feat.

It's difficult for other civilizations to surpass the fighting power of humanity during World War I.

For example, the attack method of those glowing pouches is to jump over and self-destruct, acting as self-destructing pouches. Early individual Light Speakers could also fire 'mushroom cannons' (a type of plasma), but these turret pouches that could fire 'mushroom cannons' have long since become extinct, leaving only the ordinary glowing pouches.

Their combat strength is pitifully weak, almost zero.

Shanqing used the black crystal photo-recording stone (phone) to photograph all these strange and unusual civilizations, which are valuable data for humankind.

His trip to the Giant Ring was not about confronting the dinosaurs or engaging in direct combat. He needed to understand the weaknesses of the Devouring Empire and gather intelligence, and then use his superphone to send information in the form of electromagnetic waves to the fleet for analysis.

The electromagnetic wave information of the entire Devouring Empire is chaotic and vast, so the encrypted message I sent will not attract the attention of the dinosaurs.

After compiling and sending out the existing information, Shanqing began to fly low over a valley. As he passed deep into the valley, he inadvertently caught a glimpse of a warning sign for swallowing language at the entrance of the valley.

[There are fish in the valley; trespassing is strictly prohibited.]

There are fish in the valley? What kind of fish? Shouldn't fish be in the water?
Shanqing was puzzled, but ignored the warning sign and continued to fly forward at subsonic speed.

He soon paid the price for his frivolous behavior, suffering an ambush by surface-to-air missiles.

But he soon discovered that the so-called 'surface-to-air missile' had not exploded. The ambush was not caused by dinosaurs; he had been violently struck by some kind of supersonic object.

"fish?"

Shanqing was caught off guard and stumbled when the fish bumped into him.

The fish suddenly darted out from a flat piece of land, piercing a hole in the hard rocky ground deep underground, and crashed into Shanqing like a fish leaping out of the water.

In the instant she made eye contact with the fish, Shanqing saw a look in the 'fish' that resembled that of the Dayun driver.

If I run you over, what does it have to do with you?

However, the fish only knocked Shanqing away; it didn't kill her. The fish looked quite shocked as it saw Shanqing, who was unharmed and had only taken a few steps back in the air.

But the shock didn't last long; the fish fell into the boulder again, smashing a hole in it and swimming inside.

The hard stone ground was as soft as water in front of this fish.

"court death!"

Shan Qing could not tolerate it. In an instant, the hidden sword in his hand flew out, shattering the boulder as it pursued the enemy.

A moment later, the dark sword, still embedded in the fish, flew back up, but this high-grade spiritual weapon was now in a terrible state, with its tip almost broken and its body riddled with nicks and chips.

"Xiao Hei, what's wrong with you?" Shan Qing asked in shock.

"[Good... hard fish]", the superior-grade spirit sword known as Little Black struggled to transmit this message back through its spiritual power, and then collapsed back to the quantum state to enter a state of recuperation.

"No... Little Black."

Xiao Hei is Shan Qing's only sword, and also the only spirit sword in his sword arsenal that willingly follows him. Once this spirit sword leaves, Shan Qing can only continue to use his iron sword.

After the dark sword collapsed into the quantum state, the fish pierced by the sword tip fell to the ground once again. Relying solely on its own weight, the dying fish began to sink rapidly into the ground.

Shanqing rushed down and hugged her tightly. "So heavy..."

Shan Qing used the strength that an ordinary Nascent Soul stage cultivator should have to barely lift the fish up.

"What the hell is this fish? It's harder than a spirit sword!"

Shanqing mobilized a portion of his divine sense to carefully sense the material composition of the fish.

Then his whole mind went blank.

What are those densely packed things in my mind? Atoms?

How come there aren't even any gaps between atoms?

Atoms are composed of a nucleus and an outer electron cloud. The electron cloud occupies a certain space, and there must be interactions such as electromagnetic repulsion between atoms, so they cannot fit together perfectly. But what about these fish?

Shanqing directly asked the original body in his heart.

[What is the substance composed of dense atoms called?]

The original body replied without delay: [I'll ask Ding Yi after I come out of seclusion.]
Then came the second message from the source: [Ding Yi said this substance is called white dwarf matter. In natural celestial bodies, white dwarfs, with their strong gravity, can allow matter to overcome electron degeneracy pressure (electromagnetic repulsion), thus forming a dense atomic structure. What did you find in the dinosaur world? How come there are even white dwarfs?]

Shanqing: [A fish.]
Luo Qing: [Fish?]

Shanqing: [Uh, a fish made of white dwarf matter.]
Ding Yi: [Holy crap?!]

Shan Qing: [Wait, Ding Yi? Where did you come from? Main body, how did Ding Yi get into our chat channel? Is he also your clone?]
Luo Qing: [No... I pulled his quantum soul into my spiritual platform. He's a pre-heaven martial artist, so a temporary separation of his soul from his body is nothing to worry about. I've already arranged for others to take care of his physical body. If you have any physics-related questions, you can ask him directly; it's more helpful than asking me.]
Ding Yi: [Wait a minute! The point isn't the white dwarf starfish, nor is it the trivial matter of me actually possessing a quantum soul! It's you guys! Luo Qing, you can communicate instantaneously with your clone, ignoring the speed of light limit?! That's what shocks me the most.]
Luo Qing: [How novel! Quantum entanglement! My clone and I have a similar effect to quantum entanglement, like a sophon, which can transmit information over long distances.]
Shanqing: [The original statement is correct.]
Ding Yi: [Ah...is that so? Are you really experiencing quantum entanglement?]
Luo Qing: [The reason I suffered from a macro-fusion attack is because I am in a quantum state. Similarly, my clones are also in a quantum state, so it is reasonable that they possess quantum entanglement.]
Shanqing: [The original statement is correct.]
Ding Yi: [Ah...] (in deep thought)

Evil Qing: [What are you guys talking about? It sounds lively.]
Luo Qing: [Go and save him! If you can't save Yun Tianming, I'll refine you back into gold.]
Evil Qing: [You stinking entity, I'll kill you sooner or later and take your place.]
Luo Qing: [Get lost.]
Shanqing: [Get out of here! Get out of here!] (Echoing)
Eqing: [...] (Silence, and continues to drift in the boundless, dark universe)

During his conversation with Ding Yi, Shan Qing quickly confirmed that the fish in his hand was indeed composed of white dwarf matter. The discovery of this white dwarf fish shocked Shan Qing far more than the luminous Light Speaker civilization.

Shanqing tossed it up and bounced it around. This half-meter-long fish weighed approximately... 20 tons?!

Wait, 200,000 tons? He was just hit by a fish the weight of a planetary warship??

No wonder my chest was aching.

Even a Grandmaster of the Innate Realm would be instantly shattered by this fish. Luckily, I am in the Nascent Soul stage and have thick skin. By the way, where did the dinosaurs get these fish?

The Devouring Empire landed on a white dwarf? That's impossible. With the white dwarf's powerful gravity, the Devouring Ring would be instantly sucked to pieces if it dared to get on it.

A muffled rumble suddenly came from the ground. Shanqing, holding a fish weighing 200,000 tons, looked up and happened to see the magnificent scene of the fish leaping from the ground. Thousands of silver lights pierced the hard ground and shot into the sky like arrows.

The pebbles, stirred up by the school of fish, scattered and flew everywhere.

These white dwarf starfish streaked across the sky in a silver arc before plummeting to the ground. The impact sent countless fragments flying, leaving behind numerous craters before the fish disappeared.

Shanqing stared blankly at the dead fish in her arms.

He had long ago discovered that the valley was surrounded by dense molecular structures built by dinosaurs using strong electromagnetic forces. These walls were even inserted 10,000 meters underground, and even the underground floor was made of this material. He had been curious about the purpose of these walls, but now he understood everything.

So this dense molecular wall is to prevent fish from darting around underground.

In the presence of these white dwarf starfish, the hard earth is no different from liquid.

If dense molecular walls are not built to limit the spread of the fish, and these fish are allowed to spread throughout the Devouring Empire, the giant ring will probably disintegrate in a few hundred thousand years.

Aside from being confined by dense molecular structures bound by strong electromagnetic forces, ordinary macroscopic matter composed of ordinary molecules would be as fragile as tofu in the face of such high-density fish populations.

It makes no difference whether it's diamonds or steel.

These ordinary substances, which rely on general chemical bonds, are completely unable to trap these fish.

Let alone the stone ground beneath your feet, even the most advanced high-strength alloy platform (relying on the strength of metallic bonds) probably couldn't hold such a fish.

The fish will probably slowly sink in.

After thinking for a while, Shanqing tore the fish in half and placed it on the ground. However, the fish began to sink as soon as it was placed on the ground, so he could only hold it in his arms. But he would also begin to sink. So he simply used a section of the 'Soil Ramming Technique' to fix the land in place, distributing the 20 tons of weight evenly over a one-kilometer-diameter area.

Finally, I managed to stand firm.

As for why it needs to be torn by hand, it's because common spirit swords are definitely not as hard as the material of a white dwarf. Most of the spiritual artifacts in the cultivation world are made of ordinary materials with special cultivation properties, such as various kinds of black iron and spirit ice, but in essence they are still in the category of macroscopic matter.

Although Xiao Hei is a high-grade spirit sword, before coming to this world, it was just a low-grade magic weapon that was not worth mentioning. The materials used were not high-grade. After more than 200 years of growth, it only gained spirituality and became a spirit weapon. From a purely material point of view, Xiao Hei is not hard.

After all, Xiao Hei almost broke the entire sword in order to kill the fish.

Therefore, Shanqing had to do it herself.

While dissecting the fish to understand its internal structure, Shanqing also learned a lot of information from Dingyi.

White dwarfs have extremely high densities, about 10 grams per cubic centimeter (i.e., 1000 tons per cubic centimeter), but they are still not the hardest matter in the universe. The hardest macroscopic matter is a neutron star.

White dwarfs, however, do not overcome electron degeneracy pressure and can only form dense atomic structures. Neutron stars, on the other hand, overcome electron degeneracy pressure and, with the support of neutron degeneracy pressure, can form dense atomic nuclear structures, making them the most solid matter/celestial bodies in the macroscopic universe.

If macroscopic matter, which cannot be supported even by neutron degeneracy pressure, continues to collapse under the influence of gravity, then it becomes the ultimate stage of matter—a black hole.

While there are theoretical celestial bodies that can overcome neutron degeneracy pressure and ascend from a neutron star to a quark star, these are purely theoretical. In reality, once a neutron star reaches a certain mass level, it will immediately form a black hole after overcoming neutron degeneracy pressure, rather than a so-called quark star. Therefore, the existence of macroscopic matter composed of pure quarks remains purely theoretical.

However, neither humans, dinosaurs, nor the Trisolarans knew anything about the fundamental theory behind creating artificial black holes—that matter should overcome neutron degeneracy pressure to form a black hole.

Of course, white dwarf matter is not indestructible. This dense atomic structure, which has not yet overcome electronic degeneracy, can still be destroyed by violent external forces (such as a nuclear explosion).

This is also why Shanqing, enraged, was able to tear the white dwarf starfish apart alive.

Shan Qing had already seen this dense atomic structure material similar to a white dwarf. The main keel structure of the Devouring Giant Ring was also made of a white dwarf-like material. It seems that this white dwarf material and these white dwarf fish are inextricably linked, and they may have been taken from the same place.

Based on the theory that human civilization flourished in the Cretaceous period since the 22nd century, and the exploration and review of geological relics on Earth, it is known that before the dinosaurs left Earth, they created a giant ring with a diameter of several thousand kilometers, distributed in East Asia and North and South America.

Instead of the giant ring with a diameter of 6 kilometers in front of us.

The dramatic increase in the size of the giant ring is likely also related to this white dwarf material.

Only the strength of white dwarf materials could prevent the giant ring from collapsing under such enormous rotation and centrifugal force.

After dissecting and studying the white dwarf fish, Shan Qing's divine sense began to penetrate 10 kilometers underground, covering an area of ​​100 kilometers in radius. Soon, his divine sense provided feedback on the exact number of white dwarf fish in this area—approximately 100,000. In the area where these white dwarf fish were active, the entire underground had become a series of pitted caverns.

Shanqing personally took action and caught several more white dwarf starfish swimming freely in the strata. He tried to communicate with these fish, but was unsuccessful.

These white dwarf fish have almost zero intelligence, just like fish on Earth. They are probably unique creatures from their home planet, which the dinosaurs painstakingly transferred here to raise.

Dinosaurs were most likely incapable of creating white dwarf matter, and these fish were probably the source of that white dwarf matter for the dinosaurs.

If these fish were to appear on Earth, they would be enough to bring annihilation to human underground cities. Yet the dinosaurs managed to designate an area to raise these fish; those dinosaurs were quite resourceful.

However, through dissection, Shanqing discovered that these white dwarf starfish have a long lifespan, possibly millions of years. At the same time, these white dwarf starfish can consume ordinary matter, compress it into a white dwarf state, and maintain their 'survival' power by fusing some of the matter.

Therefore, these white dwarf starfish must be feeding at all times, which explains why the material in those holes seems to have disappeared. The Devouring Empire probably also regularly dumps material into this area.

Shanqing caught a live one and forced it to stop eating for three minutes. Sure enough, the white dwarf starfish starved to death after three minutes.

Unlike the white dwarf starfish that underwent dissection, Shan Qing did not use any spiritual power to suppress this dead fish, but instead allowed it to be exposed to the normal environment.

Upon death, the internal electron degeneracy of the white dwarf starfish is instantly broken, the constraint binding the electrons disappears, and the electrons rapidly break free from the atomic nucleus and diffuse at high speed in all directions.

In short: the fish was fried.

The Coulomb repulsion between atomic nuclei erupted instantly, catching Shanqing off guard by the explosive force, which was no less powerful than nuclear fusion. A small mushroom cloud rose into the valley.

What he didn't know was that because white dwarf fish could hardly reproduce in non-white dwarf environments, every one that died was one less. This was a precious first-class protected animal of the Devouring Empire and its most valuable asset.

The deaths of two white dwarf starfish caught the attention of the Devouring Empire.

"How dare you! Who is illegally fishing for Imperial Whitefish?!"

A powerful, resounding voice suddenly echoed from all directions, rapidly pressing towards Shan Qing.

(End of this chapter)