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

Chapter 222 Iron Curtain Device (4k)

Three hours after Shanqing's heroic sacrifice.

"Old Luo, how's your clone doing?" Ding Yi asked Luo Qing.

"what happened?"

Ding Yi said, "The fleet has only just reached Pluto's orbit and hasn't gone too far yet. The Eridanus crystal on Earth has asked the United Government to make a video call to Shan Qing. Even though there's a delay of several dozen hours, she still wants to see how Shan Qing is doing... Tsk, girlfriend checking up on her boyfriend."

"Checking up on them? That's probably impossible now."

"Why?" Ding Yi asked, puzzled.

Luo Qing shook his head: "Tell the girl from Bojiang to find another boyfriend, since they're not married yet anyway. The benevolent corpse was just killed instantly by the dinosaur's laser. That laser had an extremely high power; it could directly penetrate a star-class warship."

"This... how could this be? Weren't we just chatting a few hours ago?" Ding Yi's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Sigh, there's nothing I can do. I can't dodge the light-speed attack clone, and I can't dodge it either." Luo Qing's face showed a sorrowful expression.

Ding Yi was stunned for a long time upon hearing this, and finally left sadly.

Six hours later.

Earth.

Upon receiving news of Shanqing's death, the Pojang girl wailed uncontrollably, her sobs causing the Pojang crystal to crack. The United Government, fearing that this sole legacy of the Pojang civilization would cause her to weep to death (even though she was already dead), quickly created a large tank of life-sustaining solution similar to that of Pojang.

After the large water tank was built, people immersed the entire Pojang crystal inside. Finally, the Pojang girl, holding a holographic portrait of Shanqing, with blue tears in the corners of her eyes, gradually fell asleep in this solution environment that resembled her home planet.

Shanqing's death caused a huge uproar in human society.

Everyone knows that this kind-hearted Luo Qing possesses one-third of Luo Qing's own strength, making him incredibly powerful. Even the Solar System Fleet would have to put in considerable effort to eliminate him.

However, Shanqing died so suddenly on the giant ring.

Luo Qing even pulled out Shan Qing's memories before his death, stuffed them into a holographic videotape, and publicly released it on his personal social media account, allowing people to repeatedly watch the cause and effect of Shan Qing's death.

In the video.

The super gamma-ray laser cannon, used for self-defense by the large ring, rotated from the outer ring region to the inner ring region under the control of the large ring itself, and aimed at Shan Qing in maximum power mode.

After Shanqing was covered by the ultra-high voltage power grid, he entered a paralyzed state. A gamma laser cannon capable of destroying a star-level spaceship was quickly fired, hitting the stunned Shanqing at the speed of light.

Unable to dodge, most of Shanqing's body evaporated almost instantly, leaving only his head and a small part of his torso.

The gamma-ray laser cannon continued its relentless attack, striking the land in the inner ring and carving out a high-temperature chasm tens of thousands of meters long. Hundreds of police and military dragons that were unable to dodge in time also perished in this attack.

But the dinosaurs didn't care about those unfortunate dragons. Shanqing's remains fell to the ground and were picked up by the overjoyed dinosaurs, who then went directly to the capital to meet the emperor.

In stark contrast to the dinosaurs' jubilant mood, human beings were plunged into despair.

Shanqing has been active in human society for decades, and people have feelings for Shanqing, feelings that are even deeper than those for the original body.

After all, the main body had only been out of seclusion for two years.

Whether on Earth or Mars, people all over the solar system spontaneously held a grand funeral for Shanqing.

During this time, many ordinary people who had benefited from Shan Qing's kindness wept bitterly. (While Shan Qing was in seclusion, he often appeared as a healer, saving lives, in addition to his romantic relationships.)
The coalition government even changed its official website to gray.

Fleet International lowered its flag to half-mast in support of goodwill.

In contrast to the somber atmosphere in society, the scientific community is surprisingly calm, and they are having a major discussion about how to deal with the dinosaurs' high-powered laser weapons.

But judging from the video footage released by the Wallfacers, the laser weapon of the Great Ring is terrifying.

With almost no delay in instantaneous activation, the weapon's power is at least a thousand times that of a human starship.

Currently, the most powerful laser weapon in humankind is the giant laser cannon on the moon. In addition, laser turrets are also deployed on other planets or moons in the solar system, such as Ganymede, Enceladus, and the moon.

However, the power of these largest laser weapons can only reach half that of ordinary laser weapons in the giant ring.

At least 100,000 gamma laser beam cannons of this caliber were deployed on the outer ring of the Devouring Ring.

Because the size of the warships limits the power of this weapon, the solar system fleet is absolutely no match for the giant ring.

As fellow experts in laser technology, humanity knows all too well that a stellar-class warship would be utterly unable to withstand the gamma laser beams emitted by the large ring.

On the contrary, the large ring is thick-skinned and can withstand a few small lasers from humans without any problems.

Although human warships are much more robust than those of the Combined Space Force era, most mainstream star-class warships use mature high-strength nanomaterials as their main armor.

These nanomaterials, developed from 'flying blades' and 'flying liquids', are extremely strong and contain metallic characteristics. They can withstand a small number of electromagnetic projectiles and even medium-power laser beam weapons.

However, no matter how strong nanomaterials are, they are still just ordinary materials.

The power output of the large-scale energy weapon is several orders of magnitude lower than that of human energy weapons.

In fact, the offensive capabilities of laser weapons are secondary; their defensive capabilities are the most important.

If the Solar System Fleet cannot find a way to break through the giant ring laser, then the subsequent war will be limited in every way. After all, no matter how powerful humanity's stellar nuclear bombs are, they are useless if they cannot break through the enemy's laser defense network.

Fortunately, the scientific community has found a way to deal with laser weapons.

Before Ding Yi set off with the expeditionary fleet, he spent half a year using the incomplete technology passed down by the Trisolarans to create a prototype of the "molecular-level force field generator," which only existed in theory.

One of Ding Yi's friends, Dr. Chen, a physicist who had also awakened from hibernation in the early Crisis Era, took over Ding Yi's position and completely militarized this "molecular-level force field generator".

Dr. Chen gave this military facility a familiar name with a rich historical background.

【'Iron Curtain' installation】

This is reminiscent of Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, which shares the same name as the Iron Curtain device in the classic early 21st-century real-time strategy game, although the latter's name also comes from the former.

Under Dr. Chen's meticulous design, this Iron Curtain device even looks very similar to the Iron Curtain device of the same name in the game. It is also a ring-shaped building structure, with the core of the molecular-level force field generator at the center—an iron-red sphere.

Due to the limitations of the Trisolarans' incomplete technology, the Iron Curtain device requires a long period of charging before it can release a molecular-level enhanced force field that lasts for 30 seconds, which Dr. Chen calls the "Iron Curtain Force Field".

The Iron Curtain force field can completely fix the free electrons that are uniformly distributed in the metal. The free electrons will form an extremely strong interaction force with the metal cations. This interaction force is the enhanced state of the metallic bond, which makes the metal material enter a brief 'invincible state'.

Metallic materials under the Iron Curtain force field are almost completely 'invincible' against macroscopic attacks.

The only drawback is that this iron curtain device, which reinforces the metal bonds, is only effective on metal objects.

The coalition government has conducted several battlefield experiments. They took a Russian-made magnetic tank from the early 22nd century (a tank whose main weapon is a magnetic storm ray), applied an 'Iron Curtain' device, and then detonated a 120-megaton conventional hydrogen bomb 150 meters away from the tank.

After the hydrogen bomb exploded, the magnetic tank remained intact. The nuclear explosion did not destroy the 'invincible' magnetic tank; it was merely overturned a great distance by the nuclear shockwave.

This demonstrates that the Iron Curtain force field can successfully withstand a nuclear explosion.

Even the dummies inside the tank were completely unharmed.

In subsequent experiments, metal vehicles under the Iron Curtain force field were also shown to be able to withstand high-energy laser beam weapons.

The existence of the Iron Curtain device gave the Solar System Fleet hope of countering the Giant Ring Laser Weapon.

Dr. Chen stated frankly, "We need to find a way to install the Iron Curtain device on the Stellar-class warship. In critical moments, the Iron Curtain can be released onto the warship, granting it 30 seconds of invincibility. This is crucial for fighting against dinosaurs!"

The three fleets immediately adopted the technology and attempted to deploy it on starships.

Unfortunately, the expeditionary fleet has already gone far away, and this technology cannot be installed for the time being.

Shanqing is dead, but the Wallfacer's true form is still alive. I hope this ambush operation goes smoothly and nothing goes wrong.

Humanity is not ready to lose Luo Qing.

...

Seated high above, thousands of miles away and protected by layers upon layers of intricate structures, the Devouring Emperor narrowed its eyes slightly as it looked down at the mutilated human insect corpses that seemed so close, through the warped point of four-dimensional space.

"Is this the super bug that infiltrated the Empire?"

The military commander was a carnivorous dinosaur, who lay on the ground respectfully and said:

"Your Majesty, yes, it is known that this super insect can fly freely in space. It evaded the detection system of the Great Ring and secretly landed on the Great Ring several days ago. It has been carrying out illegal activities in the 7th, 8th, and 9th time zones of the Great Ring. It released the Lianglong, which was used as a food reserve, invaded the breeding areas of other civilizations, interfered with the operation of the Light Speaker civilization, and ultimately caused the White Fish breeding area to go out of control."

The Imperial army is still hunting those white fish, which have already caused damage to city infrastructure, resulting in enormous economic losses for the Empire. Furthermore, this criminal possesses immense strength, capable of lifting white fish weighing 100,000 dragon tons (a unit of weight for dinosaurs). He can also fly at 120 times the speed of sound, posing a significant threat to the Empire.

But I activated the Great Ring's counter-rebellion system in time, and he has now died from the Great Ring's laser attack. (Note: Counter-rebellion system: A counter-revolutionary security measure by the dinosaurs to ensure His Majesty the Emperor's oppressive military rule over the Empire)
After speaking, the Sharodon respectfully lay back down on the ground.

The emperor's voice, transmitted through the four-dimensional warping point, created an effect similar to the distance between heaven and earth, and was transmitted like thunder.

"Tell me, how did it travel at 120 times the speed of sound from 500 astronomical units away?"

The Sharkadon said, "Your Majesty! It's possible that humans secretly transported this super insect here using a small spaceship traveling at 10% of the speed of light."

This explanation failed to convince the Devouring Emperor. Humans might not have spaceships as fast as yours, but at this moment it couldn't think of a more reasonable explanation, so it could only begin to observe the super bug corpse imprisoned in the glass.

At first glance, the Devouring Emperor and the corpse of this human insect appear to be less than a hundred meters apart. In reality, the Devouring Emperor is in the first time zone, while Shan Qing's corpse is in the fourth time zone, a straight-line distance of tens of thousands of kilometers.

The ability to observe and converse regardless of spatial distance is primarily due to the two warped points of the four-dimensional fragment within the ring.

Through the warping points of the four-dimensional fragments, His Majesty the Emperor's will can swiftly reach every position of the giant ring.

The first, second, and third time zones are heavily guarded, and lower-ranking dragons are not allowed to enter.

The Emperor of the Devouring Empire preferred to communicate with the lower-class dinosaurs through the four-dimensional fragments, which ensured his presence on the scene while also providing them with a sense of security.

Even from such a great distance, the Devouring Emperor felt extremely uncomfortable looking at the corpse. Although Shan Qing was dead, he did not close his eyes and stared at it with his eyes open.

This made the Emperor of Devouring feel somewhat uneasy.

The emperor had no choice but to turn his head away and stop looking at him, leaving the corpse lying quietly in the glass coffin.

The Devouring Emperor asked slowly, "What exactly is this super insect? Have you done any research on it?"

Military Commander Long said, "We have already had Scientific Dragon inspect it, but Scientific Dragon said that the other party's body structure is just an ordinary human body. It seemed to contain some kind of high-level energy, but it has now completely dissipated without any trace."

The Devouring Emperor said, "You are a second-class citizen of the Devouring Empire. You should have heard of the legends of the gods. Can you be sure that this super insect is humankind itself, and not a creation of some god playing among dragons (playing among humans)?"

The emperor, after all, was well-informed and extremely cautious.

“Your Majesty, this super insect's molecular structure is completely human-like, making it unlikely to be a creation of a god. Besides, we have already killed it. If it were truly a god, it would only be a weak one, a false god. Your Majesty, its taste might be quite good; would you like to try some?”

After saying that, the Carcharodontosaurus stared at Shan Qing's remains, and unconsciously drooled, the drool dripping onto the glass tank.

Upon seeing this, the corpse frowned slightly.

The Devouring Emperor shook his head: "Let the other dragons send it to the First Time Zone, not for consumption, but for further research. If this kind of super bug is everywhere on Earth, then the Empire will have to reconsider the next phase of its operational plan."

"Yes!" The Sharktooth Dragon lowered its head deeply, looking at Shan Qing's severed limbs, and swallowed without making a sound.

It was genuinely curious about the taste of creatures from its home planet. Ancient legends told of the deliciousness of Earth's creatures, a flavor that the creatures raised by the dragons on the giant ring could not match.

The meat on our home planet is all-natural!

All-natural meat is a fatal attraction for most carnivorous dinosaurs. Modern Brachiosaurus meat is genetically modified, of poor quality, and is inferior meat produced by rapid growth over two years. Even the lower-level dinosaurs don't like to eat it.

Just as the Sharktooth Dragon was preparing to send the carcass of Shan Qing through the ring-shaped high-speed elevator transportation network to the first time zone, an unexpected incident suddenly occurred.

A white light flashed across the horizon, approaching from afar. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a white fish, shaped like a broad sword yet also resembling a narrow shield, seemingly already resembling a sword.

This is a white dwarf starfish that was refined by Shan Qing at some unknown time.

Also known as the Sword of the White Dwarf Starfish!
The White Fish Sword, like a shield, successfully broke through the dinosaur army's firepower. Missiles and small laser weapons exploded into a chaotic mess, flying straight to Shan Qing's corpse. It smashed the glass and was about to leave with the body.

'A fine sword! A fine sword! My efforts in forging you have not been in vain.'

The corpse was filled with admiration!

Although the White Fish Sword had been completely refined, it was not entirely dead. It still blinked its dead fish eyes at Shan Qing, and even its 'gills' twitched with difficulty.

It seemed somewhat saddened by its owner's predicament.

The Carcharodon realized something was wrong and immediately called upon the nearby army of dinosaurs to swarm forward.

But the White Fish Sword didn't care about any of that. Its massive weight of 600,000 tons made it immune to all conventional attacks. The White Fish Sword scooped up Shan Qing's corpse, carried it on its back, and tried to fly away.

But the corpse's remaining right hand suddenly grabbed it, and the fish and the corpse rolled to the ground at the same time.

"I won't go, don't carry me," the corpse whispered.

(End of this chapter)