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

Chapter 229 Macro Fusion on the Giant Ring

Expeditionary Fleet - Vanguard Fleet

Natural selection number.

Led by the Natural Selection, this small fleet of 12 star-class warships has been traveling at 2% of the speed of light for a month.
Behind them was the main force of the expeditionary fleet, 80 astronomical units away, and behind the expeditionary fleet was the sun, which had turned into a star, and the dim Earth was more than 200 astronomical units away from the fleet.

At this moment, the four dwarf planets of the Kuiper Belt, including Pluto, have all been left behind.

This is the deepest part of the Kuiper Belt, a space abyss even more distant than the last Kuiper Belt War.

The advance fleet has already crossed the remnants of that interstellar war and is heading towards the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt. The current record for the farthest artificial space operation by mankind is on an asteroid 197 astronomical units away from Earth, and they have surpassed that record, becoming the people who are farthest from their home planet after Yun Tianming.

The bridge of the Natural Selection was shrouded in darkness, while the other eleven star-class warships were too far apart for the naked eye to see anything other than a bright star.

But this does not mean that the warships are alone. In the war room of the Natural Selection, eleven holographic figures appeared. These eleven people are the captains of other warships, and they are holding a war meeting.

With communication delays of up to 11 hours (one-way communication) between the advance fleet and the expeditionary fleet headquarters, and 27 hours (one-way communication) with the solar system fleet headquarters, the vast battlefield with such high latency rendered overall fleet command meaningless. No commander could effectively direct combat while enduring delays of dozens of hours. Therefore, warships had to possess autonomous combat capabilities.

Currently, each of humanity's 5000 starships can function as a separate command unit, capable of coordinating unified actions among ships of the same class.

As the ship that proposed the advance plan, the Natural Selection naturally became the core command unit of this small fleet.

Beside Captain Dongfang Yanxu of the *Natural Selection*, eleven other captains formed a circle around the holographic projection. At the center of the circle was a holographic star map. In the era of space warfare, three-dimensional star maps have replaced the sand table of the past, becoming the primary medium for humans to simulate and analyze battlefield situations.

The focus of the three-dimensional star map is locked on the "giant ring" 448 billion kilometers (300 astronomical units) away. The crimson dots representing the devouring of the Empire's main fleet are like a swarm of flies on rotting flesh, densely surrounding the giant ring itself.

The first to break the silence in the bridge was Captain Dongfang Yanxu of the Natural Selection, whose gentle voice broke through the electrical hum in the cabin.

Dongfang Yanxu said, "Comrades, the images we are seeing now are from 300 astronomical units away, ghost images from four hours ago. I believe other warships have also detected the abnormal energy waves within the giant ring and the abnormal fleet movements." (Note: Influenced by the early development of the Chinese Space Force, "comrade" has evolved into a common term of address among fleets of equal rank.)
The three-dimensional star map image was converted into an optical image. Although it was 448 billion kilometers away and the ship's optical imaging system was not very clear, it was still clear that outside the blurry giant ring, the Devouring Fleet, which had been arranged neatly and was ready to go, suddenly rushed towards a certain point of the giant ring.

This led to widespread chaos within the Devouring Fleet, and even resulted in numerous 'interstellar car crashes'.

Dongfang Yanxu pointed at the image with his remote sensing stick and said, "In our previous observations, it took the Devouring Fleet seven days to complete its fleet assembly. However, after the assembly was completed, they did not launch a counterattack against us, the expeditionary fleet behind us, or even the solar system fleet behind the expeditionary fleet. Instead, they unexpectedly rushed towards their inner ring area. I believe everyone has noticed this."

The captain of the USS Antarctica said, "They may have the Soviet habit of holding parades before war."

The captain of the USS Einstein retorted, "Which dimension's Soviet Union is this?" The captain of the USS Antarctica smiled without saying a word.

Dongfang Yanxu smiled and said, "At first, I also imagined that they had a unique pre-battle ceremony, such as the warships needing to pass through the giant ring before the fleet's expedition, just like the German military parade passing through the Arc de Triomphe... Well, I didn't mean it, there are no French people here, right? What I mean is, they are not performing such a ceremony, because there was a lot of chaos when the Devouring Fleet assembled, obviously, there was a sudden problem with the giant ring."

The Natural Selection probe also detected very familiar energy fluctuations on the giant rings.

"What energy fluctuation? Why can't I detect it on my warship?" said the captain of the Stardust.

"It's an energy fluctuation from [macro-fusion]. Your ship isn't equipped with the latest quantum wave detection system, so it didn't detect it," Dongfang Yanxu said.

Macro-fusion is a fusion reaction that occurs when two macroatoms collide. The probability clouds of the macroatomic nuclei overlap, triggering the quantum tunneling effect, which allows protons and neutrons to break through the Coulomb barrier. The macroatomic nuclei merge into new macro-nuclei, and the released energy diffuses in the form of quantum waves, rather than the heat and radiation of traditional nuclear reactions. When macro-fusion occurs, it produces a "blue sun" with a diameter of several hundred to several thousand meters. Almost everyone in the world has seen this blue sun.

"That's right, quantum waves generated by macro-fusion have also been detected on my warship. I've verified it several times," said the captain of the Infinite Frontier.

"Like Captain Hu EA, the Greek ship also detected it."

(Note: In the post-crisis era, with cultural exchange and population movement, mixed Chinese and English names have become very common.)
"Wanhu's number has also been detected."

Of the 12 interstellar warships, seven detected quantum waves generated by macro-fusion, which basically verified Dongfang Yanxu's judgment that macro-fusion had indeed occurred inside the giant ring.

The captain of the Stardust said with a frustrated self-deprecating laugh, "The Stardust is an old warship, too old to install the latest detection modules."

The captain of the Lexington frowned. Like Dongfang Yanxu, she was one of the few female captains here. The other female captain was the captain of the Venus of the European Fleet, who was also a woman.

Unlike the dark blue space force uniforms of the Asian Fleet and the silver-gray uniforms of the European Fleet, the holographic projection showed her in a white and blue uniform, strikingly similar to the uniforms of the former U.S. Navy. Fitted and elegant, the captain of the USS Lexington sat with her legs crossed, clad in white knee-high boots, her brow furrowed in bewilderment.

Since the current twelve warships consist of four ships from each of the three major fleets, each fleet has assigned its own lead ship: the Asian Fleet's is the USS Natural Selection, the European Fleet's is the USS Foghorn, and the American Fleet's is the USS Lexington. Coincidentally, the captain of the USS Lexington is also named Lexington.

As the captain of the American Fleet's vice-flagship-class warship, she expressed her doubts:

"What is the relationship between the macro-fusion reaction and the abnormal movement of the dinosaur warship? As far as I know, due to the limitations of the internal structure of macro atoms, their internal string structure is the most complex. Even if the internal space of a macro atom is large, the range of macro-fusion interference it can generate is at most limited to the level of China or the United States. Moreover, it also depends on the type of macro-fusion effect. This kind of weapon is extremely powerful on the surface of a planet, but it is not a very good space weapon, and it is probably not very useful against the giant ring."

(End of this chapter)