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

Chapter 248 Why Not Just Use a Spaceship to Create a New One (3k)

Luo Qing asked, "How fast is the fleet accelerating now?"

"We've already reached 8% of the speed of light. The Devouring Empire must have noticed the expeditionary fleet. According to Commander Qian, the fleet will reach 10% of the speed of light in two days, and then maintain this speed for 20 days," Ding Yi said vaguely while eating.

"Aren't you going to slow down?"

"They shouldn't slow down. The advance fleet's dive bombing tactics are too advantageous. They can accelerate the warships to 10% of the speed of light, then drop all the nuclear bombs, bombing as many as they can, and then return after dropping them," Ding Yi said.

"This sounds a bit hasty..."

"I was being hasty in my statement. The actual battle plan was very meticulous. I attended Commander Qian's battle meeting, and based on my understanding of space warfare, there were no flaws."

Luo Qing frowned.

"Old Qing, where's your clone?"

Luo Qing said helplessly, "He's as dead as can be. I can't contact him anymore. He's in a state of true death, or rather, non-existence. He's only hanging on by the power of 'the heart never dies, the body never perishes.' I'll try to bring him back once I get there."

Ding Yi slurped up a mouthful of noodles, looked up, and asked, "Didn't the death of your clone affect you?"

Luo Qing: "There is a little, but not much. I don't know whether I am using [One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones] or [Severing Three Corpses]. There seems to be some difference between the two. I got them mixed up at first. By the time I realized that these were two different techniques, the good and evil corpses had already been severed. I couldn't put them back in, so I couldn't start practicing again."

Ding Yi asked in confusion, "Doesn't your world have strict rules and regulations for cultivation? How come it seems like you can succeed just by blindly practicing?"

Luo Qing sighed: "Sigh... I don't know either. To tell you the truth, I suspect that when I died in my previous life, I was struck by a heavenly tribulation and my brain was damaged. I don't understand many things about cultivation anymore. I know myself that I have deviated too much from the traditional path of cultivation. I don't have a master, so I can only find a way to cultivate on my own."

Ding Yi gave a thumbs up: "No wonder I've seen you looking so worried these past few days. Don't worry so much. Remember, you are the only cultivator. You can practice however you want. What you practice must be right. Anyway, there are no precedents in this world. You are correct. Believe in that."

"Am I right?" Luo Qing asked, a hint of doubt in his eyes.

“I was right…” Luo Qing murmured to himself.

"I was right." Luo Qing suddenly understood.

"I am right!" Luo Qing firmly believed.

“Ding Yi, you’re right… I am the only cultivator, and what I’m practicing is correct!” Luo Qing said solemnly.

Ding Yi is absolutely right. Excluding that little apprentice from the quantum world, he is the only cultivator, and the only patriarch of cultivation. Let him practice however he wants; no one's going to say he's practicing wrong anyway.
Cultivating immortality is simply cultivating truth, isn't it? Just transform the fake into the real, right?
"What are they talking about? They're all so excited."

Qian Mengjian walked in, a cigar dangling from his lips.

"Is smoking allowed in the army?" Luo Qing asked.

"Lieutenant colonel and above are acceptable."

"Why are you treating people differently?" Luo Qing shook his head.

"Different duties, especially for commanders, it's really hard to get by without smoking. But now there are fewer smokers, it's mostly people like me who smoke."

Ding Yi held out his hand: "Give me one too."

Qian Mengjian took out a delicate little iron box from his pocket, picked out the smallest cigar, and handed it to Ding Yi with a pained expression.

"Look how much you've picked at your hair." Ding Yi was speechless.

Luo Qing asked Qian Mengjian, "Commander Qian, how did you prepare the specific battle plan? You're not really going to have the entire fleet execute the kind of propeller plane dive bombing tactics used during World War II, are you?" Qian Mengjian looked embarrassed and said, "Those who face the wall, history is a circle, and so are the methods of warfare. The current interstellar war is indeed very similar to the naval warfare of World War II, but the advance fleet has already verified the effectiveness of this dive bombing tactic. We definitely need to learn from this successful tactical experience."

Luo Qing nodded: "I don't understand interstellar warfare, and I won't give orders blindly. Tell me about your subsequent combat plans so I can be prepared."

Upon hearing this, Qian Mengjian said solemnly, "The initial plan is to accelerate the fleet to 10% of the speed of light, and then launch stellar hydrogen bombs. Each warship will launch about 5 bombs, which means there are approximately 5000 stellar hydrogen bombs, representing one-eighth of the expeditionary fleet's inventory. These hydrogen bombs will fly towards the Devouring Ring at 10% of the speed of light."

The propulsion units of these hydrogen bombs continue to function during the hydrogen bomb's glide, eventually propelling the hydrogen bomb to 11% of the speed of light.

This round of attacks was open and transparent. Given the optical observation capabilities demonstrated by the Giant Ring, it was certainly possible to detect these luminous hydrogen bombs whose thrusters were still functioning. But that's alright. We never intended for all 5000 hydrogen bombs to hit the Giant Ring. Only 3000 of these 5000 hydrogen bombs were launched directly towards the Giant Ring, while the remaining 2000 locked down the space around the Giant Ring.

Moreover, these 5000 star-shaped hydrogen bombs will not be launched simultaneously. They will be launched in random numbers and at random frequencies of 100 to 1000 per day over the next 10 days. The purpose of these hydrogen bombs is to verify the maneuverability of the giant ring.

The current plan is to have at least 1500 starburst hydrogen bombs penetrate the interception system and hit the giant ring. During the strike, we will constantly monitor the giant ring's movement. If the ring's mobility is poor, we can then launch a full-power attack on this ring target without restraint. If the ring's mobility is high, then the subsequent bombing plan will require more detailed preparation.

Luo Qing said, "What if the giant ring, in order to conceal its mobility, simply doesn't bother to dodge and relies on its structural strength to withstand all stellar-type hydrogen bombs?"

"Then I can only praise it as awesome." Qian Mengjian said with a distorted expression, "This is already our most powerful thing. At present, the only thing we have that can exceed the explosive power of a hydrogen bomb is the one method we have."

"What method?" Luo Qing and Ding Yi asked at the same time.

Qian Mengjian smiled slyly: "Accelerate the warship to 20% of its maximum speed of light, and then crash into it! Dr. Ding Yi, you can calculate the relative kinetic energy generated when the Paradox Engine crashes into the giant ring at 20% of the speed of light. I'll give you a hint: the Paradox Engine weighs 120 million tons."

Ding Yi shook his head and refused: "I don't count. You're a commander, after all. How could you think of driving the Paradox Engine to crash into the Giant Ring? Is this how you fight a war?"

Qian Mengjian said quietly, "If the fleet's mission fails, this is not a bad idea. At 20% of the speed of light, a star-class warship can easily unleash the explosive power of nearly ten thousand star-class hydrogen bombs. Even if it cannot destroy the giant ring, it can definitely blast a gap in it. Don't laugh, destroying the giant ring by impact is the deepest thought in the hearts of every captain in the expeditionary fleet, not just my idea."

Based on Qian Mengjian's description, Luo Qingxin did some calculations and then said, "The relativistic kinetic energy of 120 million tons moving at 20% of the speed of light is approximately 6.69 × 10⁻⁶ joules. The explosive yield of a stellar hydrogen bomb of 200 billion tons of TNT is approximately 8.368 × 10⁻⁶ joules. The ratio between the two is 7995. In other words, if a stellar-class warship were to collide with it at full power, the energy generated would be roughly equivalent to the total energy of 8000 stellar hydrogen bombs—this is indeed a good tactic of inflicting 800 casualties on oneself while inflicting 10 casualties on the enemy."

Ding Yi turned his head in disbelief: "You actually calculated that?"

Luo Qing shrugged.

Ding Yi said, "Since ramming tactics are so effective, why don't you just have the Solar System Fleet rush to build a batch of stellar-class unmanned self-destruct warships, install stellar-class warship engines, and use AI to control them to ram each other?"

Qian Mengjian took a deep drag on his cigar, then carefully stubbed it out and put it back into his small metal box before saying:
"The staff at Fleet International are much smarter than me. They've already started doing that. There are currently 10 unmanned stellar-class warships under construction. They're called warships, but they're actually just shells made of nanomaterials. They're very heavy and require 2-3 stellar-class nuclear fusion engines to propel them. But we can't pin our hopes on these self-destructing ships. The laser defense system on the giant ring isn't just for show. This can only be a backup plan."

"Moreover..." Qian Mengjian deliberately kept them in suspense: "Scientists in the solar system fleet have realized that instead of trying to accumulate explosive yield, it would be better to learn to utilize the rules of the universe, such as using the relativistic kinetic energy formula to fight. Some cutting-edge scientists have proposed an ideal weapon: that is to propel a massive object to 60%, 70%, or even 90% of the speed of light to bombard the enemy."

“Difficult.” Ding Yi shook his head: “It is extremely difficult to increase the speed of a massive object to more than 0.3c, let alone 0.9c. Anyone can imagine it. I even imagined accelerating a one-gram object to 99.99999% of the speed of light to bombard the sun… In reality, this is simply impossible. The energy required to accelerate a one-gram object to that speed is greater than the energy of the sun itself.”

Luo Qing was terrified: "Old Ding, I feel that if the weapon you've envisioned were to actually be realized, it could easily shoot me to pieces."

Ding Yi laughed smugly: "Try calling the most powerful fighter in your cultivation world over here."

Luo Qing dared not speak.

Qian Mengjian then said, "Old Ding, according to your logic, wouldn't a light-speed spaceship be impossible to achieve forever?"

Ding Yi nodded: "That's why I've always been pessimistic about the prospects of light-speed spaceship research. The only macroscopic object I've ever seen that travels at the speed of light is the ideal blackbody of the Risk Remover, but as far as I know, the mass of that ideal blackbody sensor is very low, almost zero, so it doesn't violate relativistic kinetic energy."

Qian Mengjian sighed, "No matter what, the development of technology is limitless, and I still have hope for a light-speed spaceship."

(End of this chapter)