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

Chapter 250 The Great Environmental Defense War (5k)

An electromagnetic railgun storm has arrived!
A long alarm sounded on the surface of the large ring.

The first wave of electromagnetic projectiles that bombarded the outer ring of the Great Ring consisted of approximately 100,000 small, high-speed weapons. After traveling a long distance of 54 billion kilometers, these small, high-speed weapons were the first to fall into the atmosphere that was engulfing the outer ring of the Great Ring at an extremely high speed of 0.13c, or about 40000 kilometers per second.

One by one, bright stars were born.

The energy released by the ultra-high-speed impact is instantly converted into heat, shock waves and electromagnetic radiation in the atmosphere. The collision speed with atmospheric molecules far exceeds the limit of intermolecular forces, which directly ionizes, decomposes and even nuclearly reacts the air molecules. This directly causes the surface of the alloy projectile to form a plasma fireball with a temperature of millions or even tens of millions of degrees Celsius, and its brightness is comparable to the surface of the sun.

And now, 10 such bright meteors are densely entering the atmosphere.

Humanity had hoped that a preemptive strike with electromagnetic projectiles would force the Great Ring into any of its states, such as interception or maneuvering. Unfortunately, the Great Ring neither evaded nor intercepted.
Purely physical resistance.

The Devouring Empire used pipelines running through the inner and outer rings to preemptively extract the atmosphere from the inner ring, significantly increasing the atmospheric concentration in the outer ring. When the electromagnetic projectiles fell, the air in front of them could not dissipate in time, creating a super-powerful shock wave. This shock wave compressed the air and generated a huge pressure difference, triggering shockwave waves in the outer ring's atmosphere. These shockwaves interacted with each other, ultimately causing violent tremors and storms on the outer ring's surface, as well as the howling sound that almost shattered the dinosaurs' cochleas.

The effects of the electromagnetic projectile storm went beyond this. The high-speed collision of the projectiles with the air ionized atmospheric molecules into plasma, creating widespread ionospheric disturbances. As a result, severe electromagnetic interference occurred on the surface of the Great Ring. Almost all the dinosaur reporters broadcasting live from the outer ring were instantly disconnected. Gamma rays caused by the collision of some high-energy particles also affected the surface of the Great Ring.

These alloy projectiles contain certain heavy elements, and the ultra-high temperature and pressure environment can even trigger brief nuclear fusion, releasing additional nuclear energy and radiation.

The atmosphere on the surface of the large ring was stirred into chaos.

Countless blinding orbs of light flashed and disappeared in an instant.

Electromagnetic projectiles cause drastic weather changes, but they lack the direct damage resulting from kinetic energy strikes.

—The intense friction and impact between the metal projectile and the atmosphere cause the projectile to be completely pulverized and vaporized in a very short time after entering the atmosphere, leaving no physical debris on the ground.

Therefore, humanity's hope of using the kinetic energy of artillery shells to directly destroy the large ring has failed.

Although the physical remains of the shell are gone.

However, kinetic energy does not simply disappear.

Even if the metal projectile disintegrates and evaporates into plasma, it would still be hundreds of thousands of plasma clusters with a velocity of 0.13c!
The plasma plume broke through the barrier of the atmosphere and continuously bombarded the Earth's surface.

Compared to physical bombardment, the attack power of the plasma storm is reduced, but the attack range is increased, spreading from a single point to a large area.

Beams of plasma bombarded the surface of the Great Ring. Although the plasma beams could not destroy large industrial facilities on the surface, they could cause a lot of damage to civilian facilities such as dinosaur cars.

Having received advance warning, the workers hid in the dragon defense project, looking in horror at the apocalyptic scene outside.

Is this what interstellar warfare is like...?

The dinosaurs' enemies weren't this scary before...

What exactly happened during this period...?

What kind of enemy dragon did the empire provoke?
Can't I just not eat it?
Amid the prayers of these worker dragons, the plasma cluster's fire bombardment temporarily ceased, and the surface of the large ring in the strike zone was left in ruins, but fortunately, there was no major damage.

In the following day, there were seven or eight more rounds of similar electromagnetic bombardment. Under the influence of the atmosphere, more than 100 million plasma clusters bombarded the surface of the ring, directly affecting an area of ​​2 million square kilometers.

(Note: Similar to human civilization, the Dragon Ant Civilization also defined the "meter" as one ten-millionth of the meridian length from the Earth's equator to the North Pole. The various unit systems derived from this show a high degree of similarity between the Devouring Civilization and human civilization.)
...

As the Great Ring was attacked, its counterattack began.

When has the Devouring Empire ever suffered the humiliation of only being beaten?

Approximately 5000 interplanetary missiles were ignited and released on the ring, their contrails leaving trails of bubbles in the outer atmosphere before the chemical-fueled rockets broke through the atmosphere and entered space.

The 5000 interstellar missiles quickly exceeded the third cosmic velocity and flew towards the human fleet.

If humanity were in the early 21st century, facing 5000 interstellar nuclear missiles, they would have to pay an extremely heavy price to barely intercept them.

Even if it were humanity at the end of the 21st century, a near-Earth orbit defense system would need to operate at full power to intercept these nuclear missiles without serious damage.

Unfortunately, these interstellar missiles were aimed at humanity in the early 23rd century, humanity with spaceships traveling at 20% the speed of light, and humanity with a pan-solar system defense network.

If the Great Ring had consumed Eridanus two hundred years earlier and arrived on Earth two hundred years earlier, it wouldn't be in such a predicament.

Humans naturally observed the five thousand interstellar nuclear missiles flying towards them, but they didn't take them seriously. At the speed of these interstellar nuclear missiles, they would only pose a slight threat when the expeditionary fleet reached within one astronomical unit of the giant ring.

When the time comes, we can use an electromagnetic railgun as a close-in weapon to sweep it away, or use a laser weapon to intercept it, and then there will be no threat.

Humanity never imagined that these interstellar nuclear bombs, which posed little threat to humans, would be the culprits that destroyed the Po River civilization.

During the Eridanus War 60,000 years ago, the Giant Ring launched a large number of interstellar nuclear missiles, carpet-bombing the planet Eridanus and destroying the main symbiotic civilization structure of the Eridanus civilization, killing 99% of the Eridanus civilization individuals.

The bombardment of Eridanus by the Great Ring continued intermittently for over 100 years, with a total of approximately 120 million nuclear bombs launched. For the Eridan civilization, this was a long and arduous end.

The individuals of the Pojiang civilization were highly intelligent. Although they had never experienced war or developed technology, they still managed to devise some ways to fight back in the face of the apocalypse.

Because the Eridan civilization was unable to enter its home planet's orbit for space warfare, some of its remaining individuals sacrificed themselves, absorbing a large amount of nuclear radiation and evolving into mutated individuals that could coexist in a nuclear radiation environment. These mutated individuals actively evolved themselves into biological nuclear bombs.

After the destruction of the Pojiang civilization, during the process of the Great Ring 'feeding' Pojiang Star, these surviving mutated individuals carried out a self-destructive revenge through the Great Ring's feeding channels, destroying hundreds of feeding channels.

This is the entire process of the Eridanus War, which ended with a tragic but ultimately futile counterattack by the Eridanus civilization. The Eridanus girl, as the 'last will and testament' of the Eridanus civilization, clearly recorded all of this.

The military system that devours giant rings excels at bullying low-tech civilizations that haven't yet left their home planet, but it can't bully 'powerful' humans.

The Devouring Ring knew this, so after releasing these interstellar nuclear missiles, it aimed more than 350 gamma-ray laser cannons at the human warships.

With current computer technology, dinosaurs could not accurately hit small, high-speed enemies two hundred astronomical units away using gamma laser beams.

This is much harder than using a cannon to kill a mosquito.

Therefore, the Great Ring used gravitational lensing to form a super optical telescope. The super optical network had locked onto the 488 0.1c human ships, and then 355 gamma laser beam cannons, along the direction of the gravitational lens, directly bombarded the entire human fleet from a distance.

If the distance is too far and the target is too small, the only way to increase the hit probability is to increase the firing frequency of the gamma laser beam.

Heavy nuclear fusion provides a continuous source of energy for the gamma-ray laser cannon. After a high-intensity salvo, the gamma-ray laser cannon turret briefly enters a cooling state due to overheating.

Despite their poor aim, the dinosaurs were still very confident.

On the one hand, laser weapons have limited attenuation in a vacuum environment; on the other hand, gamma-ray lasers strike at the speed of light and cannot be predicted.

There should be at least a few lasers that can hit the enemy.

Even if we can only destroy a hundred human warships, it would be good.

...

Operations command room.

"Disperse the fleet, don't waste fuel, get out of this area."

Luo Qing, who was in the corner, suddenly opened his eyes and said.

Qian Mengjian looked at the holographic captains present and turned to Luo Qing beside him, asking, "Wallfacer, have you discovered something?"

Luo Qing nodded: "The Devouring Ring retaliated with lasers. Based on the relative distance between the fleet and the Ring, these lasers are expected to hit the fleet in 27 hours. At that time, the fleet that is unfortunately hit may suffer some unnecessary battle losses. The fleet has 27 hours to evacuate. No spaceships can stay in this area with a diameter of at least 3000 kilometers."

One captain couldn't help but ask, "Wallfacer, how did you know? Light-speed strikes are unpredictable."

Luo Qing patiently explained, "My divine sense covers an area of ​​about 70 astronomical units, which is exactly the entire solar system. But I have just learned how to shape my spherical divine sense into various shapes. I have just shaped my divine sense into a long strip, and now the length of my divine sense has reached 300 astronomical units. It just covers the Great Ring."

"My divine sense operates on the principle of quantum entanglement, so I can obtain information instantly, unaffected by the speed of light."

"This is too... too scientific." The captain was momentarily speechless.

One captain said, "So...we've gained a super vision similar to that of the Sophon, right?"

Luo Qing hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

"That's impressive! And it has to be a Wallfacer!" the captain exclaimed.

Qian Mengjian said to Luo Qing, "Mr. Luo Qing, don't worry. The fleet had already evacuated after the kinetic electromagnetic gun attack. We had already guessed that the dinosaurs would use lasers to retaliate."

Luo Qing suddenly realized: "I was being nosy."

"No, no, no." Qian Mengjian quickly shook his head: "We were just making a predictive evasion, but you have brought us concrete evidence. If there is any other news about the Big Ring, please let us know in time."

Luo Qing sat cross-legged in the corner, smiled slightly, raised his hand, and then gave an OK sign.

After 28 hours.

What do you mean by saying the entire human fleet was evacuated with foresight?

The commander of the Great Ring waited for the gravitational lens observer and asked.

"Uh, well, it's just..."

The gravitational lens observer nervously picked at his nails. "According to the gravitational lens observation, the human fleet had already evacuated less than three minutes after we released the laser. Now, the human warships are more than 1000 kilometers apart, the density is very low, and the previous laser attack missed completely."

The commander of the Great Ring asked with a grim face, "Did the humans anticipate a counterattack from the Great Ring after firing the electromagnetic cannon, and thus evacuate in advance?"

The gravitational lensing observer nodded seriously: "That's very likely!"

The commander of the Great Ring issued a new order: "Then lock onto their flagship and continue the laser counterattack! With 350 laser cannons targeting one warship, it has no chance of escaping. The Empire desperately needs a victory to boost morale."

The gravitational lens observer and the gamma-ray laser weapon operator simultaneously saluted the commander of the ring.

"We guarantee to complete the mission! Otherwise, we'll offer our heads!"

...

After 24 hours.

"What do you mean that after the gamma laser cannon fired, the flagship of the human fleet somehow managed to dodge it?"

The commander of the large ring stared at them.

The gravitational lens observer and the laser weapon operator stood trembling in the corner. They had just prepared to bid farewell to their own dragon, with two dragon-slaying swords beside them, ready to bring their heads to the grave.

"We don't know either... It could be luck, or it could be a coincidence, but in any case, that human warship maneuvered ahead of schedule again..." the gravitational lens observer said despairingly.

The commander of the Great Ring just stared at them calmly.

“General, we will atone with our lives.” The gravitational lens observer and the laser weapon operator knelt down at the same time, while the two guard dragons beside them silently raised their dragon-slaying swords.

"No need," the commander of the Great Ring said casually.

"Hmm?" The two dragons raised their heads, their desperate eyes filled with a hint of confusion.

"His Majesty the Emperor is dead, and he left no descendants. This is no longer the imperial era, but a federal system composed of 12 districts. Moreover, enemy warships will avoid you, so it's not your fault. You don't need to kneel anymore, get up."

The two dragons exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with disbelief, but they did not get up easily. According to the harsh laws of the Devouring Empire, if they did not obediently accept their death, their entire families and all the dragons would be turned into canned food.

The commander of the Great Ring said coldly, "What, do I have to personally help you two up?"

"No, no, no." The two dragons shook their heads in terror, scrambling to their feet. The guards beside them, holding their dragon-slaying swords, didn't know what to do and had no choice but to put the instruments of torture down again.

"Launch a third laser strike, this time targeting 10 different warships. If the enemy is still able to dodge them all with uncanny foresight, then there's no need to continue. We need to find another way."

"Yes! Your subordinate will forever remember the general's kindness!"

The two dinosaurs, having survived the ordeal, spoke with tears streaming down their faces, and were about to kneel down again.

"Get up! Don't kneel!"

The commander of the Great Ring roared impatiently, "Get out of here and fulfill the mission that the military dragon is supposed to have!"

...

After 20 hours.

The commander of the ring once again received a report that all gamma laser beams missed their target.

During this period, humans even released approximately 500,000 electromagnetic projectiles, launching a second bombardment of the Great Ring surface.

This is a naked provocation.

It sighed and rubbed the dragon's head with its forelimbs.

Commander Dahuan arrived at a cemetery, the final resting place of the false god worm Shanqing. It was a small courtyard built to resemble a human dwelling. At this moment, Shanqing, now only a spirit, lay in his tomb, watching a documentary about dinosaurs with great interest on television.

The documentary, titled "Dungeon and Puji," tells the story of the lives of individual Light Speakers on the Light Speaker Star before the Devouring Empire destroyed the Light Speaker civilization.

These glowing mushrooms emerge from the ground at night, creating continuous waves of light. However, during the day, when the radiation from the supernova remnant is at its most intense, they retreat into underground shelters they have dug themselves to avoid excessive radiation.

These vast underground bunkers belong to the underground cities of the Light Speaker civilization. Because the glowing mushrooms make a "popping" sound when they walk, the show is also known as "The Underground City and the Popping."

The spirit Shan Qing watched with great interest.

Tyrannosaurus Karl squeezed into the small house with difficulty and asked the "soul," "Luo Qing, has your civilization mastered some kind of long-range communication and detection method?"

"What do you mean by this?" Shanqing turned her head and asked.

"The human fleet evaded all of the ring-shaped weapons' counterattacks in advance. Almost as soon as we finished our strikes, the human fleet would maneuver and evade in sync. If I didn't know you were here the whole time, I would have suspected that you were tipping them off... But that doesn't make sense. How could you transmit information faster than the speed of light?"

Shan Qing shook her head: "It has nothing to do with me. I won't take the blame. I'm already dead. I don't know if humans have the ability to communicate over long distances, but the Trisolarans in the neighboring Trisolaran system do have this ability. The sophons they create can communicate over long distances through quantum entanglement. Maybe they have the help of sophons."

Upon hearing this, Tyrannosaurus Karl remained silent for a moment: "Is the Trisolaran civilization you mentioned, which can create sophons, very powerful?"

Shan Qing shook his head. "It's hard to say which of the three is stronger. Humans are the fastest, the Devouring Empire can create four-dimensional space, and the Trisolaran civilization has sophons. So it seems that humans are the weakest. Don't overthink it. The great Devouring Empire is the strongest! Long live the Devouring Empire! Awoo! Awoo!"

Tyrannosaurus Karl had a black line on his face.

"Could you please stop imitating our dinosaur sounds?"

"Fine, I'll study then. Go ahead and kill me if you dare! Oh wait, I'm already dead. Go ahead and bring me back to life if you dare!"

Seeing Shanqing acting erratically, Tyrannosaurus Karl gave up trying to communicate with her.

It did not believe what Shanqing said. Although the other party was dead, he still had self-awareness and his words were definitely biased towards humans.

As the supreme commander of the dinosaur faction, one must have a basic ability to discern this information.

Shanqing knew that the Tyrannosaurus Rex wouldn't believe him, so he simply saw the guest off.

"If there's nothing else, hurry up and leave. Don't disturb the deceased's eternal rest; it's very impolite. Be careful, or I might come to you in your dreams to scare you."

Tyrannosaurus Karl sighed deeply, turned around, and left.

It has recently been pondering why humans are able to foresee and evade the Great Ring's counterattack.

But since we can't figure it out, there's no need to get stuck on it.

Let's think about what to do next.

Currently, the Great Ring has already increased its speed to 0.26% of the speed of light, and the speed is still climbing. It is expected to reach 1% of the speed of light in three months. If all goes well, the Great Ring will travel at 1% of the speed of light for three years, and will arrive in the solar system after three years, after which it will decelerate.

If laser weapons cannot destroy human fleets from a distance in this war, then the Devouring Civilization should prepare for space-based blade warfare.

It is imperative to prevent the human fleet from repeating its tactics of high-speed hydrogen bomb bombing. Humanity's stellar hydrogen bombs pose too great a threat to the Great Ring. To enhance the interception rate, the Great Ring's electronic computers have been separated into independent systems. Originally, the entire Great Ring shared a single supercomputer, but now it has been divided into 12 independent computer nodes.

This avoids the computational delay of up to 0.75 seconds that occurs when the electron orbits the large ring once. Although the computational power decreases, the efficiency is greatly improved, which is sufficient.

Each zone performs electronic calculations and independently controls the laser weapons for interception, which can maximize the interception efficiency.

During the second round of electromagnetic railgun attacks by humans, the laser interception system conducted its final test, randomly locking onto 50,000 electromagnetic railgun projectiles and subsequently successfully intercepting approximately 30,000 of them.

this is a good news.

Furthermore, the Devouring Civilization has tens of thousands of large warships with combat capabilities at its disposal. Although they cannot keep up with human warships in speed, they are sufficient to protect the Giant Ring.

Now the two sides are like knights charging at each other with lances, and the relative distance between them is rapidly shrinking.

The second round of the major environmental protection campaign will fully erupt in seven days.

(End of this chapter)