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

Chapter 323 Enterprise and Deep Space (3k)

Blue Space, Ultimate Law, Deep Space, and Enterprise.

The four star-class warships, having entered the [Advance Four] state, transformed into four golden rays, forming a simple square prism, and continued to pursue the "Natural Selection".

But for some reason, the "Blue Space" and "Ultimate Law" located on the "wings" have been getting further and further away, turning what should have been a compact "square edge" into a flat and elongated "square edge".

Seeing this, the captain of the 'Deep Space' at the stern silently and secretly changed course, choosing the 'Ultimate Law' instead.

Of the four star-class warships, three have drifted further and further away.

Faced with the questions from the captain of the USS Enterprise, the captains of the three warships all gave each other vague answers. The old captain of the USS Enterprise did not think much of it and continued to chase after the USS Natural Selection with renewed vigor.

The four warships in [Advance 4] mode were already quite fast, but their 120G acceleration load was only one-fifth that of the "Natural Selection," making the pursuit increasingly difficult and the distance between them growing ever wider.

But soon, the officers and soldiers on these four warships no longer paid attention to the distant target ahead.

Almost simultaneously with the "Natural Selection", they saw the five bursts of light that followed one after another, the white orbs of light from the explosion of the twelve star-shaped hydrogen bombs, and a warship that briefly entered the "Advance 4" state.

Five star-class warships announced their demise in this dramatic manner.

Almost simultaneously, the captains of the four warships ordered a full-scale tracking of the "Fog Umbrella's" trajectory, and soon located the small target by following the trajectory map.

A clear, sharp-angled flow mark, formed by the disturbance of oil film by a high-speed object, traveled from the direction pointing directly to the "Natural Selection" to a point 500 million kilometers away, completing a sharp, chilling zigzag turn that defied all common sense in physics.

Ultimately, the tip of the broken line pointed precisely into the airspace where they were located!

"Luo Qing... what is that?!" (Note: Here, 'Luo Qing' is synonymous with 'God' and is used as an interjection.)
Captain Blake's voice came through the encrypted channel from the USS Enterprise. He seemed to be trying to find a non-existent sense of security through feedback from a friendly ship, but he waited for a long time without receiving any response.

The other three pursuing warships simultaneously cut off communication with other warships at some point, including the USS Enterprise.

Blake realized what was happening and, after receiving a report from his subordinates, discovered that the other pursuing warships had already veered off course from their original channels at an alarmingly large angle! They had practically made a sharp, curved turn and sped off in other directions!
"You're a group of bitches!"

Old Blake uttered a wonderfully archaic word, but his cursing was to no avail.

"Bolt! Bolt immediately!" Old Blake roared.

But soon, a scene that filled people with despair appeared.

Regardless of how the Enterprise maneuvers, the delicate "droplet" will simultaneously make minute adjustments to ensure that its direction is always firmly aligned with the nearest Enterprise.

Its angle adjustment was even in real time, which means that it wasn't just the Trisolaran probe locking onto them; at least one sophon in the direction of the Enterprise was reporting the decisions made inside the ship in real time.

The captain of the USS Enterprise was filled with despair.

"Attack! Attack! Stop it with an attack!"

The Enterprise unleashed powerful firepower.

However, whether it's gamma laser beams, electromagnetic railgun shells, interstellar torpedoes, or many other weapon systems, it's clearly impossible to stop an object traveling at 8% of the speed of light that can make sharp-angle turns.

Faced with the Enterprise's violent bombardment, the droplet responded with a disdainful attitude, using its sharpest point to pierce the eye of the storm.

A torrent of gamma photons, several meters in diameter, carrying enough energy to vaporize a mountaintop, instantly submerged the tip of the water droplet.

The Enterprise crew's anticipated goal of annihilation did not occur. From a macroscopic perspective, the seemingly indestructible beam of light collided with the tip of a water droplet, which was reduced to a single atomic nucleus. The incredible curved surface easily dissipated the beam of light.

The violent energy flow was instantly deflected and flung away like water upon contact with the sharp tail of the water droplet, scattering in all directions and transforming into a dazzling yet harmless rain of light that spread infinitely through space.

At the microscopic level, the high-energy photon stream that makes up gamma rays encounters the steepest slope in the universe. On an absolutely smooth surface composed of dense atomic nuclei, photons, which are only at the atomic nucleus scale, slide off the dense surface, collide with each other, and refract, eventually losing their focusing power and turning into a chaotic, scattered expanse of light.

In the far distance, a piece of "light amber" that had leaped over noticed this "beautiful" scene and intercepted the scattered photons.

Are these photons unwanted? If no one wanted them, she picked them up!

She condensed the collected photons into a beautiful bouquet of "photon flowers," and then this piece of light amber, holding the bouquet, excitedly went to find its "lover" who was so close at hand.

Whatever happens next can never separate her from her "lover"; they will be together forever and ever...

However, in reality, because the photons were confined by the light amber, both the light amber and the photon flower appeared absolutely dark to the observer. Therefore, neither the sophons, the droplets, nor the humans in the chaos noticed this 'light' that was darker than the universe itself in the dark universe. After the gamma laser bombardment, a metallic rain of electromagnetic cannons followed, with tens of thousands of scorching trajectories tearing through the night sky. Including the Enterprise's own speed, the total speed of the electromagnetic railgun projectiles reached close to 5% of the speed of light, while the droplet, without hesitation, crashed into it at 8.34% of the speed of light.

Undoubtedly, when the edge of the high-density alloy projectile came into contact with the near-zero curvature of the water droplet tip, it was immediately pierced through, turning into tiny metallic droplets in the universe like a fluid, splashing in all directions.

Tens of thousands of electromagnetic cannon shells bombarded the water droplet, but not a single atomic nucleus was destroyed.

But the speed of the water droplets decreased significantly by a fraction!
This is good news; at least the other party is still bound by the law of conservation of momentum.

The bad news is that the water droplet, despite being bombarded by countless kinetic electromagnetic projectiles, forced its way through!
Subsequent shells followed one after another, but they all met the same fate. The densely packed electromagnetic projectiles disintegrated into metallic vapor the instant they made contact.

Finally, the water droplets surged up and blocked the muzzle of the Enterprise's electromagnetic railgun.

Countless shells struck the water droplets with a silent, resounding sound!
The electromagnetic gun continued to bombard, but the absolutely hard surface of the exit was blocked, resulting in a violent barrel explosion!
After successfully manipulating the electromagnetic railgun, the droplet finally penetrated the Enterprise's nuclear fusion engine.

Until he witnessed the destruction of the Enterprise.

Inside the Blue Space.

As fear and confusion spread, the calm voice of Captain Chu Yan of the "Blue Space" rang out as he read a prepared statement from a script.

"Gentlemen, the Supreme Command's order to pursue was based on the premise that the ten warships, including the 'Natural Selection,' were traitors to humanity and that there was no immediate external threat. Now, the premise has changed. An enemy unit capable of destroying five stellar-class warships in tens of seconds, traveling at speeds exceeding 8% of the speed of light, and exhibiting technology beyond our comprehension is approaching. Continuing to execute the original order is meaningless and tantamount to sending the warships and all officers and men into a desperate situation."

"Survival is the primary need of civilization and the foundation for soldiers to preserve their strength and continue fighting. After discussions with my two vice-captains, the 'Blue Space' has determined that continuing to remain here and engage an unknown, powerful enemy is not in the overall interest of human civilization. Our ship has decided to change course to evade attack and preserve our manpower. The change of course has already begun, but for stability reasons, it is only being announced now. I hope all comrades can understand. Here, I formally announce—"

He paused briefly, then continued:
"Blue Space - Forward Four!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the Blue Space stopped concealing itself, and the outer shell of the Iron Curtain device attached to its body suddenly fell off, revealing the chemical propulsion system of the same type as that of the Natural Selection!

Although there are only two doors, it's enough.

The light from the engine nozzles suddenly changed, and the massive hull roared forward with an almost brutal decisiveness! Acceleration surged from 120G to 360G!

The Blue Space spacecraft resolutely accelerated towards the deep, unknown space to its left!
Almost simultaneously with the Blue Space entering its true "Advance 4" phase, Captain Scott of the Ultimate Law read out similar words and immediately followed suit.

Subsequently, the "Ultimate Law" no longer concealed itself, and the outer shell of the "Ecological Chamber" attached to its body completely fell off, revealing the two chemical propulsion units inside!
"The Ultimate Law is changing course! Repetition, survival is the first necessity! May humanity endure forever."

The "Ultimate Law" transmitted a wide-area electromagnetic wave communication and then accelerated to its limit without hesitation, speeding away in another direction to escape!

All of this happened so fast and so synchronously that the Deep Space, which was following closely behind the Ultimate Law, didn't even have time to react. It could only watch helplessly as these two "comrades-in-arms," ​​who had been sailing side by side not long ago, fled at maximum power to different deep spaces, like startled rabbits.

The encrypted channel was deathly silent.

"Captain...we also have chemical propulsion systems, right?"

The crew of the Deep Space looked at their captain with hopeful eyes.

The captain looked at the crowd, his face ashen.

After the water droplet passed through the Enterprise, it zigzagged into a perfect obtuse angle and flew toward the nearest Deep Space ship!
The captain of the Deep Space took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing all his chaotic emotions, his gaze resolute: "Adjust course, intentionally ram the Trisolaran probe, launch all weapons, and transmit all feedback data from the target probes and weapons to Fleet International at all times, so that the rear can prepare to engage the enemy! Tell them that a thing that can travel at eight percent of the speed of light, make sharp turns, and is indestructible is coming! If Luo Shenxian can't destroy this thing, then prepare to have the remaining thousands of warships flee in all directions!"

Fear was replaced by a tragic courage.

"...Damn it! You're right! Running away won't save us from death, we might as well fight!"

Officers and soldiers at all levels returned to their posts, shouting orders: "Adjust formation! All weapon systems, prepare to maximum power! Send our decisions and the feedback data from the detectors back to the three fleets..."

The warship traced an arc, its massive hull positioned in the inevitable path of the incoming water droplets. All its energy weapons were charged and unleashed, resembling an ancient castle poised to face a battle destined for destruction.

Meanwhile, far behind, the "Blue Space" and "Ultimate Law" accelerated to their maximum speed and sped into deep space. The fireball gradually shrank in the darkness and eventually merged into the endless stars.

The split was completed in this moment.

Survival and duty led to their respective choices.

(End of this chapter)