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

Chapter 338 Loudly Plotting (4k)

While the two were chatting, the Ice Cube had already engulfed the entire orbit of Jupiter and was spreading toward the orbit of Saturn and the Great Ring. Twelve Sophons, unaware of what was happening, and six Water Drop probes had already been swallowed by the cold wave.

Although Zhi Zi was traveling at near the speed of light, it was constantly searching for Luo Qing's location, which caused it to fly in a curved path, resulting in Leng Bo quickly catching up with it.

Currently, Cold Wave is about to catch up with the main force of the Solar System Fleet's escape, as well as the four water droplets rapidly approaching from behind.

The warships led by Zhang Beihai that actively fled will be the last lives frozen by Leng Bo.

During this time, all the Space Force members who were gliding at 1% of the speed of light in the large circular orbit were also brought to an absolute standstill. Their lives and souls would be suspended at this moment, and they would wait for Luo Qing's subsequent rescue.

The ending was a bit dramatic, but the universe itself is a grand drama. Luo Qing's attention was no longer on this matter. He had summarized all the key information from his conversations with Li Bai, the Risk Taker, Luo Ji, and Listener 1379.

Luo Qing asked Li Bai, "Does the existence of civilization objectively accelerate the universe's inevitable demise?"

Li Bai nodded.

"Then, there must be beings in this universe that are the opposite of the Risk Takers, right?"

Li Bai asked warily, "What do you want to ask?"

Luo Qing said calmly, "I have cultivated for 200 years and have reached the Nascent Soul stage. In our world, there are legends of people who have entered the Mahayana stage for 200 years and can also contend with the Heavenly Dao."

Li Bai felt a chill run down his spine: "Stop, stop! Don't say things you shouldn't say."

Luo Qing ignored him and continued, "I don't know if 200 years is enough for the Nascent Soul Realm, but I guess it might not be. After all, the Nascent Soul Realm and the Mahayana Realm are not the same level; there is a world of difference between them. Therefore, I have set a minimum cultivation period of 500 years for myself."

Li Bai: "I have something to do, I'll be going now."

Just as Li Bai was about to leap away, Luo Qing transformed into a beam of light and intercepted him at the speed of light.

Li Bai: "When did you become so fast?"

Luo Qing: "I just learned it from Guang Po."

Li Bai: "I want to leave, and you can't stop me. The speed of light in eleven dimensions is almost infinite. I can leave the Milky Way and travel to other galaxies, or even leave this galaxy in an instant."

Luo Qing: "Give it a try."

Li Bai hesitated, but ultimately did not speak.

While the two were locked in a stalemate, the original self flew over from Earth with some sake, bringing them some wine, peach blossoms, and tables and chairs.

"Don't argue, don't fight. My main body is straightforward and doesn't have any ulterior motives. He's not very bright either, just like a child. Brother Bai, please understand, don't get angry with a kid. That's just how he is." My main body smoothed things over for the two of them, arranged the space drinking party, and then synchronized with Luo Qing's light-speed flight ability, slowly returning to Earth at the speed of light.

Li Bai looked at the table full of frozen wine and beverage mixtures, and the peach blossoms that had instantly turned into frost, and remained silent for a while: "I don't need to ingest these. 'Li Bai' is just a simulation I created. My inner self hasn't changed."

"That's a real pity." Luo Qing put the things that Benwo Qing had painstakingly brought over back into his sleeve.

Li Bai: "But I'm willing to try it."

Luo Qing said, "It's late. If you want a drink, come visit Earth next time. Humans will treat you, but not today." After saying that, he didn't take the item out of his sleeve again.

Li Bai pursed his lips, somewhat angry.

At this moment, the cold wave had completely covered the Devouring Fleet commanded by Tyrannosaurus Karl and the remaining planetary warship fleet of humans, and quickly froze the entire ring. Neither the Light Speakers nor the white fish could resist this cold wave and all remained still. Fortunately, the cold wave did not freeze the mushrooms to death.

As of now, the unit volume covered by IceCube is large enough to hold approximately 1.97 million suns.

Luo Qing gazed at the frozen wreckage of the star-class warships and the survivors, his eyes unfocused. He felt the inner conflict deepen. He whispered to Li Bai, "Have you heard the story of 'The Thinker'?"

Li Bai nodded: "The ultimate pursuit of the risk-taker is known to all the gods in the universe, but it is meaningless. The medium of the stellar transmission model is gravitational waves, that is, the middle membrane, which can only be transmitted at the speed of light. This means that the consciousness of the universe can only be transmitted within the light cone, and no one will get the answer."

Luo Qing thought of the existence at the end of the light cone, nodded, and then casually asked a strange question.

"Brother Bai, do you think our conversation could be overheard by a third party?"

Li Bai, now known as Brother Bai, was in high spirits. Upon hearing this, he turned and looked around, a puzzled expression on his face: "Eavesdropping? Is someone else here?"

Then Li Bai reached out and crossed 1.2 million kilometers to catch a sophon flying towards Earth in his palm, his expression strange: "Do you think this little thing can eavesdrop on us?"

With a casual flick of his wrist, Li Bai caused the sophon to vanish into energy. The zero-point energy of space that the sophon had illegally collected while moving at near the speed of light was also instantly returned to the universe—a cosmic loan that would normally take at least until the protons decayed to be settled indefinitely.

Four light-years away, the terrified sophon operator didn't even have time to display any information on the thought membrane before being instantly transformed into a ball of pure energy and vanished. The speed of its disappearance exceeded all the reactions of the Trisolaran world.

Li Bai would naturally not easily expose himself to the sight of these dehydrated insects.

"No one is spying on us, so you can speak your mind," Li Bai said confidently.

Looking at the carefree Li Bai, Luo Qing asked enviously, "What do you think of me?"

"Like an idiot," Li Bai commented.

"Then I'm relieved." Luo Qing felt much better after being scolded.

Li Bai felt that Luo Qing might indeed have some mental problems, but unfortunately he was a poet, not a doctor, and could not cure Luo Qing, so he was powerless to help.

Their conversation ended abruptly, just as their battle began inexplicably.

...

At this moment, a star-class warship named "Paradox Engine" is maintaining its "Forward Four" acceleration posture. Its bow is slightly raised, and it is sailing at full speed under the command of its sole pilot, having already reached 4% of the speed of light.

But less than 100,000 kilometers behind it, a water droplet is hurtling toward its engine compartment at an even higher speed—the two are now closer than when they were about to collide last time.

"Have we given up yet? Of the seven hundred warships, how many can survive?" At this moment, the 700 star-class warships resembled an open umbrella, growing further and further apart. However, the battle line could not maneuver and turn at high speed like a water droplet; it could only leave a long, curved trace in space.

Among them, more than 200 AI warships that were no longer under human control actively changed course and moved to the rear of the remaining fleet, prepared to sacrifice themselves.

But Qian Mengjian did not expect that the four water droplets would not even glance at the two hundred or so unmanned star-class warships, but would fly straight towards the manned warships.

Upon seeing this, the unmanned warships abandoned their cover for the manned warships and uniformly veered off course, heading towards the "Little Moss" star-class warship billions of kilometers away.

You look down on our AI-controlled warships, huh? You just wait, Trisolarans.

You will regret it.

At this point, the ship's AI, "Paradox Engine," was prepared to sacrifice itself again. It replied to Qian Mengjian: "[Current fleet acceleration is 120G. Based on this, the droplet still has a 97% probability of destroying all manned warships within 7 hours, 27 minutes, and 96 seconds. The only way to break this deadlock is to induce the droplet to prioritize attacking the AI-controlled unmanned ships. This is expected to buy the manned ships approximately 8 minutes and 40 seconds of acceleration window, enough for about twenty warships to break through the 8.34% light speed safety threshold.]"

Qian Mengjian had the ship's AI edit a message and send it to the other 500 warships ahead, meaning that all warships that were to be destroyed should release electromagnetic kinetic energy shells and stellar hydrogen bombs as much as possible before being destroyed, and do everything possible to slow down the acceleration of the water droplets.

That way, perhaps one or two more warships could successfully escape in the end.

The "Waterdrop" probe is less than 30,000 kilometers away from the "Paradox Engine" spacecraft.

Qian Mengjian's expression didn't seem tense. He began to tidy up his own remains for the second time and said in a relaxed tone, "After this battle is over, the entire human world should be able to fully realize the gap between the two sides, provided that Luo Qing can hold onto the Water Drop."

The ship's AI wondered: "What if we can't hold out?"

Qian Mengjian: "Then we'll see if our scientists can research antimatter faster, or if the water droplets can destroy the entire solar system's industrial base faster. If we're still slower than them by then, the solar system will truly be finished. But it's okay, we still have twelve warships that have escaped, so humanity won't be wiped out."

Thirty thousand kilometers passed in the blink of an eye.

Just moments before the water droplet struck the Paradox Engine, a cold wave descended.

As the water droplet came to a complete stop, the "Paradox Engine" also came to a halt. Its speed of light, which was nearly 4.27%, dropped to zero in an instant. However, no stress was generated in the internal structure of the entire warship. Even the engine that was continuously carrying out nuclear fusion stopped hydrogen fusion at that moment.

Qian Mengjian's posture froze at the moment he pointed his middle finger towards the water droplet.

Li Bai's figure appeared near the Paradox Engine. A moment later, Luo Qing also flew to this place at the speed of light. Looking at the empty Paradox Engine, his expression was quite complicated.

Neither of them was affected by the "ice cube" effect. Li Bai existed in a higher dimension, and the freezing of this three-dimensional universe was like watching a refrigerator through a television screen to him. Luo Qing's photon escape technique was also immune to the spread of the cold wave.

“See, I told you, no rush.” Li Bai’s voice rang out directly in Luo Qing’s nearly frozen thoughts, tinged with a hint of calm. “The Carbon-Based Federation is a very standard ‘Ordered Good,’ always so…efficient. But for humanity, this should be the best outcome, shouldn’t it? This small-scale Dark Forest War is suspended.”

Luo Qing remained silent. His divine sense moved across the surface of the water droplet, and when he realized the strong interaction force material structure of the other party, he sighed.

No wonder humans couldn't defeat them, no wonder my divine sense couldn't penetrate them... High-energy nuclear material, with a hardness comparable to a neutron star, how did the Trisolarans manage to research it...

In reality, with his escape speed of around 0.16c at the time, it was indeed too late to travel from the Great Ring to Jupiter. His only option was to reveal his true trump card... In fact, under extreme conflict, he almost couldn't resist using it.

Even after two hundred years in the Nascent Soul realm, the odds of winning aren't nonexistent; it's worth a gamble.

But Li Bai happened to arrive.

Li Bai's appearance seemed like an excuse to comfort himself. Luo Qing silently recited the oath he took when he took office two hundred years ago countless times, forcibly suppressing his emotions, and turned to fight Li Bai.

Inner demons give rise to outward manifestations of resentment; this is nothing more than that.

Li Bai was inexplicably beaten up, and of course, he fought back, but he was unaware of it.

Li Bai said, "The Carbon-based Federation warships will arrive on Earth soon. Wasn't humanity supposed to host a solar system intelligent life conference? This conference will continue, and there will be a civilization level test, but it will be led by the Carbon-based Federation. When you clean up the droplets and sophons later, you'd better leave one sophon behind. After all, the Trisolarans are also one of the targets of the Carbon-based Federation's care."

Luo Qing said in a low voice, "I may have some prejudice against the Trisolaran civilization, and I don't really want the Trisolarans to live."

Li Bai whispered, "Let's wait until the Carbon-Based Federation leaves before we make our move. Anyway, you'll reach the Trisolaran system in four years at the latest. Don't be so stubborn. The Carbon-Based Federation won't risk offending you by protecting Trisolaris."

In front of Leng Xianqian and Meng Jian, the two began to loudly plot how to destroy the Trisolaran system and how to kill the Trisolaran sun.

At this time, the absolute zero zone of IceCube was still spreading at the speed of light, and after crossing the Great Ring, it spread to Mars.

The Mars defense array, which had not yet been shut down, had an energy barrier that enveloped the planet like a semi-transparent glass dome. The moment the cold wave touched the array, white frost flowers spread across its surface in a tentacle-like pattern—the solidified ley line energy. The ice patterns quickly covered the entire area, and the next second, as the barrier collapsed, they vanished without a trace, turning into a shower of fluorescent light.

As expected, the earth vein array couldn't stop it.

The cold waves devoured more space, bringing more planets of the solar system into this eternal silence.

Earth, Moon, Venus, Mercury.

The defensive formations of the four planets also disappeared one after another, like soap bubbles that had been frozen and burst.

Next up is Saturn.

And then...the sun.

The sun was frozen; all plasma was fixed on its surface, leaving only photons radiating normally and emitting a warm glow.

About six hours later, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto were successively frozen.

About ten hours later, the Kuiper Belt was completely frozen.

The solar system has fallen into its deepest slumber since its birth.

"I'm going back first. You go and rescue people. When I came here, I noticed that quite a few people were still sliding in the vacuum space, like they were on a slide."

Li Bai patted Luo Qing on the shoulder and then disappeared.

(End of this chapter)