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

Chapter 417 Silver Blue Aria

Almost simultaneously, Luo Qing and Li Bai left the solar system and flew towards the Trisolaran system at the speed of light.

"Commander, the remnant fleet of the Silicon-based Empire has broken away from the Type VIII interstellar dust cloud and is moving towards the middle of the isolation zone at 0.99 times the speed of light."

A beam of eight-dimensional communication suddenly came from a direction six hundred light-years away.

Advanced civilizations are generally reluctant to use primitive warp drive technology for light-speed travel, firstly because warp tracks cannot be cleared and cause some damage to the structure of the universe itself.

Secondly, under the curvature speed of light state, the time dilation effect based on special relativity is too exaggerated, and the thinking time inside the spaceship traveling at the speed of light is severely reduced, making it impossible to adjust to external stimuli in time and vulnerable to ambush.

There are many gods in the universe who enjoy hunting Doomsday Races (life forms that arrive at the end of the universe in warp-speed spaceships). Although these Doomsday Races have not offended anyone and have not consumed any additional resources, they are escapees of the Dark Forest Law.

They are simply dilapidated spaceships that have seen through the fate of the universe and are looking forward to seeing a grand cosmic fireworks display at the end of the world.

But some gods are just like cats; they see a cup on the table and want to push it—purely because they can't resist the urge.

In the aforementioned dangerous situations, cruising at 0.99 times the speed of light using conventional power is a good approach. It can reduce the degree of time dilation, preventing millennia from passing in the blink of an eye, and allows for immediate reactions to the outside world. Moreover, it is not much slower than the standard speed of light.

Lan was not surprised by the movements of this remaining fleet.

The adjutant's report continued: "But their course is strange; they didn't try to find any remaining star coordinates in the isolation zone, it's like they're coming straight for you."

Blue's thought waves also traveled back along an eight-dimensional line:
"There are no stars for frogs to leap over, so this is a specially left opening. It's normal to rush in here."

Blue looked at its position on the star map. It had left a cylindrical 'opening' in the starless isolation zone, with a diameter of 200 light-years and a length of 500 light-years. This was a region with a relatively high density of stars in the first spiral arm, with an average of one star every 3.5 light-years, a density far higher than that near the solar system.

Given this numerical premise, there are approximately 72 stars within this opening, enough to support the remnants of the silicon-based empire fleet in carrying out large-scale "stellar leaps."

Meanwhile, some of the main forces of the carbon-based federation are waiting on the other side of the "bridge".

What Lan couldn't understand was, given that this was clearly a trap, why were the remnants of the silicon-based empire charging straight at them?
Then all the other fake "bridges" were just for nothing?
Moreover, has the silicon-based empire launched another attack so quickly?
Even a silicon-based civilization... needs to rest and recuperate at least a little. This kind of reckless action, where almost the entire army is wiped out and then all the remaining defeated troops are brought out to charge again, is hardly a rational decision in the eyes of Lan, the military commander.

Lan sent a message to his adjutant, who was 600 light-years away: "I understand flying towards the vicinity of the entrance, but the Second Spiral Arm Campaign only ended a galactic year ago. In such a short time, no matter how high the replication efficiency of the Silicon Empire is, what kind of state can it recover to?"

Ten thousand Earth years is neither a short nor a long time. For humanity, ten thousand Earth years may be enough for humanity to master warp drive technology from scratch and reach the advanced civilization boundary of Class 1A without the aid of Trisolaran technology.

However, for super-civilizations like the Carbon-based Federation and the Silicon-based Empire, ten thousand Earth years is only a short breathing space. The Silicon-based Empire, which was almost completely annihilated, could not possibly rebuild a fleet comparable to the Carbon-based Federation's fleet within ten thousand years.

The adjutant relayed: "That's unclear, but that silicon-based empire fleet was indeed one of the remnants of the silicon-based empire that escaped during the Second Spiral Arm Battle."

In the long galactic war, both sides deployed tens of millions of warships. Although the three major battles in the bubble destroyed the main force of the silicon-based empire, the final battle of the second spiral arm destroyed the last million warships of the silicon-based empire.

But even a weakened camel is bigger than a horse; the remnants of the current silicon-based empire, if pieced together, can still assemble nearly a million warships.

Blue's goal is to rely on the safe buffer zone of the starless isolation zone to destroy as many of the remaining silicon-based empire warships as possible.

As the Carbon-Based Federation reinforced its forces in the third and fourth spiral arms, approximately 200,000 more carbon-based warships arrived at the front lines, locking down those "fake bridge" points.

Lan's thought wave was very calm: "Flying at sub-light speed from their gathering point to the middle of the isolation zone would require 120 time particles. Even if they leap through the stars on the outer edge of the isolation zone, it would still take at least one time particle. That's enough time for us to prepare."

One hundred and twenty time particles, equivalent to six hundred Earth years, constitute interstellar warfare in the three-dimensional universe era.

This kind of travel time, based on the speed of light and often taking hundreds of years, is actually not that long. If nothing unexpected happens, the silicon-based empire will use stars on the outer edge of the isolation zone to perform stellar leapfrogging along the isolation zone, but that will still require two or three Earth years of preparation time.

There's no way around it; the speed of light in the three-dimensional universe is simply too slow.

The slow pace was making the commander somewhat bored.

With real-time communication across the eight-dimensional plane, the points of light representing the Federation fleet on the star map began to move. The carbon-based First, Second, and Third Fleets departed from three anchor points in the isolation zone, forming a massive arc-shaped defensive perimeter, like a giant, open umbrella. At the heart of this defensive perimeter, an area marked the "Alpha Blank Zone," quietly awaited the protagonists of this desperate counterattack.

Or rather, waiting for that "silicon-based guest" from Cygnus 61.

"Is there a response from the other side of the mirror?" Lan asked.

The mirror is that god of music.

"A supermembrane communication received 15 seconds ago (string vibration at the speed of light in 11 dimensions)," the adjutant's communicator said. "Take a look for yourself."

(Note: The constant second is the duration of 1.234 × 10^6 cycles of radiation corresponding to the transition of the most abundant hydrogen atom in the universe from the n=1 energy level to the virtual auxiliary energy level. Its magnitude is close to that of the Earth second, about 0.81 seconds, which is the universal time. The same applies to the second mentioned below.)

A rhythmic, undulating curve, as even as a beat, appeared before Lan's eyes.

After analyzing the supermembrane communication:
Mirror: [A suitable stage has been found.]

Mirror: [What pieces do your listeners like me to 'play'?]

A rare smile appeared on Lan's lips.

When Lan first saw the mirror, she thought it would be a biomimetic being like Li Bai, or an ice form made of ice crystals like a low-temperature artist. But the mirror's "true form" was just a thin film of total reflection suspended in the universe.

The mirror is less than an atom thick, yet its area can cover an entire star system. Like a mirror stretched open by the hand of the universe, it can reflect communications across all wavelengths, including neutrinos.

Three thousand galactic years have passed since the Mirror last performed. Back then, when the Mirror played the melody using stars, Blue was a student at the Federal Military Academy. It remembered that on that day, all the Federation's communication channels were filled with that ancient melody from the galactic heart.

At that time, countless carbon-based life forms, who were in the midst of a long war, realized for the first time that the universe outside of war could also have such gentle tremors.

Now, this "cosmic musician" will use its "instrument" to play a symphony of war for the carbon-based federation!

Great music needs war as its rhythm.

This is the reason why the Carbon-Based Federation persuaded the Mirror to intervene in this war.

“Tell the mirror,” Blue selected a coordinate in the center of the Alpha blank area, “that we need to ‘tune’ it, to stabilize the spatial curvature of this region at 1.2 gravitational units, to warp their stellar frog-jump coordinates, preferably jumping into our trap in one go. At the same time, block all neutrino eight-dimensional line communications of silicon-based warships. As for the ‘repertoire’… let’s use ‘Silver Melody,’ the classic melody of the Milky Way.”

The adjutant paused for a moment, then said, “Silver Melody? I thought you would choose the more aggressive Blues.”

“Aggression doesn’t need music to fuel it.” Blue’s gaze fell on the red dots representing the silicon-based fleet. “What we need is rhythm, a soothing rhythm like the silver melody, to let the silicon-based empire know that their counterattack has been in our beat from the very beginning. Mirrors don’t need to participate in the battle directly; that would easily attract the intervention of the Six Gods.”

The blue smart field suddenly became bright and clear.

"We can handle the attack ourselves."

(End of this chapter)