Chapter 372: Celestial Gambits

This fleet maintained its breakneck pace, streaking through the asteroid belt like a swarm of meteors.

But suddenly, countless points of light began to shimmer around the fleet, and from afar, it was enveloped in a ghostly glow.

Almost as soon as the lights appeared, the fleet vanished without a trace!

In fact, even the nearby asteroids, meteors, and that eerie glow disappeared!

In its wake, the asteroid belt was transformed into a pristine, vacuum zone spanning more than ten thousand kilometers—an area completely emptied.

Just outside this zone, a small shimmer of lights struggled to flee outward toward the Solar System’s ecliptic at 0.8 times the speed of light!

A spatial wave began to ripple outwards from the spot.

“I will be back!”

Approximately 98 astronomical units from where the Dream Technology fleet had departed, a massive meteor hurtled into the Solar System at 10,000 kilometers per second.

This meteor was none other than the Dreamer-I Probe, uniquely equipped with a consciousness upload module replicated by Du Qiu—setting it apart from all other meteor probes of Dream Technology.

At this moment, Du Qiu, soaring at faster-than-light speed, rested in his sleep pod as his consciousness transferred into the artificial intelligence core of the Dreamer-I Probe.

Previously, Du Qiu had experimented to determine if consciousness could be successfully uploaded across countless light years while traveling at superluminal speeds.

The conclusion was affirmative!

Even when Du Qiu was 2.5 light years from the Sun, near the energy vortex of the Civilization Bastion, where the Solar System’s signal shields were no longer present…

His dream-state consciousness, transmitted through a crystal pillow, could effortlessly traverse the vast void and connect with that small fleet, no matter where it was.

That experiment had surprised Du Qiu, as he had always believed the signal shields might even amplify dream consciousness.

In his dreams, after all, his consciousness had once sensed those far-off regions.

Now it seemed that dream consciousness was not only superluminal but could bridge intergalactic distances without any need for signal amplification.

Du Qiu knew the extent of this leap because, within his dream, he had established an astronomical observatory system in the star system where the small fleet took refuge, meticulously mapping the surrounding galaxies.

He did this to pinpoint the exact location of his own star system in the universe and gauge its distance from the Milky Way.

Not long ago, Du Qiu had discovered a familiar galaxy among those he marked—a super-sun, to be exact, observed from Earth within the Spider Nebula of the Large Magellanic Galaxy.

Its luminosity was about 8.7 million times that of the Sun, and it was discovered in 2010.

In his dream, Du Qiu had already charted half of the major surrounding galaxies, even marking at least three galactic streams in the vicinity.

Two of these streams housed barred spiral galaxies similar to the Milky Way, leaving Du Qiu uncertain if one of them might actually be the Milky Way.

At last, by pinpointing that super-sun, Du Qiu identified the Large Magellanic Galaxy, then the Milky Way, and eventually, among its sprawling star systems, he finally located the Orion Arm and our Solar System.

Although the sunlight he saw in his dream was at least 2.5 million years old,

Du Qiu’s heart raced with inexplicable excitement at the sight of his home star.

At last, he knew where the Dominant Civilization resided.

According to Earth’s terminology, this was the Andromeda Galaxy M31— the nearest extragalactic neighbor to the Milky Way, about 2.5 million light years away.

Clearly, that seemingly endless darkness Du Qiu had once experienced in his dream was the vast cosmic chasm between the Milky Way and Andromeda M31.

Realizing his dream-state consciousness could span such distances, Du Qiu began replicating the consciousness upload components and successfully completed the Dreamer-I Probe.

Now, whenever he wished, Du Qiu could use dream-state consciousness via the Dreamer-I Probe to “observe” the surrounding areas of its current location.

This proved to be an exceptional method for cosmic observation. Moreover, upon preparing to leave the Solar System, Du Qiu discovered that the Negative Matter Cannon could indeed damage Dark Matter Lifeforms; after hearing their threats, he grew curious about the true efficacy of his trap.

Thus, he ordered Star Ocean to deploy the Dreamer-I Probe.

Immediately, through the probe’s perception system in his dream, he received all information from the Solar System monitoring network related to the Dark Matter Lifeforms.

He watched in silence as a Dark Matter Lifeform stepped into the web-like trap he had set—but unfortunately, it still managed to escape.

Although it appeared to have sustained severe damage—shrinking to just over a hundred kilometers in size and slowing to 0.8 times the speed of light—

Du Qiu recalled how its 60-times-light-speed charge had initially taken him aback. Had it directly chased the fleet, he might have been caught in its clutches.

The spatial wave it finally emitted was analyzed, leading Du Qiu to conclude that the Dark Matter Lifeform had indeed suffered tremendous damage from the chain trap.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have left such a message behind.

Over the past decade—especially in the last two years following Dream Technology’s breakthrough in unified theory—the construction of the Negative Matter Cannon was no longer mere imitation.

As a result, both the build speed and power of the Negative Matter Cannon increased, and even Antimatter began to be produced.

Unfortunately, they were still unable to create a powerful enough gravitational field device to properly contain and utilize the Antimatter.

Within the last month, using the high-performance simulation environment of his dream fleet, Du Qiu finally devised a rough control field to store Antimatter.

However, due to its crude construction, the storage time was limited.

But for Du Qiu’s planned Antimatter bomb trap, it was more than sufficient.

Given the explosive reaction between Antimatter and Matter, Du Qiu decided against setting his trap on Mars or in the asteroid belt.

Instead, he chose to position it at the Ninth Planet—after all, losing the Ninth Planet would not directly jeopardize the Solar System.

In addition, numerous Negative Matter fortresses were deployed throughout the Kuiper Belt and the asteroid belt, particularly with a large number of Negative Matter Space Mines in the asteroid belt.

Equipped with graviton markers, these space mines detonate once they detect high-speed Dark Matter signatures—purging everything within a 500-kilometer radius.

These mines release vast quantities of Negative Matter held in a specialized force field, effectively cleansing the surrounding 500 kilometers.

Negative Matter Space Mines weren’t deployed in the Kuiper Belt simply due to insufficient numbers for two regions.

Since the Ninth Planet already hosted an Antimatter trap, the Negative Matter Space Mines were deployed in the asteroid belt.

After all, there was no guarantee that the Dark Matter Lifeform would target the Ninth Planet; if it instead headed straight for Mars or Earth, it would very likely breach the asteroid belt.

Based on years of study into the deceptive signals emitted by the pseudo Tur Fleet by the Dark Matter Lifeform, Du Qiu had made his own deductions.

He came to the basic conclusion that the Dark Matter Lifeform was a rather unsophisticated creature—its decoy messages had not changed in ten years.

Had a human been behind those messages, the phrasing and seductive language would have evolved countless times over a decade.

Yet, since these were only assumptions, Du Qiu could not afford to be complacent, assuming the Dark Matter Lifeform would fall for his chain trap.

Nevertheless, the trap was set—whether it would severely damage or annihilate the Dark Matter Lifeform was now left to fate.

Fortunately, everything was going according to plan. The Dark Matter Lifeform, a creature of simple intellect, was indeed lured by the signals from the fleet at the Ninth Planet.

Unexpectedly, even after the explosion of the Antimatter trap, it retained a substantial size. While triggering several Negative Matter Space Mines in the asteroid belt, it still managed to escape in part.

Based on the data received by the Dreamer-I Probe, Du Qiu was convinced that the Dark Matter Lifeform resembled an organism as fragile and delicate as seaweed.