As they traversed space in their respective manners, the distance between Lei Ting and the other visitors gradually widened. Interestingly, ‘Firewine’ managed to keep pace right beside him, as did the ‘Architect’ within his spiraling space palace.
If the latter’s high-speed movement was entirely justified by his mysterious yet well-known power, the former’s performance completely exceeded the expectations of everyone—human or otherwise—except for Lei Ting.
“You said the enemy is inside, that the Ringworld is a wall—what does that mean?!”
Firewine questioned through the mental link. Its emotions seemed highly unstable, causing its mental output to be so loud it was almost ‘deafening,’ prompting a wave of dissatisfied complaints within the link.
There were thirteen ‘individuals’ in the mental link at that moment. Among the twelve ‘S-ranks,’ ten of them offered Firewine various opinions and suggestions, ranging from the polite and gentle to the… less than savory. The only one who remained silent was the ‘Dragon Slayer’—it seemed that since the death of ‘Emperor’s Blade,’ she had become increasingly withdrawn.
But Firewine didn’t care about any of that. It simply pressed Lei Ting for an answer, and then—
“Literally.”
—it received that response.
The sphere of combustible red gel grumbled twice, rolling through space in various indignant patterns.
But in the next moment, it ‘heard’ Lei Ting’s second sentence.
—“Stop asking questions you already know the answer to,” the man said. “It makes you look stupid.”
Firewine suddenly stopped its acrobatics. It finally couldn't help but look at Lei Ting in shock, wondering what kind of critical information was hidden in this man’s head: *Damn it, if you know everything, then just say it! Knowing so much and keeping it to yourself—what are you trying to do?!*
Fine. Now, the Orionids weren't the only ones who wanted to crack open ‘Solar Star’s’ skull to see what was inside.
Shortly after, Lei Ting led the way into the sector where the ‘Ringworld’ was visible to the naked eye.
He looked up and abruptly halted his forward teleportation. He even reached out a hand to stop the charging Firewine. The Architect’s space palace city also decelerated silently; the giant, heavy-shelled insects within paid no mind to the external changes, acting only with loyal obedience to their sovereign’s command.
After Firewine stopped, it didn't ask any questions. It simply looked ahead.
It froze in place like a piece of burning red crystal.
Upon the surface of the blazing orb, a terrifying scene was faintly reflected.
—As horrific energy erupted within the Silver Nucleus, beams of light like swords and spears shot out from the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ of that massive nebular collective.
Simultaneously, the Ringworld’s defensive layer temporarily dissolved. In its place, a heavy, deep-black, semi-arc-shaped protective shell—which had already begun pushing upward from the edges—took over, diverting the intense waves of energy toward the outer star systems.
The Ringworld’s own silver-white hull split open neatly. The energy transmission for the defensive layer shifted to the cross-sections, and a gap opened between every two sectors. This occurred across tens of thousands of sectors.
The Ringworld… was splitting.
The surfaces that had been joined when it was assembled hundreds of thousands of years ago saw the light of day once more. Crimson energy erupted from within; the moment it emerged, blades of flame thousands of kilometers long slashed directly toward the surrounding planets and spaceports that served as the Ringworld’s transit stations!
“Protect the Order Planets!” Firewine shouted instinctively. Without hesitation, it changed course, making a turn that was nearly a right angle. Amidst its transformation and the extension of its flames, it rapidly spread a red curtain, intercepting the energy between the major nearby planets.
Not far away, the Architect’s ‘Spiral City’ had already begun to root itself in the current space, deploying swarms of insects to distant planets. The S-ranks catching up from behind also began to display their various divine abilities.
—One had to understand that no matter how fiercely the Ringworld fought internally, those planets and spaceports had remained largely unaffected by the civil war. Each of them held at least five billion, and at most twenty-eight billion residents—and those were figures calculated based on conventional carbon-based biological sizes and resource ratios. If short-lived races were present, the numbers would only be higher!
In such a critical moment, Lei Ting did not stay to work with his teammates. Instead, he accelerated again, plunging headlong into the Silver Nucleus before even the prelude to the first wave of energy eruption was complete!
“Solar Star!!” Firewine screamed.
In the next instant, it clearly felt the most terrifying power in the mental link—the power that had only avoided destroying them because of its owner’s extreme restraint—disconnect.
A strange premonition left Firewine stunned for a moment, until the tail of a flaming sword, which had nearly scorched it from two conventional star systems away, licked close.
Having already deployed defenses for dozens of planets by relying on the spatial anchoring provided by the Architect, Firewine wasted no more words. A crown-like phantom flashed briefly at its core, and flames erupted, beginning to clash against the incoming force!
……
…
As he passed through the gaps, golden light blazed upon Lei Ting’s body.
He tilted his body to avoid another strangely red energy cluster, even finding the time to look at the cross-sections of the Ringworld sectors on either side, which were nearly submerged in red flames.
Much like the capsule dormitories on the *Sun*, those once-joined facets possessed a vast number of corresponding grooves, ridges, and interlocking mechanisms. This proved that their splitting was no coincidence, but rather a command from their master controller and builder.
Furthermore, there were countless bridges extending outward, or things resembling high-tech altars, all engraved with patterns highly similar to those on the cross-sections.
Or rather, script that shared the same origin as the records on the ‘Copper Plate.’
Lei Ting could see that the script, cast from copper-colored metal, consisted of hymns. They praised a faceless deity, a god who ‘gave birth to the stars.’
In the center of the patterns on the cross-sections, one side featured massive cross-star-shaped buildings, while the other side possessed a gargantuan depression that precisely matched its size.
Those buildings were so immense that the ends of the cross-stars could form new stellar points, and those points had even more points—compared to the floor-to-ceiling windows on the smallest points, Lei Ting was so small he practically didn't exist.
These deployed sections, including the bridges and buildings, had been folded away using hyperspace technology similar to Star Gates.
Lei Ting frowned slightly. He suddenly realized a question: if the Ringworld could be folded like this, what about the ‘Star Gates’?
Between two Star Gates that served as ‘opposite doors’ to each other, could something also be hidden inside?
He didn't know.
But this didn't stop Lei Ting from quickly memorizing the internal structure of it all, synchronously transmitting it back to the Human Federation’s Hyperspace Research Institute through his own methods.
Moreover, for some reason, he felt that those cross-star symbols, which extended infinitely like thickets of shrubs, seemed to hide some deeper meaning.
It wasn't just that they likely belonged to the ‘Star Civilization’ or might even be their representative symbol, but something even more profound.
But he had no time to think about that—
—He crashed into the red nebula.
Shortly after, a massive golden ring expanded from within, and the power of ‘Immovable’ forcibly blanketed the Silver Nucleus.
The eruption of energy stopped abruptly. The distorted shadows within the stars also fell into a brief stillness.
But Lei Ting did not let down his guard.
After spreading his power through the inner and outer reaches of the Silver Nucleus, he slowly raised his eyes, looking toward the nearest stars.
The whispers of decay echoed in his perception, yet the reality was that they were explosively spewing out turbulent energy.
This was not a good thing… because every star parasitized by a Star Beast, and thus entering its final stage, behaved exactly like this!
But facing this situation, the corners of Lei Ting’s mouth twitched.
“‘Star,’ huh?” he murmured softly, yet his voice spread throughout the entire star sector surrounding the Silver Nucleus: “Only now are you activating your hidden biological weapons? Don't tell me you finally went senile and forgot the encryption keys?”
—Yes, ‘Star Beasts’ were weapons belonging to the ‘Star’ civilization. They were one of the most powerful weapons in the material realm today, and a byproduct of those four bio-engineering projects.
‘Last time,’ this scene occurred nearly ten years later. But ‘this time,’ it had actually happened early…
This proved how much pressure the current Lei Ting was putting on the opponent. Furthermore, it didn't stop him from mocking them!
“…”
As noisy as it was inside the Ringworld, it was equally silent in the surroundings.
Soon after, glowing energy as red as blood twisted and aggregated, forming a massive projection of a face with no gender inclination.
【Special-Unit-No.-4473—‘Lei-Ting,’ the ‘Silver-Star-Council’—sends—its—greetings.】
It was an extremely complex synthesized voice. The sound source was incredibly cluttered; every word sounded as if tens of millions of people were speaking at once, talking over each other in a disorganized mess.
“Greetings to you too, considering you’ve been planning how to test me, lure me, and kill me,” Lei Ting said.
His words and deeds seemed to return to how they once were at this moment.
And this could only be a disguise.
“What about your ‘Specialized Tactics 003’? What about your ‘4473-3920-Core Power Elimination’ plan?”
He acted as if he were very interested: “Using every loophole around me to destroy my spirit—a decent plan. Why haven't you executed it?
“To test its feasibility, you even went so far as to send a persona to embarrass itself in front of me… After such a high price, why is there no follow-up?”
【……】
After a moment of silence, the massive projection calling itself the ‘Silver Star Council’ spoke: 【The-information-you-possess-must-be-more-than-just-this, Lord-‘Solar-Star.’
【Perhaps—we—can—cooperate.】
Cooperate? Impossible, Lei Ting thought.
He had known since ‘last time’ that the ultimate goal of these fellows was to eliminate all ‘Type-1 Carbon’ (similar in appearance to Galactic Empire humans, but possibly different in size), ‘Type-2 Carbon’ (similar to Empire humans, but possibly possessing unique biological structures), and ‘Type-3 Carbon’ (similar to Empire humans, but perhaps only sharing a basic framework) biological civilizations in the entire galaxy.
It seemed this would allow them to avoid some massive, existential danger, which was highly correlated with the ‘Death to Those Who Resemble Me’ project.
But now…
“Stop talking nonsense. You’re just afraid that before the final destruction arrives, you’ll first be…” Lei Ting pointed toward ‘Khemist,’ which was currently beneath his feet: “…assimilated by ‘it.’”
***
