The news of the defeat of 120,000 warships here would quickly spread to the other battlefield.
The Galactic Federation soldiers were extremely excited.
And the Filament civilization displayed anger. Their way of expressing anger was to use even more intense attacks.
Faced with over 200,000 Filament civilization warships, the 10 Galactic Federation Fleets were clearly at a disadvantage.
The reason they still converged was entirely because they knew there would be no help. The speed of the warships from several sides was unable to outrun the Filament civilization warships.
"Now it's just us. It will take hundreds of years for assistance to arrive, it's simply too late."
"The only hope is the super-long-range weapon."
The 10 Fleet Commanders simultaneously created a virtual space, and then held a meeting in the virtual space.
"There's no way around it. From the very beginning, we didn't anticipate that the Filament civilization would use such a method to hide their warships, leading to us being passive now."
If there were originally only 110,000 Filament civilization warships, then they would have already achieved victory. What they should be facing now are other Filament civilization warships coming later.
The shift in the battlefield situation instantly put the Galactic Federation in an unfavorable state.
"So what do we do now?"
"Can't wait in the star system, and we can't get fuel in space. Here, we are like turtles in a jar."
All the soldiers and officers could imagine the scene of them being mocked and worn down later.
Here, it was almost no different from waiting for death.
"If the Federation could use super-long-range weapons to help us, we could still break the encirclement."
"I've sent back the coordinates, hoping the commander can make the correct decision."
Other Commanders noticed that this Commander said "correct decision," and not "save us."
So-called distant water cannot quench nearby thirst; this is approximately the case.
Their engagement with the Filament civilization would be at most 10 years, not exceeding 10 years. This time is too short.
"Then use the energy to massively produce the Swarm."
"The Swarm, though weak, can still play a role. The bio-engineered warships should wait; they can't be consumed in the early stages."
Now was the time to accumulate strength.
The 10 Fleets did not converge in space but maintained a distance of around 10 AU from each other. This distance both allowed for mutual support and prevented them from being wiped out in one fell swoop.
The fleets began to mass-produce the Swarm in space using super-Swarm nests. These Swarms were released and fell into the star space.
The Swarm itself consumed nutrients, but the Swarm nests would create a block of metallic nutrients for the born Swarm to carry, so they could remain in space for a long time.
To save time, launch pads for the Swarm were also built inside the super-Swarm nests. These launch pads could accelerate the Swarm to over 10,000 km/s, so they didn't need to waste excess energy on space flight.
The reason for creating the Swarm was that there is one advantage: the Swarm are high-attack, low-defense units. If a Filament civilization warship makes a mistake, they might be hit by the Swarm, causing them to lose their combat ability. Therefore, the Filament civilization couldn't help but react.
The Swarm could consume the Filament civilization warships' energy and could also cause damage to them.
...
9 years and 1 month later.
The hoped-for time came sooner than expected. The Filament civilization launched an attack on the Federation warships.
This attack also deviated from the original predictions.
In the star space, over 100,000 Filament civilization warships connected together in a chain. Countless threads began continuous vibrations. The Federation believed that this vibration was transmitting energy.
The Filament civilization warships didn't have any particular features. Their appearance was like a croissant, an oval shape with spiral patterns on the outside.
When they fly, due to visual illusions, it would seem that their ships were rapidly rotating like the three-color rotating lights at a barbershop's entrance. But in reality, this wasn't the case. It was merely because of the very unique spiral patterns that created this illusion.
After the energy transmission began, the Federation discovered that those spiral patterns were not decorative.
They seemed to be completing certain tasks.
For example, transmitting specific energy outwards.
What kind of energy was this?
It was not yet known.
Because the Federation found it impossible to observe this energy. This was similar to when the Federation used more advanced energy forms to attack other Civilizations.
Now, the Federation could not observe the Filament civilization's energy, proving that this was a type of energy form the Federation had never encountered before. It might come from those spiral patterns or from those threads.
Although the energy couldn't be observed.
The Federation did observe the results of being hit by this special weapon.
Slicing!
Countless Swarms in front were sliced open.
As if an invisible blade existed in the void, and there were tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of them.
"Such a weapon actually exists."
The officers of the Galactic Federation fleet were extremely astonished, but not to the point of terror.
However, seven days later, they were terrified!
This slicing didn't seem to decrease in power due to hitting an object, nor did it dissipate due to distance. It traversed over a thousand AU and hit a bio-engineered warship.
That bio-engineered warship was cut in half.
The Federation immediately ordered the activation of shields.
But it was useless. Even after a bio-engineered warship activated its energy shields, it was still sliced open.
"What exactly is it?"
The Filament civilization, as a more powerful Civilization than the Galactic Federation, naturally also possessed its own secrets, and this terrifying weapon was one of them.
By observing the path of those threads, it was easy to deduce that they were heading towards a Galactic Federation dreadnought.
That dreadnought was the Leviathan. It was considered a relatively large dreadnought, not because of its length, but because it had two additional wings compared to other dreadnoughts. These two wings could contain more energy. The Leviathan had the longest continuous flight time among all dreadnoughts.
After observing this, it began to accelerate.
But the dreadnought's acceleration was actually much slower than that of regular warships. Although the acceleration could be offset using gravity equipment, because the dreadnought was too huge, the offset would consume too much energy, so the dreadnought wasn't equipped with such a device.
And this acceleration involved the Leviathan's footsteps.
Before it had even moved 200,000 kilometers, the mysterious slicing lines hit it. Despite having protective shields, it was still sliced.
Following closely behind were countless similar slicing attacks. After the entire warship was pierced, the engines seemed to be affected and unable to accelerate.
The huge warship was actually torn apart in a mere 7 hours.
Terrifying!
Horrifying!
The soldiers and officers on the battlefield weren't afraid of absolute force crushing them. What they feared most was not knowing how they would die.
If this invisible slicing was in a fixed location, they could guess its principle. However, this slicing had no energy reaction, and could still maintain such terrifying power across such a long distance. This was unimaginable.
"All warships maneuver. Do not allow the enemy to determine your coordinates."
"Quickly retrieve the damaged warships. We must clarify the underlying principles."
When half a month later, the warship fragments were retrieved, the officers aboard the warships finally learned what they had encountered!
At the cut of the warship, the officers saw a mirror-like surface.
This mirror-like surface was absolutely not a simple mirror observed on a macroscopic level.
It was extremely neat even at the atomic level.
The feeling was as if something forcibly squeezed those atoms to the sides, similar to using a sharp knife to cut a fruit on a macroscopic level. However, this knife wouldn't take away any material from the fruit, not juice, not flesh, not even a tiny bit.
It is conceivable that their energy shields were cut like this.
The Filament civilization utilized the inherent gaps between atoms.
The atoms were connected together at the "locks" between atoms. The "locks" were not physical substances but forces.
Normally, there are three types of "locks" that connect atoms: ionic bonds, covalent bonds, and metallic bonds.
Ionic bonds are easy to understand. It's that sometimes electrons between atoms will move from one atom to another, thus forming positive and negative ions. Through the electrostatic attraction of these positive and negative ions, they are tightly connected.
Covalent bonds are more complex. Sometimes an electron doesn't exclusively belong to one atomic nucleus; it's like a worker commuting to work or a student commuting to school. It moves back and forth between home and the office or school. Theoretically, this electron belongs to two atomic nuclei. This electron's repeated jumps connect the atoms together.
Metallic bonds are special. They add a free electron on the basis of covalent bonds. This free electron is like a vagrant wandering everywhere, not only hanging around your house, your school, or your company, but also visiting other people's houses, schools, and companies. Metallic bonds, as the name suggests, exist in metals.
The above bonding methods actually cannot leave out the electrostatic attraction generated by positive and negative ions. These "locks" are actually called chemical bonds. The oxidation of sodium, the hydrogenation of chlorine, and other chemical substances are actually the bonding of two different elements.
And the Filament civilization weapon ruthlessly severed these bonds.
On a macroscopic scale, this is actually not difficult. Any sophisticated machining equipment in the Galactic Federation can achieve this, but the Filament civilization completed all this at super-long range.
This is like holding a pair of scissors and cutting a piece of paper 1000 km away.
Unless your scissors possess some kind of energy blade, it's impossible to accomplish.
Based on this idea, the warship's mainframe made an analysis.
"Considering that the enemy's weapon doesn't have measurable reactions, or it is a special form of energy beyond our comprehension, otherwise, their weapons wouldn't have such high energy."
"Low energy cannot completely cut an object. That leaves one possibility: the Filament civilization is firing matter."
Then, based on the analysis, the mainframe began to generate theoretical images.
The mainframe on the dreadnought was, aside from Ayla and the Boundary God, the Galactic Federation's most powerful computer. Its processing power even surpassed Ayla's original body by several orders of magnitude 10,000 years ago.
If it weren't for Ayla redesigning the computer's underlying architecture, then the mainframe on the dreadnought could easily give birth to a super-intelligent AI.
The image appeared.
It was a thread formed from atoms. Its width was only 1 atom, but its length exceeded a quadrillion atoms. It was like an extremely fine hair.
It was accelerated to a speed exceeding 250,000 km/s, using its extreme speed to slice through matter.
Of course, if it were simply atoms, it wouldn't have such great power.
What could be observed was that these atoms were extremely tightly bound. The atomic nucleus of one atom even entered the electron orbit of another atom. Although they weren't tightly connected, they were extremely close.
If the atoms in this thread weren't so tightly bound, on a macroscopic level it might be a line, but on an atomic level, it would actually be independent atoms. It simply couldn't achieve a slicing effect.
Then there is the energy.
The energy level of these atoms was much higher than that of ordinary atoms. They were not natural atoms but artificial creations.
A Type 2 Civilization could basically use strings to create fundamental particles, and these atoms were special.
Upon encountering other atoms, it would exchange matter with other atoms. However, this exchange didn't produce positive and negative ions, but interstitial ions.
Like charges repel each other, so when this atom contacts other atoms, it immediately pushes away all the surrounding atoms.
This pushing away, due to the dark energy contained within these atoms, further expands the distance between the atoms, thus preventing the pushed-away atoms from closing again.
As early as 2013 AD, humans on Earth had discovered that metals could actually self-heal, and in 2023 AD, the self-healing of metals was verified. Therefore, the dark energy played a crucial role in this attack.
This weapon was named Atomic Chain by the mainframe.
Of course, this was all based on the mainframe's analysis; they didn't actually observe the existence of the Atomic Chain.
But this analysis was enough to stabilize morale. The most important thing was how to counter the Atomic Chain.
After several days and nights of analysis, the 10 Commanders (the Atomic Chain cut the dreadnought, but the soldiers and officers inside were not dead) reached a conclusion: there was no way to counter it. They could only evade it.
Because they were warships, not research facilities, they couldn't conduct on-site research and development of defensive technologies against the enemy's weapons.
Even if there was a research facility on the dreadnought, there were no Galactic Federation scholars on the warship.
"Evasion is not the best tactic. We must launch an attack."
"We must go head-to-head."
"The energy consumption of the Atomic Chain is not high. The Filament civilization can continuously launch Atomic Chains to strike us, while our irregular flight consumes a lot of energy. This is the Filament civilization's objective."
"Using this energy to evade is not as good as launching an attack."
On the fifth day after they made this decision, a message arrived through the Tachyon communicator.
"The Federation's interior has prepared weapons that can assist us."
"That's incredibly fast!"
"Long Live the Federation!"
The Commanders, who had almost decided to fight to the death, were once again filled with hope.
What they needed to do now was send the coordinates of the Filament civilization warships. After that, they would return to silence, waiting for the Federation's super-long-range weapons to unleash their power.
At this point, given that they understood the enemy's information, the commander would certainly dare to send this message. Therefore, this super-long-range weapon would absolutely change the situation.
That's how it should be.
But after waiting for 11 years, nothing happened.
"It hasn't arrived?"
"How could it not have arrived!"
"We've been waiting for so long."
The 10 Commanders had been extremely anxious for the past half-month because, according to their analysis, the Federation's reinforcement attack should have arrived by now, and it should have arrived earlier.
But there was absolutely no sign of it.
Half a month ago, they were speculating whether the effect of this weapon was relatively slow. The Federation wasn't without similar weapons. To prevent the enemy from discovering it, it needed to achieve a surprise effect.
But even if it was slow, it wouldn't be this slow.
Moreover, they didn't need to slow down at this point.
One Commander carefully looked at the information transmitted by the Tachyon communication equipment and said, "Something's wrong!"
"Didn't you guys notice?"
"This information doesn't mention the time at all. This is completely impossible, it's abnormal."
"The Federation's regulations are that because of the long distance, every report from Tachyon communication devices must show the sending and receiving times. Secondly, if there is a plan, then the start time of the plan must be specified to achieve synchronization between the two sides."
"But this document doesn't have any of that."
Other Commanders quickly checked.
Sure enough, it didn't.
"Is the message fake?"
"But that's impossible. The Filament civilization couldn't possibly possess Tachyon communication. Even if they did, without the encryption key, they wouldn't be able to send a Tachyon message to our equipment."
If it wasn't the Filament civilization...
Then it could only be... internal!
Everyone's eyes turned sharp.
"There might be a problem inside the star system. That person might have access to Tachyon communication equipment."
"If that's the case, then the entire Federation border is in danger."
One Commander thought of the consequences.
A spy!
There was a spy inside the Galactic Federation.
No one had considered this possibility.
Because everyone is very smart. Everyone knows that this is not an internal struggle within the Civilization. You know that as a spy, you won't be favored, but you can make a fortune, avoid disappointing others who rely on you, and enjoy your old age.
But this was a struggle between Civilizations.
Which Civilization would allow a foreign element to exist?
To be clear, even if you help the other side win as a spy, the other Civilization will kill you without causing any internal problems.
Because of this, no one had ever considered the existence of inter-Civilization spies.
What were their motives?
But now that it has actually happened, this message could not possibly have been sent directly by the Filament civilization.
"Wait, maybe it's not a problem on the Federation's side."
"As far as I know, the Federation's Tachyon communication devices have been controlled by the Boundary Gods of the major star systems after that commander arrived."
"After the Boundary Gods receive the information, they directly transmit it to the commander, and the commander directly instructs the Boundary Gods to send the information."
The Commander who spoke had heard some information from Luna before.
After all, a superior like that suddenly appeared, and as Commanders, they were almost at the highest level of officers in the Galactic Federation military, so they naturally had internal conflicts.
The previously useless information unexpectedly proved useful now.
"Theoretically, that spy is within our military."
"Maybe it's a lowly soldier, maybe an officer, or maybe..."
The 10 Commanders began to be wary of each other.
"Suspicion is useless; let's investigate first."
"The dreadnought's mainframe didn't issue a warning. That means the person used something to blind the mainframe."
"Is it a jammer, a blind spot, or... a clearance level!?"
The simulated conference room fell silent as soon as the words were spoken, and all the Commanders left.
The truth was far more complex than imagined.
After a brief three-day investigation, clues were discovered.
The forged message was indeed from an officer, but not as high-ranking as imagined; in fact, very low-ranking. The person was responsible for the dreadnought's internal computer systems. This meant that the person had certain permissions to access the mainframe's underlying information network.
He used these permissions to deceive the mainframe's Tachyon communication equipment and send a message.
The mainframe was blinded.
Logically, this shouldn't have happened. Because the mainframe itself had powerful self-check mechanisms, but this officer cut off the self-check mechanisms. And not just now, but during an attack decades ago.
During that attack, a warship's mainframe was damaged, and the opportunity was used to destroy the self-check mechanisms.
This conspiracy, spanning more than a decade, finally bore fruit.
"Why?"
This human, whose body was half covered in machinery, was stared at intently by countless eyes.
But he remained calm and composed.
He seemed to have known it would be like this.
"Why not?"
"Because of injustice."
"Look at my body. Do you think I'm a machine fanatic? That I modified my body like this."
"No, that's not it!"
"It's because of poverty. I sold more than half of my body, and then used that money to study, ultimately becoming a computer engineer."
"The Federation is a place that crushes all citizens. There is no way out for the poor, including humans. This is why other star nations exist. Many people have fled to those star nations."
Before he could finish speaking,
A Commander spoke up: "Because of this?"
He said, "Precisely because of this."
"Perhaps, for you, my experiences are just trivial matters."
"But each life feels differently. What is a trivial matter to you is a huge thing for me, a crushing stone on my body."
"After the Filament civilization's second attack, they began secretly contacting some low-level members of the Federation, developing spies. I was one of them."
"You might think I wouldn't be able to integrate with them. Why would I do this?"
"I don't know about other things, but from the beginning, I never intended to integrate. I only wanted to destroy this unfair Federation."
A cynical, jaded person.
Some beings do certain things without seeking any reward.
From a rational point of view, this is fundamentally impossible, but most of these beings are more emotional. Their needs are different.
Like a good person, he does very good things, all done in secret. He will repeatedly tell himself that he doesn't need anyone's gratitude.
But without that gratitude, deep down, he will always feel a little lost.
And when appreciation comes, he will feel genuinely happy and joyful, even though he didn't do good things for that gratitude.
What about a kind person, such a fallen being?
They will yearn even more for something similar to "appreciation." When this thing doesn't come, they don't just feel a little lost, but develop immense disgust for everything around them.
This computer engineer might have spent half his life waiting for what he expected, but he didn't get it, so he went mad.
This madness is not mental illness, but a kind of thing called value.
The value of every life exists similarly yet differently. When a life doesn't have this value, then they are merely a body.
A body can be filled by anything.
Including becoming an inter-Civilization spy!
Because the saying "a pitiful person is necessarily hateful" is also true in reverse: a hateful person is necessarily pitiful.
The 10 Commanders looked at each other.
As if they understood. No explanation was needed. Everyone knew what he lacked. This wasn't a physical object, but a void, an emptiness, something that only existed in his mind.
This lack, this feeling of emptiness and void, meant his goal was never to help the Filament civilization win, or to destroy the Federation. What he truly wanted to do was—destroy himself.
"You have committed a serious war crime."
"I know what you need, and I'm prepared to fulfill it..."
The Commander ordered the removal of all mechanical devices from his body, including the exoskeleton, quark robots, sub-brain, and the mechanical limbs on his surface.
After everything was removed, he was imprisoned in a glass cage.
Then, he was instantly pulverized into carbon atoms and transported to the energy machinery where he was converted into energy to power the warships.
Although it was all over.
This incident left a scar in the hearts of all the soldiers.
The Federation didn't only have martyrs and heroes. As a structure of a huge Civilization, it also had its dirty rebels.
These ten-plus years wasted a vast amount of their energy and cost them many warships. Because of this rebellion, their chances of breaking the encirclement, which were originally 30%, were now less than 10%.
And because of the impact on morale, the actual percentage might be even lower, only 5%.
Today, hundreds of millions of soldiers were completely silent.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Luna, unaware of all this, was formulating her final plan.
Eleven years ago, Luna received coordinate information of the Filament civilization transmitted back from the 10 Fleets.
Because she didn't know what had happened on the other side, she analyzed that these coordinates might be for her to use super-long-range weapons to help them break the encirclement.
But there was no timestamp. This was a problem.
Luna originally intended to contact them, but then didn't.
Why?
At this point, the 10 Fleets no longer had stars to act as energy replenishment stations. Their energy was extremely precious.
Contacting them at this point, then having the fleet consume energy to reply, was essentially draining the fleet's lifeblood.
The fact that only the coordinates were given was likely because those fleets didn't want to consume fuel.
Luna deduced that time wasn't crucial. Her order was for those fleets to gather there. Once gathered, the fleet would inevitably be trapped. Therefore, their coordinates relative to the Filament civilization fleet wouldn't change significantly.
Even if the Filament civilization moved, the Galactic Federation fleet wouldn't change position.
This was just her speculation, and it was actually quite wrong.
The lack of time was simply because the entity launching the weapon was the Federation's side, and the location was determined by Luna. Therefore, the fleet assumed that Luna had already fired the weapons after transmitting the information.
It was all a misunderstanding.
The fleet kept waiting for a reply. They waited constantly, never discovering that this was a deception.
...
After obtaining the coordinates, Luna urgently deployed a new weapon.
This weapon was an extremely powerful and complex weapon. The original planned preparation time was about a year, but because this weapon was being used for the first time, many problems arose, extending the time to the fourth year.
This was a major mistake.
Luna, aboard Kunlun, continuously received various reports, making her face darken.
But there was nothing she could do; the failure rate of new, advanced equipment is inherently high.
She should have immediately used other weapons. However, each use of the super-long-range weapons consumed the energy of one or even several stars. It's conceivable that changing weapons would require half a year, even a year of preparation. This was a waste of time.
But unexpectedly, the new weapon malfunctioned not once, but twice, three times...
Time was constantly being drawn out.
This was extremely unacceptable to Luna.
Fortunately, finally in the fourth year, after eleven attempts, the new weapon was finally activated and fired a shot toward the coordinates.
The projectile approached the speed of light, even showing signs of reaching the speed of light.
It was not matter, but energy.
Not positive energy, but negative energy.
Since the [Wind] , the Galactic Federation had been researching negative energy weapons.
However, the development of negative energy was incredibly difficult, leading to very slow progress in weapons research.
To the extent that 1700 years ago, the negative energy super-long-range weapon was officially created and began to be deployed on the Federation's border to deal with the Filament civilization.
The entire Galactic Federation, to this day, only has one such negative energy weapon. It's understandable why it had problems.
But why use it anyway?
Because it's powerful!
It has wide area coverage.
It's not easily countered.
Its strengths outweigh its weaknesses.
In the 21st century, negative energy was considered the most likely energy form to achieve faster-than-light travel. However, this hypothesis has now been refuted.
Negative energy cannot make objects travel faster than light. Spacetime is more stable than imagined.
To achieve warp drive, the energy required cannot be borne by negative energy.
But negative energy is a type of gravity.
Therefore, negative energy weapons are gravity weapons.
However, when fired, they don't create observable gravitational waves. If you use a model, you can consider this weapon as a steel ball rolling on a mattress, causing the mattress to curve.
Normally, this kind of curvature only appears around large celestial bodies and black holes.
But negative energy can achieve the same effect.
The reason why negative energy weapons don't dissipate over super-long ranges is due to gravity.
The gravitational well formed by the negative energy causes it to continuously contract towards the center after arrival, rather than dissipating outwards.
Although entropy increase and entropy decrease exist, they are negligible for the enormous energy of the entire weapon.
The battlefield was 10 light-years from the Federation border, but the negative energy weapon's range was 12 light-years.
Therefore, when the negative energy weapon arrived, it was actually the 16th year, five years after the 10 Fleets discovered the inter-Civilization spy.
During those five years, they suffered even more intense attacks.
They lost two more dreadnoughts, nearly 10,000 bio-engineered warships, and a super-Swarm nest. The losses were heavy.
The Filament civilization fleet, however, didn't suffer large-scale damage. The Federation's statistics only showed the destruction of around 2,000 warships.
The unfair casualty ratio not only continued to widen the gap in combat power between the two sides but also affected the morale of the Galactic Federation soldiers.
The Galactic Federation soldiers didn't encourage each other; even basic communication was rare.
These were five dark years.
The morale of the Galactic Federation soldiers, who had previously been fearless, plummeted.
What they clung to was the coordinates.
Luna knew that they, too, held onto a glimmer of hope.
As for using Tachyon communication devices to contact her, it was simply a pointless waste of energy.
If the commander knew the meaning of the coordinates, she would have launched the weapon long ago. There was no point in waiting until the 11th year and contacting them then.
If the commander didn't know the meaning of the coordinates, then there's no point to contact her. After waiting so long, they could only rely on themselves. They couldn't wait another 11 years for the weapon to arrive.
This hope was so distant.
If they had been in the commander's position and received the coordinates, they would have launched the weapon. The latest the weapon would have arrived would be 12 years.
More than 12 years meant the commander didn't choose to launch the weapon immediately, and didn't even choose to contact them first. This means they had been abandoned.
Abandoned!
This was one of the main reasons for the decline in morale among the Galactic Federation soldiers.
The Federation had abandoned them. Who were they fighting for now?
Themselves?
But they couldn't possibly win.
Therefore... despair!
But in the 16th year of this despair, the remaining 8 dreadnoughts observed that the Filament civilization warships were being drawn by a mysterious force towards a central point.
This wasn't a black hole.
It was a newly formed massive celestial body that caused spacetime distortion.
And it was different from ordinary gravity.
Because its range of influence was too wide, the gravitational pull was excessively even.
The surface gravity of a celestial body can't compare to the core gravity, but the gravity at the edge and the core gravity were the same here.
This meant that even at the edge, attracted objects could hardly escape the gravitational pull.
Tens of thousands of Filament civilization warships were directly pulled apart by the gravitational force.
All the Galactic Federation soldiers stood dumbfounded at this moment, watching this scene, hope rekindled in their hearts.
The Federation hadn't abandoned them!
...
The effect of the negative energy super-long-range gravitational weapon was to create a huge gravitational well in a completely empty region. This gravitational well wouldn't actually draw surrounding matter to the center.
Because its central and boundary gravitational forces are equal, it can completely tear apart any matter that falls into its gravitational range.
This weapon's duration is divided into two stages.
One stage is the process of being fired and reaching the coordinates. During this stage, the negative energy within the entire negative energy super-long-range gravitational field is extremely stable. This stable state allows it to exist continuously.
The second stage is after hitting the target.
After contacting the target object, the negative energy within the negative energy super-long-range gravitational field will become unbalanced, thus greatly shortening its duration. From possibly lasting tens of thousands of years, it instantly drops to maintaining itself for one or two months.
And if this weapon encounters a large celestial body along the way, it will also significantly reduce its duration.
Fortunately, the universe is sufficiently empty. The probability of encountering another large celestial body in space is extremely low, though not as low as winning the lottery.
Quickly, the remaining 7 Fleets reacted and moved towards the negative energy super-long-range gravitational field. They wanted to break through.
This was the best opportunity.
"Full power collection. Don't think about saving energy at this point."
"Success or failure, it's either delicious shrimp or someone else's ration!"
The 7 Fleets retracted all bio-engineered warships into the dreadnoughts, and countless Swarms also rushed towards the dreadnoughts. However, they weren't resting; they directly collided with the dreadnoughts' energy absorption equipment, transforming into energy to power the dreadnoughts, forming a cycle.
The super-Swarm nests did the same.
However, the brain-worms, having been given Galactic Federation citizenship, could enter the dreadnoughts without transforming into pure energy.
The super-Swarm nest is essentially a small planet wrapped in a layer of flesh. Why were super-Swarm nests carried in the fleet?
Not only because the super-Swarm nest could rapidly produce a large number of Swarm units, but also because the super-Swarm nest itself was a supply and emergency food source.
A round of energy replenishment only took less than four days.
Then they rushed toward the very center of the negative energy super-long-range gravitational field.
The Filament civilization certainly noticed the movement of the Galactic Federation dreadnoughts. Except for the warships near the negative energy super-long-range gravitational field, the remaining warships began to attack.
These attacks were unlike any they had previously encountered. They were neutrino weapons.
In space battles, most weapons target warships because larger warships are easier to target, and warships have layered protection, making it difficult to target lifeforms inside.
However, using high-penetration neutrinos makes the warship's exterior irrelevant.
Did Type 2 Civilizations possess materials that could block neutrinos?
Of course, they did!
But using them on dreadnoughts wasn't ideal.
Dreadnoughts are too large. The cost of producing advanced materials is incredibly high, not to mention the research and development costs and time costs. Combined, the cost of a dreadnought would probably increase 34 times.
Therefore, dreadnoughts use ordinary materials.
These neutrinos, ignoring all obstacles, penetrated the warship's energy shields and then the hull, directly striking the lifeforms inside.
Normally, everything in the universe is constantly being penetrated by a large number of neutrinos, and the energy generated by neutrinos is too small to be felt.
But the Filament civilization's neutrinos are different. These neutrinos are special; they destroy everything they touch.
Because they have been modified into particles possessing a certain dynamic mass, and around each neutrino, some electrons are dispersed and entangled. These electrons should be locked by the material itself when penetrating an object, but the neutrinos directly pull these electrons along, penetrating the object.
It's not just a simple pull. These electrons are actually free electrons, disregarded by the material itself.
In short, this neutrino weapon directly penetrates matter and then living beings, using the energy of electrons to penetrate any object and cause damage.
In an instant, life within the dreadnought perished.
100,000?
1,000,000?
10,000,000?
Countless.
It was simply like a nightmare.
The mainframe quickly measured the attributes of these attacks and immediately implemented relevant defensive measures, releasing a weak force field to cover the dreadnought and lock the neutrinos.
Even though it was too late, the deaths within the warship reached 29 million. There were no wounds; just died.
There was no time for grief.
The Filament civilization's neutrino weapon seemed to be just a probing attack to reveal the weak force field.
After the weak force field appeared, large numbers of laser weapons were fired at the dreadnought.
A weak force field would necessarily consume resources from other defenses, weakening other protections.
Photons don't participate in weak interactions, so they could naturally seize the opportunity to attack, and it was possible to break through the dreadnought's defenses.
Fortunately, the dreadnought's defenses were thick enough to block most lasers.
However, this attack taught the Galactic Federation officers a lesson.
Regardless of the time or place, never underestimate your enemy.
The 7 dreadnoughts counterattacked. Dreadnoughts carry many new weapons, but often these new weapons can't be used as main weapons because not all new weapons have a high hit rate or great power.
But this counterattack proved highly effective.
The dreadnought's weapon looked like a sphere. It's a physical object, not energy. After being fired, its speed is only 40,000 km/s, and its diameter is 500 meters. It seems easy to intercept.
But after being fired, one sphere transforms into thousands of spheres, all the same size.
This doesn't follow the laws of physics!
But it does.
Because only one sphere is real; the rest are illusions.
The illusory spheres only have an outer layer. At close range, this is easy to distinguish, but on a space battlefield, distances are often tens or hundreds of AU. Normally, only light can be used to distinguish them, and even gravity isn't good enough; the gravitational pull of a 500-meter object is too small.
The Filament civilization concentrated fire on these spheres.
They couldn't determine what kind of weapons these spheres were, causing some confusion.
But they were not weapons at all; they were merely illusionary spheres. They had no offensive capabilities, but the enemy couldn't know that.
Therefore, the effect of this "weapon" was to divert the enemy's fire.
It worked. The appearance of such a thing on such a serious battlefield was surprisingly effective.
At the very least, it bought the Galactic Federation dreadnoughts several days.
This also meant that now the only thing on the minds of all Galactic Federation soldiers was: escape!