As Xiao Yu’s fleet approached the critical point with less than thirty seconds remaining, he watched in horror as the strange creature leapt upward.
The surface gravity of the white dwarf, depending on its mass, was approximately ten million to one billion tis Earth’s gravity.
This particular white dwarf’s gravity was about twenty million tis that of Earth. Under such extre conditions, no known material could maintain its structural integrity. Even the strongest substances would be reduced to their most basic components—atoms.
On the white dwarf, molecular structures couldn’t even exist.
Thus, on the surface of the white dwarf, there was no difference between diamond and graphite. Both would exist solely as carbon atoms—not molecules, just atoms.
Yet, in this extre environnt, the bizarre and powerful creature jumped to a height of over 150,000 kiloters in one bound!
The creature stood at least 500 kiloters tall, with arms spanning over 400 kiloters when outstretched. Its claws alone were tens of kiloters long.
Despite its imnse size, the creature’s agility was unhindered. Its jumping power was far beyond anything achievable by a spaceship engine. Xiao Yu observed that its takeoff speed had reached an astonishing 6,000 kiloters per second!
Such an incredible force, if exerted on Earth, would likely push the planet millions of kiloters off its orbit—or even destroy it entirely.
Only an object as dense and massive as a white dwarf could withstand such a trendous impact.
The creature was now ascending rapidly. If nothing unexpected occurred, in twenty-five seconds, it would reach a height of 150,000 kiloters and capture Xiao Yu’s fleet in its massive claws.
“What… what is this monster? How could such a powerful being exist in the universe?” Xiao Yu was utterly stunned, his mind overwheld by the spectacle of this creature’s leap.
This was the surface of a white dwarf! With gravity twenty million tis that of Earth! Not only had it maintained its integrity, but it also managed to leap to a height of 150,000 kiloters!
Even in his wildest, most daring imaginings, Xiao Yu could never have conceived of such a scene.
This was beyond the limits of Xiao Yu’s comprehension.
He watched in shock as the strange creature approached his fleet.
By now, due to continuous leakage, the fifty county-class ships still carried approximately 80 million tons of liquid deuterium.
Xiao Yu was now certain that the exquisite structures and lightweight robots he had seen earlier were all illusions—fabrications created by this creature to lure him into a trap.
All of it was to make him believe it was a highly advanced technological civilization.
Its true purpose was to use him to transport this deuterium!
There was no way Xiao Yu would let it succeed!
Yet, faced with this bizarre and powerful creature, Xiao Yu was helpless. He didn’t believe that any of his weapons—gravitational bombs, laser cannons, or even hydrogen bombs—could harm a creature capable of surviving on the surface of a white dwarf.
In that instant, Xiao Yu’s mind was stretched to its breaking point.
Xiao Yu’s fleet was traveling at a speed of 12,000 kiloters per second toward the white dwarf, set to reach the critical point in twenty-five seconds. At that point, the fleet would bypass the white dwarf and continue forward.
The strange creature’s takeoff speed of 6,000 kiloters per second ant it would also reach the critical point in twenty-five seconds. This timing implied that the creature would catch the fleet at its closest approach to the white dwarf. At that mont, the 80 million tons of deuterium would fall into the creature’s hands!
This strange creature had sched and waited for over a century, undoubtedly for a monuntal goal. The nearly 100 million tons of deuterium must be of imnse importance to it.
If it succeeded in obtaining the deuterium, Xiao Yu couldn’t predict what might happen next, but he was certain it wouldn’t bode well for him.
Ti: 25 seconds remaining.
25 seconds until the creature could seize 70 million tons of deuterium.
“Explode! Explode!” At this mont, Xiao Yu roared.
He had devised a plan.
With his command, countless containers of liquid deuterium suddenly ruptured simultaneously. Under the intense radiation of the white dwarf, the deuterium rapidly heated up, gushing out from the fractured ships and transforming into dense clouds of vapor.
Within 25 seconds, the deuterium reserves aboard the fifty county-class ships were reduced by 50%, leaving only 35 million tons.
As for whether this vaporized deuterium would be accessible to the strange creature, Xiao Yu could no longer concern himself.
With the reduction in mass, the fleet’s velocity instantly increased by several hundred kiloters per second.
And so, a fraction of a second before the strange creature reached the critical point, Xiao Yu’s fleet had already passed through. When the creature reached the critical point, the fleet had moved tens of kiloters ahead.
In the vast scale of the universe, a distance of tens of kiloters is like the width of a hair.
Yet, this hair’s breadth was enough to save Xiao Yu from defeat!
Xiao Yu watched as the massive claws of the strange creature swiped through space, missing his fleet by the narrowest of margins. The creature failed to catch them!
At the critical mont, Xiao Yu’s fleet successfully escaped!
“No! You damned technological civilization! I will kill you and exterminate your kind!” Xiao Yu received a long, enraged roar.
Amid the creature’s furious howls, Xiao Yu’s fleet sped away at 13,000 kiloters per second.
“Finally, finally, we’ve escaped. It didn’t catch us,” Xiao Yu exhaled slightly in relief.
The next mont, Xiao Yu saw the creature’s upward montum finally falter. It began to fall back toward the white dwarf.
The first cosmic velocity (orbital velocity) of the white dwarf was 6,500 kiloters per second. Despite the creature’s trendous leap, its initial speed was only 6,000 kiloters per second, 500 kiloters short of the orbital velocity. This ant it couldn’t escape the white dwarf’s gravitational pull and would inevitably fall back after exhausting its strength.
Xiao Yu watched as the imnse gravitational pull of the white dwarf dragged the creature back at incredible speed. In just over ten seconds, it crashed onto the surface of the white dwarf.
The impact caused a slight tremor across the entire star—a negligible movent.
At the impact site, Xiao Yu observed that the previously smooth and hard surface of the white dwarf had been struck, creating a massive crater. The energy released from the collision was equivalent to a hydrogen bomb with a yield of ten trillion tons of TNT.
Such was the imnse energy unleashed by the impact.
“Could such a massive explosion kill it?” Xiao Yu harbored a sliver of hope. Yet, in the next instant, that hope turned to shock.
Xiao Yu saw the creature flip itself upright from the crater and stand on the surface of the white dwarf, raising its arms and pointing toward space.
By now, Xiao Yu’s fleet had escaped to a distance of hundreds of thousands of kiloters. At this range, the fleet finally succumbed to the overwhelming acceleration and the white dwarf’s imnse gravity. Xiao Yu watched as the fifty county-class ships exploded.
In the vacuum of space, fifty blinding flashes of light blood, and within monts, the fifty ships were reduced to wreckage.
So debris, drawn by the white dwarf’s gravity, began plumting toward its surface.
Each fragnt’s impact released an energy equivalent to at least a ten-million-ton hydrogen bomb. The specialized steel Xiao Yu had painstakingly refined was instantly assimilated upon impact with the white dwarf.
The titanium, zirconium, carbon, tungsten, and other elents infused into the steel were separated, and these elents, along with the iron, were further broken down into individual atoms, rging into the white dwarf and vanishing.
Following the county-class ships were over a thousand town- and village-class ships. They t the sa fate, exploding and crashing into the white dwarf before being assimilated.
By this point, Xiao Yu’s expeditionary fleet was entirely destroyed, except for a few ships that had remained safely at a distance of ten million kiloters.
Through these few surviving ships, Xiao Yu continued to monitor the events.
He saw the strange creature running and leaping across the surface of the white dwarf. Each leap reached heights of thousands of kiloters, but every ti, the white dwarf’s imnse gravity pulled it back down.
As the creature raged and roared, Xiao Yu received a ssage saturated with fury.
“If I hadn’t been gravely injured by the Taihao Civilization, how could this tiny white dwarf possibly trap ?”
“If the red dwarf’s matter wasn’t instantly assimilated by the white dwarf, depriving of sufficient fuel, why would I have stooped to deceiving such a weak civilization?”
“Thirty thousand years ago, I failed once. Now, I’ve failed again. Why?! Why?!”
“I refuse to accept this! I refuse to accept this!”
On the white dwarf, the powerful and strange creature roared in fury.
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