Chapter 380 Astrophage
The words of the Minister of Climate Change made Chen Ming stunned for a while.
He hadn't really considered the method the minister was talking about to determine what happened a few years ago, but it sounded like it would be fine.
Isn’t this how super-light technology should be used?
Previously, because the wormhole was located less than five light-years away from the galaxy, Chen Ming could only see the stars that had cooled down, and his thoughts did not change for a while.
But in the universe five light years away, everything is still the same as it was five years ago, and he can see what the stars used to be.
Although the accuracy of optical observations at such a distance is definitely not as good as that of close-range sensor scanning, it is definitely enough on the scale of stars.
After accepting the minister's suggestion, Chen Ming continued to ask the Climate Change Department to record planet data on the planet Gaia to prepare for subsequent climate change.
And he himself left the planet, boarded his own ship to the highest point, and jumped to a location about five light years away from the galaxy where the planet Gaia is located.
Since Chen Ming didn't know much about climate and the like, he could only roughly know that the dramatic change in Gaia's planet occurred about five years ago.
Therefore, the distance of his jump must not be that precise.
There is no way to jump precisely to the time when the star undergoes major changes.
But this doesn't affect anything. He only needs to point the ship's sensor towards the galaxy of the planet Gaia, and then make multiple jumps in a straight line to adjust the precise distance.
Soon, about 5.3 light-years away from the Gaia galaxy, something happened to the star that Chen Ming observed using an optical sensor.
This is where the light from 5.3 years ago now reaches.
Chen Ming saw a huge "flare" with a wake, heading straight from outside the galaxy toward the stars in the galaxy.
After processing the photos taken, the full picture of the flare appeared in front of him.
It wasn't a flare.
Rather, it is a giant creature with an appearance similar to that of a bacteriophage, a virus that eats bacteria.
It has an extremely regular icosahedral head like a bacteriophage, an extremely thick and long trunk that is different from the proportional structure of a bacteriophage, and six thick tails separated from the end of the trunk to support itself.
The flare quickly approached the star.
The seemingly extremely heavy beast did not sink directly into the star, but stood easily on the surface of the star, only piercing its six tails into the star.
Used to maintain the balance of its thick body and huge head.
At the bottom of its torso, a cone-shaped organ like the mouthparts of a mosquito gradually extended out, or it was probably some kind of tissue structure of the organ, piercing downwards into the star.
Immediately afterwards, a large amount of stellar material was pulled away from the star itself by a suction force and entered the body of the monster.
The light on its body is brighter, and material that seems to be flowing with the life force of stars is flowing on every edge of its head.
Even its size seemed to have increased a bit.
The temperature in this region of the star's surface drops almost visibly to the naked eye.
But this "bacteriophage" or "astrophage" was obviously not satisfied and continued to change its position on the surface of the star, devouring the star's material.
It is getting brighter and brighter, while the star itself is getting dimmer.
By comparing "flares" with the size of planets and stars.
It can be roughly deduced that this flare is almost half the size of the Nightmare of the Planes.
The flare that Chen Ming saw on the star before was at least as big as the nightmare of two planes.
Either the flare that Chen Ming saw was a real flare, and it was not the same thing as the monster that should be called "Astral Eater".
Either in the past five years, Astrophage has grown to its current size by relying on the energy of devouring stars.
The answer is self-evident.
Chen Ming let the highest point accelerate slightly and move forward.
This will speed up observations of astrophages, stars and the interior of galaxies.
It didn't take long for the astral phagocytosis to remove almost all the high-energy matter from the surface of the star. The originally bright star that could provide life for planets in the habitable zone no longer existed.
As the temperature of the star dropped, the originally blue and vibrant planet Gaia was completely frozen in just a few months.
Blizzards became a climate in which displacements of the planet's surface could be seen.
The planetary consciousness did not give up, but forcibly maintained the underground ecosystem until today.
After watching the whole process, Chen Ming couldn't help but sigh and said: "Here comes another one."
If he really wanted to count, he had already encountered three behemoths of this size.
A scavenger robot, a Planar Nightmare, and what he now observed was an Astrophag that existed to devour stars.
There's nothing more to say about that.
The nightmare of the plane has become a half-dimensional nightmare because it hindered his development.
This astral phagocytosis hindered his actions to restore the planet Gaia, and he was bound to follow in the footsteps of the Nightmare of the Planes.
Chen Ming had to find a way to lure out the astral phagocytosis that had now sneaked into the star and kill it.
Solve the star. Although the Gaia planet may not directly return to its original state, at least its environment will not continue to deteriorate, and the impact of the star's weakening on the planets within the galaxy will no longer continue to expand.
Chen Ming has already thought of a way to lure the Astral Devourer out.
Just use stellar matter.
Astralophages eat stars and must be well aware of the changes in stars.
If there is a disappearance of stellar material on a star for unknown reasons, as long as this astral phagocytosis has simple intelligence, it will definitely figure out the reason.
Chen Ming just mastered the method of transferring stellar material inside stars.
And it was what the mechanical tribe taught him before.
The machine race used a reverse matter jump device to transfer stellar matter from the star to their planet in an attempt to kill him.
Chen Ming lost one of his arms to the stellar material at that time, but he successfully controlled the device in his hands and mastered its manufacturing method.
Just in time to use it.
Although this reverse matter transition device has some shortcomings.
For example, when jumping matter, you can only jump to a larger place, and you can only jump to dead objects, and the energy consumption is extremely huge.
For example, it took the Mechanical Tribe how long it took to arrange it, and the device equipped with an anti-matter engine sent over less than half a cubic meter of stellar matter.
The effect can only be said to be average.
But Chen Ming is different. He has also mastered antimatter technology, and he also has a nearly unlimited energy supply.
As long as the device is activated long enough and a large amount of stellar matter is extracted, it will always be enough for the monster to discover it.
In addition, Chen Ming actually has another way to attract the appearance of Astrophage.
That is to wait first.
At this moment, there is another wormhole that has just left the black hole and is running here.
Chen Ming wants to see if the astral phagocytosis in the star will move after the wormhole arrives.
It would be best if it comes out because of the wormhole, but if it doesn't come out, Chen Ming really needs to prepare a device to transfer the star's material.
Chen Ming also considered the survivors.
They might also learn about this star-devouring monster.
After all, the black hole where the wormhole started is not even five light years away from this galaxy.
Even if the astral phagocytos arrived in this galaxy just five years ago, Chen Ming believes that the survivors who have been paying attention to the wormholes and the black holes next to the wormholes will definitely notice this astral phagocytosis in the nearby galaxy.
But Chen Ming did not go to them.
If there was a way out, he felt that he would try not to have anything to do with the survivors.
In his opinion, the purpose of the survivors is obvious, which is to revive a shining civilization.
They also knew that the Empire absolutely did not want to trade with them, and only wanted to take away all the relics belonging to the Shining Civilization in the hands of the survivors at once, whether it was technology or physical objects.
It's just that the empire and the survivors currently have their own needs, so they maintain a false peace.
Once an opportunity is found, both parties will try their best to send each other on their way.
That's why Chen Ming won't get too involved with them.
His butt is always in a human chair.
If he really needed it, the worst he could do was send the survivors away and just take it from their corpses.
Chen Ming did not continue to prepare more plans. The current several plans were enough.
He immediately began to lay out a plan to target the astral phagocytosis in the star.
Half a day passed quickly.
Chen Ming appeared on the Supreme Point that he handed over to the Department of Climate Change.
In order to prevent the researchers responsible for climate modification from encountering unknown dangers, he contacted the minister in advance and asked everyone who was out to be called back to the spacecraft.
At least the researchers should stay in a safe place until his first operation is over after the wormhole arrives.
The past half day was enough for them to obtain data for analyzing the situation of the planet Gaia.
The minister was waiting in the captain's cabin with Chen Ming.
He was an ordinary person, but he wanted to see something, so he specifically spoke to Chen Ming.
Chen Ming didn't mind being friendly to the people he worked with, so he stayed here specifically and chatted with the minister.
Anyway, he had already made complete preparations.
Not just facilities to extract star matter, but also fleets to deal with astral phagocytosis.
The Astral Eater is twice as big as the Plane Nightmare, so the fleet to deal with it will naturally need to be expanded.
In other words, just by stating the matter in one sentence, the Queen of Insects will prepare what needs to be prepared.
The same attack method should not be ineffective.
Let him see what is special about this astral eater compared to the nightmare of the plane.
The sensor's picture suddenly changed, and the wormhole had entered the observable range of the sensor.
Although he had seen this strange celestial body before, seeing a wormhole running around with his own eyes still shocked the minister next to Chen Ming.
He wanted to say something, but chose to stay quiet after noticing Chen Ming's serious expression. After the wormhole approached the Gaia galaxy, it began to slow down, gradually entered the interior of the galaxy, and entered an orbit around the star.
It enters an orbit that exactly corresponds to the orbit of the real planet Gaia around its star.
And it happens to be on the opposite side of the planet Gaia.
It's exactly like the other end of the wormhole.
The orbit of the wormhole at the other end is opposite an ordinary habitable ball, which Chen Ming calls Gaia.
The orbit at this end is opposite a real planet Gaia.
The wormhole just entered the orbit, like a celestial body that has always been here, without any further movement or sign of leaving again.
Chen Ming breathed a sigh of relief. At least it seemed that he would not need to continue tracking the wormhole in the short term, or find a way to lock the wormhole in place.
But he can't relax now, his target is Astrophag.
However.
Even if the wormhole entered the galaxy and entered the orbit just like the astral phagocytosis once entered the galaxy, it was just like this.
Judging from the data returned by Chen Ming's sensing equipment deployed near the star to cover all aspects of the star.
There are no signs of any flares on the star's surface, nor are there any traces of astrophages.
Stars are still very stable, with stable low temperatures,
The arrival of the wormhole didn't seem to excite it.
It seems that Chen Ming still has to use the means he personally prepared.
But just before Chen Ming really made a move.
The communicator on his body suddenly rang.
It was the survivors who initiated the communication.
Chen Ming picked up the communicator and looked at it. There was only one sentence on it: "We want to ask one thing. Have you seen the Star Eater?"
Chen Ming frowned and chose to respond with silence.
Sure enough, the survivors themselves explained why they knew this: "We are paying attention to many things, especially the wormhole leading to our original world."
"So?"
"We can provide you with some information about Star Eater, such as its weaknesses."
Before the survivors continued to state their transaction conditions, Chen Ming refused directly: "No need."
Chen Ming's plan is half ready. There is no way he can follow the rhythm of the survivors.
Moreover, the last time he fought against the Nightmare of the Planes, he didn't even come up with any tricks to defeat the enemy. This time, the Star Eater is even more impossible.
This time the communication ended at the speed of light.
In the pitch-black space station of the Remnant.
The arm shining with two metallic colors, smooth and rusty, put down the communicator that had just been turned off.
Another voice came from the darkness: "You went too far last time and this time, which made Chen Ming unnecessary vigilance."
The survivor with the codename "Nano" responded: "It is this kind of vigilance that will make humans think in the wrong direction."
"There are still many guardians wandering in different locations in this star field. Sooner or later, he will need us."
The Remnant space station fell into dead silence again.
Chen Ming couldn't help but frown at this time, holding the communicator and staring at the two sentences above, thinking continuously.
He rejected the Survivor's deal for other reasons besides the fact that he had indeed prepared the means but had not yet used them.
Because he sensed trouble and danger from the survivors.
Not a perceived danger, but a simple perceived danger.
Why could they contact him just when he was about to cause trouble?
How did they see what was happening here?
What methods are they using to monitor this galaxy, or rather, monitor him?
Optical sensing can’t be that fast
What happens five light-years away takes five years to detect.
The only way the Survivor would know that he encountered Astrophage is because there was some kind of monitoring system installed somewhere nearby.
But Chen Ming couldn't find the monitoring equipment, and he didn't feel like he was being spied on.
His intuition can help him perceive many situations that are sometimes impossible to observe with the naked eye. For example, people looking at him from behind will be easily discovered by his perception.
But he had no sense of the survivors' monitoring methods.
Just like Chen Ming couldn't track the signal sent by the communicator before.
Or he's not strong enough anymore.
Otherwise there is no need to consider this issue at all.
But no matter what, no matter what happens outside, what impact it has.
He must do whatever needs to be done.
Chen Ming's psychic energy fluctuations swept across the entire galaxy, and after finding no problems, he activated the reverse material jump device.
Start to jump out the stellar matter in the star.
Compared with those swallowed by the astral phagocytosis, what Chen Ming took out at this time could only be regarded as drizzle.
Moreover, within a few seconds of Chen Mingcai starting the device, only a little bit of stellar material jumped out.
The faint stars in the galaxy show signs of violent activity on their surfaces.
I don’t know if Chen Ming has drawn more important substances with more energy, or if he has drawn the energy of the astral phagocytosis.
In short, Astrophage is indeed in a hurry.
As intense activity on the star's surface became increasingly apparent, a bright spot of light appeared on the sensor.
After slightly modifying the sensor data, the appearance of the astral phagolith appeared in front of Chen Ming.
In the meantime, it poked out half of its body and a tentacle-like tail from inside the star,
The tip of its tail points toward a region of space where stellar material is escaping.
A ray that seemed to eject stellar matter penetrated the device Chen Ming Chen Ming arranged to extract stellar matter in space, directly destroying it.
The next moment, having achieved its goal, Astrophage wanted to turn around and return to the star.
But Chen Ming's fleet, which had been prepared long ago, jumped to the vicinity of the star at the moment the ray was emitted.
Even though the heat of the star is extremely terrifying, the armor of the biological fleet has the ability to isolate plasma.
The star itself is a huge plasma.
As long as it does not directly enter the interior of the star, the temperature outside the star alone cannot threaten the Zerg fleet.
The Zerg fleet is still the same as before, consisting of pure Hercules class, numbering two hundred.
It's not too much, because the first wave of attacks is still just a test.
Since the last time Chen Ming launched an attack on the Nightmare of the Plane, and the Nightmare of the Plane released some kind of super-wide attack, Chen Ming had already made up his mind.
Any time he fights against this type of enemy, he must test it out first to avoid unnecessary losses.
Although the loss was meaningless to Chen Ming, Chen Ming still chose to maintain this habit.
And just like last time, the Zerg fleet prepared a large number of different types of weapons to test the damage of the astral phagocyte itself to different types of weapons.
When Star Eater had just finished his rays and turned around to return to the star
The Zerg fleet's various weapons attacks fell on the body and tail that had not completely sunk into the star.
The tail was broken directly, and the icosahedron on the head was directly penetrated, leaving countless wounds on the body.
A large amount of stellar material is ejected from the wound of the astral phagocytosis, spilling into space and towards the star.
The results of all weapon tests were immediately returned to Chen Ming.
It can be seen that neither live ammunition weapons nor energy weapons perform very well when facing this kind of creature that can live in stars.
Live ammunition weapons will be melted by the terrifying high temperature, and energy weapons will also be offset by the high energy of the star.
But the effect of arc weapons is still powerful. This kind of direct damage derived from the concept of radiation has a good effect when facing any enemy.
Whether it was the penetrated head or the broken tail, they were all the results of arc weapons.
At this time, the injured Astrophage did not hide directly in the star, but climbed out of the star.
The light on its body is flashing at an extremely high frequency, as if it is roaring angrily with this strong light.
The wounds on its icosahedral head recovered quickly, and the broken tail also grew back at a speed visible to the naked eye, and all the tail tips were aimed at Chen Ming's Zerg fleet at the same time.
Chen Ming's eyes just glanced at the weapon's actual combat data and the angry astral eater.
His attention was drawn to the condition of the star itself.
Because he suddenly discovered that some of the attacks by the Zerg fleet just now did not fall directly on the astral phagocytos, but on the stars.
This is a normal situation, but what is abnormal is that the attack methods that fall into the star seem to have penetrated a barrier.
The energy inside the star is dissipated through the penetrated barrier.
Chen Ming could see that the material inside the star still maintained high energy.
Although it is definitely weaker than before, compared to the almost "cold" star surface, the energy inside the star is still barely enough to maintain a normal cosmic environment.
Chen Ming understood.
Astrophages don't really drain stars of energy.
It does draw away a lot of star energy, but it also secretes or produces some kind of material, covering the surface of the star.
These materials restrict the star's energy from escaping outward and concentrate the energy inside, where the astral phagocytosis can be used for its own use.
It's like a Dyson sphere.
This was once a purely theoretical idea of a means of collecting all the energy of a star.
Part of it is now being realized by such a giant beast deep in the starry sky.
There was no time for Chen Ming to think too much.
Because at this time, the Astral Eater's counterattack had already arrived in front of the Zerg fleet.
(End of chapter)