Light Speed ​​War

Chapter 205: A Parting is Inevitable

When the president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Kofi, personally informed her of this cosmic situation, one can imagine her astonishment. But Huo Jing is Huo Jing after all; she seemed to already have this vague, virtual concept, so she accepted it very quickly.

"Virtual universe? Three major mechanisms? How can I avoid them? Since the dean said that deception can be used, how can I deceive people during time travel?"

That night, Huo Jing lay in bed, pondering this question repeatedly.

Zeus, the god-king of the Martian race, and Smith, the president of the Earth's human race, finally sat down at a table and, witnessed by the "extraterrestrial visitor" sage Zhou Yuan, jointly signed a cooperation alliance agreement.

The Protoss and Terran races share technology and establish a joint laboratory, reaching a comprehensive agreement on a wide range of areas including interstellar travel, warship manufacturing, interstellar communication, energy development, intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence, environmental governance, geothermal tourism, and commodity trading.

Just as Zhou Yuan said, the gods and humans are highly complementary. With proper guidance and technological assistance, the creativity and innovation of the human race can be rapidly brought into play.

After Zhou Yuan returned to the headquarters of the Nine Stars Sun-Circling Fleet from Earth, he received another urgent call from Huo Jing.

"Director Huo, do you have a solution?"

"saint..."

"Director Huo, please just call me Zhou Yuan."

"Then you should call me Huo Jing too." Huo Jing smiled mischievously.

"Professor Huo, I hope you can give me good news this time."

"Brother Zhou... Brother Zhou..." Huo Jing blushed, "Brother Zhou, I've thought of a way, and I hope you can talk to the Commander-in-Chief and the Dean about it."

"Hmm. You tell me first."

"Isn't the combined fleet going on an expedition the day after tomorrow? I want to take advantage of this opportunity."

"I understand, this is a good idea." Zhou Yuan thought to himself, Huo Jing is indeed different from others.

"Brother Zhou, you agree?"

"Let me think about it." Zhou Yuan knew what Huo Jing meant. Huo Jing used the hybrid fleet to launch an expedition. She moved the time machine into the hybrid fleet. When the hybrid fleet fought with the Overlord, the hybrid fleet destroyed stars. The energy of the destroyed stars could activate the time machine. Time travel would have already happened before the galaxy was cleared by the virtual universe. After the galaxy was cleared, nothing would be left. This way, the virtual universe mechanism could be fooled.

"But Professor Huo, according to your theory, after time travel, the three-dimensional space of the universe will either rebuild a parallel world or merge into an existing parallel world. If a parallel world is rebuilt, wouldn't it be discovered by the virtual universe?"

“Brother Zhou, I’ve thought about this carefully and discussed it with my colleagues for a long time. Here’s the thing: if we control the energy input to the time machine, we can choose whether to create a new parallel world or integrate into an existing one.”

"What happens after it's integrated into an existing parallel world?"

"Later we can change that parallel world, just like you came to our parallel world and changed our world."

"Then how do we get back to this world? With so many parallel worlds, won't something go wrong?"

"After we activate the time machine, it will enter a shrinking and expanding four-dimensional space. We will use the main characteristics of this parallel world as constraints and boundary conditions, just like human DNA, to mark it with special information. When we return, we will input these characteristics, and the four-dimensional space channel will be unique, while other channels will be closed."

"Okay, even if we solve the problem of returning to our destination in this world, how do we determine the timing of our return?"

"Yes, there is this problem. Since the feature information we input cannot be the features of all points in time, the time when we return to this world may have a time difference of thousands or tens of thousands of years. If we want to precisely control the time when we return to this world, we must know all the features of this world, which is impossible."

"So when we return, on your planet, will humans still be apes?"

"Hmm, that seems possible."

"Then, if we return and—and I mean if—eliminate all the apes, wouldn't the grandfather paradox reappear?"

“Brother Zhou, let me think. Well, you know, this universe is strictly controlled by the law of causality, so this situation is impossible. I think there are three possibilities. The first possibility is that the history of this world has been altered because of our time travel, and when we return, this world is no longer the world we want. The second possibility is that we returned to our world, but the point in time we returned to is a future point in time in this world, calculated based on the time we spent in another world. We cannot return to the past of this world. The third possibility is that we can never return to this world at all.”

"Then, in the best-case scenario, wouldn't the second possibility be the best-case scenario?"

"Yes."

"If that's the case, then it seems to make sense."

Zhou Yuan fell into deep thought. Suddenly, an unusual smile appeared on his face, and Huo Jing seemed to feel a chill.

“Professor Huo, to prevent this parallel world from being destroyed or its history from being altered, let’s do this: the time machine will be tested in another parallel world far away from this one. You, me, and the others don’t need to test the time machine ourselves. We will send our clones, clones with our complete memories, to test this time machine.”

Huo Jing thought about it and decided that this was the best plan, so she nodded.

The hybrid fleet, carrying clones and intelligent machines, took off normally and began its journey.

Two months after the hybrid fleet departed, a special fleet from the Earth Empire—a miniature version of the Earth Empire's AI fleet—carrying a time machine, high-ranking imperial officials, scientists, clones of Zhou Yuan, Panna, Chu Xiaolu, Huo Jing, and others, as well as intelligent robots and various weapons, embarked on a hyperspace journey towards a distant parallel world. The Earth Empire referred to this fleet as Time Fleet One.

Two months after Time Fleet One set sail, Time Fleet Two, also departing, set off for another parallel world.

Thus, with a two-month interval, the six time fleets created by the Earth Empire were dispatched to six different, distant parallel worlds. The flight directions of these six time fleets were basically centered on the location of the Earth Empire, forming the three orthogonal axes of a Cartesian coordinate system.

In 44856 AD, the Extraterrestrial Eye observed a battle between the Hybrid Fleet and the Overlord Fleet in a star system within this miniature world. After the Hybrid Fleet used interstellar catapults to attack the Overlord Fleet, the star system, like a switch, was extinguished and vanished. The Empire could no longer detect any information, nor did it detect any hyperspace oscillations. It seemed that the Overlord Fleet and the Hybrid Fleet were wiped out along with the star system by this virtual universe. This confirmed the possibility of using the cleansing mechanism of this virtual universe to launch long-range devastating strikes against enemies.

In 44859 AD, the joint fleet of Mars and Earth encountered the Gliese replicator fleet seven light-years from the solar system. A fierce battle ensued, and the replicator army devoured all the warships of the combined Protoss and Terran fleet, leaving no survivors. The replicator fleet continued its advance, heading towards the five nine-star orbiting solar systems.

The Earth Empire, having reached its limit of tolerance, dispatched a fleet that traveled through hyperspace and appeared directly near the planet Gliese. The sniper ship launched a sudden attack on Gliese, completely destroying the planet and annihilating all Gliese replicants.

The replicator fleet, which was heading towards the Nine Stars Orbiting the Sun System, was met by a replicator army fleet that was even more powerful than itself. The Imperial Fleet Replicator Fleet was a modular and intelligent manufacturing system.

As the Gliese replicator warships disintegrated, preparing to pounce on the Imperial replicator warships, the Imperial replicator warships also disintegrated. The replicators charged at each other, and after a fierce collision, the Imperial fleet's replicators pierced through the Gliese replicators, devouring them and replicating themselves. They then continued forward, colliding violently with the next wave of Gliese replicators, devouring them, and replicating again. The number of Imperial replicators increased, while the number of Gliese replicators decreased. After nearly four hours of fighting, the Imperial replicator army achieved a complete victory. The replicators reassembled, automatically forming warships, and triumphantly returned to the Nine Stars Orbiting the Sun System base.

The Martian gods and the Earth humans celebrated the destruction of the formidable enemy, the Gliese replicator. Of course, they also knew that if it weren't for the intervention of the "extraterrestrials," their fate would likely have been the same as the replicator's.

With the replicators no longer a major threat, the Martian gods and the Earth humans began to form a joint fleet, freely navigating and jointly exploring interstellar space in the Milky Way.

In 44861 AD, the "visitors from outer space" returned the superhumans to the human race on Earth. The human race held a grand welcoming ceremony and accepted these superhumans. Names such as Dora, Cruz, Alton, and the trench coat beauty were written into the history of the human race.

Linghu Guang and Linghu Ying reorganized X-WORD Company and continued to invest in research on time travel. Although Professor Huo Jing was not involved, the brother and sister believed that with the creativity of the human race, it would be realized sooner or later. This was their belief.

Huo Jing, driven by her unwavering beliefs and yearning for scientific exploration, remained at the Earth Empire Academy of Sciences to continue her research on spacetime, and of course, on this virtual universe. Her four human colleagues and assistants, however, left the Academy and returned to their home planet.

When Zhou Yuan informed Zeus and Smith that the Earth Empire was leaving the star system, Zeus and Smith remained silent.

"Gentlemen, as you know, the Dominator Fleet was destroyed last time. However, after discussions among the Empire's high command, we feel it is necessary to locate the Dominator's headquarters. This Dominator has always been a major threat to you. We must eliminate this problem."

Zeus and Smith were somewhat reluctant to hear Zhou Yuan's words, but he was telling the truth. If the Overlord were to send another fleet, the gods and humans would not be able to withstand it, and Zhou Yuan and the others could not protect them forever.

Mars and Earth held grand welcoming ceremonies. Zhou Yuan, Pan Na, and Chu Xiaolu were broadcasting live simultaneously from both planets aboard the Little Bee spaceship. Zhou Yuan waved to the cameras from the spaceship's hatch, flashing his signature charming smile. The Little Bee spaceship accelerated and then disappeared into the sky.

Linghu Ying stared at the television screen, tears streaming down her face. "Zhou Yuan, I must find you," she vowed silently.

A year later, on the surfaces of Mars and Earth, stood golden, full-body statues, each over two hundred meters tall, with Zhou Yuan's smile etched onto them.

Four years later, the five nine-star orbiting system disappeared from the telescopes of the Protoss and Terran, and those five bright stars could no longer be seen at night.