On the 'Trisolaris' planet, two of its three stars had completed the initial construction of Dyson spheres.
Densely packed Dyson rings encircled the surfaces of the stars, absorbing thermal energy and converting it into various forms of mechanical energy.
Although it was impossible to carry out deep modifications from the surface to the core as one could with an ordinary planet, merely absorbing the surface's thermal energy was enough to provide mechanical power for an entire star system.
And around the stars, there were tens of thousands of space structures.
In theory, this should have been an important target for the Virus Mechanical army.
And so it was.
The ten Virus Mechanical legions had long since completed more than 50% of their mechanical hacks, cutting off the energy transmission systems within.
But at this moment, some invisible structure unfolded in the corona, like a massive net, binding the boiling nuclear fusion reactions to precise orbits.
The originally chaotic magnetic fields were combed into orderly conduction paths. Charged particle streams no longer erupted randomly, but surged along preset channels, forming logic-gate arrays.
Photons no longer escaped chaotically. They were captured, stored, and released, forming a dynamic storage medium across the scorching surface. Every ray of radiation carried data.
The balance between gravity and fusion pressure was broken. The core trembled under controlled compression, and every helium flash was like a massively parallel computation.
This planet had now entered 'thinking mode'.
Or, to put it another way, central processing unit mode.
Likewise, in another galaxy on the battlefield—
Within a nebula spanning hundreds of astronomical units, the particles of the nebula no longer drifted aimlessly. Instead, they were precisely arranged into some enormous display matrix.
The charged clouds of hydrogen and helium were divided into blocks by magnetic fields, storing dynamic