The Gap Isn't That Big?

Rumble~

The intense sonic booms continuously assaulted Lu Bai's eardrums.

If an ordinary person were in Lu Bai's current position, they would probably bleed from their ears and lose their hearing in less than a second.

But Lu Bai acted as if nothing was wrong, showing no intention of slowing down despite the increasingly strong winds.

At supersonic speeds, the troposphere flashes by and the stratospheric region begins to emerge.

In the stratosphere, where airflow is predominantly horizontal, the ability to "Wind Riding" becomes even more effective, and Lu Bai's ascent speed not only does not decrease, but actually becomes slightly faster.

As for the temperature gradually dropping to minus thirty or forty degrees Celsius, after Lu Bai switched to the [Steel Body] ability, there was no need to worry about it anymore.

Feeling the temperature around him gradually rise, this temperature inversion, coupled with the outline of the planet appearing before him, made Lu Bai realize that he was already nearly fifty kilometers above the ground.

Unbeknownst to him, the pressure of ascent suddenly decreased, and Lu Bai no longer hesitated, accelerating and soaring to the altitude of near-Earth orbit in one go.

Without a doubt, in an environment with no obstruction, he could spot the Mona people interstellar warships at a glance.

The distance is still quite far, estimated to be over two thousand kilometers.

Of course, in the environment of outer space, space seems to be stretched out, and compared to the distance between planets, a distance of several thousand kilometers is practically within reach.

However, thanks to this distance, Lu Bai was able to clearly see the entirety of the Mona people warship.

It was a huge cylinder.

The tail thrusters don't seem too difficult to understand, at least not to the point of being science fiction.

If Lu Bai had casually brought over a professional aerospace technician, they would have been able to identify it as a highly efficient Fission Thruster.

Its design alone might inspire human professionals and significantly improve human space technology.

Unfortunately, Lu Bai didn't consider this aspect; otherwise, he would have at least taken a picture first.

What truly caught Lu Bai's attention were the four panels at the front of the interstellar warship.

Each of these four panels is enormous; if unfolded, each one would probably be larger than the main body of a starship.

These boards are folded together to form a square opening, with one end of the opening pointing towards the Earth.

Without a doubt, the dark red, high-temperature beam of light that had been emitted earlier came from this square opening.

It's not that the power wasn't enough, but rather that it took equipment even larger than the main body of a starship to create a high-temperature confinement ray with an evaporation diameter of three kilometers. Doesn't that seem a bit strange?

It was so bizarre, it was like someone was carrying a Gatling gun and shooting out a small spray of water.

Seeing this, Lu Bai frowned slightly.

No, that's not right.

Lu Bai gradually formed a conjecture.

Even though he wasn't very knowledgeable about aerospace technology, he knew that among the challenges of human spaceflight, besides energy, another key issue was heat dissipation.

For large mechanical equipment such as aircraft carriers, airplanes, and tanks, heat dissipation is not an issue.

Because both air and seawater can easily dissipate the waste heat, there is no need to consider dealing with it.

However, space is different. In a vacuum environment, the only way to dissipate heat is through thermal radiation.

Clearly, the Mona people's technology was not advanced enough to perfectly utilize energy without generating waste heat.

Currently, it seems that these four enormous panels are actually the cooling system for the Mona people interstellar warship?

In other words, that attack that threw the human Combat Command Center into panic and caused utter chaos among countless people at the Forward Base...

Essentially, is it just a cooling method used by the Mona people interstellar warships?

The four enormous panels, now unfolded again, faintly glowed a reddish hue from the intense heat, further confirming Lu Bai's guess.

This is terrifying even for humans.

While human spacefaring scientists were still researching how to save space in heat dissipation equipment, the Mona people had already been able to reuse the waste heat generated by the energy consumption of interstellar warships, and even use it as a considerable form of attack.

This gap is truly disheartening.

Even if it hasn't reached the point of perfectly utilizing all energy, this method doesn't seem too far off.

But Lu Bai overlooked one point.

When even he could guess the effects of these devices, it meant that the technological development of the Mona people had not diverged from the direction of human research.

In this way, at most there will be a technological gap, but the development path will remain the same.

Given enough time, humanity can completely catch up with the Mona people by using their equipment.

The only question is, if we measure the gap in years, how many years exactly is there now?

"Ignoring the cutting-edge technology acquired from Deathmatch Showdown, based on our current or soon-to-be-realized technologies, the technological gap is probably within a century."

Combat Command Room.

On the huge central screen, images of low Earth orbit provided by wartime satellites are displayed.

Based on the appearance of this interstellar warship and the results of heat source detection, the technicians in white coats gave this answer.

It was noticeable that the person in the white coat couldn't hide the smile on their face as they said this.

There was no other way; at first, we thought the gap between us and the Mona people was so vast that they couldn't comprehend it, and that we would be powerless to fight back.

But now it seems that the Mona people are nothing special.

After listening quietly to the researchers, a soft cheer erupted in the Combat Command Room.

Admittedly, there are still gaps, but they are not without ways to bridge them.

This battle is fightable, and there's even a chance of winning!

This idea persisted until, in the scene where Lu Bai single-handedly crashed through the interstellar warship.

Numerous warship wreckages were scattered and suspended in space. The interstellar warship that Lu Bai had smashed into two pieces by relying on his [Steel Body] emitted countless arcs of electricity and sparks from the broken pieces.

From a distance, it looks like a pile of space debris.

Holding his breath, Lu Bai headed straight for the driver's seat.

He had never been on such a starship before, so he didn't know where the cockpit was and had to search several places.

This made the interstellar warships, which he had already wrecked, even more scattered.

He eventually found the driver's seat.

Inside the driver's cab, there were only two people with terrified expressions.

Yes, humans.

From the colorful lights floating above their heads, Lu Bai could easily tell that they were two Mona Warriors.

He grabbed one in each hand.

They read their thoughts without hesitation.

In the blink of an eye, he learned the answer he wanted to know.

That's right, these weren't the first Mona people to arrive.

This warship is merely equipment left behind when the Mona people descended upon Earth four hundred years ago.