The central region of the M87 galaxy.
One hundred thousand light-years from the Neutral Faction's safe zone.
A spacetime fluctuation rippled through the area, and more than a dozen distorted, spherical gray shadow structures appeared in the observable universe.
The gray shadow structures drifted slowly, sending encrypted tachyon messages out in every direction.
[The quark fortress has been destroyed. The Cleaners' M87 branch is now losing ground.] [But we have paid a heavy price as well...] [That price is acceptable if it ensures the successful execution of the annihilation plan.] [...]
After a long silence, more tachyon messages arrived.
[Not long ago, the Saikol Civilization's starships left the safe zone.] [They left the safe zone? Where did they go?] [According to our reconnaissance, those starships briefly left the M87 galaxy.] [They left the M87 galaxy... could the Silicon-Based Alliance be up to something?] [A high-priority request for assistance came in from Andromeda a while ago. Could it be related to this?] [Possibly... let's investigate, just to be safe.] [But the war with the Cleaners isn't completely over yet. We...] [We have already established a substantial advantage. Besides, reinforcements from the surrounding small galaxies are arriving constantly. Nothing will go wrong.]
Spacetime, which had only just settled down, began to fluctuate again.
The dozen or so gray shadow structures vanished from the observable universe once more.
Elsewhere.
Inside the Human Federation fleet's micro-universe.
Sitting in his office, Lü Yongchang was still repeating the tedious work of checking the data.
He had no leads whatsoever.
There were simply no phenomena related to dimensional changes within the quasar's structure!
Lü Yongchang's brow furrowed tightly, and a rare look of defeat appeared on his face.
Could the research be heading in the wrong direction?
*Was the foundational technology of