The fleet followed the Heavenly Peak Civilization's warships for hundreds of light-years. Sure enough, there was a passage here. However, countless warships of all kinds and space-based defense systems were gathered at the entrance of the passage. It is no exaggeration to say that not even a fly could fly through here, if flies could fly in the stars.
" Tian Feng, what are you doing bringing humans here?"
They want to go to the Matter River.
"Even if they went to the Matter River, what could they possibly achieve? They'd just be throwing their lives away. Do you think they could get what even our civilization can't?"
" The Demon Scorpion have the right to explore the Matter River; whether they gain anything is none of our concern."
"Hmph, reaching the Small Star Sector Civilization in just tens of thousands of years—their arrogance will teach them a lesson."
"Alright, Demon Scorpion, stop being so prejudiced against civilizations with potential. You broke the rules last time the Xuan Star Civilization was besieged by the Zerg swarm, are you going to break them again now?"
" The Xuan Star Civilization does indeed have the capability to fight the Zerg swarm, so it's not like I'm breaking the rules. As for potential? There have been many civilizations with potential over the past billions of years, but how many have survived? I'm doing this for their own good, to prevent them from going to their deaths so early."
"Alright, open the passage and let the humans pass."
"Alright—I'd like to see if humanity really has that much potential."
Upon receiving the order, the fleet quickly maneuvered in all directions, creating a gap of several million kilometers, large enough for the Reaper fleet to pass through.
"Humans, the passage is open. Please proceed quickly. There is a buffer zone within several hundred light-years of the defensive line, where there are generally no Zerg swarms. I can only take you this far. From here on, we cannot help you with your life or death. Good luck."
"Thank you, sir. Goodbye."
One hundred thousand Reaper disguised as insects passed through the passage and entered the other side of the galaxy. From a distance, the stars here seemed dimmer.
The fleet broke formation, scattering randomly in the air like insects, and sailed into the distance. The high-level insects were no slower than the civilized fleets, and their energy control and utilization efficiency even surpassed that of the civilized warships.
" Old Hu, the academicians have entered the Insect Zone."
"Hopefully, things go smoothly for them. What stage is the planetary shipbuilding project at now?"
"The design blueprints have just been completed, and we're already using Reversed State to build the framework. The first batch of 500 ship-building aircraft will be ready in about 200 years."
"The design drawings are already finished, why is it taking this long?"
"Yes, this is a small-scale operation. More people and more machines are useless. However, after modeling and calculation, the academicians in the Engineering Department have determined that the shipbuilding speed can reach about three times the current speed, which is much faster than expected. They spent a lot more time designing blueprints and overcoming difficulties to achieve this increased productivity."
"Once the first batch of shipbuilding machines is completed, won't our warship production reach 4 million ships per year?"
"That's right. Right now, we're converting one million production lines into planetary shipbuilding machines. Once we've completed the conversion of another one million production lines, our total capacity will reach 6 million ships per year."
"At 6 million, it would take approximately 35,000 years to reach a combat strength of 200 billion, which is still rather slow."
"With the planetary ship-building machine, we can save a lot of manpower and continue to build new planetary ship-building machines. However, there are no existing production lines. The third batch of ship-building machines will not appear for at least two or three thousand years. These two batches of ship-building machines have almost exhausted most of our production equipment. Many things need to be produced from scratch, which will take longer. These machines are diverse in type and model, and their production is actually not as fast as that of warships."
"How are the other settlements progressing?"
"A Reversed State sphere is nearing completion. Once it's finished, we can begin operations inside. It's estimated that it will take 500 to 1000 years to complete the first Reversed State survival base. However, for now, we only need one base. This base is large enough to accommodate 500 billion people. As long as we store enough resources inside, we can be guaranteed to not need to come out for a thousand years. But we should avoid going in unless absolutely necessary. This is an extreme measure. Just thinking about it, life inside is not as good as outside. Besides surviving, we can't do anything else."
"Don't build it for such a dense population for now. Build more to improve the living experience for the people. This way, even in difficult times, everyone can maintain their fighting strength. A suffocating environment will drive people crazy. Also, we can ask the Tree Race for help to build the Third Reversed State living space for the other six technological civilizations."
"Understood. Everything is proceeding according to plan. The space cannon, a replica of the Far Watcher Civilization' space cannon, is also under construction. We have a heavy production workload right now, and many people are already working overtime."
"We must provide the people with a sufficiently high standard of living; only then can we be worthy of their sacrifices."
My love for my motherland inspired me to write the following chapters. Only the part about the family division is alluded to; the rest is normal. Consider it a minor, unrelated episode, so everyone can relax a bit.
"General, Chief of Staff, there seems to be some Planetary-Level Civilization within the Alliance's territory!" Yang Fan, who was in charge of the Alliance's territory defense, ran over to report.
"It's just a Planetary-Level Civilization, what kind of trouble can it cause?" Wen Zhonghua replied.
"Which Planetary-Level Civilization are they, and what are they doing?" Hu Yu asked.
"General, it's that Eastern Pearl Civilization that wants to conduct a high-energy physics experiment."
" Eastern Pearl? I remember now. They're a biological community that developed into a civilization in the last tens of thousands of years. Their development is still a bit slower than that of humans. Weren't they still fighting not long ago? Some of them were causing trouble and splitting up, and the whole planet was in chaos. How could they possibly be capable of conducting high-energy physics experiments?"
"That's right, General. Those who are causing trouble by separating the family are just a bunch of clowns. At first, the leader of the Eastern Pearl Civilization ignored them, after all, they were all his own people. But later, these clowns became more and more agitated and even attacked the leader's army directly. Isn't that like lighting a lantern in a latrine, courting death?"
"And then?" Wen Zhonghua asked.
"And then? Chief of the General Staff, do you think there was a 'later'? This female leader of the Eastern Pearl Civilization was extremely wise. When she acted, she made those clowns who were trying to split up cry and beg for their mothers, getting beaten so badly they couldn't even find their way north. They were simply overestimating themselves. After eliminating these trash, their physicists' research happened to reach a crucial moment, so this female leader spent decades building a massive particle accelerator."
"You certainly enjoyed a good show."
"Chief of the General Staff, I don't have time to watch the show. I just came here after reviewing the intelligence data."
" Yang Fan! Immediately dispatch a fleet to defend their planet. We attracted the insect swarm during our high-energy physics experiments, and now that the situation is unstable, the likelihood of attracting another insect swarm is even greater."
"General, should we stop them from conducting high-energy physics experiments?"
"Not for now. We have the responsibility to defend and protect lower-level civilizations. It's a good thing that the Eastern Pearl Civilization is conducting high-energy physics experiments. We don't need to interfere with them for now. Before they finish their high-energy physics experiments, we shouldn't reveal the presence of our fleet."
"Clear."
" Zhonghua, would you be interested in going over and taking a look?"
"Let's go, I've been wanting to see how these primitive civilizations are developing, but I haven't had the time."