"The danger zone of the Matter River hasn't been found yet, and going in now would be risky. Let's take the plunge; we're certain to die outside. Let's go in first. Academician Zeng, it's just that you're taking this risk with us."
"Haha, it's alright. My life isn't more precious than yours. Besides, we've long wanted to enter the Matter River to explore it, so this is just the right time."
" Li Shun, you bastard, I'll catch you one day! I'll skin you alive, tear you apart, and slice your flesh!" Before leaving, Chen Peng didn't forget to send Li Shun a message.
"Hehehe, you can't escape. This is a blind spot in the rules. I already know you are all core figures in the fleet. Once I catch you, I'll have a good chat with General Hu Yu, hehehe."
With the number of red beetles reaching 500,000, and the closest batch nearing the edge of the Matter River almost touching it, the Reaper launched a large wave of antimatter bombs into the Matter River before turning around and speeding away.
Everyone finally understood why the insects outside dared not come in. There were so many red beetles hiding here, and it was clear that these beetles must be a dangerous species. With them here, the insects outside neither dared to come in nor had any reason to come in.
Initially, the beetle was merely the ruler of the outer area. It was closest to the fleet, and Li Shun somehow managed to make it attack the Reaper fleet. However, it was unexpectedly annihilated by the Virtual Matter in less than a round. Perhaps Li Shun's real intention was to control the people in the fleet, so he did not allow the red beetle to launch an attack on the fleet with the surrounding swarm of insects. Otherwise, the fleet would never have been able to reach this point.
In the middle of the Matter River, the fleet stopped. There was a region where matter was relatively scarce, and three stars were located within one light-year ahead, not too far apart from each other.
After a few seconds of pause, the fleet slowly entered the Matter River using conventional engines. The fleet navigated through the meteorite cluster, with meteorites occasionally striking the Reaper 'Reaper Reversed State Armor and causing it to shake. These small meteorites were not enough to cause any damage to the Reversed State Armor.
Here, the Reaper can only maintain a maximum speed of 0.4 times the speed of light, because in addition to more than 50 stars, there are numerous asteroids, and even a neutron star 0.5 light-years away at the edge of the Matter River.
The fleet had barely entered the Matter River when a swarm of insects caught up with it. They followed the fleet and rushed into the Matter River. This time, the fleet finally gained a real advantage. The Matter River contained numerous meteorites, which the fleet could ignore, but the insect swarm could not.
Even with their formidable bio-armor, the swarm is still smaller than the Reaper. While a high-speed collision with a meteorite wouldn't be fatal, it would slow them down. Moreover, the immense kinetic energy of such a collision is too much for the swarm to withstand for long. One or two collisions might be manageable, but repeated collisions could damage their internal organs.
Seeing their opportunity, Chen Peng and Li Zhixiong launched countless energy balls behind them. Although the energy balls could no longer cause fatal damage to the beetle's bio-armor, the beetle was small, and even with its strong defenses, the bio-armor was still too thin. The explosions of the energy balls penetrated the bio-armor and reached the beetle's interior.
Hundreds of thousands of energy balls were scattered, killing tens of thousands of beetles. The remaining beetles were scattered by the shockwave of the explosion. Unfortunately, the low-speed energy balls were easily dodged by the beetles. After experiencing the power of the energy balls, the beetles no longer made direct contact with them. The effectiveness of the energy balls decreased, and both the Reaper and the swarm could easily dodge the sub-light-speed attacks.
A few days later, the number of pursuing insectoid swarms had reached as many as 5 million. It was unknown whether these insectoid swarms had always existed here or were only attracted by Li Shun's arrival. Now the fleet could only advance while resisting. The number of insectoid swarms continued to increase. Finally, after reaching 20 million, the number of insectoid swarms stopped increasing. It seemed that this was all.
The fleet could only continuously scatter energy orbs in the air to randomly explode in order to slow down the swarm's advance. If they had Virtual Matter arrows, they might have achieved better attack results. The production of Virtual Matter has always been a headache. Although the fleet brought most of its Virtual Matter reserves this time, it was still a drop in the Virtual Matter compared to the 20 million beetles.
The most troublesome thing is that space weapons are completely ineffective here. It was originally thought that there was enough energy here to build Space Barrier similar to the defense circle of the Xuan Star Civilization, but after entering, it was found that not only can warp drive not be used here, but even space weapons are ineffective.
The fleet could only resist with limited energy orbs and antimatter, but the swarm was too large, and these weapons were quickly depleted. The swarm had split up and was attacking the fleet from all sides, plunging the fleet into crisis once again. Without weapons, the Reversed State Armor might not be able to withstand the attacks of these insects.
Although their rank may not be very high, they must have their own special characteristics. Otherwise, the giant insects on the periphery would not have given up their territory to one of these red beetles in the middle. Moreover, Li Shun's use of these insects to besiege the Reaper also shows that he has a certain degree of confidence in their attack power. Li Shun has seen the Reversed State Armor before. Without a certain degree of confidence, Li Shun, with his shrewdness, would not have revealed the existence of these insects so quickly.
"Generals, turn around, let's go to the vicinity of the neutron star!" In this critical moment, Academician Zeng came up with a solution.
"Academician, we cannot drive a neutron star to fight back."
"No need for a driver, we'll detonate it!"
"Detonate a neutron star? Academician, even our Reaper might not be able to withstand the wrath of a neutron star explosion. Besides, do we even have a way to detonate this neutron star?"
"Now it's a gamble to see which is stronger, our Second Reversed State armor or these beetle bio-armor. After multiple computer modeling simulations, our Reversed State Armor can withstand the energy impact of a neutron star explosion, but these beetle bio-armor may not be able to. We can take this opportunity to wipe out the entire swarm in one fell swoop."
"However, this means the insects outside might launch a large-scale attack on this place. It's like driving away a vicious wolf and letting in a pack of tigers."
"No, Academician, the insects outside might not necessarily come in. I remember now, when we entered the Insect Zone Heavenly Peak Civilization said there were no insects within several light-years of the Matter River. At first, we thought it was the presence of these red beetles that kept the insects outside from entering, but now that I think about it, the Heavenly Peak Civilization probably didn't know about these insects. These insects were probably driven here by Li Shun, so there must be other reasons why the insect swarm is afraid to come in. Moreover, the insect swarm guarding this place is probably not just because of the presence of these red beetles," Chen Peng analyzed.
"Your analysis makes some sense. If what you say is true, then we can definitely detonate this neutron star. However, we still need to be prepared for the arrival of a large-scale swarm of insects."
"Academician, I don't think there's any need to worry. These insects are at different distances from the neutron star. Even if we detonate the neutron star, we can't kill all of them. Some will still remain. For the insects outside, this place is still a no-go zone. As long as we kill most of the insects, we can still handle the remaining ones," Li Zhixiong added.