"It's spatial turbulence. I tried to explore it further, but I couldn't find the end after a long time, so I came back and didn't explore it again."
"As I expected, Lord Zu, we suspect that the other end of this Mirror Sub-Universe is also connected to the greater universe, so we want to go there."
"What! You want to go back to the three-dimensional universe from there? To tell you the truth, if you get lost there, even I can't save you, so you need to think carefully."
"Don't worry, I'm 30% confident."
"Alright, I can send you there, but your fleet won't last long; energy can't be extracted from the fourth dimension here."
"This..." Academician Liu realized that he had overlooked an important issue. The fleet requires a huge amount of energy. Since it is currently impossible to extract energy from the fourth dimension, it means that the fleet can only last for about 20 years at most. Even if other warships are dismantled to obtain energy, this time will not be too long.
"Alright, alright, let's see this through to the end. I'll give you some energy, enough to sustain you for another ten thousand years. If you haven't returned to the greater universe by then, there's basically no hope left."
" Lord Zu Xiezu."
A small sphere of light, over 100 meters in diameter, split off from Lord Zu's light cluster and slowly drifted to the center of the fleet. The powerful energy released by this sphere was greater than the combined energy consumed by these 20 billion warships. Not only Wen Zhonghua and his team couldn't understand it, but even Academician Liu was quite surprised that such a small sphere of light contained such enormous energy, and that the sphere did not change at all as the energy was released.
The fleet took the orb of light into the Reaper's interior, and Lord Zu directly manipulated space to bring the fleet to the edge of the Mirror Sub-Universe. No one knew what the edge of the great universe was, but everyone could clearly feel the edge of this Mirror Sub-Universe. The Reaper's star-like interstellar searchlights shone on it, and the light was scattered in all directions as if it were shining on a pile of broken glass.
"Alright, that's all I can do for you. From now on, it's all up to you."
"Thank you very much, Lord Zu."
Moving forward in shattered space is extremely difficult. Space is the carrier of all matter; without space, there is no matter. However, there is space here, but it is shattered, much like moving forward in the airspace where an interstellar war has taken place. If it weren't for the powerful Fourth Reversed State warship, it would have been torn apart by this space long ago.
Warp drive was impossible, but fortunately, the conventional power engine was unaffected by the space, and continued to slowly propel the Reaper forward. There was no direction here, not even light could find a way forward; if the Reaper hadn't been so large, it would have been lost in these fragmented spaces long ago.
These known space debris range in size from several kilometers to smaller than an atom. Reaper were to be linked end to end, their combined length would exceed 70 billion kilometers, equivalent to the distance from the Sun to the farthest point of the Kuiper Belt. Their movement would be entirely controlled by computers, otherwise, with so many warships operating simultaneously, a control error could lead to a serious accident.
The reason for this arrangement is to avoid the influence of large space debris. If there is a debris larger than the Reaper ahead, the Reaper may be unconsciously redirected after entering it, just like a person on Earth. If the direction of travel on Earth deviates, without considering external factors such as starlight and energy that cause changes in the Earth's environment, the difference in direction is imperceptible to humans.
Moreover, this method can save a lot of energy. Since warp drives cannot be used here, the energy that would have been used up in 20 years for the fleet can now be used for 100 years.
The fleet's energy now comes entirely from that orb of light. Academician Liu attempted to convert the Fourth Reversed State of the last Reaper into energy, and then the Reaper was suddenly hacked by countless sharp blades, instantly turning into hundreds of billions of fragments of varying sizes.
Only then did everyone realize the power of the shattered space. Although these were not the Fourth Reversed State, they were still high-strength alloys. Even if the Reaper rushed into the star, these high-strength alloys could maintain the Reaper's structure and prevent deformation that would endanger the warship's performance in the face of the star's enormous gravity.
The fleet had been sailing through the shattered space for ten thousand years. The sphere of light finally began to dim and eventually dissipated completely, but there was still no sign of a way out.
The fleet's population has doubled from one million at the start to over two million now. This was a deliberate arrangement by Wen Zhonghua. The commanders who came out this time were all young people who had just gotten married. Normally, many couples in the fleet would wait many, many years after having one child before they might have a second child. But it's different for young people, and this is also part of the mission. Having enough new faces would make Academician Liu and his team less conspicuous.
However, the fleet's facilities are not perfect, and the newly recruited personnel can only learn some basic knowledge. After returning to the base, they will need systematic training to become qualified fleet members. Although it wouldn't have much impact on the fleet if most people didn't study or work, Hu Yu did not let everyone stop learning.
Learning has become an important part of people's lives. However, everyone has plenty of time and the learning tasks are quite easy. The knowledge system of the fleet is now too vast. Even if a person studies without rest and sleep, it would take at least two hundred years to become a qualified worker and be eligible to work in the production base.
Of course, if someone in a family has someone who can work, that is an incredibly honorable and something to be proud of, because with the increase in fleet robots and the improvement in intelligence, the need for human labor is getting smaller and smaller. However, the fleet still needs to work hard, and this effort is to ensure that everyone can continue to live peacefully and steadily.
When all the Reaper ' energy was exhausted, Wen Zhonghua began to decompose Reaper to obtain energy. The energy obtained from decomposing one Reaper could only power the remaining two Reaper for a hundred years. Thus, nearly 10 billion Reaper were converted into energy to power the remaining 20 billion Reaper to continue their journey.
As time went on, the number of Reaper steadily declined, and every hundred years, a third of the fleet was dismantled.
A thousand years later, the fleet numbered 3.2 billion. In 2000, it was 5 million. In 3000, it was 80,000. In 4000, the fleet was reduced to only 1,500 Reaper.