After speaking, Ninety-Seven turned and walked away. His figure became blurry, and the surrounding objects began to deform. This was a manifestation of energy affecting space. As Ninety-Seven's figure became more and more blurred, this deformation rapidly expanded into the distance. A few minutes later, the energy overflowing from Ninety-Seven had enveloped the entire Earth Two.
The Fish Horse Star People were still enjoying the pleasure of humanity being trampled upon. In order to buy time for Ninety-Seven, Hu Yu reopened the communication channel, displaying extreme madness and hysteria, hurling insults, pleading, cursing, and threatening, doing everything he could to delay the Fish Horse Star from launching a second attack. After putting on this show, Hu Yu pretended to regain his senses and agreed to return to the Wind Star Civilization, but requested a few days from the Fish Horse Star Civilization to rescue his wounded people. The Fish Horse Star People happily agreed to this.
The people in the underground bunker are still enduring both emotional and physical pain. Only by leaving can they organize medical personnel to provide treatment. For now, Hu Yu can only grit his teeth and ignore the situation, letting the people try to rescue themselves.
After enveloping the entire Earth Two with its energy, Ninety-Seven separated another tiny energy stream from its body, traveling at a thousand times the speed of light towards the nebula ten light-years away. The arduous three days finally passed, and this energy stream finally connected with the densest point of matter in the nebula. This point was like a nail in the ground, and this energy stream was like a rubber band stretched to its limit. With a loud roar from Ninety-Seven, Earth Two instantly left its original area and entered the nebula.
Just ten seconds ago, Hu Yu had ended his last call with the Fish Horse Star People. The call revealed that everyone was ready to return to the Wind Star territory immediately. Faced with the vanished Earth, the Fish Horse Star People realized that their maneuvering over the past few days had been nothing more than a delaying tactic.
"Chief, we've been tricked."
"I know, don't waste your breath."
"Yes, Chief, where have the humans gone?"
"Is that even a question? They must have teleported the planet to the Nebula Region ahead."
How could they possibly know this?
"You're asking me? Who the hell should I ask?!" the leader roared furiously. The prize he had almost got his hands on had just slipped away; how could he not be angry?
"Chief, let's hurry and give chase! This nebula is only 30 light-years wide and long; humanity can't escape it."
"Entering the Nebula Region? Are you courting death, you idiot? The Nebula Region is known as a star-making factory, containing countless celestial bodies of all sizes. The matter is dense, the space chaotic, warships can't navigate in curves, and even conventional navigation can't reach high speeds. Besides, the nebula... Alright, let's go. Humanity no longer exists, and the threat to us is gone. Let's go supervise the Wind Star Civilization instead. I have a feeling this new leader isn't entirely obedient to us."
Ten minutes later, the Fish Horse Star fleet destroyed all the Wind Master and blasted the resource planet. Only then did the leader calm down a bit and gather the fleet to head towards the territory of the Wind Star Civilization.
In the nebula, Hu Yu gazed at the fallen Tree Man Ninety-Seven, his thoughts swirling. If he hadn't trusted Ninety-Seven back then, humanity might not exist today. Ninety-Seven was willing to sacrifice himself for humanity precisely because of humanity's kindness. In this universe, should good or evil prevail?
Hu Yu ordered his men to transport Ninety-Seven underground and seal it away, promising to help him find his home planet and allow him to be reborn when the opportunity arose. The fleet now had no warships left, only small spaceships that usually docked on planetary surfaces. Resource planets were also gone; Ninety-Seven had exhausted all its energy transporting a single planet, and all the Wind Master and resource planets had to be abandoned.
The fleet lost everything overnight, and everyone suffered a huge blow. People lost their homes, their relatives and friends, and everything. The survivors helped each other out of the underground bunker, where they were met with ruins and devastation.
The entire planet was shrouded in sorrow. People huddled together on the ravaged surface, the smoke from the burning fires surrounding the exhausted people, feeling their pain and desolation.
Hu Yu and several generals walked through the streets and alleys. People looked at him, struggled to get up, but there was no longer the enthusiasm to embrace them. They just looked at Hu Yu from a distance. This blow had completely broken them down and made them utterly numb.
Hu Yu also began to regret and blame himself. If he hadn't insisted on attacking the Wind Star Civilization, perhaps he wouldn't have provoked a direct confrontation with the Fish Horse Star People, and the people wouldn't have suffered such great losses. He had acquired the Wind Star Civilization's technology, but at the cost of more than 5 billion lives. If time could be reversed, Hu Yu would rather not have these technologies.
Hu Yu wished he could just shoot himself, but abandoning the people at this moment would only make them more desperate and completely lose faith. The injured were waiting for him to rescue them, and Earth Two was waiting for him to rebuild it. Thinking of all this, Hu Yu put aside his self-blame and, suppressing his grief, began to organize a rescue operation. Under Hu Yu's call, the survivors began to take action. After all, the living were the most important. Medical personnel began to treat the seriously injured, while ordinary people were responsible for bandaging the lightly injured. These basic operations were essential skills that everyone needed to master in the interstellar era.
Gradually, more and more people joined the rescue operation. People searched for various foods and medicines from the ruins and sent them to the makeshift relief center. They picked up various building materials and began to build houses to settle the seriously injured. Some people went underground to move the victims to the surface. Ninety-Seven moved Earth Two to the side of a young star, but the distance was wrong. The temperature of Earth Two remained at around zero degrees. People braved the cold wind and ran on the surface of the planet.
Many people are still trapped in underground bunkers awaiting rescue. The bombs launched by the Fish Horse Star People directly affected the underground, causing many bunkers to collapse and blocking passages. Large machinery could not reach the area below, so people dug with their hands and poked with sticks, slowly clearing various lifelines. They knew that with each dig, their trapped compatriots had a greater chance of survival.
Professional medical personnel arrived from all directions with various rescue equipment. Patients in hospitals in undamaged areas voluntarily requested to use medication to treat themselves so that more medical personnel could spare time to rush to the disaster area. A steady stream of medical personnel arrived at the scene and immediately began rescue operations. The arrival of a large number of medical personnel brought hope of life to the seriously injured.
It was a long winter, without snowflakes falling all around, only the blood and tears of people scattered across every corner of the planet. The rescue operation had been going on for a month before people slowly recovered. Various shacks were haphazardly erected on the planet's surface, and the food and water were not contaminated, so people could still have enough to eat.
One-third of the planet's surface was damaged. People in other areas shrank modular houses, dismantled them, and used the saved modules to transport them to the disaster area by small spaceships to build houses for their compatriots who needed them. They brought not only house modules, but also more clean water, food, medicine, and other living supplies.
This incident resulted in the direct deaths of over 5.2 billion people, with more than 300 million seriously injured and dying, totaling a loss of 5.568355682 people and over 1.8 billion injured. People in the center of the bomb from the Fish Horse Star People died directly, while only those around the edge of the shockwave were injured, which explains why there were fewer injured than dead.
The only thing that comforted Hu Yu was that the Science City was unharmed and its technology tree was intact. With these, there was the power and possibility to turn things around. The next step was to use the limited number of machines and manpower to restore it little by little, just like in Tau Ceti. Hu Yu only hoped that there would be no further blows during this period, as people could not withstand a second setback.
Only now did Hu Yu turn his gaze to the sky. This was the core of the former Pillars of Creation. The explosion of 20 stars hundreds of years ago further enriched the area with matter. The Nebula Region truly lived up to its reputation as a star-making factory. Countless celestial bodies of all sizes were here, some as small as grains of rice, while others had gathered enough matter to ignite their cores and become new stars in the sky.
Earth Two is located in the middle of the Pillars of Pillars of Creation Nebula, which is also the most material-rich area in the entire Nebula Region. It takes more than ten light-years to walk out of this Nebula Region from any direction.
The core of Earth Two's orbit is a young star, no more than 100,000 years old, twice the size of the Sun. At this moment, Earth Two is 0.5 astronomical units away from it. On Earth, a star at this distance would be extremely dazzling, likely leaving the land barren, rivers dried up, and the earth cracked. However, this is in Nebula Region. From Earth Two, the star appears as a hazy pancake, its light obscured by the dense matter of the Nebula Region.