Epoch of Twilight - Chapter 564
Chapter 564: The Destruction of the Glassian Planet (IV)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Luo Yuan floated around quietly in space. His altered, smooth and dense surface endlessly gave off a terrifying cosmic radiation.
Tens of thousands of kilometers behind him in the void, the fluorescent scenery was visibly emitting dim lights. This was what happened when an object had been forcefully disintegrated into individual atoms.
The previously silent Glassian warships had been completely wiped out. Following the lights diffusing into the void, the concentrated field of atoms quickly spread out. Within this corner of the universe, there would forever be proof that these 6 Glassian War Ships and its ten million refugees existed.
Luo Yuan was not disturbed one bit because of his action. He did not think that this cold-blooded massacre would leave him with any psychological traumas. All he did was stop and ponder momentarily before continuing his journey towards the Glassian star system.
Due to his proximity to the Glassian system, there would be quite a few human warships stationed around the area. If he were to activate his space-time bubble again, it would undoubtedly have a destructive effect. Fortunately, as of now, the speed he could teleport at was in no way slow.
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While in his transcendent form, the furthest distance he could teleport was ten billion kilometers. A light day would approximately be around 260 billion kilometers, which meant that he would have to teleport 26 times to cover that distance. If he also maintained light-speed while he teleported, this way of traversing large distances would be way faster than his space-time bubble. The only issue was the immense mental strain that came from teleporting.
Luo Yuan was not in a hurry to reach his destination, so he crossed space at a moderate pace and a day later, he had entered their star system.
The war persisted within the system, but it had long become a game of cat and mouse. From time to time, Luo Yuan could see trails of lights dashing through space and countless metal fragments resembling small asteroids floating through space.
Following the arrival of Luo Yuan, these wreckages were easily cleaned up by him. Each were turned into a bunch of scattered atoms and at the same time, the escaping airships that remained were taken care of by Luo Yuan. As a result, the surrounding space had been cleaned up.
In his transcendent form, Luo Yuan’s power had been greatly increased. The dark energy coming from the fourth dimension was endlessly pouring into his body.
In the three dimensional world, his might was comparable to a god.
A few days later, he had reached the residential planets.
Encircling the planets like nebulas were the spaceports that still remained in perfect conditions. However, the planets have been destroyed beyond recognition.
The extremely disoriented planetary electromagnetic field had caused all 3 planets to be in an intense state of discharge. Eventhough the electromagnetic pulses were spreading towards the heavy dust cloud near space, it was still possible to see that the whole atmosphere was experiencing an intense lightning storm.
The planets’ appearances were similar to that of a heavily injured beast. The earthquakes were its twitches, the lava was its blood, and the endless gales was its wail. The surface of the three planets were going through intense and terrifying transformations. Transformations capable of wiping out everything on its surface. Eventually, it became very difficult for Luo Yuan to even see the remnants of the Glassian planet.
The three planets were not in Luo Yuan’s sight for long. To him, this view was similar to the time Earth went through the exact same scenario, the only difference was that these planets were experiencing a situations that was a hundred times more dire.
At this moment, Luo Yuan had noticed that quite a number of Glassians remained in the spaceport. Although they had managed to survive against Mankind’s assault, they did not manage to get on-board the last airship and were trapped there.
However, the spaceport was intended to be used as a stop for the airships. Obviously, there was no consideration that one day this place would be acting as a shelter.
Luo Yuan quietly appeared somewhere near one of the spaceports. This was where the darkest moments played out, the outer shell of civilization had slowly began to melt away. Animalistic instincts were silently aroused and these Glassian survivors were resorting to cannibalism and murder at every given opportunity.
Luo Yuan’s original intention to wipe out all the spaceports had suddenly faded after witnessing such horrors.
Compared to a swift and painless death, living was a far worse fate to the remaining survivors.
He swiftly headed towards the magnificent project nearby the star.
This was a project that came close to being called a work of God. Even though Luo Yuan was observing at such a close distance, he was sincerely shocked.
This was a huge Dyson Sphere. In Mankind’s first ever Glassian probe mission, this Dyson Sphere had already existed. When the delay time of optical imagery versus distance had been calculated, it suggested that the Dyson Sphere had been under construction for over 60 years although it was far from completion. This piece of thin and black, film-type of object only covered about a third of the star and even then, it was still humongous. It was the type of spectacle that would definitely make an impression on who anyone saw it.
The whole Dyson Sphere’s surface area was about ten trillion square kilometers. Its size was about 25,000 times the surface of the earth. It would require an astronomical number of materials and resources to construct such thing even if they were of the lowest quality.
The fact was that a project such as the Dyson Sphere was no longer a theoretical challenge for the humanity of today, whose every technique and skills have matured. The only hard part was that the construction project on a scale that was too large and would occupy an immense amount of industrial resources. To top it off, the current red dwarf that Mankind was inhabiting was not suitable for construction on the magnitude of a Dyson Sphere. Therefore so much of it remains as a concept.
Even if there was no problem regarding the techniques and skills, a civilization that was with or without a Dyson Sphere had two different identities.
The Kordashev scale was a method used to measure a civilization’s progress based on how much energy was being used.
First level civilizations: This civilization is one that has mastered the energy of their planets by harvesting the planet’s energy. (Harnessing a star’s energy is the same as harvesting the planet’s energy.)
Second level civilizations: This civilization is one that is able to harvest energy from the entire solar system.
Third level civilizations: This civilization is one that is able to harvest and utilize energy from the entire galactic system.
Following this chart, Mankind had just about become a first level civilization not too long ago, but the Glassians had already began approaching the second level. The level of energy they could potentially utilize was many times more than that of what today’s Mankind was capable of.
In fact, Luo Yuan was still shocked that the war was over in such a short span of time. In his thoughts, there was a strong possibility of victory but he did not expect that the war could be ended in such a short time frame.
However, the result gave everyone a surprise. The Glassians had no chance of stepping up against Mankind. Mankind paid the price of 21 warships and their crewmembers. In return, they completely wiped out the entire defensive forces of the Glassians.
Were the Glassians that weak?
No. A civilization that had control of a Dyson Sphere and the energy that it could harvest was hundreds and thousands of times superior to the Humans. Perhaps, Mankind had technology that was slightly more advanced. However, sometimes strength comes in numbers and that could be used to cover fatal flaws.
Luo Yuan felt that the reason that motivated such an amazing feat was that the Glassians naturally lack survival instincts in the face of danger.
For humans, even in times of peace, the annual commitment to military affairs had been around one to three percent of their total GDP. This was especially true for militarized countries. To them, no effort was spared when it came to military affairs.
This was due to the fact that Mankind was not a united and that within a hundred years, they have gone through World War 1, World War 2 and the Cold War where the eastern and the western countries constantly squared off against each other.
Within these hundred years, if men were not at war, they were preparing for war. The relationship between nations was similar to the law of the jungle albeit it had slight variations. However, nothing changed the natural law that the strong were always respected.
The difference was that the Glassian had a completely unified planet and never had any sort of conflict. This naturally dulled any survival instincts they may have had previously in times of strife.
