Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 370 Monster
Black hole.

The deepest, darkest, most mysterious thing in the universe.

Of course, in this day and age, the "mystery" of black holes needs to be questioned.

Because the Empire's research on black holes has long been no longer limited to theory, but has begun to be put into practice.

Relying on the superluminal travel technology of spacecraft developed in the early years, the Empire's research on black holes has long been feasible, and people have been conducting research in this area.

Chen Ming has met a lot of people in the past six months.

It’s just that under normal circumstances, studying black holes is something that professionals do, and ordinary civilian ships cannot travel at superluminal speeds and can only travel close to the speed of light.

True superluminal travel can only be achieved by some special ships, and it is rather troublesome to do.

Therefore, the knowledge about black holes themselves is obviously not enough among the general public and those who are not related to research in this area.

Just like Chen Ming, he has never encountered any black hole along the way, so his understanding of black holes is not detailed.

And with the discovery of hyperspace and FTL travel together, hyperspace channel technology has essentially replaced FTL travel technology.

Whether in terms of practicality, popularity or safety, hyperspace channel technology is superior to superluminal navigation technology.

But this does not mean that this technology has been completely eliminated, nor does it mean that Chen Ming will miss this important technology in the history of ship development when learning ship technology.

The key to the existence of this technology today lies in the study of black holes.

In the special case of studying black holes, only superluminal travel technology is a technology that must be mastered.

Otherwise, forget about investigating a black hole. What if you accidentally fall into the event horizon of a black hole while running near it, that is, the range from which even light cannot escape.

It can almost be said that universal means can escape from it.

Not even hyperspace.

Because there are not only hyperspace channel clouds in hyperspace, there are also gravity wells formed by massive celestial bodies.

The hyperspace rail drive itself also uses gravity wells to enter and exit hyperspace.

The overall concept of a black hole can be said to be the most massive celestial body in the universe, and its gravity well in hyperspace will be particularly obvious and huge.

So when the spacecraft falls into the event horizon of the black hole.

In the hyperspace position corresponding to the spacecraft, it has already entered the area affected by the depth of the black hole's gravity well.

As long as you enter hyperspace, you will be destroyed by gravity faster than in the normal universe.

Want to come out alive after entering the event horizon of a black hole.

Either use superluminal travel technology or use jump technology.

Jump engines are only equipped on ships above the cruiser level, and after using the jump engine, it will damage the basic structure, causing subtle damage to the basic structure that is almost impossible to detect with the naked eye.

It is very troublesome to repair this kind of damage using normal repair methods, and the maintenance cost is extremely high.

And with the high material consumption, the cost is even higher.

Chen Ming uses jump engines all day long as if it were free because he has psychic powers. His psychic powers can easily repair this kind of damage. He can repair the spacecraft's jump engine at a very low cost and at a very fast speed.

But in the past, there was no such good conditions as Chen Ming's.

Therefore, superluminal travel technology has been preserved as a technology that must be used under specific conditions.

Although Chen Ming's spaceship was not equipped with a superluminal travel system, he was in good condition when he passed through the wormhole and arrived in front of the black hole.

He was merely affected by the black hole's gravity and had not yet been pulled into the black hole's event horizon.

The sense of danger that completely enveloped him that he sensed before passing through the wormhole just happened to come from this black hole.

This means that the danger is visible and generally unlikely to pose an effective threat to him.

But after he actually passed through the wormhole, the sharp sense of danger he had sensed on the way through disappeared.

It is unclear whether the danger actually comes from the process of passing through the wormhole, or whether the source of the danger has left after he passes through the wormhole.

But now that there’s no danger, it can’t be a bad thing, right?

Chen Ming looked back at what was behind the highest point. It was not a wormhole that existed in a special galaxy like the wormhole in the Origin Galaxy, but a wormhole that existed on a trajectory moving around a black hole.

Although it looks fine at the moment, it is obvious without any calculation that gravity is still pulling the wormhole closer to the black hole.

Sooner or later, a wormhole will fall into a black hole.

Chen Ming didn't know what would happen if the wormhole fell into the black hole, and he didn't want to know.

But he knew how to extract the singularity in the wormhole.

If there are irreversible consequences, he will definitely solve the problem before the consequences occur.

Of course, the prerequisite is to ensure the safety of the surrounding area first.

The black hole itself should not pose any danger as long as you don't try to cause it.

So what Chen Ming has to deal with is the security issues in the surrounding areas.

When doing things in an unknown place, the first thing you should consider is of course safety.

He first needed to find out if there were any galaxies or celestial bodies nearby that he could use to settle down, and confirm whether he was in the star field observable by the empire or in a truly unknown star field.

Then he turned back to the matter of the wormhole itself.

Chen Ming controlled the spaceship to turn around and accelerate, preparing to temporarily leave the area, but at the moment the engines of the three spaceships began to accelerate.

The sharp sense of danger that had disappeared earlier suddenly stabbed him again.

Chen Ming immediately controlled the battleship to make a maneuver, but a purple-black beam shot out from the black hole behind it still swept across a Stardust-class ship that did not even have time to open its shield.

The area on the Stardust-class ship that was swept by the light beam seemed to be squeezed by some terrifying pressure and was twisted into a circle of steel twist.

Most of the spacecraft's systems were also damaged under this heavy pressure.

Even after the light beam disappeared, Chen Ming still felt a psychic force entwined around the damaged area of ​​Stardust, continuing to exert tremendous pressure on the interior of the ship.

The collapsed stardust level is gradually being crushed into a metal ball.

The light beam that can escape from the black hole is definitely not a normal light beam. It should be the projection of some kind of psychic power.

There is something inside the black hole's event horizon that projects its power.

This familiar scene made him seem to be seeing the day when he and Yan Xiong had a conflict and Yan Xiong used his psychic power to control metal to twist his Iron Ore into a metal ball.

Chen Ming felt as if a string in his consciousness was stretched tight.

He decisively controlled the Zenith and the remaining Stardust-class ship to perform a short-distance jump to create a sufficient distance from the black hole behind them.

Then he immediately turned the bow of the ship and activated all the sensors at full power, trying to investigate what was in the event horizon of the black hole.

However, Chen Ming's ship did not have any special equipment for investigating the black hole area.

The sensor at the top of the range is top notch, but it is not suitable for this situation.

Fortunately, the existence in the black hole did not continue to release the light beam outside the black hole.

The sense of danger that Chen Ming felt had gradually disappeared, as if it was just a warning, warning Chen Ming not to get too close to the black hole.

But there was no expression on Chen Ming's face at this time.

He simply labeled the things in the black hole as mortal in his mind.

Whether it is to pave the way for the subsequent fleet to arrive here, or to nip the danger in the bud, or simply for revenge.

He must enter the event horizon of the black hole, and he must completely resolve the things in the black hole.

Chen Ming took another look at the deep black hole, then drove the Supreme Point and Stardust class vehicles to temporarily leave the area.

At the same time, he picked up the terminal and found the address book list of some people with some status and ability in scientific research that he had met in the past six months.

After flipping through it, he found the phone number of the director of a research institute that studies celestial bodies, with a focus on black holes.

It took a few minutes to successfully borrow the right equipment, and another few minutes to bring the equipment under my control.

Chen Ming installed these black hole exploration equipment on the remaining two ships.

However, Chen Ming cannot get the most effective equipment that can directly detect through the field of vision for the time being, and even if he gets it, it will take time and a special place to install it.

It doesn't mean you can just find any ship and use it.

So Chen Ming then needs to pass through the event horizon of the black hole to conduct investigation.

But this just happened to suit his needs.

He wanted to see what was targeting him within his field of vision, and then kill it.

The only remaining Stardust-class machine was assigned a robot controlled by Chen Ming and turned around and approached the black hole's event horizon again.

soon.

From the robot's perspective, Chen Ming once again sensed a growing sense of danger.

And at the moment when the robot sensed that the danger had reached its peak, he started the jump engine and forcibly jumped into the event horizon of the black hole.

This time, the jump just happened to avoid a purple-black beam of light shot out from the black hole.

Chen Ming could only see countless distorted lights in the event horizon of the black hole with his visual sensors. It was like a colorful black that made it impossible to distinguish the internal situation through vision.

But after Chen Ming prepared special equipment, the black hole's event horizon was no longer a cage that swallowed everything.

With these devices, he can intuitively detect the conditions within the black hole's event horizon.

However, he was suddenly stunned when he looked at the data sent back.

Because in addition to detecting the black hole itself, the sensors also detected something about the size of a scavenger, a living thing.

Right in the center of that black hole.

There was something like some kind of pitch-black maggot crawling hard out of the black hole.

It's just that it seems to be trapped in this black hole and can't completely escape the control of the black hole no matter what.

The head of this maggot-like thing was not round, but rather very sharp, with a huge mouth at the tip, full of curled sharp teeth. On both sides of the half of its body that stuck out of the black hole, there were long, sharp limbs that looked like arthropods.

These limbs are twitching and struggling wildly, but they cannot change the current situation of this thing being trapped in the black hole. It can only make it look more frantic.

Judging from these characteristics, it does not seem to be a substantial creature, but rather the embodiment of beings from other dimensions entering the normal universe.

Because its curled teeth have no ability to chew and tear prey, there is no meaning for its existence. It seems to be the embodiment of pure malice.

The fact that it has no eyes does not prevent it from observing the universe and attacking anything that approaches the galaxy.

And its actions obviously show that it wants to leave the world behind the black hole and truly enter the normal universe.

It's like... the Scarlet Dimension.

“I didn’t expect that guess to be true.”

Chen Ming muttered to himself.

His meaning was very clear. He was referring to the question that has been discussed in the empire's astronomical academic circles: whether there really is a new dimension behind the black hole.

a long time ago.

With the development of hyperspace technology, wormhole and stargate technology, the Empire has always been discussing what exists behind black holes.

What is discussed the most, of course, is a whole new dimension.

And with the mastery of superluminal technology, the Empire's investigation of black holes has been advancing.

But the exploration of the world behind black holes has remained stagnant.

There are many reasons for this.

Not only can hyperspace technology not be applied to the investigation of black holes, but the dimensional infection caused by the scarlet dimension makes it difficult not to wonder whether there are any equally evil existences in the black hole dimension.

Moreover, the huge gravitational force of a massive celestial body such as a black hole has an immeasurable impact on ships.

So far, all experiments to explore the world behind black holes have ended in failure.

Exploring the dimensions behind black holes is fraught with difficulties.

But the speculation has not changed, that is, there is a high probability that there is a dimension or plane similar to hyperspace behind the black hole.

Of course, from the current perspective, the existing dimensions will definitely be more similar to phase space and scarlet dimension.

Whatever it is, the dimension behind the black hole is extremely far away from the normal universe, and traveling through a black hole is far more difficult than traveling to any known discovered dimension.

The dimension behind the black hole is not like the phase space and scarlet dimension, which have had contact with the normal universe for a long time.

What's more, Chen Ming now personally witnessed the scene where the big black maggot failed to pass through the black hole.

Even though it is stuck on the black hole, it does not seem to affect its ability to influence the normal universe by relying on the part that has already drilled out.

It is already able to use that powerful force near the black hole and easily destroy the cruiser.

Even from the situation that Chen Ming's Stardust-class ship was finally compressed into a high-density metal ball by that psychic energy.

Even the armor and hull strength of a battleship may not be enough to withstand direct damage from it.

The shield may have some blocking effect, but no one can say whether it can block it unless they have really tried it.

However, he can test this problem now.

At the Stardust level, according to Chen Ming's command, it dodged the deep purple beam and entered the event horizon of the black hole, and captured the appearance of the monster through the sensor.

The monster suddenly seemed to go crazy, waving its limbs even more wildly.

At the same time, the crack full of curved fangs opened almost 180 degrees in the direction of the stardust level.

A purple-black ball of light was gradually forming in the center of the crack.

And at the moment when the energy of the light ball was condensed to the extreme, a purple-black beam of energy burst out and once again shot towards the stardust that had entered the field of view.

Chen Ming immediately made the Stardust class perform a short-distance jump again, and once again dodged the gravity psychic energy beam shot by the monster.

But the energy beam did not dissipate directly. Instead, it continued to approach Stardust as the monster's head swayed.

The second Stardust will also be destroyed soon.

However, Chen Ming's spiritual power was suddenly activated at this moment.

With the help of the scarlet power, the Stardust level was forcibly moved several kilometers and once again dodged the light beam.

At the same time, the short-range charging of the Stardust Jump Engine was completed, and the monster shook its maggot-like head and swung the purple-black beam over again.

Stardust leapt again and hid away.

This time, the jump allowed Stardust to successfully approach almost the core of the black hole, and close to the monster's wildly waving limbs.

Countless meteorite fighters were released by the stardust, flying into the abyss like countless red meteors.

In the blink of an eye, all the meteors disappeared.

The Meteor Fighter was too small and its armor was too weak. The moment it got close enough to the black hole, it was destroyed by the gravity of the dark monster that was even stronger than the black hole next to it.

And the combined effect of the two gravitational forces is still destroying the Stardust-class ship structure.

But Chen Ming had no intention of retreating.

Just to prevent this Stardust-class ship from following the same fate as the previous one, he chose to increase the investment in Stardust's maintenance psychic energy, continuously supporting the Stardust to continue approaching the black hole and the monster stuck in the black hole.

He wanted to see what this thing was, whether it was a spirit or some powerful creature.

Stardust travels among the flailing limbs.

The only tachyon spear mounted on the ship was also trying to launch an attack.

However, those once turbulent torrents of particles lost their former sharpness when facing this monster.

The gravity spirit around this monster that can disintegrate everything can disperse all the particles fired by the tachyon spear.

His cruiser didn't seem to be able to do any effective damage to the monster.

Think about it too.

The combat capability estimated by the scavenger Chen Ming could face about a hundred battleships at the same time.

The combat power of the psychic monster that passed through the black hole in front of us is definitely not bad.

It would be too much to think that a mere cruiser could cause any real damage to it.

However, Chen Ming's purpose was not to cause harm to it.

His goal has always been to use the current opportunity to investigate more information about this dark monster.

The dark monster seemed to have discovered that the spaceship controlled by Chen Ming had an extremely exaggerated flexibility, so it stopped trying to use it and instead lowered its head, perhaps something on its head, and opened its bloody mouth of terrifying size, trying to eat the Stardust class directly.

Stardust immediately moved towards the dark monster's lower abdomen, the part that was stuck in the black hole.

The data in this place may have some special value.

But suddenly, Chen Ming discovered that there seemed to be something wrong in the data transmitted back by the black hole sensor.

He immediately changed the Stardust's original course and, taking some risks, approached the place where the sensors had detected something wrong.

As the distance shortened, the black hole sensor finally captured clearer data.

What made Chen Ming feel something was wrong was a limb of the black maggot monster that was hanging on the side of its body, as if it was dead.

And what pierced the root of this limb was the wreckage of a spacecraft of a model that Chen Ming had never seen before.

So close to the black hole, Chen Ming's stardust was almost disintegrating, and it was only able to hold on by relying on Chen Ming's spiritual power to constantly repair it.

However, the spaceship that pierced into the body of the dark monster did not suffer any damage from being torn apart by gravity.

Some only show signs of damage over time.

This situation made Chen Ming think of only one possibility.

This is what is left of the Shining Civilization.

The Shining Civilization originally planned to develop the Origin Galaxy, and the wormhole in the Origin Galaxy would of course be part of the development. In fact, the existence of this wormhole is the reason why the Shining Civilization developed this place.

Then of course there will be spaceships belonging to the Shining Civilization coming here, passing through the wormhole, and clashing with the monsters in the black hole for some unclear reasons.

Finally stayed here.

Chen Ming suddenly felt jealous.

Because the design model of that spacecraft was something Chen Ming had never seen before after studying ship technology for so long.

He had also never heard of any spacecraft that could withstand the pull of a black hole's gravity for 30,000 years and survive until now.

There must be technology on that spaceship that is far beyond his level, waiting for him to obtain.

And just at the moment Chen Ming discovered the spaceship.

The Stardust class was also caught by the dark monster in the gap on its moving route because Chen Ming forcibly changed the direction of travel in the middle of the journey.

Just for a moment.

Stardust was torn into two halves by the dark monster.

Chen Ming's eyes and ears within the black hole's event horizon were also cut off.

The Stardust class was destroyed, but Chen Ming had obtained enough valuable information.

He already had enough reasons to kill this monster, and now he had another one.

He must find a way to obtain the spaceship that is suspected to be from the shining civilization.

Chen Ming made up his mind to change his plan.

Originally, the black hole was there, and its threat was not immediate, so he did not want to deal with the trouble of the black hole at first.

But if there is such an unknown thing in the black hole that even the existence of a living thing must be questioned, it must first get rid of this disgusting-looking thing.

(End of this chapter)