Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 380 Star Devourer

The words of the Minister of Climate Change left Chen Ming stunned for a while.

He hadn't really considered the method the minister was talking about to determine what had happened a few years ago, but it sounded like it would be a good idea.

Isn't this how superluminal technology should be used?

Before, because the wormhole was less than five light years away from the galaxy, Chen Ming could only see the stars that had cooled down, and his mind was unable to change for a while.

But in the universe five light years away, everything is still the same as it was five years ago, and he can see what the stars looked like before.

Although the accuracy of optical observations at such a distance is definitely not as good as close-range sensor scanning, it is definitely sufficient on the scale of stars.

After accepting the minister's advice, Chen Ming continued to let the Climate Transformation Department record planetary data on Gaia in preparation for subsequent climate transformation.

He left the planet, boarded his own Supreme, and leapt to a location about five light years away from the galaxy where Gaia was located.

Since Chen Ming didn't know much about climate and other things, he only knew that the drastic changes on the planet Gaia occurred about five years ago.

Therefore, the distance he jumped must not be that precise.

There is no way to jump to the exact time when a star undergoes major changes.

But this doesn't affect anything. He just needs to aim the ship's sensor towards the galaxy of the planet Gaia, and then make multiple jumps in a straight line to adjust the precise distance.

Soon, something happened on the star that Chen Ming observed using an optical sensor about 5.3 light-years away from the Gaia galaxy.

At this location where the light 5.3 years ago is now spreading.

Chen Ming saw a huge "flare" with a tail, moving straight towards the stars within the galaxy from outside the galaxy.

After processing the captured photos, the full picture of the flare appeared in front of him.

It wasn't a flare.

Instead, it was a giant creature that looked like a bacteriophage, a virus that devours bacteria.

It has a regular icosahedral head like a bacteriophage, an extremely thick and long trunk with a different proportional structure from that of a bacteriophage, and six thick tails separated from the end of the trunk for supporting itself.

The flare rapidly approached the star.

The seemingly extremely heavy beast did not sink directly into the star, but stood easily on the surface of the star, only stabbing its six tails into the star.

Used to maintain the balance of its thick body and huge head.

At the bottom of its trunk, a cone-shaped organ like the mouthparts of a mosquito gradually extended out, or perhaps some kind of tissue structure of the organ, and pierced downward into the star.

Immediately afterwards, a large amount of stellar matter was sucked away from the star itself by a suction force and entered the body of the monster.

The light on its body was even brighter, and along every edge of its head there was a substance flowing that seemed to carry the life force of a star.

Even its body size seemed to have increased a bit.

The temperature of this area of ​​the star's surface dropped almost visibly.

However, this "bacteriophage" or "star-eating body" was apparently not satisfied and continued to move to another position on the surface of the star, devouring the star's matter.

It is getting brighter and brighter, while the star itself is getting dimmer and dimmer.

By comparing the "flares" to the size of planets and stars.

It can be roughly calculated that this flare is about half the size of the Nightmare of the Plane.

The flare that Chen Ming had seen on the star before was at least as big as the Nightmare of Two Planes.

Either the flare that Chen Ming saw was a real flare, and it was not the same thing as this monster that should be called a "star eater".

Either that or in the past five years, the StarEater has grown to its current size by devouring the energy of stars.

The answer is self-evident.

Chen Ming accelerated the highest point slightly and moved forward.

This could speed up observations of star-eating objects, stars, and the interiors of galaxies.

Before long, the StarEater had extracted almost all of the high-energy matter on the surface of the star, and the originally bright star that could provide life for planets in the habitable zone no longer existed.

As the temperature of the star dropped, the originally azure blue planet Gaia, which was full of vitality, was completely frozen in just a few months.

Blizzards became a visible weather phenomenon on the planet's surface.

The planetary consciousness did not give up, but forcibly maintained the underground ecosystem until today.

After watching the whole process, Chen Ming couldn't help but sigh and said, "Here comes another one."

If you really count, he has already encountered three behemoths of this size.

A scavenger robot, a plane nightmare, and a planet-eater that he had now observed to exist for the purpose of devouring stars.

There's nothing more to say about that.

The Nightmare of the Plane has become a Half-Nightmare of the Plane because it hindered his development.

This planet-eating body hindered his actions to restore the planet Gaia, and he was bound to follow in the footsteps of the Nightmare of the Planes.

Chen Ming had to find a way to lure out the Star-Eating Body that had now infiltrated the star and kill it.

Although Gaia's planet may not return to its original state directly after getting rid of its star, at least its environment will not continue to deteriorate, and the impact of the star's weakening on the planets within the galaxy will no longer continue to expand.

Chen Ming has already thought of a way to lure the Star-Eating Body out.

It is to use stellar matter.

Since stars devour stars, the planet-eating bodies must be fully aware of the changes in the stars.

If stellar matter disappears from a star for unknown reasons, as long as the planet-eater has simple intelligence, it will definitely come to find out the reason.

Chen Ming just happened to know how to transfer stellar matter inside a star.

And it was taught to him by the mechanical race in the past.

Once, the mechanical race used a reverse matter jump device to transfer stellar matter from the star to their planet in an attempt to kill him.

Chen Ming lost one of his arms due to the stellar matter, but he also successfully controlled the device in his hands and mastered its manufacturing method.

It can be used right now.

Although this reverse matter transition device has some shortcomings.

For example, when jumping matter, you can only jump to a very small place, and you can only jump to inanimate objects, and the energy consumption is also extremely huge.

It seemed like the mechanical clan had spent an unknown amount of time setting it up, and the device equipped with an antimatter engine delivered less than half a cubic meter of stellar matter.

The effect is just average.

But Chen Ming is different. He has also mastered antimatter technology, and he has a seemingly unlimited supply of energy.

As long as the device is activated long enough and extracts a large amount of stellar matter, it will always be able to extract enough matter for the monster to discover it.

In addition, Chen Ming actually has another way to attract the appearance of the Star-Eating Body.

That means just wait a moment.

At this moment, there is a wormhole that has just left the black hole and is heading here.

Chen Ming wanted to see whether the stars-eating body in the star would move after arriving at the wormhole.

It would be best if it came out because of the wormhole, but if it doesn't come out, Chen Ming really needs to prepare a device to transfer stellar matter.

Chen Ming also considered the survivors.

They might also learn about this star-eating monster.

After all, the black hole where the wormhole is located at the beginning is not even five light-years away from this galaxy.

Even though the StarEater had just arrived in this galaxy five years ago, Chen Ming believed that the survivors who had been paying attention to the wormhole and the black hole next to the wormhole would definitely notice this StarEater in the nearby galaxy.

But Chen Ming did not go to find them.

If there was a way out, he thought he should try not to get involved with the survivors.

In his opinion, the purpose of the survivors is obvious, which is to revive the shining civilization.

They also knew that the Empire absolutely did not want to trade with them and only wanted to take away all the relics of the Shining Civilization from the survivors at once, both in terms of technology and physical objects.

It's just that the Empire and the survivors each have their own needs, so they maintain a false peace.

Once an opportunity is found, both sides will try their best to send each other on their way.

That's why Chen Ming won't get too involved with them.

His butt is always sitting on the human chair.

If he really needed it, the worst that could happen was that he would send the survivors away and take it from their bodies.

Chen Ming did not prepare more plans. The current ones were enough.

He immediately began to plan against the stars' eaters.

Half a day passed quickly.

Chen Ming appeared on the Supreme Point that he had handed over to the Climate Transformation Department.

In order to prevent the researchers responsible for climate transformation from encountering unknown dangers, he contacted the minister in advance and asked someone to call all those who were out back to the spacecraft.

At least after arriving at the wormhole, the researchers will stay in a safe place until his first operation is completed.

The half day that just passed was enough for them to obtain data for analyzing the situation on the planet Gaia.

The minister stayed in the captain's room with Chen Ming, waiting.

He was an ordinary person, but he really wanted to see it, so he specifically told Chen Ming about it.

Chen Ming also didn't mind being friendlier to people he worked with, so he stayed here specifically and chatted with the minister.

Anyway, he had already made all the preparations.

Not only are there facilities for extracting stellar matter, but there are also fleets for dealing with planet-eaters.

The size of the Star Devourer is twice that of the Planar Nightmare, so the fleet to deal with it naturally needs to be expanded.

It’s just a matter of Chen Ming saying a word, and the Queen of Insects will prepare everything that needs to be prepared.

The same means of attack should not be ineffective.

Let him see what is special about this Star Devourer compared to the Nightmare of the Plane.

The sensor's image suddenly changed, and the wormhole had entered the sensor's observable range.

Although he had seen this strange celestial body before, the minister next to Chen Ming was still shocked to see a wormhole running around with his own eyes.

He wanted to say something, but after noticing Chen Ming's serious expression, he chose to remain silent. The wormhole began to slow down after approaching the Gaia galaxy, gradually entering the interior of the galaxy and entering an orbit around the star.

The orbit it entered just corresponds to the orbit of the real planet Gaia around its star.

And it happens to be on the other side opposite to the planet Gaia.

It's exactly the same as the other end of the wormhole.

The orbit of the wormhole at the other end is opposite an ordinary habitable sphere, which Chen Ming called Gaia.

And this end orbits opposite a real Gaia planet.

The wormhole just entered its orbit, like a celestial body that had always stayed there, without any further movement or signs of leaving again.

Chen Ming breathed a sigh of relief. At least it seemed that he would not need to continue tracking the wormhole or find a way to lock it in place in the short term.

But he can't relax now, his target is the Star Devourer.

however.

Even if the wormhole entered the galaxy and entered orbit just as the star-eating object once entered the galaxy.

Judging from the data returned by the sensor equipment that Chen Ming placed near the star to cover the star in all directions.

There were no signs of any flares on the star's surface, nor any traces of planet-eating objects.

The star is still very stable, with a stable low temperature.
The arrival of the wormhole doesn't seem to have stimulated it.

It seems that Chen Ming has to use the methods he personally prepared.

However, just before Chen Ming really took action.

The communicator on his body suddenly rang.

It was the survivors who took the initiative to initiate the communication.

Chen Ming picked up the communicator and saw only one sentence on it: "We want to ask one thing, have you seen the Star Eater?"

Chen Ming frowned and chose to respond with silence.

Sure enough, the survivors themselves explained why they knew about this matter: "We are keeping an eye on many things, especially the wormhole leading to our original world."

"so?"

"We can provide you with some information about the Star Eater, such as its weaknesses."

Before the survivors could continue to state their terms of the deal, Chen Ming directly refused, "No thanks."

Chen Ming's plan was halfway prepared, and it was impossible for him to follow the pace of the survivors.

Moreover, he didn't use all his trump cards the last time he fought with the Nightmare of the Planes, so it's even more impossible for him to use the Star Eater this time.

This time the communication ended at the speed of light.

In the pitch-black space station of the survivors.

The arm that shone with both polished and rusted metallic colors put down the communicator that had just been turned off.

Another voice came from the darkness: "Your performance last time and this time was too much. It made Chen Ming more vigilant unnecessarily."

The survivor with the code name "Nano" responded: "It is this kind of vigilance that will make humans think in the wrong direction."

"There are still many guardians wandering around in different locations in this star field. Sooner or later, he will need us."

The survivor space station fell into silence again.

At this time, Chen Ming couldn't help but frowned, holding the communicator and staring at the two sentences on it, thinking constantly.

He refused the deal with the survivors for other reasons besides the fact that he did have some means prepared but had not yet used them.

Because he sensed trouble and danger from the survivors.

It's not a danger of perceived danger, but a pure sense of danger.

Why were they able to contact him just when he was about to do something?
How did they see what was happening here?

What methods are they using to monitor this galaxy, or in other words, monitor him?
Optical sensing can't be that fast
It takes five years to detect something that happens five light years away.

The only way the survivor knew he had encountered the Devourer was because there was some kind of monitoring system installed somewhere nearby.

But Chen Ming couldn't find any surveillance equipment, nor did he feel like he was being spied on.

His intuition can help him perceive many situations that are sometimes impossible to observe with the naked eye. For example, someone looking at him from behind can be easily discovered by his perception.

But he had no idea of ​​the survivors' surveillance methods.

Just like Chen Ming had no way to track the signal sent by the communicator before.

Or maybe he's not strong enough.

Otherwise, there is no need to consider this issue at all.

But no matter what happens in the outside world, no matter what impact it has.

He has to do what he has to do.

Chen Ming's psychic energy fluctuations swept across the entire galaxy. After finding no problems, he activated the reverse matter transition device.

Begin to migrate stellar matter out of the star.

Compared to what the Star-Eating Body swallowed, what Chen Ming pulled out at this time could only be considered a drizzle.

Moreover, Chen Ming had only activated the device for a few seconds, and only a small amount of stellar matter was transferred out.

The surfaces of the dim stars in the galaxy showed signs of violent activity.

It is not known whether Chen Ming drew some important substances with more concentrated energy, or whether he drew the energy of the Star-Eating Body.

In short, the Star Eater is indeed anxious.

As the intense activity on the star's surface became more and more apparent, a bright spot of light appeared on the sensor.

After slightly modifying the sensor data, the image of the Planet Eater appeared in front of Chen Ming.

It stuck out half of its body and a tentacle-like tail from inside the star.

The tip of its tail points toward the region in space where stellar material is escaping.

A ray that seemed to be ejecting stellar matter pierced through the device that Chen Ming had set up in space to extract stellar matter, directly destroying it.

The next moment, the Star-Eating Body, having achieved its goal, wanted to turn around and return to the star.

But Chen Ming's fleet, which had been prepared long ago, jumped to the vicinity of the star the moment the ray was emitted.

Even though the heat of a star is extremely terrifying, the armor of the biological fleet has the ability to isolate the plasma.

The star itself is a huge plasma.

As long as they do not enter the interior of a star directly, the temperature outside the star alone will not threaten the Zerg fleet.

The Zerg fleet was still composed of pure Hercules-class ships, numbering 200, just like before.

Not much, because the first wave of attacks is still just a test.

Ever since the last time Chen Ming launched an attack on the Nightmare of the Planes, and the Nightmare of the Planes released some kind of large-scale attack, Chen Ming had made up his mind.

Whenever he fights this type of enemy, he must first make a test run to avoid unnecessary losses.

Although the loss is meaningless to Chen Ming, he still chooses to maintain this habit.

And just like last time, the Zerg fleet also prepared a large number of different types of weapons to test the damage that the Star Devourer itself could cause to different types of weapons.

When the Star Eater had just finished its ray and turned around to return to the star

The Zerg fleet's various weapons attacked the body and tail of the star that had not yet completely sunk into the star.

The tail broke directly, the regular icosahedron on the head was directly pierced, and countless wounds were left on the body.

A large amount of stellar matter was ejected from the wound of the star-eating body, spreading into space and onto the stars.

All the results of the weapon tests were immediately returned to Chen Ming.

It can be seen that neither live ammunition nor energy weapons perform very well when facing this kind of creature that can live on stars.

Live ammunition weapons will be melted by the terrifyingly high temperatures, and energy weapons will be offset by the high energy of stars.

But the effect of arc weapons is still powerful. This kind of damage, which is derived from the concept of radiation energy and directly hits the essence, has a good effect when facing any enemy.

Whether it was the pierced head or the severed tail, it was all the result of the arc weapon.

At this time, the injured StarEater did not hide directly into the star, but crawled out of the star.

The light on its body was flickering at an extremely high frequency, as if it was using the strong light to emit an angry roar.

The wound on its 20-sided head healed quickly, and the broken tail grew back at a speed visible to the naked eye, and all the tail tips were aimed at Chen Ming's Zerg fleet at the same time.

Chen Ming's eyes just swept across the weapon's actual combat data and the angry Star-Eating Body.

His attention was drawn to the condition of the star itself.

Because he suddenly discovered that some of the Zerg fleet's attacks did not fall directly on the Devourer, but on the stars.

This is a very normal situation, but what is abnormal is that the attack methods that fell into the star seemed to have penetrated a barrier.

The energy inside the star is released through the punctured barrier.

Chen Ming could see that the matter inside the star still maintained high energy.

Although it is certainly weaker than before, compared to the almost "cold" stellar surface, the energy contained inside the star is still barely enough to maintain a normal cosmic environment.

Chen Ming understood.

Star-eating bodies don't really drain the energy of stars.

It does draw away a lot of the star's energy, but it also secretes or creates some kind of substance that covers the star's surface.

These materials limit the star's energy from escaping outward and concentrate the energy inside, which the star eater uses for itself.

It's like a Dyson sphere.

This was once a purely theoretical idea as a means of collecting all the energy of a star.

Now, part of it has been realized by such a giant beast deep in the starry sky.

There was no time for Chen Ming to think more.

Because at this time, the counterattack of the Devourer had already arrived in front of the Zerg fleet.

(End of this chapter)