Rebirth of the Super Battleship-Chapter 631: Central Black Hole
The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy was the undisputed absolute core of the entire galaxy. From the perspective of the Milky Way Galaxy, all celestial bodies, whether planets, stars, star clusters, or gas clouds, in fact revolved around it. Although planets orbited stars, do not forget that stars also orbited this black hole.
It was like the monarch of a vast empire. Any powerful celestial body, whether other black holes or other compact objects such as neutron stars, was but a dwarf by comparison. All matter within the Milky Way Galaxy were its subjects, submitting before it and revolving around it.
Even though Xiao Yu had already reached the level of a Level 6 Civilization, he still could not approach it too closely. Its gravity was simply too strong. If he drew too near, the spaceships Xiao Yu had built using Level 6 Civilization technology would also be torn apart by it.
Extremely powerful gravity meant a higher orbital speed. Therefore, the celestial bodies in the Galactic Center region moved very rapidly, each like a maddened behemoth, swiftly revolving around it. Their orbital speeds had to be high. If they were slow, they would be drawn into the black hole.
Here there were aging giant stars everywhere, as well as compact objects such as neutron stars and white dwarfs everywhere. Various interstellar dust clouds were also very common. Xiao Yu even observed extremely obvious X-ray outbursts and extremely violent jets around this giant black hole. These jets, taking the black hole as their origin and along the black hole’s poles, sprayed into the cosmos for several thousand light-years.
It was a rather unfortunate large interstellar dust and gas cloud. Its total mass was roughly more than a dozen times that of the sun. If it were elsewhere, given certain initial conditions, it would also begin to collapse and ultimately form stars and planets similar to the sun and Earth. But its location decided that it was not so fortunate.
This gas cloud was like a layer of mist, shrouding the giant black hole. Accelerated by the black hole’s terrifying gravity, it fell into the black hole while revolving. Extremely high velocities implied violent collisions. In such collisions, it obtained extremely high energy, enough to escape the black hole’s gravitational field, and ultimately formed the spectacular jets stretching for several thousand light-years.
Everything here was mad, everything extreme. Xiao Yu had never been in such a harsh environment before. This harsh environment would likely be enough to make a Level 4 Civilization unable to move a single step and ultimately perish here. Even a Level 5 Civilization would have to proceed with great caution. Only a Level 6 Civilization that had preliminarily mastered space technology could act here with a little freedom.
Facing such circumstances, Xiao Yu began to advance using a combination of conventional navigation and curvature flight. Because of the overly powerful gravitational field and the influence of those frenzied celestial bodies, curvature flight became very dangerous in certain regions. When he encountered such stretches, Xiao Yu would abandon curvature flight. But no matter how harsh the environment, Xiao Yu never gave up his forward steps.
“According to the data obtained from the memories of the Arboreal Race Alien Beast, the ruins of this Level 7 Civilization of the mechanical direction should lie on an orbit revolving around the black hole, at a distance between fifteen light-years and twenty light-years, roughly on the ecliptic plane of this black hole. That greatly narrows the range. I just do not know in what state the ruins of this Level 7 Civilization exist. Are they like the ruins of the Trolor Civilization, existing within a small universe, or a base of a typical Technological Civilization located within the visible universe. How should I confirm whether something is or is not its ruins.”
This was a question without an answer, which greatly increased the difficulty of Xiao Yu’s search. A Level 7 Civilization was after all an existence beyond Xiao Yu’s imagination. Matters had reached this point, and Xiao Yu could only take things one step at a time.
If the error above and below the ecliptic plane were calculated as 0.5 light-years each, then the thickness of the range Xiao Yu needed to search would be one light-year. The constraint of fifteen to twenty light-years for distance further limited this search region to a ring centered on the central black hole. The volume of this ring reached six hundred cubic light-years, similar to the volume of a cube with an edge of 8.5 light-years. And keep in mind that the distance from Earth to the sun is only roughly one ten-thousandth of 1.5 light-years.
This was without question an extremely vast search range. Most crucially, Xiao Yu did not know what form the Level 7 Civilization’s ruins took. If it were a grain of dust, and space technology had been used within this grain of dust to construct space to place the ruins, Xiao Yu truly had no way to find it.
But in the memories of the Arboreal Race Alien Beast, Xiao Yu had not obtained detailed relevant information regarding the ruins of the Level 7 Civilization. With no other choice, Xiao Yu could only select the most foolish method. He extracted from the small universe a number of probes numbering in the billions upon billions and began searching within this region, filtering out all matter with certain special properties, and then carrying out further analysis to confirm whether it was the ruins of the Level 7 Civilization.
On the road forward, Xiao Yu had already considered this point, so he had manufactured these many probes in advance. Now they were all released at once. After being released, these probes immediately scattered into the boundless, endless dark universe using curvature flight and began searching for those things Xiao Yu wanted.
Immediately, an infinite torrent of data poured into the filtering servers set up by Xiao Yu. Useless information was discarded, useful information was classified, information regarding natural phenomena of the universe was stored, and abnormal information was sent into Xiao Yu’s mind for him to analyze personally.
In such a search operation, another one hundred years passed. According to the message obtained from the mind of the Arboreal Race Alien Beast, less than two hundred years remained until the ruins of the Level 7 Civilization would open. But Xiao Yu still knew nothing about its position and did not even know its form of existence. Instead, he obtained some gains in other areas. During this period, the probes Xiao Yu had scattered explored more than one hundred thousand aging stars, more than three hundred thousand neutron stars of various types, nearly one million white dwarfs of various sizes, and observed at close range more than thirty stellar collisions. There was even a stellar-mass black hole that, under chaotic gravitational influence, was ultimately captured by the central black hole and then drawn in. The two black holes merged. The small black hole vanished, and the mass and event horizon of the large black hole increased once again.
The merger process of the two black holes was quiet. It was not like the collisions of stars or white dwarfs or even neutron stars that would erupt with such colossal energy. This was very obvious. Black holes are misers. No matter can escape from within by conventional means. Then the collision of two black holes naturally would not erupt with energy bursts or matter scatterings. Instead, some of the celestial bodies and dust clouds orbiting around the two black holes collided with each other and scattered a bit of energy.
Even so, such events still greatly broadened Xiao Yu’s horizons. Xiao Yu felt that even if he ultimately could not find the ruins of that Level 7 Civilization, harvesting this much astronomical observation data meant that this trip would not have been in vain.
The exploration operation continued. Xiao Yu comprehensively grasped all intelligence about the Galactic Center, filled in the gaps in his previous data regarding this aspect, felt the greatness and vastness of the central black hole, and bore witness to the magnificent and marvelous stories that had occurred or were occurring.
But Xiao Yu still had not found the ruin of the Level 7 Civilization. At this moment, less than fifty years remained until the time when the ruin of the Level 7 Civilization would open. Xiao Yu could be certain that if he missed this time, he would definitely lose his chance with those precious ruins.
“Could it be that thousands of years of preparation will ultimately end like this. Could it be that on this trip I can only return empty-handed. The creations of a Level 7 Civilization. Even the most ordinary creations of a Level 7 Civilization are treasures of incomparable value to a Level 6 Civilization, and there is even the possibility that they could allow me to deduce what exactly blocks a Level 6 Civilization from advancing to a Level 7 Civilization. This opportunity is too precious, too rare. To retreat like this, I truly cannot accept it.”
Just then, Xiao Yu received a message from his Specter companion.
“Xiao Yu, from this direction I feel a strong, familiar aura. I can confirm that the Alien Beast Taihao, the Specter Taihao, and the Technology Taihao are all here. This aura is very unfamiliar, but it seems to align with a certain existence I have heard of. Hmm, that existence must be the Python Alien Beast. And this is the Crocodilian Alien Beast, this is the Guardian Civilization. Heavens, these several formidable existences have actually all gathered there. What are they doing there.”
“Eh.” Receiving this message, Xiao Yu paused slightly, then immediately reacted. “The most important matter in the Galactic Center recently is the opening of the ruin of the Level 7 Civilization. These existences are among the most formidable within the Milky Way Galaxy. If they have all gathered there, for what other reason could it be. I am certain that the location where the Level 7 Civilization will appear must be there. The Taihao Alliance, the Guardian Civilization, and the remaining two Alien Beast Civilizations have all come. Very good, very good. Specter, prepare for battle. We will set out there now.”
