246: Chapter 246 Cangming's Hibernation

Five hundred years...

Passed by in a flash!

Gao Yuan sat on the roof of a massive building, watching the changing colors of the sky overhead.

Gao Gan sat opposite him.

"Brother, the nebula side has already reached the core. In another ten years, Cangming No. 1 will emerge!"

"Mm..."

"Next, humanity's journey is about to begin once more!"

"Mm..."

"You haven't been in a good mood lately!"

"Mm..."

"Sigh, look, that's just how it is. Don't you still have your great-grandsons?"

Gao Yuan felt lost. The familiar people around him—Zhang Baiyi, Lin Mei, Mo Ti, Bai Moyu, Mo Yun... and a large group of others—were all gone.

They had aged naturally and lived to be nearly three hundred years old!

They passed away peacefully, having suffered no pain and enjoyed all they could.

His sons and grandsons were gone too.

Now Gao Yuan had many great-grandsons, dozens of them... but they felt like strangers to him.

The people he knew had left one by one.

This was the world he had built.

But at this moment, it felt exceptionally lonely.

"Gao Gan, I envy you. You're all alone, yet you don't feel lonely!"

"You're wrong. I'm not alone; I have you... We brothers were both created by Father. Wasn't Father's last wish for humanity to become a truly advanced civilization, never to be threatened again, and never to have to rely on others' whims? We're doing well now. If Father were still here, he would surely be proud of us!"

"I know... but you don't understand. Those familiar people aged and died one by one, while only you remain eternally young... I feel like I've become some old immortal!"

"You're overthinking it... On a cosmic scale, a mere few hundred years is hardly worth mentioning! Besides, when I entered the Polaris Star Sector alone, knowing that the world I lived in would be destroyed and I would be the only survivor, do you know how much pain I felt?"

Gao Yuan shook his head...

"You weren't alone. Didn't the five of you enter together?"

"There were five of us, but we didn't enter together! Gao Yuan, everyone around me and the world I knew are gone... Back then, I treated myself like a robot. Didn't you always ask me why I knew so much? It's because I no longer had any attachments in life; everything was gone... You're better off; you have two worlds! I've always envied you!"

"In the end, we're both the same, both solitary... Those great-grandsons of mine are your great-grandsons too! They were born on Meteorite Star, and their way of thinking is completely different from ours... The people who experienced The Catastrophe, the displacement, and the wars are all gone! No one understands us now!"

"There's still Liang Yi and the others... they've always been here too!"

"I don't feel close to them! Although we've worked together for so many years and are as familiar as can be, the people I trust most in my heart are still those from when Black Fish Technology was first founded on Earth! I once read a theory that when a person constantly reminisces about the past, it means they've grown old! When a person feels that those around them no longer need them, they might as well die..."

"Now, whenever I sleep, I always dream of returning to that large courtyard back home. Gao Qiu sits in the yard, as calm as a still well."

Gao Gan patted Gao Yuan's shoulder...

"Don't think about it... Life has just been too stable these past few years! Go to the nebula and take a look; it's reached the most critical moment now!"

Gao Yuan nodded.

He boarded the latest model of Starship...

This was a new type of warship, teardrop-shaped, with a rounded head and a pointed tail...

Over the years, Cangming No. 1 had gradually provided humanity with quite a bit of core technology.

For example, the Gravity Bombs on these Starships could fire a projectile that, upon exploding, formed a powerful magnetic field, which in turn generated a strong gravitational field...

Based on Earth's gravity, the gravitational field of a Gravity Bomb could instantly reach a thousand times that of Earth...

This was a tactic designed for large warships...

Generally, when a large warship was subjected to such gravity, the uneven internal stress would cause it to disintegrate instantly.

This was more effective than Laser Cannons or Electromagnetic Cannons...

It was more powerful and had many uses...

The Starship soon reached the periphery of the nebula's core...

A distance of one billion kilometers.

They couldn't get any closer; any closer, and they would be torn apart by gravity.

By now, the nebula was no longer a vast expanse like before; it looked more like a miniature star.

The membrane clung tightly to the periphery, constantly swallowing the nebula's matter.

The intense heat made the work of the Membrane Robots difficult. The heat alone was more than enough to power the robots, and now all their energy was being used to transfer temperature... there was no need for Nuclear Fusion at all. Without fusion, there was no matter...

So, supplies were becoming increasingly scarce.

Just then, a technician stationed there from the Academy of Sciences arrived.

"Marshal, you've arrived!"

"Mm, what's the situation?"

"Currently, over 80% of the robots have stopped absorbing. It's estimated that in three months at most, all robots will stop working and eventually become... a layer of structure transferring light and heat for the nebula's core! Because the gravity is too strong, it's very difficult for these robots to be withdrawn!"

They couldn't return, and they couldn't work... eventually becoming part of this internal star...

Gao Yuan frowned.

"Have you contacted Cangming No. 1?"

"We've contacted them several times, but the other party hasn't responded!"

Gao Yuan had a premonition that things might not be going well.

So he personally contacted Cangming No. 1.

"Cangming, are you there?"

It took over ten minutes for a response.

"Gao Yuan, we might have to enter hibernation. It's been too long, and we're about to reach our limit! Only by entering hibernation can we preserve our civilization!"

"You were trapped for so long before; it's only been a few hundred years now. How can you not hold on?"

"We underestimated the pressure inside the nebula. Before, we made no moves, and the nebula didn't change. But now that you are constantly devouring the nebula from the periphery... the nebula likely sensed the threat and increased the intensity of its internal activity... The pressure and temperature we're enduring have increased tenfold compared to before..."

"Cangming, we're also in a predicament... the assimilation cannot continue!"

"Apologies, all our equipment is about to hibernate... Humanity, we're counting on you!"

"We..."

"Please! Forced hibernation is imminent... ten, nine..."

"We need better technology!"

"Three, two, one..."

The subtitles in front of Gao Yuan disappeared.

At this moment, he felt a bit lost. Cangming No. 1 had hibernated?

Then what should he do? What should humanity do?

He even had a thought: the Ideal Star was already built and ready to depart at any time. Over these five hundred years, human technology had also improved significantly...

Now that the work on the nebula had hit a bottleneck, it seemed justifiable for him to leave this place...