176: Chapter 176 The Flames of Victory: Fireworks Under the Stars
The "soaring heavens" approached the void where the wreckage of "the piercer" drifted, moving like a cautious hunter.
Outside the hull, several engineering drones had been ejected.
Trailing long, slender mechanical arms and sampling containers, they drifted toward the larger metal fragments like glowing jellyfish in the deep sea.
The sensor array scanned at full power, recording the residual energy, material composition, and structural characteristics of every piece of wreckage.
Inside the bridge, although the atmosphere still carried the lingering heat of victory, it had already returned to the focus of combat.
" 'Nuwa', prioritize collecting wreckage from the suspected energy core area, as well as samples of that silver-gray liquid metal," Long Zhantian said, staring at the scan image on the main screen.
"Pay special attention to whether there are any intact storage units or information processor structures."
"Command confirmed. The drone formation has locked onto the three largest pieces of wreckage; one of them contains high-purity energy crystal residue, suspected to be core fragments," 'Nuwa' replied.
Su Xiaowan's voice came from the "Bright Dawn" base, carrying a hint of urgency: "Captain Long, 'system' has detected abnormal energy fluctuations inside that wreckage cloud. Although weak, they are slowly climbing… I suggest speeding up the sampling and then evacuating as soon as possible."
"Abnormal energy?" Long Zhantian frowned. "Is the wreckage unstable? Or…"
He didn't finish his sentence.
A sudden anomaly occurred.
On the main screen, at the center of the originally silent, drifting wreckage cloud—the exact location where "the piercer" energy core had been destroyed—a faint, ghostly blue light suddenly appeared without warning.
The point of light was initially only the size of a needle tip, almost imperceptible against the pitch-black starry background.
But it appeared extremely abruptly, as if it had "drilled" directly out of the void.
"Detected ultra-high-level gamma-ray burst!" the Sensor Officer's voice shifted instantly.
"Source—the core of the wreckage cloud! Energy readings are rising sharply! It's not residual leakage; it's… it's a new fusion reaction?!"
"Impossible!" the Chief of Weapons blurted out.
"Its core has already been destroyed by us! The physical structure has disintegrated!"
But the ghostly blue point of light began to expand, right before everyone's eyes.
It was not an explosive expansion, but rather like a bubble being blown, growing slowly and steadily in a uniform, almost elegant manner.
Ghostly blue light shone from within, becoming brighter and brighter, gradually taking on purple, gold, and white hues, like a miniature nebula being born in a vacuum.
Even more eerie was that the metal wreckage floating around it, once touched by the edge of this expanding sphere of light, was not pushed away but, as if attracted, silently merged into it, becoming part of the sphere of light, making its radiance even more colorful and complex.
"It's absorbing the wreckage!" the Intelligence Officer said in horror.
"This isn't a normal after-explosion… This is… some kind of self-destruct protocol? Or…"
"All drones, retreat immediately!" Long Zhantian ordered sternly.
"'soaring heavens', emergency retreat! Full power propulsion!"
The "zhurong engine" erupted with maximum thrust, and the massive hull began to accelerate away.
Those engineering drones also turned around one after another, flying back desperately.
But it was already a bit late.
The ghostly blue sphere of light had already expanded to a diameter of several hundred meters, and the brightness of its core even exceeded that of the distant stars.
The light shone through the "soaring heavens" portholes, dyeing the entire bridge in an eerie blue.
Then—the sphere of light stopped expanding.
Time seemed to freeze at this moment.
Immediately after came a silent bloom.
There was no sound, because a vacuum cannot transmit sound.
But on the retinas and sensors of all who witnessed it, it was a magnificent, silent firework display that transcended verbal description.
On the surface of the ghostly blue sphere, countless fine golden lines suddenly lit up, spreading like blood vessels, instantly covering the entire sphere.
The sphere "cracked open" from the inside—not a shattering explosion, but like a blooming flower, countless petals of light stretched and curled outward!
Each "petal" was composed of pure energy, presenting different colors: fiery gold, deep purple, cold blue, soft pink… They scattered outward in some incomprehensible, complex geometric trajectory, drawing thousands of brilliant ribbons of light across the starry sky.
Even more wonderfully, these ribbons of light did not diffuse chaotically.
After scattering to a certain distance, they began to bend, interweave, and loop, as if an invisible hand were painting in the void, using light to depict a huge and complex three-dimensional mandala pattern.
At the center of the pattern was the location of that initial ghostly blue sphere, which had now turned into a pure black singularity that constantly rotated and devoured all light.
This "firework" display lasted for a full twelve seconds.
Within those twelve seconds, the bridge of the "soaring heavens" was silent as a grave.
Everyone forgot to breathe, forgot to move, just staring blankly at the silent and magnificent dance of destruction outside the portholes.
The light reflected on every young, weathered, and resolute face, changing into magnificent colors.
Even the people at the "Bright Dawn" base, hundreds of millions of kilometers away, who saw this scene through the real-time images transmitted back by the "soaring heavens", were plunged into stunned silence.
This was not an explosion of violent destruction; it was a ritual of near-artistic, thorough energy release and material transformation.
It was breathtakingly beautiful, yet chillingly terrifying—this was the final "imprint," or perhaps, the "epitaph" left by the "reaper" civilization after its unit was destroyed.
When the last pink ribbon of light wound and dissipated into the void, and that pure black singularity also quietly faded away, nothing remained in the starry sky except for a very thin, rapidly cooling and dissipating cloud of metal ions.
The last traces of "the piercer" existence were completely erased by a grand, brilliant, and eerie "firework" display.
A long time passed.
"…Energy readings have completely vanished," the Sensor Officer's voice sounded a bit floaty.
"All wreckage… has been converted. Not even fragments larger than the micron level are left."
"It… it 'formatted' itself," the Electronic Warfare Officer muttered, looking at the empty scanning screen.
"Not even a single physical sample left for research. This self-destruct mechanism… is too thorough."
Long Zhantian slowly exhaled, only then realizing that his back was soaked with cold sweat.
If that "firework" display had erupted faster and more violently, the nearby "soaring heavens" and the drones would likely have been doomed.
"It's not formatting," Lin Mo's voice came from the communication channel, carrying unprecedented gravity.
"It's an 'upload'."
"Upload?" Long Zhantian was stunned.
"'system' captured extremely short but highly regular information encoding characteristics within that energy release," Lin Mo spoke quickly.
"That wasn't disordered energy dissipation; it was a highly compressed and encrypted data stream!"
"It was 'uploading' the entire process of 'the piercer' from being attacked by us to its final destruction—including all the data it collected about us—back to somewhere through some quantum or hyperspace channel we don't yet understand!"
Inside the bridge, the atmosphere, which had just relaxed due to the beautiful fireworks, instantly dropped to freezing.
"In other words…" the Vice Captain's throat moved.
"It died, but everything it 'saw' has already been sent out?"
"Sent to whom? Other 'reapers'? Or… the civilization that created them?"
No one could answer.
The sea of stars was silent, and the distant galaxy flowed as usual.
But everyone felt that in that deep, dark background, it was as if countless eyes had just "seen" this place through the magnificent fireworks.
"Recover all drones, return immediately," Long Zhantian's voice returned to iron-like coldness.
"'Nuwa', record, encrypt, and package all the data from that 'firework' display—every photon, every change in energy reading—and send it back for analysis as the highest priority sample."
"Understood."
The "soaring heavens" adjusted its attitude, its tail thrusters spewing a steady ghostly blue flame, and began to turn toward the direction of the "Guanghan Palace" base.
Outside the portholes, the void where the fireworks had bloomed returned to darkness and silence.
Only the eternal light of distant stars shone coldly, as if the brief and magnificent flame that had just occurred was nothing more than the flicker of an insignificant speck of dust in the long span of cosmic time.
But humanity knew that it was not dust.
That was the first torch lit by human civilization in the dark forest, the first stone thrown.
Although the firelight attracted attention and the stone disturbed what was hidden.
But they had no other choice, and they would never regret it.
"Return," Long Zhantian took one last look at that empty star field and commanded.
The starship traced an arc, carrying the flame of victory and the cold warning back toward home.