Interstellar Survival: Invasion

Under the searchlight, countless irregular forms with translucent and rippling bodies were revealed. These forms were all crawling up the walls in the black perpendicular tunnel. A stream of broken transparent substances was constantly falling down from above.

"These things are probably Bulu's kin. What a surprise that a life form that not even the laser probe can detect is actually visible with the naked eye," I said to Old Du.

When we aimed our searchlight up the tunnel, an even scarier scene appeared before us. At the top of the tunnel was a layer of thick darkness where not even light could pass. Hundreds of thorned tentacles extended out of the darkness, and three clawed digits tipped the end of each tentacle. The tentacles were constantly grabbing at the transparent bodies climbing up the wall.

The moment a tentacle caught one of Bulu's kin, it vanished into the darkness. At almost the same time, a different tentacle shot out of the darkness and dropped the remains of the transparent creature down. Then, the tentacle would resume its job of capturing the transparent creatures.

The tentacles were so fast that I could barely see any creature reach the darkness successfully. Despite their grim fate, the transparent creatures continued streaming up from deep below. The scene repeated itself again and again, and it was truly eerie to behold.

"This is basically a slaughter. These transparent creatures look like they're trying to escape, whereas the creature at the top is feeding on them," I said.

"Can these transparent things even be considered life forms? Perhaps they are merely part of the local ecology?" Old Du wondered.

"Well, it seems like the top is the exit. If we want to go out, we have to go through the darkness. I wonder what ability the creature up there has and what kind of form it exists in," I said.

"That powerful creature is probably what the emperor wants us to catch. Bulu can control our brainwaves, but the creature up there is eating Bulu's kin like snacks. It is clearly a powerful creature," said Old Du.

I suddenly realized that we had been focused on the new tunnel and had neglected Bulu. When I turned around, I saw that Bulu had stopped assuming my form and had returned to an irregular spheroid form. Its body flickered with red ripples as it lay blankly on the ground.

"Canyue, why isn't it attacking the shadow with its kin? Has it evolved into a higher level of intelligence?" asked Old Du.

"Do you think this is an android that can self-upgrade? I don't think that's the case," I said.

I bent down and studied Bulu. I saw the substance in his feeler start flowing quickly, and the red ripples on its body flickered.

"I believe it might have been injured. This unstable invisibility is probably also related to its injury. Therefore, it was unable to join the assault," I said.

"That makes sense. We need to try communicating with it," Old Du said.

"Who's doing it? I do have experience communicating with it once," I said.

"I'll do it. I want to give this experience a try. The substance in its feeler is flowing as quickly as when it had communicated with you. This must be a signal," said Old Du.

I nodded. Old Du then shut off the shield around his head. Before long, I saw Old Du sitting down on the ground. The communication must have started. Since there was time to spare, I continued observing the scene before me. I discovered that the creatures attacking the shadow creature were not uniform in size. One thing they all shared was the rapidly flowing substance in their feelers. It seemed to be a form of attack.

Suddenly, I understood something. Bulu's species could only attack through brainwaves. Meanwhile, the shadow creature was not only resilient to such attacks, but it was also capable of physical attacks, an ability Bulu's species lacked. Thus, they could only be slaughtered helplessly.

What I couldn't understand was why they would charge unceasingly upward. Just what was it on the outer layer that attracted them so much?

"Canyue, where are you? We're inside the tunnel," Zhang Bao'er's voice suddenly came from the communicator, breaking my concentration.

"Go along the tunnel. There is only one way. Old Du and I are at the end," I replied.

"Roger. On our way," said Zhang Bao'er.

About an hour later, footsteps sounded behind me. Zhang Bao'er and company had arrived.

"We wasted a large amount of energy going through the coldest zone," complained Zhang Bao'er the moment he appeared.

I gestured at him to be quiet.

"Old Du? Is he communicating with the creature?" Zhang Bao'er asked.

I nodded before pointing at the opening behind me, gesturing at everyone to take a look. Unsurprisingly, everyone was greatly stunned by what they saw.

"Looks like this is the path to the outer layer. That shadow is probably our target," said Lifu.

"I just can't understand why these creatures are running to their deaths. What's the point?" Zhang Bao'er said.

"Old Du is probably talking to Bulu right now. We'll know more after he's back," I said.

Time passed, and eventually, two hours had gone by.

'Why is it taking so long this time?' I wondered inwardly.

Immediately, the substance within Bulu's transparent body started flowing rapidly. The red parts on its body, which I had assumed were wounds, gleamed brightly.

"Old Du is fine, right?" I grew nervous.

The red shone intensely for a while before calming. After a few minutes, the flow in its body slowed down again, and Old Du opened his eyes and slowly stood up.

"How was it? What did you talk about?" Zhang Bao'er asked before I could say anything.

Old Du looked at everyone, then said, "We must help them go through the black layer. Only then will we be able to face the giant monster above."

"What kind of a monster is above us?" asked Master Crystal.

"This planet's outer layer is actually a chunk from the core of a star that was thrown out after a black hole had evaporated. The chunk was highly radioactive, and when it collided with a magnetic asteroid, it became what it is today," said Old Du.

"Black hole evaporation? Th-that does not seem right. Are we going to throw physics upside down yet again?" exclaimed Dodo.

"Iron brain, just be straight with your doubts," said Zhang Bao'er.

Dodo turned its head as it thought. What Old Du said was too different from the records in their database. Thus, it was performing an intense calculation to take in the new information.

After a long while, Dodo said, "In 1975, a Blue scientist named Stephen Hawking proposed the popular black hole evaporation theory. He believed that any object thrown into a black hole would not cease to exist. The object would merely exist in a new form. Even when a star is swallowed by a black hole, the memory of the star will be preserved. After swallowing a large amount of energy, temperature and radiation would exist in a black hole.

“According to Hawking, as a black hole emanates energy and radiation, the mass and rotational energy of the black hole would reduce. The black hole would shrink and ultimately vanish. Old Du's theory that the outer layer of this planet is the remains of an evaporated black hole is problematic because the time it takes a black hole to fully evaporate spans a larger amount of time than the current age of the universe itself. If we assume that the universe is far older and that it would never shrink, there still shouldn't be any black hole that had finished evaporating at this point in time.

“That is because, currently, all black holes are growing more than they are evaporating. The speed of evaporation will only surpass the speed of growth when the universe is old enough that the temperature is lower than these black holes. That will take a very long time. The universe itself will probably expire before a black hole vanishes. It will probably take an insane period of time like 1099 years. Thus, no black hole should have evaporated as of yet."

"Dodo, you missed a few points. Time to give your database an update," said Old Du.

"What do I need to do? Let me know. I'll get to it immediately," said Dodo.

"Two points. Firstly, according to existing theory, collisions between black holes and collisions between stars have been happening. Therefore, is it possible that this substance is a byproduct of a collision between two parallel universes?

"Secondly, micro black holes exist. For regular giant black holes, the process of releasing particles is very slow, the process we know as evaporation. For micro black holes, the process is quick and like an eruption," said Old Du.

"Micro black holes have mostly remained a theory. An outer layer so big theoretically couldn't come from a micro black hole," argued Dodo.

"I believe there is a possibility that this might be the byproduct of the collision between parallel universes. In the books of the Eternal civilization, our current universe originated from the collision of two parallel universes. The heat energy resulting from the collision brought about the formation of stars. In that case, this black outer layer might be a fragment from that time," said Lifu.

Dodo argued, "But Old Du said that Gliesens had discovered a similar celestial body in the Scorpius Constellation. Let's suppose the black outer layer really comes from the collision of parallel universes, fragments of evaporated black holes from a different universe. The magnetic celestial bodies in our universe are not all blocky in nature. And yet this celestial body we named grayroid is a unique planet with flat land and a round sky."

Dodo made his argument well. We weren't able to argue against it. We sank into thought, contemplating the issue. After a long while, I suddenly thought of something.

"There is no issue with what we define as a grayroid. However, we were wrong in our assumption on the form of a grayroid," I said.

"Canyue, what do you mean?" Dodo asked.

"Coincidence. This is a mere coincidence. The planet with the round sky and the flat ground that the Gliesens had seen previously is the same as this planet due to pure coincidence. I believe that this grayroid should be redefined as a new celestial object that is created after an evaporated black hole collides with a magnetic celestial object and spits out fragments of a star's core. This classification should disregard the object's shape," I said.

"I agree," Lifu said.

Dodo argued, "But according to Hawking, when a black hole evaporates, what it releases is not physical in nature."

Zhang Bao'er boorishly interrupted, "Even the great physicist himself mentioned that it is merely a possibility. Time to give your iron head an upgrade."

Finally, the discussion on black hole evaporation reached an end. Although Dodo was still grumbling non-stop, nobody bothered to continue the discussion.

"Old Du, go on. What happened after the collision?" I asked.