The tone of the message was extremely urgent. But after fully understanding its contents, Xiao Yu’s reaction was not one of urgency, but of anger, a kind of frustration born from disappointment.

“Damn it! I know your intelligence is inferior to mine, but are you really this foolish? At such a critical moment, you dare contact me again? If this aging Specter detects this transmission, what outcome do you think I’ll face?” Xiao Yu thought furiously.

“There’s no choice now. I must make a decision quickly. If this message is true… then your silence all this time wasn’t due to goodwill toward me, but because you’ve been focused entirely on something twenty light-years away? If that’s the case… then die!”

Xiao Yu issued the firing order.

Upon completion, the stellar cannon occupied over two hundred square kilometers. The terrain within these two hundred square kilometers had been completely transformed by Xiao Yu. Countless pipes and hollow chambers extended underground, while on the surface, buildings sprawled in disarray, innumerable instruments, endless wiring, maintenance robots everywhere…

All of this existed to serve a single launch device no more than two kilometers in diameter. The sole purpose of every component was to accumulate a tachyon torrent with a mass of negative one hundred fifty billion tons, and then fire it toward the star.

The launch command was issued, and the first to activate was the energy supply module. Countless engines roared to life at this moment…

All the scientists were already in position, nervously watching the screens before them, monitoring data streams one after another.

Among these more than six thousand scientists in the Science and Technology Division, Luka Three and Luka Four held the highest positions without question. At their level, they no longer needed to concern themselves with the technical details; their task was to maintain overall command and control.

Inside a special room, Luka Three and Luka Four were not sitting in their seats but pacing back and forth with furrowed brows, as though struggling to piece together their thoughts.

“Something feels off,” Luka Three said. “But I only have scattered fragments of ideas. I can’t fit them into a complete picture. What about you, Four?”

“I feel the same,” Luka Four replied. “I also have a bad premonition. And as the stellar cannon powers up, that feeling only grows stronger. There’s something we’re overlooking, something that could threaten us.”

“Let’s go through everything carefully.”

Luka Three sat down, resting his head on one hand, brows still tightly knit.

“First, the energy supply module. Based on the technology provided to us by the Molian Civilization, there appears to be a contradiction. In Zone A, the energy supply exceeds our projected calculations, while in Zone B, it’s lower than expected. This inconsistency doesn’t match the theoretical models.”

“Yes.” Luka Four nodded. “I’ve noticed this too. That’s the energy supply zone. Then there’s the tachyon generation zone… I’ve never been able to understand the purpose of that extra dark matter conversion device. The Molian Civilization insists that it’s necessary, but they refuse to explain why, citing technological restrictions.”

“And also…”

While Luka Three and Luka Four were locked in heated discussion, outside, aboard the Beijing, Xiao Yu was calmly and methodically issuing one command after another in proper sequence.

One hundred seventy million kilometers away, the half-remaining star still hung silently in space, unmoving. But Xiao Yu knew that its tremendous power was rampaging twenty light-years away. His Specter companion was under immense threat.

“The light from that red dwarf took twenty years to reach me. Meaning, this message was actually sent twenty years ago. I have no idea what may have happened during these twenty years. Is my Specter companion still alive? Most likely… nothing has happened yet. If it had died, the aging Specter should have made its move by now.”

“But… there seems to be a contradiction here. Even if my Specter companion could only use stellar flickering to send me messages, they didn’t have to rely solely on this one red dwarf star. After all, the previous flicker had already exposed this star. Could it be that… the other stars are too far away, and only this star is at a suitable distance?”

Xiao Yu silently speculated.

“Energy supply module fully activated. Tachyon generation module initializing… Unit One activation complete…”

As Xiao Yu issued each command, status reports continuously flowed back into his mind.

“There’s also another contradiction. All this time I’ve worked hard to conceal the fact that my Specter companion has come near this star. But judging from the current situation, hasn’t the aging Specter already discovered my Specter companion long ago? The light from the stellar flicker takes twenty years to reach me, which means the aging Specter has been hunting my Specter companion for over twenty years already? How… how could this be?”

This new message completely shattered Xiao Yu’s previous reasoning.

“Could it be… that because I’ve shown no signs of fleeing, the aging Specter hasn’t bothered to act against me? That as long as I remain here, preventing my Specter companion from escaping, it has no reason to make a move?”

A chill swept over Xiao Yu’s heart. He realized that many things were not actually within his control.

“But… but I finally completed the stellar cannon. Could it be that the aging Specter simply doesn’t understand technological weapons and underestimates the power of this stellar cannon, which is why it hasn’t interfered with me? Is that really the case? It seems rather far-fetched.”

“Tachyon generation module, Unit Two activation complete… Launch module entering preparation phase…”

Not only was Xiao Yu deep in thought, but in the ground laboratory, Luka Three and Luka Four were also immersed in tense contemplation. Luka Four sat down beside Luka Three. One looked up at the ceiling, the other down at the floor, both with deeply furrowed brows.

“I need to run some calculations,” Luka Three said, pulling out a personal computer and entering a string of data. After a while, Luka Three sighed, having found nothing, cleared the data, and began thinking again, then started a new round of input and calculations.

“I also need to calculate,” Luka Four said, doing the same as Luka Three, beginning its own round of data input.

“Tachyon generation module fully activated, launch module fully prepared… All systems functioning normally. Current tachyon accumulation at 2%… 3%…”

“Is it really that the aging Specter underestimated the power of the stellar cannon, and thus allowed me to build it? But that seems unlikely. Last time, it told me that this stellar cannon already possessed enough power to threaten a star, which means it knows the cannon’s power. So… it will definitely try to stop me. Am I already exposed? Have I already been exposed?”

At this moment, all of Xiao Yu’s thoughts seemed to freeze.

“I must fire the stellar cannon as soon as possible, I must kill it before it’s too late…” Xiao Yu muttered to himself, once again accelerating the stellar cannon’s activation sequence.

“You focused all your attention on capturing my Specter companion these past decades, which is why you’ve been so quiet, unable to see what I’ve been doing. Is that it?”

Xiao Yu muttered, but the fog in his heart only grew thicker.

“After the last stellar flicker, you immediately contacted me. But this time, there’s been no response. Why?”

“Decades of silence. Why?”

“This message arrived at such a perfect moment, right when I was hesitating whether to fire the stellar cannon. Is that really just a coincidence? Why so coincidental?”

Countless questions swirled in Xiao Yu’s mind.

“Enough. If possible, let me just fire one shot first!” Xiao Yu made his decision.

At the same time, inside the ground base, Luka Three stared at the data scrolling across its personal computer screen, and suddenly its eyes burst with light.

It sprang to its feet, even dropping its computer onto the floor. Its vacant eyes stared forward as it muttered, “I understand now. I understand. I understand everything.”

“What did you figure out?” Luka Four asked, curious. As its gaze swept across the fallen personal computer, it too abruptly stood up.

Its reaction mirrored Luka Three’s exactly.

“This… this is too vicious. Too vicious. How could it be like this? How could it be like this?”

At that moment, a message reached both of their minds.

“Stellar cannon preparing for launch. Entering final thirty-second countdown. All systems nominal. Forty… thirty-nine… thirty-eight…”

“We must stop the master! We must stop the master!” Luka Three and Luka Four screamed, leaping up and shouting loudly, “Master! Master! Stop immediately! The stellar cannon cannot be fired! Cannot be fired! If you fire the stellar cannon, we’ll all die! All of us will die!”