Wandering Meteor
Chapter 68 The Age of Escape

Chapter 68: Chapter 68 The Age of Escape

"Big brother, do you now understand what the giant nebula crisis is about?"

Wandering caught up with Lu Chen on the edge of the Three-leaf Nebula Core Region and asked curiously.

At this moment, the magnificent and dazzling Three-leaf Nebula was behind them, and what lay ahead was still wandering, endless wandering.

Lu Chen said, "I just learned while absorbing Cang Ming that the giant nebula refers to the Milky Way, and the giant nebula crisis refers to the century-scale collision between the Milky Way nebula and the Andromeda Nebula!"

"Isn’t that just the prediction made by ancient human astronomers?" asked Wandering, puzzled.

Lu Chen explained, "Strictly speaking, it was not a prediction, but rather humans deduced it by observing the movement of the two giant nebulae; if the trajectories of their movement remain unchanged over the boundless span of time, then their collision is inevitable."

Lu Chen continued, "However, humans at that time guessed it might take thirty to forty billion years before the collision would occur. Such a distant time did not concern people much, and I too had overlooked it momentarily. Now that I think about it, we’ve been traveling for quite a long time since leaving the Solar System, and considering the speed of the two giant nebulae’s movement surely increases over time, the collision will probably happen much sooner than predicted."

"That’s terrifying! The Milky Way nebula has a diameter of over a hundred thousand light-years, Andromeda Nebula has more than two hundred thousand light-years. Such a huge collision between two giants is unprecedented even in the universe, the result will definitely be both spectacular and catastrophic!" Wandering couldn’t help but feel alarmed.

At the same time, he was curious about what that moment would look like.

Lu Chen said, "Of course, the collision of such massive nebulae, the energy level released is unimaginable, even massive constant stars could be instantly obliterated, which is why I asked you to catch up quickly. Our primary task now is no longer to absorb interstellar material for growth, but to flee the Milky Way first; otherwise, once the two giant nebulae collide, given our position is on the edge of the Perseus arm of the Milky Way, we are sure to perish!"

"You’re right, boss. We should avoid this epochal catastrophe first. After all, there are countless amounts of interstellar material beyond the Milky Way, we can slowly absorb them after we are safe," agreed Wandering.

Lu Chen fell silent for a moment, then suddenly said, "It might not just be us, if Earth wasn’t destroyed by an Advanced Civilization but had initiated the wandering Earth plan, their flying speed surely would not match ours; they might still be somewhere in the Milky Way. We must find a way to ascertain the Earth’s direction and then locate it, otherwise, at the level of human civilization, or more accurately at the level of any biological civilization, survival through a nebula collision is almost impossible!"

Due to the uncertainties surrounding Earth, their limited time felt even more pressing.

If it were just themselves, they could have escaped the Milky Way at full speed.

"When will the two giant nebulae collide?" asked Wandering.

Lu Chen replied, "Based on the memories of Cang Ming, a hundred million years ago when he entered the Three-leaf Nebula, the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda was only about five hundred thousand light-years. Given so much time has passed, the distance between them may be less than a hundred thousand light-years now, the collision could happen at any moment!"

"We must hurry then!" Wandering stated gravely.

Both Wandering and Lu Chen have deep connections with Earth, so they would never easily abandon it!

In such a context, both the Milky Way nebula and the Andromeda Nebula are shrouded in the shadow of a colossal collision, with countless celestial civilizations and biological civilizations that have detected the impending collision already initiating escape plans spanning hundreds of light-years.

From a cosmic perspective, numerous light points can be seen departing from the edges of both the Milky Way and Andromeda nebulae every moment. These light points could be constant star celestial civilizations, propulsion systems of biological civilizations, or a communal life entity.

In any case, with the distance between the two giant nebulae now under a hundred thousand light-years, the era of nebula-level escape has finally commenced!

This will also mark the most spectacular and grand migration in cosmic history, involving more numbers and distances than all the migrations of humans combined over thousands of years!

Next.

Lu Chen and Wandering embarked on a full-force search for Earth’s whereabouts.

Besides the minuscule clues in the universe, it is most likely from other celestial or biological civilizations that they could get clues about Earth, so they have been searching for signs of life along the way.

However, it is worth mentioning that Lu Chen has evolved into a true constant star, with a mass of forty constant star masses, a body diameter of 500,000 kilometers, a gravitational range that has grown leaps and bounds to about one light-year, a core temperature of twelve million degrees, and a surface corona temperature of over a million degrees.

With such high temperatures, Wandering, of course, dare not approach.

Therefore, Lu Chen let Wandering revolve around him, becoming his first satellite and positioned on the first orbital track about 0.5 astronomical units away from Lu Chen.

Moreover, with Lu Chen’s current constant star mass and nuclear fusion rate, he would consume about one-twentieth of a billionth of his mass each year, meaning that Lu Chen’s constant star lifespan is twenty billion years.

Of course, this is not unchangeable.

As Lu Chen’s mass increases, the lifespan of the constant star will also change accordingly.

The reason for such a long lifespan, other than its own massive mass, is that constant stars basically have the ability to control the speed of nuclear fusion.

Speaking of this, it’s necessary to mention the previously discussed fluid static equilibrium.

This capability, possessed only by planet-level celestial bodies and above, places pressure gradients and stress gradients at a completely opposite balance point, which in constant stars means.

When the nuclear fusion reactions in the constant star core intensify, the resultant thrust will counter the internal pressure, reducing the collision rate of atomic nuclei and slowing the speed of nuclear fusion reactions. When the reactions slow to a certain extent and the thrust can’t counter the pressure, the pressure will then force the atomic nuclei to compress together, thus increasing the collision probability of atomic nuclei and accelerating the nuclear fusion reactions.

Constant stars use this skill to control the speed of mass consumption, and thus avoid the scenario of a constant star exploding instantly when nuclear fusion occurs.

Moreover, there’s more good news.

That is, after evolving into a constant star, Lu Chen has become essentially self-sufficient, no longer needing to convert cosmic rays into intentions.

Because nuclear fusion reactions are always taking place inside a constant star, generating vast amounts of ray particles, these particles are converted while inside the star, with only a small fraction being ejected out, forming constant star wind.

During this process, Lu Chen discovered a critical point.

He previously thought that converting ray particles was a feat of planetary magnetic fields, but after becoming a constant star, particles were transformed even before leaving the body.

This indicates it has nothing to do with planetary magnetic fields.

He pondered this seriously for a long time, and after absorbing the experiences of Cang Ming, he finally concluded that the consciousness field must be the key to forming intentions!

As for the underlying principles and secrets, Lu Chen, of course, does not know now, but he believes that as celestial bodies grow, the truth will eventually emerge before him one day.

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