The Death of εEri

Hawke's thirst for great force had reached an almost insane level. Leaving aside the hatred of the extermination of his clan, the pressure of his own survival was weighing on Hawke's mind all the time, almost making him gasp for breath.

Hawke hadn't forgotten that Eagle Nebula, a class 2 medium danger zone, had destroyed the fleet of a class 4 civilisation, and Hawke didn't think he would be able to fight it.

Hawke had consulted Luca II and asked him if there were any dangerous areas that had been explored for a reason?

Hawke was really curious about this question, because Hawke could not figure out what kind of existence could scare even such powerful civilisations as the Guardians and the Scavengers.

Luca II replied, "There are. Five million two hundred and seventy thousand years ago, there was a level three highly dangerous area that was once detected by the Guardian civilisation, and after that detection campaign, the Guardian civilisation declared that the danger mark was lifted. But what exactly the Guardian civilization discovered from there, no one knows except the Guardian civilization."

Hawke cursed, "Saying it is the same as not saying it, and it does nothing but pique my curiosity."

"But ..." Luca II continued, "There has been a rumour circulating within the Alliance that the technology for the manufacture of the Scavenger civilization's ultimate war fortress, the Neutron Battlestar, was obtained from a dangerous area. Rumour has it that it was a class five extremely dangerous area in the Silver Heart, and that the Scavenger civilisation explored this dangerous area and obtained the Neutron Battlestar's manufacturing technology from it."

"Oh? Exploring a dangerous area and getting advanced technology?" Hawk was instantly energized and pondered in his mind, "Maybe there will be something in this secondary danger zone that can quickly raise my level of technology as well."

"That's a bit of an impractical idea, let's do our own thing first." Hawke sighed and commanded one of the village-class ships to transport a piece of machinery to the top of Satellite One.

The first thing that Hawke carried out was the construction work of the scientific research base. While the research base was being built, Hawke also sent out a huge robot force to explore the entire Eagle Nebula a planetary system to get a rough idea of the distribution of minerals in it.

The construction of the infrastructure took Hawke a year. Within that year, Hawk had built, with great efficiency, over a thousand mining bases throughout the Eagle Nebula a system, spread over different moons, relying on village ships for transport between them.

The nine moons in hydrostatic equilibrium became Hawke's main construction bases. In the first phase, Hawke intends to build a large particle collider out of the ring Eagle Nebula I. This is essential for basic physics research.

This is an essential tool for conducting fundamental physics research. In the meantime, Hawke's technology has improved again, so the speed of construction will be greatly increased this time, and the materials used will be reduced by more than 99%.

The plan is to build 600,000 separate large accelerating circles, each approximately 1,000 kilometres apart, on top of the Eagle Nebula One orbit, with the circles no longer linked to each other by solid materials, but by shield technology to keep the interior of the accelerator pure.

This will save a great deal of material as well as time. At Hawke's current rate of construction, within two years, Hawke could have it completed.

Once the infrastructure was built, Hawke immediately began construction of the particle collider. Tens of thousands of spacecraft were busy travelling around the Eagle Nebula a system, and the Eagle Nebula I Large Particle Collider was growing at a perceptible rate.

At the same time, Hawke was conducting a great deal of scientific research in the main base. Eventually, after six months, the first improved Murakami ship was built.

This ship has the latest power systems, the latest defence systems and the latest weapon systems. Today was the day of the first test flight of this ship.

In the middle of the space dock, Hawke sat within the New York, quietly watching the small ship.

"Maximum tolerable acceleration is three kilometres per second, at which the engines can run continuously for half an hour, accelerating it to a speed of five thousand one hundred kilometres per second and consuming twenty per cent of the fuel that can be carried. For subsequent deceleration, and manoeuvrability, this percentage, cannot be higher." Hawke thought silently and gave the order to launch.

Immediately after the order was given, the small craft was propelled out of the dock by a powerful jet of air from the specially modified engines at the rear of the ship.

It was accelerating at an astonishing rate, and after thirty seconds its speed climbed to ninety kilometres per second, after ten minutes it climbed to eighteen hundred kilometres per second, and after one thousand and one seconds it climbed to three thousand and three kilometres per second, and still going up.

Then ... the ship exploded.

The hyper-range communication satellite Hawke had set up in advance transmitted this image to Hawke. Hawk saw that as the speed accelerated to three thousand and one hundred kilometres per second, the shell of this village-class ship deformed, the engines overheated, the deformation of the shell pressed against the engines, and immediately, the ship exploded with a bang.

"Motherfucker." Hawk cursed, "The material technology is still not up to scratch, and, at twenty percent fuel, it's too high. Must continue to improve material strength, as well as improve engine efficiency."

Gravitational acceleration and gravity had the same effect. That is, above a ship accelerating at nine point eight metres per second, a person would feel gravity not dissimilar to that of Earth.

The acceleration of this ship is three kilometres per second. The effect of this acceleration is roughly equal to the effect of three hundred times the gravity of the Earth. Under such a massive gravity, the materials that make up this village-class airship are crushed and deformed.

The energy shield could only defend against external attacks, it was powerless against gravity.

This meant that Hawke would have to further strengthen the material in order to adapt to the greater gravity and to allow the ship to manoeuvre better.

In addition to this, Hawke needs to continue to enhance the energy conversion efficiency of the ship's engines. Assuming that a hundred parts of energy can be released from nuclear fusion, only twenty parts of the energy will be used for useful purposes, and up to eighty parts of the energy will be wasted. What Hawke is trying to do is to reduce the energy loss and squeeze the most energy out of the least amount of fuel.

Material technology, and energy conversion rates, were the two major impediments to Hawke's ability to further increase the speed and manoeuvrability of his ship.

In order to solve these two problems, Hawke continued to focus his efforts in the Science Research Institute, where he conducted various experiments.

While Hawke was struggling to improve his ship's performance, Hawke observed a strange phenomenon.

In the sky, a bright star suddenly appeared. This bright star was previously invisible in the visible band, but now, it skyrocketed to an apparent magnitude of -5.7 degrees. It is brighter than Venus when viewed from Earth.

This means that its luminosity has, in this instant, increased by a factor of tens of thousands.

Looking at this suddenly bright star, Hawke was in a state of fear.

No mistake, it was fear. For this star was familiar to Hawke.

It was the εEri system.

Around it, Hawke had spent hundreds of years, where he had defeated Waterdrop, defeated the first fleets of the Lucan civilisation, acquired the shield technology, and initially stepped into the third level of civilisation.

In Hawke's mind, besides the Sun, the most important thing was the εEri galaxy.

"The εEri galaxy, a supernova explosion. εEri galaxy, dead." Hawke muttered, turning the scene to Luca II.

Luca II was in the same state of shock.

"The εEri galaxy doesn't have enough mass for a supernova explosion. Then, its current anomalous state could only have been caused by someone on purpose. Could it be that the fleet of the ... Guardian civilization has finally arrived?"

Hawk thought silently.

The mass of the εEri galaxy, which was smaller than the sun, would have turned into a red giant in ten billion years, and its core would have collapsed into a white dwarf, ending its life in a more subdued manner. But now, its energy radiation, which could have lasted another ten billion years, explodes in this instant.

The εEri galaxy has been detonated.

"The light of the εEri galaxy travels at the speed of light, and here I am, more than six thousand light years from the εEri galaxy, which means that more than six thousand years ago, the εEri galaxy was detonated. The day I sailed under the wraps of the Ghosts, over six thousand one hundred years passed in the outside world ... That makes thirty years after I encountered the Ghosts, the εEri galaxy was detonated, and its light, until now, did not pass to me."

Hawke felt a little bitterness in his heart.

That was ... a star! A young star with a life expectancy of ten billion years! Now, just like that, it was gone. It had exploded all the energy it could radiate in the ten billion years that followed, in this instant, ending its life prematurely in a magnificent way.

"εEri, I have caused you to die." Hawke thought silently, and in his heart, a strong emotion of hatred bubbled up.

It was hatred for the Guardian Alliance.

"If my people hadn't brought me here, I would have been captured by the Guardian Alliance long ago. Did ... destroy a star to vent their anger when they couldn't find any trace of me or my people?"

The light of the εEri galaxy, after lasting for two days, gradually dimmed and finally disappeared, completely lost from the universe.

After that, no matter how advanced Hawke's observations were, he could not find the εEri galaxy. In the place of the original εEri galaxy, only a large, spreading planetary nebula was left behind, like the corpse of the εEri galaxy.