Chapter 274: Cleansing the Stellar

Chapter 274: Chapter 273: Cleansing the Stellar

‘Could it be… that while I was unaware, some unknown force has already infiltrated the very heart of the Interstellar System and launched an attack against me?’

But now that my industrial production had recovered, I had placed the entire Lyra G16 Star System under strict surveillance.

From just a few million kilometers from the star to as far as trillions of kilometers away, Li Qingsong had deployed an untold number of satellites and Detectors.

And yet, this vast array of sensors had not detected any unknown entities approaching!

‘Then how did they get in?!’

That question didn’t seem to be the most important one right now. Because Li Qingsong had detected that after the first laser attack, even more laser beams were emanating from the direction of the star, launching an indiscriminate assault on all the ships and installations he had positioned in near-stellar orbit.

Even more distant targets were being hit—for example, large space stations near Planet Two, hundreds of millions of kilometers away, were also under attack!

And all the laser beams were coming from the direction of the star!

Li Qingsong immediately began an intense observation of the star. Using multiple extinction techniques, he managed to increase the resolution of the star’s surface to the meter level, allowing him to detect every subtle plasma fluctuation on its surface. He even resorted to close-range observation, dispatching suicide satellites to plunge directly into the star and gather data.

But no matter how he searched or what he observed, Li Qingsong could find no trace of the enemy.

Meanwhile, analysis of the lasers’ properties was also underway, and it yielded a rather strange conclusion for Li Qingsong.

These lasers… didn’t seem to be lasers at all.

They were a composite of light from many different wavelengths and frequencies. In terms of their overall spectral distribution, they seemed remarkably similar to the Lyra G16 Star itself.

In that instant, a thought surfaced in Li Qingsong’s mind: ‘Don’t tell me this is just starlight? The only reason it has so much energy and such destructive power is because it’s been focused?’

Subsequent observations confirmed Li Qingsong’s suspicion.

This was, without a doubt, genuine starlight—not lasers at all!

Just as a magnifying glass on Earth can focus sunlight to burn paper, the light of the Lyra G16 Star was now being focused by some unknown means, fired outward like a laser beam and causing him heavy casualties!

‘No wonder these beams were different from lasers!’

And the identity of the culprit firing these highly focused beams of light was also obvious.

It was the Electromagnetic Calamity Life!

They had reproduced en masse on the star. Once their numbers recovered to a certain point, they gained the ability to focus vast amounts of starlight, using the star itself as an energy source to attack the outside world!

‘An attack like this was even possible?’

This was a method Li Qingsong could never have imagined.

“This… this is basically turning the entire star into a Laser Cannon…”

A man-made Laser Cannon uses a Nuclear Fusion Reactor as its power source, firing high-energy lasers outward through a series of optical components.

Right now, the Electromagnetic Calamity Life was using the star as its power source, focusing Stellar Energy and firing it outward through some as-yet-unknown means.

‘If that wasn’t a Laser Cannon, what was?!’

Li Qingsong had always felt that the “Celestial Calamity” part of the Electromagnetic Life’s name was a bit of a stretch. After all, their combat strength was pathetically weak. They were only effective in a surprise attack; once an intelligent civilization learned their weaknesses, they could be easily suppressed.

But now, Li Qingsong knew they were truly worthy of the Celestial Calamity title.

Once they reached a star, intelligent life was almost helpless against them.

The environment around a star was so hostile that an intelligent civilization couldn’t project its military power there, making it impossible to harm them. Yet on the star’s surface, they were in their element, free to launch attacks on the outside world with impunity.

Unless a civilization’s technology was so advanced it could simply ignore the hostile environment of a star’s surface. But even having reached the Strong Core Stage, that level of technology existed only in theory.

“No wonder the ancient Harville Civilization wanted to domesticate them… If they had actually succeeded in taming these things, they would have been an enormous asset in any war fought within an Interstellar System…”

Li Qingsong was facing a massive headache.

The destructive power of these Electromagnetic Calamities was simply too great.

The Stellar Energy was virtually infinite, which meant their attacks could be as well.

Even the region around Planet Three, over two billion kilometers from the star, was being affected.

Normally, the light from the Lyra G16 Star was extremely dim by the time it reached Planet Three. Its moons, even when directly illuminated, had temperatures of only a little over one hundred degrees below zero Celsius.

And now, the space stations Li Qingsong had placed in fixed orbits were being directly struck by the highly focused starlight.

Even after traveling over two billion kilometers, the beam’s temperature still reached several thousand degrees Celsius. It was incredibly wide, carried immense energy, and even broke straight through an Energy Shield’s defenses, burning a large hole through the station’s armor and killing more than a dozen Clones.

What frustrated Li Qingsong the most was that these stellar beams came without any warning.

He had Super-distance Communication technology, but the stellar beams were so highly focused that they were completely invisible unless you were directly in their path.

By the time you saw one, it was already hitting you.

In a short time, everything from space stations in fixed orbits to his various ships, and even the ground bases on planets with no atmosphere, were all severely affected. Li Qingsong’s losses were staggering.

A cold fury began to build in Li Qingsong’s heart.

‘I was originally going to let you live, but now it seems that’s not an option!

You’re courting death, and I’m happy to oblige!’

Enduring the unceasing harassment from countless stellar beams, Li Qingsong issued his orders: begin mass production of Hydrogen Bombs at all costs.

One after another, heavy Hydrogen Bombs, each with a yield of one billion tons of TNT, rolled off the production lines. They were followed by an endless stream of specially designed heavy transport ships, engineered to briefly survive in extreme proximity to the star and equipped with enhanced defenses against both lasers and stellar beams.

Then, the high-yield Hydrogen Bombs were loaded one by one onto these specialized vessels. When the fleet reached ten thousand ships, Li Qingsong gave the order.

“Advance on the star!”

That’s right. What Li Qingsong was about to do was the same thing he did to force the retreat of the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity.

He was going to bombard the star with a fleet of ships armed with Hydrogen Bombs!

Li Qingsong was going to scour the Lyra G16 Star clean!

‘I’d like to see if you can survive when the environment on the star’s surface becomes several times harsher, even if only for a little while!’