166: Chapter 166 Level 5 Relic, Defying Fate

Soren Holmstrom took over the conversation, straightened his posture, and zoomed the star map on the projection screen into the Erebus System region.

His tone gradually shifted from its previous composure to a sense of suppressed awe.

"The diameter of our Milky Way is approximately 160,000 light-years."

"Within this range, countless stars, planets, star clusters, and nebulae have provided the foundation for astronomical observation for humanity on Earth."

"Kepler discovered the three laws of planetary motion by observing the orbit of Mars."

"Newton derived the universal gravitational constant by observing the Moon's motion around the Earth."

"Einstein verified the spacetime curvature of general relativity by observing the perihelion precession of Mercury..."

"All of this is built upon one fundamental premise: our ancestors could look up and see the stars."

"But the Mothman cannot."

He pointed to that vast expanse of absolute void, 100,000 light-years in diameter, on the projection screen.

"They have no Kepler, no Newton, no Einstein, because in their sky, there are simply no planets for them to observe."

Samuel Astor opened and closed the file folder he had just shut, staring fixedly at the massive region on the projection screen marked as a void, as if wanting to say something, but he swallowed his words.

Isabelle DuPont lifted her fingers from her lap and pressed them lightly onto the tabletop, her fingertips slightly splayed, as if trying to grasp an unformed question from a distant, dark star cluster.

Rockefeller III remained in his posture with his hands crossed before him on the table, but his gaze had not shifted even a fraction since the moment the star map first appeared on the large screen.

The meaning in his eyes, and those of the other four, was self-evident:

Since the physical space occupied by the Mothman made it impossible for them to develop astronomy, impossible for them to possess any observational means to derive fundamental laws, accumulate quantitative formulaic changes, or obtain empirical evidence,

then how did they become an advanced civilization?

Able to bridge 2,600 light-years to maintain nearly a century of communication with the Crane Family,

able to establish independent colonies in the universe,

able to reverse-engineer container shell technology...

Each of these facts completely contradicts all existing scientific knowledge.

Elena Chen looked at the shared questioning in the eyes of the old-money aristocrats before her, lifted her hands from the file, and rested them on the edge of the conference table.

Her voice was lower than before, but every word was wrapped in a layer of emotional turbulence that had not fully faded, even after she had spent the entire night repeatedly verifying the facts.

"Relying on the Mothman's own power, combined with the isolation of a nearly 100,000 light-year cosmic void, let alone a technological system capable of supporting expansion to external colonies, the people living on the Great Moth Star have never seen a sky full of stars since the moment they were born."

"For generations, their night sky has held nothing but absolute blackness."

"Kepler, Newton, and Einstein could never have emerged on the Moth Star."

"Because there are no planets for them to observe, no stellar orbital deviations for them to question, and no alternative paths to extract a framework of fundamental physical quantities from natural phenomena."

"The fate of the Mothman should have been to be forever trapped on this lonely star."

Just as she finished speaking, Soren Holmstrom took over the second half of the sentence, his tone shifting from awe to an extremely cold, resolute certainty.

"But they not only developed technology, they also developed armed forces capable of possessing colonial power within the Milky Way."

"Their technology far exceeds any of our intuitions or model estimates."

"Why?" Rockefeller III asked, his tone not much different from before.

But he slowly withdrew his hands from where they were crossed on the table, laying them flat on the stack of tablets in front of him, each knuckle slightly tensed,

"If all natural conditions were against them, how did they grow an entire technological system out of thin air from nothing, and even establish communication with Earth across 2,000 light-years?"

Upon hearing this, Samuel, Isabelle, Jacob, and William all nodded slightly, but no one spoke.

The question they wanted to interject with had already been asked by Rockefeller III on their behalf.

Anthony Bradley flipped to the last page of the core summary in front of him.

He placed his hand on the surface of the page and spoke, enunciating every word, as if he wanted to pin the most unacceptable conclusion of all their deductions directly into the center of the conference table in the most precise manner possible.

"Because the cosmic void region where the Great Moth Star is located, which spans 100,000 light-years in diameter, was not formed naturally."

"According to the firsthand records we deciphered from the Crane Family archives..."

"Approximately 10,000 years ago, a cosmic fleet belonging to a Level 5 civilization needed to conduct a large-scale energy replenishment while passing through the Erebus System."

"To replenish the power for its Starships, this Level 5 civilization's fleet directly drained the energy of all celestial bodies within a 100,000 light-year radius."

"Stars, planets, moons, asteroid belts, interstellar dust, and all effective energy sources existing in the form of radiation or heat were all sucked dry at once."

"The 100,000 light-year void before us is the physical remnant left behind by this operation."

In that instant, the entire room was so quiet that the sound of a pin dropping could be heard.

Samuel Astor straightened up completely from the back of his chair, his lips slightly parting and closing.

Isabelle DuPont withdrew her fingers from the table back to her lap, clenching them tightly.

Jacob Rothschild slowly placed his fingers, which always remained steady even during any circuit-breaker alarm, onto his brow bone and gently pressed his temples.

William Vanderbilt V pushed his empty coffee cup away and then pulled it back.

A cosmic fleet of a Level 5 civilization had drained the energy of all celestial bodies within a full 100,000 light-year radius just to replenish its energy once!

Rockefeller III slowly lifted his hand from the tablet and rested it on the edge of the conference table.

His expression was as calm as ever,

but his eyes, beneath the mask typical of an old-money capitalist, were rapidly narrowing.

"Could it be... that the reason the Mothman was able to master those technological powers that should have been completely non-existent is because that Level 5 civilization's fleet left something behind when it drained the celestial energy?"

Soren Holmstrom shrank the star map on the projection screen and enlarged a handwritten memorandum, unearthed from the depths of the Crane Family archives, to full screen.

The handwriting on the memorandum consisted of monospace characters typed on an old-fashioned typewriter, the ink long since dried into a dark brown.

But after being magnified many times, the content could still be identified word by word.

He stared at the memorandum, his voice steady, but every word carried a shock that had been suppressed to the limit.

"Correct."

"It was precisely because of certain scattered equipment fragments that were accidentally left behind on the surface of the Great Moth Star—due to emergency acceleration or external electromagnetic shock leakage when that Level 5 civilization's fleet drained the energy of celestial bodies within 100,000 light-years—that the Mothman was able to cross the impossible astronomical barrier and develop the technological power of an advanced civilization!"