167: Chapter 167 A Civilization Picked Up, Ten Thousand Years of Crushing Defeat

After hearing Soren Holmstrom's words, Rockefeller III sat in his chair, hands clasped on the tabletop, remaining silent for quite a while.

Samuel slowly closed the file folder in front of him labeled "Debris of Equipment Left Behind by a Level 5 Civilization Fleet," pressing his fingertips against the edge of the cover and rubbing it repeatedly.

Isabelle withdrew her hands from the table to her lap, her fingertips resting lightly above her kneecaps.

Jacob Rothschild took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with his cuff, not putting them back on immediately after finishing.

William Vanderbilt V pushed his empty coffee cup to the corner of the table and rested his forehead in his thick palm.

A species that ought to have been forever trapped on an isolated island where no stars could be seen, where astronomy could never be born, and where the laws of planetary motion could never be observed, had actually managed to break through the absolute imprisonment of its own cosmic environment just by scavenging a few pieces of equipment left behind by a Level 5 civilization fleet, developing a technological power stronger than that of human civilization on Earth.

This feeling was like reading an old wuxia novel:

A penniless, crippled poor boy, trampled into the mud by others, accidentally finds a martial arts manual left behind by a peerless master of the previous generation in some desolate cave,

And from the day he walks out of that cave, no one in the entire martial arts world can stop him.

If one follows this logic, what would this poor boy eventually become?

Invincible under heaven, sweeping through the martial arts world, with everyone who once looked down on him, or even didn't know he existed, being crushed into dust by a single strike from his palm.

And now, after obtaining the "martial arts manual" left behind by a Level 5 civilization, the Mothman have been cultivating for nearly ten thousand years.

Ten thousand years!

Relying on the technological heritage remaining in those equipment fragments, they reverse-engineered an interstellar consciousness transmission system, established an intergalactic colony network, and built a stable communication link with Solomon's grandfather twenty-six hundred light-years away.

How long did Grey Alien take?

From their Temple of Mathematics to their spatial rift traversal technology, evolving step by step along a normal scientific development path from a space-time where π = 3 was correct—that was a straight line, predictable, understandable, and could be approximated using humanity's existing theoretical framework.

But not the Mothman.

The Mothman's technology did not grow from zero; it jumped directly out of strange wreckage, having forcibly resurrected a civilization that did not belong to them from alien relics, all without any foundation of astronomical observation.

The blueprint of this civilization came from a Level 5 civilization—higher than the Zeta Star, higher than human civilization, and higher than the ceiling anyone present could imagine.

And after learning it, the Mothman added their own ten thousand years of evolution and improvement.

So what are they like now?

No one knows.

Samuel moved his hand away from the file cover and placed it on the table, his fingers tapping lightly and unconsciously twice.

Isabelle lifted her fingers from her knees and placed them back on the table, but this time they were not in a fist; they were spread open, as if waiting for something ungraspable to fall from the ceiling.

Jacob Rothschild finally placed his glasses, which he had wiped three times, back on the bridge of his nose, casting his gaze from behind the lenses toward Soren Holmstrom, then toward Anthony Bradley, and finally landing on Rockefeller III.

William Vanderbilt V lowered his hand from his forehead, took his flask out of his coat pocket, and placed it on the corner of the table, but he did not unscrew it, merely pressing his knuckles lightly against the cap.

They killed Solomon.

They killed the agent of the Mothman on Earth.

The Crane Family, which had spanned twenty-six hundred light-years and maintained communication with the Moth Star for nearly a hundred years, had been crushed to ashes by them using hundreds of armed elites, several Black Hawk helicopters, and that adrenaline-fueled speech Rockefeller III gave in the estate's courtyard.

They were now worried about the Mothman's retaliation every single moment.

Solomon was already dead, and it was impossible for the Mothman not to know, because the Crane Family had been sending status update signals to the small Moth Star colony according to a scheduled cycle since 1947.

Now that the signal was broken, after waiting for dozens or a hundred communication windows, they would arrive at the only correct deduction: the agent had been uprooted.

And the more they listened to these analytical reports deducing the true technological level of the Mothman, the heavier that sinking feeling in their guts became.

Rockefeller III slowly unclenched his crossed hands, laid them flat on the table, and looked at Soren Holmstrom as he spoke.

His tone remained steady, his phrasing precise, but the question he asked was more direct and unvarnished than when he interrogated any opponent during board meetings or Senate hearings.

"Soren Holmstrom, based on the analysis of existing data, whose technological strength is greater, Grey Alien or the Mothman?"

Soren Holmstrom gently placed the encrypted tablet in his hand, labeled "Analysis of the Moth Star Technological System," on the edge of the conference table.

He was silent for nearly five seconds, then spoke in a tone even more cautious than when he had reported on the Level 5 civilization.

"I do not have a one-hundred-percent correct answer to this question."

"The technological systems of the Zeta Star and the Moth Star come from two completely different paths of development:"

"Grey Alien' technology is step-by-step, derived from basic physics."

"The Mothman's technology is reverse-engineered and pieced together from the wreckage of others."

"Comparing them makes it difficult to give an absolute verdict on who is superior."

"But regardless of which is stronger, if we use Earth as a target to test the technological strength comparison between Grey Alien and the Mothman, the accurate conclusion we can draw is:"

"The threat of Grey Alien is something humanity can see."

"Because Grey Alien, like humans, are a normal civilization that independently completed all stages from observation to deduction, and from experimentation to engineering, within the natural environment of their own native star system."

"Their technology is open, rich in branches, and traceable; you can roughly deduce their theoretical foundation and iterative path from the appearance of their fleet, their weapon principles, and their method of spatial folding."

Elena Chen took over from Soren Holmstrom, opening the file folder that Anthony Bradley had previously placed on the corner of the table to the marked page.

"But the Mothman's technology is different."

"Their technology was not grown by themselves; it was dug out, dismantled, and imitated directly from the wreckage of a Level 5 civilization buried beneath their feet."

"This path of wild growth has resulted in their technological tree being extremely narrow and singular."

"In certain specific sub-fields, they may be advanced to a degree far beyond imagination, but in other most fundamental areas, such as classical mechanics or astrophysics, it is very likely that there exist theoretical blind spots that even our Earth civilization has already filled."