Wandering Meteor-Chapter 257 - 256: Lithium Eagle Battles Entropy Tree

In the murky depths of space,

A gigantic tree towered mightily.

Emerging from a space wormhole, it seemed as if it burst from the capstone, roots anchored in the spatial soil, a phenomenon one could call miraculous.

This tree was peculiar in appearance, completely devoid of leaves, resembling a barren tree during the depths of winter. Yet, eerily, the tree exhibited an incredibly robust vitality, and its numerous densely packed branches could almost pass as lush green foliage.

The tree’s posture was wild, as if it was chasing something.

As soon as it appeared, the tree immediately started controlling its myriad tree needles, flitting about in the void, radiating murderous intent, seemingly pursuing some strange entity.

This scene left the Lithium Eagle Squadron, the Wandering Alliance, the Square Clan Civilization, and the Shell Clan Civilization completely baffled, unsure of the tree’s origins and the meaning behind its actions.

The Lithium Eagle Squadron promptly sent out a Consciousness Wave message for communication, but received no response.

Then, the Lithium Eagle Squadron sent a conventional electromagnetic message, still without response, prompting them to become gravely alert.

Meanwhile, they reported this peculiar occurrence back to their headquarters.

...

Elsewhere, the three distant civilizations began internal discussions.

The discussions between the Square Clan Civilization and the Shell Clan Civilization were similar in process, mainly expressing astonishment at the tree’s existence, then exploring its origins and its mode of survival in the universe, eventually suspecting it might be a special civilization’s spacecraft if no explanation arose.

The conversation within the Wandering Alliance, however, was much clearer.

Metal Planet Wandering remarked, "Don’t you think this gigantic tree looks very familiar?"

"It’s your tone that’s familiar—I remember you said the same thing about the Cannibal Tree on the Yin Yang Star!" Constant Star Lu Chen teased.

Green Star added, "I too feel this gigantic tree seems familiar, but unlike you both, it’s not the tree itself but some of the technology on it that feels familiar."

Wandering speculated, "Could it be that this gigantic tree is actually the Cannibal Tree we encountered back then? But we had already eradicated the Cannibal Tree, and after all, it was just a normal creature, how could it possibly maneuver through space so freely?"

"Although many aspects are unexplainable, the similarity between this gigantic tree’s branches and the Cannibal Tree’s needles is striking, except that the body has become bare and stronger. Now, it looks as if it’s wrapped in high-tech, and when Green Star mentioned the technology felt familiar, I thought carefully and indeed it seems familiar—it resembles the technological traits of the Entropy Beast," Constant Star Lu Chen said.

Wandering came up with a bold idea: "Could it be that this is a hybrid of the Cannibal Tree and the Entropy Beast?"

"So far we don’t have definite proof, just speculative conclusions from similarities, so it’s not necessarily true. Moreover, considering the strength of the Entropy Beast, the immense effort and cost it took us to kill one, how could it possibly merge with a mere Cannibal Tree?" Constant Star Lu Chen remarked.

Green Star suddenly suggested, "Using the process of elimination, if we exclude natural coincidence, could it be the masterpiece of some civilization?"

"We can’t rule out that possibility, especially since the gigantic tree appeared to be chasing something. From this perspective, this assumption seems most probable. This could be our opportunity—let’s prepare everyone!" Constant Star Lu Chen said.

Little did the Wandering Alliance realize that their initial speculative direction was correct, while their subsequent rational speculations were mistaken.

This scene is also common in scientific research, many sciences, especially the microscopic particle science, are inherently irrational from a sensory standpoint, especially quantum science, which resembles metaphysics.

...

As the civilizations present were exchanging information,

suddenly the Entropy Tree slowly regained its calm, the strange things that had been teasing it earlier seemed to have disappeared.

Therefore, the Entropy Tree turned its gaze to the scene, treated those strange things as tools of the Lithium Eagle Squadron, and believed that the Lithium Eagle Squadron had played a prank on it.

Whoosh!

Without saying a word, the Entropy Tree directly controlled tens of thousands of Tree Needles to fly towards the Lithium Eagle Squadron.

Those thousands of Tree Needles seemed to grow indefinitely, even though the Entropy Tree itself remained still, the Tree Needles could grow to positions light-years away.

From a distance, it looked like a dense tide of cosmic snakes rushing towards the Lithium Eagle Squadron.

Although the Lithium Eagle Squadron had reported back to the headquarters, due to the scarcity of information at hand, even the Metal Civilization had no idea what this was, and could only instruct the Lithium Eagle Squadron to be cautious, prioritizing survival while out.

Therefore, when they discovered that the Entropy Tree suddenly launched an attack on them, the Lithium Eagle Squadron immediately activated their weapon systems, releasing a high-density Energy Attack like a fine sword. Originally, the Lithium Eagle Squadron intended to use the energy laser to sever the thousands of Tree Needles, but to their utmost surprise, as the energy laser cut into the Tree Needles, it was directly rebounded.

"What? It can rebound Energy Attacks? Could it be using a neutron skin made of neutrons?"

Only then did the Lithium Eagle Squadron realize and gathered their first crucial information about the Entropy Tree.

However, the cost was that nine of the Lithium Eagle Squadron’s Battle Stars were entangled by the dense Tree Needles, and since their energy lasers had not cut through the Tree Needles, they had missed the opportunity to counterattack, instead being tightly bound by the endlessly growing Tree Needles around the nine enormous Battle Stars.

From a cosmic perspective, those nine Battle Stars looked like nine fruits borne by the massive World Tree.

Under these circumstances, the battle-hardened Lithium Eagle Squadron dared not be careless, as they knew too little about the Entropy Tree and did not want the Entropy Tree to mess around on their Battle Stars, so they immediately activated the Unified Force weapon, and promptly a white Energy Attack the size of an arm shot out.

Despite the small size of this Energy Attack,

it was composed of Unified Force energy, with an Energy Level even higher than Lu Chen’s Crown Hole Radiation.

After all, the Unified Force is a high-level force produced by combining the Four Basic Forces, containing energy far greater than any individual basic force, even higher than the secondary forces combining two basic forces. The Unified Force is the highest energy type in the universe and the source power that restricts and generates the Four Basic Forces.

This is also the reason why more advanced civilizations need to master high-energy source technology.

This involves a hierarchical relationship, just like human exploration of the microscopic world. First, it must be known that matter is composed of molecules, then that molecules consist of atoms, then knowing atoms consist of atomic nuclei and electrons, that nuclei consist of neutrons and protons, and protons and neutrons are composed of quarks...

There is a very strict scientific logic and scientific hierarchy in this.

Even if your imagination is ahead, and you can imagine the structure of the next level, without the relevant scientific basis, you can’t confirm and research, let alone scientifically and rationally utilize these technologies.

Thus, with the Unified Energy Beam formed from Unified Force energy, it easily severed the tough neutron skin along with the Tree Needles.

And after the tens of thousands of Tree Needles broke, those entwined around the nine Battle Stars lost control, directly transforming into bursts of neutron radiation radiating out in all directions.