The environment Xiao Yu was currently in was extraordinarily bizarre. Xiao Yu knew with absolute certainty that he was standing on the surface of a star, yet he could not observe a single phenomenon consistent with a stellar environment. It was cold here, desolate. When he looked up, all he saw was a sky full of stars, the boundless darkness of the universe. When he looked down, he saw the same: a black, vast plain stretching endlessly in all directions.

Xiao Yu stood on this expansive black plain, operating his detection instruments and carefully observing the surroundings. A moment later, he noticed an asteroid hurtling toward him at high speed.

This asteroid had a radius of five kilometers and a total mass of several hundred million tons. If it were to collide with Earth, it would bring about a cataclysm nearly apocalyptic in scale for humanity.

“This star system is still considered a nascent system. Star systems like this are chaotic, filled with debris and leftover materials from the formation of stars and planets, crashing around wildly, smashing into anything in their path. It’s certain that the Specter elder has already endured countless impacts during this time before I arrived. Impacts of this scale probably feel like nothing more than a tickle to it.”

Thinking this, Xiao Yu gave up on the idea of warning the Specter Race.

He continued to closely monitor the asteroid, watching as its speed gradually increased, eventually reaching nearly one hundred kilometers per second. It drew closer and closer to the black plain until, finally, a violent collision occurred.

Because it was approaching so quickly, even though its distance from the star had already exceeded the Roche limit, the star’s gravity was unable to tear it apart. Right up until the moment of impact, the asteroid remained intact.

Moreover, because half of the star’s atmosphere had already disappeared, the asteroid did not lose any mass during its approach. It slammed toward the black plain at full force.

But to Xiao Yu’s surprise, the expected earth-shattering spectacle did not occur. At the impact site, the black membrane-like body of the Specter Race rippled like the surface of water. Within those ripples, the asteroid abruptly vanished, utterly, silently, without a trace.

“What’s going on here?” Faced with this phenomenon, Xiao Yu was completely baffled. He even maneuvered his detection instruments to the impact site and conducted a detailed analysis of the black membrane, but found nothing unusual.

“Perhaps the Specter elder used some kind of technique… something this minor isn’t worth waking it up to ask.” Xiao Yu pondered this, then issued a new command. “Begin exploration.”

Following this command, thousands of detection instruments scattered across various locations immediately began their work. To comprehensively and precisely gather intelligence about the composition of the Specter Race’s body, Xiao Yu had equipped these devices with thousands of instruments, including negative matter detectors, dark matter detectors, strength analyzers, and more. He had even brought along several high-yield miniature antimatter bombs, intending to use them for strength testing.

“Hm? As expected, I’ve detected the presence of negative matter here.” The exploration had only just begun, and Xiao Yu already received an exhilarating piece of experimental data.

But in the next moment, he found himself puzzled once more.

“Negative matter is constantly moving at speeds far exceeding the speed of light. Slowing it down to subluminal speeds is as impossible as accelerating regular matter to faster-than-light speeds. And yet… why have I detected negative matter in the Specter elder’s body that’s basically in a stationary state? Huh? It’s even in close contact with positive matter, but the two aren’t reacting?”

“Maybe… just like how I use curvature flight to achieve faster-than-light travel which is a kind of loophole, perhaps this negative matter is using some mechanism to reduce its speed below light speed. If I can master this mechanism, the power of my negative matter cannons will far surpass that of the Molian Civilization. No matter. I’ll just record the specific data for now and study it slowly later.”

Xiao Yu thought to himself and quickly stored all the data.

“Huh? It have no mass? How can something with no mass exhibit the properties of a physical object? It can’t be cut? Alright then, let’s try using these cutting instruments made from Level 6 Alien Beast flesh…”

Xiao Yu had equipped the detectors with cutting tools made entirely from energized Alien Beast flesh. In previous experiments, as long as the energy was sufficient, Alien Beast flesh was completely indestructible for Xiao Yu. Tools made from this material were similarly unstoppable, nothing could withstand them.

But when faced with the massless body of the Specter Race, Alien Beast flesh encountered resistance for the first time. These black membrane-like surfaces were like extremely viscous liquid. The cutting tools made from Alien Beast flesh could only penetrate less than one centimeter before they were stopped completely.

“This thing really is formidable,” Xiao Yu thought to himself, and began the next phase of exploration.

Here, nearly every moment, Xiao Yu was discovering things that blatantly violated his own scientific laws and logic. And none of these anomalies had any explanations. The entire Specter Race seemed to be a contradictory complex.

“Why does something like this even exist?” The more he observed, the more confused Xiao Yu became.

He realized that almost everything he had observed so far was unlikely to be analyzed or utilized by him. These things clearly contradicted his own technological theories.

Xiao Yu finally understood why even that Preliminary Level 6 Civilization couldn’t analyze the Specter Race. This thing was simply too contradictory, so contradictory that it felt as if someone had created it specifically to defy the current rules of the universe, which resulted in something like the Specter Race.

“Forget it. Just collect the data. I’ll analyze it later when our technology is more advanced.” These contradictions left Xiao Yu extremely frustrated, it felt like arriving at a treasure mountain only to leave empty-handed.

After collecting data for some time, a new idea began to form in Xiao Yu’s mind.

“Just how durable is the Specter elder’s body? Even asteroid impacts don’t leave a scratch. Maybe… I can try an antimatter bomb.”

Xiao Yu thought slowly.

The total destructive power of an antimatter bomb was undoubtedly less than that of the asteroid impact. However, the impact area of the asteroid was too large, which caused the energy to disperse. Antimatter bombs were different, they could concentrate their energy into a single point. So, in terms of energy per unit area, an antimatter bomb would far exceed an asteroid impact.

With the thought in mind, Xiao Yu acted immediately. He retrieved all the antimatter bombs carried by the detectors and piled them together. After maneuvering all the detection devices to a safe distance, Xiao Yu issued the detonation command.

Because there was no atmosphere here, the explosion did not produce any sound. But Xiao Yu still sensed the immense power of the blast.

The process of matter-antimatter annihilation released all mass in the form of high-energy photons. From Xiao Yu’s distant vantage point, the explosion site looked as if a star had suddenly appeared there. A tremendous burst of light, heat, and radiation of various frequencies erupted violently.

But when the explosion dissipated, the black membrane-like body of the Specter Race at the epicenter remained completely undamaged.

“I don’t believe this…” Xiao Yu now had a new thought. “The negative matter cannon is finally completed. Time for its first test firing. I’ll target this location and see if the negative matter cannon can penetrate that black membrane.”

Despite working on many projects at once, Xiao Yu had not let up on the development of the planetary base and orbital facilities while deploying the detectors to explore the star. Now, the second negative matter cannon was finally completed.

In the planet’s orbital ring, a colossal structure, five kilometers long, three kilometers wide, and one kilometer tall, rotated slowly around the planet, resembling a small celestial body. On the side facing away from the planet was a massive device that looked like a radar dish. This was the firing muzzle of the negative matter cannon.

Final system checks were complete. All construction robots and cargo vessels had already evacuated. Among the tens of thousands of scientists, over six thousand specialists were closely monitoring every move at the site.

Xiao Yu controlled the negative matter cannon, slowly rotating it to aim at the star. At this stage, the cannon was positioned at a distance of 140 million kilometers from the star. At such a distance, the omnipresent interstellar dust could significantly weaken the cannon’s firepower. So Xiao Yu decided to conduct this test by narrowing the attack area to increase damage output.

“Countdown, ten…”

Inside the massive energy supply module, all systems began preheating. Once preheating was complete, the antimatter engine and elemental decay engine began reacting with enormous amounts of matter. During this process, vast energy was generated and channeled through energy transmission lines to the cannon’s various independent subsystems.

“…six…”

The tachyon generator began operating, and large quantities of negative mass tachyons began converging within the emitter. Under the control of a strong magnetic field, they orbited at faster-than-light speeds inside the emitter. Their numbers increased rapidly, building up as they waited for the final moment of launch.

“…one…”