Chapter 310: Is the Milky Way Galaxy a Cage?

The originally relaxed and pleasant atmosphere inside the Command Center instantly solidified.

The smiles on the faces of Luo Lao, Zhang Yunfeng, Zhou Shaoqing, and the others had not yet fully faded when they froze there.

They all realized that whatever could make Academician Qian lose his composure like this could hardly be a trivial matter.

"A file that was simultaneously encrypted by two empires and listed as the utmost taboo."

Academician Qian drew a deep breath, as if trying to calm his emotions.

"The file's code name is…"

"Final Barrier."

Final Barrier?

These four words left several people puzzled.

"The file's content is divided into two parts," Academician Qian said without beating around the bush, directly calling up a star map data and marking out a range.

"The first part states that any fourth-level civilization's faster-than-light technology—whether warp drive, space jump, or wormhole navigation—"

His voice paused, each word becoming incredibly heavy.

"Once leaving the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, beyond a range of ten thousand light-years, it will…… completely fail."

"What?" Zhou Shaoqing was the first to cry out.

"Failed?"

Zhang Yunfeng's brows instantly knotted into a lump.

"Yes, failed."

Academician Qian's image nodded heavily,

"It's not a reduction in efficiency, not signal interference, but an instantaneous drop to zero. All faster-than-light travel means will vanish instantly, and ships can only rely on the most primitive conventional sublight engines."

He switched the screen, and a series of navigation logs from the Bitern Empire's secret exploration plan appeared.

"It's as if…… as if the entire Milky Way Galaxy were completely wrapped in a layer of wall that we cannot see or touch."

The entire Command Center fell into a deathly silence.

The joy brought by that previous brilliant victory vanished at this moment.

In its place came a chill that shot straight from the soles of the feet to the crown of the head.

"This is impossible!"

Zhou Shaoqing slammed the table hard, producing a loud bang,

"We can clearly observe the Andromeda Galaxy! We can receive light from extragalactic galaxies! How could there be a wall?"

His reaction voiced the feelings of everyone present.

This completely contradicts everything they currently know about cosmic laws.

"I also thought it impossible at first."

Academician Qian's face showed a bitter smile: "But this is the Bitern Empire, which over the past three hundred thousand years has conducted over a thousand secret deep-space expeditions,

using countless probes and the wreckage of unmanned fleets, exchanging for this bloody conclusion."

On the screen, streams of data flowed by.

"Look here: the Messenger-734 probe, when it departed the Milky Way Galaxy at ten thousand and thirty-seven light-years, its space engine reading instantly dropped from peak to zero."

"The Expedition-3 unmanned fleet, after passing the critical point, all ships lost power, able only to drift at sublight speed, and eventually, after hundreds of years, lost contact completely for unknown reasons."

"This is the final image they sent back via their highest-secret channel: an absolute void, and…… an insurmountable despair."

One after another, cold data points, one after another failed records, were like slaps that ruthlessly struck everyone's faces.

They had just been crowned as the new gods of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Yet in the next second they were told that their so-called "divine nation" was nothing but a gigantic cage.

Luo Lao and Zhang Yunfeng exchanged a glance, both seeing undisguised shock in each other's eyes.

If this is true…… then the future path of the Yanhuang Civilization's sea of stars would hardly be anything but a huge joke.

"The file's second part is even more…… unimaginable."

Academician Qian's voice sounded again, pulling everyone's thoughts back from the edge of that despair.

He jerked the focus of the star map toward the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.

There, a supermassive black hole is surrounded by countless stars and dust clouds.

The most terrifying celestial body in the universe.

"Singularity Sea."

"The file records that both great empires once detected, at the event horizon edge of the Singularity Sea, an extremely strong and absolutely non-natural periodic spatial signal."

"Non-natural?"

These three words made everyone's heart skip a beat again.

"They highly suspect that…… there lie the remnants of a fifth-level civilization there."

"Fifth-level civilization!"

"But!"

Academician Qian's tone suddenly shifted: "Any ship attempting to approach the Singularity Sea will fall into a peculiar effect they named 'spatial viscosity.'"

"The ship's speed will decrease exponentially as the distance to the Singularity Sea shrinks."

"No matter how powerful your engines, no matter what technology you use, you cannot escape this effect."

"In the end, all probes and fleets will come to a complete halt at a position still extremely far from the core region."

"Cannot move forward."

"Cannot move backward either."

"It's as if they were specimens frozen in time‑space amber."

Academician Qian pulled out the grim record of a Keruo Empire expedition.

An elite fleet composed of over a hundred Throne-class battleships simply floated silently on the outskirts of the Singularity Sea, like a massive metallic graveyard, becoming part of that strange star region.

"The two great empires each once assembled their finest fleets, employing every means they could conceive, attempting to breach this 'viscosity' and explore the source suspected to be a relic of a Fifth-level Civilization."

"The result, without exception, was total failure."

"Even…… an entire fleet was forever trapped there, becoming a new cosmic wonder."

Academician Qian drew a deep breath and spoke the final conclusion that left the entire Command Center breathless.

"So, combining these two pieces of information……"

"The Milky Way Galaxy is very likely a gigantic prison."

"Outside lies a final barrier that prevents us from leaving."

"Inside, the spatial viscosity of the Singularity Sea prevents us from uncovering the truth."

"And we, along with all civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy, perhaps from the moment of our birth, have merely been……"

"Prisoners."

As his words fell, the enormous Command Center fell so silent you could hear a pin drop.

Prisoners……?

What an ironic term.

Just then.

Qin Hao, who had remained silent all along, finally moved.

He calmly passed through the shocked faces and walked composurely to the front of the massive holographic star map.

His face showed no shock, not even a hint of surprise.

It seemed as if what Academician Qian had just reported was nothing more than an ordinary weather forecast.

He did not look at any of his colleagues behind him.

He simply extended his hand slowly, his slender fingers lightly touching the black dot at the very center of the star map, which emanated an aura of destruction and mystery.

"The Singularity Sea."

Then, his voice, calm to the point of being heart-stopping, echoed in the dead-silent Command Center.

"Block all related information."

"From now on, all that you have heard today is to be classified as top secret of the Yanhuang Civilization."

"The scope of those informed is limited to the interior of the Command Center."

Qin Hao withdrew his hand, turned around, and for the first time swept his gaze over everyone.

"Anyone, in any form leaking, regardless of position or merit……"

"All will be charged with treason against civilization."