Through the electronic imaging equipment aboard his spaceship, Xiao Yu witnessed the complete destruction of Earth.
Moments ago, a massive explosion had erupted from Earth’s core, shattering the planet into pieces. The immense energy from the explosion accelerated the Moon to a speed of 137 kilometers per second. According to calculations, the Moon would leave the Solar System and become a wandering celestial body.
Meanwhile, a vast asteroid belt would form along Earth’s original orbit. The entire Solar System was predicted to become a chaotic pinball battlefield, with Earth’s fragments continuously bombarding the planets for millions of years to come.
An endless stream of observational data flooded Xiao Yu’s brain. He sighed and pushed the spaceship’s speed to its maximum, escaping the Solar System as quickly as possible.
In fact, ten years before the disaster, Xiao Yu—humanity’s most brilliant scientist, holding doctorates in more than twenty disciplines including theoretical physics, high-energy physics, astrophysics, materials science, mechanical engineering, astronomy, chemistry, and computer science, as well as the recipient of over twenty Nobel Prizes—had already detected the signs of impending catastrophe. Unfortunately, his warnings were ignored by human society and ridiculed by his peers.
Everyone thought he had gone mad. One scientist even passionately shouted into the media cameras, “I don’t know what evidence Xiao Yu based his conclusion on. Was it a dream he had last night? The Earth will be destroyed? What a joke! Even kindergarteners know the Earth will exist peacefully forever!”
With a bitter smile, Xiao Yu had come to terms with the situation. “Even if humanity accepted the warning, there’s no technology at our current level capable of preventing destruction. Rather than subject society to despair, it’s better to let them enjoy their final moments of happiness.”
Thus, Xiao Yu withdrew from the scientific community. Within two years, he amassed a vast fortune, becoming the world’s wealthiest person, and began executing his plan.
Drawing on scientific knowledge at least twenty years ahead of humanity, Xiao Yu spent eight years building the first true interstellar spaceship. The vessel was assembled in geosynchronous orbit around Earth. Then, from the ground control center, Xiao Yu used equipment of his own design to separate his soul from his body, transmitting it to the spaceship’s main control computer, where it fused with the system. Without hesitation, he accelerated the spaceship, escaping Earth’s gravity and heading into deep space.
And so, the process was complete.
“It seems I’m the last human in the universe,” Xiao Yu remarked, somewhat wryly. “No, in this purely spiritual state, I can hardly be considered human anymore.”
“Still, the feeling of possessing such immense computational power, unlimited energy, and infinite lifespan is wonderful.” Xiao Yu carefully examined every detail of his new “body,” marveling at the transformation.
Xiao Yu’s new form was a spaceship 30 meters long, 20 meters wide, and about 5 meters high. The vessel was divided into several functional areas, including a materials storage room, materials processing room, scientific laboratory, equipment manufacturing room, main control chamber, and maintenance passages. A highly sophisticated robot managed the spaceship’s routine maintenance.
In the vast expanse of the starry cosmos, a small spaceship sped forward at approximately 33 kilometers per second. Yet even at this speed, reaching the nearest gas giant, Jupiter, would still take about 200 days.
Indeed, Xiao Yu’s first destination in his interstellar journey was Jupiter. The planet held an almost unlimited supply of nuclear fuel. Although Xiao Yu had initially chosen chemical fuel for his spaceship’s propulsion due to various constraints, he planned to upgrade the power system to nuclear energy as soon as he developed controlled nuclear fusion.
Through the astronomical telescope, the direction of Earth had transformed into a vast curtain of light. Xiao Yu knew that this was caused by Earth’s oceans evaporating under the Sun’s heat, forming a comet-like tail. These remnants would gradually dissipate into the vastness of space, a process likely to take millions of years.
The countless fragments resulting from Earth’s destruction would take various paths: some would crash into the Sun, others would drift into the depths of space, while yet another portion would slowly merge through collisions, eventually forming a new planet. Of course, its mass would be much smaller than the original Earth.
“Sigh,” Xiao Yu silently lamented. Watching his homeworld vanish into dust and ashes and thinking about the seven billion lives lost in an instant left a heavy weight on his heart.
“If only I had the power to save them… But the explosion itself seems suspiciously unusual. It’s as if some external force was orchestrating it.” Xiao Yu unleashed his immense computational power to perform logical deductions, but no results emerged, forcing him to abandon the thought.
“Where in this vast universe can I call home now?” Xiao Yu’s mood darkened momentarily but quickly shifted. “With my current computational capacity, my technological progress alone can surpass that of all humanity. Moreover, with new materials and the creation of more powerful computers, my progress will accelerate even further. Let the exploration of the universe’s infinite mysteries begin!”
With this thought, Xiao Yu felt a renewed sense of determination.
At that moment, a bright spot in the direction of Earth caught his attention.
The telescope mounted on the spaceship promptly adjusted its angle to focus on the light source.
The object was relatively large and not too far away. Xiao Yu quickly calculated its mass and identified it.
“It’s the Moon… Wait, something’s wrong.” A bad premonition flashed through Xiao Yu’s mind.
He immediately fed the orbital parameters, mass, velocity, and eccentricity of celestial bodies in the Solar System into a formula. His advanced computational power produced the results almost instantly.
“How is this possible? How could it be this coincidental? How could it perfectly align for a collision? At its current speed, the Moon should simply fly past Jupiter and head into deep space! How could their orbits just happen to overlap?”
“Damn it! Heaven, are you messing with me? Are you trying to kill me?” Xiao Yu stared at the results in shock, cursing bitterly in his mind.
“Am I really about to witness the most spectacular collision event in the history of the Solar System?”
The calculations were unequivocal. At its current speed, the Moon would collide directly with Jupiter—the largest planet in the Solar System—in about fifty days.
Ordinarily, collisions between celestial bodies of such magnitude are highly unlikely. Typically, Jupiter would capture the Moon as a satellite, and over time, the orbit would shrink. Once within the Roche limit, the Moon would be torn apart, and its fragments would collide sequentially with Jupiter over an extended period—likely spanning tens of thousands of years.
However, the Moon’s trajectory was peculiarly precise, leading to a direct collision path.
“With my current technological capabilities, how am I supposed to survive such a catastrophic cosmic event?” Xiao Yu cried out in despair.
Seventy million years ago, the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs was only about 10 kilometers in diameter. And the Moon? It measures over 3,400 kilometers in diameter.
Jupiter, on the other hand, boasts a diameter of 140,000 kilometers. When the fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 struck Jupiter, each piece was only about 2 kilometers wide, yet the total energy released by the collisions exceeded 40 trillion tons of TNT. The comet fragments had a velocity of 210,000 kilometers per hour, whereas the Moon’s current speed was over 400,000 kilometers per hour.
The energy released by such an impact? Xiao Yu didn’t dare calculate it. But he was certain that the debris ejected and the radiation burst caused by the collision would sweep across the entire Solar System. The asteroid belt would be scattered, and the newly forming asteroid belt from Earth’s remnants would be completely disrupted. A significant portion of the mass would likely crash into the Sun. If the fragments were large enough, they could breach the Sun’s convective zone, causing massive material ejection and prematurely pushing the Sun toward an aging state.
In other words, this collision might annihilate the entire Solar System. Even if it didn’t, the system would be transformed into a hellish domain.
Xiao Yu increasingly suspected that Earth’s destruction had been orchestrated by some hidden force. Otherwise, the coincidences were simply too uncanny.
“Damn it, let’s figure out how to survive the most intense phase of the collision first. If the radiation burst from the impact directly hits me, my current material technology would cause the entire spaceship to vaporize in an instant, even from billions of kilometers away.”
As Xiao Yu contemplated this with trepidation, his immense computational power began running at full capacity.
The central computer, designed and built by Xiao Yu himself, possessed computational capabilities equivalent to Earth’s fastest supercomputer, Tianhe-2, but consumed only a fraction of its power.
Within moments, countless orbital and velocity parameters were processed. Lights on the control panel flickered rapidly for a full half-hour before Xiao Yu snapped out of his trance.
“This is the only way… There’s a 50% chance of surviving the most intense phase of the collision. However, my energy reserves are insufficient,” Xiao Yu muttered to himself in frustration.
“Adjust the trajectory toward Mars. Estimated arrival in 20 days. I’ll use Mars as a shield by positioning behind it to endure the initial collision. After that… Jupiter is no longer an option. I’ll head to Saturn instead. Titan should suffice—it has vast reserves of methane that can be used as fuel. The oxidizer, though, will be a problem. Without it, methane won’t combust. But let’s take it one step at a time. Survival comes first.”