Chapter 776 - 536: 110 Billion Times the Speed of Light (Part 2)

At first, everyone slowed down the playback by fifty times, but they still couldn’t spot any clues.

In the footage, those stars and planets disappeared from sight in an instant.

They restrained themselves and slowed it down even more.

This time, they tried slowing it down by one hundred and fifty times to see if they could catch anything.

Unfortunately, even at one hundred and fifty times slower, they couldn’t capture any clues.

Even at one hundred and fifty times slower, they couldn’t capture any anomaly?

Karshev and a group of interstellar war correspondents found it unbelievable.

They vaguely suspected that what was happening was beyond the speed of light.

So even at one hundred and fifty times slower, they couldn’t observe anything unusual?

Driven by determination, they slowed the footage down by one hundred thousand times.

With Earth’s current technology, captured footage can generally only be slowed up to two hundred fifty-six times.

To achieve a slowdown of two hundred fifty-six times, the filming equipment must reach seven thousand six hundred eighty frames per second.

Of course, that’s speaking in general terms.

In fact, the current technology on Earth has developed high-speed cameras capable of tens of thousands of frames per second, and some ultra-high-speed cameras can reach hundreds of thousands of frames per second.

But these are not the most impressive.

The most impressive is the research team at Huaxia’s Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, which developed a laser-target shooting experiment camera in ultra-fast framed imaging, successfully obtaining a laser implosion image with a time resolution better than ten picoseconds for the first time.

One picosecond equals one trillionth of a second, meaning this time-magnifying framing camera can capture images of events within trillionths of a second, not only visualizing the separation and bonding processes of molecules in chemical reactions but also the splitting and fusion of atoms in nuclear reactions, and even the motion trajectory of light.

Karshev and these interstellar war correspondents belong to highly advanced civilizations, and their equipment surely exceeds seven thousand six hundred eighty frames per second.

Moreover, this time they were all entrusted by the "leaders" of their respective races, using the most advanced filming equipment each race had to offer.

Therefore, their filming equipment, in fact, surpasses the laser-target shooting developed by Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, roughly capable of capturing images of events within ten trillionths of a second.

Capturing is one thing, playing it back in slow motion is another.

In terms of frame rate, their filming equipment should be able to slow it down by 0.34 trillion times, but in reality, the equipment struggles to achieve this.

As a result, the actual maximum they can slow down is roughly one hundred thousand times.

Even at one hundred thousand times slower, they still couldn’t discern why the anomalies occurred; it seemed they could only discover the truth through frame-by-frame inspection.

That would be an immense workload, after all, with ten trillion frames.

Calculating one frame per image, that’s ten trillion images.

Even with advanced technology aiding the inspection, it’s uncertain how long it would take to analyze everything.

So, Karshev and the group of interstellar war correspondents quietly prayed that slowing it down by one hundred thousand times would reveal what was happening.

Then...

Hmm, still no clues were found.

They watched for a full twenty-seven or twenty-eight hours and still hadn’t discovered anything, leaving them feeling quite disappointed.

But driven by persistence, these interstellar war correspondents decided to inspect the footage frame by frame.

They divided the work clearly, each person inspecting the footage from a specific time period.

Although it was a massive undertaking, they had thousands upon thousands of interstellar war correspondents.

And wouldn’t you know it, they actually managed to find a slight clue from the frame-by-frame inspection.

By then, it was already the third day since the disappearance of stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

The group of interstellar war correspondents hadn’t slept for those three days, and everyone’s eyes were bloodshot.

Yet now, they were all excitedly sitting upright in front of the playback device.

The footage displayed countless images.

In the first image, a "membrane" appeared.

Then, after numerous images, the last image also showed a "membrane".

At that moment, everything dawned on them, and they realized that it was this "membrane" spreading out which "erased" those stars and planets.

Unfortunately, they only knew the "membrane" was responsible, but not what effect it had that made those stars and planets completely vanish.

Although they didn’t know what effect the "membrane" had, everyone was immediately captivated by a new question.

What exactly was the speed at which this "membrane" spread?

Even with their highly sophisticated filming equipment, slowing it down by one hundred thousand times, they still couldn’t observe its traces?

Thus, the group of interstellar war correspondents began calculations.

The person responsible for the calculations was that blue eggplant interstellar war correspondent.

After another Earth Day of battling the numbers, the blue eggplant interstellar war correspondent finally worked out the final result.

Karshev, with red eyes, turned his head and asked, "Did you calculate the speed of this ’membrane’?"

The blue eggplant looked at the calculation results in astonishment and stammered, "I... I calculated it, but... but I don’t know if it’s correct."

"What’s the data?"

"No matter whether it’s correct or not, just tell us."

"Exactly, we’ve already gone several days without sleep. Hurry up and spit it out so we can rest for a while."

A large group of war correspondents beside him urged frantically.

The blue eggplant, sensing the urgency of the crowd, dared not dodge the question and nervously said, "Th... the speed of the ’membrane’ spreading... reached... exceeded one... one hundred billion times the speed of light!"