Luna's predictions were partially correct.

What she hadn't foreseen was the extent of the enemy's ambition.

Ten years into her hibernation.

The extreme right-wing faction on Proxima Centauri b experienced a surge in popularity, gaining widespread support within six months. They proclaimed that the galactic federation was a fabrication, the Kate civilization enslaved, and the true saviors were the "Purple Thorns."

This wasn't the name of an organization but of their enemy civilization.

The name, translated from their language, referred to a spiky, purple plant that doesn't harm living beings. This plant was ubiquitous on their home planet, serving as their symbol.

This right-wing movement was eerily familiar.

It mirrored Luna's earlier actions.

The difference being that Luna had used the "tower" as a ruse, while the Purple Thorns possessed the real power to subjugate the Kate.

They didn't seem intent on destroying the Kate civilization but on enslaving it.

Or perhaps, they merely aimed to pacify the Kate, secretly searching for the technology Luna had left behind, confirming its presence in the Proxima Centauri system.

Any intelligent being could sense the implications.

Even the most simple-minded creature, upon hearing the name "Purple Thorns," would realize the right wing had sided with the invading force.

Either scenario was, in fact, beneficial to Luna.

It was simply a matter of enjoying the spectacle!

A thousand years earlier, the extreme left had supported the galactic federation, while the extreme right advocated for the independence of civilizations.

Now, the extreme left controlled the federation, while the extreme right had sided with the extraterrestrial invaders.

The Kate leadership was once again facing the same dilemma as a thousand years before.

This time, however, their situation was far more dire. They weren't facing a subtle conspiracy but overwhelming force.

Many Kate still couldn't forget the plague.

The losses had been immense.

The trauma of the plague was still fresh, feeling as if it had happened yesterday.

Internal conflict dominated the first two decades.

But this civilization lacked Luna's patience; they acted quickly.

Within twenty years, they began to suppress Kate's technological advancements, attacking energy facilities, assassinating leading scientists, and manipulating the economy, weakening the Kate civilization.

Among the first targets were Ayla's research facility and the Humanity Academy.

Both facilities were physically obliterated by energy beams fired from space.

The Purple Thorns began clearing space debris and free-floating particles around Proxima Centauri, further tightening the blockade, restricting the civilization's activity.

Within thirty years.

The blockade encompassed the entire Proxima Centauri system.

Proxima Centauri b, c, and d were plunged into darkness; their surfaces froze solid, resembling a glacial apocalypse.

That year, the Kate population declined sharply.

Simultaneously, pleas for mercy began.

Daily, they begged the Purple Thorns for clemency, pledging allegiance and submission.

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But...

There was no response.

The Kate weren't inherently cowardly, but Luna's subtle influence over the years had made them more compliant, more prone to submitting to authority.

This was a dangerous weakness.

In the fourth decade, the human population in the designated zone was closely monitored, and many leaders disappeared.

Forty years later, the fifth decade arrived.

This marked a turning point.

The Multi-eyed fleet had finally arrived.

The battle raged outside the system.

However, this conflict was far less intense than the earlier battles between the Valiant Legion and the Purple Thorns.

It felt like throwing a bucket of water onto a volcano.

As Luna had predicted, this attracted the enemy's attention.

The enemy shifted its focus to the Multi-eyed planet.

The Multi-eyed weren't powerful enough to truly concern the Purple Thorns; their attention remained on the Proxima Centauri system.

During this decade, the Kate had their first encounter with the Purple Thorns.

These beings were indeed purple, smaller than imagined—half-meter-tall, fluffy spheres, somewhat resembling goblins, but with a reddish-purple hue rather than blue.

They possessed a slit-like "eye," about twenty centimeters long.

Upon closer inspection, it wasn't an eye but a sensory organ, creating images based on heat signatures rather than color.

They also had arms, but asymmetrical—one large, one small, with two pairs in total. Each armtip had one hundred small, agile tentacles.

They lacked legs, moving instead via a slug-like appendage. However, advanced technology allowed for more efficient locomotion. A white cable extended from their heads, connecting them to a basketball-sized sphere.

This sphere, utilizing anti-gravity technology, levitated, carrying the Purple Thorn beings through the air.

The sphere was a sophisticated device, seemingly combining data processing, offensive, and defensive capabilities.

The beings, under the sphere's influence, created a localized environment around themselves. They weren't adapted to Proxima Centauri's conditions; the sphere generated their native environment. They appeared to breathe methane.

The Kate noticed that the Purple Thorns were searching for something.

The planet's landscape was drastically altered by their activities.

By the fiftieth year, the Kate population had dwindled further, as food supplies were controlled by the Purple Thorns, who were deliberately limiting population growth.

The Kate population had decreased by 500 million.

The Kate civilization was at its nadir; no one possessed technology beyond Type 1.

This created two extremes.

One extreme was abject subservience and reverence towards the Purple Thorns.

The other was constant, futile attacks against the Purple Thorns.

The sixtieth year was a turning point.

The Purple Thorns began abducting Kate children, none of whom ever returned.

The adult Kate also began to experience physical changes, becoming increasingly animalistic. Their chips were malfunctioning.

In the 75th year.

The children returned.

They had been transformed into soldiers, or perhaps, hunters.

And the mutated Kate became their prey.

They could not communicate; some Kate watched helplessly as their children killed them—a scene of horrifying brutality.

The Purple Thorns were conducting an experiment.

Growing increasingly confident, more Purple Thorns accompanied these newly trained hunters to hunt.

In the 83rd year, an explosion engulfed Proxima Centauri b.

The explosion, equivalent to 500 trillion tons of TNT, knocked the planet out of its orbit.

Over 20,000 Purple Thorns and 1.5 billion Kate perished.

When the Purple Thorns investigated the source, they discovered a high-energy particle with a temperature of 2.431 x 10⁻⁴⁸ Kelvin.

Though it only remained stable for five days, it posed a significant threat to the Purple Thorns.

This catastrophe drove the Purple Thorns from the Proxima Centauri system, a retreat that lasted twelve years.

And those twelve years would be their last.

...

Within Alpha Centauri A.

A long, thread-like structure floated amidst numerous rotating rings.

Upon closer inspection, this thread, relative to the surrounding space, had a diameter of over 10 meters. This was a 100-kilometer-long particle accelerator.

But it accelerated bosons.

The accelerator's energy source was the central light core.

At the accelerator's center was a detection device equipped with a gravitational microscope developed by Ayla.

It observed spacetime distortions caused by gravity to detect even smaller structures.

If strings existed, they would be released when bosons collided; the gravitational microscope would detect the gravitational effects of their mass, thus allowing for the detection and even capture of strings.

However, Ayla discovered this wasn't feasible. The gravitational detector couldn't detect strings in stable spacetime.

She couldn't generate a force sufficient to cause a boson or fermion to decay.

She then used the collision experiment to create a microscopic black hole, using its power to break down fundamental particles. In the brief moment of intense gravitational distortion created by the miniature black hole, she attempted to observe two-dimensional strings (those with length but no height).

But this proved incredibly challenging. She couldn't overcome the limitations of the black hole's event horizon.

To observe a black hole, one needs another.

Ayla used a counter-rotating black hole, leveraging the matter exchange created by their collision to observe the strings traveling from the first black hole to the second.

After 28 such experiments, she finally observed—strings.

However, the strings observed weren't the building blocks of matter but free, closed gravitons.

Perhaps this was related to their ability to penetrate the fabric of spacetime.