Chapter 1

Setting aside the purely theoretical conjectures about the Big Bang that gave birth to the universe, the most terrifying ultra-high-energy explosion observed in the universe to date is undoubtedly the gamma-ray burst.

This is the most intense explosion in the universe, a real phenomenon that occurs densely across the vast expanse of space, constantly threatening the existence of life.

Its emitted gamma rays are lethal enough to kill all life in their path, and the enormous energy released in a short time is comparable to the total energy emitted by hundreds of suns throughout their lifetimes.

Even a single photon it emits often has energy hundreds of thousands of times greater than sunlight.

This energy, briefly released when a massive star collapses and explodes after its fuel is exhausted, is the enemy of life, the strongest killer in the universe.

Gamma-ray bursts occur almost daily in the universe, and their direction is random. If a planet with life happens to be in the path of a gamma-ray burst, the life on that planet will face a catastrophic disaster. Due to the frequency of these events, about one in a million celestial bodies are swept by gamma-ray bursts.

Earth was once on the list of "gamma-ray burst victims," suffering a mass extinction, but it tenaciously survived and, after a long period of desolation, gave birth to life and civilization again.

On April 1, 2017, the lovely Earth will welcome the "grim reaper" for the second time.

A dense and massive neutron star from billions of light-years away collided with another neutron star, releasing a terrifying gamma-ray burst.

The explosion lasted only forty-two seconds, but the energy it released vaporized many stars along its path, burst out of the galaxy, and traveled through the dark interstellar space for billions of years.

Like a randomly fired "grim reaper's stray bullet," no one wants to be hit.

Life, of course, hopes that this unprecedented gamma-ray burst will exhaust its energy in interstellar space and never enter another galaxy.

However, things did not go as wished. A spiral galaxy happened to be in the path of this "stray bullet," and the super energy poured into this galaxy, which is about a hundred thousand light-years in diameter.

It was the unfortunate Milky Way, which, after a baptism five hundred million years ago, faced a second hit.

Compared to the vastness of the universe, the path of the gamma-ray burst is not very wide. If possible, the gamma-ray burst could sweep part of a galaxy and eventually be swallowed by the galactic black hole, which would be the best and most common outcome. After all, on the scale of a galaxy, this level of energy is not much, and the galactic black hole can absorb it all.

The true victims of this catastrophic event are life forms.

Unfortunately, a star system with a life-bearing planet happened to be in the path of the gamma-ray burst, and the civilization on that planet became the "grand prize winner."

Because the gamma-ray burst travels at the speed of light, the civilization on the life-bearing planet would not realize it had been hit until it was destroyed.

This "lucky one" was Earth.

A super gamma-ray burst approached from a unique angle, hitting Earth before it could vaporize the Sun.

This was not like the one five hundred million years ago; its energy level was unprecedentedly strong. Although it had consumed a lot of energy during its journey, it was still powerful enough to prevent Earth from ever nurturing life again, leaving it in an extreme environment until its end.

A decisive blow, life on Earth would have no reaction and would instantly end the moment it experienced this.

However, nature played a huge joke at that moment. The universe is full of coincidences, and there are always countless unknowns and miracles.

The terrifying gamma-ray burst, upon reaching Earth's surface and entering the atmosphere, mysteriously disappeared.

Not only did surface life remain unharmed, but even the atmosphere itself suffered little damage. The energy that could make the Sun tremble simply vanished, as if an invisible space had swallowed everything at that moment.

...

The first to detect this gamma-ray burst was the Spitzer Space Telescope.

It was in a deep space orbit at the second Lagrange point, on the opposite side of Earth when the gamma-ray burst arrived, so it was not hit. An hour later, it detected the residual visible light and radiation background in space.

The large amount of observational data sent to the ground immediately caused panic at NASA.

"Gamma-ray burst? Visible light was detected in Earth's planetary orbit? So close?"

"Not only that, but the energy level is very high! Based on the residual data, it was about ten times more powerful than the one observed in 1999!"

"What! God, we're still alive?"

In 1999, a distant super gamma-ray burst was observed on Earth, with energy equivalent to the total energy released by the entire Milky Way over two thousand years.

That was already the largest gamma-ray burst observed in human history, and now they had observed an even larger one, breaking the record.

The energy index was comparable to the total energy released by the entire Milky Way over twenty thousand years!

A terrifying astronomical figure, of course, this was the peak value at the emission point. After billions of years of propagation and decay, it was no longer enough to destroy Earth's molecular structure, but the radiation alone was sufficient to destroy Earth's ecosystem and turn it into a hell.

At that moment, society on Earth seemed to be unaffected, continuing to function normally. There were no space station docking missions during this period, and no personnel were injured in the various space station laboratories. Otherwise, if the gamma-ray burst had hit, anyone in the Tiangong-2 space station and other near-Earth orbit stations would have been the first to suffer, with no survivors.

This bizarre phenomenon left the staff of various space agencies baffled.

The staff of national observatories who later observed the "afterglow" were all terrified, their faces pale, and they muttered in fear.

"How are we still alive?"

Several Chinese and European aerospace engineers could not stand it and leaned against nearby objects, their lips trembling.

This was too lucky, too scientifically inexplicable, and unreasonable!

It could only be explained by a coincidence, an unknown and extremely complex coincidence that allowed Earth to escape unscathed.

The mysterious survival of Earth alone would be enough to make experts in the aerospace field study it for decades, even centuries.

Within hours of the event, a joint research team was formed in the global aerospace field, with experts and engineers from China, Europe, and the United States sharing data to specifically study and verify the "mysterious survival of Earth."

Their first step in the research was to determine whether to deny the fact that the gamma-ray burst had hit Earth. If there was scientific evidence to deny this, considering the afterglow in space as an astronomical illusion, then Earth's survival would be reasonable.

However, the ironclad data showed that this could not be any optical illusion, as too many materials in outer space had been severely impacted by intense gamma rays, and many space observation satellites had been directly rendered useless.

"Was Earth really in the path of the gamma-ray burst? Did it just graze past?"

"No... no, it hit Earth directly... the source direction was biased towards the North Pole, and it did not pass through the Sun or Jupiter. Look! This is the visible light spectrum of the gamma-ray burst afterglow, it's so obvious, it entered the ecliptic plane at an angle, and hit Earth! It even touched the atmosphere!"

"Incredible, the gamma-ray burst passed through Earth, and we are unharmed?"

"No, no, no... it didn't pass through! Look! The propagation path ended at Earth, with no radiation residue on the other side. This means the gamma-ray burst disappeared when it reached Earth!"

"Disappeared... what does that mean? Was it absorbed by Earth? Or refracted by the atmosphere?"

"How could that be! Do you know how much energy it would take to destroy Earth? In terms of TNT equivalent, it would only take seventy gigatons!"

A gigaton is ten to the twentieth power, a vast unit of measurement.

But even this much TNT, in terms of the total energy of the gamma-ray burst, is negligible.

The physicist said, "The energy released by the Sun in one day is equivalent to eighty gigatons of TNT, enough to destroy Earth! If this is increased tenfold, the energy would be enough to reduce Earth to dust and scatter the debris out of the solar system."

"You can imagine how much energy the Sun has released over ten billion years."

Another physicist said, "I've calculated this, it's approximately 1.8 times ten to the forty-eighth joules. Enough to destroy Earth... ten to the twenty-fifth... joules."

"Right! And that's just the energy released by the gamma-ray burst in 0.0002 seconds. Now, do you still think Earth has the capacity to absorb this energy? And refraction... even if our atmosphere had an unexplainable coincidence and miraculously refracted that energy, where did it go?"

"We only observed the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst... but there's no trace of it leaving... could this all be..."

"God's protection?"

After saying this, everyone fell silent.

With their knowledge, they were at a loss to solve this mystery, feeling particularly ignorant.

Although they celebrated their survival, as scientists, they were deeply saddened to find no reasonable explanation for human luck.

The first meeting of the joint research team resulted in naming this gamma-ray burst "The Gentle Reaper."

This day was April 1st, which might be April Fool's Day in the city. However, in the aerospace fields of various countries, high-level scholars would not treat it as April Fool's Day but as a day of human luck.

For now, no country has planned to make this event public, but it is likely that many civilian institutions will soon observe the "reaper's" afterglow.

The experts and scholars, full of questions, had no idea that at the moment "The Gentle Reaper" arrived and disappeared,

In a small inland city in a fourth-tier city in China, a young man fell to the ground, unconscious.

He was just a passerby on the street, walking energetically one moment and knocked out the next, as if hit by something.

Although there were no visible injuries, a kind-hearted passerby came to check on him.

Upon discovering that he was truly unconscious, they quickly called 120 and rushed him to the hospital for emergency treatment.

The entire incident was a trivial matter in the city, not even newsworthy.

No one would think that this would have any profound impact.

...