Chapter 128 Transforming the Moon

On the holographic projection in the conference room, the blue Earth slowly rotated, surrounded by dense red simulated ballistic trajectories.

"If the battlefield is in low Earth orbit, we will definitely lose."

Lin Yuan tossed the laser pointer in his hand onto the table, the red dot carving a glaring scar across the surface of the Earth. "With three thousand warships exchanging fire, the falling debris alone would create a meteor shower lasting fifty years. Even if we win, the surface ecology will be finished. By then, humanity won't need to wait for mechanical ascension; we'll have direct physical ascension."

Chen Weiguo looked at the shocking simulation data, his brows knitted into a frown. He lit a cigarette but didn't smoke it, letting it smolder in his hand. "So, what do you mean?"

"Keep the enemy outside the national gate." Lin Yuan slid his finger upward, passing over the Earth and fixing it on that gray, dusty satellite. "We need to turn it into a shield."

The conference room was so quiet that only the humming of the air conditioner could be heard.

Academician Wang took off his glasses and rubbed his bloodshot eyes, his voice hoarse. "Turn the Moon into a fortress? Lin Yuan, that joke is going too far. That's the Moon, not a pile of dirt by the roadside. Just the engineering work required for the renovation—even if we transported every excavator on Earth up there, we wouldn't finish digging until the next century."

"If we use shovels to dig, we certainly won't finish."

The corners of Lin Yuan's mouth twitched as he turned and entered a string of keys into the console. It was the highest-level authorization code he had brought back from the titan fortress.

The screen image changed. A silver cube began to deconstruct, and countless tiny silver particles, like a living tide, instantly engulfed a massive rock. A few seconds later, the rock disappeared, replaced by neatly arranged refined metal plates.

"nano-forging matrix." Lin Yuan tapped the screen. "As long as there is energy, this thing can consume the rocks on the Moon, self-replicate, and print everything we need on-site. To the Titan Civilization, this is called a 'planetary remodeling device.' To us..."

Lin Yuan paused and looked at Academician Wang. "It's just a fully automated renovation crew."

Three days later.

The craziest infrastructure project in human history officially began 380,000 kilometers away.

There was no earth-shattering ignition ceremony, nor were there any leaders cutting ribbons. Through the lens of the global broadcast, billions of Earthlings saw a scene they would never forget.

On the lunar surface, the originally gray and dead Sea of Tranquility suddenly rippled with a layer of silver.

Those were hundreds of millions of nanobots. Like a layer of flowing mercury, they spread rapidly in all directions. Wherever they passed, the pitted craters were filled, and massive ring mountains were "eaten" away.

In just twelve hours, the prototype of a steel city rose from the ground.

At this moment, the "infrastructure maniac" gene engraved in the bones of the Daxia people was completely awakened.

In the ground Command Center, the roars of engineers rose one after another:

"Sector One foundation hardening complete! That's titanium alloy! Use it sparingly!"

"Sector Three fusion engine group is being hoisted! Move faster, don't dilly-dally!"

"What? You're short on rare earth elements? Dig them on-site! The Moon is full of treasures; do I have to teach you that?"

If building roads and bridges used to be measured in meters, now it was measured in "square kilometers."

Viewers all over the world were stunned.

The remaining technical experts of the Eagle faction, watching the Moon change color at a speed visible to the naked eye on the screen, despairingly snapped their slide rules in two. They were still researching how to send a few people up to plant a flag, while Daxia had already started planetary renovations.

"This is too absurd..." Li Na stood behind Lin Yuan, watching the giant dome closing on the screen. "Aren't we bullying the aliens a bit too much?"

"Bullying?" Lin Yuan was staring at the blueprints of the core area without looking up. "When those three thousand warships are riding in our faces, you'll know who is bullying whom."

He pointed to the location of the Moon's core, which had a large area marked in red.

"The shell is just the surface; what's truly deadly is this."

This was the craziest and most dangerous step in the entire plan—replacing the lunar core.

To turn the Moon into a fortress, relying on those solar panels alone wouldn't even be enough to start the defensive shields. Lin Yuan's plan was simple and brutal: hollow out the center of the Moon and insert a "micro-antimatter reactor."

This technology originated from the engine core of the titan fortress; Lin Yuan had dismantled it, intending to give the Moon a new heart.

"If this antimatter thing isn't stable, the Moon won't be a fortress, it will be a giant bomb." Academician Wang stared at the core parameters, his palms full of sweat. "If the magnetic confinement field fluctuates for even a second, not only will we lose the Moon, but Earth will be buried with it."

"So there can be no fluctuations." Lin Yuan's tone was flat. "Tell the construction team not to let their hands shake."

Half a month later.

On the far side of the Moon, this was the forbidden zone that Earth could never see.

The originally massive Aitken Basin had disappeared, replaced by a bottomless metal abyss. It was five hundred kilometers in diameter, enough to fit half of Europe inside.

This wasn't a mine.

This was a cannon muzzle.

"Codename: guanghan palace." Lin Yuan stood on the newly completed edge corridor, with a bottomless abyss beneath his feet and countless huge energy conduits converging into the depths like blood vessels. "Since we want to reason with them, the caliber needs to be a bit bigger."

This was a planetary-level orbital planet-killing cannon.

It didn't need any fancy locking technology; just blast it in the general direction of the enemy fleet, and the energy overflow alone could vaporize a conventional fleet into gas.

"The cannon is built." Academician Wang walked over with a data pad, his expression not looking good. "But there's a big problem. Although the antimatter reactor is powerful, it's a continuous output. The energy peak required the moment this cannon fires is too high. If we forcibly draw energy from the reactor, the Moon will disintegrate due to energy imbalance."

"In other words, the gun is too big, and we can't pull the trigger?" Lin Yuan frowned.

"It's not that we can't pull it." Academician Wang pointed to the blinding sun overhead. "Unless we can borrow some external force at that exact moment."

Lin Yuan looked in the direction of his finger, and a term flashed through his mind: "Dyson cloud?"

"That's the complete version, which we can't do right now. But we can make a beggar's version." Academician Wang pulled up a star map and pointed to the Mercury orbit closest to the sun. "Scatter a handful of 'mirrors' over there."

Those were tens of thousands of high-energy solar collectors.

"Usually they collect solar energy and store it in superconducting capacitors. When we need to fire..." Academician Wang made a gathering gesture with his hands. "All the mirrors focus simultaneously, turning the energy into a high-frequency microwave beam, hitting the receiving array on the far side of the Moon directly."

"Borrow the sun's fire to ignite our cannon." Lin Yuan laughed. "That's a good idea, powerful."

"There is just one side effect." Academician Wang scratched his head. "During the few seconds of microwave beam transmission, because the energy density is so high, it will interfere with visible light. Seen from Earth, the sun might... blink."

"Let it blink. It's better than never seeing the sun again in the future."

Engineering progress bar: 99%.

The Moon had completely changed. Viewed from Earth, the original cold white light was now mixed with a metallic luster full of industrial texture. Especially at night, if you didn't close the curtains, the blue light emitted by the fusion engines being tested on the lunar surface could light up the room.

This was probably the brightest Mid-Autumn Festival in human history.

In the command hall, the atmosphere was uncharacteristically relaxed.

"There is one last procedure." Chen Weiguo looked at the screen. "Antimatter reactor grid connection, guanghan palace main cannon charging test. As long as this step is completed, we will have the confidence to flip the table with those fanatics."

"Connect the Mercury array." Lin Yuan ordered.

On the screen, near the distant Mercury orbit, countless "mirrors" that had just been deployed began to adjust their angles.

At this moment, people all over the world felt a trace of something strange.

Although it was broad daylight, the sunlight seemed to suddenly become blinding for an instant, followed by a dimming. It was just like the huge light bulb overhead having a loose connection.

Massive energy crossed the void and precisely bombarded the receiving tower on the far side of the Moon.

"Energy injection! guanghan palace charging 30%... 50%... 80%!"

The entire lunar fortress was trembling slightly. That wasn't an earthquake; that was the sound of power surging through its veins.

"Awesome!" Li Na watched the reading meter and couldn't help but clench her fists.

However, at the very second the progress bar was about to jump to 100%, a piercing alarm sound tore through the celebratory atmosphere without warning.

This sound didn't come from any instrument, but from the "South Heaven Gate" detection sentinel located in the Kuiper Belt at the edge of the Solar System.

"What's going on? Is the energy overloaded?" Academician Wang immediately rushed to the console.

"No... it's not us."

Lin Yuan stood up abruptly, his previously relaxed muscles instantly tensed, staring fixedly at the deep space detection screen.

The starry sky there was not right.

The originally calm black background suddenly looked like a mirror that had been smashed hard with a hammer.

There was no light of a jump, no engine exhaust. It was simply—shattered.

The space itself developed countless cracks visible to the naked eye; those cracks didn't heal, but instead seemed to be forcibly pried open from the inside by something. The darkness was peeling away, revealing a nauseating, dark red color behind it that didn't belong to this dimension.

"Space curvature... mirror surface shattered..." gaia's voice trembled for the first time; that was the logic core sounding a frantic alarm. "They didn't take the conventional route... They tore through the space barrier directly!"

Chen Weiguo's face turned deathly pale instantly. "How much further?"

"There is no distance." Lin Yuan's voice was as cold as ice. "The space is shattered; this is face-to-face."

He grabbed the communicator, his knuckles turning white from excessive force.

"All personnel, prepare for battle! Abandon the final debugging!"

Lin Yuan watched the massive, mountain-like black cross-shaped ship bow squeezing out from the crack on the screen, his pupils shrinking to the size of needle points.

"They are here."