Chapter 204 The Sun is a Good Thing

The dizziness from the void jump had just faded when the Earth, like a clunker that had run a hundred thousand kilometers without maintenance, slammed to a halt in its designated orbit with a loud clank.

"Gravity anchoring complete! Lagrange point coordinates corrected!"

"Gravity lens power output at 30%, filtering gamma rays and high-energy particle streams."

"Boss, our 'new lightbulb' is hung."

In the Command Center, Alita's voice sounded much lighter, and even the rows of data streams turned a pleasant pale green.

Lin Yuan sat on the papal chair, which was so opulent that it was actually a bit uncomfortable, and looked out through the massive panoramic floor-to-ceiling window.

Outside was no longer the pitch-black, dead silence of deep space, but a brilliant, almost arrogant golden glow.

The star, which had been forcibly snatched from the Mechanical Papacy, was now obediently hovering outside Earth's gravitational circle. After being filtered through layers of the gravity lens, the originally violent and lethal radiation had turned into warm, pleasant sunlight, spilling unreservedly onto this blue planet that had been wandering for too long.

"This is too bright." Lin Yuan pulled a pair of sunglasses from somewhere, perched them on the bridge of his nose, and used his gem-encrusted scepter to scratch his back. "Academician Wang, turn the lens down a bit. Don't go roasting the people on the surface; we're short on manpower, not barbecue."

"Boss, don't worry. I've adjusted these parameters eight hundred times; it's the absolute golden ratio!" In the communication channel, Academician Wang's voice was as excited as a rock star on drugs. "Look at the ground monitoring! Those brats have gone crazy!"

The big screen switched to the view of the surface.

The thick glaciers that had originally covered the urban ruins were now melting at a speed visible to the naked eye, converging into rushing rivers.

And at the exits of various underground cities, dense crowds were pouring out like ants.

There were no cheers, no screams.

At first, there was a deathly silence.

Those people wearing heavy protective suits stared blankly upward, looking at the giant golden disk in the sky that radiated endless heat. For many of the new generation born in the underground cities, this was the first time in their lives they had seen something called the "Sun" with their own eyes.

It wasn't a holographic projection, nor a nuclear fusion lamp; it was the real, genuine Sun that could make one's skin feel hot.

"Waa—!"

Don't know who started crying first.

Immediately after, the weeping connected into one, even more deafening than the tsunami-like cheers from before. Some knelt in the mud and wailed; others frantically tore off their damned thermal suits that they had worn for decades, rolling in the mud shirtless, as if wanting every inch of their skin to remember this scalding sensation.

"Alright, stop being so sentimental."

Lin Yuan watched this scene, his mouth twitching, and he pushed his sunglasses down. "A Ji, notify the logistics department to take out all those moldy sunglasses from the warehouse and distribute them. Also, remind them to only sunbathe for a while; this Sun is mixed with the bathwater of that demigod 'Jealousy', so it's potent. Don't get sunburned to the point of peeling."

"Alright, Boss! I'm going!" A Ji's voice also carried a sob. "Boss, I want to go sunbathe too; I feel like I'm about to grow mushrooms."

"Go, go, I'll give you all half a day off." Lin Yuan waved his hand, as if shooing away flies.

...

This half-day off directly led Earth into a bizarre state of "collective sunbathing" frenzy.

Whether it was the mechanics repairing engines or the warriors piloting mechs, as long as they didn't have urgent work, they all ran to the surface to lie down. The decks of the Earth Defense Force were covered with shirtless men lying in all directions, looking like a pile of salted fish waiting to be air-dried from afar.

But this was only the beginning.

Just on the third day after the Sun was hung up, something even more outrageous happened.

"Boss! Big trouble! You need to come to the cultivation area and see!" Academician Wang's panicked communication woke up Lin Yuan, who was catching up on sleep.

"What is it now? Did the Sun explode?" Lin Yuan, sporting messy hair, teleported to Ecological Greenhouse No. 12 with an annoyed look on his face.

As soon as he landed, Lin Yuan was stunned.

Originally, this place was planted with cold-resistant moss and modified potatoes unique to the underground cities, looking like shriveled old men.

But now, the entire greenhouse was lush and green, the color so deep it was almost black.

The most exaggerated part was the rice test field.

In the past, if rice could grow to knee-height, it would be a miracle. Now, those rice stalks were as thick as sugarcane, nearly two meters tall, with heavy, drooping ears of grain. Each grain was the size of a finger, golden and exuding an alluring fragrance.

"Is this f*cking rice?" Lin Yuan reached out and patted the stalk that was taller than him, producing a metallic "clank" sound. "Are you sure this thing can be eaten after cooking? Won't it break the pot?"

"It can be eaten! It's definitely edible!" Academician Wang grabbed a handful of freshly husked rice. The grains were crystal clear, and a hint of golden halo seemed to flow inside them. "Boss, this sunlight contains residual radiation from 'titan god blood'! For humans and plants, this radiation is the top-tier growth hormone!"

The old man's beard was trembling with excitement: "According to calculations, long-term consumption of this 'titan rice' can triple the physique of an ordinary person within half a year! This isn't farming; this is essentially conducting biochemical modification on the entire population!"

Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow, picked up a grain of raw rice from Academician Wang's hand, and chewed it.

Crunchy, a bit like chewing cartilage, and the aftertaste indeed carried a burst of pure energy.

【Ding! Trace amounts of titan divine power intake detected.】

【Evaluation: Although it's just leftovers, for this group of carbon-based monkeys, this is a potent supplement. It is recommended that the host acquire more; after all, the more durable your employees are, the more surplus value you can squeeze out of them.】

"System, shut up. Don't make me sound like a cheapskate landlord." Lin Yuan cursed in his heart, turned to Academician Wang, and said, "Since it's edible, then expand production. Flatten all those abandoned industrial zones and plant this mutant rice everywhere. I've already thought of a name: 'Lin's Violent Rice'."

Academician Wang: "..."

With infinite energy, plus this insane food production, the speed of Earth, this war machine, was instantly maxed out.

The production lines that had been stalled due to lack of energy were all restarted.

In the arms factory, mechanical arms danced in a blur.

"Ghost Fighter 2.0 variant, dismantle the fusion engine and replace it directly with the Papacy micro-reactor we just took apart! Power increased by 400%!"

"Don't skimp on materials for the individual exoskeletons; use titanium alloy for me! One set per person, get another if you wear it out!"

"And those mechs, install those leather sofas from the pirate ship into them! We need to prioritize comfort even when fighting!"

The entire Earth was frantically mass-producing troops and upgrading under this golden sunlight.

Lin Yuan even felt that he didn't need to do anything; just lying here sunbathing and watching the rising combat power values would be enough to wake him up laughing.

However, these good days were destined not to last.

Just on the seventh day of Earth's parking.

Lin Yuan was lying on a makeshift beach chair, with a Playboy magazine dug out from the ruins covering his face, and a freshly mixed synthetic coconut drink beside him, enjoying a rare moment of tranquility.

"Boss..."

A trembling voice interrupted his sunbathing.

Lin Yuan didn't take the magazine off his face, just lazily grunted: "If you're here to tell me where there's another bumper harvest or where another gold mine has been dug up, don't bother me with such trivial matters."

"No... it's not." A Ji's voice sounded like he was about to cry. "It's that signal... the signal from the 'Great Xia Remnant', it's appeared again!"

Swish!

Lin Yuan sat up abruptly, and the magazine on his face slid to the ground. The laziness on his face vanished instantly, replaced by a leopard-like alertness.

"Patch it through."

The holographic projection unfolded in front of the beach chair.

It was still that string of garbled code, but under Alita's full-power analysis, the intermittent audio signal struggled as if it were in a radio full of static.

"Bzzt... This is... Great Xia... Expeditionary Force... Seventh Fleet..."

"...Defense line... collapsed... there are... too many of them..."

"Bugs... everywhere... don't come... repeat... don't..."

"Aah—!!!"

After a scream of extreme agony, the signal stopped abruptly.

What remained was only the scalp-numbing sound of chewing.

Lin Yuan was very familiar with that sound. It was the crisp noise made by thousands of mouthparts tearing flesh and crushing bones simultaneously.

The surrounding air seemed to freeze instantly.

A Ji's face was pale, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down: "Boss, this... this doesn't sound like a war."

"It's certainly not human." Lin Yuan stood up, brushed the sand off his body, his eyes chillingly cold. "The system warned before that something was hunting humans. It seems those fanatics in the Papacy weren't just talking nonsense; in this universe, besides them, there are even more disgusting things."

"Bugs?" A Ji swallowed hard.

"Bigger than cockroaches, and can eat more than cockroaches." Lin Yuan sneered, grabbed his coat from the side, and threw it over his shoulders. "Alita, can our reconnaissance satellites see the location of that signal source?"

"It's difficult, Boss." Alita's figure appeared, her expression serious. "It's on the edge of the Orion Arm, about a thousand light-years away from us. However, I just accessed a deep-space probe I had previously deployed near there."

"What about the footage?"

"It's transmitting... but this data is a bit strange." Alita's fingers moved rapidly. "The starlight in that star sector... is disappearing."

"Disappearing?"

"Yes, as if it's being blocked by something."

The big screen flickered, and finally, an extremely blurry image popped up.

It was a patch of starry sky.

But against the background of what should have been a brilliant galaxy, there was now a huge, constantly writhing black patch. The patch looked like a piece of moldy black cloth, slowly devouring the surrounding starlight.

Alita zoomed in on the image, then zoomed in again.

Until the resolution reached its limit.

Everyone gasped.

That was no black spot.

It was an ocean composed of countless hideous creatures. They had pitch-black carapaces, sharp arthropod limbs, packed densely together, surging silently in the vacuum.

And in the very center of the image, there was a dilapidated starship.

It was a typical Eastern-style design. Although the red flag on the hull had already been torn in half, the familiar pattern could still be faintly recognized.

At this moment, this starship representing "Great Xia" was like a lonely boat, instantly submerged by the black insect tide.

Just then, the probe's lens suddenly shook violently.

In the image, a massive compound eye, occupying almost half the screen, suddenly pressed close to the lens.

There were no pupils in that eye, only endless indifference and greed. It seemed to be staring fixedly at Lin Yuan on this side, across a distance of thousands of light-years and across the screen.

Click.

The screen went black.

"Boss, the probe was... eaten." For the first time, Alita's voice carried a hint of genuine fear.

Lin Yuan stood there, staring at the pitch-black screen, not speaking for a long time.

That sense of oppression could be felt even through the screen. It was pure biological instinct, the gaze of a predator at the top of the food chain staring at its prey.

"A Ji."

Lin Yuan suddenly spoke, breaking the deathly silence.

"Here! Boss!" A Ji shuddered in fright.

"Notify that old farmer, Old Man Wang, to stop f*cking researching how to make the rice look better." Lin Yuan turned around and strode toward the Command Center, his voice filled with a murderous aura that made people shudder.

"Tell him to research how to turn that rice into explosive packs for me."

"Also, charge the fortress's main cannon, 'Truth', which was just upgraded."

A Ji was stunned: "Boss, are we going to attack over there? That's a thousand light-years away!"

"Attack over there? No." Lin Yuan stopped, looked back at the direction where the signal source had disappeared, and a ferocious smile curled the corners of his mouth.

"They've already pressed their eyes against our faces; do you think we can still hide?"

"Since these bugs want to have a buffet, then I'll have to prepare some hard dishes for them."

Lin Yuan gripped the scepter in his hand until his knuckles turned white.

"After all, it's been a long time since I've tasted roasted bugs. I hear they're high in protein, taste like chicken, and are crunchy."