292: Chapter 292 Full-Band Blocking, Thousands of Tons Suspended

Outside the eighty-meter-thick tungsten steel blast door, a dull, earth-shattering roar erupted, shaking the entire two-hundred-meter-deep base space violently.

The backup fluorescent tubes in the master control room popped and shattered, plunging the surroundings into absolute, dead silence and darkness.

In the darkness, a yellowish-orange flame flickered to life.

Lu Chen leaned steadily back in his leather chair, the light of the lighter illuminating his expressionless face. He took a deep drag of his double happiness cigarette and tossed the transparent lighter onto the desk.

"Switch to the internal independent local area network and show me the real-time surveillance of Base Pit No. 1."

Lu Chen exhaled a plume of blue smoke and gave the order calmly.

Wu Dong's hands hammered away at the mechanical keyboard, creating a clattering sound.

The massive LCD screen at the front of the master control room flickered with static twice before turning on. The military-grade anti-electromagnetic radiation coating proved its worth at this moment; the EMP storm failed to penetrate the core servers of this room.

But as soon as the large screen lit up, the scene displayed caused Old Zhou in the master control room to gasp.

Base Pit No. 1 was in complete chaos.

The blast-proof dome hadn't had time to close, leaving a massive construction gap above, through which the terrifying high-altitude electromagnetic pulse shockwave poured in.

Hundreds of heavy construction cranes around the pit were emitting acrid black smoke, their electronic motherboards fried within half a second.

That wasn't the worst part; the most critical situation was in mid-air.

A massive, dark gray circular device weighing one thousand tons was suspended sixty meters above the ground. This was the core energy-gathering ring of the Base Pit No. 1 [Great Wall Dome].

Just moments ago, over a hundred cranes had been preparing to lower it onto its base.

Now, all the cranes had lost electronic power, and the pulley systems were completely locked and useless.

The thousand-ton energy-gathering ring, having lost its traction, immediately began to plummet. Only a dozen purely mechanical backup steel cables, connected to manual winches, were desperately holding onto the behemoth.

Under the immense gravitational pull, the thumb-thick steel cables were taut, and the metal winches ground frantically, sending out showers of blinding sparks.

"The steel cables won't hold!"

Wei Jianguo gripped his walkie-talkie, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at the screen and roared.

"Below is the No. 1 core heavy machine tool! If this thing crashes down, the base and the machine tool will all be scrapped!"

Old Zhou was so anxious he slapped his thigh repeatedly.

"Get everyone below to disperse! Evacuate the personnel! If this crashes down, everyone will be smashed into pulp!"

In the top right corner of the surveillance screen, an audio clip that Wu Dong had forcibly decrypted suddenly popped up. This was an encrypted voice message recorded by Michael before he hid in the Nevada bunker and pressed the distress signal.

Michael's frantic voice echoed through the master control room.

"Jiangcheng is finished! These three hundred thousand square kilometers will all turn into wasteland! What we in the United States cannot have, I will never let you Chinese people keep! Let's all die together!"

Lu Chen watched the screen, flicking the cigarette ash with an expressionless face.

"Old Wei, can the mothership launch early?"

Lu Chen stared at the teetering energy-gathering ring.

Wei Jianguo shook his head like a rattle-drum.

"No, the chassis' anti-gravity magnetic field requires a sixty-second warm-up, and the launch channel is directly above Base Pit No. 1. If this thousand-ton energy-gathering ring crashes down, the resulting physical shock will definitely jam the mechanical gears of the launch track."

"How many seconds until they snap?"

Lu Chen asked.

"Twenty seconds at most, the steel cables are already fraying!"

Wu Dong quickly reported the parameters.

In the screen footage, a large group of people suddenly rushed in.

Three thousand military technical experts, who had just been taken in, completely ignored the thousand-ton grim reaper that could crash down at any moment and threw themselves frantically toward the manual winches around the pit walls.

The leading military colonel ripped off his jacket, revealing his muscular arms, and hugged the push rod of a hydraulic winch with all his might.

"Everyone listen to me!"

The colonel's voice boomed at the bottom of the pit.

"What's hanging above is our nation's destiny! Take one step back, and it'll all be smashed into scrap metal! Hold that push rod down for me!"

"Hold it!"

Three thousand soldiers roared in unison, throwing themselves together at the dozen winches, using their flesh and blood to forcibly resist the one-thousand-ton downward gravitational force.

Snap.

The veins on the colonel's arms bulged; the immense counter-pull instantly tore the webbing between his thumbs and fingers. Crimson blood flowed wildly down his wrists, staining the winch cables red.

But he didn't even grunt, pressing his body firmly against the push rod.

Fifty Death Squad Soldiers on the perimeter, who weren't wearing mechs, also rushed over. The group Da Biao brought was even more ferocious; relying on their monstrous physiques from gene serum injections, they grouped up and used their bare hands to desperately grab the steel cables that were about to snap.

"Put your backs into it!"

The colonel roared through gritted teeth.

"We are, sir!"

A Death Squad Soldier replied, grimacing, his feet digging two deep grooves into the alloy floor.

Human strength seemed insignificant at such a time, yet at this moment, it managed to hold back the momentum of the falling energy-gathering ring.

The master control room was deathly silent.

Old Zhou's eyes turned red as he watched, his hands clenched into fists.

Lu Chen stared at the colonel's bleeding hands on the screen, took a deep drag of his cigarette, and crushed the butt into the ashtray.

"That's enough."

Lu Chen tapped the table.

He directly opened the system store panel in his mind, locking his gaze on the advanced section.

[Consume 50 million tech points, exchange: Chassis Magnetic Field Independent Overload Module.]

The system balance plummeted by 50 million instantly, and a diamond-shaped metal plate, only the size of a palm and emitting an abyssal blue light, appeared out of thin air in Lu Chen's hand.

"Wu Dong."

Lu Chen tossed the metal plate to Wu Dong.

"Insert this into the mothership's main control protocol slot, bypass the self-check program, and read it directly via physical connection."

Wu Dong scrambled to catch the metal plate. When he saw the interface on it, his expression changed instantly.

"Boss! This is a forced diversion module!"

Wu Dong shouted in panic.

"If you forcibly cut the mothership's anti-gravity magnetic field to protect the base pit, the chassis' micro-maneuvering precision will plummet by seventy percent immediately!"

Wei Jianguo also whipped his head around, eyes wide.

"Boss, you can't do that! Those twelve Mach 20 tungsten rods will be overhead any second! Without micro-maneuvering, the mothership chassis won't be able to perform precise evasive maneuvers. What will we use to intercept them?"

Lu Chen stood up and walked to the front of the master control console.

"Evasive maneuvers?"

Lu Chen sneered.

"When did I ever say we were going to dodge?"

Wu Dong and Wei Jianguo froze simultaneously.

"Since they like playing with hard physical damage, then we'll teach them what 'brute force overcomes all' means."

Lu Chen pointed at the falling red dots on the screen.

"We'll use the three-million-ton fully armored chassis to collide head-on with those iron rods. I'm going to tank their kinetic energy."

"Execute the order immediately."

Lu Chen looked at the colonel's arms, which were about to snap.

"When my own people bleed, it's a slap in my face. Under my command, that is not allowed to happen."

Wu Dong gritted his teeth, turned, and lunged toward the console, slamming the diamond-shaped metal plate into the main control slot.

"Overload module connected! Thirty percent of the chassis magnetic field forcibly diverted!"

Wu Dong's hands typed frantically on the keyboard, roaring.

In Jiangcheng's Underground Level 3, the three-million-ton, solid black, inverted triangular chassis, which had been hovering quietly, suddenly erupted with a low roar. The arrays on the edge of the chassis began to spin frantically, and an incredibly blinding blue beam pierced directly through the thick blast-proof ceiling, striking with pinpoint accuracy into Base Pit No. 1.

Inside the pit, beneath the thousand-ton energy-gathering ring, a massive abyssal blue light screen instantly unfurled.

Crack.

The last backup steel cable snapped completely.

The colonel and hundreds of Death Squad Soldiers were simultaneously knocked to the ground by the inertia. Ignoring his blood-covered hands, the colonel looked up in despair.

The apocalyptic scene of the thousand-ton object crushing the machine tool, which he had expected, did not happen.

That massive energy-gathering ring stopped steadily less than ten meters from the ground. The blue anti-gravity field held it firmly in place, without even a millimeter of movement.

The entire scene fell into dead silence.

All the military technical experts slumped to the ground, watching this scene that completely defied the laws of physics, too shocked to say a word.

Inside the master control room, a shrill red alarm simultaneously pierced the silence.

"Boss!"

Wu Dong stared at the radar map, zoomed in to the maximum on the screen, his voice completely hoarse.

"The high-altitude blast-proof layer above has been smashed through! All eighty meters of tungsten steel are shattered!"

"Twelve solid Mach 20 tungsten rods will reach above Base Pit No. 1 in fifteen seconds!"

The countdown to death had officially begun; the entire master control room shook along with the rock strata above.

Lu Chen glanced at the energy-gathering ring, which was now safely floating, and grabbed the red communication microphone on the table, his tone calm to the extreme.

"Old Wei, open the pit roof."

Lu Chen's gaze was icy.

"Launch the mothership at full power and go smash them to pieces for me."