166: Chapter 166 The Reaper Arrives: Tearing Apart the Jupiter Probe
After the global live broadcast signal of the "soaring heavens" was cut off, the briefly ignited surge of excitement, like ripples from a stone thrown into a calm lake, continued to spread and churn through global networks and public discourse. At the North Heaven Gate, located at the cold and silent edge of the outer Solar System far from the bustle of Earth, true terror was quietly manifesting at a speed exceeding the limits of human perception.
Jupiter orbit, GDC-CR-7 Observation Station.
This was a small unmanned observation platform deployed only six months ago, belonging to the early warning system of the "North Heaven Gate" project. Shaped like a prickly sea urchin, it consisted of six deployed solar sails and a cylindrical main body, floating quietly about 30,000 kilometers above the colorful and violent atmosphere of the gas giant. Its mission was to continuously monitor Jupiter's magnetic field anomalies, potential traces of unknown objects passing through, and to serve as a signal relay node for the outer Solar System.
Inside, its cold automated systems ran according to preset programs. High-sensitivity full-band radio antennas, like silent ears, listened to every minute electromagnetic fluctuation from both inside and outside the Solar System, including the direction of the Kuiper Belt from which the "beacon" signal originated. Optical and infrared telescope arrays scanned preset celestial regions every seventeen seconds. The quantum communication unit maintained a timed, faint "heartbeat" signal connection with Earth and the "Guanghan Palace" base via relay satellites.
Everything seemed no different from the thousands of Earth days past. Until—
The observation station's core processor received an abrupt, anomalous data stream from the radio array pointing toward the Kuiper Belt, which exceeded all background noise models. The intensity of the data stream jumped several orders of magnitude in milliseconds; its spectral characteristics were highly homologous to the previously monitored enhanced "beacon" signal, but sharper, more... penetrating, like an invisible conical javelin piercing through the barrier of interstellar dust.
The preset primary alarm algorithm was triggered. The observation station automatically adjusted its highest priority monitoring resources, locked onto the direction of the anomalous signal source, and packaged the alarm level and raw data, preparing to send it to the "Fuxi" matrix for deep analysis.
Just an instant before the data packet began encoding and was about to be injected into the quantum communicator—
In the void about 100,000 kilometers in front of the observation station, space seemed to be violently kneaded by an invisible hand, and light underwent a bizarre distortion and refraction. Immediately after, an object "emerged" without any warning.
It didn't slowly fly into view; instead, it seemed to "pierce" directly through from behind an invisible curtain, completely defying conventional physical processes of acceleration and deceleration.
It was a geometric body, pitch black all over, with no visible light source or reflection on its surface. Its shape was roughly that of an irregular triangular pyramid, but its edges were not sharp straight lines; instead, they had a fluid-like, unnatural smooth curvature, as if it were black mercury forcibly solidified at extremely high speeds. Its size wasn't particularly massive—the main body was only about the size of a large Earth destroyer—but against the backdrop of the dead silence of Jupiter and the insignificance of the observation station, it radiated a suffocating sense of pressure and... pure, "unnatural" malice.
It was "the piercer." Or rather, a vanguard verification unit of the "reaper" civilization.
At the moment it "emerged," all sensors of the GDC-CR-7 Observation Station went off the charts, like thermometers dropped into boiling water! Electromagnetic radiation, high-energy particle streams, bizarre gravitational perturbations, incomprehensible spatial curvature fluctuations... alarms for various readings exceeding the sensors' design limits flooded the screens. The station's automatic defense protocols attempted to activate; weak attitude thrusters emitted ion streams in an attempt to change orbit and evade, and the only defense—a self-destructing explosive fragmentation barrier meant for tiny meteorites—was triggered.
Too slow.
The smooth black surface of "the piercer" didn't even open any structures resembling gun ports or silos. Simply by facing the observation station, the "blackness" in that area seemed to deepen, and the starlight in the spatial background underwent further grotesque stretching and tearing.
In the next second, a "beam" of dim "void," which could not be described by any visible light spectrum and looked like solidified nothingness, "seeped" out from that deep black area. At a near-absolute speed, it struck the clumsily turning GDC-CR-7 Observation Station.
There was no world-shaking explosion.
The moment they were touched by that "Void Beam," the binding forces between the atoms of the station's alloy frame, precision sensor arrays, and sturdy solar sails seemed to be forcibly "erased" or "negated" by some higher-dimensional rule. Matter was not melted by high temperatures or shattered by impact; instead, like pencil marks rubbed out by an eraser, it instantly "dissociated" from a structurally complete state into basic material particles, which were then completely scattered and annihilated by the violent energy field!
The entire process was terrifyingly fast. From the appearance of "the piercer" to the observation station being hit by the "Void Beam," and finally to this priceless platform—which carried humanity's hopes for outer Solar System observation—completely turning into a rapidly expanding and cooling cloud of metal ions and elementary particle debris, the total time elapsed was... less than 0.3 seconds.
The observation station's final "heartbeat" signal abruptly stopped in the quantum link, replaced by an extremely compressed death shriek filled with desperate high-energy noise, followed by total silence.
The last frame of optical imagery before its destruction barely captured the cold, strange, and inhumanly aesthetic silhouette of "the piercer," as well as that "Void Beam" that seemed capable of devouring all matter and order. This fragmented image and the flood of sensor data from the final moments were sent into the vastness of deep space as several weak, directional radio signals pointing to different preset safety nodes, triggered by the station's self-destructing emergency backup transmitter. One of these was fortunately captured by the wide-area receiving antenna of a GDC early warning satellite located near the asteroid belt, hundreds of millions of kilometers away.
Earth, "Bright Dawn" base.
A piercing, top-level alarm—of the same grade as when the "beacon" signal was enhanced—resounded through the entire underground fortress once again!
On the main tactical screen, the green dot representing the GDC-CR-7 Observation Station instantly turned a striking blood-red, flashed twice, and then went out completely! The alarm message popping up beside it was concise and terrifying: [Jupiter orbit CR-7 Observation Station lost contact! Final signal characteristics: Extreme energy burst, structural integrity zero! Captured suspected attack footage and high-noise data stream, currently parsing!]
Su Xiaowan's face turned pale instantly. Her fingers tapped rapidly on the console, retrieving the fragmented data just received. "Consultant Lin! CR-7... has been destroyed! The attack came from a suddenly appearing black triangular pyramid object! The method of attack... is incomprehensible! The observation station seems to have been... 'decomposed'!"
Lin Mo rushed to the screen, staring intently at the blurred and distorted afterimage that "Fuxi" was struggling to reconstruct. That black silhouette, that bizarre method of attack... it highly matched the characteristic description of the "Nomadic Reaper-type Civilization" provided by the system in his mind! This wasn't a probe; this was a true descent, the first substantive "cleanup" after the "greetings"!
"'the piercer'... It arrived early? No, the position is wrong... Is it a new unit? Or..." Old Chen also rushed over, his voice tight.
""Fuxi", calculate the correlation between the attacker's appearance coordinates and the original predicted trajectory of 'the piercer'!" Lin Mo said sharply.
"Calculating... Correlation is less than 10%. The attacker's appearance coordinates are closer to Jupiter, and the method of appearance does not fit conventional propulsion characteristics. It is suspected to be a short-range spatial jump or some kind of dimensional penetration. Initial judgment: Not the original tracked target 'the piercer,' but a creation of the same civilization, or a vanguard unit from the same batch," the synthesized voice of "Fuxi" analyzed calmly. "Based on the final attack imagery and energy characteristics, the attack method is suspected to involve local physical constant modification or the disintegration of the basic material binding force field. Threat level: A+."
Another one! And the method of attack was even more bizarre and difficult to defend against!
"soaring heavens!" Lin Mo suddenly looked up. "Contact Long Zhantian immediately! Warn him that the enemy might have more than one 'the piercer,' and the method of attack far exceeds expectations! Also, send all the final data from CR-7, especially the energy characteristics and spatial perturbation patterns of that 'Void Beam,' to "Nuwa," and have her update the threat database immediately and adjust the "plan"!"
"Yes!" Su Xiaowan's voice carried a hint of a tremor, but her actions were without hesitation.
Almost simultaneously, on the bridge of the "soaring heavens."
Long Zhantian, who had just finished the global live broadcast and whose entire ship was still in a state of high alert, also received the double emergency alarm from the "Fuxi" and "Bright Dawn" bases.
Looking at the shocking "Observation Station Destroyed" prompt and that blurred but bone-chilling black triangular pyramid image on the screen, Long Zhantian's pupils suddenly constricted. He realized instantly that the previous disguised scout might have just been a feint, or perhaps not even an appetizer.
The true Grim reaper had already bared its incomprehensible fangs and torn apart its first prey right at humanity's doorstep.
"All hands! Maximum combat readiness! Increase shield power to 70%! Begin pre-charging the main weapons!" Long Zhantian's voice was like ice shards hitting the deck. ""Nuwa", receive the data and re-evaluate all threat models! Our enemy... might be faster, more numerous, and weirder than we imagined!"
""Nuwa" is receiving data. Threat database updating... Warning: No matches found in the database for the new attack pattern. Establishing a temporary response model; reliability is questionable," "Nuwa"'s response was still swift, but it rarely included an uncertainty prompt.
On the bridge, the air seemed to freeze into ice. The bit of confidence accumulated from the live broadcast and the easy handling of the scout was instantly shattered by the cruel reality from Jupiter's orbit. A chill from facing the unknown and being crushed by absolute power quietly crawled up everyone's spine.
Long Zhantian stared intently at the original predicted trajectory of "the piercer" and the coordinates of the newly appeared black triangular pyramid that had just destroyed CR-7 on the main screen. Two red dots, like two drops of lethal blood, dripped onto the star map of the Solar System.
"reaper..." He chewed on the codename, feeling the cold meaning contained within. "They're really here."
And they had given humanity a show of force the moment they arrived.