222: Chapter 222 Turning the Tide: Lin Mo's Precise Calculation
Craig's final madness, along with the spatial distortion flash that swallowed a small area of the North American East Coast, left a shocking yet rapidly dissipating scar on the Earth background outside the observation window of the "Ark" city.
No one cheered.
Inside the command hall, the brief dizziness caused by the sudden relaxation after extreme tension was instantly dispelled by the even more bone-chilling despair in the starry sky. On the main screen, the scene of the lunar battlefield was like purgatory: the wreckage of the "Taishan Ship" floated silently, and the "soaring heavens" looked like a beached giant whale, dragging thick smoke and electric sparks, slowly tumbling in the void. In lunar orbit, of the once-proud human fleet, less than thirty percent remained barely fighting, while the rest had either turned into wreckage or completely lost contact.
And that most terrifying Alpha unit, after "appreciating" the finale of humanity's implosion, had its dark purple muzzle steadily and without deviation aimed at the huge ecological dome of the "Guanghan Palace" base, which appeared extremely fragile under the starlight.
Countdown: twenty-three seconds.
"It's going to destroy the ecological dome!" Moon Base commander Wang Lei's voice sounded hoarse in the communication channel, filled with despair, "That's the location of some of the "sower" project gene bank backups and key "pegasus" biological samples! Once the dome is breached, everything inside will be instantly exposed to vacuum and radiation! We... we can't stop it!"
On the bridge of the "soaring heavens", Long Zhantian looked at the main gun on his bow; after the engineers desperately repaired it, the energy reading had barely recovered to the level where it could fire once. But aiming at that Alpha unit hundreds of thousands of kilometers away? The accuracy was completely insufficient, and given the current attitude and power of the "soaring heavens", it was impossible to make an effective shot in time.
"All remaining ships, all defensive platforms that can still move, concentrate all firepower on the Alpha unit! Even if it's just to deflect its muzzle slightly!" Long Zhantian ordered hoarsely, his voice filled with the tragic determination of burning the bridges.
The remnants of the fleet and the lunar defense platforms, like a dying Bee Swarm, pointed all their remaining usable weapons at that death-like figure. Beams, missiles, and kinetic projectiles intertwined into a net of desperate fire, rushing toward the Alpha unit.
However, the Alpha unit didn't even bother to activate that terrifying spatial deflection field again. It just slightly adjusted its position, and those attacks were like moths flying into a scorching sun, either easily deflected by the energy ripples on its strange polyhedral surface, or simply changing direction inexplicably after approaching it to a certain distance, shooting into the empty void.
The absolute technological generation gap turned into absolute despair at this moment.
Eighteen seconds.
The "Ark" city command hall was dead silent. Everyone stared blankly at the screen, watching the destruction about to descend upon the "Guanghan Palace", their minds blank. Old Chen held onto the console, his aged fingers trembling slightly, his lips moving, but he couldn't make a sound.
Just in the center of this almost solidified atmosphere of despair, a voice suddenly sounded.
Calm, clear, and even carrying a kind of almost cold rationality that transcended the current crisis.
""Fuxi", pull up all raw data on gravitational field disturbances from the "shadow catcher" project, including the research records of the "Ripper" wreckage and all experimental parameters from the "mount tai" gravity simulator. "Nuwa", simultaneously pull up all energy fluctuation characteristics, attack patterns, and especially the spectrum analysis report of its spatial deflection field since the Alpha unit appeared. Time window: the past seventy-two hours."
It was Lin Mo.
He didn't look at the screen, but stared fixedly at the several data windows that suddenly popped up in front of him. Those numbers, waveforms, and spectrum charts refreshing like a waterfall reflected an eerie light in his eyes. His fingers turned into afterimages on the virtual keyboard, performing incredible data retrieval, comparison, correlation, and deduction at a speed that no one present could understand.
Everyone was stunned. At a time like this, he was still... looking at data?
"Lin Mo?" Old Chen couldn't help but speak, his voice trembling.
"Quiet." Lin Mo didn't look back, the two words he spat out were short, powerful, and unquestionable. His eyes were already completely immersed in that ocean of data that only he and "Fuxi" and "Nuwa" could understand.
Fifteen seconds.
"Found it." Lin Mo said softly, his voice carrying a trace of imperceptible, relieved tremor, but it was immediately replaced by an even firmer calmness.
He looked up sharply, his gaze piercing through the virtual data, staring directly at the Alpha unit about to fire on the main screen, his voice instantly transmitted via quantum communication to the ears of every commander of terminals that could still receive orders — including the "soaring heavens", Moon Base, and all surviving fleets:
"All units, follow my orders! According to the coordinate sequence I am about to send, carry out one last concentrated fire attack! This is not a direct attack on the Alpha unit, but an attack on these points — in the space around it!"
The next second, a complex sequence consisting of thirty-seven three-dimensional coordinates precise to twelve decimal places was instantly distributed by the system to the fire control systems of every ship and defense platform!
"Attack space points?! Consultant Lin, this..." Long Zhantian was stunned.
"Its spatial deflection field is not invincible." Lin Mo's voice was like a cold scalpel, beginning to dissect the seemingly invincible enemy, "Research from the "shadow catcher" project proves that any spatial manipulation will leave detectable 'stress residues' locally. And "Nuwa", through analysis of all energy fluctuations of the Alpha unit over the past seventy-two hours, has discovered a pattern: its deflection field has an extremely short 'recalibration period' within 0.03 seconds after each large-angle energy deflection, during which a calculable 'weak point' appears in the uniformity and strength of the field. It's not an absolute defensive vacuum, but rather..."
He pulled up a dynamic simulation diagram showing the layer of twisted spatial ripples around the Alpha unit, where a tiny "depression" invisible to the naked eye and conventional sensors would appear at a certain extremely short moment.
"It's this depression. It's not a weakness, but an... 'inflow point'." Lin Mo's voice grew faster, "Just like the center of a whirlpool is the calmest. If we can inject enough energy into those thirty-seven coordinate points simultaneously the moment this 'inflow point' is activated, we can create an artificial energy storm locally, using the characteristics of its own deflection field to deflect that destructive beam about to be fired at the "Guanghan Palace", onto itself!"
A crazy plan! Using the enemy's own defense mechanism to rebound its own attack!
"Data-supported probability?" Long Zhantian only asked one question.
"The latest deduction from the system: 63.7%."
A 63.7% chance of winning! In the face of absolute despair, this was a number enough to make one bet everything!
"Do it!" Long Zhantian roared, "All units, receive coordinates, synchronize aiming! Countdown!"
Eight seconds. Seven seconds. Six seconds.
The core of the Alpha unit, that "black dot" so dark it could absorb all light, began to expand rapidly, the dark purple light condensing to the extreme — it was about to fire!
"Now! All firepower, fire!" Lin Mo's voice exploded in the communication channel!
Just at the moment when Alpha's deadly dark purple decomposition beam was about to leave the muzzle — in that 0.03-second "recalibration period", a tiny "depression" that even the most precise instruments could barely capture appeared on that arrogant spatial deflection field.
And all the human remnants, all defense platforms, totaling more than two hundred beams, missiles, and kinetic projectiles of varying strengths, poured out frantically at the same moment, following those thirty-seven coordinates precise to an incredible degree!
They didn't shoot directly at the Alpha unit, but at the seemingly empty void around it!
The next second, a miracle happened.
Those two hundred-plus attacks, the moment they touched the layer of twisted space around the Alpha unit, were mostly deflected, scattered, or annihilated. However, about thirteen percent of the energy, because it hit those thirty-seven carefully calculated "inflow points" simultaneously, set off a miniature, yet enough to change everything, "energy storm" in that extremely unstable space around the Alpha unit!
This storm itself was insignificant, but the exact time and space point where it appeared had a subtle resonant interference with the energy path of the dark purple decomposition beam about to leave the Alpha unit's muzzle!
That destructive beam, condensed to the limit, had its direction forcibly deflected by this artificially created tiny disturbance at the moment it left the muzzle... by 0.001 degrees!
A deviation invisible to the naked eye was amplified into a fatal error over a distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers!
The dark purple death ray did not shoot at the fragile ecological dome of the "Guanghan Palace", but grazed the edge of the Moon Base, roared past, and finally... slammed heavily into the unsuspecting Gamma unit!
The Gamma unit (that "Scavenger" mainly focused on EMP and information warfare) was focused on slaughtering the remaining human fleet and hadn't activated any defenses at all. Its relatively fragile hull was instantly pierced in the face of this full-strength decomposition beam from the Alpha unit! A silent, yet brilliant, detonation erupted from its core!
A "Scavenger" unit, destroyed by its own companion!
In the starry sky, the Gamma unit turned into a rapidly expanding cloud of wreckage, its blinding light illuminating the moon, the remaining human fleet, and the faces of everyone who witnessed this scene, filled with extreme astonishment.
A brief silence.
Then, in the "Ark" city, the Moon Base, the surviving fleets... all channels that could still communicate erupted with deafening cheers, filled with the ecstasy of survival and disbelief!
"We did it! Consultant Lin! We succeeded!"
"It hit one of its own!"
"Gamma unit signal lost! Confirmed destroyed!"
"This... how was this done?!"
And the Alpha unit seemed to be "stunned" by this sudden turn of events. Its polyhedral core flickered wildly, as if its internal operational logic was performing emergency "error troubleshooting" and "tactical re-evaluation". Its muzzle turned blankly toward the wreckage of the Gamma unit's explosion, then toward the moon, and then toward the direction of the "Ark" city, where the human "variable" that created all this was located.
In that dark core, for the first time, it seemed to reveal a trace of... confusion? Or perhaps, some deeper level of "evaluation" beyond its preset program?
In the "Ark" city command hall, Lin Mo slowly lowered his trembling fingers, fine cold sweat seeping from his forehead. His face was frighteningly pale, but his eyes were burning with unprecedented light.
Turning the tide. Not by brute force, not by sacrifice, but by extreme calmness, precise calculations to the millisecond, and insight into the enemy's deepest weaknesses.
He had done it.
But the cheers hadn't died down yet when the alarm in the direction of the moon sounded again. The Alpha and Beta units, after a brief "confusion", seemed to have reached some new "consensus". They no longer fought on their own, but began to readjust their formation in an eerie way, covering and coordinating with each other. The Alpha unit's muzzle lit up again, and this time, it was no longer aiming at any specific facility, but at... the entire area where the "Guanghan Palace" base was located!
It was going to... carry out an indiscriminate saturation bombardment!