124: Chapter 124 The Golden Dome Collapsed! One Hundred and Seventy-Eight Warships, Dare They Take Another Step Closer?

Bunker No. 3, 1:04 PM.

Su Che encrypted the L2 self-test appendix with three layers of security and dumped it into a folder named "To Be Investigated" on the supercomputer's hard drive.

Three lines.

Grandfather's coordinates, the fragments from the Eagle (US), and the signal that Yiren AI dug out itself.

All pointing to the same point.

It wasn't that he didn't want to dig.

It was just that the shovel in his hand wasn't long enough yet.

He locked the folder permissions to "Local Machine Only."

The walkie-talkie rang.

Zhou Qihang.

"Chief Engineer Su, the first twelve nodes are all in place, and the new key switch is complete. Dean Liu asked me to ask, a key calculated in three seconds, is this reliable?"

"Tell him to ask 'Xuan Nu' if it's reliable." Su Che pushed the empty bowl of plain noodles aside. "Didn't it intercept all 1,100 missiles?"

Zhou Qihang didn't ask again.

"The second batch of twenty-four nodes is on the way. The troops dispatched sixty trucks, and they expect to finish moving them by 3:00 PM."

"That's enough. Golden Dome won't last until 3:00."

Su Che turned off the walkie-talkie.

The bunker was quiet again.

"Kuafu" was running underground, like a heart that never stopped.

He leaned back against the chair, tilting his head back.

He had been tossing and turning for dozens of hours, having slept for only two or three hours in total, and one of those times was only because Lin Waner stuffed a quilt onto the cot for him before he collapsed.

His eyes felt dry.

He closed them for five seconds.

When he opened them again, a red push notification had appeared on the terminal screen.

[Golden Dome Array Overheat Warning: Cumulative overheated frequency-reduction nodes have reached 31/72, synchronization pulse protocol stability has dropped to 43%.]

Forty-three percent.

Su Che glanced at it and didn't move.

Waiting.

2:27 PM.

It didn't wait until 3:00.

The forty-sixth node of the Golden Dome array overheated and shut down, and the synchronization pulse protocol lost its reference source.

A chain reaction.

Adjacent nodes lost synchronization signals in sequence and automatically entered protection mode. Within eight seconds, all seventy-two nodes went dark.

It wasn't a slow shutdown.

It was an avalanche.

On the Bunker No. 3 terminal screen, the red lights representing conventional communication status flipped to green.

A row of all green.

Satellite navigation, restored.

Military shortwave, restored.

Civilian cellular network, restored.

Golden Dome had collapsed.

Su Che didn't celebrate.

He was counting.

Three, two, one...

The tactical tablet exploded.

Not physically.

It was the global flood of information that had been blocked by Golden Dome for ten hours, rushing in at the same second.

CNN emergency live broadcast, Reuters flash, BBC connection, Al Jazeera commentary... all channels were broadcasting the same thing.

"1,134 ballistic missiles over the Dragon Country were all intercepted, not a single one leaked through."

Su Che turned off the news feed.

He didn't care about the noise.

But the next piece of information made him look for two seconds longer.

Forwarded by Qin Lan.

A photo.

During the Golden Dome suppression, a commercial remote sensing satellite took a set of high-resolution images while passing over the Western Pacific. They were stored in the satellite's cache and transmitted as soon as the Golden Dome shut down.

In the photo, JS Izumo.

At the stern of the deck, a black hole.

Three meters in diameter, with smooth edges; the half-palm-thick flight deck steel plate looked like it had been poked through by a red-hot finger.

Seawater was seeping into the hangar from the edge of the hole.

Qin Lan attached a line of text.

"This photo was dug out of the satellite image provider's public library by an AP reporter three minutes ago and is spreading across the entire network. The Japanese side has ordered it to be deleted, but it's too late."

Su Che zoomed in on the photo.

The incision was too clean.

It didn't look like it was caused by explosives; it looked like someone had drawn a circle on paper with a compass and removed the part inside the circle.

The whole world was looking at this circle.

The whole world was asking the same question.

What kind of thing could burn a hole through an aircraft carrier deck from the sky, while there was nothing on radar?

Sakura Country, Prime Ministers Official Residence.

Same time.

Takaishi Sayuki stood in the study, the tablet face down on the desk.

She had already seen the photo.

JS Izumo.

27,000 tons.

A three-meter diameter circular hole in the deck.

She had also read the comments section on social media; they were in dozens of languages from around the world, but the meaning was almost the same when translated.

"The last ship named 'Izumo' stopped on the Huangpu River and fired at civilians. Eighty-eight years later, the tables have turned."

The secretary stood at the door, not daring to come in.

"The Ministry of Defense's report." Takaishi Sayuki's voice was very flat.

"JS Izumo's own power is damaged and it is being towed back to Sasebo by the USS Antietam. All Ame-no-Murakumo equipment is destroyed and cannot be repaired. There are twenty-three casualties."

"Ida Yuji?"

"Hospitalized. His technical team on the USS Reagan has lost contact."

"Adam?"

"The Pentagon is in complete radio silence."

Takaishi Sayuki walked to the window.

The sky over Tokyo was gray.

She suddenly felt that the gray was very similar to the color of the hole in the deck of JS Izumo.

"Prepare a contingency plan."

The secretary looked up.

"If the subsequent stages of Judgment Day... all fail." She paused. "We need a way out."

The secretary opened his mouth, but said nothing.

"Go do it."

The door closed.

Takaishi Sayuki stood alone in front of the window.

What was spinning in her mind wasn't national strategy or alliance relations.

She was thinking of a very specific thing.

If that beam of light wasn't aimed at the deck of JS Izumo, but at the roof of this room, could she block it?

Bunker No. 3, 2:43 PM.

Su Che had just muted all the news push notifications on the tactical tablet, and the walkie-talkie rang again.

Qin Lan.

"The intelligence for the third phase has been obtained."

"Speak."

"It's not missiles, it's not electromagnetic, it's not a cyberattack."

Qin Lan spoke very slowly.

"It's people, it's ships, it's iron."

Su Che turned his chair around.

"During the ten hours that Golden Dome was running, most of the Dragon Country's early warning system was ineffective. The forty-six-nation coalition used this window to complete a maritime assembly in three directions."

"East China Sea, South China Sea, Yellow Sea."

"One hundred and seventy-eight warships, ten carrier strike groups."

The hum of "Kuafu" in the bunker filled the silence for two seconds.

"Distance to the territorial sea line?"

"The nearest formation is four hundred kilometers away, sailing at eighteen knots, and is closing in."

Su Che calculated in his mind.

"Twelve hours."

"Yes, twelve hours later, the first batch of warships will arrive at the Dragon Country's territorial sea line."

Su Che's expression turned cold.

"If they really dare to touch the invasion red line, we won't give them a chance. If they dare to enter within 200 nautical miles of the territorial sea baseline, we'll smash them directly."

He paused. "Our conventional forces are sufficient to defend against the enemy, but we can only defend passively; we cannot achieve total regional blockade, let alone prevent the opponent's hidden trump cards. What I need to do is wipe them out completely!"

Su Che didn't speak again. He stood up and walked to the force field workbench.

The Yu-01 engine was still suspended there, its silver-white body quiet.

One engine, one drone, one laser cannon.

It had swept through 1,100 missiles in three minutes.

But 178 warships were not missiles.

Missiles were one-time use; once shot down, they were gone.

Warships were different.

Warships were mobile fortresses of war; if you beat them back today, they could come back tomorrow. If you didn't wipe them out completely, the threat would always be there.

They were made of steel, floating on the water; if you cut off their weapon systems, they could still move, still ram, still deploy small boats.

Cutting through all 178 of them, including the time for maneuvering and re-locking, would take at least forty minutes.

In forty minutes, they would counterattack, evade, and release interference.

More troublesome was that there was only one Yu-01.

The warships were distributed in three directions: East China Sea, South China Sea, and Yellow Sea.

By the time it flew to the East China Sea and finished cutting one batch, the ones in the South China Sea would have already reached the territorial sea line.

One hand couldn't cover three holes.

Pure interception and pure defense would never eliminate the root cause. If you want to destroy, you must destroy them all at once; if you want to clear, you must clear them completely from the sky.

Unless...

There was something flying in the sky, big enough to cover all three directions at once.

Not a drone.

A platform.

A mobile platform capable of carrying thousands of drones.

Su Che stared at the engine, a picture from the Southern Gate general database flashing through his mind.

luan bird.

Aerospace carrier.

100,000-ton class.

It had a heart.

But the luan bird was still just lines on a blueprint.

No bones, where would the heart be installed?

The very second he tightened his grip on the control stick.

In his mind, the blue-white panel lit up.

Stable, clear, no lag.

[Ding! Core construction requirements for the Nantianmen Project detected, main quest triggered!]

[Quest Name: The Heart is Here, But She Still Lacks a Skeleton!]

[Content: A heart needs a reliable load-bearing structure! 178 steel behemoths are approaching the territorial sea, and the Dragon Country urgently needs an aerial combat platform! Please develop the core load-bearing verification truss and complete the critical structural verification for the luan bird aerospace carrier!]

[Reward: 12,000 skill points, unlock exchange permissions for [High-Strength Lightweight Structural Topology Optimization Technology] + [Space Anti-Radiation Structural Reinforcement Technology] + [Anti-gravity - Structural Collaborative Load-Bearing Technology], exchange points 7,000.]

[Status: Current host has accumulated skill points: 11,500 points, redeem?]

12,000 skill point reward, the highest skill point reward encountered so far.

Skip it? Not a chance!

Su Che focused on the names of the three core technologies on the panel.

Anti-gravity - Structural Collaborative Load-Bearing.

This meant the skeleton of the luan bird wasn't a dead steel structure.

It was integrated with the Anti-gravity system.

The skeleton itself was part of the lift.

Enough to support an aerial fortress, soaring in the sky.

Ten carrier strike groups pressing at the door.

The Dragon Country's Fujian had not yet entered service, and the existing two carrier strike groups might not be able to hold them off.

Then build an aerial combat platform, no longer limited to the sea surface.

Let it fly.

The corners of Su Che's mouth curled up.

"Redeem."