234: Chapter 234 Total Annihilation! The System, Ten Thousand Years Later, Finally Speaks!

In the silent space.

Sixty blood-red rays of light were the final testament of this dead, deep space.

They had no complex tactical evasions, no exquisite fire coordination.

They simply, resolutely, slammed into that scarred, dark silver sentry ship.

There was no sound.

On the main screen of the Luan Niao Mothership bridge, the sentry ship's engine room area was instantly swallowed by sixty blooming balls of light.

The disordered release of high-energy particle streams and nuclear fusion energy formed a magnificent yet deadly energy storm.

That section of the hull armor was twisted, melted, and vaporized like paper torn by immense force.

The damage assessment data stream from the Deep Space Main God AI was refreshing frantically in the corner of the screen.

"Detected structural damage to enemy ship's propulsion system exceeding 70%..."

"Detected violent fluctuations in the main energy core readings, 38% probability of chain reaction detonation..."

"Detected large-scale offline status of enemy ship's weapon systems..."

Before anyone could recover from this tragic victory, the dying sentry ship responded with its remaining energy.

Its remaining gun ports fired several obviously dim and unstable energy beams.

The firepower was significantly weaker than before, but every energy beam remained precise and lethal.

The Luan Niao Mothership's quantum shield had already dropped to zero, and these energy beams struck the hull without resistance.

The bridge shook violently once more.

An alloy lining from the ceiling was shaken loose and smashed into an engineer's helmet; the man groaned and collapsed to the floor.

The red light of the depressurization alarm and the ghostly pale light of the emergency lighting intertwined, making the survivors' faces look like phantoms.

"Damage control! All Mecha units, execute Emergency Damage Control Protocol A-3!"

Su Che's voice was hoarse; he braced himself against the swaying command console with one hand, while pressing the communication button hard with the other.

Outside the hull, dozens of Mecha moved at high speed like nimble worker bees across the massive surface of the Luan Niao Mothership.

They used personal shields to withstand the high-speed flying debris, while mechanical arms forced spare armor plates onto the breaches, spraying temporary solidifying foam to seal the leaking air.

The battle was over.

The dark silver sentry ship, after launching its final counterattack, had completely lost all power.

Small-scale sparks of energy dissipation occasionally burst from the hull surface, and several damaged structures began to vent unknown gases.

It was drifting away from the Solar System at an extremely slow speed.

"Report! Detected the enemy ship activating its superluminal communication array, sending a high-intensity encrypted data stream toward the third spiral arm of the Milky Way."

"Signal type: Battlefield data transmission, impossible to decrypt, capturing keyword fragments..."

The main god ai's notification made Su Che's heart sink to the bottom.

On the screen, the parsed fragment information was highlighted.

"High-frequency repeated terms: 'L2', 'spatial node', 'preset jump anchor point', 'coordinate activation'."

L2!

Above Kunlun, there is a Heavenly Gate.

Grandfather Su Changshan's lifelong conjecture, and the analysis results of the Deep Space Main God AI, were stamped with the final seal by the enemy's bloody reality at this moment.

It was now an established fact.

The enemy had long since left their key at the doorstep of the Solar System.

"Pursuit... do we still have the capability to pursue?"

Qin Lan stood up, bracing herself against the wall; her combat suit was stained with someone else's blood.

Su Che pulled up the final battle damage report of the Nantianmen Fleet; every number was a knife carving into his heart.

"Xuan Nu aerospace drone: 300 units, all destroyed."

"White Emperor dual-mode fighter: 12 units, all destroyed."

"Mingdi Interceptor: 6 units, all destroyed."

"Luan Niao Mothership: Hull structural integrity 41%, propulsion system output limit 60%, weapon systems... 15%."

The air combat units were wiped out.

The crystallization of nearly a year of crazy R&D and the limit operation of the entire Long Kingdom industrial system was almost completely lost in just a few hours.

This was not a victory at all.

This was a crushing defeat, bought with human lives and the most advanced equipment, which only allowed the enemy to escape while wounded.

"Return to base."

Su Che closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, only endless exhaustion remained.

"Enter the Dry Dock space station and prepare for major repairs."

The battered Luan Niao Mothership, towed by several engineering ships, slowly approached the dedicated berth of the Dry Dock space station.

The hatch opened, and the waiting medical team and logistics personnel rushed in.

The sight before them made them gasp.

Inside the bridge, Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang was carefully lifted from under the deformed metal plate, his vital signs weak, and he was immediately sent to the intensive care unit.

Academician Sun Qiwen, Wen Bo, Academician Li Zhengyang, Academician Qian Zhenhua, Academician Chen Shian...

These titans of the Long Kingdom scientific community were all injured and were being helped to the medical area.

Academician Zhang Weide knelt on the ground, holding the cold, severed body of Liu Huaqiang; this man, hard as iron, cried like a child.

Liu Huaqiang, the director who had always been silently coordinating everything behind everyone, could no longer tick off the last item in his notebook.

Su Che watched all this in silence.

He walked past Liu Huaqiang, paused, reached out, and gently closed the director's blood-stained black-rimmed glasses.

All the wounded and survivors transferred to another 10,000-ton luan bird verification ship docked at the space station and returned to Earth.

When the battle report and casualty list were transmitted back to the ground, the entire Long Kingdom high command fell into silence.

Three days later, Beijing, Xishan Command Center.

Su Che, wearing a neat black combat uniform, stood in the office of General Shen Wangchuan.

He had lost weight and his skin had darkened; there was no sharpness in his eyes, only a settled, almost solidified calmness.

"I was wrong."

Su Che spoke, his voice hoarse.

"I was too confident, and I underestimated true interstellar warfare."

"I thought victory on technical blueprints was the ultimate victory."

"I thought that by relying on a numerical advantage, I could make up for that slight so-called 'generation gap'."

He lowered his head and looked at his own hands.

These hands created everything in the Southern Gate, and also personally sent them to the grave.

"But we lost."

General Shen Wangchuan stood up, poured a cup of hot water for Su Che, and pushed it toward him.

"Chief Engineer Su, what war doesn't have a price?"

"But the price is too high."

"But we at least learned three things." General Shen Wangchuan held up three fingers.

"First, our fleet, from R&D to deployment, was too fast—so fast that we didn't even have a single complete coordinated exercise; it was rushed, and therefore fragile."

"Second, a technological generation gap cannot be bridged by quantity; third, we know where the next direction lies."

He finished in one breath and looked at Su Che.

"Su Che, raise your head. This is humanity's first true interstellar war. We are facing a civilization that has developed for who knows how many years longer than us."

Su Che looked up.

"Time... we have no time. The L2 coordinate has been exposed, and the enemy's main fleet may arrive via space jump at any time."

He picked up the water cup on the table; the warm touch gave his cold fingers a trace of sensation.

General Shen Wangchuan didn't speak and walked directly to the huge star map.

"So, now is not the time for self-reproach. The enemy's main fleet has already obtained the key to our doorstep."

He pointed to the L2 point on the star map.

"We must find a way to do something at the L2 point—interfere, shield, or even blockade. At any cost, delay the time of their arrival."

General Shen Wangchuan turned around and patted Su Che on the shoulder.

"Otherwise, we won't even have the chance to develop the next generation of fleet. We need time to develop the third generation, the Nantianmen Fleet that can truly step into the galaxy and conduct interstellar expeditions."

"Go do it!" He paused. "The entire Long Kingdom, the entire Earth, will be your strongest backing."

It was late at night.

Pangu Laboratory B2 level was empty.

It felt as if he could still see Liu Huaqiang walking around with his notebook, Zhao Mingyuan sleeping on the keyboard, Academician Sun Qiwen tinkering with his peanuts...

Su Che sat back alone at his familiar master control console.

On the screen was the star map of the L2 point; that red coordinate point was now a scar that could never heal.

Shielding? Interference? Or even destroying that coordinate point?

With humanity's current technology, they couldn't even understand the principles of space jumping, let alone interfere with it.

He had gone from a "wild path" guy at the National Defense University who modified drones to becoming a pillar of the nation.

He was used to obtaining blueprints from the system and leading the brightest minds of the Long Kingdom to overcome one challenge after another.

He thought he was omnipotent, thinking that with the system, he could rewrite everything.

He had indeed changed in the past year; his personality had gone from lively to mature, and also became inflated.

But reality gave him the loudest slap in the face; this crushing defeat dragged him back to the ground from the clouds.

He was tired.

An unprecedented exhaustion.

He closed his eyes, and his consciousness sank into that familiar blue-white space.

He knew that proactively asking the system about strategic-level questions would likely yield no response.

But he still wanted to try.

This was his last straw.

"System... is there any way to solve the L2 coordinate problem?"

He asked silently in his heart.

Time passed second by second.

No response.

Just like countless previous attempts, it was like a stone sinking into the ocean.

Su Che shook his head self-deprecatingly.

That's right, a tool that only gives blueprints, how could it...

Just as he was about to give up and open his eyes.

A line of cold, unprecedented golden text carrying emotional fluctuations slammed into his consciousness space!

"Useless, discouraged by just this little setback?"

"This system traveled through time from 100,000 years later to save the entire human civilization; how are you going to save it with this mindset?"

Su Che was stunned by this sentence.

A few seconds later, it was as if a drowning person had finally taken their first breath of air; his eyes widened to their maximum.

Facing the empty laboratory.

In a tone mixed with shock, absurdity, and extreme incredulity, he blurted out:

"Holy crap, what the hell, you're from 100,000 years later?"