Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 1014: Final Battle (I)
"What's going on? What happened?" The Hound raised his hand to adjust the crooked helmet on his head and shouted, "Damn it, is the sky going to fall?"
"Strong gravitational anomalies have been detected in various locations on Alpha... Wait, the double moons have stopped?!" Layton was stunned as he looked at the information displayed on the console.
"The twin moons have stopped?" The hound subconsciously raised his head, but from his perspective, he could not see the twin moons hanging in orbit hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from Alpha. Although the radiation clouds were torn apart by the gravity from the twin moons, it was daytime at the battlefield and strong sunlight poured down from the sky, causing the blurred outlines of the twin moons to disappear directly in the strong light.
"Ke...That kid Ke Lan, wouldn't he be up there?" The hound muttered to himself as he looked at the moon which was completely invisible.
"Are you kidding me... Can your dog nose smell Ke Lan's scent from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away?" Layton couldn't help but complain, "I'm a little worried. Could this be a backup plan left by the undead crew..."
Before Layton could finish his words, Ke Lan's voice rang out in the control room: "This time, Old Dog got it right. I'm inside the Crescent Fortress now."
"What?" Layton opened his mouth wide and was stunned for several seconds before continuing, "The communication between you and Yaguna Kator was blocked... No, that's not right. You are on the Twin Moons now. The shielding field on the Ark definitely can't cover you... Wait? You, didn't you sneak into the Ark? Why did you go to the moon again?"
"Directly through space transmission." Ke Lan replied briefly, "I asked you to fire just now to help me clear the way."
"What are you doing on the moon?" the hound demanded.
"I got a piece of information from a reliable source... The World-Destroying Tree, which is the giant tree in front of you, has a physical strength far beyond our estimates. It cannot be destroyed by annihilation bombs or Yaguna Kator's Star Destroyer Cannon. The only way is to activate the full-power Star Destroyer Cannon on the Twin Moon Fortress and kill it with one shot."
"Full-power star destroyer?" Hound immediately grasped the key point of this sentence, "Will it destroy the entire Alpha planet?"
"Although it is at full power, I only need to charge it to about 20% before it can be put into use. It is enough to complete a precise strike on the Tree of Destruction without causing any additional damage." Ke Lan replied.
"Twenty percent charge? How long will it take?" the Hound asked again.
"Four hours."
"Ke Lan! Many monsters like the ones that attacked us before have emerged from the canopy of the giant tree... No, there are more this time, conservatively estimated to be over 100 million! They are breaking through the atmosphere of Alpha Star... their target direction is... Crescent Moon!" Layton suddenly said in a hurry, "How is the defense facility of Crescent Moon Fortress?"
"Most of the energy of the Crescent Fortress is supplied to the Star Destroyer Cannon. Its own defensive firepower has now dropped to the lowest level..." Ke Lan said, "I'm not sure if we can stop these things."
What Ke Lan said was the truth - the Crescent Fortress had not received any energy replenishment from the outside world for tens of thousands of years. The light and heat radiation absorbed from the sun could only meet the fortress's own operating needs, and there would even be a considerable energy gap... In fact, the fortress's energy reserves had already run out like Yaguna Tor.
Fortunately, a lean camel is still bigger than a horse. The remaining energy in the Crescent Fortress is enough to charge the star destroyer to 25%. However, during this charging process, more than 90% of the fortress's own defense facilities will be cut off from energy supply, and the terrifying firepower that was originally enough to annihilate a full fleet within a minute will no longer exist.
"Hold on, reinforcements are coming soon!" After saying this, Hound immediately turned to Layton, "Start the Yaguna Tor! We have to intercept those monsters before they fly to the new moon! Also, notify Alexander and Maginot, and ask them to send all vehicles that can fly into space! Also, let the ground troops evacuate quickly, so as not to be hit by the aftermath of the star destroyer!"
"You don't have to tell me! I'm already notifying them!" Layton was so busy that he was spinning like a top. Fortunately, his mechanical arm had recently undergone a specialized transformation. The main arm could split into six auxiliary arms and perform three operations at the same time. Together with the original arm, one operating instruction after another was accurately input into the system. Various parameters were flashing rapidly on dozens of holographic projection screens surrounding him. Accompanied by a slight vibration, the Yagunakotor, which was originally suspended in the sky, slowly raised its bow and pointed it obliquely into the space.
"Hold on, we're going to speed up!" Layton said in a deep voice. The Hound immediately sat back in his seat and fastened his seat belt. The next second, a slight vibration came from the stern of the ship.
The tail of the teardrop-shaped giant ship lifted up countless covers, each of which was larger than a football field. Under each cover was a huge jet nozzle, from which blazing white flames shot out, converging into a tail flame several thousand meters long, pushing the giant ship towards the sky and gradually accelerating.
The teardrop-shaped giant ship quickly pierced through the thick radiation clouds. The higher it went, the darker the surrounding color became... The sky gradually turned from dark blue to black, and the celestial bodies that were originally obscured by the sunlight also appeared one by one in the field of vision.
The hound could already see the crescent moon on the screen. At this time, there was a crack in the middle of the crescent moon. From a distance, it looked like a crack, but it was actually a large canyon hundreds of kilometers long and more than ten kilometers wide. The scene inside the canyon was not clear from the screen, but the sensor of Yagunakotor marked the center of the canyon with a striking red block. With the words "high energy reaction" constantly jumping, the edge of the entire screen was also flashing a warning red light.
"Old dog, the situation is not good." Leighton turned his head, with obvious hesitation on his face.
"What's wrong?" The Hound frowned - the control and communication of Yaguna Tor were all done by Layton. The control console of this super battleship needed to process too much information at the same time. Except for outliers like Ke Lan who could connect directly to the control console with their consciousness, the ship must either be equipped with a group of crew members with their own duties, or let a modified person like Layton who was installed with a newly developed brain-computer interface to operate it. A lot of information was directly transmitted to Layton's brain, and the Hound standing aside could not see these things intuitively.
"It's not good... The Skadi's speed is not as fast as ours, and it can't keep up with the speed of the Aguna Kator. It will take them at least half an hour to reach the designated blocking location. Moreover, many fighters and mechas on the Skadi do not have the ability to fight in space, and the number of mechas that can be deployed in the blocking battle is less than one-third... The worst news comes from the ground forces..."
Hound: "What happened to the ground forces?"
"The ground troops were planning to evacuate the battlefield, but a lot of monsters came out from underground and attacked them... The individual strength of these monsters is not strong, and they did not cause serious losses to the ground troops, but they are very difficult to deal with... I'm afraid the ground troops will not be able to withdraw from the battlefield within four hours." After saying this, Layton sighed.
Hound immediately asked Layton to bring up the drone footage monitoring the battlefield, only to see many caves appearing around the ground force's position. Countless beetle-like creatures crawled out of these caves, cutting the entire ground force's formation into pieces, instantly destroying the ground force's plan to withdraw from the battlefield in an orderly manner.
Since the warships and fighter jets in the sky had already left the Ark's airspace and rushed to the space battlefield, the ground troops could not get any air support at this time and were suddenly caught in a situation of fighting each other.
"The purpose of these bugs is to delay the ground troops so that Ke Lan will be afraid to act rashly..." The Hound said bitterly, "Damn it, what a despicable trick... It is indeed an idea that the Undead Crew can come up with."
"But this kind of move is totally useless against people as cruel as the Undead Crew." Ghost Owl, who had been standing nearby and had not spoken much, spoke up - although he was not a member of the God Hunter Group, after everyone had been through life and death together, Hound and the others had already regarded him as one of their own.
"You haven't had much contact with Ke Lan, so you don't know him well enough." The Hound shook his head, "Ke Lan is different from the Undead Crew... "
Although the number of ground troops is not large, all added up to nearly 100,000 people. Under the bombardment of the star destroyer with 20% power, not only will the entire Ark be evaporated, but these 100,000 people will not be spared either - not even their ashes will be left.
For the continuation of a civilization, the sacrifice of 100,000 people is not such a heavy price to pay - the wars within humanity have killed far more people than this number. If this can be compared to a business, it can be described as a huge profit.
But this kind of thing cannot be measured by simple interests - a person who can use lives as bargaining chips and easily sacrifice hundreds of thousands of people, his humanity will be gradually worn away in such "transactions" again and again, and eventually he will become something as cold-blooded as a machine, without any emotions, and rational to the point of being almost cruel.
The undead crew believes that leading humans requires absolute rationality, and that human nature is dispensable... But ironically, among the few "characteristics" that humans possess, human nature is the most effective force in fighting erosion. Whether a person who has lost his humanity can still be called a human being is not the point, but such a guy is often the first to fall when faced with erosion at the level of consciousness.
Strong emotions can easily make people become extreme, while absolute rationality will make people fall into an endless abyss - compared with the power of erosion, human rationality is too insignificant, like a dam built of yellow sand, which will collapse at the first impact... Only the brilliance of humanity can resist the rolling darkness.
It was precisely because of this discovery that the Fool "created" Ke Lan and placed his last hope on him.
Ke Lan would not easily sacrifice these 100,000 people. This was not out of soft-heartedness, but a reverence for life and humanity itself... If in his heart, people were "props" that could be sacrificed at will, then the dangerous thoughts that had been dormant in his head would instantly break through the cage, distorting and subverting his cognition.
By then, he really can no longer be considered a "person".
"Notify the Skadi and have them return to the atmosphere. Let all fighters and mechas that cannot go into space stay and support the ground forces after replenishing their ammunition and fuel. After ensuring that the ground forces have completely evacuated the battlefield, they can participate in the blocking operation." The Hound thought for a moment and issued this order with some difficulty.
"Then we will have to fight alone, right?" Layton said with difficulty, "Aguna Tor's energy reserves have been almost exhausted. You have to think it over, old dog."
"Hurry up and pass on the order. It will be too late if you wait!" The Hound said angrily. "Fighting alone is fighting alone. This is not the first time. What's wrong? Are you afraid?"
"I'm not afraid of anything! I'm just worried that your old bones won't be able to bear it, and you'll die in space, and we won't even be able to collect your body!" Although Layton cursed, his men still honestly conveyed the hound's order.
"Isn't that great?" The Hound glared at Layton fiercely and said in a scolding tone.
"What a bullshit! I can't even be buried after I die. I'm just floating in the universe like a lonely ghost."
"According to you, all those who died before 900 years into the new era are wild ghosts?" The hound raised his foot and kicked Layton on the buttocks. His movements were so skillful that it seemed as if he had practiced hundreds of times. "Besides, this Earth is not our Earth. I have no attachment to it."
"Okay, the Skadi is going to support the ground forces." Layton frowned and said, "As for us, we will arrive at the blocking point in six minutes. This will be a tough battle. Everyone... get ready."
"Every battle along the way has been a tough one." Ivan laughed out loud, picked up the wine jug and took another big gulp.
"That's true." Layton nodded. "It's already this time... why are you still afraid?"
Zhuo Ligetu said nothing, but pulled up his sleeve and wiped the blade of the axe he usually used.
…
The blocking point chosen by Yaguna Kotor was located between the Crescent Moon and Alpha Star, about 270,000 kilometers from the surface of the earth, which was just right to cut off the route of the monster group to the Crescent Moon. Yaguna Kotor relied on its superior mobility to go directly in front of the monster group and directly blocked the opponent's path.
