Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 1021 Victory?
Just when Ke Lan was racking his brains over how to deal with these "shield generators", a stream of light flying at high speed along Alpha's low-Earth orbit appeared in his field of vision!
This was an attack coming from the back of Alpha. As soon as this stream of light appeared, Ke Lan had already used the powerful computing power of the Crescent Fortress to calculate its target and launch location - this stream of light was shot from the Old Moon Fortress, and its target was the Pale Fleet that was approaching the Crescent Moon!
"Old Moon...how could I forget about Old Moon!" Ke Lan slapped his head. The Crescent Moon Fortress and the Old Moon Fortress faced each other. In a critical moment, they could form a "pin-off" defense formation together with Alpha Star - although doing so would cause secondary disasters caused by a large number of gravitational anomalies on the surface of Alpha Star, compared with the crisis that Alpha civilization might encounter, this secondary disaster is not worth mentioning.
Without changing their relative positions, there is another way for the Twin Moon Fortresses to support each other - that is to use the "gravitational orbit" to bypass Alpha and make the attack trajectory present a semicircular curve.
Using Alpha's gravity, a ball of plasma wrapped in a magnetic field streaked across half of Alpha's sky along a low-Earth orbit and circled directly behind the Pale Fleet - the point where the combined energy shield's defense was the weakest.
The Alphas who stayed behind in the Old Moon Fortress did not disappear because of the paradox. They were obviously keeping an eye on the battlefield and extended a helping hand to Ke Lan at this critical moment.
A plasma ball exploded behind the Pale Fleet, and a large range of blue-white arcs instantly ravaged the entire battlefield, first tearing apart the joint shield, and then swallowing up the entire fleet.
From the time this streak of light appeared from the back of Alpha to the time the entire Pale Fleet was destroyed, it took only fifteen seconds.
"Well done." Across Alpha Star, Ke Lan gave a thumbs up to the Old Moon Fortress on the other side.
“They probably can’t see this.” Selene said, “The moment the defenders of the Old Moon Fortress decided to support you, the time-space paradox started to take effect… Now there are probably no survivors in the entire Old Moon Fortress.”
"..." Ke Lan was silent for half a second, then nodded, "I understand."
The Pale Fleet was completely wiped out, and the Tree of Destruction was silent for a while. Ke Lan watched helplessly as the charging progress bar of the Star Destroyer Cannon was filled up little by little. Until the moment of launch, the opponent did not take any countermeasures.
The ground troops that were held back near the Ark have successfully withdrawn from the battlefield, and Yaguna Tor has also moved out of the firing path of the star destroyer cannon - everything is ready, and all that's left is for Ke Lan to press the "fire" button.
Ke Lan has returned to the control room of the Crescent Fortress - the Crescent Fortress integrates the most advanced technology of the Alpha civilization, but the shape of the launch button in front of him is indeed somewhat "retro": on a control console made of alloy, a bright red physical button is covered with a metal mesh to prevent accidental touch, just like the nuclear bomb launchers that often appear in old-age movies.
Just press this button and everything will be over, right?
Perhaps the future of human civilization will still be shrouded in darkness, but at least it can buy human civilization hundreds of years of breathing space.
The speed of development of human civilization is getting faster and faster. It took mankind thousands of years to go from slash-and-burn agriculture to learning to smelt metals. In modern times, many things that originally only existed in fantasy works have become reality in just a few decades or even years...Now, with the legacy left by the Alpha civilization, a few hundred years is enough for human civilization to change many things.
Ke Lan held her breath, gently lifted the metal mesh cover, and without hesitation, pressed the bright red button all the way to the bottom.
The surface of the new moon began to vibrate, and countless cracked lines began to spread out in all directions with the big canyon as the center. Ke Lan only saw that countless flashing crystal circuits in the control room went out briefly for a moment, and a beam of light gray light shot out from the depths of the canyon.
To be precise, this beam of light did not seem to be "emitted" out, but connected the Crescent Fortress and Alpha Star together the moment it appeared.
On the other side of the light is the "Tree of Destruction" that is so tall that it penetrates through the top of the radiation cloud.
Just like dropping a drop of ink into clear water, the same gray color spread along the trunk of the Tree of Destruction at an extremely fast speed. Starting from the ends of the branches and leaves, the gray parts gradually turned into ashes, and then decomposed into particles that were even smaller than ashes and could not be observed by the human eye.
The entire decomposition process seemed slow, but in fact it only took less than a second - the towering Tree of Destruction had completely disappeared from this world, leaving only a huge hole with an astonishing diameter at the core area of the Ark.
"Is it, is it over...? Did we... win?" Rear Admiral Alexander stood by the observation window of the bridge, stammering as he watched the disappearing giant tree. His hands were leaning on the glass window, and his body was shaking constantly.
A few seconds later, excited cheers resounded throughout the entire bridge. Many people jumped up from their seats, yelling and waving their fists and arms, releasing their inner emotions to their heart's content; some people knelt on the ground with tears streaming down their faces, muttering something in a voice that only they could hear; and some people said nothing, sitting silently in their seats, like a stone statue.
For the officers and soldiers on the Skadi, almost every one of them had relatives or loved ones who died in the turmoil. The moment they stepped onto the battlefield, they were prepared to make sacrifices - although they were not afraid of death, in the eyes of most people, the survivor alliance had almost no chance of winning this war.
The reason they are willing to go to the battlefield is just to fight for the dignity of being human.
But now, the unshakable giant tree was actually annihilated in the gray light that penetrated the sky... This scene even made many soldiers on the battlefield wonder if they were hallucinating.
"He succeeded... Ke Lan, he really succeeded..." General Maginot, who stayed behind to march into the camp, leaned on the threshold of the barracks and looked at the sky in the distance. Just a minute ago, the incomparable giant tree connected the land of Alpha Star and the boundless clouds above, but now, it disappeared so completely that people couldn't help but doubt... whether it really appeared there.
"The latest battle report and instructions came from Aguna Kator." Levi walked to General Maginot's side and whispered, "The Crescent Fortress Star Destroyer Cannon was successfully launched, and the observable part of the World-Destroying Tree has been completely annihilated. But the combat units still cannot relax their vigilance. No one is allowed to approach the Ark without orders. Aircraft are also strictly prohibited from flying over the airspace within a radius of 100 kilometers above the Ark. The subsequent cleanup operations will be taken over by the God Hunter Group."
Hearing the second half of the battle report, General Maginot's eyelids could not help but twitch twice, and he quickly asked: "Does this mean... we haven't really won yet? Oh, and where are the members of the Undead Crew? Isn't there a single word about them?"
"That's all the content in the document..." Levi handed the tablet to Maginot, "Perhaps it's out of caution? Once the God Hunters have thoroughly checked the Ark inside and out, they should be able to draw a conclusion... Oh, by the way, there's another message that was sent along with this battle report."
"Speak." Maginot did not look at the platform in his hand, but still looked up, looking in the direction of the Ark.
"In the battle to block the Mimic Fleet in Yaguna Kator... two of the management of the God Hunter Group, Mr. Hound and Mr. Thirty-three... were killed."
"Nick is dead?" The fat on Makino's face twitched. "Are you kidding me?"
"General, I... I'm not kidding, and I won't joke about this kind of thing." Levi sighed, "This message was sent by Mr. Chi Hanfeng of the God Hunter Group, so the credibility should be..."
"This is impossible! How could Nick, who is so afraid of death and so slippery, be killed in action? Even if everyone else died, I don't believe he would be killed!" Maginot's speech speed increased slightly, "There must be something wrong... Let the communications officer check it again!"
"Yes..." Levi nodded, but before he could turn around and leave, an officer with the rank of second lieutenant rushed in, breathlessly saying to Maginot and Levi: "General... General, and the chief of staff... the troops withdrawn from the front... had... something wrong!"
"What happened?" Maginot and Levi felt their hearts tighten at the same time and asked in unison.
"Many soldiers' bodies have begun to mutate. Many eyeballs have grown on their bodies... Yes, that's right, eyeballs... Those eyeballs are as if alive... This mutation symptom is spreading wildly in the military camp. Currently, the No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4 camps have fallen into complete chaos. Mutants are also said to have appeared in the No. 3 and No. 5 camps!"
"A lot of eyeballs grew on the body?" Maginot was shocked. He was not involved in the memetic transmission incident at the research institute, but he learned a lot about what happened from several people in the God Hunter Group. If the lieutenant's statement was correct, then the "mutation phenomenon" that suddenly broke out in the army was probably a memetic transmission incident!
"It's a meme!" Maginot said, "Pass on my order... No, use the military broadcast channel directly. Everyone, cover your eyes. No matter what happens, don't open your eyes to see. Then open the voice-controlled map in the personal communication terminal and move under the guidance of the voice - all those who have mutated, go to Camps 1 and 2 to gather; those who feel unwell, go to Camps 3 and 4; the rest of those who don't feel any abnormality in their bodies, all gather in Camp 5! In addition, cut off all closed-circuit monitoring equipment in the military camp, and disable all things with cameras, including communication terminals, vehicle intelligent systems and tactical mechas! Turn off the internal network of the army as well, and don't let any video or image files spread on the Internet!"
After giving all these orders in one breath, Maginot began to breathe heavily. After watching the lieutenant turn around and leave, he took out his kettle, tilted his head back and took a big gulp.
"Is this the 'memetic contagion' that Mr. Ke Lan and the others mentioned earlier?" Levi also looked a little nervous. "It is said that if you see this kind of mutation, you will be infected?"
"That's right... But I'm not sure if the 'meme' spreading in the military camp now is the same as the one that spread in the research institute last time... Different memes have different ways of spreading. In addition to vision, hearing, touch, smell... any of human senses may become a way for memes to spread. And according to Ke Lan, the most terrifying memes can be spread through cognition. That is, when you know that the 'meme' itself exists, you have been 'infected' and become a carrier of this 'meme'... This is also the ultimate form of all 'memes' evolution to the end."
"Then this 'meme' that's breaking out now..."
"Judging from the mutation symptoms, it seems to be the same 'meme' as last time... But I'm not sure, because there is only one accurately recorded meme transmission incident, and no one knows what other memes look like... I can only pray that the 'meme' spread this time is the same as last time... At least we still know how to deal with this kind of 'meme'. If it were a different kind, I wouldn't dare to imagine..." Maginot said in a trembling voice.
"So what should we do now?" Levi asked. Although he was always calm, he couldn't help but feel a little panic when he encountered something beyond his understanding.
"Notify Ke Lan immediately... Only they can handle this kind of thing." Machino said.
…
Crescent Fortress, central control room.
Layton's shadow appeared in the blue beam of light, and he said to Ke Lan anxiously, "Aguna Kator has just received news that there has been a suspected 'memetic infection' incident among the ground forces. As of the time the news was sent, the number of people with mutations and suspected mutations has reached 50,000. General Maginot, the commander of the ground forces, has issued a 'ban on viewing' and isolated the mutants from normal people... But the ground forces are now in complete chaos, and General Maginot's orders are difficult to execute. They are requesting our assistance ."
"Memetic contagion? What kind of mutation is that?"
"It's exactly the same as last time, with eyeball-like organs growing all over the body," Layton said. "It spreads very quickly, but the specific transmission route has not yet been figured out."
