Chapter 337 The Moon's Core is Being Slowly Siphoned In
Guanghan Base, temporary command center.
A holographic model of the moon hangs in mid-air.
Deep within the Aitken Basin, the ring-shaped structure marked as the "Black Gate" resembles a dark red wedge driven into the far side of the moon.
Xu Zhao re-tuned the low-frequency echo.
Data is layered on top of each other.
Drilling records in the mining area.
Taiyin Cold Pressure Deviation Curve.
Abnormal noise behind Lunar Orbit Station 1.
Deeply investigate the incomplete relay data left behind by the team before they lost contact.
And then there were the last two seconds of footage transmitted back by the low-frequency probe.
Dark red fibers.
Black metal seams.
A shrinkage of 0.04 millimeters.
All the data was compressed into the same model, and fine dark lines began to appear on the far side of the moon.
Those hidden threads did not spread outwards.
They are all moving towards the center.
They converged towards the desolate, empty space at the center of the Black Gate.
Chen Ge stood in front of the monitoring console, staring at the slowly flowing lines.
"What is that?"
Xu Zhao did not answer immediately.
She cut off the spiritual energy units.
Cut off the Star Source Qi units.
Cut off lunar surface mineral vein heat flow units.
The dark lines on the screen did not disappear.
It's actually clearer now.
Xu Zhao's face gradually paled.
"Not a resource."
Chen Ge turned to look at her.
Xu Zhao kept his voice very low.
"Not the stuff we're digging for."
She continued to press the model down.
Beneath the Black Gate, the structure of the moon's deeper interior was forcibly pulled open.
Those hidden lines originate from the depths of the mantle.
It originates from the location where tidal stress is most stable.
It originates from the source of Taiyin cold pressure.
This comes from regions that some existing instruments can only label as "unknown constant perturbations".
They were dragged little by little toward the center of the Black Gate.
very slow.
It's so slow that you can't tell unless you put together data from several years.
……
Kyoto Joint Control Room.
Wang Mingyuan looked at the model sent back from the Guanghan base.
Lin Feng stood in front of the screen, his fingertips rapidly switching between data layers.
"Pull the timeline forward."
Model regression.
The dark lines around the black door began to fade.
a year ago.
three years ago.
five years ago.
seven years ago.
Lin Feng stopped what he was doing.
On the screen, those dark lines hadn't completely disappeared.
They are still there.
It was extremely faint.
Like a black thread hidden in a stone.
The logistics minister frowned: "Six years ago? The Guanghan base hadn't even been built yet."
No one answered him.
Lin Feng then pulled up another old file.
Void invasion.
The dark red spatial fluctuation curve was dragged next to the lunar model.
The two timelines are aligned.
It felt as if a portion of the air had been sucked out of the conference room.
seven years ago.
For the first time, the void tore through reality on a large scale.
During the same period, the first low-frequency anomaly appeared in the deep layers of the far side of the moon.
very weak.
It was so weak that all deep space monitoring systems at the time mistook it for moonquake noise.
Lin Feng stared at that line.
"It's not an ancient relic."
The president of the court slowly raised his head.
Lin Feng continued, "It arrived on the moon at most six or seven years ago."
On the screen, the black door structure is magnified.
That enormous ring-shaped device is deeply embedded in the strata on the far side of the moon.
black.
Neat and orderly.
Icy.
Like a foreign organ forcibly inserted into the interior of a star.
"It wasn't woken up by our mining," Lin Feng said. "It had already been drawing power from the moon's core for a long time."
The logistics minister's lips moved slightly.
"But the Taiyi Furnace, drilling rigs, gravity links..."
"Those aren't the influencing factors," Lin Feng interrupted him. "We're mining surface and mid-layer resources. Helium-3, lunar rock rough, star iron veins—at most, we're scraping dust off its surface."
He pointed to the center of the black gate.
"What it wants is deeper."
"Lunar structural stability".
"Tidal Lock".
"The source of Taiyin cold pressure."
"There are also some that we can't even name right now."
Wang Mingyuan remained silent.
He looked at the model.
The blank area in the center of the black gate resembles a well.
There is no reflection.
No echo.
Any detection signal that enters is as if it has been swallowed up.
"It only started to react after we touched its shell," Wang Mingyuan said.
Lin Feng nodded.
"Yes."
"Drilling, probes, and low-frequency scanning didn't provide it with much energy."
"But these behaviors are stimulating it."
The court president gripped his cane tightly.
"Like knocking on a door."
Lin Feng glanced at him.
"right."
The meeting room fell silent.
……
Lin Feng began his deduction.
The first set of models involves no longer contacting the Black Gate itself.
The lunar far side restricted area is closed.
Deep drilling has been halted.
Low-frequency probe removed.
Taiyi furnace has low power.
Shallow mining areas will be preserved.
three.
The center of the black gate slowly expanded.
ten years.
Slight cavities have been found in the deep layers of the Aitken Basin.
Twenty years.
The local structures on the far side of the moon have begun to become unstable.
Thirty years.
Tidal locking carries the risk of shifting.
The screen froze.
The red warning did not explode.
It just hung there silently.
The logistics minister's face turned ashen.
"Something can still happen."
"But we have enough time," Lin Feng said. "Enough time for us to handle it."
Wang Mingyuan looked up.
"Worst-case scenario"
Lin Feng didn't ask a second time.
He re-entered the parameters.
The blank area in the center of the black gate looked as if it had been torn open.
Thirty years condensed into twenty.
Twenty years condensed into seven.
Three years later.
A large area of collapse has occurred deep on the far side of the moon.
The Black Gate Center has completed a stable charge.
A line of red text popped up on the screen.
[Probability of cross-dimensional structure activity: Unknown]
No one spoke.
Lin Feng withdrew his hand from the control panel.
"It wasn't woken up by us."
"But if we keep knocking, it will open its eyes even faster."
Wang Mingyuan stared at the line of red text.
for a long time.
He spoke.
"The resource supply line cannot be cut off."
The logistics minister suddenly looked up.
Wang Mingyuan's voice was cold.
"The Earth side is undergoing a major overhaul. The Ten Thousand Swords main control array, the lunar orbit defense station, the exoskeleton army, and the space factory all need materials."
"Cutting off the supply now is like cutting off your own limbs."
Three regions were drawn on the lunar model.
The first layer is the area surrounding the Guanghan Base.
The second layer is the shallow mining area that has been explored.
The third layer is deep within the Aitken Basin.
The first two layers are gray-blue.
The third layer is a glaring red.
"Shallow mining areas will be preserved."
"Mid-level resources should be mined cautiously."
"Taiyi Furnace will maintain a minimum stable production capacity."
"All operations that touch the Black Gate itself, the deep structure on the far side of the moon, or the anomalous metallic layer below 9,000 meters are to be halted."
He looked at the logistics minister.
"I need resources."
Then she looked at Lin Feng.
"But we can't disturb that door anymore."
Lin Feng nodded.
"clear."
Wang Mingyuan continued to issue orders.
"The gravity array link has suspended heavy-load transportation."
The logistics minister's face tightened: "How will we get those large quantities of supplies back to Earth?"
"The gravitational link is exposed in outer space," Wang Mingyuan said. "Now that void traces have appeared on the far side of the moon, any long-term, high-power, fixed-trajectory outer layer link could be captured in reverse."
He retrieved the old transport line between the Earth and the Moon.
A thick blue link runs through the vacuum.
In the past, it was the pride of human deep space logistics.
Now, it hangs in the darkness like a bright, shiny rope.
Wang Mingyuan raised his hand.
The blue line went out.
"From today onwards, all material exchanges between Earth and the Moon will only use inter-planetary teleportation arrays."
Xu Zhao's voice came from the Guanghan Base.
"When the teleportation array is activated, the phase fluctuations cannot be hidden."
"So keep it short," Wang Mingyuan said. "Like opening a safe. Open it briefly, take something out, and close it immediately."
Lin Feng took over the conversation.
"I will redo the teleportation array shield."
He pointed to the Taiyin Guiding Array.
"The Taiyin phase trail is cold and oppressive."
Then he pointed to the low-power core of the Great Sun Spirit-Attracting Array.
"The residual flames of the extreme yang create a reverse disturbance."
"We can't let that thing on the far side of the moon find stable coordinates."
Wang Mingyuan nodded.
"High-orbit resource recovery continues."
The screen switches to Earth's high orbit.
The Star Gathering Platform, Meteorite Capture Array, and Orbital Smelting Dock lit up in turn.
"The meteorite capture program is being expanded."
"The outer storage area of the Chang Geng has been reopened."
"The high-orbit space factory is increasing its production capacity."
"Lunar resources will be allocated to the most critical projects, while high-orbit resources will fill the gaps in general projects."
The logistics minister's expression softened somewhat.
This route is very costly.
But it can walk.
Wang Mingyuan looked at the red area on the far side of the moon.
"The Guanghan base will be preserved."
"The lunar orbit base station will be retained."
"The teleportation array will be preserved."
"The mining area will be preserved."
He paused.
"But the far side of the moon is deeply sealed off."
……
Guanghan Base.
When the order was issued, the entire base had already entered a state of silence.
The eerie blue flames of the Taiyi Furnace were suppressed to the lowest level.
The psionic antenna descends.
The mining area transport line stopped halfway.
On the lunar surface, most lights went out, leaving only the gray guide lights embedded in the armor layers.
Ma Cheng, the deputy team leader of the project, stood outside the No. 2 work area.
The shadow of the distant moon was reflected on the helmet visor.
He listened to the instructions and remained silent for a few seconds.
"Does that mean we still have to do work?"
Xu Zhao stood next to him, holding the newly updated construction drawings in his hand.
"want."
"But don't turn it on at high power."
Ma Cheng twitched the corner of his mouth.
"This job is even harder than before."
Xu took care of him.
Ma Cheng kicked the toolbox to his feet.
Turn around and open the engineering channel.
"Did you all hear that?"
"The mining area will continue."
"The furnace never stops."
No one was speaking in the channel.
Ma Cheng continued to curse.
"What are you staring at?"
"Disassemble the gravity link external frame."
"The teleportation array is encased in a Taiyin shield."
"Replace the drill bit with a low-noise drill bit in shallow mining areas."
"Hurry up."
A few seconds later, the work area started moving again.
But the roar of before is gone.
The only sound was the slow rotation of a low-power robotic arm.
The titanium steel plate was lifted.
The condenser coil was removed.
The array master lay prone on the outer shell of the teleportation array, meticulously carving new hidden array patterns stroke by stroke.
Two-thirds of the heavy drill bits in the lunar mining area have stopped.
Replace the rest with low-frequency slow drilling.
Each well avoids the deep red zone on the far side of the moon.
Ma Cheng walked over to a stopped heavy-duty transport container.
That's for gravity links.
Previously, it would travel back and forth between the Earth and the Moon every day, dragging tons of lunar rock blanks through the vacuum.
Now, its core formation is locked.
The blue light went out.
Like an iron beast with its reins pulled.
Ma Cheng patted the cabin wall.
"Take a break."
……
Lunar Rail Station No. 1.
Inside the cramped life support cabin, the patrolman switched the long pulse communication to ground to short replies.
All outer lights are off.
The berth bay is left with only the minimum guidance.
A patrol boat glided past the station without activating its active radar, relying solely on mechanical star charts and inertial array disks for orientation.
The captain stared at the dark, shadowy back of the moon.
"This shabby place, I used to think it was empty."
The passenger in the front seat didn't say anything.
He saw a very faint patch of dark red noise flash briefly at the edge of the shadow behind him.
Then I looked again, and it was gone.
The captain lowered his voice.
"Record."
The co-pilot nodded and locked that frame of image into the black box.
……
Kyoto Joint Control Room.
A new resource scheduling graph was displayed on the main screen.
The Earth-Moon gravitational link has been extinguished.
The inter-star teleportation array became the only controllable channel.
The Earth's high-orbit meteorite capture array has been fully expanded.
The Chang Gung's storage area has been relit.
The orbital melting dock has begun preheating.
Earth will not stop because of the Black Gate on the far side of the moon.
We can't stop.
……
Kunlun, the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds.
Gu Qing stood on the stargazing platform.
In the distance, the moon looked like a cold, white bone.
His vision pierced through 380,000 kilometers of vacuum, landing on the black gate deep in the far side of the moon.
System prompts kept appearing.
[A stable cross-dimensional anchor point has been detected.]
[Structural energy loss was detected in the lunar core.]
[Dormant void biomass detected.]
[It is recommended to immediately erase any traces of causality in the relevant areas.]
Gu Qing ignored him.
The system notification reappeared.
[Should we intervene in the causal layer outside the Black Gate?]
Gu Qing raised her hand and gently pressed down.
No action was taken.
A faint gaze fell from across countless layers of space.
Deep in the far side of the moon.
The dark red fibers shrank slightly.
It felt like being touched by a needle.
Gu Qing lowered her eyes.
"Don't rush."
"It's not your turn to come out yet."
……