Chapter 340 The Roar of War Machines
Kyoto. Third Heavy Industries Buddhist Instrument Casting Plant.
The deafening roar of the stamping press drowned out all the noise from the city outside the factory area.
The one-kilometer-long, fully enclosed production line forcibly cut off all civilian orders.
Those light, streamlined flying sword blanks, designed to make cultivators appear graceful when riding the wind at low altitudes, were roughly pushed into the remelting channel by bulldozers like scrap metal.
boom!
The heavy 8,000-ton psionic hydraulic press crashed down.
Sparks flew like a waterfall.
High-purity star iron blanks, freshly unloaded from the high-orbit smelting dock, were forcibly pressed into thick, wide, and utterly unattractive heavy swords.
The blade has no sharpening or curvature.
Only extremely violent physical weight distribution and a thick spine.
The array masters, dressed in heavy anti-static and anti-radiation suits, stood expressionless on both sides of the assembly line.
The plasma etching gun in his hand emitted a faint blue light.
The original [Light and Agile Array Pattern] and [Flowing Light Array Pattern] that were standard on the sword blank were ruthlessly erased by them.
Instead.
It is the [Ultimate Armor-Piercing Array Pattern] deeply engraved into the sword bone.
It is the Gravity Tear Array, created solely for killing and physical cutting.
And the [Miniature Soul-Locking Array] used to forcibly stabilize a cultivator's sea of consciousness in close combat.
The factory manager stood on a wide, suspended bridge high in the air.
His eyes were bloodshot as he stared intently at the production terminal in his hand.
"not enough!"
He grabbed the walkie-talkie and roared through the noisy workshop.
"The combined production capacity of Zones One and Two doesn't even meet the control room's minimum requirements! Dismantle all the civilian furnaces, Zones Three and Four! Transfer them to the main military production line!"
"Factory Manager!" the workshop foreman shouted. "Those two furnaces are the finishing furnaces for making the bases of the Spirit Gathering Array Plates! If you dismantle them, they'll be completely unusable!"
"Gathering spirits my ass!"
The factory manager ripped open his collar and pointed to the metal ceiling above his head.
"Didn't you read the combat readiness order from the joint control room?!"
"What's the use of looking good? A good sword is one that can cut through thick armor and withstand high-dimensional pollution! Tear it apart! Replace it all with heavy sword molds!"
The workshop director dared not utter another word.
He waved his hand sharply, and several heavy engineering mechs ran directly over the passage, smashing through the civilian guide rails of Furnace No. 3 and beginning their forced modification.
Such scenes are not limited to the new Chang'an City.
All Class A heavy industry enterprises and arms factories on Earth are undergoing extremely brutal industrial restructuring.
The starry sky is not an amusement park.
Humanity, this massive industrial machine of cultivation, completed the gear shift from "peaceful plunder" to "life and death" in an extremely short time, albeit crudely and efficiently.
……
380,000 kilometers away. Guanghan Base.
The deep red combat readiness warning lights have been on for five full days.
The entire base was as quiet as a giant steel tomb.
No. 2 shallow mining area.
The roar of the past is gone.
The giant psionic drills were all sealed with sealing talismans, standing silently in the darkness like dead steel behemoths.
The power supply to all heavy-duty equipment that could emit high-frequency sonar and violent physical vibrations was forcibly cut off.
But mining did not stop.
The heavy industrial production lines on Earth are consuming materials at an alarming rate, and the supply of lunar iron blanks must not be interrupted.
Ma Cheng knelt on the grayish-white moon.
He held in his hand an unpolished, short-handled magical artifact—the [Shockless Cutting Blade].
There was no power supply, and no mechanical switches were activated.
Ma Cheng took a deep breath and channeled his true essence along the meridians in his arm, precisely into the magical artifact.
hum.
The originally dull edge of the magical artifact suddenly revealed a three-inch-long transparent blade.
The extreme compression of true essence endows this magical artifact with the indestructible attribute of "sharpness".
Ma Cheng gripped the hilt of the sword tightly with both hands and slowly pierced the hard basalt layer with his true energy.
There was no harsh friction sound.
It did not trigger ground resonance.
Like a hot knife cutting through butter, Zhen Yuan forcefully removed a piece of high-purity ore intact from the rock.
This mining method consumes a great deal of true energy and is far less efficient than heavy machinery.
Hundreds of engineering monks were scattered throughout the mining area, like a group of primitive miners. They used their own flesh and blood and true essence to act as silent cutting machines.
Sudden.
Not far from Ma Cheng, a young cultivator's true essence became slightly disordered.
The sharpness infused into the magical artifact was unstable, and the cutting edge got stuck directly in the hard rock layer.
Stab it--!
The ritual implement rubbed against the rock, producing a piercing noise.
The sound wasn't loud.
But in the absolute silence of the mining area, it was like a thunderclap.
boom!
Ma Cheng kicked the cultivator in the shoulder armor, knocking him down into the moon dust.
"Control your anger!"
Ma Cheng didn't use a communicator; instead, he pressed his helmet against the young man's mask, his face contorted with extreme tension.
"Stop if your true energy output is unstable! If you want to die, don't drag others down with you!"
The young cultivator was dazed and confused after the fall. He got up with a look of terror on his face, gritting his teeth so that he didn't dare to cry out in pain.
He picked up the cutting blade again, closed his eyes to forcefully stabilize his Qi, and forced out its sharpness once more with trembling hands.
This is the Guanghan Base as it is now.
They were like a pack of mice stealing food from a sleeping tiger.
Hold your breath.
Suppressing fear.
Under the cold and heavy pressure, cultivators used their true essence to exchange for truckloads of precious ore.
……
The core area of the Guanghan Base. Interstellar teleportation array.
Xu Zhao stood behind the thick, explosion-proof glass.
She looked at the massive array in front of her that had just been "modified with heavy armor shielding".
The spatial array patterns that were originally exposed and shimmering with mysterious light are now completely covered by five layers of Taiyin Cold Armor.
Only a narrow passageway remained, allowing only the standard cargo hold to enter and exit.
The gravitational transport link has been physically severed by order of the joint control room.
That thing continued to glow in the vacuum, its trajectory spanning 380,000 kilometers, making it too easy for the rules at the bottom of the void to reverse and capture.
Now, the only lifeline between the Earth and the Moon is this teleportation array.
"Prepare to load." Xu Zhao stared at the timeline.
A silent, hovering tracked vehicle pushed a cargo box filled with top-grade star iron blanks into the core of the formation.
"Guanghan Duan's authorization is complete."
"Kyoto authorization complete."
Xu Zhao's finger hovered over the red start button.
"Spatial curvature synchronization".
"Countdown."
"three."
"two."
"one."
"open."
boom!
A blinding white light erupted from within the teleportation array. Space was forcibly torn apart.
The heavy cargo box vanished in an instant.
"close!"
Xu Zhao decisively pressed the lock button.
The entire process took only 2.8 seconds.
Not even a fraction of a second more.
The moment the white light went out.
"Lunar condensate, use it to clean the floor!"
The massive valve overhead suddenly opened with a roar.
A large amount of extremely cold Yin liquid poured directly into the core area of the teleportation array like a waterfall.
stab-
The subtle fluctuations and residual heat left by the spatial phase tear were instantly and brutally frozen and erased by the Taiyin Cold Pressure.
Not a single space was left.
Open the door, stuff things in, close the door, and destroy the scene.
Xu Zhao looked at the array base covered with thick frost and slowly exhaled a breath of white air.
As long as that thing under the moon doesn't grow eyes that can see through higher dimensions.
Relying solely on its underlying passive perception, it cannot grasp these fleeting three seconds.
……
Earth. Kyoto Joint Control Room.
Wang Mingyuan saw the green light on the screen and knew that today's supplies had been successfully delivered.
He turned around and looked at Lin Feng.
"Progress of the high-rail defense line."
Lin Feng retrieved a holographic image of geosynchronous orbit.
"The abandoned space station sealed off around the Chang Geng has been completely leveled. One hundred and twenty sets of heavy [Great Wilderness-class] sword array launchers are undergoing physical anchoring."
Raymond Lam's eyes were bloodshot.
"But we lack real-world data. Once that thing emerges from under the moon, no one can guarantee how many impacts the high-orbit interception network can withstand."
Wang Mingyuan remained expressionless.
"We must stop them even if we can't."
"The Earth can no longer open its battlefields in the stratosphere."
"The moon is a covert sentry, and high orbit is a shield. We must hold the battle line firmly outside the atmosphere."
He looked at the military representative.
"Have the training methods for new recruits changed?"
"It's been changed."
The military representative stood up, his voice loud and clear.
"All Class A academies and reserve units are hereby exempted from all regular breathing exercises, philosophical discussions, and combat assessments."
"All training will shift to vacuum weightlessness combat and anti-mental pollution training."
"The teaching materials have been distributed overnight. The first batch of instructors are all veterans who survived the Void War."
Wang Mingyuan nodded.
"Let them see blood. Even if they sweat themselves to death, it's better than going up to heaven and being torn apart by monsters."
……
Third War Zone Reserve Recruit Battalion
Heavy rain.
On the muddy, wide parade ground, three thousand new recruits who had just completed their foundation-building breakthrough stood ramrod straight, fully armed.
They wore heavy basalt exoskeletons.
Rainwater flowed down the cold metal armor and splashed into puddles.
Standing before them were not the academy instructors with their ethereal and otherworldly demeanor as before.
Instead, he was a man missing his left arm and with a huge burn scar across his face.
Zhao Yi, former instructor of the Earth Defense Force Special Operations Brigade.
He paced back and forth in the torrential rain, his one arm resting on the long sword at his waist, his gaze sweeping over the group of rookies in front of him like a wolf.
"Forget all those fancy tricks you learned in the academy!" Zhao Yi's voice was extremely penetrating in the wind and rain, carrying a strong smell of gunpowder.
"From this day forward, you are no longer high and mighty cultivators! You are butchers! You are assassins!"
He walked up to the weapons rack.
The items displayed on top were the batch of titanium steel heavy swords that had just rolled off the production line at Third Heavy Industry.
It wasn't sharpened. The surface even had rough forging marks.
Zhao Yi picked up a heavy sword with one hand. The star iron sword, weighing eight hundred jin, emitted a deep hum as he poured his true essence into it.
"The enemies you will face in the future will not listen to morality or law."
Zhao Yi slashed his sword at the solid alloy test column next to him.
boom!
There was no outward release of sword energy. Pure physical mass and kinetic energy directly smashed a huge gash into the test column. The twisted, broken metal looked extremely grotesque in the rain.
"They don't feel pain!"
"They will devour the spells you cast!"
"They can distort your vision and consciousness!"
Zhao Yi flicked his wrist and hurled the heavy sword at the front of the line of new recruits.
The sound of wind breaking was sharp and whistling.
The recruit instinctively raised his arms to catch it.
Bang! The moment the sword hilt slammed into his palm, the terrifying kinetic energy, carrying the murderous aura that had rolled out of Zhao Yi's mountain of corpses and sea of blood, directly shattered the protective true essence that the new recruit had just gathered.
The new recruit grunted, his feet carving two deep furrows behind him in the muddy drill ground.
The hydraulic joints of the Xuanwu exoskeleton emitted a groan of unbearable strain.
He gritted his teeth and slammed one knee into the puddle to barely dissipate the violent force, gripping the sword tightly in his hand.
"Stand up straight! Lift it up!" Zhao Yi strode up to him and roared down at him.
"Danger is right above your heads!"
"Taking a step back means death!"
"From today onwards, no more sword flight training! Only slashing and hacking!"
"You only train how to stuff this piece of iron in your hands into the core of a monster in darkness and corruption!"
The rain poured down. The recruit swallowed the metallic taste in his throat and let out a low growl like a wild beast. The armor exploded, and he straightened up from the mud, gripping the hilt of his greatsword tightly with both hands and raising it high.
"kill!"
Three thousand new recruits simultaneously raised their heavy swords in the mud. The monotonous yet perfectly synchronized chopping sounds echoed across the parade ground. There were no dazzling lights or shadows, only the heavy thud of steel tearing through the rain.
……