Chapter 348 The First Wave of Eruption from the Crevice on the Moon's Edge

There was no pre-battle mobilization, nor any deafening bugle call.

The dark blue thrusters on the backs of the five hundred Xuanwu armored vehicles simultaneously unleashed a blinding trail of flame, like a giant steel meat grinder, crashing head-on into the black tsunami surging from the depths of the lunar crust.

The first wave to emerge from the cracks was not some colossal, high-dimensional beast.

Instead, they were a dense swarm of multi-legged, black mutants, each the size of a hunting dog. They had no facial features, and their shells were covered in black corrosive liquid. They looked like a group of pioneers forced out of the abyss by high pressure, aimlessly bouncing and tumbling in the vacuum under the influence of microgravity.

"Maintain formation! Blade wheel formation! Trap!"

Chen Ge roared angrily on the public channel.

Five hundred defense army monks quickly formed a battle formation in mid-air.

Chen Ge stood at the forefront, his ship-slaying sword, its edges slightly curled and carrying the remnants of extreme Yang flames, decisively cleaved an oncoming multi-legged mutant in two.

"Sizzle—"

Black liquid splattered onto the titanium steel armor, emitting a pungent white smoke.

These vanguard monsters are not physically strong; Golden Core and Foundation Establishment cultivators could easily kill them with a single blow using heavy industrial weaponry. However, their numbers are too great, and the void matter they carry is extremely corrosive.

"clang!"

In the third team channel, a Foundation Establishment cultivator cleaved three mutated creatures in two with a single strike, but the heavy sword in his hand, which had been engaged in high-intensity combat for several hours, finally let out a mournful cry amidst the extreme alternation of hot and cold and corrosion, and broke off from the middle.

Without even blinking, he casually tossed aside the broken sword and slapped his hand on the storage bag at his waist.

With a flash of light, a brand-new Star Iron Heavy Sword landed in his hand.

"Captain Chen! That's the third one!" The cultivator gasped for breath, sweat beading on his face beneath his hydraulic mask. "I only have two spare swords left in my storage bag! These bastards' bodily fluids are such a waste of metal; cutting down a few dozen will burn off a layer of the array patterns!"

"Use the Extreme Yang True Fire sparingly! Use pure physical kinetic energy to smash it!"

Chen Ge swung his hand and smashed another dark shadow.

For the first twenty minutes, the defensive line remained as solid as a rock. The barrage of fire from five hundred heavy swords shredded the first wave of low-level scouts two kilometers away.

But with the black gate fully opened, the abyss's test came to an end.

The density of red dots on the radar began to increase exponentially.

Mixed among the hound-sized mutants, attack-type void creatures, seven or eight meters long and covered in thick gray-white carapaces, began to appear. They were not only faster, but could even withstand one or two physical blows without the aid of true fire.

The 500-strong defensive line began to bear extremely heavy pressure.

Because Earth cut off logistical supplies, the defense forces could only rely on the supplies in their storage bags to hold out.

The original two-kilometer safety line was being pushed back little by little by the massive black tide. 1.5 kilometers, 1 kilometer…

"Contract the defenses! Move closer to me!" Chen Ge's mechanical arm creaked and groaned amidst the violent collisions, and the ship-slaying sword had already been replaced with its fourth one.

"Captain Chen! More than a dozen have slipped through on the right flank!"

The vice-captain yelled into the channel, his voice accompanied by the screeching sound of armor being scratched, "A medium-sized entity has broken through our formation and taken a small group of mutated creatures with it! They're drifting aimlessly in the weightless zone!"

Chen Ge turned his head sharply, and the head-up display locked onto the dozen or so dark shadows that were tumbling haphazardly in the vacuum.

They had no clear tactical objective; they just bumped around aimlessly like spilled water droplets. But, by sheer luck, three of the mutated creatures, propelled by the momentum of their earlier collision and the faint gravitational pull, crashed right into the direction of the concealed array at the Guanghan Base!

"Stop those three! We absolutely cannot let them touch the shielding array!" Chen Ge's mech engine roared, ready to forcibly break away from the main array to give chase.

……

Earth. 700 meters underground in Kyoto, in the joint control room.

"Warning! The thickness of the Guanghan defense line has been compressed to 800 meters!"

"Eighty percent of the purified cation extract in the lunar far side inventory has been consumed!"

Lin Feng stared intently at the receding green dots on the screen, his fingers clattering across the keyboard: "Professor Wang, the backup weapons at the lunar front are running low! And their mechs are running out of coolant; if it's not replenished soon, the exoskeleton reactors will melt from overload!"

Wang Mingyuan rested his hands on the conference table, his eyes bloodshot.

"There's no way to replenish it." Wang Mingyuan's voice was hoarse, as if he had swallowed sand. "All the Taiyin condensate and heavy industry production lines on Earth have been shut down to make way for Jiuding. The inter-star teleportation array can't even spare the spiritual energy needed to activate high-frequency teleportation. They can only rely on the stock in their storage bags to hold on."

He turned his head sharply and stared intently at the Kunlun node on another main screen, which was flashing a blinding red light.

"Zhao Yi! Are the latches on Cauldron No. 9 aligned?!"

The communicator was filled with the howling of the wind and the hydraulic hum of the heavy mechs.

"We can't stop it! Professor Wang, we can't suppress this evil fire from the earth's veins!"

Zhao Yi knelt on the edge of the sinkhole, wiping the ice and sweat from his face. "The star iron on the surface of the base has started to soften! The clip tolerance is over three millimeters! If it continues to burn, the array patterns will be completely ruined!"

On the screen, the three-thousand-ton star iron base suspended in mid-air was now glowing red from the extreme yang energy surging from the earth's veins, looking just like a branding iron taken out of the furnace.

……

Kunlun. Heavenly Palace on the Clouds.

A fierce wind swept through the square of the bronze hall, carrying snowflakes that swirled like knives.

Gu Qing stood with his hands behind his back on the edge of the cliff, his deep eyes reflecting the struggling No. 9 Cauldron below, and the lunar orbit defense line 380,000 kilometers away that was submerged by the Black Tide.

"It's quite an achievement to have pushed the industrial system to this point."

Gu Qing's fingertips gently caressed his cuff. He looked at the star iron base below, which was unable to settle due to the rampage of extreme yang, and a very slow smile appeared on his lips.

He doesn't need to rack his brains to figure out how to solve the material cooling problem in heavy industry.

In the eyes of the absolute dimensional controller, everything in this universe is nothing more than the exchange of energy.

"The Earth cannot suppress this extremely yang energy from the earth's veins, while a pile of extremely yin void waste has just emerged on the far side of the moon."

Gu Qing took a step forward, and his figure instantly disappeared from the Heavenly Palace on the Cloud Top.

The next second, he appeared directly above the boiling abyss of Death Valley, standing on the three-thousand-ton base that was held up in mid-air by the ley lines and glowing red.

"Then I'll borrow some ice from the moon to cool this pot down."

He slowly raised his right hand, his fingers forming a sword shape. A dazzling golden light, seemingly capable of slicing through the laws of cosmic physics, shone from his fingertips. He then casually slashed across the dark depths of space 380,000 kilometers away.

"Sizzle!"

The far side of the moon. One kilometer above the Guanghan base.

Chen Ge, who was desperately chasing after the three escaped mutants, suddenly felt the mech's radar emit an extremely sharp beep.

In the vacuum directly in front of him, a perfectly smooth "spatial rift" more than ten meters long suddenly appeared without warning.

The rift was like an invisible scalpel carving a passage on the canvas of the universe. At the other end of the passage, instead of starlight, came a flurry of snow and an extremely turbulent wave of pure yang energy!

Immediately afterwards, an extremely terrifying "siphon force" erupted from inside the crack.

This is not gravity, but a targeted extraction of "extreme yin energy"!

"roar--"

The three mutated beings that were about to crash into the Guanghan Base didn't even have time to struggle before their bodies were instantly pulled and deformed, turning into pure black streams of light, and were brutally sucked into the spatial rift!

Not just them.

Along the entire 800-meter defensive line, the black tide entities that were squeezing the human formation like a tsunami all visibly stopped the moment they felt this siphoning force.

The extremely yin, high-dimensional black water on their bodies is being forcibly stripped away uncontrollably!

"Sizzle sizzle sizzle—"

Large amounts of black water detached from the monster's shell, transforming into black, reversed waterfalls that were forcefully sucked into the rift. Deprived of energy support, the shell instantly became incredibly fragile in the vacuum, easily shattered by the defenders' heavy swords.

Earth. Kunlun "Death Valley".

Zhao Yi watched helplessly as the base was about to melt down.

Suddenly, the void above Death Valley was torn open.

The icy black waterfall, carrying absolute stillness from 380,000 kilometers away, crashed with pinpoint accuracy onto the red-hot base of Number Nine!

Extreme Yang meets extreme Yin!

"Sizzle—!!!"

A deafening explosion resounded throughout the sinkhole, and a cloud of high-pressure white steam burst open.

The extreme yang energy, which was originally powerful enough to melt star iron, plummeted in temperature like a plunge under the influence of this extremely pure and cold energy!

The bright red base cooled rapidly, returning to its original dark gold metallic color. The physical latches, which had softened and deformed due to the high temperature, instantly retracted and straightened, becoming sharp and straight again!

"The temperature has dropped! The deformation has returned to normal! The counter-thrust has disappeared!"

In the control room, Lin Feng watched the data bar instantly turn green again, his voice hoarse from shouting.

In the steam at the bottom of Death Valley.

With one hand behind his back, Gu Qing coldly looked down at the 3,000-ton module at his feet, whose temperature had returned to normal.

He raised his right foot and stomped it hard on the base with the force of a mountain crashing down.

"fall!"

Boom! ...

The 3,000-ton base, having lost its extreme solar thrust, was slammed into the predetermined slot deep within the earth's veins by Gu Qing's kick!

Click!

The final, extremely crisp metallic clang, signifying perfection, resounded throughout the Kunlun Mountains.

In an instant, the array patterns on the No. 9 cauldron shone brightly.

Nine cyan beams of light piercing the heavens and the earth converged instantly above the stratosphere, forming a vast cyan matrix network that covered the entire Earth!