PFC Chapter 3723 Doomsday (6)
Chapter 3723 Doomsday (6)
Chapter 3723 Doomsday (Sixteen)
Immediately afterwards, the large screen in the Galactic Council meeting hall began playing footage of the tragedy that had just occurred in the Shi'ar Empire's Feathered Galaxy.
Originally, Earth and the other warships and planets crammed together were living in relative peace. While the scene was somewhat comical, at least no one was actually injured. But things soon changed.
A portal opened in the skies above Earth, and a gray satellite was pulled out from it. The Shi'ar Empire fleet commanders watching were puzzled; their ship's scanning equipment showed it was just an ordinary satellite, small in size and unremarkable. Why would Earth suddenly send such a satellite over?
They had vaguely heard of the Earth-Moon system—the system of Earth and the Moon, which often appeared in their astronomy or cosmology textbooks. It was an incredibly precise and perfect system, practically a masterpiece of God. Not only did the Earth and Moon complement each other, but they also perfectly coordinated with the Sun, possessing the aesthetic beauty of sunrise and sunset. Such celestial systems were extremely rare in the universe, and even fewer could serve as the home planet of a civilization.
Seeing that the other side had dragged their moon over, they assumed it was to stabilize Earth's tidal system. But the next second, Magneto waved his hand, and the moon began to spin wildly around the Earth, faster and faster…
Then, with a "whoosh," it slammed directly towards them.
The moon was actually quite small, even smaller than some of the main battleships of the fleet present. However, it was incredibly fast and ridiculously hard. Coupled with the fleet's lack of preparedness, the three main battleships of the fleet in orbit were instantly reduced to ashes.
The other fleets reacted and began attacking the moon. But to their surprise, the moon paused for two seconds before flying back to Earth, leaving the other fleet leaders speechless as they stared at the wreckage of their warships.
They could certainly see that Magneto had actually used the gravitational slingshot effect to launch the moon over there.
Just like our solar system, the Mammoth Galaxy is not static; all celestial bodies revolve around the stars in their galaxy. And their star system itself is moving at high speed within a larger galaxy.
The Earth appears to be rotating quietly, but in reality, it has replaced the original planet, Mengyu, in its revolution. You could compare the Earth at this moment to a high-speed train, and the Moon to a glass bead thrown at it. The high-speed train knocked the glass bead away, giving it an extremely high initial velocity. This is the gravitational slingshot effect.
However, this is based on the premise that neither of them can be damaged during the collision. But the volume of the moon and the earth is not actually proportional to the volume of a high-speed train and a glass bead. They won't be damaged mainly because both are hard enough.
Earth goes without saying; with its magical defense network, practically nothing can withstand it—didn't you see the victim, Mengyuxing, squatting pitifully to the side?
The moon, in fact, used the power of the moon goddess Kongsu to provide some protection for this satellite.
The moon god Kongsu is actually only a deity based on the concept of "moon"; he cannot directly control the celestial body, the moon. However, he does have a certain connection with the moon, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to make it disappear.
Because he is a concept god, his power belongs to the category of rule-based power. Although the level of rules is relatively low—limited to the Earth-Moon system and ineffective on other planets' satellites—rule-based power is still rule-based power, and it is still stronger than ordinary energy shields.
Each of the three great empires possesses a certain degree of regulatory power, but they generally don't use this power on ordinary warships. Even if they do, they allocate it to weaponry, not shields. This is because, with resources in abundance, spaceships themselves are not valuable. As long as the strategic objective is achieved, even using capital ships for suicide attacks is acceptable.
The Shi'ar Empire's warships were equipped with ordinary shields, namely energy shields. These shields were fine for dealing with cannon fire from other warships, but they were insufficient against the power of the laws of nature.
So this attack from the moon directly destroyed three capital ships, terrifying the other fleets into a panic. It wasn't that these three warships were particularly valuable; the key was the sheer frightening spectacle. Who uses their own satellite to attack others?
But they soon discovered that there was no limit to how terrifying things could get; what had just happened seemed to be merely a test launch. Because now, the moon was aimed at the Feathered Star.
The Shi'ar were so frightened that their hair stood on end—physically speaking, their hair stood on end—the few feathers on their heads all stood up, and now they looked like roosters with their feathers standing on end.
The planet Mammoth is slightly smaller than Earth. Earth's diameter is 3.67 times that of the Moon, while Mammoth's is about 3.5 times. However, after undergoing a series of terraforming processes, their planet is lighter than Earth's and therefore less vulnerable to impacts.
The collision with Earth previously depleted a significant portion of their planetary shield's energy. If the Moon were to strike them again, the shield's energy would likely be completely depleted.
And judging from their posture, they clearly have plenty of energy. Even if they won't be damaged by one or two hits, what if they were hit ten or eight times a day? What planet could withstand that kind of bombardment?
If you can't afford to mess with him, then avoid him. The Shi'ar Empire's ships quickly activated their gravity traction systems, pulling their home planet along with them.
But don't forget, there are many other planets in this system, and they've all been clustered together because they dare not approach Earth. When Magneto launched the moon for the second time, he aimed directly at a dwarf planet only slightly larger than the moon, and once again used the gravitational slingshot effect to slam it upwards. During its ejection, it bounced into the gravitational orbit of another planet, and was then ejected again. Then, as if it had eyes, it crashed straight into the gravitating planet, Feathered Mantis.
"Bang!"
Although sound cannot travel in a vacuum, everyone seemed to hear a crisp collision. The planetary shield of Mengyu Star flashed violently, and the entire planet was sent flying again.
Fortunately, the moon itself has no propulsion, relying only on gravitational ejection, so it didn't have enough force to knock Mengyu Star out of the star system again. But this time, the problem was that some spaceships didn't have time to shut down their gravitational traction systems when the moon collided with it, and were directly dragged away by Mengyu Star.
If all the ships hadn't shut down their gravity traction systems and had been dragged away together, it would have been fine. But some captains were quick-witted and shut down the traction systems. As a result, some ships flew away while others didn't. And those that flew away just happened to collide with those that didn't—"crash, bang," in an instant, the area around Mengyu Star was a scene of chaos. A dual-god-class capital ship was knocked out of its face, a Queen-class battleship rolled three and a half times, and two Mengyu-class escort ships that had only appeared last month were all turned into spirit ring vehicles.
With so many traffic accidents occurring, it's time to deal with them quickly. Although warships aren't that valuable and people can be resurrected, Earth is still watching us closely, and we don't know when this mess will end. We must preserve our forces.
So another large number of warships went to deal with the scene. This time they were smarter and dared not gather in a group. They only dared to use laser weapons to cut the wreckage of the warships from a distance and burn them, and then use towing devices to pull out the warships that could still be recovered.
The lunar ejection traveled a great distance, seemingly beyond Magneto's control. So, after the impact, it didn't move; it just stayed there. The Shi'ar Empire quickly cleaned up the scene and began to consider how to deal with this major problem.
They wanted to fire a shot at it from the main guns of their warship, but this thing wasn't afraid of ramming, so it probably wouldn't be afraid of main guns either. The Shi'ar Empire had no choice but to leave it there for the time being.
"You damned idiots! Cowards!" Lilandra roared in the conference room. "They even tried to use a satellite to attack our home planet, and you just stood there watching! Send men to destroy that damned satellite right now!"
"But...but Magneto..."
"You guys are absolutely stupid!" Lilandra roared. "Magneto is watching Earth. If he gets out, you go and take care of Earth, understand?!"
The other party was hesitant and dared not answer. After all, this was indeed a bit embarrassing. Not only had their home base been knocked away, but they had also been attacked with satellites, damaging several spaceships, and there was nothing they could do about it.
"Send people over there immediately!!!" Lilandra roared.
The nobles of the Shia Empire had no choice. They knew that great powers valued maintaining their dignity even in defeat. Even if they knew certain approaches were flawed, they had to do them to boost their morale. Just like now, even knowing they might not be able to handle the moon anytime soon, they had to project an image of confidence and not let their allies laugh at them.
The Shi'ar Empire dispatched three ships—not its main warships this time, but three small escort ships—to tentatively fly towards the moon, intending to observe the situation on the moon first before probing its true nature.
Inside the Inhumans' base, Black Bolt felt a cold sweat forming on his palms. He turned again and asked, "Is the shield activated? Can you detect their detection equipment?"
"The enemy's scanning signal has been intercepted. It seems they can't detect our base. They shouldn't find anyone on the lunar surface before landing."
"Alright. Go tell the soldiers to prepare for battle!"
Black Bolt didn't linger any longer. He strode out of the monitoring room, took a deep breath, and went to organize the Inhuman army.
The three escort ships found nothing unusual about the moon itself, and even probed it with their weapons. The moon didn't react, and the energy fluctuations of its shields detected were very weak. They concluded that the moon's shields had likely been depleted.
After being hit twice, the shield of their Shi'ar homeworld was almost depleted. Such a small satellite probably couldn't store much energy, so it's normal for it to run out of power.
From the perspective of the Shi'ar Empire, Earth was probably going to abandon this satellite. Otherwise, there would be no need to throw the moon so far away and delay sending anyone to retrieve it.
However, out of caution, they carefully inspected the moon and, after confirming that there was nothing on it, sent people down to place the receiver for the gravity traction device.
Gravity traction devices are not weapons, but rather engineering equipment used to tow large celestial bodies. However, gravity is a relatively complex phenomenon, unlike something like Magneto who is born with innate cosmic powers. To ensure stable transport, a gravity traction device consists of a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter is typically mounted on a spacecraft, while the receiver is usually launched to the target; communication between the two is essential for the traction operation to take place.
The placement of the receiver is also crucial, as the shape and gravitational strength of the objects to be towed vary. Calculations are required for accurate deployment. Large battleships typically have comprehensive towing systems, while smaller frigates lack them, even the equipment to launch and transmit receivers. Installation must be carried out manually via parachute to the correct location.
Several Shi'ar soldiers, carrying individual equipment and receivers, jumped off a small escort ship and began searching for a location to install the receivers. They then ran headlong into Black Bolt's Inhuman soldiers.
"Stop!!!" Black Bolt roared.
(End of this chapter)