Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 269 Mountain-Protecting Array (3k)

The Eris laser defense system is now operational!

On the surface of Eris, the silvery-white shell covered by ice began to tremble, the ice layer broke apart piece by piece, and a blue-purple sphere of light, visible to the naked eye, suddenly lit up at the core. With continuous energy input, the sphere of light gradually expanded to hundreds of meters, but it did not break apart under the strong magnetic confinement. This charging lasted for fifteen minutes. Finally, an unstoppable beam of light pierced out of the cocoon.

It was so bright that gamma rays, which should not exist in human vision, took on a concrete shape; so bright that ice crystals in the Kuiper Belt appeared as suspended stardust; so bright that it cast distinct shadows on star-sized warships thousands of meters in size along its path.

The beam of light was initially only a few hundred meters in diameter, with its edges glowing a deep blue from ionized space dust, like an extremely cold scalpel. It spread to several thousand meters before suddenly stabbing into the giant ring in the shadows 30 astronomical units away.

Without Luo Qing, the Devouring Empire could not possibly have predicted the light-speed attack. After MOSS assisted in adjusting the direction of Eris's super turret, the Giant Ring was destined to withstand this attack.

Half an hour later, the super-energy gamma rays quickly passed through the human defense zone and then swept across the attack fan of the Devouring Fleet. The fleet commanders who witnessed this Deep Blue Scalpel realized that something was wrong. When they tried to notify the direction of the Great Ring, they suddenly realized that their electromagnetic wave communication could not possibly arrive before the human attack.

It was precisely based on the principle that light-speed strikes are unpredictable that a beam of gamma rays thousands of meters long directly bombarded the side of the large ring—this strike was aimed directly at the side engine of the large ring!
Two hours later.

After traversing two light kilometres, the kilometer-diameter gamma-ray laser ionized into a distinct blue-violet beam upon entering the atmosphere of the equatorial ring. This consumed a negligible amount of energy from the gamma laser beam, which then relentlessly bombarded the surface armor of the equatorial engine.

The essence of a gamma-ray laser is a photon beam. When bombarded by a high-energy photon beam, the atoms of the metal armor on the surface of the engine are directly stripped off, turning into an incandescent plasma fountain, instantly creating a penetration depth of hundreds of meters, with countless metal fragments flying up.

Before the molten, hot metal blocks could disperse, they were evaporated into a mist of particles by the subsequent beams of light, instantly sublimating into gaseous metal molecules at billions of degrees. And these beams of light did not end; they continued to bombard the metal.

Two hundred meters of penetration depth, three hundred meters of penetration depth, four hundred meters of penetration depth, five hundred meters of penetration depth...

The gamma-ray beam, which lasted for two minutes, finally broke through the outer metal layer of the equatorial engine and successfully penetrated the internal structure.

The equatorial engine has a semi-hollow mechanical structure inside. These complex mechanical control structures were burned by the laser shock wave, creating a hole a kilometer deep. The edges of the metal skeletons trailed molten red light. About a hundred dinosaurs living inside the engine died in this attack, but this was only the beginning. The more than 1 advanced dinosaurs living inside the star engine were destined not to escape this disaster.

The gamma-ray beam penetrated the core structure of the equatorial engine—the fusion reactor.

The high-energy laser rapidly triggered a massive explosion in the fusion reactor, but even after the rapid explosion began, the beam of light continued to propel forward. The internal secondary explosion caused an abnormal energy distribution at the equatorial engine's nozzle; the vast majority of the engine energy that could not be properly released was applied to the equatorial engine itself, and the massive secondary explosion began.

In less than a few seconds, the engine under the massive detonation released the energy equivalent of dozens of stellar nuclear bombs. The spontaneous chain reaction destroyed everything inside, a destruction even more thorough than that caused by an external attack from a stellar hydrogen bomb.

When the equatorial engine was completely destroyed, the very tip of the gamma-ray laser beam had spread into a band of light tens of kilometers wide, like an elongated aurora. The equatorial engine, now completely destroyed, no longer exploded, but was gently ionized into plasma.

Gamma-ray lasers are even 'whipping the corpse'

Ten minutes later, the gamma laser beam reluctantly ended completely, and the gamma laser turret on Eris entered a cooling and recharging state. The silvery-white lid began to close again, and a large amount of coolant was poured in.

As the beam of light bombarded the equatorial engine, human optical observation methods simultaneously witnessed this scene as the beam extended.

An equatorial engine has been destroyed!

This is the first time that, apart from the stellar hydrogen bomb, humanity has destroyed the large ring engine with a non-hydrogen weapon!

Shortly after the equatorial engine was destroyed, the Great Ring's counterattack began. The universe is a dark forest battlefield, and Eris had completely exposed its position. This dwarf planet was not a warship and had no maneuverability to evade.

The 360 ​​gamma laser turrets of the same level that had been built and supplemented began to fight back. All the giant laser turrets adjusted their angles in the direction from which the light came, and then 360 gamma laser beams launched a counterattack towards Eris in one minute.

As usual, since the Great Ring cannot escape a light-speed attack, Eris will naturally not be able to withstand this round of light-speed attacks either. The rules of the universe are fair and apply equally to both sides in a war.

Especially when both sides in a war are at the same level of technology.

Thirty minutes later, the second gamma laser beam fired by the Eris laser cannon, which had completed charging and cooling, reached the ring and destroyed the adjacent second equatorial engine.

An hour later, the Eris laser strike system struck again, destroying the adjacent third equatorial engine.

An hour and a half later, the fourth equatorial engine was destroyed.

Two hours later, the fifth equatorial engine was destroyed.

Then came the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, and the ninth. But that was it. Four hours and 15 minutes after the first wave of attacks began, 360 devastating gamma laser beams finally crossed the vast distance of 45 billion kilometers, passing through the warring parties in the Kuiper Belt, vaporizing several meteorites and a few unfortunate devouring warships along the way, and roared silently toward Eris.

The Devouring Empire's furious counterattack has arrived!

Operation station for the Mercury gamma laser weapon system on Eris.

"Although we can't see it, we can roughly guess that the dinosaur's laser counterattack is coming soon. But we've replaced nine equatorial engines, so it's not a bad deal," said the weapons station operator.

"Those who want to give their last words, hurry up! I estimate that Eris might be directly destroyed by the dinosaurs' counterattack. Don't be fooled by our hiding on the back; the back might not be able to withstand the upcoming counterattack. The dinosaurs have more than three hundred cannons like ours," the deputy station chief said self-deprecatingly.

“Eris is too small, and it is indeed very dangerous for us to hide on its back,” a technician said.

"Stop talking nonsense and prepare for the sixth strike. If the dinosaur's aiming adjustment time exceeds 30 minutes, then we still have a chance to fire the 10th ray. One against 360. Even if we die, we should die gloriously. Don't be cowards!" The station chief ordered the group.

But they were destined not to have a tenth strike.

360 beams of light focused on a single point, burning away someone's divine sense into 360 vacuum zones, and then focused again on a single point, fiercely bombarding Eris Star's... protective mountain formation.

A protective mountain formation! Kid!
A specialty formation that every sect, large, medium, and small, in the cultivation world must possess!

Beneath the surface of Eris, the protective array fortified the mountain lit up the instant before the gamma rays arrived. Array patterns seeped from the cracks in the ice layer, like pale golden spider silk wrapping around half of the dwarf planet. The array's energy source was nine mid-grade spirit swords, forcibly collapsed from a quantum state to a physical state by Luo Qing's divided soul. The spirit swords served as both the energy source and the array's foundation!

The energy contained within each mid-grade spirit sword is equivalent to the total mana reserves of a Nascent Soul cultivator at the Great Perfection stage.

Driven by the array, billions of sword beams suddenly coalesced into a light shield with a diameter of three thousand kilometers, perfectly covering Eris.

Because the laser turrets of the large ring are in different positions and the counterattack time is slightly different, the dinosaur's gamma rays hit the light shield one after another, and a large amount of dazzling light lit up the surface of the light shield.

In fact, whether it is humans or dinosaurs, the attack power of the gamma laser turrets they built is no weaker than the full-force attack of a Nascent Soul cultivator in the early stage. If this round of 360 gamma rays were to appear in the ordinary cultivation world, it would be enough to vaporize and instantly kill a high-level Nascent Soul cultivator.

The mountain-protecting array rippled with dense energy. More than ten of the 100 defensive formations that made up the array were instantly breached. The Ice Dust Array, Thunder Pattern Array, and Golden Light Array were successively pierced. The 360 ​​rays of light, having already shown signs of fatigue after tearing through the first ten layers of the array, continued their advance. The remaining rays, however, were caught in a relentless barrage of attacks from the eleventh to the twentieth layers of the array—the Glazed Array and the Chaos Array shattered piece by piece. Ultimately, it was the black and white energies within the Yin-Yang Array that pushed the photon energy back and forth, canceling it out.
As the continuous attack of 360 laser beams ended, the energy contained in the nine spirit swords rapidly decreased to around 80%.

Ultimately, this protective array, powered by nine Nascent Soul stage cultivators at the Great Perfection level, effectively blocked all the gamma laser rays.

A thunderous cheer erupted inside the laser beam artillery weapon control station!

After the dinosaur attack ended, the control station immediately received communications from the Solar System Fleet.

[Note: The protective array provided by the Wallfacers can withstand four more similar attacks. This means you have an eight-hour attack window. Within these eight hours, you must use the laser turrets to destroy as many equatorial engines as possible. After the fourth wave of Devouring Empire laser strikes, Eris will be destroyed by the fifth laser strike. Please complete your evacuation before then. Three space transport ships have already landed near the control station.]
The operator who spoke earlier made the sign of the cross on his chest.

He said, "I knew he wouldn't let us sacrifice ourselves on this ice block if I praised the Wallfacer. By the way, could he come over and recharge the mountain-protecting formation so that it can run a few more times and we can destroy more engines?"

The stationmaster said, "The Wallfacer must have something more important to do; it's impossible for him to focus all his attention on Eris."

"Where is he? The war has broken out in full force, why haven't we seen him yet?"

While the people at the control station were whispering among themselves, the Wallfacers they were talking about were already standing in the front-line command post on Pluto.

"Are you really going to take this thing to the battlefield?"

The three commanders, facing Luo Qing, asked with a chill running down their spines.

"Okay, I'll give you three hours to evacuate everyone from Pluto. Pluto isn't very heavy; I'll see if I can lift it."

Luo Qing said earnestly, "If you can lift it, then things will be much simpler."

(End of this chapter)