Chapter 75: Moon Bombardment
At this moment, on the desolate and silent lunar surface, eight lunar rovers simultaneously raised their cameras, aiming at the sky.
At this moment, under the sunlight, hundreds of nuclear warheads were like hundreds of meteors, plummeting from the extremely distant deep space to the land in an instant.
The next moment, the energy equivalent to the simultaneous explosion of billions of tons of TNT explosives triggered an almost infinite burst of light and heat.
The entire land was shaking.
But before this vibration arrived, the strong light and heat that arrived first had already completely destroyed the eight small lunar rovers in an instant.
They didn’t even have time to melt before they were annihilated into flying ashes, turning into a mass of high-temperature, high-heat plasma, merging with the moon dust and moon rocks that were also melted, becoming indistinguishable from one another.
These high-temperature plasmas acquired sufficient kinetic energy at this moment, breaking free from the moon’s gravitational field in an instant and heading straight into space. Along with them, there were also solid rocks and dust from farther away that, though not melted into plasma, had likewise acquired enough kinetic energy to be blasted away.
The violent electromagnetic pulse extended in this instant to places tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, even affecting satellites in Earth orbit to some degree.
If those satellites orbiting the moon earlier hadn’t impacted the lunar surface, they too would be destroyed by this electromagnetic pulse at this moment.
Even satellites that hid on the lunar far side and avoided the momentary electromagnetic pulse influence could not survive.
Because too much substance and dust had been hurled into space by the nuclear explosion. When they orbited to this side of the moon, they would suffer intense frictional heating and interference from this dust, with total destruction being the only ending.
On Earth, outside Apocalypse Base No. 7, Jiang Yang stared fixedly at the flash that suddenly appeared on Tranquility Plain, continuing to remain silent.
That flash was very bright, brighter than the rest of the moon. Whether it was an illusion or not, at this moment Jiang Yang even vaguely saw some shadows cast around him.
He knew that the possible interception had not occurred, and their launched nuclear bombs had accurately hit the goal.
The night was still tranquil, and the world had not changed due to the sudden increase in the moon’s brightness.
The little insects were still chirping, and the night breeze was still blowing quietly.
That flash lasted for a few seconds before slowly fading away.
Jiang Yang stood up and looked at Zhou Yu: “Let’s go.”
Back in the base meeting room, Jiang Yang saw real-time footage of Tranquility Plain on the moon captured by the orbital telescope.
There was no other way; at this moment, only the orbital telescope could be used for filming. Because all lunar satellites had now been destroyed.
He saw that Tranquility Plain, originally desolate and silent and covered in thick moon dust, had now become an ocean of lava.
Endless lava flowed wildly across the lunar surface, and at the nuclear explosion site, a giant crater had formed with a depth of hundreds of meters and an area of dozens of square kilometers.
The power of the nuclear bombs had almost entirely been released onto the moon.
“I wonder if that underground cavity, and any creation that might exist within the cavity, has been destroyed…”
Jiang Yang knew that in the short term, they could not confirm this through technical means. Because there were no human detectors left around the moon, and launching one there in the short term was impossible.
But it didn’t matter; whether those anomalies had been destroyed could be judged through another simpler and more direct method.
In just 1 hour and 40 minutes, the answer would be revealed.
After completing the final rest and preparation work, Jiang Yang and his team returned once more to that familiar hall.
Ahead was still that chair resembling a hospital bed.
He didn’t rush to sit on it, because there was still a little time left, and some things needed to be done.
The first to speak was Professor Li Jiaming.
“After multiple rounds of detection and data analysis, we have greatly improved our understanding of that underground cavity.
It has now been confirmed to be located between 500-1000 meters underground, with an overall internal volume of about 0.1 to 0.5 cubic kilometers. Coordinates as follows: …
Coordinate error is around 50%.”
Professor Li Jiaming looked at Jiang Yang, his face full of exhaustion: “If the apocalypse ultimately still comes, then take this data to the next life, so that we in the next life won’t have to pay such a great cost again…”
Jiang Yang nodded silently and noted down this data.
The second to find Jiang Yang was Professor Chen Yusheng.
“Over these five days, we organized multiple expert teams to conduct restoration inspections on the wreckage of the failed rocket launches one by one, attempting to roughly identify the fault range and causes.
We collected a total of 7365 fault types and categorized them into five major classes, formulating plans from an overall perspective to minimize faults as much as possible, totaling the following five.
If there is a next life, and the next life still has the demand for rapid, large-scale rocket launches, then tell these five plans to us in the next life, so we won’t waste so many resources and wealth, or let so many astronaut warriors die in vain…”
Professor Chen Yusheng’s voice was low, his eyes full of bloodshot veins. His originally robust muscles now looked somewhat shriveled, as if he had suffered a serious illness.
His mental state was also not good, with a dazed feeling.
Jiang Yang knew that after witnessing more than a dozen astronauts successively sacrifice due to rocket launch failures, he hadn’t been doing well these past few days.
“Rest assured, I will.”
“Phew…”
As if relieved of some burden, Professor Chen Yusheng gently patted Jiang Yang’s hand and dragged his weary body away.
The third to arrive was Professor Lu Zhaoming.
“Our country’s two neutrino detectors are ready. Still following the mode from your previous life, the corresponding data will likewise be presented before you this time. Through this observation, we can more precisely lock the radiation source position, and combined with the previous moonquake wave observations, we can further improve the positioning accuracy.”
“Yes.”
The fourth to connect for a conversation with Jiang Yang was Li Chengyu, located 700,000 kilometers away.
Due to the distance, the round-trip communication delay between the two locations was as high as about 4.67 seconds, making speech halting and stuttering like lag.
In the video, Li Chengyu was floating in the zero-gravity small cabin, and his mental state seemed okay.
He too had connected numerous pipes, monitors, and such to his body. Once his physical condition changed, the corresponding information would reach Earth within three seconds and be presented before Jiang Yang.
Facing Jiang Yang, Li Chengyu said nothing, merely raising his arm to salute him.
Jiang Yang likewise looked solemn and returned the salute.
With all preparations complete and time almost up, Jiang Yang lay down on that chair again.
The doctor carrying the medicine kit appeared once more.
Jiang Yang’s gaze swept over Sun Changhe, Gu Changshan, and others one by one, finally settling on Zhou Yu.
“Want a shot?”
Zhou Yu shook her head: “There’s an important branch in psychology…”
“Thanatology, right?”
Jiang Yang directly interrupted her, ignoring her surprise: “It’s always this speech every time… In the end, the apocalypse came, and weren’t we still rolling on the ground in pain?
Last life you took the shot; this life, are you sure you don’t want it?”
Zhou Yu’s expression changed, and after a long while, she gritted her teeth: “No.
I believe the apocalypse won’t come, it definitely won’t…”
Jiang Yang sighed softly.
“I believe so too…”
He extended his arm, allowing the doctor to inject the liquid medicine into his body.
Time passed quietly, and that familiar sense of detachment came over him again.
From this seemingly “transcendent” perspective, Jiang Yang saw the countdown return to zero once more.
A familiar sense of discomfort and pain assaulted him.
At this moment, a thought instantly flashed through Jiang Yang’s mind.
“The damn apocalypse still came! Damn it!”
…
