Chapter 289

"Detonation countdown thirty seconds." The engineering team leader stared at the screen, "All units prepare to evacuate."

On the ice surface, the mechs' thrusters ignited simultaneously, three hundred plumes of exhaust cutting through the thin atmosphere of Callisto.

Meanwhile, three kilometers beneath them, the magnetic confinement of the antimatter bomb began to disengage.

"Three minutes to contact!" alarms blared on the Penglai bridge.

Li Yang was already seated in the Yinglong-Ω cockpit, his neural sync rate steady at 98%.

Through the mech's panoramic view, he looked ahead; against the starry backdrop, a hundred irregular polyhedra were tearing through space toward them.

Those Harvester units were five times larger than the probes, their surface purple patterns denser, throbbing like blood vessels.

"All units, listen up," Li Yang said over the channel.

"Execute dance procedure A-7. Remember, we're here to dance, and incidentally to fight."

Three hundred Yinglong-Ω simultaneously unfurled their mechanical wings, the hand-drawn smiles on their chests grinning in the reflected light of Jupiter.

"Wang Hao, missile cover."

"Ready to go!" Wang Hao pressed the launch key in the Penglai weapons bay, "Art warheads, first wave, let's go!"

A hundred Bei Fang missiles swarmed out of the launch silos.

These missiles' trajectories indeed resembled cursive calligraphy: first spiraling upward, then suddenly turning straight down, drawing an '8' in vacuum, finally scattering without pattern.

The Harvesters' response showed visible hesitation.

Their interception beams fired, but the hit rate was only 41%, far below the simulated 92%.

"The art really works!" Wang Hao excitedly slapped the console, "Keep going, keep going! Second wave, abstract expressionist trajectories!"

More missiles flew out.

But this wave, the Harvesters seemed to have adapted.

The purple patterns lit up simultaneously, an invisible field unfolded, and the missiles began to deviate from their course when still a hundred kilometers from the target, as if shoved aside by an unseen hand.

"Gravitational deflection field!" Chen Guang warned, "They're imitating our Divine Needle of the Stabilizing Sea technique!"

"They learned fast." Li Yang frowned, "Mech units, charge!"

Three hundred Yinglong-Ω accelerated simultaneously.

Their movements were indeed like dancing: three steps forward, a side-slip spin, the laser blades swung by their mechanical arms tracing graceful arcs in the air, then fiercely slashing at the nearest Harvester unit.

The first round of contact yielded astonishing results.

Seventeen Harvester units were split open, bursting with purple energy streams that condensed into crystal fragments in the vacuum.

Human mechs suffered zero losses.

"This is too smooth." Li Yang felt a sinking feeling, "Not right——"

Before his words finished, the remaining eighty-two Harvester units suddenly turned as one.

They ignored the mechs and lunged toward Jupiter.

Their surface purple patterns flashed wildly, Jupiter's powerful magnetic field visibly being tugged, like silk torn apart by an invisible hand.

Magnetic energy converged onto the Harvesters' surfaces, condensing into plasma spheres a hundred meters in diameter.

"They're charging!" Chen Guang's voice changed tone, "No, they're charging up! Preparing to fire——"

"Space-rending beams!" Li Yang saw the data stream, "Everyone, evade!"

But it was already too late.

Eighty-two dim purple beams fired simultaneously.

That wasn't a laser, but something far more dreadful; wherever the beams passed, space itself showed minute fissures, like scratches on glass.

Three Yinglong-Ω were directly hit.

The Lunar Regolith-7 armor plating couldn't hold for even a second; the mech and its pilot vaporized instantly, leaving no debris.

More beams shot toward the Heaven's Punishment Platform.

The forty-two platforms deployed in Jupiter's orbit all opened fire to intercept, but the purple beams seemed able to absorb laser energy; upon impact they merely dimmed slightly and kept advancing.

Boom boom boom boom——

Heaven's Punishment Platforms exploded one after another into fireballs.

"Lost thirty-seven platforms!" the communications officer's voice trembled, "The remaining five platforms have exhausted their energy!"

The bridge fell into dead silence.

This was only the first round of engagement.

"Their attacks……" Li Yang stared at the playback, "There's a pattern."

He pulled up slow-motion footage: before each beam fired, the Harvester unit's surface purple patterns contracted from outside to inside, converging at a point.

This process lasted 0.3 seconds.

"A 0.3-second energy gathering delay." Li Yang's eyes lit up.

"Everyone listen! Next time they charge up, launch interference at the 0.2-second mark of the delay!"

"What interference?" Wang Hao asked, "Missiles can't catch up!"

"Use Micro Punishment Heaven."

The Penglai's belly hatch opened, and three thousand palm-sized drones flew out.

These were Wang Hao's toys, swarm weapons developed from the concept of the Mechanical Spider from a barbecue stall years ago, originally meant for reconnaissance, but Li Yang insisted each be fitted with a micro fusion battery and a self-destruct program.

"Art time has arrived." Wang Hao rubbed his hands together.

"My little darlings, go draw a smiley on the aliens!"

The swarm swooped toward the Harvesters that were recharging.

The Harvesters obviously didn't take these little things seriously, until the first Micro Punishment Heaven slammed into the purple pattern and self-destructed.

Boom.

The explosion wasn't powerful, but the timing was picked extremely precisely, right when the energy had gathered halfway.

That Harvester unit's surface patterns suddenly went chaotic; the just-formed plasma ball lost control and exploded, blowing itself into two pieces.

"Effective!" Li Yang shouted, "Everyone, do it!"

More Micro Punishment Heavenly Bees swarmed forward.

They don't fly straight like missiles; instead, they're like a swarm of drunk bees, their trajectories utterly irregular, deliberately slamming into energy convergence points.

The second wave of space‑tearing laser beams only fired at half strength.

Moreover, their aim was way off, with over ten beams even veering into the Wood Star's atmosphere, stirring up storm vortices thousands of kilometers across.

"Mech unit, counterattack!"

The remaining 297 Responding Dragon‑Ω mechs seized the opportunity and charged again.

This time the Harvesters clearly panicked, if their program had emotions.

Their formation began to break down—some tried to retreat, some kept insisting on charging up, and some even started firing intercept beams at each other, accidentally hitting allies.

"They're losing coordination!" Chen Guang quickly analyzed, "The art interference overloaded their communications protocol! Keep increasing the pressure!"

Wang Hao released all the remaining Micro Punishment Heavenly Bees.

The swarm wove a web of death across the battlefield, specifically targeting that 0.3‑second window.

The battle lasted seventeen minutes.

When the last Harvester unit had its core pierced by Li Yang's energy blade, the Wood Star's orbit was already filled with metal shards and purple energy crystals.

"Battle damage report." Li Yang panted, his mech's left arm gone, chest armor melted through over half, but fortunately he was unharmed.

"Harvester units destroyed…… twenty‑seven." The communications officer reported the number with a dry voice.

"Our losses: forty‑two Heaven's Punishment Platforms, eighty‑nine Responding Dragon‑Ω mechs, the Penglai‑2 lightly damaged, and the Micro Punishment Heavenly Bee swarm wiped out."

"Twenty‑seven to eighty‑nine…" Wang Hao murmured, "This exchange ratio…"

"Already better than the simulation." Li Yang shut down his mech's power and leaned back in the pilot seat, "The simulation predicted we'd lose sixty percent in the first wave."

No one spoke on the bridge.

Everyone stared at the debris floating on the screen.

At that moment, Chen Guang suddenly said, "Wait, look at this."

He pulled up a battle log: at the height of the fight, several Harvester units clearly avoided a certain area.

In that area floated the wreckage of a destroyed Responding Dragon‑Ω.