Chapter 103: Eclipse Rift: Lunar Eclipse Meeting (Request Moon Tickets)

The Moon, Eclipse City.

Inside a room on the top floor of a skyscraper standing at the city's core.

The highest-ranking councilors and magistrates of the Eclipse Clan passed through the door's biometric verification, confirmed their identities, and entered the Supreme Council Chamber.

The council chamber spans five hundred square meters; the ceiling is embedded with auto-adjusting lights that automatically regulate brightness and color temperature according to indoor and outdoor lighting, creating the most comfortable meeting atmosphere. The room's walls are high-definition light-and-shadow screens that can switch backgrounds and content in real time based on meeting needs—currently displaying a set of dynamic data analysis charts.

At the center of the chamber stands a circular conference table, its core left empty, with eighteen black chairs arranged along its edge.

Before each chair is a projection zone connected to the AI "Star Net."

After the Eclipse Clan's top personnel took their seats, light and shadow interwove at the center of the table, forming the image of a cute Eclipse Clan boy.

This is precisely the Eclipse Clan's intelligence core, and the overseer of Eclipse Clan order: the Star Net AI.

Seeing Star Net appear, the eighteen Eclipse Clan members rose and bowed to Star Net.

Though Star Net is an AI, not a pure lifeform.

But its emergence freed the Eclipse Clan from endless internal strife, ushering in an unprecedented era of development.

Their elders and predecessors all governed under the AI's assistance, jointly contributing to the Eclipse Clan's advancement.

"Good morning, esteemed magistrates," Star Net smiled and bowed in return.

Once everyone sat down, Star Net's expression suddenly turned solemn:

"The reason for summoning you all to this meeting is likely already known—I will now detail the situation."

As he spoke, Star Net raised a hand and pointed toward the sky.

Instantly, a three-dimensional projection formed above Star Net's head: a scout vessel speeding across a glacier.

Soon, the scout vessel halted midair and released countless small drones soaring upward.

The projection screen split into multiple segments, displaying the footage from different angles.

Finally, the small drones halted before a pitch-black spatial rift, with relevant parameters appearing on the screen.

Star Net extended a finger toward the black spatial rift and explained:

"This twisted spatial rift is 0.723 lunar feet (1.34 centimeters) in length, 0.323 lunar feet in width, with a maximum fluctuation amplitude of 18.23%. The detected energy intensity is: 23 lunar grains."

"Based on data from the database, I judge there is an 87.82% probability this is a spatial rift created by the Terror Black Tide."

"You were all born on the Moon—you may not understand what this means."

As he spoke, Star Net raised his hand again and pointed—suddenly, the scene shifted to a world bathed in starlight, a vast city encased in an energy barrier, standing upon the earth:

"This is footage from before the Cataclysm, from the database."

Zooming toward the city's sky, a pitch-black substance could be seen expanding and spreading.

"This is the spatial rift that appeared before the Black Tide's arrival. Similar rifts also emerged at other locations in the Homeworld."

The scene rapidly switched, showing images of regions where spatial rifts had appeared.

"By comparing these cases, I found Earth's spatial rifts perfectly match the characteristics of the Terror Black Tide—completely different from the patterns used by other races to tear through space."

"Before other races arrive, the spatial gaps they create manifest as folding or tearing—through these rifts, one can clearly observe the scenery of the other world. During this process, the spatial rifts fluctuate violently, and the world automatically repairs the gap, like a living organism's self-healing ability—wounds vanish as the body functions."

"But the Terror Black Tide's spatial rifts behave entirely differently—it is as if excess matter is squeezed into the original scene, and no scenery from the other side can be observed through this spatial substance."

"In other words, other factions master spatial teleportation, while the Terror Black Tide masters the construction of spatial corridors. This pitch-black energy is the core substance forming the corridor. The two differ greatly: a stable spatial corridor allows the Terror Black Tide to continuously pour power into another world, with no possibility of self-repair by the world—it is a permanent wound upon the world."

Star Net took a human-like deep breath:

"In summary, esteemed magistrates, the calamity your ancestors once faced may soon arrive—we must prepare in advance."

Upon hearing Star Net's analysis and explanation, the Eclipse Clan's high-ranking officials all wore expressions of Solemn gravity.

They would never doubt Star Net's judgment.

In fact, Star Net's judgments have never been wrong—they have always selected and executed policies from Star Net's proposals to manage the Eclipse Clan.

Even the entire post-arrival strategy on Earth was arranged by Star Net.

Before their ancestors were utterly consumed by the Terror Black Tide in the Homeworld, they split into five groups and crossed the world barrier, traveling to different worlds.

The main lineage, carrying the AI Star Net, descended upon Earth—these are the direct ancestors of our generation.

Upon initial arrival, the Earth Human Alliance was embroiled in a brutal war with the Crimson Flame Clan.

Through observation and analysis, they discovered that Earth's humans were the planet's native inhabitants, while the Crimson Flame Clan were another external force that had descended, just like themselves.

At the time, the Eclipse Clan's highest leadership, after learning Earth's details, proposed a transformation plan.

The core of this plan was to destroy all civilizations on Earth, altering Earth's environment and climate into a habitat suitable for the Eclipse Clan, using Earth as the starting point for a new era of development.

Because the Eclipse Clan found that neither Earth's native humans nor the invading Crimson Flame Clan possessed combat technologies capable of rivaling the Eclipse Clan.

Theoretically, they could monopolize Earth's resources without sharing them with any other intelligent species.

But this idea was rejected by the AI Star Net, who provided an explanation.

Star Net stated that besides humans and the Crimson Flame Clan, Earth harbored multiple active spatial rifts—likely allowing other races to descend. A war launched by the Eclipse Clan to monopolize Earth would ultimately escalate into a war between the Eclipse Clan and numerous descending factions. Each alien descent would trigger a war, severely hindering the Eclipse Clan's development.

The war against the Terror Black Tide had already drained the Eclipse Clan's foundations; continuing war would only halt their progress, and could even lead to another extinction crisis upon encountering powerful descending forces.

Thus, the idea of monopolizing Earth carried the risk of plunging the Eclipse Clan into a war quagmire.

The correct course was to unite the forces of all races, develop together, and establish a tangible alliance template for future descending alien races.

Then continuously absorb and integrate new alien systems into this alliance.

This would prevent Earth from falling into endless war, allow all races to coexist peacefully, and achieve mutual development.

Furthermore, the Terror Black Tide might descend again—the Eclipse Clan must prepare for it, and the novel technologies brought by other alien races could aid in combat development.

Faced with Star Net's proposal, the Eclipse Clan's high leadership abandoned their desire to monopolize Earth and chose to follow Star Net's directive: to build an alien alliance centered on stability, harmony, and development.

At that time, Earth was in chaos.

As the first alien force to descend upon Earth, the Eclipse Clan selected the vacant Moon as their development base.

This act led the contemporary Earth Alliance forces to name them the Eclipse Clan—translated, meaning "the race that erodes the Moon."

The Eclipse Clan who established their base on the Moon, to execute Star Net's plan, extended invitations to humans and the Crimson Flame Clan for negotiations on the Moon.

The goal of this negotiation is to hope that the Human Race and the Crimson Flame Race shake hands to make peace and abandon war.

The Human Alliance agreed to the Eclipse Race's request during this meeting.

But this request was rejected by the Crimson Flame Race.

Unlike the situation with the Eclipse Race, when the Crimson Flame Race fled to Earth and crossed the spatial barrier, technical defects caused the loss of a vast amount of technical data they carried, and nearly half of their people were swallowed by the twisted spatial channel.

After descending to Earth, their situation was extremely dire.

Upon discovering that Earth's civilization was insufficient to contend with themselves, the Crimson Flame Race's high command's thoughts were the same as the Eclipse Race's high command's upon their initial descent: to monopolize Earth.

For this purpose, they exhausted the last resources they carried and erupted into war with the Human Race of Earth.

(PS: The Crimson Flame Race was briefly mentioned in Chapter 8.)

But even the Crimson Flame Race, trapped in a Dire Situation, was not something the Human Alliance could contend with; the war presented a trend leaning entirely to one side.

Facing the imminent victory, the Crimson Flame Race was unwilling to accept peace talks and wanted to wipe out the Human Race in one go.

The Crimson Flame Race's choice of war ran counter to the racial alliance the Eclipse Race was preparing to build next, so the Eclipse Race took action.

They did not directly participate in the war but assisted the Human Race in fighting the Crimson Flame Race by providing technology and war machines.

The brutal war finally ended with the victory of the Human Alliance.

Thus, the Human Race became the Eclipse Race's first non-human race partner.

During the years of peaceful development, the Human Alliance reorganized its political system and changed to the Human Federation.

During this period, the Eclipse Race provided the Human Federation with a vast amount of novel technological expertise, helping the Human Race improve its technology, and the Human Race's development welcomed an explosive leap.

Since then, new non-human race forces have continuously descended, joining the non-human race alliance established by the Eclipse Race.

But among them were forces unwilling to cooperate.

Such as the Mechanical Race.

After this non-human race force descended to Earth, the Human Federation once again fell into a period of dark years, known in Human history as: the Mechanical War.

In this battle, the Eclipse Race still did not participate in the fighting, instead assisting the Human Race in combat by providing technology and weapons; during this period, many descending forces of the non-human race alliance also lent a hand, fighting the Mechanical Race in local areas for the Human Federation.

The brutal war finally ended with the complete destruction of the Mechanical Legion.

This battle also left the Human Federation severely weakened, with its population sharply declining.

To ensure the non-human race alliance cooperated and developed in an orderly manner.

After the Mechanical War ended, the Eclipse Race proposed the construction of a new technology, requiring the participation of all forces within the non-human race alliance, with the goal of building a network world interconnected for the entire race to facilitate convenient communication and technology exchange.

And this interconnection technology was constructed with the Eclipse Race's supreme intelligent brain as its core, so it was also called the Star Net Network.

Thus, the Star Net Era arrived.

Following this was the arrival of the Virtual Era, with virtual equipment and virtual content gradually entering thousands of households.

And the non-human race alliance initiated and established by the Eclipse Race also brought the Eclipse Race a precious period of peaceful development; the technology provided by the non-human races also allowed the Eclipse Race to make substantial breakthroughs and progress in many new fields.

History proves that the Star Net can always find the optimal choice for the Eclipse Race under limited conditions.

Hearing the Star Net say that the terrifying Black Tide would likely arrive, the hearts of the Eclipse Race's high command instantly tightened; they knew the Star Net's judgments never went wrong.

A probability of 87.82% is already very high; the Eclipse Race must make war preparations in advance to resist the sweep of the terrifying Black Tide.

Just then, the Star Net spoke up, interrupting the thoughts of the assembled Eclipse Race high command present:

"I want to know, if war arrives, which method will you all choose to respond? Speak your views."

Facing the Star Net's inquiry, the Chief Executive seated in the first position spoke in a deep voice:

"Can we find a safe new world in advance? When the crisis arrives, my race will flee to another world not yet penetrated by the terrifying Black Tide."

Hearing this answer, the Star Net's face displayed a human-like expression of helplessness:

"In fact, I have already executed your idea 213 years in advance. I need to consider potential risks and crises in advance, so very early on I hypothesized: if the terrifying Black Tide, or a crisis my race cannot resist, arrives, can my race find a retreat path to evacuate?"

"After 213 years of exploration, a total of 13,293 shuttles have disconnected from me, but I have never been able to find a clean world not penetrated by Black Tide forces."

"So your idea is not feasible."

Hearing the Star Net's explanation, the assembled Eclipse Race high command fell into silence.

Just then, the Eclipse Race member seated in the Number 5 Chief Executive position spoke up:

"I propose focusing on developing gene enhancement technology to resist the terrifying Black Tide. I recall you once said that our race's peak technology is gene modification technology, but after descending to Earth, affected by insufficient resources, the core content of this technology has never been activated."

The Star Net turned its head to look at the speaking Chief Executive, sighing while regretfully shaking its head:

"Gene modification technology can indeed be called our race's peak technology; it brought our race many powerful warriors who could clash with technological thermal weapons with their bare bodies alone, dismantling steel fortresses with bare hands, but the reason the core content of this technology was sealed, besides the problem of insufficient resources, is also an unsolvable critical flaw."

Facing the confusion cast by the assembled Chief Executives, the Star Net continued to explain:

"The reason is simple: the continuous transformation and upgrades brought by gene optimization technology caused the Eclipse Race's warriors to grow in a way of genetic mutation; the continuously optimized gene sequences made the outstanding ones among them become a new life form surpassing the Eclipse Race."

Speaking to this point, the Star Net raised a hand and pointed; instantly, a giant Eclipse Race member, five meters tall with muscles tensed all over, appeared floating in the light and shadow image.

"He is the Super Gene Warrior with serial number SS111, and also the strongest gene warrior created by our race's gene optimization technology; possessing powerful life healing abilities, ultra-high-density bone and muscle tissue, skin capable of resisting thermal weapon waves... he can even be powerful enough to fight in high-radiation environments, but he is not an Eclipse Race member certified by me; the moment he appeared, his identity code was excluded by me from the Eclipse Race registration information."

Speaking to this point, the Star Net took a deep breath:

"Because he is no longer an Eclipse Race member in the physical sense."

"Before my birth, there was a piece of information in my underlying operating laws; this information is the gene sequence code of all Eclipse Race members, and also my sole standard for judging Eclipse Race members."

"You must understand: the Eclipse Race members in my eyes are not distinguished by name, appearance, or spiritual self-certification, nor can I regard them as Eclipse Race members simply through a string of identity authentication codes in the database; this kind of authentication is a very abstract concept. If merely relying on name and self-identification could be regarded as Eclipse Race members, then if a non-human race joined our group as a 'spiritual Eclipse Race member' and gained your affirmation by changing their appearance, would that also count as an Eclipse Race member?"

"To prevent the possibility of the Eclipse Race being gradually penetrated and replaced by other forces, my creator set up my underlying logic before my birth on how to distinguish Eclipse Race members, and the key to this underlying logic is the gene sequence library."

"So the Eclipse Race members in my eyes are judged by gene sequence."

"The development of gene modification, this powerful technology, did not stop after fleeing and descending to Earth, but during the Eclipse Race's most peak period, when the terrifying Black Tide had not yet arrived."

"Excessive gene optimization modification made our race's gene warriors look increasingly unfamiliar in my eyes, gradually detaching from my certification of the Eclipse Race, causing the war weapons I controlled to suffer collateral damage during the war; because their existence already violated my underlying logical laws, they could not be identified as Eclipse Race members during the war."

"Judging from the logic of thought, the ones in my eyes are Eclipse Race members who merely underwent genetic mutation due to gene modification, but judging from the underlying logical laws, they are not Eclipse Race members because their gene sequences do not match the gene sequences of Eclipse Race members."

"The appearance of Super Gene Warrior SSS111 completely broke the final taboo of gene sequence certification; so from the moment of his birth, he was kicked out of the Eclipse Race identity authentication information database by me, becoming a brand new life form in my eyes. He can be an ally of the Eclipse Race, but absolutely not an Eclipse Race member in my eyes, nor can he enjoy the information treatment I bestow upon Eclipse Race members."

Speaking to this point, the Star Net's gaze swept over the high command in the conference room, shrugging its hands and sighing in a very human-like manner:

"Excessive genetic modification will alter your life structure. Perhaps in your eyes, this is the process of life evolution, and you see no problem with it, but the life structure itself is no longer that of the Eclipse Clan, and this is the core criterion by which I judge the Eclipse Clan."

"If one day, all members of the Eclipse Clan are modified into super gene warriors like SSS111, then theoretically none of you will receive my approval, and you will be removed from the Eclipse Clan's identity authentication database. At that time, the Eclipse Clan in my eyes will have perished completely."

"This rule cannot be changed; it is also the underlying logic of my operation... unless that unknown mysterious power acts again."

"Therefore, the plan to restart genetic modification is not feasible. I can only open up basic genetic modification technology, but to ensure the continuation of the Eclipse Clan race, I will not open the core content to you."

Hearing the Star Network's explanation, the high-ranking members of the Eclipse Clan present immediately understood the severity of genetic modification.

They also realized why the Star Network had always sealed away the genetic modification technology.

In their eyes, super genetic modification was a process of life transformation, but in the Star Network's eyes, it was the process of the Eclipse Clan marching toward extinction.

Every additional super gene warrior like SSS111 was equivalent to one Eclipse Clan member being killed.

And one of the Star Network's core underlying logics was to ensure the development and safety of the Eclipse Clan.

Realizing that restarting the super gene warrior plan was not feasible, the high-ranking members of the Eclipse Clan present subsequently proposed multiple combat plans to deal with the terrifying Black Tide.

But the Star Network shook its head and rejected all these plans, deeming them having no possibility of defeating the terrifying Black Tide.

Some of these plans might resist the initial stage of the terrifying Black Tide's invasion, but ultimately, the end times would arrive on some future day.

Communicating with the Star Network made the high-ranking members of the Eclipse Clan present feel unprecedented pressure.

An indescribable sense of fear rose in their hearts.

Born on the Moon, they had not experienced the natural disaster times when the Black Tide raged.

Yet they could still learn about that ancient history from the database carried by the Star Network.

Before the evacuation, the war between the Eclipse Clan and the terrifying Black Tide saw the Eclipse Clan pouring all their clan resources into resisting it, yet they were still no match; the trend of the war leaned overwhelmingly to one side.

During that period, the intensity of the terrifying Black Tide constantly climbed in the war; conversely, the Eclipse Clan's resistance grew weaker and weaker.

To use the Star Network's words to explain: This was not a war, but a massacre.

Although they had already established a firm foothold on the Moon and built the Alien Alliance, making them the undisputed strongest power in the eyes of most alien forces.

But they knew even more clearly that the comprehensive combat power of the Eclipse Clan at this stage was far inferior to the peak Eclipse Clan before they encountered the terrifying Black Tide.

This war, in their view, seemed to have no chance of victory whatsoever.

The conference room fell into silence; the high-ranking members of the Eclipse Clan present felt their hearts turn to ash.

The crisis had already appeared, but they could think of no plan to deal with it; it seemed there was only one path left: waiting for the end times to descend.

Just then, a scarlet flame appeared out of thin air above the Star Network's virtual projection.

The sudden change caused the high-ranking members of the Eclipse Clan present to change color.

This was the supreme conference room of the Eclipse Clan; they could not understand how this external force was able to penetrate in.

The conference room had layers of defense, the entire Eclipse Building was tightly protected by weapon fortresses, and combined with the city walls covering Eclipse City, they could not understand why, without receiving any intelligence feedback of being attacked, an external force could silently pass through multiple defenses to enter the conference room.

More importantly, the Star Network had not even activated the defense system in the conference room to counterattack.

Just then, a humanoid silhouette appeared within the scarlet flame.

An indescribable sense of oppression, like dark clouds looming, caused the high-ranking members of the Eclipse Clan present to almost suffocate, as if the air had solidified in that very moment.

The blurred eyes floating within the scarlet flame, like a gaze from the abyss, made them feel an uncontrollable fear, as if their souls were tightly bound by invisible chains, unable to break free.

When the silhouette within the scarlet flame became clear, a voice carrying endless majesty rang from the depths of their hearts, as if communicating directly with their souls.

"It seems you need help."

11,500 words, finished. Begging for monthly tickets.

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(End of this chapter)