HCB Chapter 279 Disguised Beacon, Outsmarting the Reapers
Chapter 279 Disguised Beacon, Outsmarting the Reapers
As the fleet leaped out of warp drive, the view outside the portholes transformed from the familiar starry sky into a strange, ominous dark red nebula.
This is the outer edge of the "Sea of the Dead" star system, and one of the most active patrol areas for the Reaper Fleet.
The atmosphere inside the bridge of the Pangu was extremely heavy.
"Reporting to the commander, we have entered the planned flight path and are expected to cross the edge of the Reaper 'A-7' patrol zone in three hours." The radar officer's voice was somewhat strained.
Everyone's heart was in their throat.
The Reaper.
This name is like a mountain, weighing heavily on the hearts of every person on Earth.
Although they had miraculously survived that terrible encounter a month ago, the overwhelming and devastating power of the Reaper fleet had left an indelible psychological scar on them.
Now, for them to deliberately intrude into the territory of these cosmic locusts is practically sticking their heads into a tiger's mouth.
"All ships, maintain Level 1 combat silence, shut down all non-essential systems, and minimize your own energy fluctuations."
Chen Zhou issued orders methodically, but his grip on the armrest betrayed his inner tension.
"Captain Ogus, your mothership is too large a target and has the strongest energy reaction. You must strictly follow the silence command," Chen Zhou added as a special reminder.
"clear."
Ogus's holographic projection appeared on the screen, and his expression was equally grim.
He knew better than anyone on Earth what encountering a Reaper patrol in this place meant.
That was absolutely a massacre with no suspense whatsoever.
He couldn't help but glance at the main screen, at the young man sitting in the command seat who had remained calm throughout.
Could it be that he really has a solution?
Oghuz was filled with doubt.
He admitted that Su Chen was very mysterious and had many tricks up her sleeve.
But when faced with the Reaper, an unreasonable "rule-based natural disaster," any conspiracy or trickery seems pale and powerless.
Time passed second by second, each second feeling like an eternity.
Inside the bridge, only the faint hum of the instruments could be heard.
"Beep! Beep! Beep! High-energy reaction detected ahead!"
The piercing alarm broke the deathly silence without warning.
"It's Reapers! Number... at least thirty! They're approaching us at high speed!" The radar officer's voice changed.
"It's over!"
Ogus's heart sank to the bottom in an instant.
The worst-case scenario has still occurred.
"All warships, engines at maximum power! Prepare for a forced breakout!"
Chen Zhou shouted it out almost instinctively.
This was their only option, even though he knew it was no different from suicide.
"Wait a moment."
At this critical moment, Su Chen's calm voice resounded throughout the entire bridge.
"Everyone, stay where you are. Shut down the main propulsion engines, keep only the attitude control engines running."
"What?!"
Chen Zhou turned around abruptly, unable to believe his ears. "Advisor, what is this...?"
Are we just going to wait to die?
"Execute the order." Su Chen's tone left no room for argument.
Chen Zhou's lips moved, but he ultimately gritted his teeth and relayed the order: "All ships, shut down your main propulsion engines! Stand by!"
The entire fleet, like a herd of startled antelopes suddenly stopping in front of a tiger, lay quietly in place.
Everyone's heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst out of their chests.
Ogus thought Su Chen had gone mad.
"Master! What are you doing? This is a standard cleaning patrol! They will indiscriminately break down everything in their path! If we stop here, we won't even have a chance to escape!" he shouted anxiously.
Su Chen ignored him and instead turned her gaze to the control panel in front of her.
His hands moved rapidly across the virtual screen, generating and combining complex and dazzling streams of data at his fingertips.
"Prophet, use the 'Harvest Lord' level command protocol that I cracked as a template to construct a virtual signal source."
"Instruction content: Senior units conduct inspections."
"Permission Level: Lord Level"
"Additional information: The patrol target is the resource serialization progress of this star sector. All lower-level units are required to avoid the patrol route."
Su Chen's consciousness was highly focused.
He was not merely sending a string of code; he was using "Will Kingdom" to simulate his mental power into the unique, superior fluctuations of the Reaper's "Hive Will Network."
It's like imitating an emperor's handwriting and tone to issue an imperial edict to soldiers on the frontier.
Whether they look alike or not is not just about whether the characters are written the same, but more importantly, about the "momentum".
"Virtual beacon generation complete."
"Currently broadcasting a targeted message to the target fleet."
An invisible signal wave, carrying Su Chen's will and forged instructions, instantly traversed the distant universe and precisely covered the Reaper patrol that was rapidly approaching.
On the bridge screen, the more than thirty red dots representing death suddenly... froze in unison under everyone's gaze.
They were like movie scenes that had been paused, abruptly stopping halfway through.
The bridge of the entire Earth fleet was completely silent.
Everyone stared wide-eyed at the radar screen, forgetting even to breathe.
What happened?
Why did they stop?
A few seconds later, something even more unbelievable happened.
After a brief pause, the Reaper patrol team actually... changed direction en masse.
They did not attack, did not approach, and did not even conduct any probing.
In perfect unison, they gracefully circled the airspace where the Earth fleet was located, and then continued flying in their original direction.
It was as if the area of the Earth Fleet was some kind of forbidden zone that needed to be avoided.
They... just left like that.
gone?
"Alarm lifted... Reaper fleet, contact has been lost..."
The radar officer stammered his report, his voice filled with a dreamlike sense of unreality.
silence.
A deathly silence.
It took more than ten seconds before Chen Zhou seemed to come back to life and gasped sharply.
He stiffly turned his head, looking at Su Chen, who was still sitting calmly in the chair, with an expression of utter disbelief.
"Advisor... what... what was that just now?"
"It's just a little trick," Su Chen said casually, as if he had only done something insignificant.
But to others, his words were like a thunderclap.
trick?
Did they fool the harvester?
This isn't just a trick, it's divine magic!
A series of suppressed gasps and gasps erupted from the bridge of the Pangu.
At this moment, on the bridge of the mothership, Oghuz was completely petrified.
He stared blankly at the receding red dot on the radar screen, his mind a complete blank.
As an elder of the Star Eater Cult, he had studied the Reapers countless times, fought against them, and narrowly escaped with his life.
He knew better than anyone what the Reaper was.
They are machines without emotions or fear, that follow only underlying logic and sequential instructions.
Any deception, disguise, or intimidation is meaningless in their presence. They will only faithfully execute the commands of "disassembly" and "serialization".
There is only one way to get them to change course.
That means... a higher-level instruction with higher priority was received from a higher-level unit.
Ogus suddenly raised his head and looked at the "Pangu" ship where Su Chen was. For the first time, emotions called "fear" and "awe" appeared in his eyes.
What...what did he just do?
He forged orders from the harvester's superiors? And he succeeded?
How is this possible?!
Cracking the Reaper's core command protocol and simulating the fluctuations of the superior's will...
This is something that not only he couldn't do, but even the leaders of sects and those legendary, ancient civilizations had never heard of it!
What is the background of this young master?
What kind of terrifying power, capable of subverting common sense about the universe, does he possess?
At this moment, the last bit of resentment and bitterness in Oghuz's heart vanished under the impact of this incomprehensible reality.
He no longer felt that submitting to Su Chen was a humiliation.
Instead, he began to feel a sense of relief.
I'm so glad I followed the right person.
Following such an unfathomable being, perhaps I really will be able to see a landscape that I never even dared to imagine before.
From that moment on, Oghuz's mindset underwent a fundamental change.
He began his transformation from a forced servant to a truly loyal and genuinely respectful subordinate.
"Keep moving forward." Su Chen's voice broke the silence of everyone's shock.
"Yes!" Chen Zhou suddenly woke up and responded loudly, his voice carrying a hint of fanaticism that he himself was unaware of.
The fleet restarted and passed through the death zone without incident.
In the hearts of all the crew members, Su Chen's image had become completely synonymous with "god".
Several hours later, the fleet's speed gradually decreased.
Outside the porthole, the dark red nebula grew increasingly thin.
Instead, there was a vast, indescribable wasteland filled with deathly silence and desolation...
Countless colossal, unimaginably massive remnants of civilizations float silently in the dark universe, like rows of silent tombstones.
Yes, it is a broken ring-shaped world, with a smooth, mirror-like cut.
Yes, it is a metallic planet that has been gnawed away, leaving only its core, and its surface is covered with jagged grooves.
Others are fleet graveyards stretching tens of thousands of kilometers, resembling the skeletons of giant dragons.
This is the end of civilization.
A forbidden zone for life.
We've arrived at the Civilized Cemetery.