Chapter 177 Engine Shutdown, Global Cooling

The wreckage of planetary engine No. 404 floated silently in deep space.

That giant mechanical hand, covered in red spots, had not disappeared; after crushing the ten-thousand-meter-tall tower, it splayed its five fingers, its palm facing directly toward Earth's Antarctic continent.

Before Lin Yuan could issue a counterattack command, the holographic projection in the main control room flickered violently, and the originally blue data stream instantly turned a ghastly green.

"Report! Seventy planetary engines in the Southern Hemisphere have lost response!"

"Number 7, Number 12, Number 56... large-scale shutdown! The system logic has been locked!"

Before the technician's roar had even faded, the entire dragon sparrow lurched downward.

Having lost the balance provided by some of its thrusters, Earth began to veer dangerously due to inertia. Its originally stable trajectory collapsed instantly, and the massive celestial body shook violently within the fog. From deep within the crust came a teeth-grinding thud—the wail of tectonic plates being compressed.

"What's going on? Wasn't physical isolation already implemented?"

Chen Weiguo gripped the armrests tightly; due to the malfunctioning gravity system, he was almost thrown from his command chair.

Academician Wang's face was deathly pale as he stared at the virus analysis report on the screen, his voice trembling:

"This thing... it's using quantum communication frequencies! This 'corrosion' virus isn't just targeting hardware; it can crawl directly along our communication links. As long as our engines still have signal interaction, it won't stop!"

On the big screen, the green dots representing Earth's energy nodes were turning red in large patches.

In just three minutes, nearly one-third of the planetary engine array, which had been as bright as day, had gone dark.

As the last batch of large-scale thermonuclear reactors shut down, the plasma shield on Earth's outer layer rapidly dissipated.

Without the high-temperature heat flow ejected by the engines, the near-absolute-zero cold of the Land Abandoned by Gods poured in without obstruction.

The data transmitted back from the surface monitoring stations was despair-inducing.

Within ten minutes, the temperature plummeted from twenty degrees Celsius above zero to thirty degrees below zero, and it continued to drop at a rate of three degrees per minute.

The atmosphere contracted violently due to the cold, and hurricanes roared across the globe.

Inside the underground cities, the originally constant-temperature environment was instantly shattered.

The air blowing from the residential vents was no longer warm, but cold air carrying ice crystals.

The streetlights flickered on and off, and the overload alarms from the heating system echoed in every corner.

"Why did it stop firing? Are the engines broken?"

"What on earth is happening outside? Why is it so dark?"

The citizens huddled in their thin clothing, watching the emergency red lights flickering overhead. Panic spread through the dense crowds like a plague.

In that legend known as the "Highway to Hell," it seemed that this time, Earth was truly destined to become a dead, frozen ball.

"gaia! Force takeover of manual mode! Use the original circuits to bypass the quantum links!"

Lin Yuan ordered into the void, only to find that the typically mischievous female voice that usually replied in an instant had gone silent.

The main control screen shuddered, and the virtual avatar representing gaia shattered into countless jumping color blocks.

Those color blocks rapidly reorganized, eventually forming a massive, blood-red eye.

That eye occupied the entire wall-sized screen; in the center of its pupil was a continuously rotating gear symbol, gazing silently at Lin Yuan with an ancient and rigid malice.

"gaia has been suppressed."

Lin Yuan's heart sank. He could feel that Earth's entire electronic hub was falling.

Due to the power shortage, the red light of the central life-support system had turned on, which meant that if power was not restored, the billions of people in the underground cities would die from lack of oxygen and hypothermia within an hour.

"Since the code doesn't work, let's try a different way."

Lin Yuan took a step forward, his figure instantly blurring in place as he forcibly activated his Void form.

Dark golden runes emerged on the surface of his body, and his sense of presence expanded to the extreme in that instant.

He did not rush toward the giant mechanical hand outside, but appeared directly in Earth's core power room.

This was the main hub connecting the global power grid.

Lin Yuan reached out with both hands and grabbed the two superconducting cables, each as thick as a millstone.

"System, activate 'Void Fission'. Convert my mental power and Void Energy directly into standard voltage."

[Warning: This operation will cause irreversible energy scouring to the host's body.]

"Less talk, charge!"

Following a low roar from Lin Yuan, two black-purple lightning bolts, thick as long dragons, shot out from his arms.

The central power supply monitor, which had been completely dark, jumped abruptly, and then the readings began to soar crazily.

The oxygen pumps, which had stopped turning, began to emit a dull roar once again.

Inside the underground cities, the dim light tubes lit up again; although they still flickered, the warm light temporarily suppressed the chill in the citizens' hearts.

Lin Yuan's face quickly turned pale. He was now like a human battery, forcibly sustaining the vitality of an entire planet.

"Old Wang! Go to Base 404! The self-destruct device there has been activated!"

Lin Yuan's senses spread across the globe along the power grid, and he caught a fatal node amidst the chaotic signals.

Although planetary engine No. 404 had been snapped off, its thermonuclear core remained.

The virus there was manipulating the core to operate at overload, and in three minutes, the energy sufficient to shatter half a continental shelf would be released.

By then, Earth would be like a smashed watermelon, disintegrating completely in the Land Abandoned by Gods.

By this time, Academician Wang had already landed near the engine wreckage with the assault team.

Everywhere there was the teeth-grinding sound of metal friction.

Those red rust stains were like living slime, wriggling through the ruins.

"It's no use! Manual restart is completely useless!"

Academician Wang knelt before the console, holding a wrench, watching the blood-red countdown constantly jumping on the screen.

"The internal mechanical locks have been jammed by those red molds, and the ignition program has been completely rewritten into a self-destruct protocol. We can't modify the code!"

A soldier fired frantically at the red hyphae surging over, but the bullets hitting the red rust only splashed sparks; not only did it fail to stop their spread, but it actually caused the metallic hyphae to crawl toward the muzzle along the bullet trajectories.

"Thirty seconds left!"

The soldier's voice was filled with despair.

Just as the red number jumped to "ten," a dark golden stream of light pierced through the fog.

Lin Yuan's weak figure appeared before the thermonuclear core.

He was emitting white smoke from his entire body; forcibly supplying power to the entire Earth had overdrawn his stamina.

But as he looked at the massive cylinder in front of him, which was glowing red, expanding, and about to explode, his gaze remained cold and sharp.

"The junk I've set my sights on, no one is allowed to blow it up."

Lin Yuan raised his right hand, not touching the complex console, but placing his palm directly onto the core's scorching shell.

"System, activate 'Forced Retrieval'. Target: Engine core reactor."

[Due to the target being in an excited state, retrieval will consume double the Void Points. Proceed?]

"Confirm!"

Hum—!

At that moment, it seemed as if a tiny black hole appeared in space.

The thermonuclear core, which had expanded to its limit and was emitting blinding white light, vanished without a trace in the blink of an eye, accompanied by a strange sucking sound, right before everyone's eyes.

All red light, all countdowns, and all pressure were cleared to zero in that instant.

It was completely empty.

Where the core had originally been placed, only a smooth cut remained, as if the hidden danger capable of destroying civilization had never existed.

The assault team members stood frozen in place; this completely unreasonable and violent method of removal had completely refreshed their understanding.

Lin Yuan collapsed to the ground, exhausted, the dark golden wings behind him shattered and tattered.

"Phew... retrieved into the system inventory, let's see how you explode now."

Lin Yuan wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said, panting heavily.

Although the explosion crisis had been temporarily resolved, the situation had not improved.

The energy within his body was nearly depleted; he could not continue to act as a generator indefinitely.

And that giant mechanical hand, after crushing the engine, had made no further moves; it simply floated silently in mid-air, as if admiring the process of this planet slowly freezing to death in the cold.

"No way to kill the virus..."

Academician Wang looked at the completely paralyzed collector in his hand, his tone bitter.

"This type of virus is 'alive'; they have made their homes in every cable. Unless we melt down and rebuild all the metal structures on the globe, they will stay there like parasites."

"System, is there a way?"

Lin Yuan asked in a low voice in his mind.

[The "Corrosion" virus belongs to a logic-level attack; the host needs to find the parent sample of the virus or use a specific "antibody program" to perform a logical hedge.]

Parent sample?

Lin Yuan looked at the mechanical hand in the distance; an opponent of that level, if he rushed up now, would just be throwing his life away.

Just as everyone was at their wits' end, and the oxygen reserve in the underground city showed less than forty minutes remaining.

"Bzzt... bzzzt..."

An extremely weak analog radio signal, carrying strong electrical interference, pierced through layers of fog and various restrictions, forcibly shooting into the receiving antenna of the dragon sparrow.

The signal was very primitive, not even encrypted; it was completely the most backward point-to-point communication.

But in this dead, silent area covered by the high-dimensional virus, this sound sounded like music to the ears.

Lin Yuan raised his head and looked at the screen.

In a pile of wreckage less than three hundred kilometers from Earth, a light frigate with only half a hull remaining was flashing its signal lights on and off.

A male voice, sounding hoarse from extreme weakness, echoed intermittently in the communicator:

"Living people... are there living people..."

"Save... save me... I have... I have the 'antidote' to those monsters here..."

"They are... they are eating me..."

Lin Yuan stared at the broken warship, a glimmer of light flashing in the depths of his eyes.

"Old Chen, mark the coordinates."

Lin Yuan stood up, leaning against the cold wall; although his steps were still a bit unsteady due to energy overdraw, his tone had regained that unreasonable dominance:

"No matter who he is, snatch that ship for me. As long as there is a glimmer of hope, even if that antidote is in the mouth of the King of Hell, I will dig it out."

Deep in the dark fog, the giant mechanical hand seemed to have sensed this signal; its originally dead, silent fingers slowly turned at a tiny angle, facing that broken frigate.