Unknown

Chapter 11: Unknown

[Time: 2 hours after the Sky Pit appeared]

[Location: Above the Pacific Ocean]

Click! The high-precision optical lens of the surveillance satellite zoomed in, locking onto the unknown phenomenon above the Pacific Ocean.

At this moment, the global situation was somewhat delicate. Among the over one hundred countries in the world, few knew about the anomaly above the Pacific; most had been notified by those with the capability to know. Among those in the know, only two and a half had the ability to immediately dispatch reconnaissance to the Sky Pit.

The fastest responders were Great East and America, while the remaining half was Little Japan, which had sent out the Global Hawk given to it by its godfather.

Other countries failed to react in the first instance. Russia, due to special circumstances, was notably slower and couldn't keep up with the first echelon.

Europe, due to its geographical position, simply couldn't dispatch reconnaissance aircraft to approach the Sky Pit in a short time. They could only use satellites for preliminary long-range scans of the Sky Pit, unable to obtain many detailed data points, and had to wait for their allies to arrive and share intelligence on the "Sky Pit."

Suddenly, in the satellite's fixed gaze, two moving targets appeared at the edge of the atmosphere, skipping at Mach 6 at high speed toward the Sky Pit region. On the other side, a small black dot had already neared the Sky Pit, while the Global Hawk, which had departed from the island nation, was still crawling toward the Sky Pit region at a sluggish 650 km/h.

The Wuzhen-7, dispatched later from Great East, was also advancing toward the Sky Pit and soon overtook the Global Hawk that had taken off from Misawa Air Base. The Wuzhen-8 flew fast, but it had its drawbacks—it couldn't loiter over the target for long. The Wuzhen-7 was just the right complement to make up for that.

"Sir, we arrived first," the officer controlling the Global Hawk announced loudly.

This time, the officers, generals, and politicians inside the Pentagon finally had better expressions. No matter what, they had gotten there first. As long as they ignored the fact that the other side had traveled several times the distance, they had won.

Right and wrong are hard to argue.

The Global Hawk approached the Sky Pit region but didn't plunge straight in. A reconnaissance drone worth tens of millions of dollars wasn't a consumable item.

Soon, streams of data were sent back to the Pentagon in the rear. At the same time, the Wuzhen-8, launched from Great East, streaked at high speed over the [Sky Pit], its onboard detection equipment scanning the unknown phenomenon anchored at an altitude of 18,000 meters in the sky.

That's right—anchored. Since the Sky Pit appeared, its position hadn't shifted an inch. It wasn't affected by Earth's rotation, gravity, or magnetic field, firmly locked onto its original location, with no change in latitude or longitude either.

Various pieces of information were transmitted via directional laser communication to satellites, which then relayed them back to the ground.

"Report to the commander, triangulation and preliminary mapping complete! Target altitude—"

[Target: Sky Pit (Codename)]

[Reason for Appearance: Unknown]

[Altitude: 18,000 m]

[Diameter: 20 km]

[Thickness: 300 m]

[Optical spectrum shows unexplained deviation; magnetic field around the Sky Pit is unstable; the closer to the Sky Pit, the more chaotic the magnetic field]

Item by item, the information was compiled and integrated, giving those present a preliminary understanding of the Sky Pit. The same went not just for them—the higher-ups would also receive the Sky Pit data in real time, even as a live broadcast was underway.

Two high-altitude, high-speed Wuzhen-8s quickly flew over the Sky Pit and left the reconnaissance zone. Below, the Global Hawk was still circling the Sky Pit. Though the Global Hawk flew slowly, its endurance was long enough to leisurely orbit the [Sky Pit] and gather more information.

Just as the Global Hawk neared the Sky Pit, an invisible electromagnetic interference appeared, instantly affecting its control. The flight control system switched to automatic mode, continuing reconnaissance of the target area based on the flight commands issued before the interference.

"Sir, electromagnetic interference detected," the officer controlling the Global Hawk announced loudly.

"Is it Great East?"

The general's first thought went to Great East. Judging others by himself, if it were him, he would definitely interfere with his opponent's reconnaissance. And the method of interference couldn't be overt—it had to be a covert tripwire. Invisible electromagnetic interference was the most suitable.

"The interference source is the Sky Pit," the officer continued.

Hearing this, the general looked at the Sky Pit in the footage with confusion. He couldn't understand how such a thing could emit electromagnetic interference. But since the source wasn't Great East, he couldn't help but breathe a huge sigh of relief. To be honest, if they actually had to engage in cyber warfare with Great East, they'd be feeling pretty shaky.

As the Global Hawk gradually approached the Sky Pit, the interference in the footage grew more severe. The resolution had already dropped sharply from 4K HD to 800x600. The signal transmission became unstable, with large amounts of mosaic appearing in the image, until the feed cut out entirely.

The general wasn't worried about this. As a drone worth tens of millions of dollars, even if the network was cut, the flight control system would pilot the drone back on its own. When it returned, they could just pull the onboard data to find out exactly what had happened around the Sky Pit to cause this phenomenon.

"When will the follow-up reconnaissance aircraft arrive?"

"Sir, estimated in 80 minutes."

Hawaii was the closest American territory to the Sky Pit. That was their biggest advantage. As long as they released information on the [Sky Pit] to the world a little earlier than Great East, they could still maintain their "big boss" facade.

Time ticked by, second after second. The sun rose in the east, illuminating the Pacific Ocean and, gradually, Great East as well. When sunlight struck the Sky Pit, that 20 km ring suddenly became dazzlingly brilliant—ethereal and elusive.

Multicolored light streams swirled around it. From far away, one could see this necklace hanging in the sky—a necklace made of rainbow-colored glass!

Such a massive object couldn't be ignored. It would soon ferment on the internet, and most people would learn that a [Sky Pit] had appeared above the Pacific Ocean.

Knowing was one thing. As long as it didn't affect people's daily lives, they wouldn't care about something tens of thousands of miles away. But on a national level, it couldn't be ignored.

A cruise ship captain sailing the ocean raised his telescope to observe the glass-like ring in the sky. Ever since approaching this ring, the ship's communications and radar systems had been experiencing interference. The captain had already decided to take a detour to avoid this eerie thing.

On the deck, a few wealthy young women also raised their telescopes to look at the [Sky Pit] in the sky, sighing from the bottom of their hearts: "Oh my god! It's so beautiful—it's like the Virgin Mary's necklace!!"

"Do you like it?" a man beside them asked with a smile.

"Yes!"

"Watch me grab it down for you."

With that, the man reached out toward the Sky Pit. The next second, the multicolored film at the center of the Sky Pit flickered violently.