Unknown

Chapter 11: Unknown

Time: 2 hours after the Sky Pit appeared

Location: Above the Pacific Ocean

Squeak! The high-precision optical lens of the surveillance satellite zoomed in, fixed on the unidentified phenomenon above the Pacific Ocean.

At this moment, the global situation was somewhat delicate. Of the more than one hundred countries in the world, not many knew about the anomaly over the Pacific Ocean. Most had been informed by countries capable of knowing. And among those countries that knew, only two and a half were capable of immediately investigating the Sky Pit.

Great East and America reacted the fastest. The remaining half was Little Japan, which had deployed the Global Hawk its godfather had given it.

The other countries did not respond immediately. For special reasons, Russia's reaction had been much slower, leaving it unable to keep up with the first tier.

Due to its geographical location, Europe simply could not dispatch reconnaissance aircraft for a close investigation of the Sky Pit in such a short time. It could only use satellites to conduct preliminary long-range scans of the Sky Pit. Much of the detailed data could not be obtained, so it could only hope that once its allies arrived, they would share intelligence on the "Sky Pit."

Suddenly, through the satellite's surveillance lens, two moving targets skipped across the edge of the atmosphere at Mach 6, rapidly closing in on the Sky Pit area. On the other side, a small black dot was already nearing the Sky Pit, while the Global Hawk departing from the island nation was still inching toward the Sky Pit area at 650 km/h.

The Wuzhen-7, which had departed 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 was fast, but it had its drawbacks—it could not remain above a target for long. The Wuzhen-7 could make up for that perfectly.

"Sir, we were the first to arrive," the officer operating the Global Hawk shouted.

Only then did the officers, generals, and politicians in the Pentagon look a little better. No matter what, they had arrived first. As long as they ignored the fact that the other side had traveled several times farther, then they had won.

Right and wrong were difficult to judge.

As the Global Hawk approached the Sky Pit area, it did not plunge straight in. A reconnaissance aircraft costing tens of millions of dollars was not some disposable item.

Soon, streams of data were sent back to the Pentagon. At the same time, the Wuzhen-8 departing from Great East raced over the Sky Pit at high speed, its onboard detection equipment scanning the unidentified phenomenon anchored eighteen thousand meters in the sky.

That was right—anchored. Since the Sky Pit had appeared, its position had not shifted in the slightest. It had not been affected by Earth's rotation, gravity, or magnetic field. It was firmly anchored at the spot where it had first appeared, with no changes whatsoever in its latitude or longitude.

All kinds of information were transmitted to satellites through directional laser communications, then relayed by satellite back to the ground.

"Report to the commander. Preliminary mapping complete through triangulation! Target altitude—"

Target: Sky Pit (codename)

Cause of appearance: Unknown

Altitude: 18,000

Diameter: 20 km

Thickness: 300

An unexplained shift has appeared in the optical spectrum. The magnetic field around the Sky Pit is unstable; the closer one gets to the Sky Pit, the more chaotic the magnetic field becomes.

Each piece of information was compiled and integrated, giving those present a preliminary understanding of the Sky Pit. And they were not the only ones—the higher-ups would receive information about the Sky Pit immediately. Some were even broadcasting it live.

The two high-altitude, high-speed Wuzhen-8s soon flew over the Sky Pit and left the reconnaissance area. Meanwhile, the Global Hawk below was still circling the Sky Pit. Though the Global Hawk was slow, it had enough endurance to leisurely orbit the Sky Pit and gather more information.

Just as the Global Hawk neared the Sky Pit, invisible electromagnetic interference appeared, immediately affecting its control. The flight control system switched to automatic mode and continued investigating the target area according to the flight instructions issued before the interference.

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

"Great East?"

The general immediately thought of Great East. Judging others by himself, if it had been him, he would definitely interfere with his opponent while conducting reconnaissance. Naturally, the interference could not be overt; it had to be a covert obstruction. Invisible electromagnetic interference was the most suitable method.

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

Hearing that, the general looked doubtfully at the Sky Pit on the screen. He did not understand how such a thing could emit electromagnetic interference, but since the source was not Great East, he could not help but let out a breath of relief. To be honest, if they really had to engage in a cyber battle with Great East, they did not feel very confident.

As the Global Hawk gradually approached the Sky Pit, the interference affecting the feed became increasingly severe. The 4K high-definition image rapidly dropped to 800×600 resolution. The signal transmission became unstable, large blocks of pixelation appeared across the screen, and finally, the feed was completely cut off.

The general was not worried about that. As a drone worth tens of millions of dollars, even if it lost its network connection, the flight control system would guide it back on its own. Once it returned, they only needed to retrieve the data onboard to learn in detail what had happened around the Sky Pit to cause this phenomenon.

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

"Sir, estimated arrival in 80 minutes."

Hawaii was the closest American territory to the Sky Pit. This was their greatest advantage. As long as they released information about the Sky Pit to the world before Great East did, they could still maintain their posture as the "boss."

Time passed second by second. The sun rose in the east, illuminating the Pacific Ocean and gradually lighting up Great East as well. When sunlight fell upon the Sky Pit, the twenty-kilometer ring immediately became dazzlingly brilliant, illusory and ethereal.

Seven-colored streams of light circled around it. From far away, one could see the necklace hanging in the sky—a necklace crafted from seven-colored glass!

Something so enormous could not possibly go unnoticed. It would soon spread across the internet, and most people would learn that a Sky Pit had appeared above the Pacific Ocean.

Knowing was one thing. So long as it did not affect their daily lives, people would not care about something thousands of miles away. But at the national level, it could not be ignored.

The captain of a cruise ship sailing across the ocean held up binoculars and observed the glass-like ring in the sky. Ever since the ship had approached the ring, its communications and radar systems had been affected by interference. The captain had already decided to take a longer route to avoid this bizarre thing.

On the deck, several wealthy young women were also looking at the Sky Pit through binoculars. From the bottom of their hearts, they exclaimed, "Oh my God! It's so beautiful, it's like the Virgin Mary's necklace!!"

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

"I do!"

"Watch me bring it down for you."

With that, the man reached out and grabbed toward the Sky Pit. The next second, the seven-colored membrane in the center of the Sky Pit began flashing violently.