Earth, outer space.
The Mechanical Legion tore through space and arrived.
The guardian defense system the Earth Alliance had deployed in near-Earth orbit, the "Sky Dome Matrix," activated.
The twelve main annihilation cannons in orbit slowly adjusted their angles. Layers of armor plates slid apart, revealing the immense muzzles beneath. Charging began inside, and blue light continually spilled from the particle acceleration tracks.
Energy gathered soundlessly in the vacuum, sending ripples of energy spreading outward.
Immediately afterward, tens of thousands of defense platforms broke away from their original patrol orbits.
They rapidly performed complex formation adjustments, constructing an interlaced mobile firepower network ahead of the main batteries.
The densely packed defensive laser turrets on their surfaces spun rapidly, locking onto potential targets in outer space and lighting up star-like points of red laser targeting light.
Farther away, on the Eclipse Race's enormous War Platform hidden behind the moon, the immense launch shaft covers slowly opened, revealing unfathomable darkness within.
Even the satellites originally used for communication and observation changed their orientation.
They extended weapons modules concealed inside them.
In an extremely short time, all of near-Earth space transformed from a silent vacuum into a steel fortress bristling with "spikes."
The lights that came on as weapons locked onto their targets resembled beasts' pupils, lighting up one after another in the darkness as they watched the mechanical torrent pouring endlessly from the spatial fissure.
A tense standoff took shape in silence.
At that moment, inside the Mechanical Legion's central command room.
Core Brain's crystalline body hovered above the ground.
Countless translucent tendrils covered in tiny neural nodes extended from its base, dancing through the room and exchanging data with the flowing screens of light on the walls and floor.
Vast torrents of data coursed through the central processing unit: computation, decisions.