Chapter 1 When the Red Moon Descended

The moment the Red Moon descended upon this world, everyone remaining in the City of Stars simultaneously observed this wondrous spectacle.

The last rays of the setting sun completely vanished behind the mountains, and the sky was shrouded in a layer of chaotic shadow. The blood-colored "moon" appeared as if from nowhere, descending into the world from that chaotic shadow accompanied by the sound of bells. At first, Hilda thought the bells were coming from a clock tower in the City of Stars, but she soon realized they were coming from deep within her mind—an extremely powerful mental projection. Everyone who gazed upon the moonlight heard the mysterious, distant chimes in their hearts, a sound that seemed to come from ancient times, crossing endless space and time to project directly into everyone's spiritual world.

Everything in the City of Stars was stained with a layer of indifferent blood color. It was moonlight licking the world. The ubiquitous blood-colored moonlight ignored any obstruction, appearing directly on every surface within the Red Moon's range, giving everything an eerie hue. Even the most obtuse person could realize that the "moon" hanging high in the sky was definitely not a natural phenomenon, based solely on such optical phenomena that defied common sense.

The moment the red moonlight appeared, everyone in the ritual hall instinctively became tense. Lily's "emergency stop device" (namely the alloy greatsword x8) also rose slightly, while Nangong Sanba reached out his hand, as if to touch the moonlight descending from the sky.

"The moonlight isn't harmful!"

The crimson moonlight filled the heavens and the earth, yet those bathed in it felt no direct negative effects beyond a considerable psychological pressure. The various warning and detection arrays set up in advance on the outside of the mage tower quickly completed a preliminary analysis of the moonlight, ultimately confirming that the unnatural light carried no destructive power.

Vivian had successfully controlled the power of the Red Moon and precisely filtered out the destructive energies within the moonlight!

Although she was still maintaining the summoning ritual, Vivian felt much less pressure after the Red Moon descended. She opened her eyes slightly and smiled at those around her: "It's not difficult to control. It seems I'm indeed much stronger than before after recovering the power of the evil thought-form… Lily, could you put that thing down for now!"

The husky girl stuck out her tongue and lowered the alloy greatsword x9 in her hand to her side, but her hand remained on the hilt: she couldn't relax until the ritual was over. Who knew what kind of trouble might arise at the crucial moment? That's how it always happened in the movies…

In the control array area in the corner of the hall, the Erem Royal Mages finally recovered from the shock brought by the Red Moon's descent. They looked with awe at the "artificial celestial body" hanging high in the sky, wondering what terrible power such an ultimate magic, which could be called a "natural disaster," would have if used for attack. It would far exceed any so-called forbidden spell or strategic weapon, its power comparable to a natural disaster!

Regaining their composure, the mages immediately returned to work, checking the energy flow of the entire magic tower and the signals from the city's warning facilities. At the same time, they began to try to analyze the principle of the Red Moon in the sky and the mysteries contained in the moonlight. Although it looked like a "holy crap, what kind of black technology is this" kind of thing, what if they could analyze something? Maybe Erem's GDP for ten years would be set…

"Phase one successful, Red Moon has descended and is in a stable state, beginning to read sensor signals from all locations…"

"New Erem planet's surface has received moonlight, moonlight energy is stable, no destructive power detected, moonlight confirmed harmless…"

"Illumination range determined to be within the City of Stars and the surrounding twenty-kilometer area. No moonlight reaction detected outside the illumination range. Activating corresponding area sensors, switching to optical observation… Visual signal confirmation."

Lines of information appeared from the void in front of Hao Ren, and the data terminal reported the observation records from the surface in a somewhat mechanical synthesized voice, while corresponding real-time images floated into the air one after another.

After observing the Red Moon's descent from a third-party perspective for the first time, many previously unknown details were revealed.

In a real-time image from the surface, Hao Ren saw a clear dividing line in the air. One side of the dividing line was filled with blood-red moonlight, while the other side was a clear and normal night sky. Between the two was as if an invisible barrier, completely confining the gauze-like moonlight within the illuminated area.

Hao Ren looked towards space: the Red Moon was quietly suspended there, like a crystal clear ball. It shone directly on the earth from space, and in theory, its light should be visible to the entire eastern hemisphere of Erem, but in fact—all the moonlight was confined to the City of Stars and a very small surrounding area.

After moving a certain distance away from this area, one couldn't even see the Red Moon when looking up at the night sky.

"The moonlight from space seems to be focused on a certain area around Vivian," the data terminal said. "It's not a laser, but it has similar properties: extremely high directivity, it will be constrained into a beam, and it carries high energy, coupled with various non-physical propagation methods and proprietary properties, it's obviously not pure 'light.' What exactly it is remains to be analyzed."

"Directivity and constraint…" Hao Ren blinked. "If you're going to treat the earth as a stage, Vivian has practically become the leading lady standing under a spotlight."

"And she has a dedicated, ultra-huge spotlight—it's just ridiculously huge."

Hao Ren raised his head and looked at the crimson planet in front of the Tortoise Rock Platform: "Yeah, about half the size of the moon."

The summoned "Red Moon," this mysterious summoning object, had its first layer of veil lifted at a very close distance for the first time, no longer a hazy, legendary thing, but a tangible object that could be touched, observed, measured, and analyzed. Hao Ren could see the extremely blood-red color on the surface of this planet in space, as well as the clearly visible, neat纹路 (wén lù, patterns), the latter arousing his greatest curiosity: those patterns were completely different from the usual crustal folds on the surface of solid planets. Their height was more uniform, and their distribution was more even. If he had to say, they were closer to the waves on the sea surface—yet they were still.

"The preliminary analysis of this planet is out," the data terminal suddenly said after a moment. "It's very… strange. Various solid detection radars have sent back echoes, proving that this planet has a physical body, but gravity radar has no response. It seems to have no gravity…"

Hao Ren frowned: "No gravity? The law of universal gravitation doesn't work here? Is it because it has no mass itself?"

"Solid matter without mass? Another property that violates the rules," the data terminal shook its body. "This kind of thing would get a zero on a creation science exam… But the void is full of strange things, and no one can say for sure. Actually, there's another guess, that this planet is surrounded by a huge gravity-blocking field. It itself has mass and gravity, but these properties don't interact with the outside world at all."

Gravity-blocking fields were something Hao Ren had heard of, a technology commonly used on super-giant starships or space fortresses—for those space fortresses that were hundreds or even thousands of kilometers in size, the universal gravitation they generated was no small trouble, especially when coordinating with other space units. A large number of gravitational sources interfering with each other would cause catastrophic effects on small aircraft traveling within them, so super-giant starships and space fortresses were mostly equipped with gravity blockers, which could block the gravitational disturbances of giant space facilities to the outside world, the phenomenon produced being very similar to the Red Moon in front of him.

This technology was a bit incomprehensible to many races with lower levels of civilization, but after witnessing the K-series sovereign hubs (three giant artificial planetary fortresses) of this universe, Hao Ren was not surprised by this.

He stroked his chin: "There's a gravity-blocking generator inside the Red Moon… I feel like this possibility is even lower than 'the Red Moon has a solid body but no mass.' This thing is mapped out of Vivian's imagination. Does she even understand the principle of a gravity-blocking generator? What kind of summons has this kind of setting?"

"What kind of summons is a planet?"

"That's true… Tsk, does the Red Moon have destructive radiation?"

"Low levels of radioactivity detected, but harmless. Buddy, are we landing?"

"Lower altitude, let's go down and take a look."

The Tortoise Rock Platform changed its angle flexibly in space, its bow dipping down, descending towards the Red Moon's ominous crimson surface.

The surface of the planet rapidly magnified in his field of vision, soon becoming a continuous "land." Although the Red Moon was only half the size of the Moon, it could still be considered a standard dwarf planet. At a close enough distance, such a planet would not look much different from a normal planet. Hao Ren piloted the Tortoise Rock Platform quickly over the planet's surface, while releasing high-precision probes carried on the ship along the way, and a large amount of images and data were transmitted to the bridge's imaging system.

"See it…" Hao Ren pointed to the obvious details on the screen.

"That's right, it's the ocean, a red ocean."

"But it's still."

"Like a holographic image…" the data terminal said quietly.

The surface of the Red Moon presented a transparent texture, a texture that was obviously liquid. The fine and neat patterns that could be seen in space were precisely the ripples of this liquid surface—or rather, the waves, but unlike normal sea surfaces… everything was still.

Not frozen, but abruptly frozen in a rippling state, like a paused frame.

And beneath this liquid surface, large areas of shadow could be seen, as well as areas of signal chaos that were difficult to distinguish even by the ship's radar.

These various anomalies mixed together, causing you to even have the illusion that it has a solid outer shell when observing the surface of the Red Moon from a distance.

No wonder Lolisa was so sure that she saw a planet with a solid surface when she described the Red Moon she saw in the illusion…