The First Superhuman: Rebuilding Civilization from the Moon

Austin was furious. Truly furious.

However, he still managed to maintain a degree of rationality. He could easily authorize the launch of a barrage of high-yield nuclear warheads, weapons boasting yields in the billion or even trillion metric ton range but if he did that, he would completely obliterate the fragile ecosystem of this planet, rendering it useless to the Federation. A trillion-metric-ton nuclear yield was an apocalyptic force; they had to be careful.

After the initial exchange of nuclear fireballs, intense electromagnetic interference blanketed the upper atmosphere, causing a temporary lull in the battlefield for both sides.

Piloted by its onboard AI, the Titan-Z initiated complex evasive maneuvers, continuously accelerating and shifting its trajectory to prevent the enemy from locking onto its position. During this brief respite, Austin rapidly conferred with his tactical experts and concluded that continuous suppressive fire was absolutely necessary.

Based on the current telemetry, the sheer volume of ICBMs and orbital rockets possessed by this primitive civilization vastly exceeded the economic and industrial capabilities of a standard Level-K civilization. At the very least... their arsenal was significantly more heavily armed than early humanity had been!

"Damn it, how do they have so many ICBMs? Is this entire civilization just a bunch of warmongers? Detonating nukes on their own soil, do they not care about radioactive fallout?" Austin muttered, voicing the countless questions circulating among his crew.

About ten minutes later, the atmospheric mushroom clouds began to dissipate, vaguely revealing the surface below. Austin stared intently at the main viewscreen, his finger hovering over the nuclear launch authorization, ready to turn the entire sector into scorched earth if necessary.

"Minister Austin, the mothership has sent a laser-line transmission, instructing us to retreat for now..." a communications officer reported hurriedly, but his voice trailed off as an astonishing image appeared on his monitor.

There was no massive military base hidden below the clouds as they had imagined...

Instead, it was an ocean of bizarre, shifting colors. A vast expanse of water, sharply divided into distinct, unnatural hues!

In that fleeting glimpse, a look of sheer horror crossed the communications officer’s face.

A colossal, ring-shaped structure had manifested in the ocean! It was at least two hundred kilometers in diameter, glaring up at the Titan-Z in orbit like a ferocious, tyrannical eye!

The terrifying image was captured in perfect high-definition by the spaceship’s optical sensors and broadcasted across the bridge. An inexplicable sense of dread gripped everyone; it felt as though they were being actively watched by something unfathomable.

Is this... a living creature?! The eye of a biological entity?

Austin’s heart hammered against his ribs; the sheer, incomprehensible scale of the thing exerted a crushing psychological pressure... especially with that gargantuan eye locked directly onto his ship.

But in the next instant, his tactical instincts took over. He keenly noticed several active missile silos hidden within the green-tinted waters of the "eye." Ignoring the terrifying visage, the targeting computer rapidly locked onto twenty-one suspicious hostile signatures. Strangely, the hideous eye seemed to be slowly fading, dissolving back into the ocean.

"...Stop trying to scare us!" Austin roared, his anger overriding any lingering fear.

Seeing the pale, hesitant faces of his bridge crew infuriated him even more. He knew one absolute truth: the Federation was the true apex predator here!

Disregarding all other concerns, he authorized the launch of a single, one-billion-metric-ton helium-3 nuclear warhead. Something in the atmosphere seemed to try and intercept the payload, but it failed utterly against the extreme velocity of the Federation’s weaponry. Carrying the full, unbridled fury of humanity, the apocalyptic bomb hurtled down toward the ocean.

BOOM!

A dozen seconds later, an impossibly massive sphere of light erupted from the ocean, birthing a towering mushroom cloud that pierced the upper atmosphere and instantly churned up millions of metric tons of white water vapor.

In that fraction of a second, countless marine organisms were incinerated by the blast, vast swathes of the ocean boiled away, and the giant, green eye was completely swallowed by the blinding nuclear flash...

Following the one-billion-metric-ton detonation, the sheer volume of evaporated seawater generated a dense, impenetrable blanket of white fog over the ocean, obscuring everything. There was no way to visually confirm if the strike had actually killed the entity.

After observing the static-filled sensors for several minutes without any new developments, Austin formally issued the retreat order. As they pulled back, the Titan-Z deployed dozens of high-speed Swallow interceptor drones to continuously patrol the sector and automatically engage any hostile targets that broke the surface.

"Bring us home!" Austin commanded. Despite his explosive temper, he didn’t actually want to use the spaceship’s arsenal to wipe out the entire planet.

Disappointed and on edge, the massive space fortress broke orbit and headed back toward the Deep Space. Thus ended the sudden, disastrous skirmish.

Half a day later, the vanguard fleet successfully docked with the mothership.

The rookie captains disembarked looking thoroughly disheveled, deeply ashamed of their panicked, uncoordinated reactions. A soldier who froze like a terrified civilian during a crisis was simply unfit for duty.

Austin’s face turned beet red with anger the moment he saw the rookies. Based on the combat logs, the reaction time gap between the veterans and the new recruits was only about ten seconds but in space combat, ten seconds was a lifetime!

What was the point of having a human commander if they lacked the initiative and independent thought of a simple combat drone? They had only survived because their advanced warships vastly overpowered the enemy’s crude weapons. If they had faced an opponent of equal technological standing, they would have been reduced to cosmic dust! Did command really have to hold their hands and explicitly tell them when to shoot and when to run?

Austin resolved to subject the rookies to a brutal retraining regimen. Sheltered greenhouse flowers were completely useless on the battlefield!

Setting military discipline aside for the moment, the senior staff was immediately summoned to a classified briefing upon their return. Hundreds of high-ranking Federation officials were already seated in the conference hall, waiting anxiously.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the most pressing question we face is this: what exactly is this highly aggressive entity? Did it cause the extinction of the native civilization? And more importantly... did it survive our nuclear strike?"

Jason addressed the assembly from the podium. While he was fully aware of the glaring issues within the military ranks, now was not the time to address them.

Seated below him were the Federation’s primary think tank and the Senior Scientists. Projected on the screen behind Jason were the latest high-resolution images retrieved from the battlefield. Although many orbital satellites had been destroyed, they had still managed to salvage a wealth of tactical data. While waiting for the fleet to return, the analysts had been working frantically to make sense of the situation.

"I know the footage might be difficult to comprehend at first glance," Jason continued. "A biological entity of that sheer scale seems fundamentally impossible! But we must remember that the universe is vast and terrifyingly strange. Our current understanding of reality barely scratches the surface..."

He gave a subtle hand signal, and a tactical officer immediately zoomed in on the satellite imagery. "Captain! We’ve lost telemetry from almost all the automated submersibles previously deployed in the ocean. However, the aerial drones and ground-based hexapod robots are fully operational and transmitting flawlessly!"

Jason nodded gravely. "This suggests... the entity survived the blast, and it wields overwhelming destructive power within the ocean itself. Or rather... its influence extends directly to the water! What are your thoughts?"

Several Senior Scientists murmured among themselves before one pressed his microphone button. "Captain, could you magnify that central image again?"

"Go ahead. Enhance the resolution by a factor of ten," Jason ordered the technician.

As the image scaled up, the orbital perspective did indeed resemble a colossal eye staring out from the sea. However, as the digital enhancement sharpened the details, a startling truth was revealed. The "eye" was composed of swirling currents of differently colored water, deep blues, vibrant greens, pitch blacks, and crimson reds—all violently churning together.

Even stranger, at maximum magnification, there was absolutely no biological mass detected. It was as if... the seawater itself was naturally pigmented! The shifting, colored currents were what formed the illusion of the "eye."

"Ladies and gentlemen..." the scientist breathed, "we aren’t looking at a giant biological creature. It appears this ’eye’ is a bizarre, large-scale natural phenomenon."

"Furthermore, reviewing the telemetry transmitted by the submersibles right before they went offline, there were no massive biological signatures detected anywhere in the vicinity."

Hearing this revelation, Austin and the other military commanders sat in stunned silence...

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