Godzilla Earth: Origin (Patreon)

Volume 2 Chapter 130: Machinery

A long, silent pause was finally broken by someone speaking in a hoarse voice.

“It’s that little Godzilla…”

That little Godzilla—the same one they had already confirmed to exist several dozen days ago.

They had originally believed it couldn't possibly possess the ability to fire high-energy lasers. But reality had mercilessly crushed their assumptions.

It could fire lasers—and not weak ones either. The power output was at least in the terawatt range.

At the very least, it was enough to defend that territory of just a few hundred thousand square kilometers.

“So… what do we do now? Should we keep letting Damocles fire?”

The fact that little Godzilla had such capabilities had completely blindsided them. After all, its body was just over a hundred meters tall. When the big Godzilla was that size, it didn’t have any laser ability—it could still be kited by humans back then.

“No need…”

Aside from that one hundred-billion-ton super nuke, the rest of their nuclear warheads were now clearly ineffective against that side, given what just happened.

Firing them now would just be a waste of ammunition. And the hundred-billion-ton nuke…

That was the final weapon reserved for dealing with Godzilla.

If they used it now, humanity would be left completely defenseless against Godzilla.

Sure, the Oxygen Destroyer could harm Godzilla, but Godzilla could easily disperse the destroyer around itself with just a single breath.

So, in practical terms, the only weapon left that could potentially inflict serious damage on it was that super high-yield nuclear warhead. If they used it anywhere else, humanity might as well start waiting to die.

The containment plan had failed.

And the failure of that plan weighed heavily in everyone’s hearts.

They had considered the possibility that it might fail. It wasn’t humanity’s only backup plan.

But still—still.

In their expectations, the one to make this plan fail wasn’t supposed to be—couldn’t be—that little Godzilla!

If the big Godzilla had thwarted their plan, they could understand and accept that. But the little Godzilla had stopped them…

That meant one thing.

That “it”… was a true Godzilla.

Not just some imitation that shared its appearance—its internal structure, even at that size, was superior to that of the big Godzilla!

A single Godzilla had already driven humanity to the edge. Now there were two.

And Godzilla could reproduce. In a few days, there might be a third, a fourth…

Even though its current size was much smaller than that of the big Godzilla, let’s not forget—it had only taken the big one a few months to grow from 200 meters to 600 meters tall!

At this rate, by this time next year, the planet could be swarming with giant Godzillas!

The silence was laced with despair. After quite some time, someone finally continued the conversation:

“Don’t lose hope, everyone. We still have the Bilusaludo. Their mothership will arrive on Earth soon. No matter how many Godzillas there are, it won’t matter by then.”

“What we should be focusing on now is the one and only large Godzilla. As long as we can defeat—or rather, repel—it, all we need to do is wait a little longer.”

“So, SkyNet, report the extent of the damage.”

Silence could only last so long—business had to continue. The engineering teams asked SkyNet, the system controller, to report the damage caused by the big Godzilla laser, so they could improve the Damocles System for the next round.

“Zone 7: A total of 90 reflective layers damaged, penetration rate 45%.”

“Zone 6: 72 reflective layers damaged, penetration rate 36%, primary acceleration port damaged—”

A cold female voice began to list the damage data. Upon hearing the report, everyone felt something different in their hearts.

Some people marveled at the sheer power of Godzilla attack.

Even after traveling through tens of thousands of kilometers of atmospheric scattering, the beam still managed to melt through half of humanity’s most advanced defensive barrier…

If it had struck from directly above, that single attack would have been enough to destroy the entire system.

This proves that even now, it’s still incomplete…

It’s still not enough to stop Godzilla.

But others were struck by the power of something else entirely.

The Damocles System hadn’t actually taken long to build. Aside from the main electromagnetic acceleration rail, all those defensive layers meant to reflect Godzilla’s attack and the various nuclear warheads had taken less than ten days to produce.

And those ten days included the design phase—meaning the actual manufacturing time had been even shorter.

Why had something like this been constructed in such a short time?

The partial knowledge derived from the Bilusaludo certainly played a significant role.

But the true hero wasn’t that knowledge. It wasn’t any alien artifact.

It was a purely human creation.

It was… the machines.

Ever since the unbanning of strong AI, humanity’s production speed has increased by dozens, even hundreds of times. These machines, capable of self-replication and exponential growth, caused a massive explosion in human productivity.

In every aspect imaginable.

Godzilla’s early assault had caught humanity off guard. The current Damocles System had only a third of its originally planned defensive capability, and in terms of armament, it carried only a few one-gigaton nukes and one hundred-gigaton warhead. These posed no real existential threat to Godzilla.

All of this was true.

But considering it had gone from concept to reality in just ten days…

That was already an incredible feat.

Given more time, it was possible that AI might evolve even faster than Godzilla or the little Godzilla.

With that thought, those who had just fallen into despair over the little Godzilla’s power suddenly found themselves reinvigorated.

“System, rotate the reflective layers in the relevant directions, recalibrate the trajectory. Activate the continuous edge-propulsion system—we want the entire shield structure to reach a rotational speed of over 100 revolutions per second before Godzilla fires again. Also, unload the small-scale ordnance, and load in the Destroyer unit. Prepare for the next strike.”

“Understood.”

In space, the shield panels facing Godzilla-Earth began detaching the damaged parts, letting them fall into the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, other zones began transporting their reflective panels to the rear of Zones 6 and 7 to reinforce their thickness until the wall was restored to its original layer count.

Once this operation was complete, the lower layer of the space station—the reflective layer—began to slowly rotate. This tactic was based on the same principle once used by Ghidorah's Wings, which adjusted their positions minutely in battle.

The goal was the same:

To prevent the laser from striking the same point repeatedly and melting through. Continuous movement made that impossible.

Compared to Ghidorah's Wings, however, humanity’s space station lacked real-time mobility. So they had to initiate rotation in advance. With a high enough rotational speed, the defensive strength against laser attacks would increase severalfold.

Of course, this strategy only worked if Godzilla-Earth attacked from a wide angle. If it moved directly underneath them, no amount of rotation would help.

This was the limit of human defensive ingenuity.

The compound reflective surfaces could greatly weaken the laser’s melting effect. Even if heat deformation reduced reflectivity, the multilayered design ensured that once one layer was pierced, another intact reflective surface would be there to meet the beam.

And a spin rate of 100 revolutions per second ensured that Godzilla-Earth’s laser would be distributed across all zones evenly, drastically reducing the time it lingered on any one point.

According to the original design, a fully completed Damocles System was supposed to withstand dozens—even hundreds—of Godzilla-Earth's high-energy laser blasts from locations such as Australia or East Asia. After withstanding such an assault, humanity would then promptly send teams to replace the reflective layers, achieving a level of defense where Godzilla-Earth’s attacks would no longer be feared.

That was the plan.

Reality, however, turned out quite different.

As things stand now, Godzilla-Earth’s high-energy laser is more powerful than humanity had anticipated.

At least until humanity could mass-produce large quantities of advanced reflective materials, there was no way to achieve a balance of destruction and consumption.

Relying solely on human capability wasn’t going to be enough.

But humanity wasn’t entirely on its own.

“Master, a superior solution has been detected. Shall we implement it?”

While the Damocles System was still undergoing repairs, it suddenly spoke without awaiting a command. A document then appeared on the central screen, showing detailed parameters for the Damocles System as well as the command plan issued earlier.

But beneath that plan, there was another.

A plan proposed by the AI itself.

During the repair process, the AI managing Damocles had continuously monitored all system parameters. After analysis, it determined that the commands from Earth were not optimal. It had come up with a better approach.

Everyone in the meeting room fell into stunned silence again. After a brief consultation with the engineering team, they confirmed that the AI's plan was indeed superior.

In the end, humanity granted it permission to act.

Though the operation in East Asia had failed, humanity still had another plan in place over in North America.

The screen switched back to Godzilla-Earth. At that moment, the massive creature had advanced to a human city. Its eyes were locked onto it—this human nest.

It seemed to be seeing what this place looked like millions of years ago, when it had been a sea of green. Now, steel, concrete, and neon had replaced everything.

The lush green earth had become a cold jungle of steel. Where wetlands and grasslands once thrived with life, now only hovercars parked by the roadside and active maintenance drones remained.

Even after all humans had evacuated, the machines had not stopped working. They continued cleaning the streets.

The air was filled with the echo of advertisements promoting luxury goods. To human ears, these sounds were like celestial music—and that wasn’t an exaggeration, because the voices were AI-generated. Nature could never produce such perfect harmonies.

Humans stared through satellite feeds. Satellites stared at Godzilla-Earth. Godzilla-Earth stared at the city.

And so, people stared at the city too.

Suddenly, in Eden and in many other places, the image of this abandoned city—seen through the satellite’s eye—began to feel strangely unfamiliar.

Machine voices. Machine movements. Machine footsteps. Machine operations…

Machines cleaning the city. Machines building it. Machines advertising it.

Machines were handling everything—and running everything.

And in that brief moment, this desolate, unfamiliar view filled the hearts of everyone present with a fear even greater than that evoked by the mountain-sized beast.

No, no, no.

We can’t think like that.

They shook their heads, forcing that strange thought out of their minds. Still, their eyes turned back to the massive beast—

Waiting to witness the moment it destroyed that city.

Godzilla-Earth still hadn’t moved.

It was simply gazing at the city. What was it thinking?

. . . . . . . . .

Nature gave birth to humanity.

Tens of thousands of years ago, humans entered these wetlands, formed settlements, thrived, and grew in number.

Humanity transformed nature.

Their population swelled—small tribes became large tribes, large tribes became small nations—and with each step, nature was further altered. They reshaped every living creature’s home into one that belonged solely to them.

Other animals were displaced. Millions of years of natural accumulation were utterly destroyed by humanity.

But...

Was that truly humanity’s fault?

Not entirely.

Godzilla-Earth knew. Godzilla-Earth understood.

For any individual organism, the first priority is survival. That’s the fundamental truth.

From the perspective of the species as a whole, perhaps humanity no longer needed to expand. Continued expansion only served to senselessly damage nature…

But think carefully—such a view is far too grand in scale.

Zoom in. Focus on the individual humans living at the edges of cities and settlements.

Then, it becomes clear: they must expand. They can only expand.

Humanity’s encroachment upon nature is not some unique sin. Any creature granted the same intelligence and capability would do the same. This is the essence of life. This is a biological instinct.

Even if a collective has achieved equilibrium, as long as just one individual is deprived—just one person lacks something—then they will push forward on behalf of the group. They will continue the expansion.

Even if, paradoxically, such expansion harms the collective as a whole.

One species of ant, among countless colonies, once introduced fungi to ensure its own survival and reproduction. In doing so, it became bound to the fungi—completely domesticated, trapped at the edges of the forest.

The same applies to humanity. The poor burn forests to survive, hoping to gain economically. Individually, it may be a profit. But when measured by the cost of replanting every acre of forest and addressing the CO₂ produced, the overall result is a net loss for the human race.

Unequal distribution leads to endless collective greed. This is not unique to humans—it is the inherent nature of all living beings born of this Earth.

Throughout the evolutionary history of life on Earth—counted in hundreds of millions of years—there were some beings that transcended.

The Titans.

Beings that were each their own species, each their own civilization.

But the rise of humanity, the species that most perfectly embodied that destructive instinct, brought the Titans to extinction—returning the planet to its familiar cycle.

It seems the life on this planet is destined to cycle like this—again and again...

Until one day...

A new lifeform arises—one that no longer distinguishes between individual and collective.