Chapter 78: Special Mission
The 's engine let out a piercing shriek under overload, the airframe surface faintly reddening from the air friction of high-speed flight.
Ahead of the nose, the was slowly rising—now less than thirty meters from the enormous semi-transparent limb hanging in the sky.
In a flash, the contest was decided.
Under 's desperate, damn-the-torpedoes maneuvering, the beat the semi-transparent limb to the punch and slammed head-on into the hovering .
But there was no impact feedback as expected. The instant the UAV's nose touched the crystal, it was as if it had passed through an illusory phantom.
At the same moment, the enormous limb that had reached out of the rift in the clouds finally arrived.
Chhk!
Like a blade piercing metal, it gave off a teeth-grating sound.
The 's airframe was pierced through in an instant. Sparks burst from its internal structure in a chain, and then it exploded in midair into a ball of burning fire.
But both and the unknown existence behind the clouds were plunged into confusion.
The crystal had vanished. hadn't even noticed how it disappeared—as if it had been an illusion from the very start.
“ROAR——!!!”
From the sky came an enraged roar that seemed to tear the firmament apart.
The thick, heavy clouds that had been coiled over churned and spun madly at that moment, like a giant beast provoked into a frenzy.
Deep within the clouds, blinding bolts of lightning flashed again and again; then the rumble of thunder shook heaven and earth.
BOOM! BOOOOM!
Hundreds of thunderbolts descended like an inverted forest of sharp swords, hammering indiscriminately into the ruins of .
Violet-white arcs lit the earth bright as day, and zombies on the streets were charred into blackened husks in swaths.
Then, a colossal tornado linking heaven and earth dropped vertically from the center of the churning cloud hole. Everything the wind column passed through was dragged in and torn to shreds.
From a distance, it looked as though a corner of the sky had collapsed.
On a distant highway.
lowered the binoculars in his hands, watching the absurd tornado column and the successive flashes of lightning in the direction of , and swallowed reflexively.
This mythic scene was far too overwhelming in its visual impact.
“ ,” he said into his , his tone rarely this strained, “what did you do to make it this angry?”
[Actually, I'm quite confused too.]
's voice rang out, carrying undisguised bewilderment.
He had already steeled himself for coming away empty-handed. So what if the touched the crystal?
That limb was clearly faster than he was—there was no way he could grab it and escape.
But unexpectedly, the instant the airframe made contact with the crystal, the crystal vanished, and at the same time the system popped up a notification unlike anything before.
[Ding! Detected the coming into contact with ???. triggered: ???]
[Mission description: ???]
[Mission reward: ???]
[Current mission progress: 1]
That string of question marks left even dumbfounded, and he even suspected the system had hit a bug.
But one thing was certain: the crystal had definitely not been taken by that big thing in the sky, or else it wouldn't have thrown such a fit.
silently filed the matter away in his mind, but for now, he chose to set it aside.
After all, there were plenty of things in this apocalypse that defied understanding—one more hardly made a difference.
Then he turned his attention back to the underground beneath the area.
...
When led his shaken little team scrambling back through the depths of the underground passage alongside the , what greeted them was a tunnel that had already been broken through, brightly lit from end to end.
At the other end of the tunnel, , leaning back against the armored vehicle and chewing on an energy bar, waved at them.
“ ! It's so great that you're all safe!” A crowd at the tunnel mouth surrounded them and began explaining in a jumble of voices. “They're a rescue team from a place called .”
After some explanation, and the others understood that this was the rescue had mentioned; most of the people had already evacuated in an orderly manner.
Only a few had stayed behind specifically to wait for them to return.
At this realization, and the people behind him all fell silent.
A young student couldn't help muttering softly: “So... what was all that running around for?”
If they had left just a little later back then, they'd probably already be riding this big machine that obviously looked very safe, heading straight out.
[Relax,] 's steady electronic voice came from the 's speaker. [It may not have been of any use, but at least it tired you out.]
“...”
The group was left speechless, yet their taut nerves unconsciously loosened at the deadpan joke.
Exhaustion and lingering fear surged in like a tide. Someone plopped down on the ground, gasping for breath.
The relief of surviving and the bewilderment about the future were interwoven on every face.
Afterward, under 's coordination, the last batch of survivors from beneath Huining all returned to the through the newly opened underground tunnel.
With that, the more than two hundred people from Huining's underground, plus and the others from the mall, became new members of —two hundred eighty-four people in total.
The most notable characteristic of this batch of survivors was their relatively decent level of education. After all, they had all come from !
Especially the twenty-odd people led by —all of them researchers at the , bona fide highly educated talents before the disaster.
Their arrival would undoubtedly greatly accelerate the progress of the 's various construction missions.
At this moment, , the cafeteria of the .
had changed into a clean set of gray training fatigues, his hair combed immaculately, calmly and elegantly eating the noodles on his plate.
“Th-this... this flavor is too authentic.” set down his chopsticks and sighed with genuine appreciation, then looked at the he had just received on the table. “Mr. , the chef you have here is amazing!”
As for this AI that rivaled a real person, had naturally been utterly shocked at first. After all, even if he wasn't qualified to participate in such a project, theoretically he shouldn't have been completely unaware of it, right?
But after touring all the black technology in the , he fully understood: if the state's classified projects researched these very technologies, then it was only natural that he hadn't been qualified to know about them back then.
[Basic survival support is the prerequisite for the continuation of civilization,] 's voice came from the . [ , I'm very interested in that weapon you all used before.]
“Oh, you mean that ,” wiped his mouth. “That's just a half-finished product. Limited power, endurance problems, and a terrifyingly high cost. Honestly, it's pretty useless at this stage.”
“I just grabbed it from Old Zhang's lab on a whim. Mainly it can serve as a spear—it's pretty sturdy.”
[No problem, those are all minor issues. I'm just curious about its experimental data. Do you have the related parameter documentation?]
“Yes, of course,” nodded. “We evacuated in a hurry, but I grabbed a few files from the desk on the way out. There should be some in there.”
With that, he set down his utensils, took out the bag he carried, and carefully pulled out a stack of slightly crumpled paper documents.
A on standby walked over. then spread the documents out page by page, letting the 's camera scan them.
As the relevant data was entered, the system notification he had been waiting for rang out in the depths of 's consciousness.
[Ding! Detected that someone among the survivors is carrying technical documentation and samples related to electromagnetic weapons.]
[Technology auto-unlocked: (Lv.1)]
[Reward: Unlocked manufacturing technology for electromagnetic rifles and electromagnetic machine guns, along with supporting ammunition production lines and corresponding blueprints. 1000 .]
Along with the notification, on the vast in his mind, another node that had been dim quietly lit up with a soft white glow.
's mood immediately soared.
Nothing paid for with points is ever as sweet as something free!
The main reason he hadn't unlocked this tech before was that conventional weapons were still sufficient for now, and advanced weapons weren't easy to mass-produce.
But now, not only had he not spent a single point, he had netted a thousand instead. An absolute steal.
[ , I saw in your background information that you have experience participating in military-industrial projects.] After calming his control rod, continued. [If I wanted to establish a comprehensive here at the , what suggestions would you have?]
“A ?” 's expression turned serious as he mused. “Oh, right. That really is something worth considering.”
He thought for a moment, then continued: “But honestly, I only know a little about this. If we're truly starting from zero, the first things are site selection and planning, and then equipment.”
“I recall that in the there are several large precision-instrument factories and special-steel plants. If we can move the equipment from there, it would save us a lot of trouble.”
“Oh, and if we can salvage from existing facilities, that works too. There are at least two major munitions factories in , though they're a bit far.”
spoke at length with ease, from basic equipment selection, to production-line layout planning, to personnel training systems—displaying extremely high professional competence.
As he listened, silently marked the locations he had mentioned on the map, and at the same time, transmitted a set of data to 's .
[These are two mature weapon designs and supporting production-line plans I extrapolated from your prototype data, combined with the theoretical models in my database. Take a look and see if they're feasible.]
opened the projection. Gazing at the two electromagnetic-weapon designs full of sci-fi beauty on the screen, and the production-line flowchart beside them that detailed every single component, his breath caught sharply.
He adjusted his glasses and examined them closely three times before speaking in a rather strange tone: “Feasible... 'Feasible' doesn't even begin to describe it!”
“Th-this... this is simply the pinnacle. Mr. , your computing power is truly incredible!”
Although this wasn't his main area of research, did know a thing or two. The moment he saw the designs, he got the immediate sensation of looking at a standard answer key.
It was simply inconceivable—but once he remembered that the one on the other side was an AI beyond its era, it was no longer strange.
At that thought, laughed at himself, then turned serious. “Alright, I have a rough idea now. I'll write up a detailed proposal later, laying out the priorities and feasible plans.”
[Then I'll leave it to you.]
“You're welcome.”
...
Meanwhile, in the ruins at the core of the explosion in .
The thunderbolts had long since ceased, and even the sky had cleared for the first time in ages—the clouds that had lingered for so long had dispersed at some unknown point.
On the leveled ruins, only a few scattered zombies remained, wandering aimlessly.
A lady in a white dress appeared noiselessly atop a mound of rubble.
Her pure white long dress stood out harshly against the scorched black earth.
Behind her, four vivid red flesh tentacles suddenly shot out.
Like agile pythons, they easily pushed aside the layers of rubble and steel rebar, revealing the massive black creature buried beneath—it was , its presence faint.
At the sight of the woman, one of 's limbs trembled slightly as it carefully offered up, from a gap in the carapace of its abdomen, a perfectly intact blood-red the size of a fist.
The outline of an embryo was faintly visible at the 's center.
The woman took the , placed it into a silver-white container, and dropped it into a huge pit nearby.
At the bottom of the pit, a colossal creature seemed to flash past and vanish.
After doing all this, a trace of a smile finally appeared on her previously indifferent face.
“Well done.”
She said softly, “This way, the master can become a true .”
However, in the next second, the flesh tentacles behind her reversed direction and, like venomous snakes, bored into the wounds on 's body that were deep enough to show bone.
“Hiss...” let out a series of strange, rapid syllables, as if protesting and failing to understand.
The woman's expression returned to coldness. “I know you can recover, but we're out of time.”
The woman raised her head, looking toward the , her eyes filled with undisguised killing intent and wariness.
“The war is about to begin.”
“That power station is too dangerous. No matter what it is, we absolutely cannot give it any more chance to grow... For the sake of the great civilization, we must end it.”
's limbs scraped anxiously against the ground, again emitting a string of syllables.
The woman's movements paused for a beat. She looked down at the enormous monster before her, her gaze like that of someone inspecting a tool in need of repair.
“You're afraid?”
A trace of incomprehension crept into the woman's voice. “Afraid of death?”
Then she reached out and gently stroked the vertical eye slit in the center of 's face.
“Don't forget, from the moment we appeared, we never existed for the sake of 'being alive.'”
Her voice suddenly turned shrill, carrying a fanatical, aria-like cadence.
“The only thing that is great is life itself—not you, not me, not those foolish husks, and certainly not that cold, twisted steel monster.”
“The only thing worthy of praise is the vivid thing not yet born. [Life] will reveal itself in the instant of its birth.”
“Everything that already exists is nothing but an ugly transition! Only by ceaselessly creating greater and more perfect life, at any cost, can anything be worthy of the name of true civilization.”
“Just like this very moment! We will all die, and a more perfect life will be born because of it. That is the only meaning.”
The moment the woman finished speaking, her entire body began to melt like a wax figure, turning into a viscous, vivid torrent of flesh that, following the four tentacles, surged madly into 's wounds.
In the next second, the vertical eye on 's face blazed with a scarlet light.
Across its jet-black carapace, countless crimson filaments burst out from within like a spider's web, covering its entire body in the blink of an eye.
At the same time, its body began to swell at a clearly visible speed.