Chapter 11 Disguise

The pre-departure cleanup was simple: make it look like everyone inside the facility had died in the crash, and that the facility itself had suffered logical damage consistent with the crash, to completely conceal the truth about the "landing unit"—a skill every actor must master.

Disguising the deaths of personnel wasn't difficult, as Hao Ren and his companions had never revealed themselves to the Corrupted Ones. The Corrupted Ones had no idea who was controlling the drone swarm. Those active on the surface of Nakdal Fortress were all drones and autonomous mechanical units. If the Corrupted Ones had monitored the surface, they would only have seen those mechanical lifeforms.

So, leaving behind a bunch of empty shells of autonomous machines and drones in the command station was all that was needed.

Before coming, Hao Ren had Nolan use the Ark's factory modules to produce a large number of autonomous machines and initial-type drones without central processing chips. Now, he placed these things in various areas of the command station to create the illusion that they were the facility's operators.

He also erased all traces of humans from the central control room: the ergonomic seats and handles, as well as the manual control panels, were all burned into a pile of rubble by a pre-set self-destruct program. These were the only items in the entire command station that bore any human traces.

The plan had been meticulous from the start. Only drones, autonomous machines, and guardian giants were active in front of the Corrupted Ones. Hao Ren and the other true controllers remained "ghosts" who had never appeared before the Corrupted Legion. The monsters would never imagine that such a group of infiltrators they had never seen had already landed on their planetary warship, and the clues they would find in the crashed command station would further conceal this fact.

After completing the "personnel" disguise, Hao Ren ordered the shutdown of all the command station's energy and activated the countdown bombs pre-set at various support points. When these bombs detonated, the entire command station would experience a large-scale collapse and severe disintegration, thus erasing the fact that "the inertial suppressor protected the core area."

They finally stood on the land of Amantir.

Considering the complex situation on this planet, and the possibility of various accidents, requiring various professionals to prepare for any eventuality, Hao Ren brought his entire team this time, except for the very small Doudou, who was left on the Ark. Using the huge ground fissures and raised earth and rocks near the crash crater as cover, the group first moved away from the disintegrating and collapsing island fragment, then found a slightly higher place nearby to overlook the entire area.

The land of Amantir seemed to be stained with dark blood. The entire surface had an unsettling and oppressive dark red hue. On this dark red land, cracks and canyons were everywhere, and poisonous steam and plumes of smoke continuously spewed from these fissures, shrouding the entire area in a hazy fog.

Through this thin but toxic fog, Hao Ren saw many huge black silhouettes standing on the distant horizon. Those were the anti-spacecraft cannons pointing into space or the spire temples used for combat. These once-sacred things had now been transformed by the power of madness, and the chaotic energy filling them had just destroyed hundreds of thousands of drones and a considerable number of guardian warships. Even at this moment, a few of those black silhouettes were still glowing, with flashes of light occasionally appearing at their tips—they were still chasing the retreating drone legions and guardian warships in space.

In another direction, the terrain was clearly depressed, and a bright red light rose from the end of the horizon, as if a sun was about to rise from there. Countless small black dots, like mosquitoes, danced against the background of that red light. That was the location of the "Equatorial Rift" that nearly bisected the entire planet, which could be seen from space, and those small black dots that looked like mosquitoes were actually the army of Corrupted Giants and biochemical monsters.

The surface of Amantir was not barren. In fact, it even had an extremely lush "ecosystem," but all life had been twisted into hideous forms by the power of madness. On the dark red land, huge, tangled plants protruded from the surface like swollen limbs, trembling and writhing in the poisonous wind. Many mushroom-like oddities grew among the rocks and gravel, their huge canopies almost capable of covering a house. Amantir once had a surface ecosystem of green hills, clear waters, and clusters of flowers, just like the other two planetary fortresses, but after the power of the Lord of Madness completely permeated, all surviving plants had become this twisted and bizarre appearance.

But these huge plants were not entirely useless, at least… they could serve as cover.

"So disgusting…" Lily covered her nose, looking at a nearby ribbon-like plant that was constantly writhing. It had broad leaves and thick stems, but the leaves were covered with vein-like protrusions. The entire plant twisted and turned on the ground like an animal. This sanity-reducing thing made the husky girl's fur stand on end. Despite wearing a life-support collar, Lily still seemed to smell a disgusting odor and covered her nose the whole time, while complaining, "I feel like I won't be able to write anything wholesome after taking a trip around this planet…"

"When have you ever written anything wholesome?" Vivian was also quite resistant to the environment of Amantir's surface, but she couldn't lose out in front of the husky, and immediately began to mock, "Don't think I don't know, you're either writing dog food tasting reviews or two guys hugging and gnawing on each other. If that's still wholesome, then the whole world isn't perverted anymore!"

Lily glared: "Who said I only write those! I've also written reviews of Max Factor and Republican martial arts!"

Vivian sighed, arms crossed: "Can you not mention things from around 1930?"

Hao Ren glanced at the bickering pair with some helplessness, and looked up at a dark shadow in the distance: "According to the information Salamander gave us, the control center of Amantir is over there, next to the Equatorial Rift, with a large number of Corrupted Ones stationed nearby. The Amantir Crystal is stored underground there."

Lily scratched her head: "A lot of people stationed there? How are we going to get in?"

Nangong Sanba looked at her dumbfounded: "...Didn't you listen during the meeting?"

Lily looked innocent: "I couldn't help it if I fell asleep in the second half."

Hao Ren sighed: "There are several underground passages—actually, they're all facility ventilation ducts. For the size of the Guardian Giants, these ventilation ducts don't even count as entrances or exits, so the Corrupted Ones' monitoring of them should be very low. We can go in from there."

Lily clicked her tongue: "What a big loophole—those monsters aren't very smart."

"It's not a question of intelligence, but they've been fighting the Guardian Giants all along, and their thinking has long been fixed. They wouldn't think of such details for a while," Hao Ren explained, "It's like when you play hide-and-seek with someone, would you think of looking for them in a shoebox?"

Lily nodded: "Yes, Doudou usually hides in there—but my nose is good and I can always find her."

Hao Ren stared blankly, then slapped his forehead: "...Why am I explaining so much to a husky!"

As they spoke, the group continued to move forward.

The landing point for this operation was the result of careful discussion and planning. It was not very far from the destination, the control center where the Amantir Crystal was stored, but it was also not in an area densely packed with the Corrupted Legion's various defense facilities. Although smashing into a large area of Corrupted Ones' buildings from space sounded like a very satisfying thing, in order not to be surrounded by the swarming monster army afterwards, this idea had to be put aside.

From the landing point to the Amantir control center, there was a hilly area. This area had open terrain and lacked cover. If the monsters organized an aerial reconnaissance team, the chance of Hao Ren and his party being discovered would be greatly increased, but this journey was ultimately uneventful.

Because the Corrupted Legion's attention had not yet shifted back from the space battlefield.

The drone and guardian legions had indeed retreated from the front line, making a gesture of "the fortress is heavily damaged and the army is giving up the attack," but they had not completely withdrawn. Instead, they established a large number of space bunkers and fire platforms in places visible from Amantir, appearing ready to fight a protracted war right under the enemy's noses. The Corrupted Ones had always been in the upper hand in these thousands of years of war. When had they ever been in such an embarrassing situation of being forced to build bunkers at their doorstep by an army several times their size? But the huge drone swarm was always hovering on the edge of the battlefield, making the Corrupted Ones' commanders afraid to attack rashly, so the garrison on Amantir was constrained by a lot of attention.

As a result, the defense and monitoring of the surface of Amantir were inevitably affected.

But this constraint shouldn't last too long. Hao Ren always remembered that Amantir was a planetary warship, and warships… could run away.

If the Corrupted Ones' supreme commander realized that the guardian and drone legions were an entirely unbeatable force and decided to give up coveting the Nexus, then the entire Amantir turning around and rushing into the depths of the universe should be unstoppable by anyone.

However, in previous discussions, Salamander believed that even if Amantir eventually chose to escape, it wouldn't be in such a short period of time: the Corrupted Ones had been messing around at the Sacred Land for so many years, just as the Guardians' mission was to protect the Nexus, destroying the Nexus was also the monsters' "mission." Unless forced to the last moment, those monsters shouldn't easily choose to give up this place.

…

Magnificent temple buildings stood tall in the distance, with various distorted monsters flying back and forth above the temples, patrolling the entire area.

Although a lot of energy was being drawn away by the battle in space, the Corrupted Legion couldn't relax its defense of its headquarters. Reaching this point was the limit of ground operations.

Behind a pile of strange rocks that looked like jagged blades, the group stopped. Hao Ren lowered his body, raised his hand, and pointed to a metal gate protruding from the ground not far away: "That's one of the entrances to the ventilation ducts."

The data terminal floated into mid-air: "Can sense a stable airflow, the interior should be unobstructed."

Hao Ren nodded: "We'll go in from here."