Chapter 144 A Wave of Exploration

When Hao Ren and Vivian returned to the Nakdahl base, the Mad Clawspawn were gone.

A small detachment of them had attempted to penetrate the Nakdahl security perimeter, only to be met with a fierce counterattack by the drone swarm. After a brief battle, this group, seemingly used as cannon fodder to scout the way, was annihilated within the drone swarm's firing range. Other corrupted monsters that wandered further away decisively chose to retreat when the battle was only halfway through. Due to the distance being too great and the patrolling drones not carrying interception equipment like gravity trap generators, this part of the corrupted monsters escaped successfully.

But Hao Ren didn't think it would have a big impact, because the Nakdahl security perimeter was extremely wide. Those monsters had no way to get close enough to threaten or observe the situation inside the base, and they might not have even understood how large the base cluster was: the drone swarm had intercepted them half a light-year away from the main camp.

However, this still gave Hao Ren a warning: just as predicted, the corrupted monsters had not only located the Nakdahl continent but also knew about the arrival of these "outsiders," and they hadn't given up on this place.

It seemed that the crystals on the Nakdahl continent had a great attraction for them.

The Nakdahl control center had been remodeled. Since the underground part of the control center was designed with the "navigation crystal" as the core, and the crystal was still something Hao Ren couldn't grasp, this underground structure was temporarily shelved. The surface temple above it became the new control center.

The drone swarm had installed all the propulsion devices on the continental base, and the shield generators and weapon platforms on the continent were also gradually coming online. In addition to the engines, these things now had two sets of systems, one was the original control system made by the Guardian Giants, and the other was the control line newly built by the drone swarm. These two sets of systems were connected to the underground structure and the ground temple of the control center respectively. Currently, Hao Ren was using the ground temple to control this fortress continent.

This process was a bit like putting an extra set of electrical stimulation sensor suits on a body that had already lost its nerves. Although it was indirect control, it was enough to allow this space fortress to function as it should.

Hao Ren and Vivian rushed back here and entered the temple in the midst of the noisy crowd of fairies. This huge and magnificent building still maintained its original appearance, but there were many more Xi Ling-style (pinyin) equipment and a group of flying autonomous machines inside. In the depths of the temple, in the polygonal hall that served as a temporary headquarters, Hao Ren went straight to a dark metal wall: "Report the situation."

As the voice fell, the metal wall wriggled like liquid, and a face that constantly changed its appearance floated on its surface: "Six hours ago, patrolling drones discovered the generation of abnormal space distortion within the security perimeter, and then traces of Mad Clawspawn were detected near the distortion point. Three minutes later, the leading drones engaged the invaders. The invaders then split into two groups, one continuing to invade the security perimeter, and the other moving in the opposite direction..."

As the drone swarm consciousness spoke, the holographic projection next to it showed the battlefield images recorded at that time.

"...Fifteen minutes later, the enemy forces that left the battlefield suddenly retreated, and the drone swarm failed to intercept them; twenty-six minutes later, the invading enemy forces were all annihilated. We salvaged some wreckage, but preliminary judgment is that it has no value."

After studying the battlefield recording, Hao Ren asked, "Were their actions organized?"

"They showed a high degree of discipline, and responded quickly to various situations. Although they were quickly defeated due to numerical disadvantage, the enemy still demonstrated a considerable degree of battlefield command capability."

"Just as we expected, the forces that came to attack the Nakdahl continent before were all mindlessly zerged, but this time there's a commander following up from behind," Hao Ren glanced at Vivian, "and in the future, I'm afraid we won't encounter any more brainless rushers: the enemy is taking this place seriously."

Vivian had a thoughtful expression, then looked up at the wriggling metal wall in front of her: "Can you roughly analyze how different the fighting styles of the enemies who carried out this invasion and the troops who carried out the breakout on the battlefield before were?"

The swarm consciousness quickly responded: "The enemies who carried out this invasion were more conservative, and they were better at fighting with a large number of small groups of corrupted monsters as the main force, which is significantly different from the enemy tactical data previously collected."

Vivian nodded: "That means there's more than one commander on the other side."

"Obviously, this is a wave of probing," Hao Ren said, "The other side isn't sure where we, this group of suddenly emerging forces, came from. The previous wave of troops being crushed to annihilation by the drone swarm probably gave them a lot of pressure, so they didn't choose to attack rashly, but instead sent a small wave to scout the way."

"It seems that we were right to quickly build bases and expand our military strength," the data terminal also popped out from the side, "Although this probing didn't allow them to see the specific scale of the Nakdahl base, they should have at least realized that the drone swarm here has once again rapidly expanded to a level far beyond the last time. They may formulate their offensive strategy against us more cautiously."

"But this will also give them a sense of urgency," Hao Ren waved his hand, "A normal commander would definitely think of immediately gathering superior forces at this time to eliminate a rapidly growing and uncontrollable third-party force like us--the drone swarm has shown an extraordinary rate of proliferation, and the enemy won't sit idly by and watch us grow."

The next wave of attacks would probably come soon, and the scale should not be underestimated.

Of course, Hao Ren didn't plan to wait for that day, he was already taking action.

In the deepest part of the Nakdahl base cluster, next to the drone fortress that served as the main nest, there was a newly completed hyperspace projection device. Its structure was very similar to a scaled-down version of a warp acceleration track, and a long, silver-white track that seemed to constantly change between reality and illusion was added to the end of that series of rings. At this moment, this newly built strange device was being activated, bright energy sparks constantly jumped and increased between the rings and the guide rail, and a strangely shaped drone was slowly driving into the ring at the starting end of the acceleration track under the guidance of a tractor beam.

This was indeed another kind of acceleration track, but unlike the conventional acceleration track that was simply used to quickly deploy units, this kind of acceleration track also had enhanced stealth modules. It could not only erase the coordinates of the accelerated target in the real world, but also allow the accelerated person to remain in the "erased" state for one hour after arriving at the projection destination. In this state, the deployed unit would lose all corresponding information in the real world, even including all traces left on the causal and timeline. It disappeared from this world as if it had never appeared, and would never appear in the future--any observation method based on the laws of the universe would be ineffective against this target.

And this "erased" secret action unit was that strangely shaped drone. It was a circle larger than the conventional model of drones. Various large and small detectors were installed on the tens of meters long fuselage, and a bulging spherical mechanical cabin was added to the insect-like rear structure. These devices were made through the "authorized upgrade agreement" applied for through the Inspector data link. They allowed the secret action drone to still be able to perform one-way observation of the real world while being erased--in other words, it could observe the outside world, but the outside world could never detect its existence.

The first-level coil of the acceleration track began to flicker, and the light surging in the coil turned into a thin film without thickness. The "Scout" passed through this film, and its figure began to become blurred.

"Coordinates cleared... Information is being erased... Target unit information has been erased, and related source data is temporarily stored in the virtual point storage."

Hao Ren stood in the observation station in space, watching the fluctuations at the front end of the acceleration track gradually subside. Although he didn't know what he had just launched, or what the thing he launched looked like or what functions it had, according to the memorandum, he knew that after the fluctuations of the acceleration track subsided, some information would soon be transmitted from that distant and mysterious battlefield.

"The probe is about to send back a signal," the data terminal said next to him, while activating the nearby holographic projection, "The image may be a bit blurry at the beginning..."

After a while, Hao Ren saw a light and dark image presented on the holographic projection device.

That was the picture presented by the distorted starlight passing through the veil woven by the real world. The image was very blurred at the beginning, and it was in a state of interlaced mixing, but soon, the blurred picture became clear.

What he first saw was a huge rock--this rock was floating in the universe and quickly approaching the lens, but the expected collision did not happen. The carrier of the lens seemed to not exist in the real world, and it penetrated each other with this giant space stone. After a brief darkness, the picture became clear again.

A starlight galaxy emitting faint light lay in the distance. With the galaxy as the background, countless large and small black fragments could be seen floating in the dark space. A hazy halo also appeared in the upper left corner of the picture. That seemed to be an extension belt of a gas cloud structure--at the end of this gas cloud structure, several faintly glowing things that looked like man-made objects could be seen.

The fairies couldn't leave Nakdahl too far, but the facility where Hao Ren was located was in a synchronous orbit near Nakdahl, so the three fairies were also invited here as temporary consultants. At this moment, the long-haired little fairy was floating next to Hao Ren's head, concentrating on watching the picture on the holographic projection, nodding while watching: "These should be fragments of Nakdahl!"

The other two little fairies also shouted: "These fragments should also be mixed with Agdar!" "Because Agdar was also scratched at that time!" "But these pictures don't show where Agdar and Amantir are..." "After all, they're so far away."

"There doesn't seem to be an enemy here," Vivian looked at the returned image, which was constantly changing angles, observing the entire area, "Did the Corruptors abandon this place after destroying Nakdahl..."

"They probably don't have the habit of cleaning up the battlefield or recovering supplies," Hao Ren nodded, "What are the man-made objects on the edge of this gas cloud belt?"

The little fairies immediately gathered around: "Let me see, let me see..." "It looks like a哨站 (shàozhàn, sentry post) controlled by Amantir." "Stay away, or you'll be discovered!"

Hao Ren nodded and said to the data terminal, "Terminal, record it. We have to bypass these things when we go over there."