amaotonovel Chapter 1444 4 Rats
Chapter 1444 4 Rats
A few days later, as the last fully loaded transport submarine roared from its engine and slowly sailed away from this completely hollowed-out steel tomb!
Xiao Ce stood on the towering bridge of the warship.
Looking back through the large observation window, the once impregnable creation base, representing the pinnacle of human technology and ambition, now resembles the wreckage of a giant whose marrow has been sucked dry...
After losing its energy support, the massive ice ridge fortress resembled a vast ruin...
Huge blocks of ice and twisted metal structures kept breaking off from above, falling into the churning, dark seawater below and splashing up murky waves.
The flashes of explosions echoed throughout the depths of the base, as the delayed-action explosive devices installed by the Federation engineers began to activate!
To ensure that no valuable remnants remain in these ruins, they will eventually sink completely into the eternal darkness and cold of the Arctic Ocean...
After they finished their work, the fleet, which had been elusive, finally set sail...
A few days later, the steel warship slowly entered the northern British naval port, breaking through the cold seawater with a deep roar.
The port had long been cleared, and huge searchlights illuminated the berths as bright as day.
On the deck, Xiao Ce's figure stood tall and straight like a pine tree. Although his Sharp Edge mech was covered in wounds, he deliberately didn't change it!
His purpose was to let people know how powerful these weapons were, but his gaze remained sharp, piercing through the thin mist and landing on the crowd of people eagerly waiting on the shore.
Morgana stood at the front of the welcoming party, her fiery red hair flying in the cold wind, her striking face now filled with excitement and relief.
Behind her were Boudika and her entourage, all of whom were now wearing the latest generation of Arctic-specific exoskeletons.
When their ship docks, lower the gangway!
The mechs piloted transport vehicles, sealing the heavy Core of the Ruins crystal pillars within special isolation chambers, which emitted a ghostly blue and dangerous light...
As the transport platform, carrying massive amounts of database hard drives, precision instrument components, and production lines, was carefully unloaded by the Frost Giant engineering mech, a burst of barely suppressed cheers erupted in the port.
Morgana stepped forward excitedly and said to Xiao Ce, "Your Highness, welcome back in triumph!"
She looked at Xiao Ce's tired yet burning eyes, then at the almost scrap metal Sharp Edge mech and the mysterious Heart of Return to Nothingness, and everything was understood without words.
He knew none of this would be easy...
This Arctic expedition came at a great cost: the sacrifice of elite warriors and the destruction of top-notch mechs!
But what they brought back was enough to change the fate of the entire planet.
"Thank you for your hard work, Morgana."
Xiao Ce nodded and continued in a steady voice, "Now that everything has been brought back, immediately implement the highest level of security and arrange for its safekeeping according to the pre-arranged plan. In particular, the 'Heart of Return to the Void' and the research data must not be lost."
"Understood! All isolation chambers and top-security laboratories at the 'Polaris' factory are ready!"
Morgana took decisive and efficient command.
Frank immediately directed his "Bastion" heavy armored guards to take over the escort of the core supplies. The heavy exoskeleton's metal feet pounded on the dock, producing a rhythmic and heavy echo. Boudica quickly arranged for personnel to transport the wounded and the wreckage of the mechs to the repair center.
The next few days...
The entire naval port and the adjacent "Polaris" factory area have been transformed into a massive and efficient anthill.
The Frost Giant engineering mechs displayed astonishing power and precision. Their massive mechanical arms, like the most dexterous fingers, precisely hoisted and positioned pieces of equipment and production line modules looted from the creation base onto pre-set bases within the factory.
Engineers and technicians from the Tianji Institute worked day and night, guided by the holographic blueprints provided by Xingluo Jishu, to carry out installation, debugging, and interface docking work.
The Heart of the Ruins is located in a multi-force field isolation chamber at the deepest part of the underground, surrounded by state-of-the-art energy detectors and physical barriers.
Xiao Ce placed the core he had brought from the creation base in the factory's main control center, where it continuously released a stable flow of energy and a massive flow of information, becoming the brain of the entire Polaris...
After Xiao Ce integrated the core of the Creation Base into the Polaris Factory, he connected it using the Star Network Hub.
Its true potential began to emerge.
Xiao Ce utilized the Star Network Hub to establish global communication, which greatly facilitated communication between Xiao Ce and Yin Pan'er...
Over the next year, the machines, equipment, and data in the arsenal were replenished.
The entire planet entered a period of explosive growth, with rapid development in all aspects...
Various weapons are now ready for mass production, and most importantly, the extraction and refining of spiritual essences has begun...
Because Xiao Ce had a systematic production process in place, everything went very smoothly.
At this very moment, Xiao Ce was constantly emphasizing the threat posed by the visitors from outside the region.
Therefore, at this time, people around the world are united as one, so everything is proceeding in an orderly manner.
Xiao Ce never imagined that his vision of a global village would come to fruition in such a way...
After everything returned to normal in the West, Xiao Ce returned to East Asia.
The reason is simple: all of this is based on the Star Network Mechanism...
Although Xiao Dingshan and his group have been out of contact for the past year.
However, Xiao Ce knew very well that they were definitely not idle, and according to his observations, the interstellar hyenas were still heading towards their planet.
Meanwhile, on the other side...
Actually, deep within a layer of ice not far from their previous creation base...
This is a forgotten graveyard, the final resting place of the four giants of the Creation Council...
There was no rotation of the sun and moon, only the constant, pale light emitted by emergency lamps, coldly coating the rough ice cave walls.
The air was thick and foul, filled with the heavy smell of ozone, the sticky, sweet-smelling nutrient paste, the acidic stench of the circulating fluid in the hibernation chamber, and a deeper, more suffocating, fermenting stench of despair.
The cave was small, roughly excavated, and the edges still bore the charred marks of particle weapon cutting.
In the corner, a huge interstellar communication beacon stood silently, like a silent steel tombstone. The indicator lights on its surface flashed a ghostly green light in a regular pattern, the faint heartbeat that sustained their last glimmer of hope.
Thick cables extend from the beacon's base, plunging deep into the ice layer, greedily drawing in the trickles of energy converted from geothermal heat.
In the center of the cave, several simple metal platforms served as their beds, with crumpled thermal blankets scattered on them.
The four walls were embedded with a few remaining storage compartments, which contained the few remaining energy blocks that had been meticulously allocated.
They had started to scatter and flee, hiding.
They had each found a hiding place to block out signals...
That's why Xiao Ce's previous search efforts had yielded no results...
They remained huddled together, and only after confirming that Xiao Ce and the others had left did they emerge and find this place.
Caesar, fiddling with a device in front of him, weakly murmured, "Energy...fluctuation...anomaly...computing power...decreasing...interference...unable to analyze...Xiao Ce...coordinates...lock...failed..."
Each word seemed to be squeezed out from rusty gears; they were now consuming power at a low level.
"Shut up! Trash!"
Xiao Dingshan sat up abruptly from his cold platform, his movements trembling violently from weakness and anger.
His eye sockets were sunken, and his bloodshot eyeballs bulged outward, burning with a murky flame that seemed almost insane.
He glared at Caesar and cursed, "Lockdown failed? A year! A whole year! What can you do besides announcing bad news? How could I have believed that this pile of junk could get anything done!"
His withered fingers nervously scratched at the cold metal platform beneath him.
"Enough! Speaker..."
Raymond's voice came from another corner of the cave, carrying a hysterical tone that had been suppressed for a long time and was on the verge of collapse.
He curled up in the thermal blanket, doing so to reduce energy consumption.
He stared intently at the miniature terminal on his wrist, which pulsed with his energy.
Each time the numbers decreased, the muscles in his face twitched.
"Stop yelling! Save your energy! At least Caesar is still trying to maintain the beacon! If you keep yelling, we'll all die when we run out of the last bit of energy that's keeping us alive!"
He suddenly looked up, his gaze sweeping over Caesar's server and then over Xiao Dingshan!
Finally, the gaze fell upon Evelyn in the corner, her eyes filled with the wariness and suspicion of a wild beast guarding its prey.
Evelyn leaned against the cold rock wall, her posture maintaining an almost stiff elegance, like a dusty wax figure in a museum.
The thick, artificial skin on her face seemed to have lost its former softness and luster, becoming pale and stiff, with tiny cracks appearing at the corners of her eyes and mouth, as if this meticulously crafted shell was about to succumb to internal decay.
She toyed with an exceptionally sharp superalloy dagger in her hand, the blade nimbly flipping between her slender, pale fingers, reflecting the ghastly white light of the emergency lamp, each icy glint flashing across her empty eyes.
She didn't participate in the argument, seemingly detached, but each slight whistling sound of the dagger cutting through the air made the already tense atmosphere in the cave even more solid.
Occasionally, she would pause, the tip of her knife intentionally or unintentionally pointing towards Caesar, the source of her message...
Or perhaps it was in Xiao Dingshan's direction, his eyes devoid of any emotion, only a deathly emptiness...
"Think of a way? Ha!"
Xiao Dingshan let out a short, dry laugh, as mournful as the cry of an owl!
He wiped his mouth hard with the back of his hand and said, "Its plan is to make us rot like groundhogs, wasting our last remaining energy blocks, counting down the seconds until we die! Waiting for that damned fleet! Or waiting for us to rot away on our own?"
He stood up abruptly, his body swaying slightly; the long-term lack of sunlight and exercise had left him unsteady on his feet.
He staggered toward the energy storage compartment, roughly pulled it open, grabbed one, and then charged it.
His cloudy eyes were fixed on the thick frost that had formed on the cave wall. His gaze was empty, yet it seemed to pierce through the ice and see a figure that he hated to the core.
"Save...energy..."
Caesar's projection flickered violently, his voice broken and repetitive, carrying a programmed stubbornness, "The beacon... is... the only... hope... the fleet... will eventually... respond..."
"response?"
Raymond interrupted with a shrill cry, wrapped the blanket around himself tighter, and trembled violently, mainly from fear!
Because their bodies cannot feel cold...
"It's been a year! Not even a single signal echo! Who knows if they've already forgotten about us? Or... or maybe they can't even find this godforsaken place! We... we'll be trapped here forever! Like worms buried alive!"
He nervously bit his thumbnail, until the prosthetic arm was completely crushed...
Evelyn's dagger stopped spinning...
Her eyes slowly shifted to Raymond, her gaze as cold as a scalpel. A barely perceptible upward twitch of her lips formed a chilling, emotionless smile as she said, "Insects... if you think there's no hope, then get out..."
Her voice was light and airy, with an inhuman emptiness.
Raymond shivered violently, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He instinctively shrank his body even tighter into the blanket, unable to look at Evelyn any longer.
at this time...
Woo... Buzz...!
In the center of the cave, the interstellar communication beacon, which had been silent for more than three hundred days and nights, suddenly emitted a strange sound!
Instead of the monotonous flashing green indicator light, a dazzling scarlet light suddenly shone from the core!
Immediately afterwards, a deep and oppressive hum sounded, like some primordial beast awakening deep within the ice, snoring softly.
A powerful energy surge instantly filled the small space, causing ice shards to fall from the cave ceiling.
The intricate patterns on the beacon's surface lit up one by one, with ghostly blue, deep purple, and pale light swirling and intertwining wildly, casting their glow onto four faces that had suddenly frozen, each with a different expression...
Time seemed to be frozen at this moment.
Xiao Dingshan's cursing stopped abruptly...
His deep-set, murky eyes, like two pools of stagnant water into which a red-hot iron has been thrown, instantly burst forth with a terrifying glint of light!
It seemed as if some kind of violent power had been forcibly injected into his withered body!
He suddenly straightened his hunched back, letting out a low, guttural gasp, like a wild beast's growl...
Caesar's body also began to stir excitedly...
They stared intently at the beacon...
After a burst of intense signal interference noise, the crimson light projected by the beacon suddenly stabilized and focused!
A gigantic holographic image, like a demon rising from a pool of blood!