Gradually, the Clay Figures disappeared from view on this side of the base.
Perhaps because the layout had become more compact?
The only "living things" they saw were those self-propelled machines. They varied in size, but moved outward in batches, all in the same direction, never against the flow. It reminded Mora of the clusters of self-propelled machinery laboring away in the enormous passageway.
Some of them also filled the nearby vacant functional zones with equipment.
Whenever that happened, Li Wei became especially attentive. He would always stop and observe carefully.
Mora would ask Li Wei what he was looking at, but received no answer. She could only observe and puzzle it out herself. Limited by her knowledge, she could not discern the functional classifications and could only start with the most basic information.
For example, the sound. As they went deeper, the noise here became noticeably louder, accompanied by vibrations. She suspected they were approaching something like an engine room.
Then there was the lighting. It had not seemed obvious on the outskirts, but compared with this densely arranged area, the difference became immediately apparent.
The area around the Prayer Hall had excellent lighting, an imitation natural-light system that could almost make one forget the difference between the surrounding environment and the outside world. Here, however, the lighting system was perfunctory, like only emergency lights being switched on after a blackout. They could certainly see, but the dark areas had expanded dramatically, tugging against the light sources scattered throughout...
Hmm. This also meant that some of the light sources were extremely unstable.
After walking farther in, Mora saw the unstable light source, along with the source of the noise.
Her first impression was that they had stumbled into a steel mill—and one that had gone out of control.
Red-hot