Hao Ren did not dare claim that every maintenance unit had died in this hall, but he could guess that there was probably not a single active maintenance unit left anywhere inside or outside the fortress. The scene in this hall was likely not unique; in the other server rooms and central-brain equipment chambers, there might already be heaps of densely packed, charred remains of maintenance units.
The central brain had clearly destroyed these loyal workers—those normally responsible for repairing it—with forethought and planning.
Hao Ren came to a charred wreck and carefully turned over the basin-sized steel beetle. Its lowered mechanical arms had been jammed by its own joint mechanisms, so Hao Ren had to cut off both arms before he could remove the metal plate covering its abdomen.
"It was destroyed from the inside out. The core circuit board is almost completely burned away, and these coils... They were obviously where the fire started." Hao Ren pointed at the tangled internal structure inside the maintenance unit. "The result of a typical electrical pulse attack."
"They should have been working when they were destroyed." N-6 recovered from her initial shock. Looking at the cable connectors and servers with their panels opened all around them, she quickly reconstructed what had happened. "This isn't a period when hardware replacements are carried out. There was no need for such large-scale dismantling work, so the maintenance units must have been summoned here by the central brain."
Lily's ears twitched. "So the central brain summoned its maintenance team under the pretext that it urgently needed repairs, then 'murdered' them in these server rooms? Is this the robot world's Feast at Hong Gate?"
"Although most maintenance units usually operate inside the fortress, they belong to a team capable of contacting the outside world. It won't