When Hao Ren and Vivian returned to Nakdal base, the mad minions were already gone.
A small detachment had attempted to infiltrate the interior of Nakdal's defensive perimeter, only to be met with a fierce counterattack from the drone swarm. After a brief battle, the cannon fodder force—which seemed to have been sent merely to scout ahead—was wiped out within the swarm's firing range. Some other corrupted monsters wandering farther away had decisively retreated halfway through the battle. Since they were too far away and the patrolling drones carried no interception equipment such as Gravity Well Generators, those corrupted monsters escaped without trouble.
Hao Ren, however, felt that this would have little impact. Nakdal's defensive perimeter covered an immense area, and the monsters had never approached close enough to threaten the base or observe its interior. They might not even have figured out the scale of the base complex here. The drone swarm had intercepted them a full half-light-year from the main base.
Even so, it served as a warning to Hao Ren. Just as he had predicted, the corrupted monsters had not only located the Nakdal Continent but also learned that these "outsiders" had arrived. Nor had they given up on this place.
It seemed that the crystals on the Nakdal Continent held an immense attraction for them.
The Control Center on Nakdal had been remodeled. Since its underground section had been designed around the "navigation crystal," and the crystal remained something Hao Ren could not comprehend, the underground structure had been set aside for now. The surface temple above it had instead become the new command center.
The drone swarm had finished installing all the propulsion systems on the continental base. The shield generators and weapons platforms on the continent were also coming online one after another. Apart