The first batch of Mechanical Reconnaissance Units to truly pass through the crack of the door—only one came back.
Strictly speaking, it could not even be called "coming back."
Before it was completely destroyed, it merely forced a fragment of incomplete data back outside the Bronze Gate.
That fragment of data was blocked for an instant by the Ancient Tree of the Moon's remaining moonlight, and only then did it avoid being completely annihilated by the Destruction Tide around the crack of the door.
When Saine received it, three sets of Mechanical Runes on the outer layer of the Experimental Starport went dark at the same time.
Wall-E did not wait for Saine to speak before immediately severing the receiving link.
"Contamination reaction." Wall-E's voice was lower than usual.
Saine raised his hand and tapped, and that fragment of incomplete data was sealed inside a Silver-White Mechanical Lattice.
Dark red markings soon appeared across the surface of the lattice.
It was not blood.
It was some higher-level Destruction Rule, corroding mechanical logic itself.
This corrosion was very strange.
It did not damage metal, nor did it directly erase information.
It merely made the mechanical structure begin producing an extreme conclusion.
Destruction.
All calculations were, without anyone realizing it, sliding toward this outcome.
Saine watched for a moment, then suddenly said, "Interesting."
This was not a virus, nor was it a rule curse in the conventional sense.
It was more like a basic environment of the Destruction Time-Space behind the Bronze Gate.
Any information, matter, energy, or will that entered it would be continuously guided by that side of time-space, ultimately tending toward collapse, burning, rupture, and destruction.
No wonder ordinary reconnaissance units could not withstand it.
Saine quickly ordered the Sky Net Central Hub to strip away the three contaminated