A thousand ancient machines known as Slaughter Sentinels marched out of the mine in formation.
Just as the machines tested a warlord's DNA every time they awakened, the warlord now gave the Slaughter Sentinels their killing orders, as he did whenever they were activated.
The order was simple: kill all invaders.
The Slaughter Sentinels first reported the order to the United Mining Company that owned them as assets. But the company had clearly ceased to exist long ago. After receiving no response for ten minutes, they automatically downgraded ultimate authority to the operator, so they immediately obeyed even an order entirely unrelated to mining.
The Slaughter Sentinels hurried beyond the territory's borders. Along the routes they had traveled or were about to travel, people knelt on either side of these ironclad divine warriors.
In the people's eyes, these divine warriors were servants of their ruler. Those servants were mysterious, and every deployment supposedly required mortal blood as tribute, lending them an intense air of mysticism.
They even represented the sacred mandate of the warlord who ruled them. Every Terran should naturally bow at the feet of this true overlord—or at least, that was how the warlord had promoted it to the people of his territory.
Under the reverent gazes of everyone in the territory, the Slaughter Sentinels headed toward the location where they had detected hostile armed targets.
Their every move was monitored by satellites in low orbit.
"These Slaughter Sentinels are going to be difficult to handle."
"Wouldn't it be better if we... destroyed them with orbital weapons?"
Inside the mobile fortress's council chamber, Qin Mo and the others watched a holographic projection displaying conditions across the battlefield.
Among those who had recently joined the fortress were fugitives from the warlord's territory, and they took part in the