Gifts of Disaster

In the long history of fighting against the Honkai, humanity has never been able to completely eliminate it, and each Honkai disaster grows more intense than the last. As a result, humanity's attitude toward the Honkai has grown increasingly pessimistic, leading to the formulation of several extreme plans. The [Ark Project] was one of these—a giant spaceship driven by Honkai energy, carrying humanity's gene bank to flee Earth and seek a second home.

The space center where Qin Su stood had three launch sites on its periphery, a command center in the middle, and an industrial zone farther out. Spaceflight is an endeavor that severely tests a civilization's technological level and material resources, let alone a grand plan like searching for a habitable planet. The current human civilization is not an interstellar one; humanity is still taking its first stumbling steps within the solar system.

A massive rocket still stood on the launch pad, the last one not yet launched. The Prophet, embodying the most cutting-edge technology humanity could muster. Its cold, pitch-black luster and technologically sleek form silently narrated the most brilliant achievements humanity had made over thousands of years, yet its story also vividly reflected the helplessness and sorrow of having to send future generations away from their home cradle.

In the reports Mei had reviewed earlier, the Prophet had already "broken apart." The only successful launches of the entire Ark Project were the earlier probe rockets, which would transmit data on habitable planets in the target star system, providing detection information for the spaceship and the Prophet to be launched fifty thousand years later.

The Central Africa Space Center did not store humanity's gene bank, but it held something of equal importance: the foundational scientific knowledge of every discipline. It was originally intended solely to serve the rapid revival of technology for humanity on the new homeworld, but now it had a new use: providing Qin Su with a complete tree of basic technological theory.

According to the information stored at the Central Africa Space Center, the giant spaceship had been sent to an underground launch site somewhere, to be launched by later generations of pioneers.

An unmanned transport aircraft carrying the only T-1000 flew toward the [Ark Project] space center in North Africa. As the old saying goes: fortune favors the bold. The success rate for a T-800 infiltration mission was still too low, so Qin Su had dispatched the sole T-1000. His only hope now was that the Fire Moth was too tangled up with the Ninth Law-Ruler to come looking for trouble.

The roar of the engine cut across the skies of North Africa as the heavy drone hovered steadily over a spot in the Sahara Desert. This was the nearest [Ark Project] space center to Qin Su's Central Africa Base. Unlike the space center in Central Africa, the rocket launch plan here had already been completed successfully.

The T-1000 set up a simple signal tower in an open area outside the data repository, then dragged several destroyed security robots into the wilderness, buried them on the spot, and cleaned up the traces. It took a small drone from its bag, unfolded its collapsible wings, and sent it into the sky to provide visual support for the T-1000.

The remaining data repository had originally been scheduled to be buried a few months after the launches were complete, but just before the burial date arrived, the appearance of the Herrscher of Earth interrupted the plan. The violent plate movements caused earthquakes that forced the staff to evacuate, leaving only a handful of security robots to guard the space center. The T-1000, originally built for special operations, suddenly found itself without a mission.

"Fell right into my lap. Since that's the case, I'll gladly accept this gift."

Everything went smoothly. The data upload was complete, and after inspection, there were no issues with the technology. None of the uploaded files contained any hidden programs. They were all mid-level technologies developed from basic science, nothing that could be called cutting-edge.

The remaining two space centers held one gene bank and one data repository. According to the information he had obtained from the Fire Moth's internal network, the data repository had been buried for several months. That meant everything else depended on him acquiring it himself—unless he wanted to make contact with humanity.

But he judged the risks of doing so far outweighed the rewards, and the worst-case scenario was that there would be no reward at all, while the risks were guaranteed. The Ninth Law-Ruler had just appeared, and a new Law-Ruler couldn't emerge within six months. If he rashly made contact with humanity now, the Fire Moth—already exhausted from dealing with the Honkai—would, upon receiving news of an AI rebellion, be too nervous and fragile to handle it rationally. They would focus all their efforts on suppressing the "AI" rebellion.

The top-tier Fusion Warriors of this era were terrifyingly powerful, born to fight against the ruthless cosmic law of "Honkai," especially Kevin, who could even knock the Herrscher of the End offline.

"It doesn't matter. I'm still lying low for now. According to the Fire Moth intel I've intercepted, they haven't noticed anything unusual here yet. Besides, the prototype for the advanced small-scale nuclear fission reactor has already been built and will soon be put into practical use." Qin Su comforted himself silently.

He didn't know whether the current civilization had achieved controlled nuclear fusion; none of the knowledge he had acquired contained anything related to fusion. Probably because Honkai energy was such a cheap and efficient power source that they didn't bother much with nuclear energy. As for Honkai energy itself, given the incidents of mechanical malfunctions caused by it, he had no intention of touching that stuff for now.

Back to reality, the T-800s were all being retrofitted with the small nuclear fission batteries captured from the space base. They were old but very mature technology. Qin Su had also used the powerful energy provided by these fission batteries to enhance their designs. Now, a single T-800 could go toe-to-toe with a Knight-type, and a large number of T-800s could completely overwhelm an equal number of Knight-types. With Qin Su's coordinated command, the T-800s' tactical cooperation was seamless.

Not to mention that he had already begun equipping them with first-generation plasma weapons and electromagnetic weapons. Unfortunately, these plasma and electromagnetic weapons still used old hydrogen fuel cells. These cells were inefficient, providing poor endurance and energy output for the weapons.

More advanced hydrogen fuel cells were under development, and soon, the plasma and electromagnetic weapons would elevate the T-800s' combat effectiveness to a new level.

In addition, the T-600—a weakened version of the T-800 designed to compensate for numerical inferiority—had also been designed. It was only a transitional product to address insufficient production capacity. Its overall design wasn't much different from the T-800, but the materials required for construction were much cheaper.

Thanks to reverse-engineering the T-1000's constituent materials, the principles of liquid alloy were finally understood. Although liquid alloy was inferior to Soul Steel in every aspect, considering this was a mass-produced unit, the T-1000's toughness and strength were both extremely excellent. Not to mention that the T-1000 could reassemble itself even after being shattered.

The T-1000, however, adopted a bolder design. Its energy core was a small nuclear fission reactor, providing much more powerful energy but also being much more unstable. If the T-1000 was destroyed, there was a high probability of an explosion equivalent to no less than five tons of TNT. Therefore, Qin Su allocated more computing power to the T-1000, enhancing his control over it while also strengthening its combat calculation corrections.

Next, Qin Su had many things to do: expand production, apply new technologies, increase the Terminators' patrol range to support a larger mining area, and research new technologies. All of this required time.

In this doomed era, time was the most precious thing of all.