Improvement

After more than five months, the second phase expansion of the Central Africa Space Base had been completed, expanding from the original 400 square kilometers to 600 square kilometers, and a new quantum computer had also been assembled.

Computing power and production capacity had further increased. Due to a series of reasons such as switching to Nuclear Fission Batteries, the manufacturing cost of T-series robots had also risen significantly. At the same time, because some production lines had to be diverted for tactical support equipment, the current annual output of T-800s was only about 20 units, T-1000s about 5 units, and non-combat robots about 13 units per month. The total number of T-800s had reached 12, and including the initial unit, there were 2 T-1000s.

The production volume of T-series robots had always been low, but that meant high quality. With the switch to Nuclear Fission Batteries as their power source, both Terminator models had undergone major design overhauls. The old T-800s and T-1000s would all be queued up for remanufacturing in an orderly fashion in the short term. Just considering the T-800, it was now a completely different beast. In hand-to-hand combat alone, a dozen or so nuclear-powered punches could crush a Knight-type Honkai Beast to death, and swatting an Assault-type to death with a casual slap was also an easy task.

In team operations, a group of three T-800s would be equipped with squad-level heavy firepower. Besides standard rocket launchers and such, they also carried an ultimate weapon—the Tactical Nuclear Missile. Once an extreme product designed to counter massive armored army groups, no one expected it would now be used against Honkai Beast swarms.

In an abandoned city in Central Africa, the sound of projectiles piercing the air was incessant. One plasma cloud after another burned through the bodies of Honkai Beasts. Plasma Rifles were much quieter than traditional chemical-propellant rifles, but they still produced some noise. At that moment, a group of T-800s was carrying out a cleanup mission. It was purely an experimental task—clearing all the Honkai Beasts from a city of 500,000 people with just three T-800s was impossible.

Small Honkai Beasts were either beaten to death by titanium alloy fists or blasted into a charred mess of black and white by Plasma Rifles. The remaining thick-skinned Temple-types were still putting up a stubborn resistance, and these large Honkai Beasts were precisely the type that T-800s found most difficult to handle.

During the cleanup, the number of large Honkai Beasts showed no sign of decreasing; instead, the more they killed, the more there were. The three T-800s pulled out Type I electromagnetic rifles from their backs. Though called rifles, they were actually sniper rifles, but since they could fire fully automatically, they were still classified as rifles. Armor-piercing rounds with a muzzle velocity of 2 km/s punched through the shields of one Temple-type after another. The bullets, having pierced the white giant shields without losing most of their kinetic energy, flew out trailing fragments of the shattered white shields. The projectiles penetrated their bodies, exploding into blossoms of white flesh on the Temple-types. However, this had little effect on the Temple-type Honkai Beasts; their massive bodies could withstand nearly a thousand penetrating shots.

The three T-800s kept firing at them continuously, only managing to incapacitate one or two of the many large Honkai Beasts.

Three T-800s were still far too strained dealing with a Honkai Beast swarm. If even a single Temple-type caught up to them, all three T-800s would be finished right there.

The T-800s moved through the concrete jungle like agile apes, scaling walls and leaping across rooftops, with the Honkai Beasts in hot pursuit. The earth trembled under the trampling of these behemoths. The scent of civilization on the T-800s disgusted these massive creatures.

The narrow field of view suddenly opened up. Not far ahead, the towering City Monument stood in the center of an open square. The once pristine white granite floor, long neglected, had turned dark and cracked. Plants from the green belts had broken through the barriers humans had set for them, their green and purple vines spreading into the cracks of the granite.

The central city square was right before them. The T-800 glanced back; the Honkai Beasts hadn't caught up yet. One T-800 placed the gun case from its back on the ground, took out the shoulder-fired nuclear missile, then ran at full power as far outward as possible. The other two found cover to shield themselves from the shockwave, striving to complete the combat mission without damage.

The sound of the Honkai Beast swarm running grew closer, and the feeling of the earth shaking became clearer. The T-800 deployed a folded reconnaissance drone; its rotors spun, generating lift to send the drone into the sky.

Almost there!

The reconnaissance drone continuously transmitted images back to the central computer. The beast swarm charged straight ahead, kicking aside abandoned vehicles blocking the road. Many already decaying buildings collapsed under their rampage, and the falling chunks of concrete and steel crushed many zombies and small Honkai Beasts.

Qin Su had already calculated it. By the time the Honkai Beast swarm reached the central square, the nuclear rocket would also hit the ground.

"Thump!" The exhaust trail traced a long arc across the night sky. The T-800 dropped the shoulder-mounted rocket launcher and ran for its life. Within just a few seconds, the nimble and agile Assault-type Honkai Beasts had caught up to the T-800. "Clang!" The T-800 swung a horizontal punch, sweeping a harassing Assault-type Honkai Beast into the dirt. When the flying dust settled, the Assault-type's body lay crumpled on the ground like a dented piece of paper, soon dying completely.

In the movie world, a T-800's running speed was only 35 km/h, but here, the T-800 could run 60 km/h. Yet now, no matter how fast the T-800 ran, it couldn't escape the nuclear weapon's kill radius, because the effective lethal radius of the Tactical Nuclear Missile was two kilometers. Under normal usage conditions, the T-800 could have run out of the kill zone. But plans never kept up with changes; in just a few dozen seconds, the T-800 simply couldn't cover two kilometers. Running at full speed was only minimizing the damage it would take.

The T-800 leaped forward, sliding into cover behind a collapsed building. A blinding white light illuminated the entire night in an instant. One corner of the pitch-black abandoned city became as bright as day in a flash. A mushroom cloud gradually rose from the central square. Sand and gravel flew everywhere. Glass shattered from the shockwave, scattering across the ground. The plants in the green belts were first ignited by the thermal radiation, then extinguished in an instant by the blast wave. The city center had been reduced to a flat ruin. Most of the Tank-types had been turned into charred delicacies, but many Temple-types were still barely clinging to life.

The power of the atom had given humanity the confidence to conquer nature. Even the Herrscher had to fear this world-ending flame. Perhaps in the struggle against the Herrscher, atomic weapons had never truly had a chance to shine. But that didn't mean they were useless. Because while a Herrscher might be able to neutralize a nuclear missile or make it lose its target, no Herrscher had ever dared to face the power of the atom directly.

The two T-800s that had long since run out of the kill radius came back, rescuing their comrade buried under the rubble of a building.

PS: Regarding the size of Honkai Beasts, please refer to the main storyline and the animation. Look at the comparison between Herrscher of the Void and Mei with Temple-types in the animation to understand their size. Of course, Tank-types might be very large. The giant Honkai Beasts from the early black-and-white manga can be considered as the Herrscher's accompanying beasts from the Third Honkai Eruption. This way, the lore isn't contradicted, and there's a reasonable explanation.