Analysis

A heat wave swept across Kevin's face, and the intense light radiation briefly blurred his vision. He rarely found himself in such a passive situation; even the ever-changing abilities of Law-Rulers could not compare to the surprises Kevin had received in this single minute. Even with the genes of the Emperor-class Honkai Beast Parvati, he had suffered minor injuries from the sudden burst of light and heat radiation. Still, for a Fusion Warrior, such small wounds would heal on their own shortly.

"Kevin, how are you?" Mei's worried voice came through the communicator.

"I'm fine. I was just careless. Forget that for now—Mei, can you tell anything?" Kevin rubbed his eyes with two fingers. Even as a Fusion Warrior, staring directly at a nuclear explosion from such a close distance had affected him.

Fire Moth's emergency forces were rushing over at full speed. The combat units had all been deployed, led by Fusion Warriors. Yet aside from Kevin, there was no third party at the scene.

Dr. Mei's calm, composed voice reached his ears. "We have extremely little information about him. Only by analyzing the blast site can we reach a reliable conclusion. And judging by his behavior, he may have deliberately approached us merely to obtain information on you and me. The Law-Ruler's sudden attack exposed his secret, forcing him to retreat."

Dr. Mei carefully picked up a metal fragment with tweezers and examined it closely.

"Dr. Mei, these are the items we collected nearby." The adjutant beside her handed over a transparent bag containing metal fragments.

"I understand. Take them to the analysis lab and see if you can find anything else." Dr. Mei rose from her chair.

Behind the thick glass window, Dr. Mei gave Kevin her preliminary conclusion. "Kevin, based on the materials collected from the blast site, this John Connor was a robot."

Kevin's tone showed no surprise. "That explains his self-destruction. If he were a normal person, I don't think he would still be alive. The only thing I find strange is that ordinary robots shouldn't be capable of such flexible emotional changes."

"That is not particularly unusual. The Armed Dolls that were discontinued long ago possessed genuine emotions—at least, emotions that appeared genuine. However, those uncontrollable emotional changes nearly pushed human society to the brink of civil war. That is why modern robots, especially security robots, use reliable old-fashioned computer architectures. Naturally, they cannot possess emotions."

"..." Kevin fell silent for a moment before continuing. "Mei, personally, I don't think his conversational style was anything like that of the Armed Dolls or Prometheus."

"I mean..." Kevin searched his mind again for the words to convey his strange feeling. "The Armed Dolls have collective intelligence. Compared to humans, their word choice and sentence construction are more... precise. And Prometheus—if I hadn't known from the start that she was an artificial intelligence, given enough time talking to her, I would still have been able to recognize the difference between her way of thinking and that of an ordinary person."

"But John Connor... both his word choice and his way of thinking made him seem like a normal person to me."

"Hmm..." Dr. Mei pinched her chin and pondered. "Then perhaps he was not a robot at all. He may have merely projected his consciousness into a mechanical body."

"Even if this robot represented the highest technology available to their entire group, Fire Moth is Earth's sole legitimate government. Even if this organization that appeared out of nowhere could rival us technologically, it would still fall far behind us in resources and population."

Kevin stood from the bench, rubbed his temples, and sighed. "Honkai alone has already run us ragged. Now another powerful organization has emerged, and we don't even know whether it is friend or foe."

Dr. Mei had not lost her sound judgment because of the situation. "Clearly, they do not wish to clash with us right now. Since the Law-Ruler attack began, many locations have reported Law-Ruler attacks. If they wanted to cause us trouble, now would be the best time to act."

"Yet the only enemy we are facing at the moment is the Law-Rulers. That means 'they' are not much of a threat to us—at least, not for now."

Dr. Mei instructed the adjutant to return Kevin's dust-cleaned armor to him.

"For now, you do not need to worry about them. The newly emerged Law-Ruler is what we need to deal with seriously. This Law-Ruler is extremely unusual. It exists as a collective. Although each of them possesses a Law-Ruler Core, the energy level of any individual core cannot compare with the Law-Ruler Cores we obtained before. I will send more detailed information to your computer shortly."

Kevin nodded. "Understood. I'll be careful." He put on his armor and fastened Skyfire at his waist. Now it was back to running all over the place because of Law-Rulers. He thought helplessly.

Clearly, Kevin instinctively believed Qin Su bore them no ill will. That warning had remained vivid in his memory.

The computing power returned to the central computer along with the T-800's self-destruction. The appearance of the Tenth Law-Ruler suddenly gave him an idea. Law-Ruler Cores were the most important energy cores within Law-Rulers, and they were also the source of their abilities.

They could help Qin Su gain a deeper understanding of the nature of Law-Rulers. Whenever the Ark Project database involved Law-Rulers or Honkai, its descriptions were often vague, as though it was meant to prevent the humans of the new homeland from entering the realm of Honkai energy too early. Thus, Qin Su's knowledge of Honkai was limited to the basics; he knew nothing of the deeper knowledge.

The Tenth Law-Ruler's appearance was simply a perfect opportunity to actively research Honkai. As a Thousand-Man Law-Ruler, the Tenth Law-Ruler naturally possessed a thousand Law-Ruler Cores. The more samples there were, the more helpful they would be for research.

Even if a single core went out of control, there would be no major loss. How much of a threat could a Law-Ruler be when it had tried to ambush Kevin at close range and been subdued barehanded instead? Although any Law-Ruler other than the Finality Law-Ruler would only meet defeat when facing Kevin head-on.

But a Law-Ruler was still a Law-Ruler. By conservative estimates, an individual Tenth Law-Ruler was at A-rank. Fu Hua before awakening as a Fusion Warrior could serve as a representative of A-rank, while an ordinary Fusion Warrior was a fitting representative of S-rank. As for Kevin, Qin Su would call him "invincible." He had solo-killed the Ninth and Eleventh Law-Rulers, two dangerous Law-Rulers with bizarre abilities, and could fight Durandal in Godslayer armor evenly with his bare hands.

The unawakened Fu Hua could solo-kill a Tenth Law-Ruler. Even if Fu Hua might have been among the strongest at A-rank, it was still possible for a T-1000, whose combat efficiency was 38.54% lower than that of an A-rank Valkyrie, to trade one-for-one with a Tenth Law-Ruler—provided the Tenth Law-Ruler could not find the correct way to deal with a T-1000 made of liquid metal. But as a collective intelligence, the Tenth Law-Ruler would naturally discover the proper method given enough time to fight. Besides, Fire Moth would naturally handle the task of exterminating the Tenth Law-Rulers. Qin Su only needed to strike and leave, fishing in troubled waters.

PS: A friendly reminder: John Connor was Qin Su's alias.