Heavenly Manufacturing

The Tenth Law-Rulers have all been killed by Mei and Kevin, who were equipped with the Key of Blankness. In the months of idleness that followed, Qin Su had been busy setting up nuclear power plants and centrifuges. The comprehensive application of nuclear energy resulted in an endless demand for uranium and energy, and there was one thing that required extremely high concentrations of enriched uranium: nuclear bombs.

Furthermore, in terms of energy, Honkai energy reactors were not as safe as nuclear power plants, especially mature nuclear fission power stations. For biological entities, the danger of either losing control was not that different. But for Qin Su, nuclear power was the best choice that did not involve contact with Honkai energy. He didn't want any of his subordinate individuals to inexplicably lose control.

Perhaps Qin Su would not be able to stockpile enough nuclear bombs to destroy humanity before the Finality arrived. Having enough to protect himself would suffice. Nuclear bombs could be used not only for deterrence but also for defense.

He hoped that Fire Moth would do some thinking before making a move. Firstly, the missile defense systems of the former United Nations had, after ten Honkai events, either been destroyed by war or fallen into disrepair, rendering them largely useless.

Moreover, if the Twelfth Law-Ruler were to awaken in the worst-case scenario, she would not only destroy humanity but also likely launch nuclear missiles towards Qin Su's main base, outside of the space center. With the current economic strength, high-precision kinetic interceptors would be unaffordable. However, countering nuclear missiles with nuclear missiles did not require extremely high precision; it only required using radiation and electromagnetic pulses to disrupt the fuses and other equipment of the enemy's nuclear warheads. Of course, such an interception method was a case of "killing a thousand enemies while losing eight hundred" of one's own, especially for mechanical intelligences like Qin Su.

After experiencing ten Honkai events, over half of the cities on Earth had been destroyed. The remaining cities were mostly located inland in Europe. Human activity along the African coast had completely vanished under the triple assault of Honkai, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Only inland areas still harbored some human settlements. The mineral-rich regions of inland Africa might still be reclaimed by Fire Moth, but apart from these places, the entire African continent had become a silent wasteland, with only a few inland areas retaining any signs of life. What was destroyed was not just human society but the entire African ecosystem.

As long as Qin Su avoided the mineral-rich areas and expanded his sphere of influence, he would basically not have any conflict of interest with Fire Moth. Fire Moth was not interested in Africa's uranium mines; with human technology, their only use was for nuclear bombs.

In addition, although humanity's entire industrial base had been severely damaged, most of the Soul Steel production lines had been relocated to Europe. The current industrial system still retained a certain degree of completeness. It might be lacking in some aspects, but overall, it was intact.

Therefore, before the industrial relocation to the technological sanctuary, human civilization could not be destroyed. In later generations, the failure of the Spark Project made it impossible for these production facilities to continue serving humanity, but they could serve Qin Su.

On Earth, oceans separated many continents. Qin Su used the core area of Africa as his base, with his sphere of influence covering the entire Southern Hemisphere: Southeast Asia, South America, Oceania, and even Antarctica had Qin Su's subordinate individuals. The Northern Hemisphere was the traditional developed region of human civilization, with all remaining large cities located there. If he did not want to attract Fire Moth's attention, he absolutely could not venture deep into the Northern Hemisphere.

As his sphere of influence continued to expand, the issues of raw material collection and transportation safety became more severe. Supply lines crossing the oceans not only had to face the threat of numerous marine creatures infected by Honkai energy but also the danger of attacks from clusters of Assault-type Honkai Beasts.

On land, the threat from Tank-type and Temple-type Honkai Beasts to the robots carrying out raw material collection operations was also gradually increasing. Mortals still roamed the areas where humans had once been active. T-800s could tear apart ordinary Mortals with their bare hands and were effective against fragile Assault-type and Knight-type enemies, but they were only moderately effective against heavily armored Tank-type and Temple-type enemies.

Qin Su had once tested the destructive power of a Tank-type and the defensive capability of a Temple-type using a T-800. A full-power strike from a Tank-type could cause severe bending in multiple structural components of a T-800's leg, reducing its mobility to an estimated 60%. A single T-800, fighting unarmed against a Temple-type, could not even penetrate its defenses.

Qin Su reasoned, "A group of three T-800s would be sufficient to easily kill a single Tank-type or Temple-type, but this would not only be a waste of computational power but also disregard the intended role of the T-800."

As infantry units, T-800s specialized in engaging agile, smaller targets. They were slightly inferior to C-Class Valkyries and compensated for their disadvantage against A and B-Class Valkyries with numbers. In this context, developing heavily armored units to counter large or clustered Honkai Beasts became increasingly necessary.

"It is now necessary to develop heavy war units specialized in countering large Honkai Beasts. Let's name the model — T-1." He had already conceived a preliminary design.

It featured a four-tracked, transformable chassis, a 125mm electromagnetic railgun mounted on the turret, and a plasma heavy machine gun on top of the turret. It also had honeycomb-style multi-purpose missiles on the sides. Mounting anti-aircraft missiles on a tank slightly exceeded its original role, but it was a necessary cost to deal with the small and agile Assault-type enemies.

Furthermore, it had a variety of ammunition, including nuclear shells. However, equipping nuclear shells significantly reduced the muzzle velocity and consequently the range. The T-1's maximum speed could reach around 110 km/h. If it didn't have tracks, it could go faster, but considering terrain factors, tracks were still necessary.

With ground units covered, aerial units could not be neglected. It had been proven that air support was incredibly important for ground forces. The Gulf War had shown the world that without air superiority and air support, ground forces were left to their fate. Drawing on Fire Moth's experience, attack helicopters were the obvious choice for dealing with highly mobile, heavily armored Honkai Beasts.

It had twin jet engines, with vectoring nozzles for vertical takeoff and landing or backward thrust for full-speed forward flight. The bottom of the nose was equipped with a twin-barreled, 360-degree rotatable plasma autocannon. Four honeycomb-style anti-Honkai Beast missiles were mounted under the wings, and a built-in bomb bay in the belly housed four tactical nuclear missiles. These nuclear missiles were not impact-fused but remotely detonated, to prevent them from being affected by their own nuclear missile's blast or to achieve maximum power through airburst.

Its name, for those who had seen the movie, evoked a strong visual: Hunter Drone.

The initial design was complete, and the manufacturing of the first prototype began. These robust Honkai Terminators needed to undergo actual combat to identify any shortcomings and be further improved. It would take several months for the Hunter Drone and the T-1 to truly take shape, and variant models would be designed based on these foundations.

The Hunter Drone's engine nozzles spewed flames, and the auxiliary vectoring nozzles also emitted blue flames. It gradually lifted off the ground and ascended into the air, heading towards a distant testing ground.

PS: In "The Terminator," Cameron wrote a scene where the T-800 was hit by a train and could still get up and continue chasing Sarah Connor, but it wasn't filmed due to budget constraints. This indirectly shows how durable the T-800 truly was.

Furthermore, the T-800s here were reinforced T-800s, and the T-1000 was also similarly enhanced.