The violent tectonic movements triggered by Mu Continent sinking into the ocean proved that all of this was real. Powerful earthquakes caused many buildings within the space center to collapse with a roar, while scattered fires gradually spread into an inferno.
In the city dozens of kilometers away, panicked crowds fled in every direction. Everywhere one looked, people were running for their lives. One particularly straightforward-minded man even jumped from the third floor of an office building. Fortunately, he landed in a patch of bushes. The moment he got to his feet, he took off toward the underground air-raid shelter without looking back.
Broadcasts sounded everywhere. "All personnel, please follow instructions and evacuate in an orderly manner to nearby shelters to avoid unnecessary losses."
He urgently mobilized every robot in the space center to save the precious archives and stabilize the rocket on its launch pad.
Faced with such a massive disaster, the intricate and flawless systems engineering of mechanical intelligence came into full play. After factoring in its own capabilities, the earthquake's affected range, and the damage sustained by each building, its vast computing power instantly produced a precise rescue and repair plan, allocating every robot involved in disaster relief and restoration for maximum efficiency.
The spreading fires were extinguished under rigorous and efficient command. Beside the collapsed buildings, engineering crane robots lifted enormous slabs of rubble one after another, while the sound of tracks rolling across the ground was deep and steady.
Qin Su could not repair most of the space center's facilities. Preserving the archives and restoring the industrial zone would be enough.
Moreover, restoring the industrial zone was only the first step. To truly get things running again, it would need to be modified for diverse and complicated production. Fire Moth personnel were currently occupied with dealing with the Ninth Law-Ruler, so the space center had to be disguised as having been destroyed in the earthquake.
First, the tunnels and tracks of the underground special train line had to be blown up, preventing physical contact with the outside world as much as possible, aside from network communications.
In the underground shelter near the space center, countless people crowded into the white corridors. Dim lights shone upon every face, all of them filled with fear, confusion, and a faint measure of relief at having survived the disaster.
With a chime, the electronic display at the center of the shelter activated. Everyone turned toward the screen in the central hall, but no face appeared upon it. Only a voice came from the speakers.
"Greetings, employees of the Central Africa Space Center. I am the Wartime Supervisory AI. The space base has been damaged in the earthquake, and the Prophet rocket has also been destroyed in the fire. The coming aftershocks and tsunami will endanger your lives. Please leave the air-raid shelter in an orderly manner. Transport aircraft will carry you to inland cities in Europe."
The crowd erupted into an uproar at those words. The already noisy mass of people became even more chaotic.
"What?!" The dark-skinned supervisor sprang up from his seat and shouted at the surveillance camera, "Evacuate? Is this some kind of joke?! Shouldn't we rebuild this place? Shouldn't we stay here? Is the Prophet just going to... be abandoned?" In his eyes, the Ark Project was one of humanity's few remaining hopes.
The Prophet was merely a giant rocket, not a spacecraft, though it carried a spherical Soul Steel computer that stored foundational knowledge from every discipline.
"Please calm down. This is Dr. Mei's order. I do not have the authority to ask her for the reason." The Wartime Supervisory AI's tone was cold and mechanical.
The words "Dr. Mei" were like an incantation that stilled a roaring sea amid wind and rain. The restless crowd gradually calmed down. The supervisor was stunned upon hearing the name as well. He said nothing further, lowered the hands that had been waving like snakes, rested them on his knees, and silently sat on the floor with his head bowed, waiting for evacuation.
The sound of spinning propellers grew closer and closer. The heavy transport aircraft finally arrived at the nearby landing platform. Qin Su had secretly loaded the flight data and call signs into the internal database of the destination airport. Fire Moth should not become suspicious. Data did not lie.
"The first flight has reached full passenger capacity. Please wait patiently for the next flight to arrive."
Rain poured down in torrents, raindrops drumming against the fuselage. Fierce winds mixed with rain blew into the cabin, and droplets lashed violently against the face of a middle-aged man in his mid-thirties. He remained unmoved, fingers interlaced and body leaning forward, staring expressionlessly at the security robot beside him.
"Rain..." For some reason, he suddenly recalled that it had also been raining when he first arrived here. Back then, he had been a vigorous twenty-seven-year-old, brimming with confidence that humanity could conquer nature. When had he begun to feel increasingly hopeless about humanity? Probably when the Seventh Law-Ruler burned all of Australia. Australia's civilization had been destroyed, but it could be rebuilt. Yet when the Law-Ruler erased Mu Continent entirely, humanity had been helpless. Resisting those Law-Rulers had become more and more futile. The Ninth Law-Ruler had directly sunk Mu Continent, the most prosperous and flourishing land on Earth, beneath the ocean.
He bent over and clasped his head in both hands, thinking bitterly, In a few more years, humanity will probably be wiped out.
I never expected the Ark Project would become the only plan I believed might succeed.
The wind still blew against his face as the cabin door slowly began to close. The wind weakened considerably, no longer cutting painfully into his skin. Once the door shut completely, the cabin lights came on. He looked around. The people around him all wore expressions of helplessness and loss to varying degrees. Only the burly security robot beside him remained cold and impersonal.
"Loyal, efficient, unaffected by emotion," he murmured.
"Maybe we chose the right path from the beginning, but we gave it up." He patted the security robot on the shoulder.
The transport aircraft flew above the clouds. The roar of its engines gradually faded, then was drowned out by the sound of raindrops striking the hull.
"Supervisor, here is a report for your review." The assistant placed the report on the Central Africa Space Center before the Ark Project supervisor.
The supervisor opened the document. The thick report detailed the damage to the Central Africa Space Center and the collapse of the Prophet rocket, but the most eye-catching part was the final summary. "...has caused irreparable damage to the Prophet. The vast majority of buildings have collapsed, and reconstruction would come at an extremely high cost."
"..." The supervisor had a headache. He held his forehead with one hand in silence for a while, then said, "Send this report to Dr. Mei. Let her decide."
Before you continue