Interstellar Survival: Invasion

Chapter 257: Mind Insertion Method

"Do you mean that you have known all along that the main base is a city of machines?" I asked.

"I've never been here before. I've only heard and read about it. On Black King, there is a city of machines. After the machines were built, the minds of other life forms would be inserted into these machines, turning them into a weird sort of life," said Temo.

"Producing a machine before inserting a mind into it? Where did the minds come from?" I asked.

"From their bodies," said Temo as he pointed at the corpse of a nearby variance sensor beast.

"You mean the emperor has extracted the minds of different beasts and inserted them into bodies of steel, increasing their offensive weapons by granting them independent thoughts?" asked Dodo.

"From my understanding, this would extract the minds from the brains of different beasts before overwriting them into a programming language and inserting them into the bots' control systems. Nevertheless, the minds from organic life forms will grow by themselves, forming different sets of codes. Thus, each of these robots might look the same, but they all think differently," explained Temo.

"What is the reason for this? Is the empire doing this solely to turn organic bodies into bodies of steel to obtain greater strength?" I asked.

"After managing the beast army for a long time, the elders of the Sacred Wing race discovered something. Conflicts can easily erupt between different beasts in the army. At the same time, the beasts will exhaust a lot of resources to grow, and the act of growing will exhaust more of the beasts' energy. Because of that, some beasts will be rebellious and hard to control. Turning them into machines will reduce the expenditure of energy and resources and forge an army with standardized soldiers," said Temo.

"Mechanical beasts, machines with intelligent minds capable of growth. The technological capabilities of the empire are far beyond our imagination. Their armies are constantly evolving and upgrading," said Dodo, awe on their face.

"The Sacred Wing race exists for the pursuit of greater technological progress. No difficulty is too difficult for us to solve," said Temo smugly.

"Shameless. Your technological advancements are not for the sake of the universe. Instead, you use them to help a tyrant take lives and plunder resources. Such technological progress is pointless no matter how much it advances," said Zhang Bao'er with disdain.

One ought to admit that Zhang Bao'er's words reeked of justice, and all of us couldn't help but be convinced by his words.

"What do you know? You're from a tiny planet-level civilization. The universe is boundless, and many life forms constantly rise and fall in the universe. If technological progress isn't used for the advancement and evolution of stronger life forms, what's the future of the universe?" argued Temo.

"What do I care about your shitty civilization? If a civilization can only grow through slaughter, I would rather not want the advancement that comes from it," said Zhang Bao'er, not holding back any of his thoughts.

His line of thought originated from Blue. We held the belief that all life forms deserve equality, and that was why we had been unyieldingly fighting for peace. As far as I was concerned, a civilization like Blue, with its set of values, was more worthy of respect.

Dodo, who had never stopped working on their task, said, "Reporting, although we have moved out of the area fully covered by the maze, I still can't establish contact with Zhang Xingxing and the others."

"How do you expect to contact a fleet from a different temporal dimension?" said Temo, using the report to pull himself out of the argument on morality.

"Temporal dimension? Are we not in the same dimension as the fleet? Bluevoid told me that I will be able to contact the fleet here," I said in astonishment.

"Bluevoid? You're referring to the worm colony brain? Did it really say that?" asked Temo.

"Yes. They told me themself. As the brain of a superweapon, they shouldn't be wrong, right?" I said, not daring to expose that Bluevoid had also requested me to rescue their great sovereign.

"The temporal dimension here is different. You definitely can't contact your fleet here. But since they told you otherwise, they will probably help open a time tunnel for your fleet. You only need to focus on your task," said Temo, slightly alleviating the worry in my heart.

"Why is it that you seem to know everything? You know way too much, and you have slowly led us here step by step. Who exactly are you, and what is your goal?" Old Du suddenly asked. He had always been the prudent one among us.

Old Du's words actually made a lot of sense after thinking back on all that had happened on the beast planet. Temo seemed to know way too much.

"Old Du, he is from a star-level civilization. It is normal that he knows more than me," said Dodo, defending their idol.

"There is no need to explain. The person in charge of Black King's city of machines is the great elder of the Sacred Wing race. Only Sacred Wing members ranked prophet and above are qualified to serve the great elder. I am not at that level, but through self-study using the information available internally, I have still managed to learn something," said Temo coldly.

"Why hadn't you come clean with us in the beginning?" Old Du pressed on.

"Had you bothered to ask? Also, it wasn't even my idea to come here. I have always been supporting you. I have been keeping to my word," said Temo.

His answer seemed perfect, and we couldn't think of an argument. I was the one who had decided to come, and we had indeed not asked him about the city of machines before. Old Du had probably reached the same conclusion, and he immediately apologized to Temo.

"Temo, the intelligent robots are everywhere. How should we enter the city?" I asked, pulling everyone back to the main topic.

"Permission to scout ahead?" asked Anxashe.

"Don't let the scouting robots discover you. These robots are extremely powerful offensively. The moment you are discovered, you might court the attack of a swarm," advised Temo.

After I gave Anxashe permission, he took out a long object that looked like a telescope, pushed it out of the red fog, and looked through it. A few minutes later, Anxashe lowered the telescope.

"It's a world of machines out there. These machines seem to raise a lot of beasts in confinement in the area between the city and the blood pool. They're raising variance sensor beasts, flying beasts, and many other beasts that I don't know the name of. I can even see some smaller buers among them," said Anxashe.

"Even buers can be raised like farm animals? The Divine Empire's ability to control others is too impressive," said Old Du.

"Isn't that because there are some people helping the tyrant?" said Zhang Bao'er, sneering at Temo.

"Apart from the beasts kept in confinement, I also saw some lion-faced beasts. They are not being kept in confinement but are attending to those from Temo's race," said Anxashe.

"You mean the people from the Sacred Wing race? Those must be the people serving the great elder mentioned by Temo," said Dodo.

"Hey, superior civilization guy, you won't betray us after meeting a brethren, right?" asked Zhang Bao'er suspiciously.

"One of the values we hold as a superior civilization is the importance of keeping promises. I will fulfill my promise," replied Temo firmly.

"We now have a general idea about the situation outside. How should we enter the city? Any ideas, everyone?" asked Anxashe.

"Stay in the fog. We should wait until it's dark," suggested Temo.

"There are a lot of patrols. It will be risky to stay for a long period of time," Old Du pointed out.

"That won't be that much of an issue. I calculated. We are one hour away until night," said Dodo.

"One hour? That will be over before we know it. Let's wait in the fog, then. We'll try to sneak into the city and look for the worm colony brain after dark," I decided.

Following the order, everyone waited in hiding. Since we were still standing in the knee-length bloody liquid, none of us was willing to sit down in the disgusting liquid. Rather, we stood still.

"Canyue, we need to think of a way to capture one of them and get some information. That will help us in the planning of the next stage of our task," suggested Zhang Bao'er.

I hesitated. "A captive. How can we get one while hiding here? If we expose ourselves, the entire team will perish."

"We can't sally out and attack, but we can bait those robotic beasts to come to us. We will then surprise them and capture them. After capturing them, we will be able to extract the information we need from them," said Zhang Bao'er in excitement.

"Bait. And where do we find this bait?" I asked doubtfully.

"We already have the bait with us. In fact, we have quite a lot of ready-made bait," said Zhang Bao'er.

"Where?" I asked.

Zhang Bao'er did not answer. Rather, he pointed at Anxashe and said, "Anxashe can be the bait."

Only then did I understand that Zhang Bao'er intended to use Anxashe as bait since Anxashe had a head resembling an ox's head. One could easily pretend he was a regular beast.

"But even after capturing a beast using Anxashe as the bait, how should we extract the data from the captive? Won't any attempt sound the alarm?" I said, still doubtful about the plan.

"That will be a problem for Temo to solve. As long as we get a captive, I believe Temo will have the solution for it," said Zhang Bao'er confidently.

I thought about Zhang Bao'er's suggestion. Getting ourselves a captive would indeed be helpful for the next phase of our plan. After a few seconds in thought, I nodded in agreement. Having obtained my approval, Zhang Bao'er wasted no time in calling Anxashe and Temo over before telling them about the plan.

After listening to the plan, Anxashe and Temo voiced no objection. Clearly, everyone was similarly curious about the city. It seemed like curiosity was something everyone shared regardless of one's level of civilization.

"I suggest we capture one of the air defense beasts. We are experienced in dealing with similar machines, so we have a deeper understanding of the likes of them. Perhaps these air defense beasts work similarly to the air defense drones," said Zhang Bao'er.

"The air defense beasts have extremely impressive red ray attacks. Anxashe, be very careful. Do not let yourself be cut apart by the red rays," I reminded.

Temo also gave us a reminder, "If you really managed to catch one, remember to immediately remove all four of its limbs. Those limbs are actually the parts they had grown themselves while their minds were growing. I believe those limbs are actually something they rely on to transmit information externally."

"Anxashe, how are you planning to catch one? Do you have a plan in mind?" I asked.

"Don't worry. I already have a plan. Just wait for me. I'll come back with a captive," said Anxashe before spinning around and vanishing into the red fog.

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