[Devour successful, Mechanical Source Points +1100, Devouring Proficiency +230]

Clang!

Under the night sky at Oahu Airport, a large wide-body airliner and its broken wings disintegrated into ash. The remaining organic matter, including human corpses, collapsed to the ground with a rustling shower. The noise alarmed nearby zombies;

their rusted joints creaked as they twisted and shuffled toward the sound. Their hoarse snarls swept in waves but lost direction when they drew near the noise source;

pairs of green, rotted eyes could only search blindly in every direction.

Lin Xian hovered quietly in the air, standing on a drone. He stared at the holographic display before him, his gaze bright with excitement.

“This is my first time devouring an airliner. The fuselage is damaged, but the engines and avionics are intact—converted over a thousand Mechanical Source Points...”

[Current Mechanical Heart Level LV.6 (40900/50000)]

[Mechanical Awakening]: Mechanical Lord

Mechanical Devouring: 6 (3130/5000) — increases devouring efficiency

Mechanical Manufacturing: 6 (1560/5000) — increases construction efficiency

Looking at the Mechanical Heart panel, Lin Xian took a deep breath. “If I scavenge across the island tonight, that should be enough. At worst I’ll take a day off tomorrow...”

It was rare that no looming crisis hung overhead;

Lin Xian intended to seize this opportunity. The recent augmentation that granted him Energy Leap and the legendary skill Supercritical Diffraction Sword gained from devouring a Dauntless-class unit had already proven invaluable on Haiyan Island. As humanity’s situation tightened, burying himself in excavating the potential of his mechanical ability was the rational choice.

Lin Xian made up his mind and began devouring two more narrow-body passenger jets and a transport vessel—he didn’t spare the crashed aircraft either.

Besides absorbing Mechanical Source Points, he needed to collect more high-grade materials to use in the Black Star Forge for expanding construction sequences.

At present, he had six construction sequences;

whenever he wasn’t in a crisis or combat, Lin Xian ran them all. He still had large gaps in what he needed to build: more functional drones to assist in construction, repair, transport, and maintenance, and he was preparing a mech army.

This army would not be merely attack drones for swarm strikes, but true combat mechs like those commanded by Qian Suxun. Lin Xian had already built four “Steelbone” series mechs for Luo Yang to test, with promising results.

This time he unexpectedly obtained a military train from the Federation Interstellar Military 974th Defense Regiment. The mech combat units aboard gave Lin Xian a new idea.

Human interstellar military combat mechs historically centered on the human inside—exoskeletons and mechs were devices that served people. Aside from service robots, only drones had swarm capability.

But there was a crucial problem in current human tech: even drones like the Lei Xun 2000 lack the firepower to easily handle large abnormal entities. Swarming helps, but aberrations that have evolved in the dark now possess biological force fields and energy attacks, combined with the information suppression of dark incursions. Attack drones designed before Doomsday face an upper limit.

Half of Lin Xian’s drones were his own manufacture, the other half were “confiscated” from Qin Feng in Dawn City. They’d been useful on land, sea, and air, but still failed to meet Lin Xian’s requirement of a force capable of directly annihilating hordes of aberrations.

So he planned to redesign specialized unmanned mech units for fighting aberrations—no human operators required—with formidable defense and both soft and hard kill capability. They would need distributed communication architecture and interference resistance tuned to dark energy. That way, Lin Xian could mass-produce them like clones and gradually form an iron legion that could threaten Special-level and even S-level threats.

The only blueprints he currently had were Qian Suxun’s Steelbone and ACS, and the Dancer Unit One design from the Crimson World. The Interstellar Military’s Fire God and Guardian series were human-driven;

even if retrofitted with remote modules, that was only a stopgap and not sustainable.

Lin Xian had discussed this with Mochizuki Shinji and later with Yu Yuheng from the Emperor Project;

the Emperor Project essentially had two development paths: an ultra-small human war machine—Pangu—and the steel swarm. Yu Yuheng was noncommittal on the steel swarm;

no full-scale machines had been produced. Taken together, Lin Xian realized he had to combine his own ideas and build one himself.

[Devour successful, Mechanical Source Points +260, Devouring Clumsiness +40]

One wide-body airliner, fractured into two sections, was fully devoured. Staring at the display, Lin Xian contacted Viola.

“Viola.”

[You are here.]

“He said to combine the flight control systems from a batch of Steelbone and Iron Hunter power armor, then merge the fire-control units from Dancer Unit One and Shadow Wolf-class power armor—wouldn’t that make an upgraded Steelbone or a new Reaper?”

Viola projected a holographic interface through Lin Xian’s power armor remote link, displaying the fusion regression of the two power armor types with Dancer Unit One. Her voice whispered in his ear.

[That’s a high-grade designer’s proposal. It will cause an expected 5.3%–17% waste of preset functional modules and manufacturing materials, and there is the issue of full-frame compatibility. Compared to Steelbone’s monolithic design, overall defense will be slightly reduced. However, Dancer Unit One’s synthetic torso matches the female Shadow Wolf power armor cockpit exquisitely. Essentially it downgrades the Dancer’s integrated rigging, and while sacrificing maneuverability and intelligence, it gains the defense, weaponization, and power components typical of power armor. Overall combat capability would surpass Steelbone and ACS.]

A corner of Lin Xian’s mouth lifted. “That’s exactly what I want. Can we avoid the material waste?”

Crunch—

The holographic blueprint began to shift as Viola computed Lin Xian’s question. A set of internal systems was removed in sequence.

[I have already removed life support systems from the power armor—oxygen, heating, biological rescue, overheat protection—and added a distributed communication architecture and self-organizing network. But this requires blueprint redrawing and additions. Also, Dancer Unit One’s external flexible defensive skin can be peeled off to reduce usage of super-solid carbon condensed-state alloy materials, or this material can be upgraded as the outer defense inner layer for power armor to form a composite structure.]

“NICE!”

Lin Xian’s eyes sparkled with interest. “It sounds rough, but a merged design between the two would be a new intelligent mech. It’s more solution than problem.”

[If splitting into Steelbone and Reaper designs, I suggest adding the Iron Curtain drone’s shield array, the Thunder Prison’s magnetic storm system, and an electrostatic field system to Steelbone to increase defense and impact force. Combine the VK Electric Blade with a high-energy plasma cutting beam for the Reaper series. The size might increase, but first it can integrate with current blueprint systems;

second, it will enhance coordinated combat capability across the mech legion. With this level of energy impact, just on the order of 100 units, you can relatively easily grind down A-level and Special-level threats. At on the order of 1,000 units, you could take down something like the cloud-umbrella we encountered yesterday;

one third of its canopy could become internal research material and emergency rations for humanity.]

“...”

Viola paused. [It may have a certain cruelty to it. You also need to consider power tiers of the mech units...]

“Cruel?”

Lin Xian’s eyes lit up and he slapped his thigh. “Don’t overthink it. That’s exactly what I want—brutal and efficient!”

Though Viola couldn’t autonomously generate a brand-new mech design, combining known data produced a proposal that matched Lin Xian’s tastes perfectly.

Mass-producing interstellar-class suits would be difficult and wasteful for him, but full-coverage Shadow Wolf-class units combined with Dancer Unit One modifications were doable.

“Decided. Merge the blueprints based on that idea immediately. I’ll build one set first to test the quality.”

[Very well. How would you like to name these two newly fused blueprints? You can give them new names or retain legacy code names.]

“Let me think.”

Lin Xian drew in a breath and opened the male Iron Hunter power armor blueprint and the female Shadow Wolf power armor blueprint. His eyes brightened—Dancer Unit One could almost perfectly mate with the female Shadow Wolf power armor, whereas Steelbone’s large frame meant Iron Hunter required substantial changes.

“Rename the new Steelbone variant Iron Man, and the Dancer-One-with-Shadow-Wolf combo Dragon Woman—one male, one female. Pairing male and female reduces fatigue in the field. Iron Man will handle ground suppression and frontal defense to create a zone of control;

Dragon Woman will do high-speed aerial strikes and slicing assaults.”

An idea popped into his head. “Right—the interstellar military’s power armor have cooperative systems. See if you can make tactical co-construction so Iron Man can link electromagnetic fields and Dragon Woman can combine plasma beams to form ultra attacks.”

[Viola understands.]

“Perfect!”

The more Lin Xian thought, the more excited he became. The design for a mech army finally offered a new path beyond drone swarms. With Viola’s computing power to merge blueprints and his Black Star Forge manufacturing capability, he could achieve constructions that would otherwise require large teams at corporations like Starshine Heavy Industries.

“Although it’ll be expensive, only a design at this level can counter large aberrations.”

Lin Xian murmured. Producing a legion from Steelbone, Dancer Unit One, and Shadow Wolf/Iron Hunter power armor wasn’t simple. He remembered how, on the snowfield, it took an entire night to make a single Shadow Wolf-class power armor for Chen Sixuan—already a lifesaving artifact against massive monster tides. Now he planned to use those as the external shell of a mech legion—an extravagance.

But he had no other choice. Low-level aberrations could be handled by ability users;

for gigantic ones, perhaps humanity had to rely on mech armies or construct gargantuan human war machines.

“Materials, materials. I’ll need a lot more conversion materials. Better hurry.”

Lin Xian thought of the Emperor Project and realized he was developing along similar dual paths: building a mech legion while also hoping to upgrade the Interstellar Predator XR01 blueprint, to confirm whether that planet-grade blueprint was born on Blue Star.

Night over the Hawaiian island was dotted with stars and calm waves. This deserted place—abandoned for months—was noisy tonight. Drone swarms left faint trailing lights across the sky. After devouring Oahu Airport, Lin Xian started sweeping through the city.

At five in the morning.

In an abandoned amusement park in the Vegas of the islands, unconsciously Lin Xian had devoured hundreds of cars in the parking lot. The wind carried the sea’s cool tang. The broken Ferris wheel cast jagged silhouettes against the fading night. A few stubborn stars still twinkled in the velvet-blue sky. Beyond the barbed-wire fence, gray, ragged zombies wandered aimlessly. Their low, hoarse roars sounded like rusty hinges, the only dull background noise of the ruins.

Lin Xian sat atop the drop tower ride. A faint glow pooled in his palm as he remotely softened and distorted the massive steel constructs in the parking lot—metal liquefying and twisting like wax thrown into an invisible furnace, devoured into flying ash. Only faint impressions were left on the ground and a barely perceptible metallic scorching scent in the air. A few meters away, dried palm fronds stuck to the windshield of the last car spun by the devouring wave and fell as fine ash.

“...”

The barbed wire trembled as if it had found long-lost prey;

like a remnant instinct after the dark incursion, dense clusters of zombies pressed against the fence, snarling and staring at the living man on the drop tower.

Lin Xian didn’t lift an eyelid. He reached into a ripped convertible nearby and fished out a faded plastic toy horn. He weighed the cheap toy in his hand and flicked his arm.

Whoosh!

The orange horn tumbled through the air, slicing wind as it flew over the barbed wire. With a crisp smack it hit one zombie squarely on the head with a pathetic “boop.” The creature staggered back a step, dazed;

its cloudy eyes rolled, then stubbornly shuffled forward again.

The loud noise drew several nearby zombies who swarmed around the hit creature, turning into a chaotic cluster.

After sweeping half the city, Lin Xian discovered this island housed only C- or D-grade aberrations. There was no major threat;

perhaps aberrations bypassed this island to head toward the continent where human armies concentrated, making this small island a temporary haven. With that conclusion Lin Xian relaxed and focused on devouring.

Watching the swarm tear into each other, Lin Xian’s lips curved in a faint, nearly imperceptible smile. His hands didn’t stop: one car, two cars, three cars... the automotive tide that once symbolized wealth and speed melted visibly in the dark-red glow of his palm. The Black Star Forge seemed to inhale in silence;

each brief contact ripped away a metallic shell and turned it into pure source points circulating through his Mechanical Heart, adding weight to the vast forging plan.

Thousands of drones traced faint light trails in the sky like diligent fireflies over the garish landmarks of the casino city, emitting soft whirrs as Viola’s massive computing power coordinated the transfer of supplies toward the Sky Dome train.

Scrape—

A sudden rusted friction sound came from behind.

Lin Xian swung his head and scanned the central ruins of the amusement park. The derelict carousel pavilion rocked in the wind, as if nudged by an invisible finger. Rusted supports groaned, tilting the painted wooden horse panels on the roof. A chill wind stirred dead leaves on the ground, which rode the air in a faint, shuffling dance along with faded park posters and yellowed gift vouchers—like ghost footprints.

A crisp tapping sound reached Lin Xian’s ears: sharp and out of place, like high heels crunching over broken concrete.

At this hour, in this place—how could there be the sound of high heels?

From the shadow behind the carousel, a woman stepped slowly out of the dust like mist. She walked with composure. Black hair brushed her pale cheek in the wind. Her gray-black coat fluttered. She stopped at the carousel’s edge, slowly lifted her head, and looked at Lin Xian with eyes as calm as a winter pond.

“Long time no see, Lin Xian.”

Lin Xian’s expression tightened. He stopped his actions and rose slowly, the casual ease of earlier replaced by gravity.

The woman before him was no other than the head of the SIID Foundation.

Hua Xiaoling!