Stirring up trouble on a planet controlled by the Corporation quickly drew its attention, but unfortunately for them, their response was too slow.

Even though it took fewer than seven days from discovery of the anomaly to deploying armed forces, it was already too late.

On the very first day, Pei Guang had taken full control of the planet. By the seventh day, his mechanical army was absolutely overwhelming.

Ordinarily, a typical planet couldn't support that level of machine production, but Pei Guang had unlimited farms, meaning all basic resources were infinitely renewable.

If that wasn't enough, his crafting station could create production lines. Feed in raw materials, and it could instantly produce high-end resources.

The craziest part? Even resources that didn't exist on the planet could be synthesized by smashing them down and reassembling them.

Essentially, anything that existed in the game could be repeatedly nested and merged until created.

For example, build a production line from the crafting station, use that line to manufacture materials, merge multiple materials together to create entirely new resources that were absent from the planet.

With Pei Guang's crafting capabilities, if it existed in any part of the Memory World, it could be fabricated.

Plus, his crafting didn't even need physical assembly lines: in the more immersive sims, that meant just hammering a hologram.

Very user-friendly.

By the time the Corporation's forces arrived to suppress the rebellion, Pei Guang already had a full-scale army in place.

If it had been ordinary machines, there might have been some challenge. But Pei Guang's units were made up of Pathstriders with Path traits—and in fact, all four Path types were represented.

From the IPC's perspective, they were about to face suicide.

That's something they still had no idea about.

The Corporation's strike commander finally deployed his command ship.

Commander: "Intel officer, what's the situation on the planet?"

Intel officer: "This planet has no interstellar transport capabilities, and its resources are nowhere near sufficient for interstellar warfare. Its population has no means to resist us. We can leverage our fleet's mobility in space to strike at these rebels."

Commander: "Excellent. Find the rebel leaders and let them witness the power of our technology!"

As the Corporation expanded unchecked, rebellion grew across planets.

Unfortunately, many of these captive worlds lacked even basic spacefaring technology, so the Corporation had employed dimension-busting tactics to crush them.

According to the intel officer's reconnaissance, this planet was just like countless others: no space travel, no anti-starship defenses, not even standard mid-to-heavy-armored ground units.

Normally, planets worth rebelling against might have some minimal infrastructure, but this one had none.

It has been controlled for an Amber Era, and now suddenly flips sides?

Clearly someone had deceived them: let the folks here know how powerful the IPC is, just give it a simple deterrent and re-reinforce its rule.

Once the Corporation's ship reached orbit, it was time to strike, but just as the attack began, the captain received a transmission that sent a chill down his spine.

On-screen, the commander saw: in low orbit, hundreds of androids and machines drifted in formation, and they looked like space junk.

The intel officer interpreted hastily: "These are outdated androids and robots. No threat to our fleet! They must have been tossed up from the planet as garbage. How morally bankrupt."

Commander: "Why does that intel sound off to me?"

Intel officer: "Commander! Trust me, I'm a professional! You can question my intel, but never my qualifications."

Before any order came down, the awful truth revealed itself: every machine in orbit suddenly turned their attention towards the incoming Corporation ship.

These machines had been created via countless rounds of breeding with perfect traits: Preservation gave them free movement in space; Destruction gave them devastating power; Harmony let them share energy and data instantly among each other; Abundance gave them abilities to heal.

Some machines had traits like Voracity, Elation, or Nihility, but their buffs came with glaring drawbacks: those units were assigned special missions.

From the moment Pei Guang started mass-producing units with inherited traits, he had also planned the ambush. He knew a bit about the Corporation's battle style, so he broadcast his mechanical force into orbit, openly waiting for them.

Once the fleet arrived… then the ships and crew were already his.

But how to take them? Simple: use pet balls.

The people onboard were the most talented, if any turned out to be Pathstriders, it'd be wasteful to kill them. Better to capture them.

And that's exactly what he ordered.

So when the Corporation's ships finally appeared, the mechanical army lying in wait launched their orbital takeover.

The machines with powerful hacking capabilities opened entry paths for allied units.

Then, the rest of the machines stormed into the ships, tossing Pet Balls as soon as they saw someone: if one didn't work, they'd throw ten.

The machines in low orbit couldn't block the sunlight from reaching the planet, but they could entirely cover the starships, making it impossible for the people inside to see the sun.

As the machines launched their assault, the company commander aboard the flagship received a nervous message from the intelligence officer.

"Commander, our intel was wrong! Our troops are vanishing like snowflakes!"

The company commander: "What's going on?"

He noticed that the small fleet she brought was under attack. Simultaneously, voices were coming through the broadcast, reporting that people and their companions were being attacked by the machines.

"Machine uprising?"

This experienced commander considered the possibility and felt rather unlucky—this was his first important mission since taking office, and he had already blown it.

Company commander: "Transmit my order: all ships, force a warp jump and retreat from this star system!"

Intelligence officer: "Commander! Bad news, our energy systems are under attack! All ships are too low on power to execute a warp jump!"

While explaining, the intelligence officer also brought up a video.

In the footage, enormous machines were latched onto the hulls of the ships, draining their energy.

These were machines with the Voracity Path trait, granting them the ability to ignore any condition and forcibly absorb energy. It could be ambient energy from the air or directly from a designated target.

Even before the fleet arrived, the Voracity-trait machines had already begun draining energy from the ships. The energy they collected was then transmitted via the Harmony Path to all other units, making them stronger.

Seeing this, the company commander fell silent. After a long pause, he muttered, "We've lost…"

He never expected to fail so completely on her very first high-stakes mission.

At that moment, he also really wanted to curse someone.

That intel officer had been so confident, and he'd decided to trust them just this once. What did that get him? A complete disaster.

No ship-based weapons? Then what are all those things floating out there? Now all the ships are out of contact: best-case scenario, they surrender and get captured; worst case, they die.

What's that? Hold the line until the end? They're all just employees trying to earn a paycheck, why throw away their lives?

As the commander pondered all this, Pei Guang's mechanical army had already invaded the command ship.

The crew tried to resist, but before they could even lay eyes on their attackers, they were already being pelted with high-speed Pet Balls.

That's right, Pei Guang had equipped all his primary combat units with plenty of Pet Balls. Their fighting style was all about being sneaky: if you can throw a ball, stay sneaky; if you can't, gang up.

Pei Guang's core directive to the machines was just one thing: "Stay alive."

The machines couldn't really comprehend "staying alive," but the first bionic unit that encountered Pei Guang had some understanding of what it meant to "live."

Under that bionic's command, their combat style focused on evasiveness and trickery.

If they truly faced destruction, they'd immediately transfer their data.

As for backing up data ahead of time? Maybe due to the influence of an unknown machine, or maybe because of Pei Guang himself, the machines believed that pre-saved data wasn't really them.

Only fully transferred data constituted a true "self."

So none of the machines backed up data in advance. But thanks to the Harmony Path trait, most data could be transferred quickly.

In this state, the machines made full use of the strategies and records stored in their databases. By the time they secured the entire fleet, only a few unlucky ones had suffered damage.