111: First of all, you can't walk anymore (physics).

[Target 1 at 23° at 4 o'clock—logged, assigned.]

[Target 1 at 44° at 8 o'clock—logged, assigned.]

[Target 4 at 87° at 11 o'clock—logged, assigned.]

[...]

In the central control room of the Imperial flagship, Immortal, the massive Thinker array ran silently.

Pipelines connecting massive amounts of brains were arranged in an intricate network, with several members of the Imperial Religion and a group of Amnesty Soldiers standing by, spraying white cooling gas onto them from time to time.

That's right; according to shared intelligence, the enemy possessed strong electronic warfare capabilities, and to avoid capsizing in the gutter, the Empire had also craftily activated this thing.

"Watch the cooling! Do not overload it!"

"If there is any brain-burning, replace the regional components immediately!"

"Remember! The lives of everyone on the ship depend on us!"

A Follower in a blue cloak stared at the Amnesty Soldiers, earnestly instructing them.

Nearby, another Follower shouted into a communicator that seemed to be connected to the Bridge:

"It is absolutely not enough!"

"There are only 98 spare components left for the Thinker array now!"

"Just a moment ago, due to the negligence of an Amnesty Soldier, there was a large-scale brain-burning here!"

"What? Plug him in?"

"That won't work! The organic components for the array are specially made!"

"We use Clones!"

"Regardless, for the sake of the ship's safety, whether you have to pull them from another ship or wherever, send them over quickly! The faster, the better!"

He had just hung up the communication when a sudden burst of cooling agent being sprayed erupted nearby—

Another brain had burned out.

He quickly grabbed a stasis tank from nearby and ran toward that area.

Several Amnesty Soldiers pulled a motionless half-person directly from the device, and immediately, two streaks of charred yellow liquid flowed out from the nostrils of that wetware.

The Follower who had run over opened the stasis tank halfway there, dragged out the half-person inside, dipped it in blue paint to draw an eye pattern on its forehead, and then plugged it into the empty slot.

After confirming that the connector had been inserted into the nostril, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and said:

"Phew—that's good."

"I just applied for organic components from above; they will be sent over in a moment."

"As long as we hold on until these aircraft finish dropping their ammunition, we will launch a counterattack."

"As long as the flagship launches a counterattack, everything will get better..."

"Ahhhhhhh—!!!!"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh—!!!!"

"Ahhhhhh!!!!"

Suddenly, those organic components connected to the brains began to shriek inexplicably, the chilling screams deafening.

But no one cared about the screams of the wetware; they were distracted by something even more critical—

A large number of Thinker mainframes suddenly flashed red, a series of slight explosions rang out, and countless symbols representing "Rapid Temperature Rise" flickered.

"Damn it! A Thinker is producing huge emotional fluctuations!"

"Disconnect it quickly!"

The Follower responsible for component allocation reacted first; he scrambled and crawled to the main console and pulled the main interface directly.

But in just those few seconds, 192 organic component brains had already burnt out.

Seeing that number, he felt as if the sky had collapsed in an instant—

There weren't enough spare components!

"Damn it!"

"Aren't the guys here supposed to have their prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala removed?"

"How could they be scared!"

To strengthen computing power, the Thinker array would gather and flow information from a large number of brains together.

In other words, as long as one person felt an emotion, that emotion would be magnified millions of times within the array.

Therefore, unlike The Consortium, for the sake of safety, the Empire not only performed surgery but also specially cultivated a batch of Clones.

"It must be those idiots in logistics! Someone secretly swapped the Clones for those naturals again! And they even skipped the surgery!"

"These damn parasites! They're even greedy for life-saving supplies!"

Another Follower's voice rang out, filled with righteous indignation.

But before he could finish, the Follower responsible for scheduling picked up the incessantly ringing communicator and made a quiet gesture to keep silent.

Everyone instantly went quiet.

He gently pressed the answer button, and the Armory Chief's furious voice came through—

"Why did the Thinker array shut down!!!"

The Follower of the Imperial Religion replied in a low voice:

"There was a small accident; we don't have enough components now."

The voice on the other end raised an octave.

"Don't explain anything to me!!!"

"Now I'm telling you!!!"

"You are delaying the battle! You might even cause damage to the flagship!"

"I'm giving you 1 minute!"

"If you can't reboot in 1 minute, I will take you, you damn fanatic..."

"You dare to threaten a Follower of the Imperial Religion? You dare to blaspheme the lord of ten thousand changes?"

Upon hearing the words "damn fanatic," the Follower suddenly exploded and interrupted, and immediately after, he shouted back without showing any weakness:

"Go tell your damn logistics department! I am going to report your corrupt practices to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Inquisition!"

"Only the lord of ten thousand changes can judge our souls!"

"Not to mention blaspheming the statue of the lord of ten thousand changes!"

"That is the emblem of our great Emperor!"

"Disloyal! Corrupt! How are you still serving on this Warship?"

He was halfway through when the other side went quiet—

No, faint sounds of iron rods beating flesh could still be heard.

It was less than ten seconds before a voice came through from the other side again,

but this time it was the ship's Bishop:

"You did well."

"The Commander has ordered the activation of the Void Shield; the Thinker array does not need that much computing power anymore."

"Resolve the problem as soon as possible, and then use the existing Thinkers to activate the Shield first."

"We are going to allocate the special organic components needed for the array now."

The Follower of the Imperial Religion then composed his emotions and let out a long breath.

Fortunately, he had pinned the hat on them quickly.

As for why the wetware was scared?

The answer was outside the window—

A sacred, pure white ion beam washed over them; the armor of the Warship blocking the front didn't even last an instant, being melted layer by layer until it was pierced through.

It was like the holy spear "Gungnir" from Norse mythology, striking true every time and indestructible.

Unlike Gungnir, that divine weapon only had one shaft, but there were five such beams—

That's right, that was the mercy of the Eldest Miss of the Storm, the "Lei-style" AI-900 Type A heavy ion cannon.

Just by standing there, they were terrifyingly strong.

Three of the beams struck straight at the Relic Battleship protected in the middle.

In an instant, the energy-absorbing coating covering the hull turned charred black, and a large amount of shunted ion current flowed rapidly along the hull toward the rear, then struck all the Warships connected to the Immortal.

"Enemy fleet appeared!"

Looking at that thick ion current, Kelaifu felt even more satisfied—

The harder The Consortium got beaten, the happier he was.

Anyway, he had brought out a fringe fleet; even if it was blown up, he wouldn't feel any pain.

However, when his gaze turned to the eternal storm displayed on the screen, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart:

A Battleship! These people actually have a Battleship!

And it's a new type of Warship that hasn't appeared before!

Could it be that they already have the support of some force behind them?

Could it be the Military Alliance?

No, in order to disgust The Consortium, that bunch of guys who were too poor to even open the pot couldn't afford so many Warships.

Forget it, I'll know once I make contact.

Anyway, any regime that has a grudge against the Cloud Consortium is an ally of the Empire.

This is not a principle, but a true proposition.

Anyway, his mission was over; he could retreat!

"Activate the Void Shield! Start the engines! We can retreat!"

"Leave the trouble to The Consortium!"

However, after the Void Shield slowly expanded—

"Report! Our engines won't start!"

"12 main engines, 78 secondary engines, and 20,000 maneuvering engines are all damaged!"

"???"