Chapter 104 Swiping the Card

"Warning! High-energy signature detected!"

"Warning! Detecting multiple lock-on signals! Count... three thousand four hundred and twenty-one! Still increasing!"

The shrill alarm blared like a sharp blade, scraping harshly against the eardrums of everyone on the bridge of luan bird one.

On the holographic screen, that originally dead steel planet seemed to come alive in an instant.

On the grayish-black armored surface, countless depressions that had looked like meteorite craters began to flip and rise.

Those were turrets.

The smallest point-defense cannons had a caliber of over fifty meters, while the main cannons atop the high towers had barrel diameters exceeding the width of luan bird one itself.

They turned slowly, carrying a sense of sluggishness from having endured millions of years.

Clack, clack, clack—

Dull mechanical friction echoed through the bridge via sensors, sounding like a giant beast grinding its teeth.

"Shields! Full power!" Li Na's voice was nearly distorted as her fingers danced frantically across the console. "Captain! The enemy's charging signatures are rising exponentially! Once they fire, we'll be vaporized in an instant!"

The armor luan bird one took such pride in was no different from a piece of soaked toilet paper in front of these titan-class mega-cannons; it would tear with the slightest touch.

Fear.

A suffocating fear enveloped everyone.

However, in the captain's seat, Lin Yuan still maintained his relaxed, slumped posture.

His gaze was calm, even carrying a hint of amusement, as his finger lightly tapped the armrest.

"Stay calm."

Lin Yuan's voice wasn't loud, yet it spread clearly throughout the ship via the broadcast system, carrying a strange, reassuring power.

"Academician Wang!"

Lin Yuan didn't explain, turning his head sharply toward Academician Wang. "Is the item ready?"

Academician Wang was currently clutching the silver cube removed from the scavenger mecha—the nano-forging matrix—his face covered in beads of feverish sweat.

"Ready! It can be activated at any time!"

"Then swipe the card!"

A smirk played at the corner of Lin Yuan's mouth, and his eyes instantly grew sharp. "Tell these hunks of iron who their master really is!"

Without hesitation, Academician Wang slammed down on the activation contact of the silver cube and interfaced it with the ship's communication array.

Buzz—!

A special frequency signal, invisible to the naked eye but capable of whipping up massive waves on a spectrum analyzer, instantly radiated outward from luan bird one toward the steel fortress ahead.

That was the highest-level identification code of Titan Heavy Industry.

It was also the only key to opening the gates of this divine kingdom.

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

On the fortress's surface, those mega-cannons that were already glowing with a faint red light and about to spit out beams of destruction suddenly froze.

One second.

Two seconds.

It was as if a pause button had been pressed.

The next moment, a scene that made everyone's scalp tingle occurred.

Clack—Boom!

In that instant, thousands of mega-cannons capable of destroying planets simultaneously extinguished their charging lights.

The muzzles that had been pointed loftily at luan bird one lowered in unison; the turrets rotated back to their original positions with a deafening metallic clang.

It was a posture of submission.

Like a loyal guard seeing a sovereign inspecting their domain.

Sizzle—

A cold, grand synthetic voice, devoid of emotion yet full of mechanical texture, forcibly cut into luan bird one's communication frequency.

The voice seemed to come from the abyss, yet also from a divine throne.

"Core authority beacon detected..."

"Logic self-check complete... Defense protocols deactivated..."

"Identity confirmed: Chief Executive Officer of Titan Heavy Industry."

"Welcome home."

"gate of hades, all systems on standby, awaiting your instructions."

Dead silence.

On the bridge, everyone's mouths hung open as they stared blankly at the screen.

Is this... the authority suppression of a god-level civilization?

One second it was a certain-death situation, and the next, it was 'Welcome home'?

"Phew..."

Lin Yuan let out a long breath; his back had actually been soaked in cold sweat long ago.

He had been gambling.

Gambling on whether the authority of the nano-forging matrix was high enough.

Gambling on whether the fortress's defense system hadn't gone completely insane.

Fortunately, as a scavenger with a system, his luck had always been quite good.

"Open the door."

Lin Yuan straightened his collar and spoke two words calmly into the communicator.

If he was going to act cool, he had to go all the way.

Rumble—!

The armor plating on the front of the fortress began to vibrate.

Directly in front of luan bird one, a crack suddenly appeared on the seemingly seamless black armored surface.

Immediately following, the crack expanded rapidly.

Armor layers several kilometers thick slid to both sides, revealing a deep and massive internal structure.

It was a giant docking entrance a hundred kilometers long!

As the armor opened, the internal lighting systems activated in sequence.

One light, two lights, ten thousand lights...

Eerie blue guiding lights, like two winding dragons, extended from the depths of the berth all the way to luan bird one, as if a starry red carpet had been laid out specifically for a monarch.

And on either side of that carpet, it was not empty.

There was 'industrial waste' for the Titan Civilization.

But in Lin Yuan's eyes, how was that trash?

That was a mountain of gold!

"Holy crap..."

Lin Yuan suddenly sprang from his chair, his face pressed against the porthole, the green light in his eyes shining brighter than the fortress's guiding lights.

On both sides of the berth, mountains of metallic scrap were scattered haphazardly.

Some looked like broken skyscrapers, others like shattered islands.

These materials, of which not even a single gram could be found on Earth, were tossed aside like rotten cabbage to gather dust here.

"We're rich... we've really struck it rich this time..."

Lin Yuan swallowed hard, his voice trembling.

Even without entering the fortress interior, just picking up the 'trash' at the entrance would allow Great Xia's material sciences to skyrocket by five hundred years on the spot!

"Captain! Are we going in?"

Li Na's voice was also a bit airy, clearly dazed by this overwhelming windfall of wealth.

"No."

Lin Yuan took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the greed in his heart as his eyes became calm again. "The luan bird is too large. It's easy to get in, but if there's an emergency inside, it'll be hard to turn around."

This was a scavenger's intuition.

The more a place was filled with treasure, the more likely it was to hide deadly traps.

This fortress had been out of contact for millions of years. Although the defense system recognized its 'father,' who knew if the ecological system inside had mutated?

Had any of those damn Void Devourers slipped inside?

"Academician Wang, take the technical team and stay on the ship. Monitor my data at all times."

Lin Yuan turned and gave orders while striding toward the mecha bay.

"I'll take the ghost in first to scout the way."

"But Captain, this is too dangerous! You are the Commander!" the security chief tried to stop him.

"Precisely because I am the Commander, the systems here won't attack me."

Lin Yuan waved his hand without looking back. "Besides, when it comes to running for my life, who among you is faster than me?"

Five minutes later.

A small, sleek, pitch-black mecha ejected from the belly of luan bird one, silently gliding into the blue-lit docking passage.

The deeper he went, the stronger the sense of awe became.

The walls of the passage were covered in energy conduits as thick as blood vessels. Although most were dried up, they still held lingering energy fluctuations that made one's heart skip a beat.

"Gravity readings abnormal... approximately 1.5 times Earth's gravity."

"Atmospheric composition... primarily nitrogen and inert gases. No oxygen. Not suitable for direct exposure for carbon-based life forms."

Lin Yuan watched the data on the screen, carefully piloting the mecha forward.

Suddenly.

The ghost's radar swept over a maintenance platform ahead.

Lin Yuan's pupils contracted sharply, and his fingers instinctively tightened on the control sticks.

"That is..."

Above the massive alloy deck ahead, countless black dots were suspended.

Zooming in with the camera.

Lin Yuan felt a chill run up his spine to the top of his head.

There were tens of thousands of engineering robots.

Some had eight mechanical arms, some looked like giant jellyfish, and others were simple, crude spheres.

They were frozen in all sorts of poses.

One was cutting an armor plate, the laser nozzle still pointed at the target, but the beam had been extinguished.

Another was clutching a component, ready to install it.

Some seemed to be in the middle of data transmission, with two data cables still dangling in mid-air.

They...

Were all completely motionless.

It was like a high-definition movie that someone had suddenly paused.

No damage, no rust, even the indicator lights on their surfaces still glowed with a faint green light.

But they just didn't move.

A deathly silence.

In this hundred-kilometer giant passage, it was like a massive, three-dimensional, eerie oil painting.

"Damn..."

Lin Yuan piloted the mecha, carefully passing under the belly of a giant spider-type maintenance robot.

He could even see the reflection of the ghost in the robot's compound eyes.

"Is time... stopped here?"

"No, time is flowing," gaia's voice rang in his mind, carrying a hint of solemnity. "It's a command."

"At a certain moment millions of years ago, a highest-priority command overrode all sub-systems."

"The content of that command was only one word."

Lin Yuan asked instinctively, "What word?"

"Halt."

Lin Yuan looked at this sky full of motionless mechanical legions and felt his skin crawl.

What kind of incident could cause this god-level fortress, with its infinite computing power, to completely shut down in an instant?

And that existence that pressed the 'pause button'—

Is it... still inside?