285: "Eye of Dust" and "Honeycomb" Exploration

After the "short circuit" of Patrol Team 3, they scrambled back to their nest in a panic, predictably causing a minor commotion on the outskirts of the "Anvil" area.

In the following days, the "Thousand Eyes" network detected changes in the patrol density and frequency of the "Swarm", especially in the northeast direction (the area where Patrol Team 3 malfunctioned). Not only did the number of patrol teams increase, but several "Elite Bee" squads with larger sizes and stronger energy reactions appeared to conduct a dragnet-style re-inspection, clearly investigating the cause of the "System failure".

The "Bee Queen" was very angry, but the consequences... had not yet reached the base.

After all, Wen Youyi and his team were clean, and "Hidden Dragon's" camouflage and stealth technology were top-notch, leaving no substantial energy traces.

Those "logic bomb" instructions were also sent based on the "Swarm's" own communication protocols. After investigating, it would likely only be attributed to "brief internal System logic conflicts" or "signal chaos caused by unknown spatial energy interference".

"Let them self-inspect. It would be best if they upgrade their 'firewalls' and 'antivirus software' until they're airtight, working that 'Bee Queen CPU' to death," Senior Brother Li gloated, "We can use this chance to do something else."

This "something else" was what Wen Youyi had mentioned: deploying more concealed reconnaissance units into the core area of the "Anvil".

The previously deployed "spores" were mostly on the periphery. Trying to penetrate deep into the "Anvil's" layered steel ruins and the dense "Swarm" areas without being discovered was extremely difficult.

The volume and energy characteristics of conventional "spores" were still too obvious.

Thus, a plan called "eye of dust" was put on the agenda.

As the name implies, it was to create an ultra-micro reconnaissance device that was extremely small in size, had almost zero energy fluctuations, could drift with the wind (energy flow) like cosmic dust, and was extremely difficult to be detected by conventional means.

"This requirement is too high," Senior Brother Zhang scratched his head, "Small size means functions must be extremely streamlined. It might only be able to execute the most basic process of 'attach-sleep-record-send'."

"Energy fluctuations being almost zero means it cannot carry a powerful energy source. It can only rely on slow charging from free energy in the environment, or it must be disposable."

"Disposable is fine," Wen Youyi's train of thought was clear, "We don't expect them to work long-term. We only need them to drift deep into the 'Anvil', preferably close to the area where the 'Bee Queen' is suspected to be. Then, at a specific moment, or when it perceives specific energy characteristics (like the 'Bee Queen's' powerful instruction stream), it gets 'awakened' to perform a one-time, high-intensity directional scan and data transmission, then self-destruct."

"It's like a buried 'landmine' that only explodes when stepped on or when it receives an instruction."

"This idea is feasible!" Senior Brother Li's eyes lit up, "We can design a 'dual-layer sleep' structure."

"The outer layer is a completely inert shell that simulates cosmic dust material, with even the basic Star Pattern in a deep shutdown state."

"The inner layer is an extremely streamlined reconnaissance core and a one-time high-energy signal transmitter."

"Only when the shell senses a preset, extremely intense specific energy fluctuation (like the core frequency band of the 'Bee Queen's' instructions) will it be 'resonantly' activated, opening the inner layer to scan and send, then the energy is exhausted, turning it into real dust."

"For the shell Materials, we can use that 'wave-absorbing inert alloy' we found in the wreckage. It hardly reflects any detection waves and can absorb weak environmental energy to slowly 'charge' the inner layer," Wang Wu added, "The dissemination mode is also simple. While the 'Swarm's' attention is drawn to the periphery, we will scatter them upwind of the 'Anvil' area (the main energy flow direction) and let them drift in naturally."

They got to work immediately. The technical team pulled another all-nighter, combining the core frequency band characteristics of the "Bee Queen's" instructions parsed from "Worker Bee" samples to start designing this "eye of dust".

The technical difficulty of this thing lay in "extreme simplification" and "high concealment".

The final "eye of dust" was only the size of a grain of sand, its shell an unremarkable, dusty "wave-absorbing inert alloy", and its internal structure was shockingly simple: an extremely sensitive "resonance receiver", a micro energy buffer pool (slowly charged by the shell), a "compound eye" type energy sensing array that could only perform one brief scan, and a powerful directional signal transmitter that could only work for an instant.

Its working logic had only three steps: 1. Drift. 2. Sense the intense fluctuation of the "Bee Queen's" core instruction frequency band (meaning it is very close to the "Bee Queen" or the "Bee Queen" is actively commanding), and activate via resonance. 3. Start up, scan the surrounding energy and material environment's maximum values, pack the data, and use all its strength to "shout" towards the preset receiving array far away from the "Anvil", then "expire".

Simple, crude, effective, and almost impossible to guard against—who would deliberately guard against a piece of cosmic dust that looked completely normal?

The first batch of "eye of dust" was quickly rushed out, with a quantity of tens of thousands.

They were packed in a specially made, slowly degradable "dissemination pod" and quietly transported by "Hidden Dragon" to the upstream direction of the dominant energy flow in the "Anvil" area.

"Hidden Dragon's" mission this time was easy yet eerie. Like an interstellar agricultural vehicle, it silently opened the "dissemination pod" in the Void Realm, far away from the "Swarm's" patrol routes, letting those tens of thousands of "grains of sand" follow the energy flow, drifting like dandelion Seeds scattered by the wind into the depths of the "Anvil's" ferocious steel jungle.

"Alright, the Seed has been sown. The rest is just waiting for the 'spring breeze' (Bee Queen's instructions) to awaken them," Wen Youyi said in a low voice, watching the nearly invisible "dust" scatter into the darkness on the monitoring screen.

In the following days, the base entered a period of tense waiting and monitoring.

Several high-sensitivity signal receiving arrays preset in different directions on the outskirts of the "Anvil" were all turned on, with power adjusted to the maximum, ready at any moment to capture the potentially fleeting "shout" of the "eye of dust" before it expired.

The wait was agonizing. Tens of thousands of "dust" particles were scattered in, like clay oxen entering the sea; the vast majority might never drift to the core area, or might be swept away by energy turbulence, crash into wreckage, or even be inadvertently "inhaled" by the "Swarm" (if they had the function to inhale things) without any reaction.

But as long as a few, or even one, could luckily drift near the "Bee Queen" and be activated when it "issued orders"... the reward would be immense!

Late on the third night (base simulation time), just as Wang Wu was dozing off on duty, a piercing alarm suddenly resounded through the control room!

"High-intensity directional signal captured! Source depth: 'Anvil' core area! Encoding confirmed—it's the return signal from 'Dust No. 3'!" Wang Wu instantly sobered up, his voice cracking with excitement.

All core members were immediately awakened and rushed into the control room.

On the light screen, a decrypted and magnified data stream was being rapidly parsed and imaged.

First was an extremely blurry but still roughly discernible energy distribution map.

In the center of the image was an extremely huge, complex, dark golden geometric structure emitting intense energy fluctuations that made one's heart palpitate!

It was like a massive nest formed by countless regular polyhedra nested together, deeply embedded within a piece of the thickest, most ancient starship wreckage, surrounded by dense energy pipelines extending like blood vessels to every part of the "Anvil".

On the surface of the giant nest, intense instruction light flows flashed regularly. Each flash was accompanied by a powerful instruction wave that covered the entire "Anvil" area—that was the "heartbeat" of the "Bee Queen"!

Around the giant nest, thousands of dark gold "Worker Bees" and "Soldier Drones", as well as a small number of unknown types of units with larger sizes and more complex structures, hovered and patrolled like loyal guards.

Immediately following was a short but clear record of energy fluctuations, a close-range reproduction of the very "Bee Queen instruction" that activated this "eye of dust"!

Its intensity, complexity, and the cold will contained within far exceeded any signal they had captured before!

Finally, there was an extremely precious scan data of the material environment near the "Beehive", showing that a massive amount of high-purity rare metals and energy crystals were gathered there, clearly the "resource reserves" collected by the "Swarm".

The signal stopped abruptly there. "Dust No. 3" had completed its mission and ceased to exist.

The control room was silent, with only the faint hum of instruments running.

Everyone was shocked speechless by the stunning scene inside the "Beehive".

It was not just a "control core"; it was a fully functional, armed-to-the-teeth automated war fortress that was continuously producing "Worker Bees"!

"My god..." Zhao Iron Pillar murmured, "This thing... is a hen that lays eggs! And it lays iron nugget eggs!"

"Not just a 'hen', it's a composite of 'Bee Queen', 'arsenal', and 'resource warehouse'," Wen Youyi's face was grim, "Its scale and activity level far exceed our previous estimates."

"The 'Anvil' area is likely not a simple 'outpost', but a still-operating, large-scale 'Reapers' automated base!"

This conclusion made everyone's spine chill.

They previously thought they were just dealing with a group of "Scavengers", but now they realized that what they were facing might be a small part of the tentacles of a "war machine" that was dormant but still retained considerable combat power!

"However, the good news is," Senior Brother Zhang forced himself to calm down and analyzed the data, "We finally know the exact location and approximate structure of the 'Bee Queen'!"

"Moreover, the brief scan from the 'eye of dust' shows that its external defense seems to rely mainly on the 'Swarm'. Although the 'Beehive's' own energy barrier is powerful, it seems to focus more on protecting the internal core and instruction transmission, and has almost no reaction to the infiltration of external, tiny, inert 'dust'!"

"This means," a cold light flashed in Wen Youyi's eyes, "if we can create 'special dust' that is powerful enough and can deceive its external perception... perhaps we have a chance to directly perform a 'lesion removal' surgery on this 'Beehive' from the inside?"

Decapitation operation? Everyone's heart skipped a beat.

The risk was huge, but the rewards... were equally tempting.

On the star map, the "Beehive" coordinate in the "Anvil" area, which had just been lit up, was like a cold temptation, and also like a ferocious challenge.

(End of chapter)