Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 172 The Thorne Zerg Appear Again

The tower itself doesn't look like anything special.

It is a large power supply facility that can cover the entire city.

But the lower layers seem to have other uses.

After looking around the tower for a while, Chen Ming found a collapsed wall.

There are no mechanical individuals moving inside or outside the walls here, and there are no running monitors either.

The robot was able to enter the tower.

The first time he entered the tower, Chen Ming noticed that there were large areas for movement in the bottom floors of the tower.

And as he observed, he also understood the functions of the bottom of the tower and the layers underground.

This is the city's control center.

Someone...no, there was a creature that worked here.

These creatures belong to the destroyed civilization, and there is a high probability that their species are similar to humans.

That's why there are these designs in the tower that allow Chen Ming to easily understand the general purpose.

It's a pity that this place is as dilapidated as the city outside.

Chen Ming asked the robot to continue searching to see if there were actual control panels or exposed data cables on the nearby floors, or to try to find the city's database.

Since many mechanical races in the city are just dormant rather than dead, the same is true in the tower.

So Chen Ming had better not make any destructive actions now.

In the process of searching.

Chen Ming didn't find what he just thought about, but instead found an archive.

All the files placed inside are paper files.

Now Chen Ming can confirm that there are indeed traces of that civilization's main species operating here in this city. It does not mean that they planted a flag here and then ignored it.

This means that the probability that he can find good things here has been greatly improved.

But there is a problem.

As the years go by, these paper files barely maintain their paper appearance. The slightest movement will cause these files to be completely destroyed.

Even if Chen Ming wanted to directly scan the contents of the files, he would not be able to do so, because the words on these files have long been worn out and cannot be read at all.

Nothing remains in the archives.

Fortunately, Chen Ming found a monitoring device in the corner of the archives room that was still running and had some damaged protective layers.

Chen Ming immediately blocked his vision and directly connected the data line of the gamma core to the exposed data line connected to the monitoring equipment.

The surveillance of the archives room is connected to an independent monitoring room.

This independent monitoring room is quite special. Its function is to monitor some important equipment, such as the archives room here.

Although many of the images on the surveillance cameras were completely dark.

But Chen Ming can still confirm the location of some important equipment through monitoring.

Such as the bundled cables underneath the towers that power towers and cities.

Chen Ming could see many thick cable lines extending from outside the city into the city.

At the starting point where the line extends, there is a solar panel array protected by many mechanical clans.

This is a place I didn't see during my last refraction.

This time, after Chen Ming came over, the moment Supreme Point scanned this place, Chen Ming knew what their use was.

The energy lines outside extend from underground to the top of the tower.

At the same time, there are countless lines branching off at the base of the tower, connecting the entire city.

In the entire tower, only the energy supply equipment is still intact and barely functioning.

But without follow-up maintenance, there is a high probability that these devices that are still running will be almost completely damaged within a few decades.

Of course, this has nothing to do with Chen Ming. He just came to see if there was anything good in the tower.

With the location of the archives room and monitoring room, Chen Ming also has the ability to directly repair all the monitors connected to this special monitoring room.

Chen Ming quickly determined the distribution of important locations in the entire tower, and the location of the main control room naturally appeared in his eyes.

The robot quickly found its way past.

The main control panel, which had been completely damaged, was found.

After a simple modification to connect the gamma core, Chen Ming once again used his repair power to restore the main control panel to its original state. .

The entire tower was under his control at this moment.

Chen Ming then discovered that in addition to the basic control lines, the entire tower also had many internal grid damages.

This resulted in a lack of power in the tower and the entire city. If it were not for the shutdown of many facilities and the hibernation of many mechanical races, the entire city would have been paralyzed long ago.

And this situation seems to be caused by some energy supply equipment, and there is a problem with the solar panels outside.

This is quite normal. A large-scale installation area outside the city has not been better than the situation inside the city after so many years.

Anyway, this does not affect Chen Ming's ability to use this main control room.

Chen Ming's psychic powers are actually except for the powerful effect of [Repair] which ignores Chen Ming's own skills.

In fact, there is a special effect, that is, no matter whether it has ever understood the mechanical equipment he controls, as long as he controls it, he can rely on his spiritual power to master how to use it.

Of course, it's just about how to use it. You still have to spend time researching the equipment itself.

Just like a cruiser, Chen Ming has never been able to drive it and has no chance to get in touch with it.

But after controlling the highest point, he can open the highest point, and he can also use various complex exploration equipment on it at will.

Although there are limitations, it is outrageous enough.

So it's the same now.

Chen Ming quickly understood the various functions of the main control room and found the most critical one.

This high tower has the highest control authority over the mechanical clan within the city.

Chen Ming gave it a try immediately.

Try to give a command to a machine sleeping near the main control in the tower to stop sleeping and move.

but failed.

Chen Ming frowned slightly and tried again.

But the result is still the same.

Obviously the process of issuing the command is normal.

The process of accepting orders is also normal.

Even the feedback results are normal.

But the abnormal thing is that the machine clan that accepted the order did not execute the order given by Chen Ming.

It is still sleeping in place.

Chen Ming immediately found another machine sleeping in the tower through the monitoring inside the tower.

Its exterior is damaged and can be accessed.

Chen Ming arranged for the robot with the gamma core to go over.

At the same time, he tried to give it an order.

The situation is the same.

The process was normal, but the end result was that the machine completely ignored Chen Ming's orders.

So Chen Ming asked the robot to connect the gamma core, control it, and open the panel immediately.

You can see that the name of this machine is [Mechanical Small Machine - Worker Bee].

The column of consciousness is "sub-individual (dormant)", not "existence" or "dormancy" like afterglow.

Just when Chen Ming was about to figure out why it accepted the order but didn't execute it.

He suddenly found that the consciousness column on the panel had changed.

From the original [individual consciousness: sub-individual (dormant)] to [individual consciousness: sub-individual (abnormal)]

Chen Ming was completely unprepared for this unexpected situation.

He knew that the sub-individual meant an individual in the entire collective under the hive mind of the entire mechanical race.

I also know that the reason for this situation is most likely because his spiritual energy controls this machine clan.

But he didn't know what the "abnormality" behind the sub-individual specifically represented.

Wait, Chen Ming seemed to suddenly understand.

He found that the machine he controlled suddenly seemed to be disconnected from a certain network, causing its computing power to suddenly drop a lot.

This machine race lost its cluster and the support of the machine race cluster in the city.

However, it seems to have gained some ability to think for itself.

This is what the abnormal sub-individuals represent.

Other than that, there doesn't seem to be anything else special about it.

Forget it, leave it alone.

Chen Ming put aside the matter of the aberrant individual for the time being.

First try to figure out what just happened.

Chen Ming once again used the tower to try to send orders to the mechanical race that had become an abnormal sub-individual.

This time Chen Ming was observing its behavior throughout the process.

Take the order.

Confirm the command.

Feedback command.

implement……

A problem occurred at this step of executing the command.

Chen Ming couldn't understand the process of computing on the mechanical family's chip just as he couldn't understand Yuhui's core.

But he could see that in the machine family's chip, the three things of receiving confirmation and feedback were constructed into a cycle.

And this point of executing the order is excluded.

Chen Ming can understand the meaning of this special logical cycle that has been completely locked.

Because this basic logic is locked and cannot be changed, the only outcome that can be changed is death.

This completely cuts off the possibility of it executing any external orders.

It can only rely on the internal hive mind network it is in to receive orders from the subject, just like it is now receiving orders from Chen Ming using psychic energy.

Normal methods can no longer affect this or all the machines.

They do so after completely removing the possibility of receiving commands.

It is already an independent mechanical life, not a manufactured mechanical creature.

If Chen Ming could understand a little bit about the way the mechanical race thinks, he could express these logics in a way that normal humans can understand instead of using spiritual energy.

Then he can announce the logical lock-up of this mechanical race, write several papers at least, and win some prizes without any problem.

Although it is not as good as the anti-matter reactor, which can be said to be an epoch-making product, it must be a very important node on the way to the empire's continued development. It’s a pity that Chen Ming can’t do it.

He could only rely on his spirit to make himself understand this matter.

Chen Ming shook his head slightly.

Continue what he came here to do in the first place, look for something of value.

Chen Ming relied on the authority of the main control room to quickly explore the entire tower thoroughly.

He actually found a database that was still running and not damaged.

Chen Ming immediately saved all the files inside.

Although he couldn't read the text on the document.

But he can still understand the blueprint above.

These databases contain early planning blueprints for the entire city's construction, as well as design blueprints for some mechanical races.

Blueprints for several chips and several spherical objects are also included.

Chen Ming immediately thought of the two special things on the mechanical race he just controlled.

Core chips and secondary cores.

These lengthy and extremely complex blueprints were supposed to be used to make both of these things.

Although Chen Ming doesn't think that it is enough for the manufacturing machine clan to prepare all the materials and build the shell.

But some things have to be tried.

Only after trying it did he know what he was missing.

These are the only valuable things in the entire tower.

Chen Ming rummaged through the other items but found nothing special. Basically, they were all damaged items, and there was no point in repairing them.

The only meaning is to dismantle it and obtain materials.

But Chen Ming didn't think it was necessary.

Being able to obtain these blueprints and retreat safely is the best outcome for this visit.

Chen Ming planned to stop here and leave directly.

Anyway, the city of the mechanical tribe is here, and as long as he hasn't left too far, he can come back whenever he wants.

Chen Ming's robot quickly left the tower with the worker bees he had just controlled.

The way out is much easier than the way in.

Although Chen Ming cannot control the mechanical clan, the tower still continues to control various facilities within the city.

Chen Ming can choose those areas that are still under the control of the tower and leave the city in a big way.

With two robots, Chen Ming's robot successfully arrived at the edge of the city where it had entered before.

Plan to return to the landing craft via the original route.

At the moment when Chen Ming's robot took a step out of the city's territory.

The ground suddenly began to shake.

"earthquake?"

Chen Ming's subconscious question immediately made him feel something was wrong.

Because based on the survey of the planet just conducted at the highest point, it can be determined that the place where the continental plates of this planet meet is not here.

No matter how stupid people from another civilization are, they would not be able to just choose a place at the intersection of the plates on such a large planet to build a city.

This sudden earthquake is definitely not a natural phenomenon, but something is moving underground.

Chen Ming immediately asked the highest point in the orbit to adjust the frequency of detection.

The frequency is locked underground.

Although the influence of the atmosphere prevents the detection from being too deep when the highest point is outside the atmosphere.

But that's enough for now.

Almost instantly, Supreme Point discovered a large area of ​​biological reaction underground not far from Chen Ming's robot.

These things are digging rapidly underground, close to the city of the mechanical tribe.

I saw the familiar look on the results transmitted back by the scanning array.

Chen Ming finally couldn't help but said: "Thorne Zerg?"

"No, we can't just draw a conclusion like that."

Chen Ming suppressed his subconscious thoughts, kept thinking calmly, and let his robot take the two mechanical tribes back to the city.

Not long after, the insects that caused the ground to shake broke out of the ground on the edge of the city.

The tentacles extending from their ugly, sharp heads covered with spikes were sniffing frantically.

Almost instantly, it locked onto Chen Ming's robot that had entered the city.

Chen Ming had a feeling at this moment that these insects seemed to be coming towards him.

The bugs waved their limbs and rushed through the gaps in the defense facilities, rushing into the city.

At this moment, they seemed to have triggered some defense mechanism.

Everywhere within the sight of Chen Ming Tower, all dormant mechanical races were restarted at this moment.

They each performed their duties and returned to their posts. At the same time, most of the mechanical tribes with combat capabilities were moving closer here.

Before Chen Ming had time to react, a huge battle broke out between the Thorn Zerg and the Machine Tribe.

Chen Ming's robot, which seemed to be the cause of all this, suddenly became an outsider.

Chen Ming took advantage of the chaos and asked his robot to find a safe place to make up for the blind spot in the monitoring area where Chen Ming's tower had lost control, and transmitted back the scene of the battlefield.

After leaving the battlefield, Chen Ming immediately noticed that under the huge pit dug by these bugs, there were still many bugs that were very familiar to him crawling out.

Those vesicle bugs have huge vesicles on their necks that store acid, and the muscles on their necks are also extremely developed.

Chen Ming was very impressed by this insect.

Because at that time on the space station, although the Zerg were numerous in number, they basically only had a few melee individuals, that is, stridors.

Chen Ming believes that these bugs are most likely the basic individuals of the Thorn Zerg tribe, so now, even if he sees them, he is not completely sure that these bugs are the same batch as those of the space station.

Just think of it as another batch of Thorn Zerg in the universe.

But these cyst worms are different.

Chen Ming remembered very clearly that these cyst bugs were a type of bug that evolved in just two days after he used the range of the spacecraft weapon to attack those bugs.

Even in other places, the Thorn Zerg have evolved the ability to attack from a distance.

But this doesn’t mean evolution is exactly the same, right?

Chen Ming can be 100% sure that these bugs that appear here must be those on the space station.

What the hell are the Thorn Zerg? what is happening?

Two questions suddenly appeared in Chen Ming's mind, surrounding him, making him completely unable to understand them.

Just when Chen Ming couldn't think of an answer at all.

The battle between the Thorn Zerg and the Machine Tribe continues.

Except for the largest number of striders in the Thorn Zerg tribe.

There are also some smaller beetle-like Zerg.

And the larger Zergs, which were more than three meters tall and had quite a lot of limbs, also emerged from the holes they dug, joined the battlefield, and pounced on the machines like crazy.

Although the bugs charging at the front all just rushed forward as if they were brainless, the cyst bugs behind them were completely different.

They are very smart and stay on the edge of the battlefield, dispersedly arranged, but they are able to concentrate the sprayed acid on a certain target very uniformly.

These acids, which are different in color from those Chen Ming has seen before, can even melt dolomite steel.

These Thorn Zerg tribe seem to have the same hive mind as the Machine Tribe.

Although there are a lot of Zerg, their actions are also extremely crazy.

But the number of mechanical races in the city is also very large, and they don't care about the madness of the insects at all.

Just as a cold machine, they slaughtered the Thorn Zerg that invaded their city.

In addition to the long-range combatants carrying electromagnetic javelins like Jing Mantis, which Chen Ming had seen, the Mechanical Tribe also had melee combat units like the Zerg Tribe.

In particular, one is similar to the Jing Mantis controlled by Chen Ming. It also has the appearance of a combination of man and mantis, but it is more like a mantis' mechanical body.

A curved blade with a light blue translucent appearance, like a mantis sickle, extends from each of its hands and arms.

At the same time, it has auxiliary wings and blowholes like a real mantis on its back.

This allows it to maintain its own balance while possessing extremely strong instantaneous burst speed.

Relying on terrifying speed and sharp weapons, this kind of mechanical race can cut off the bodies of several insects in the blink of an eye.

Even the largest Zerg with many limbs can split it in half in an instant.

In addition to this seemingly lighter Jingmantis, another type of mechanical race can gain the upper hand in hand-to-hand combat with these giant Zerg.

There are more and more powerful machines in the mechanical family.

For example, a large mechanical body about four or five meters high.

With a mammoth-like appearance, four extremely thick lower limbs and two huge mechanical forelimbs waving in front, it can hedge against the surging insect tide like a tank.

It can easily crush any bug that stands in its way.

However, the most numerous among the mechanical tribe are various mechanical bodies holding thermal weapons, such as Jing Mantis or other mechanical tribes.

They are the real main force when they are clearing out the Zerg outside.

These long-range combat units can easily target the vesicle insects hiding in the insect swarm and accurately kill these remote combat units of the insect race.

Although the Zerg race has strong physical abilities and can easily kill humans, their bodies can only be easily crushed in front of the steel of the mechanical race.

As long as these materials that can threaten Baiyun Steel are dealt with, the mechanical clan will definitely have an advantage.

The battle gradually began to spread to the location where Chen Ming's robot was hiding.

Chen Ming had to move the robot towards the inside of the city again, away from the place of right and wrong.

Soon Chen Ming found another collapsed building. A large tree with lush branches grew out of the building, which allowed him to hide well.

It also allows Chen Ming to observe the battlefield situation more accurately.

In the battle between the Mechanical Tribe and the Thorn Zerg Tribe, one can easily see that the Mechanical Tribe's attack capabilities are not on the same level as the Zerg Tribe.

But as Chen Ming reached a higher place and could see the battlefield situation more clearly, he discovered that the number of fallen machines and the number of Zerg at this time was actually close to 1:2.

This is obviously not normal.

Chen Ming quickly became more involved in observing

Then he discovered a special place.

The muscles under the brown carapace of the Thorn Zerg are gray-green, and gray-green blood will spray out when injured.

The blood pressure in the insect's body seems to be very high, and the gray-green blood can easily spray out for several meters.

Once this gray-green blood covers the mechanical race,

Even if there is no external damage, there is no abnormality such as leakage.

The machine race will also gradually lose its combat effectiveness, and there will be completely undue abnormalities in the control of its own equipment and devices.

It is precisely because of this blood that the bugs can barely bring the battle loss ratio back to 2:1.

There's something wrong with this blood.

(End of this chapter)