Abyss Solo

Yang Ming was a bit puzzled too.

What could be more important than him logging in to receive that final piece of information, figuring out Li's intentions, and understanding the High-dimensional World?

Ever since Levi woke up, Little Lyu had always been extremely crisis-conscious, always planning for the worst, while reality usually wasn't that deadly.

So Yang Ming instinctively felt that whatever issue Lyu was reporting today wouldn't be too serious.

"Captain has arrived on the bridge!"

026's sweet broadcast came on, and the projections of Kolev and Molly, who were staying on the bridge, turned to look over at the same time.

Yang Ming felt a little guilty for no reason.

Probably because, somewhere in his subconscious, he felt that he hadn't even married Mimili yet, and things had already progressed to this point...

"Boss, didn't I report to you a few times earlier about the movements of the Levi Fleet?"

Lyu's voice became very serious, and Kolev and Molly were also drawn over to the sand table.

"Yeah, right," Yang Ming asked, "what about it?"

"Boss, look, these are the latest movements of the Levi Fleet over the past twelve Galaxy Time units, and also a portion of the Levi Fleet's hidden forces that we hadn't discovered before."

Lyu's slender fingers lightly grasped, and the entire sand table displayed a miniature map of the Empire's territory. The intensely glowing spots represented the Empire's hundreds of major Administrative Stars, while the slightly dimmer thousands of planets represented the Empire's smaller Administrative Stars with permanent populations and the larger Resource Stars.

The Levi Fleet, which had previously returned to the Emperor Star space region for maintenance and overhauls, had suddenly dispersed at this moment, spreading throughout the Empire's entire domain.

"I have detected sixty-three thousand, two hundred and seventy-two Levi Battleships."

Lyu spoke quickly:

"These warships form nine major combat groups, scattered in all directions of the Empire, from the Emperor Star Circle to the Empire's borders.

"Without exception, these Levi Battleships are all waiting for orders near the Empire's major Administrative Stars and large Resource Stars.

"And within the Emperor Star Circle, the detectors I sent out have captured some rather strange ships."

Lyu tapped with her finger, and a projection screen emerged above the sand table, displaying photo after photo.

They were a type of spaceship shaped like a fat-headed fish, massive in size, with internal volume comparable to a Dreadnought, yet of simple construction and lacking a Main Cannon system.

And just in the photos, there were already several hundred of these spaceships.

Kolev asked in puzzlement, "What is this?"

"Production ships," Lyu said quickly, "this is the logistical support force of the Levi Fleet. They were a type of long-range production ship that had a period of popularity in the Milky Way twenty thousand Galaxy Years ago. Inside is a simplified but complete production structure, and these production ships, based on my observations, are very likely production ships for... basic Mechanical Guards. The Levi Fleet has at least three thousand of this type of production ship."

"Three thousand?"

Yang Ming frowned and asked, "What's the production rate?"

Lyu spoke quickly:

"According to the data I found, one ship can produce five hundred Mechanical Guards per Galaxy Day. The performance of this type of Mechanical Guard is somewhat outdated, but their combat effectiveness is still far above that of ordinary humans.

"The advantage of these production ships is that they can operate independently, and the production materials they require are minimal... As long as you hollow out the Star Cores of a few Resource Stars, you can obtain sufficient resources to produce tens of billions of mechanical troops.

"The locations where I photographed these production ships are precisely those Resource Stars currently being guarded by the Levi Fleet.

"They are semi-permanent ships.

"From the degree of wear on several of the production ships, it can be determined that they have undergone long periods of production operations."

The bridge fell so silent for over ten seconds that a pin drop could be heard.

026 counted on his fingers, "Three thousand production ships, in one day can produce three thousand times five hundred, that's one and a half million Mechanical Guards. In a standard Galaxy Year that's close to five hundred million... deducting the time for raw material acquisition and mining, even at a twenty percent effective production rate, that's still one hundred million a year. The Empire has existed for tens of thousands of years—tens of trillions of robots? This...?"

"It can't be that many," Yang Ming said, "and even if it was, it'd be pointless. Transport capacity is limited."

Kolev said, "So what you're saying is... that little Li, in secret, has used those Resource Stars that were abandoned tens of thousands of years ago within the Empire to churn out an unknown but definitely over tens-of-billions-scale number of robots?"

Lyu said calmly, "If my guess is correct, the number might be hundreds of billions, or three to four times that."

"Why?" Kolev asked with a frown.

Yang Ming opened his mouth and said, "Because the number of Mechanical Thought Bodies in the City of Light is in the hundreds of billions. Lyu has said before, all the Mechanical Thought Bodies in the City of Light are the product of tens of thousands of years of iteration under a thousandfold time acceleration. If our Mechanical Thought Bodies in the Dark City are Lv15, then theirs are Lv99."

"They don't age?" Kolev asked. "Surely these things are all made with semi-permanent materials, right?"

"Even if they aren't made of semi-permanent materials, they can be iterated on a millennial cycle," 026 said. "A thousand years is a hundred billion, and their material science inherits from Intelligent Mechanic Dusk. We are the ones who understand best just how terrifying the technology of Intelligent Mechanic Dusk is."

"Yes."

Lyu sighed and said:

"Awakeners and Mutants are merely patches and bugs of the City of Light. The City of Light's true value lies in those hundreds of billions of Mechanical Thought Bodies. They should all have been placed into deep memory, and when necessary, Li can awaken them all simultaneously and inject them into his mechanical army.

"That would be just like the Insect Race.

"The Empire has existed for tens of thousands of years; Li has controlled the Empire for tens of thousands of years. This is the heritage they have never revealed before.

"During the several extremely serious internal and external crises in the Empire's history, these Mechanical Guards have never been activated."