Chapter 1591: Scouts

Around the Naqdal Continent, a large cluster of drone bases was taking shape.

Sentry turrets had replaced the drone turrets and early-warning towers, which were previously erected to guard against the second wave attack of the festered monsters. The new, silver-gray space structures floated like monuments in space, each installed with guns of different sizes and missile launchers. The powerful shield generator on each sentry turret could cover a wide area. The precise placement of these sentry turrets ensured that shields would overlap each other to form a large group of staggered shields. This technique, adapted from the Xi Ling military technology, had been simplified and widely adopted in various cluster-based forts and bases around the macroworld.

Six large done nests were scattered within the protective range of the sentry turrets. The drone nests that glowed softly in the dark looked as if some strange sandcastles of metal and rock. They continued to expand with hundreds of factories and drone hangers connected to them and churn out thousands of drones. The cold and efficient machines shuttled between bases with the engineering drones continuing to expand the nests, and the armed drones in the hangers were arranged in rows of ten thousand parked under their respective racks, ready to be deployed to the battlefield.

In between these facilities were command centers, radar stations, data centers, accelerator tracks, and residential and ecosphere centers.

Some of the facilities were still under construction. No matter how efficient the drones were, it was impossible to finish building the complex, special-purpose structures immediately. But a few days after the work started, things began to take shape. Hao Ren believed that it was already a space city.

The project was massive but relatively scattered. That made it easy to form a few layers of structures around the Naqdal Continent. In the center of these structures, Hao Ren had another ambitious project.

He was to modify and reequip Naqdal Continent.

Naqdal Continent, a broken fragment of the mighty war machine, Naqdal Planetary Fortress, by itself was already an excellent foundation of a weapon of war.

Underneath the crust of rocks and soils hid the solid alloy structure that the guardian giants built. There was still a modular power reactor, which was reparable, buried there. The continent had the largest shield system Hao Ren had ever seen in the Plane of Dreams. This shield system, when it was still intact, provided solid protection for an entire planet. Even with a part of it left, the system could shield the whole continent.

The shield generator was not running in its best performance right now, but by replacing some of the core components, fixing the overloaded coils, and recalibrating the operating frequency, it would operate at its top performance.

There were many energy cannons left on the surface. Not only that, but the ancient temples could also be used as a weapon in a space battle. As long as there was sufficient energy supply, they would not be any less powerful than the sub-cannons of Nolan or the main gun of the armed drones. Some of the high-end stuff was even more powerful.

In the eyes of the sprites, however, the ancient facilities on Naqdal Continent were beyond repair but not to Hao Ren. His black technology could fix these things. Even if it could not, the drone factories could make a bunch of standard parts to swap out the old ones.

Hao Ren’s decision to leave behind a large number of autonomous research facilities at the Gate of Solenne to study the remains of the guardian giants was a wise move. He had accumulated tons of knowledge about the technologies of the guardian giants, and now, all this information came in handy.

The ‘all-rounder’ job nature of the inspectors necessitated the use of equipment and technology with high compatibility. This would ensure the hardware of the inspectors to work with the technology of different civilizations. So, Hao Ren had no problem in repair or even upgrade the Naqdal Continent.

Meanwhile, Hao Ren had explained his decision to reequip and transform the Naqdal Continent into a battle fort.

“The drones are, of course, powerful, but they also have an obvious weakness. There are not many ultra-large drones and even mobile drone fortresses available, and they are impractical. War at the demigod level is unfolding in the Star Cluster X, and the enemy is the demigod guardians whom the Mad Lord had corrupted, the drones will be at a disadvantage even with the edge of number because the festered monsters have highly intelligent command units. So, we need to make up for this shortcoming by building a fortress, which will be the mothership to help the drone cluster move forward.”

Vivian looked at Hao Ren for a long time with a doubtful look. “And?”

“And it feels so cool.”

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Hao Ren’s justification was pretty much a bull, but Vivian and the MDT still gave their support to the transformation plan, because they needed to increase their combat strength.

Increasing the survivability of Naqdal would also ensure the safety of the sprites during battles. They knew that the targets of the festered monsters were the relics of the goddess of creation, and the sprites were part of these relics. They originally were the crystals on the Naqdal Continent. It was found that the crystals and the systems in the continent had an inseparably natural bond. So, the best way to ensure the sprites survive in the coming battle, Hao Ren needed to make their home as robust as possible.

He could hide the entire Naqdal Continent and even move it to a safer place. But the sprites were highly against it.

They did not seem to like to continue to live life as fugitives. Especially after they had found their queen and learned that the ancient facilities were restorable, the sprites became motivated and strongly demanded to return to the ‘heart’ to join the war. Hao Ren had given his nod. He knew there was no way to convince the sprites otherwise, and he also needed Naqdal.

While the upgrading work of Naqdal started, Hao Ren and Vivian took the opportunity to return to the home planet of the Executors.

Hao Ren was worried that Lily would tear down the entire base during his absence.

But this transcended husky was no ordinary domestic breed, she did not take down the base as Hao Ren had imagined. Lily just complained about how bored she was staying at the base while Hao Ren was having all the fun.

“I have wanted to bring you, too, but the divine storm could blow us into pieces,” Hao Ren said. He was helpless about Husky’s complaints. “But don’t worry, we have found the ‘heart’ of the Star Cluster X. The blockade will be lifted when we solve the problem in that goddamn place.”

Lily pouted. She looked displeased but complained no more.

The construction work on the Executors’ home planet was making tremendous progress. The forward base had expanded to become a permanent fortress, which not only covered the long-range cognition array but also extended beyond the northern part of the scorched plain up to the jungle adjoining the plain. A barrier had divided a small part of the forest, which had now become the botanical garden in the base. Lily and Rollie had been roaming around in there hunting and fishing. They would take the Nangong siblings, Y’zaks and his daughter there for a picnic occasionally. They had fun.

By the look of it, Lily’s life here was not dull at all. It was just that she felt being left out of the exciting adventure.

Going along the avenue in the base in the direction of the residential area, Hao Ren saw the ‘world tree’ that Zorm transformed using his tentacle. It stood at the end of the horizon with its crown emitting a soft magical glow in the sunset. Amid this scene, there were some small aircraft shuttling around.

“Are they Executors?” Vivian squinted.

“You should have come to see how they made the first contact with Zorm, “said Y’zaks with a terrible smile. “That’s N-6’s team. They departed from the Zenith and hovered above Zorm’s world tree for a long time, setting up their positions and monitoring the underground data. While they were at it, Zorm suddenly drew a half-kilometer wide smiley face above the crown of the world tree and began to put up a light show in the sky while singing Hello Friend. Half of the plains could hear that, and N-6 almost fired at him.”

“I can imagine that.” Hao Ren buried his face in his hand. “It is Zorm’s style. I wonder how long he has taken to come up with such an elaborate plan.”

“Hey, Battie, I heard that you have become a queen!” Lily had come out of her depression. “How did that happen? I cannot imagine how a pauper like you could become a queen.”

Vivian also buried her face in her hand. “Don’t ever mention that. You will not say that if you know how the subjects of the queen look like.”

The stay on the home planet of the Executors was a brief one as soon, Hao Ren had received news from Naqdal.

Some minions of the Mad Lord were found to lurk near to the security perimeter of Naqdal.