Interstellar Survival: Invasion

Chapter 273: Light Memory

"If we have no choice, then we'll have to blast it open. Let's prioritize staying alive for now," suggested Anxashe, insisting on using his previous method.

"We can't easily blast it open. The entire core room will burn, and we will be exposed as well," said Zhang Bao'er.

Meanwhile, Old Du was nervously studying the structure of the circuit on the cover, trying to find a solution. However, at that point, the heat was already less than a meter from us. Even with my suit on, I could feel the heat approaching us.

"Old Du, any results?" asked Zhang Bao'er, who was already using his extinguisher to reduce the spread of the heat.

"This will be too hard to open. We need a special key to open it," said Old Du helplessly.

"Then we'll have to blast it open. We can just face whatever comes next together," said Zhang Bao'er, finally agreeing with Anxashe's proposal.

Suddenly, I felt a thought rushing into my brain. I could even clearly see the other side of the cover in my head. There was a PIN code lock on the other side, with the buttons located at the upper left of the cover from our side. I was about to take a closer look when the vision ended.

"I can't be seeing things, right?" I muttered after exiting the vision.

"Canyue, what's wrong?" asked Anxashe when he noticed that I was behaving weirdly.

"I think I saw the other side of the cover. There is a PIN code lock there, on this spot," I said as I pointed at the corner of the cover.

Hearing my words, Old Du abruptly raised his laser gun and aimed at the spot I was pointing at before pulling the trigger. The laser shot instantly pierced through the steel plate.

"Old Du, have you gone crazy?" exclaimed Zhang Bao'er in shock.

The cover shook slightly before opening by itself. It would seem like the destruction of the PIN code lock had triggered the door-opening mechanism. We did not wait to rush into the core room. After entering, Anxashe turned around and placed the cover back, stopping the spread of the heat.

And just like that, the four of us escaped danger by pure happenstance. We slumped onto the ground and panted heavily. What we had just experienced felt more intense than an actual battle.

I finally had the chance to observe the core room before my eyes. The room was filled with massive rectangular pieces of equipment, and countless smaller rectangular devices were on each piece. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the rectangular devices were filled with complete recordings similar to the memory fragments we had seen in the other room.

"My god. This is incredible. All the programs are stored in these light memory drives. This is unbelievable," I exclaimed in admiration.

"We need to look for the main server of the managerial programs and use Little Forest's probes to pinpoint the location of the light memories we need. There are too many memories here for us to search through," said Old Du.

"We need to split up. Stay in contact and ensure that all three of us insert the probes at the same time," I said.

My words reminded Old Du, who hurriedly called Big Forest's ship.

"Big Forest, Big Forest, we're already in the core room. Can you hear me?" asked Old Du.

However, we only received static in reply.

"Those two Forests are actually not waiting for us as agreed," said Zhang Bao'er furiously.

"Stay calm. Something isn't right. They might have encountered some difficulties," I said.

Anxashe also tried to contact Ada, but there was no reply either.

"Forget them for now. Let's search for Temo's and Dodo's whereabouts first," I decided.

"We can't go together. We need to split up," said Old Du.

We split into three, each aiming for one direction. I had Anxashe go with Zhang Bao'er since he was the most likely among us to get into a conflict. After the assignment was completed, the four of us set off.

The core room resembled a beautiful supermarket. Like a shopper, I was browsing through the shelves for the goods on them. Suddenly, I noticed that there were numerous micro-robots on the shelves. They were working in groups of two to move piece after piece of the light memory drives.

After further observation, I noted that there were a lot of these micro-robots working on these light memory drives. Two of them flew past me, completely ignoring my presence as they continued on with their tasks. It seemed that these robots were only in charge of managing the room. They were not equipped with any defensive or surveillance functionalities.

I was somewhat relieved at that discovery. I continued walking along the shelves. Before long, I encountered a massive circular piece of equipment. Several thick tubes were connected to it. Below it, new light memory drives were being spat out. Micro-robots rushed forth to move the light memory drives the moment a new one was spat out. Everything was proceeding in an orderly fashion.

"Old Du, Bao'er, I seem to have discovered the main server. It is a circular machine that is constantly producing new light memory drives," I said in excitement.

Both Zhang Bao'er and Old Du started moving faster upon hearing about my discovery. Meanwhile, I was standing right beside the server. I was able to easily find the port for the probe. I only needed to wait until the others found the other servers before we could insert our probes together.

Before long, my attention was grabbed by the light memory drives the server was spitting out. I found to my astonishment that these memories contained events from all over the Milky Way Galaxy as opposed to primarily containing the events on these 27 artificial planets.

'Looks like the Divine Empire is slowly spreading its influence into the Milky Way Galaxy and is already making preparations for harnessing energy at new locations in advance,' I thought.

As the stream of light memory drives went by rapidly before my eyes, I saw stars of many forms I had never seen before. I also saw the true appearance of celestial objects our telescopes had never been able to capture. These planets looked rather peculiar, with the blue and green planets attracting a lot of my attention because they could possibly be planets containing unknown life forms.

"Canyue, I found my server," reported Zhang Bao'er while I was in the middle of studying the memory drives.

"I found mine as well!" reported Old Du in excitement.

With all three of us in position, I took out my probe and performed a countdown before all three of us inserted our respective probes. The instant my probe was inserted, I clearly saw blue electrical currents run around the server in front of me. It seemed like the server was performing the requested search at a high speed.

I stood in excitement while I waited for the search result. All four of us were silent. I could almost feel the nervousness of the other three through the communicator. A few minutes later, I saw two micro-robots flying in my direction carrying a light memory drive.

'Looks like something has been found!' I thought with joy.

Zhang Bao'er and Old Du also reported that micro-robots were flying toward them with light memory drives.

Carrying the light memory drive, the two micro-robots floated in front of me. I impatiently reached out and tapped the drive.

Temo and Dodo could be clearly seen in the recording. At the same time, there was also an Eternal with them. If I was right, that person would be none other than Dirk. From the recording, Temo and Dodo were locked in a large bedroom. There were two armed smart robots standing guard inside the room, but Temo appeared completely unbothered.

A table full of sumptuous food was in front of Temo. I couldn't recognize a majority of the dishes, but I could see that it was a treatment only those high up on the ladder could enjoy. Meanwhile, Dodo was standing beside Temo. I could see that Temo no longer had his communicator on him, hence why he was unable to contact us. Dirk was seated facing Temo, staring at Temo as he ate without saying a single word.

'I wonder if they had performed any modifications on Dodo,' I thought anxiously.

"Canyue, Bao'er, I found the place," Old Du suddenly cried out.

"I saw Dodo. They're with Temo," said Zhang Bao'er.

"I saw them as well. They're both in a room. Old Du, where's the location? Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes. I saw the entire scene of their capture. The smart robots had brought them into a castle. The castle is very unique in design. It can be recognized easily," said Old Du.

"Since we have found traces of them, let's get to them quickly," said Zhang Bao'er.

"Be patient. I think I also saw another missing person," said Old Du.

"What else did you see?" asked Zhang Bao'er.

"In my corner of the core room, there seems to be a moving hat," said Old Du, making a rather peculiar remark.