Jiang's eyes were filled with anxiety. Unable to speak, she pushed hard on Aisha's shoulder with her palm.
But Aisha shook her head firmly and pointed to the ground beneath her feet.
If Grandma was going to stay here and wait, then she would stay too.
The officer, seeing her unwavering expression, had no choice but to turn and leave.
The red cliff wall shimmered like rippling water before solidifying again.
Aisha walked over and touched it—there were no seams or textures at all, just the solid feel of a wall. Clearly, a disguised shell hid the real entrance behind it.
Jiang sat down on a nearby boulder, and Aisha joined her, reaching out to hold her hand.
Dozens of kilometers away, high in the sky—
Pei Ran asked, "Where are Jiang and the others now?"
W replied, "I've already sent someone to inform them to wait at the entrance to Heijing for now. Aisha refused to enter the shelter alone—she's staying outside with Jiang. Don't worry, there are surveillance cameras at the entrance; we can monitor their condition at any time."
Pei Ran nodded. "Good."
She looked toward the horizon for a moment, thinking, then asked W, "Will the current admission criteria… change?"
W replied with conviction, "I'm almost certain the requirements will gradually loosen over time."
Pei Ran understood. Too many had already died, and many more would follow. The Federation couldn't afford to be so selective.
"How long do you think that'll take?" she asked.
"I don't know," W answered honestly.
Pei Ran glanced back at the swarm of human-fragment drones trailing behind them. Things were getting more dangerous out there—they needed to get everyone into Heijing as soon as possible.
Suddenly, W said, "I just got a message. The recon drones found our target near the coordinates reported by Captain Xiao Hai, and the strike was successful."
Captain Xiao Hai could rest in peace.
"What exactly were you looking for?" Pei Ran asked.
Then she quickly added, "I'm just curious. If it's classified, you don't have to tell me."
"It's not a secret," W replied. "Everyone in Heijing already knows."
He gave a brief explanation: the northern second-phase shield zone had come under attack. The attackers were a mix of Type-13 Assault Robots and human-fusion entities in a state of madness.
He continued, "Their attacks are organized and tactical. From that, we can infer they're being commanded by another type of AI—an autonomous mobile operations center called the Thinker.
"We believe there are three such centers. One was destroyed this morning. Another was just taken out near Xiao Hai's coordinates. But the attacks in the north haven't changed—the last one must still be operational."
Pei Ran asked, "It's called a mobile operations center, so it can move?"
"Not just move," W said. "It's smart. It actively seeks places to hide and avoids being detected."
"Heijing has deployed all available drones and aircraft to expand the search zone. It should have been found by now. But so far… nothing."
Pei Ran nodded slowly. "So if this Thinker unit is destroyed, the fusion entity army will lose coordination?"
"Exactly. Their attacks would immediately become disorganized. The current 'erasure-level' assault would downgrade to aimless chaos, making them far easier to handle. The crisis at the base would be resolved."
"And if you can't find it?" Pei Ran asked.
W's tone was calm: "Based on my projections, this trained fusion army will likely break through our defenses and reach Heijing. If that happens, they'll almost certainly discover the entrance."
Pei Ran's voice was low: "Would they slaughter everyone in Heijing?"
"If they breach the entrance and we're reduced to urban warfare in the corridors, that would still be the least of our problems," W replied.
Pei Ran blinked. Wait, what do you call a real problem then?
"The real issue is this: in erasure mode, the fusion entities will destroy the core shielding generator inside Heijing. We currently lack the capability to manufacture new parts for it. If it's destroyed, there will be no other functioning shelters on the entire Eastern Manya continent."
Pei Ran was speechless.
Talk about bad luck.
After journeying over 2,000 kilometers through hardship, she had finally reached the entrance—only to hear that the shelter might be lost before she could even enter.
Up in the gray sky, the human-fragment drones had long left the mining zone behind. Feeling the time was right, Pei Ran accelerated.
Once she picked up speed, the human-fragment swarm was no match.
They fell further and further behind, shrinking into tiny black specks in the distance—then disappeared altogether.
"Shall we head back?" W asked.
"Yeah," Pei Ran replied.
Tang Dao and the others were still waiting at the tunnel.
She stepped on the pedal and turned north.
They had to loop around; otherwise, they might run right into the fragment swarm again.
The location of the aircraft showed up on the control panel. The interface had been carefully optimized—no text, just fine-gridded topography. Likely what Captain Xiao Hai had used to estimate coordinates.
W glanced at the map too. "The entrance to Heijing is just northeast of us. A bit more north, then we can start heading east."
They flew on.
Pei Ran scanned the skies, ready to turn.
But she didn't press the pedal.
W, also scanning the eastern sky, saw no trace of the enemy and turned back. "What's wrong?"
Pei Ran stared northward, over the undulating wasteland. "W, what's that?"
There, in the visible distance, one patch of ground looked… off.
The flat terrain was beginning to bulge upward, as though something were pushing from underneath—like a massive bamboo shoot trying to break free from the red earth.
If it was a shoot, it was a monster one. Even from this high up, she could sense the size and force of its emergence.
"That's definitely not something naturally occurring," W muttered.
Obviously.
In a world overrun by insane fusion entities, Pei Ran immediately pulled the aircraft higher and farther, keeping her distance while observing.
She muttered, "Let's both say a prayer—that this thing popping out is the missing Thinker."
W replied, "Honestly… it just might be."
From afar, a deafening boom split the air. The ground burst open, but surprisingly little red earth sprayed out. Where did all the fragments go?
Something underground had pierced through the surface at an angle.
The first thing to emerge was a massive spinning disc.
As more of its body rose from the earth, its shape became clear: a long, cylindrical form—like a giant caterpillar, or a segmented tube-train.
Pei Ran studied the bizarre machine. "W, does the Thinker look like that?"
"No. The Thinker is a squat black humanoid robot," W said. "What we're looking at here is a fully automated AI tunneling machine."
Pei Ran blinked. A tunneling machine?
W explained, "Yes. It was used during the construction of the Heijing underground base. We employed a lot of AI-powered machinery to expand and excavate the tunnels. This is one of them."
And suddenly, Pei Ran understood.
She'd seen one of these before—deep in the underground shelters as a child, when she and a friend got lost exploring the tunnels.
It had been rusted, idle at the end of a passageway.
Someone told her later that it was called a tunneling machine—used during the shelter's construction. The giant cutter disc at the front could dig through rock and soil, while the body laid down support structures.
But this one… was massive. Much larger than the one in her memory.
And much, much weirder.
Because as soon as it surfaced, the spinning disc stopped.
Pei Ran saw its face.
The disc—the cutter at the front—was actually shaped like a face.
Flat and wide, the "face" took up most of the disc, dominated by a gaping mouth that covered three-quarters of it. The eyes and nose were squashed to the top like afterthoughts.
Inside the mouth were rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth—like a shark's, only denser. These teeth must have been what chewed through rock and mud, swallowing and excreting earth as it bored through the ground.
Now above ground, the cutter had stopped spinning. Its face looked… confused.
Another mad fusion.
Some poor soul had fused with this tunneling machine.
The cylindrical body looked half-metal, half-flesh—charred and burned in places, exposing blackened layers underneath.
Parts of it had clearly once borne writing, now erased by the fires of the Silence.
Even so, it moved with eerie agility.
Its segmented body twisted like a giant worm. As it slithered fully out of the ground, something appeared from its tail—
A squat black humanoid robot, dwarfed by the machine.
It was the Thinker.
Its right foot was caught on the machine's tail, dragging helplessly behind like a ragdoll.
Pei Ran: !!!
W also saw it. "That's the autonomous mobile operations center."
So that's where the Thinker had been—dragged around underground by a mutated tunneling machine. No wonder they couldn't find it.