Keon, through the drone's optical sensors, held the view on Kai for a moment longer.
He confirmed the candidate in front of him was a clear, calculated threat... not a reckless barbarian, but a desperate, intelligent commander playing a losing game.
The massive subterranean base, the grim-faced evolved survivors, and the heavy weaponry aimed solely at the portal were nothing more than a desperate containment strategy, a final barricade against the unknown.
'They believe the enemy will emerge from the portal. They are entirely focused on a ground-level engagement, an infantry war,' Keon mused thoughtfully. 'They haven't grasped the true meaning of threat yet.'
He immediately adjusted the Black Sun's trajectory. 'I should leave this toxic atmosphere and observe the orbit. Direct engagement is unnecessary; first, I will gather the technological data through those forgotten satellites above.'
The drone's four plasma thrusters flared, virtually silent, their output cleanly absorbed by the Aether Composite Alloy hull. The Black Sun shot upward, a matte-black needle leaving the ruined city far below in a near-vertical climb. The atmosphere, a viscous mix of corrosive vapor, fought the movement, but the drone's core compensated instantly. It punched through the toxic layers, and the oppressive, sickly purple-gray twilight receded rapidly beneath it.
Within minutes, the drone broke the main cloud layer and entered the high, thin atmosphere. The view was breathtakingly clear, dominated by the swirling, corrupted continents below and the inky blackness of space above.
Then, the true nature of Kai's world's orbital defense... or profound lack thereof... was revealed.
Keon zoomed the optical feed out, confirming the suspicion born from Aria's narrative of a "standard, technology-driven human civilization." Orbiting Planet 546876 was not a defense grid but a vast, slow-moving graveyard of obsolete technology.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of satellites, space debris, and derelict orbital platforms spun listlessly. They were rusted, their surfaces scored and battered, many half-melted from a catastrophic year of atmospheric degradation and neglect. Communication satellites, weather stations, and old military spy apparatus floated silently, inert monuments to the pre-apocalypse world.
Keon's mechanical thoughts calculated the probability of a functioning orbital weapon system among the wreckage: a mere 10%.
'Low functional orbital defense. No high-power communications grid. No infrastructure to monitor interstellar threats or manage planetary defense beyond surface level,' Keon concluded with a schematic, cold sense of opportunity. 'This civilization fell too fast to salvage their space-based assets. This is the critical vulnerability. Kai rules the surface of this planet, but the orbit is a vacuum of power, an unguarded flank.'
Keon focused the Black Sun's sensors, bypassing the inert debris to lock onto a large, angular piece of wreckage... an old, mid-sized communications satellite, scarred but largely intact. Its antennae array was a tangled mess, but the core hull was recognizable.
[Command: Initiate Hard Link Protocol.]
[Access point: Primary Solar Array Conduit.]
The Black Sun extended a thin, micro-filament tether, a needle-thin optical cable encased in a layer of Aether Composite. The filament shot out and connected seamlessly to a junction box on the satellite's main body.
Keon did not use brute force on these junk technological products. His method was surgical, bypassing the firewalls and dormant security systems with a ghost-like precision, integrating his neural network into its obsolete, pre-apocalypse infrastructure.
'Network Access established. Tier-1 Firewall resistance detected. Bypassing through dormant system administrator backdoor protocols... Success.'
The satellite, designated COM-SAT 404, suddenly became a node in Keon's vast neural network and processing grid. Through it, Keon followed the internal network, reaching out to the faint, scattered signals of other derelict working orbital satellites and stations across the planet. One by one, communication and observation satellites... blind eyes floating in the darkness... were assimilated, forming a whole network of data conduits.
From these orbital platforms, Keon directed his data invasion toward the planet's surface infrastructures, ground stations. He began gaining access to the remnants of global communication grids, server farms buried beneath the ruins, and old governmental data centers.
The sheer volume of historical data overwhelmed his Neural Nexus Network, as if freeing digital data stuck from the cold, unfeeling silicon.
Keon's core systems devoured it, synthesizing years of technological data, news feeds, medical reports, military alerts, and civilian vlogs into a coherent timeline of the apocalypse.
'Data access is complete, next it's time for analysis and cross-referencing with the information I got on this civilization.'
Keon started rearranging the data, analyzing and categorizing it at unimaginable pace.
After a while,
'Looks like my assumption is correct.'
Keon's thoughts flickered, tragically confirming Aria's brief narrative and his suspicion regarding Kai. The first recorded outbreak of the virulent, transformative Corruption was traced to the docks and industrial sectors surrounding the very city where Kai's was located. The world's largest nuclear base was also located in the middle of this military city. The initial vector was identified as a hyper-aggressive, unique strain of aquatic fungus, appearing suddenly and simultaneously in both the local port and several key water filtration plants.
'Kai, the Candidate of this civilization, initiated the corruption, acting as the nexus for the sudden, parallel onset of both land and marine contamination,'
Keon concluded, a chilling certainty settling in his processor. 'This was not a natural disaster he exploited; it was a terraforming project he engineered, utilizing the planet's existing biology as a resource pool. Also, he chose this city based on his desire to take over the military base.'
Keon ran the analysis deeper, sifting through the later, more desperate military communication data in the apocalypse. The initial military response was to quarantine the affected water sources. But the reports from the field soon grew hysterical, detailing not just the rise of the Zombies, but a terrifying, universal enemy.
Keon's analysis halted abruptly on a collection of thermal imaging and bio-spectral reports in the military database, specifically labeled as: S - Class Threat (Atmospheric Contaminant). The reports detailed the near-instantaneous spread of the fungal spores into the atmosphere... the very spores he observed and Aria described.
'So that's how it is… these spores…'
Keon's thoughts condensed as he analyzed the accompanying military notes, compiled by frantic, dying scientists. These notes contained the terrifying truth: the spores weren't just a byproduct of the corruption. They were a controlled system.
'The fungal spores possess a low-level consciousness, a distributed neural network that covers the entire atmosphere of Planet 546876. They are not merely air contaminants; they are sensors and delivery systems.'
Keon immediately cross-referenced the unique bio-energy signatures of the spores with Kai's own amplified energy signature... the power that created the Giant Zombies and enhanced the survivors.
The horrifying hidden ability possessed by the candidate of this civilization was laid bare in his analysis: Kai did not merely control the undead creatures in his immediate vicinity. He controlled the entire global network of corruption.
He could command every infected creature, from the simplest Shambler to the colossal Behemoths, through an ambient, atmospheric will. More critically, he could manipulate the corrosive spores themselves, turning the planet's very air into a weapon, a shield, or an instantaneous transmission vector.
'He is not just a commander in this apocalypse; he is more like a planetary consciousness of this planet now.'
Keon, the mechanical intelligence built on logic, efficiency, and defense, fell silent. His internal chronometer registered the passage of ten whole seconds... an eternity in his processor time... before he resumed calculations.
'Global, distributed bio-control. Instantaneous adaptation and offensive capability across an entire planetary surface. The capacity to convert all organic matter into a controlled, expendable asset.'
Keon soul felt an inexplicable spike of danger, thinking of the unknown consequences of these spores invading the UHS1 atmosphere.
'Now I understand why this civilization is selected against my universe. This guy is a true nemesis of planets. It doesn't matter if they are barren. I wonder what effect these spores will have on UHS1? If these spores reach the magic plants on my planet… will they evolve even more.'
Keon realized the true, stark reason for Kai's invasion and why the war had to be fought seriously without any carelessness.
…