The small Nanomechanical Cluster, currently only the size of an earthworm, devoured the piece of Beast Gold like a ravenous beast.
Almost immediately, the once silver-gray Nanomechanical Cluster turned a brilliant silver, with arcs of electricity flashing across it.
Shen Feng had already used a control backdoor in the Nanomechanical Cluster to completely take over this small swarm of Nanomechanical Insects. He could now feel the immense energy it contained, a power completely different from before.
Just then, however, the Nanomechanical Cluster—having just reached its peak strength—began to rapidly decay. Its internal microstructures started to collapse in large numbers, and its energy dissipated into the surroundings.
Shen Feng’s brow furrowed. He realized these first-generation Nanomechanical Insects were not the final, complete version. They had numerous structural defects and still needed to continue evolving.
Fortunately, he already had a thorough understanding of the Nanomechanical Insects; he knew them like the back of his hand. Their microscopic structure was etched into his memory. He immediately put on the Sacrificial Helmet, amplified his brainwave energy, and began to forcibly control the Nanomechanical Insects, making them devour one another.
The complete version of the Nanomechanical Insects operated under an ironclad law that prevented them from devouring each other, much like the Three Laws of Robotics, hardwired into their base protocols.
These first-generation Nanomechanical Insects, however, had no such concerns. They were like the most primitive beasts and bugs, free to wantonly devour one another before dying a dozen or so seconds later.
’Faster. I have to be faster!’
The gray substance before him now resembled a living ball of mud, constantly squirming as its parts tore at and devoured one another.
For each Nanomechanical Insect, every act of devouring was a new iterative process. In this process, they followed Shen Feng’s guidance to repair themselves and accelerate their evolution.
And with the aid of Beast Gold, a powerful, energy-rich metallic element, this process was accelerated by an untold number of times.
Watching the "ball of mud" before him continuously devouring itself, Shen Feng smiled faintly, leaned back in the cockpit, and ignored it.
Having received their instructions, the Nanomechanical Insects would continue to devour one another until they became a stable, complete form that wouldn’t self-destruct.
He was now rather curious about what kind of beings these Nanomechanical Insects would become after fusing with the Beast Gold.
At this thought, Shen Feng closed his eyes and connected to the Red Fortress Base’s database.
In an instant, he found himself in a pitch-black void, as if floating in outer space.
Before him hung a series of formulas, symbols for elemental conversion, and holographic images resembling factories.
This was the data transmitted by Jingwei No. 2, all of it information on the extraction and preparation of Beast Gold.
As its name implied, Beast Gold was refined from the bodies of World Beasts. The element contained immense energy, but even within a World Beast, the quantities were minuscule.
Using the entire body of a single World Beast to extract Beast Gold would yield only a single, mung bean-sized pellet.
The Beast Gold Shen Feng had obtained was irregular and non-standard precisely because it had been sourced from different World Beasts.
Smaller World Beasts yielded less Beast Gold.
A single World Beast, thousands or even tens of thousands of meters tall, would ultimately yield only this tiny amount of Beast Gold. This spoke to the substance’s rarity, and also hinted at its incredible power.
After thoroughly studying the extraction method for Beast Gold, Shen Feng’s Silicon-Based Brain issued another command. This time, a massive World Beast materialized in his mind’s eye.
It was a World Beast that had been completely digitized, every aspect of its being perfectly rendered from extracted data.
After the long, brutal war between ancient humanity and the World Beasts, humanity had conducted extremely detailed research on its enemy.
The information from the various fortress research institutes and Super Giant War Armors was incomplete, but the Red Fortress Base held the most comprehensive data.
Shen Feng’s consciousness strolled into the body of the World Beast, and he began to examine its structure piece by piece—from its skin and circulatory system to its nervous system, and so on. He was most interested in the location of the World Beast’s central nervous system.
Though he had fought World Beasts many times, this was his first opportunity to study their anatomy in such detail, and he wasn’t going to waste it.
As he continued to receive data from the Red Fortress Base, Shen Feng gradually uncovered more of this world’s human research on the World Beasts.
World Beasts over ten thousand meters tall might possess extremely high intelligence...
In several of the large-scale battles between humans and World Beasts, the teamwork the creatures displayed had been astonishing. Humanity had also received a set of extremely mysterious radio waves at the time, but they were never deciphered.
Originally, the Exodus Faction had believed it best to communicate with the World Beasts. Peaceful coexistence was the ideal outcome, but humanity was defeated as swiftly as a collapsing mountain before they even had the chance.
After the Commander vanished into the Space Wormhole, humanity suffered a total, crushing defeat, and any so-called communication plan was completely shelved.
Looking at this set of mysterious radio waves, Shen Feng felt a vague sense of familiarity. He immediately sent it to Jingwei for comparative analysis.
Next came the files on the Quantum Force Field Core.
Only then did Shen Feng discover that the Quantum Force Field Core was purely a product of human technology!
The technology’s foundation came from humanity’s analysis of energy fluctuations from the Undersea Space Wormhole.
This super-giant wormhole, which spanned tens of thousands of light-years, utilized quantum tunneling technology—it was but a ripple on the Dirac Sea.
The concept originated with the Resistance Faction’s Ghost Fleet project, which itself could be traced back to a world-famous novel from humanity’s golden age, *Three-Body*. The original goal was to quantize an entire fleet to fight back against the World Beasts.
In the end, however, it was discovered that the energy required to create a Quantum Force Field Core was simply too immense. Even using Beast Gold as the core component, only three Quantum Force Field Cores were ever produced. Furthermore, their range of influence was limited—far from enough to cover an entire fleet.
If used for wide-area coverage, its effect would be much weaker and prone to collapse in the presence of an observer, just as Shen Feng and the others had experienced on Paradise Island.
The device was more akin to a piece of personal equipment than a weapon of mass warfare.
Shen Feng couldn’t help but sigh. He had a profound appreciation for the power of the Quantum Force Field Core. If they could truly be mass-produced, humanity would be invincible.
’Too bad they’re so damn hard to make.’
Of the only three Quantum Force Field Cores in existence, two had now fallen into his hands.
To put it bluntly, the device essentially used the immense energy it contained to conduct an energy exchange with the external world, thereby forcibly altering its surroundings.
Shen Feng then continued to immerse himself in the vast database, extracting important information piece by piece.
After completing all this, he used his supreme authority to completely lift the Red Fortress Base system’s restrictions on Jingwei No. 2. The Fusion Reactor, which had been running at its lowest power setting, began to increase its power and energy output.
On the seabed not far from the Red Fortress Base, the long-dormant Oriental Pearl Tower suddenly began to tremble.
The massive tower then began to extend toward the surface, stretching upward until it broke through the sea level.
The tower’s iconic spheres—which resembled fruit skewered on a stick—then opened up to reveal arrays of precision electronic components. They formed a massive, umbrella-shaped antenna that began transmitting high-power radio waves into space.
In space, long-dormant satellites stirred to life one by one. Relying on the less than half of their power they had remaining, along with their solar panels, they reactivated a global communications network.
This was a backup communications network, preserved from the time when the Salvation Army had been all but destroyed. It was originally intended to be used after their Commander returned from Shield UY, but it had now become Shen Feng’s personal network.
On the Cordillera Islands in the west, the Hidden Island in the east, and across the various islands and human Floating Island Markets—anywhere with a signal receiver, even a simple crystal radio—speakers everywhere began to hum.
Then, a gentle female voice emerged from the speakers, declaring a single truth to them all.
"The Commander of the Salvation Army, humanity’s Star of Hope, the only torch in the darkness, the guiding light of human civilization, His Excellency, the Savior, has returned!"