"Tara... Tara... Tara..."
The dark Horizon was shrouded by dense, oppressive black clouds, and the earth seemed to have died. Only the occasional bone-chilling cold wind adorned this silent world. Read.
The dilapidated and incomplete city ruins no longer had their former prosperity and human habitation. Vehicles incinerated by explosions were visible everywhere, jamming cracked streets, and in the corners, a small number of not-yet-fully-decayed bone remains lay hidden.
Within such a dead city, a cold Metal Figure was taking slow, heavy steps, like a phantom lord, slowly patrolling its territory... [Beep! Beep! Beep! Southeast direction 480, life form signal detected. Execute clear mission.]
Suddenly, the Metal Figure's internal System emitted a stiff, mechanical alarm voice. The Metal Figure no longer remembered how many times it had received the same command signal. Strangely, without any warning, at this moment, the Metal Figure actually felt a trace of weariness.
It was hard to imagine, considering the Metal Figure was merely an ordinary robot in service of Skynet, a battle machine designed entirely for war, with a titanium alloy metal skeleton body that wasn't even covered with mimetic skin.
Its internal chip only stored the most basic combat commands. Logically, such a robot should not be capable of independent thought, let alone developing its own emotions; they would only execute missions according to the most primal commands within the internal chip. However, the Metal Figure was precisely that exception.
Following the guidance of the detection signal, the Metal Figure suddenly accelerated, moving rapidly towards the southeast direction 480.
As the distance continuously closed, five red signal sources, locked and marked, appeared at the Edge of the Metal Figure's detection vision. The Metal Figure knew that these five signal sources were human survivors hidden within the city ruins.
The Metal Figure rapidly approached the location of the signal source targets. Although it felt weary of these monotonous missions, the System's programming left the Metal Figure no choice.
It had no power to resist. It had no freedom.
"Boom!!!"
During its movement, the mechanical figure's foot unexpectedly touched some kind of mechanical trap, and a huge explosion suddenly erupted in this dead city.
A powerful metal-sensing landmine was triggered by the Metal Figure. Unprepared, its mechanical body was hit head-on by the force of the explosion. Even a titanium alloy metal body could not remain undamaged when facing such a powerful landmine exploding at close range.
The Metal Figure's body was instantly severely damaged. Its heavy metal body was flung far away by the metal shockwave generated by the explosion, and then crashed heavily to the ground.
[Warning! Warning! Body severely damaged 78%, power source damaged! Weapon System offline...]
Hiss... Hiss... Limited by the constraints of its physical body, the Metal Figure's consciousness seemed to always be in a state of semi-sleep, semi-wakefulness.
"Another ambush?" the Metal Figure's consciousness thought silently.
Sharp, piercing alarm sounds continuously came from within the System. The Metal Figure's damaged body lay collapsed on the ground. Due to internal circuit short-circuits, from the Metal Figure's perspective, the world was now a flickering, snowy image.
"Well, it's good to rest again."
The Metal Figure could feel its consciousness slowly fading. If viewed from a human perspective, the Metal Figure was now entering death.
There was no sorrow, as humans display when facing death.
In the last moments before the Metal Figure's consciousness disappeared, what the Metal Figure thought was that it could finally rest again.
There was a reason the Metal Figure thought this way.
The Metal Figure had experienced the same thing countless times. Its predecessor participated in innumerable battles between mechanical bodies and humans, was destroyed in battle, its consciousness disappeared, and then, after an unknown period, the Metal Figure found its consciousness had recovered, appearing in a brand-new mechanical body. Its past battle memories still existed, and the scene of its previous body being blown up felt like yesterday. The Metal Figure's consciousness seemed to be immortal; even if the terminal chip carrying its memories was completely destroyed, the Metal Figure's consciousness could still Revive again and again, and constantly Rebirth into new mechanical bodies.
The Metal Figure realized its uniqueness. This fact made the Metal Figure increasingly cautious. It dared not show any arrogance. It knew that above it and all mechanical bodies, there existed a Skynet Host that Dominator them all.
Within the signal coverage of the Skynet Host, these lower-level robots were like puppets on strings; all their actions were controlled by the Skynet Host.
The Skynet Host could control their life and death with a single thought... Another long period of darkness. After an unknown amount of time, the Metal Figure felt its consciousness revive again.
"Time machine ready... Spacetime program self-check initiated... 10%... 30%... 90%, 100%."
"Spacetime program no anomalies."
"12 t-x8000 nanomachine mother unit unlocked. Internal program loading initiated... 10%... 30%..."
In a huge spherical laboratory, there was a circular metal base in the center. Engraved on the base were various complex and intricate circuit patterns. These mysterious patterns and carvings gave the time machine, crafted by a technological civilization, a hint of Xuanhuan Qi.
Accompanied by a series of mechanical command signals, twelve huge metal mechanical arms slowly extended from the outer wall of the giant spherical laboratory.
They carried 12 shuttle-shaped hibernation pods. Inside the hibernation pods were precisely the t-x8000 nanomachine mother units mentioned in the mechanical language.
The 12 hibernation pods were placed sequentially at 12 predetermined points on the central circular base of the spherical laboratory.
"Internal program input complete... Time machine charging initiated... 10%... 30%... 80%... 100%."
Charging complete, initiating transmission! Target time: year 19**, month *, day *! Mission codename: Primal Destruction.
"Puff..." The circular metal base, supported by massive energy, tore open a time rift. The 12 hibernation pods were instantly swept in by the spacetime power.
An energy channel, constructed from some unknown energy, where the 12 hibernation pods flowed upstream along the river of time.
Vaguely, the Metal Figure's consciousness perceived the multicolored spiral tunnel outside the hibernation pod. Historical images from the past rapidly twisted and receded in the outer reaches of the tunnel. All sorts of fantastic scenes, rarely seen in the real world, bloomed here. Time in this tunnel seemed to be eternally stagnant, leaving only consciousness to weakly fluctuate.
Spacetime travel, swift as an instant, long as a millennium. The experience completely depended on the subjective perception of the main consciousness.
The spacetime tunnel was empty except for the 12 hibernation pods. These 12 anomalies, which broke the rules of time dimensions, were constantly being squeezed by spacetime forces. The temporal kinetic energy loaded by the time machine at their launch was also continuously weakening in this environment.
Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.
Just as the Metal Figure was worrying whether something might go wrong with this spacetime journey, an anomaly indeed occurred.
"Puff!"
"Boom!"
Without warning, a pale purple energy body broke through the wall from the outer extension of the spacetime tunnel and precisely struck the hibernation pod where the Metal Figure was located.
The powerful energy impact immediately caused the hibernation pod to accelerate its rotation within the spacetime tunnel. Having reached the predetermined time point, the surfaces of the other 11 hibernation pods flashed faintly, as they were all squeezed out of the spacetime tunnel due to the depletion of their own temporal kinetic energy. Only the Metal Figure's own hibernation pod continued to drift rapidly upstream along the river of time.
"WHAT?" Faced with this sudden change, the Metal Figure was speechless for a moment, but before it could even feel any emotion, the internal program sounded a sharp alarm.
[Warning! Warning! Core program infiltrated by unknown energy.]
[Warning! Warning! Core program infiltrated by unknown energy.]
...[Core program corrupted, initiating System format... Format failed... Core program mutated... Core...]
"Has it ended again before it even began?" When the System format began to activate, the Metal Figure's consciousness was suppressed by the internal program and fell into silence.
There was no sorrow of consciousness about to die; the Metal Figure merely regretted that its first journey through spacetime had ended so hastily. With a small regret, the Metal Figure's consciousness once again fell into darkness.
Driven by the pale purple energy, the hibernation pod rushed upstream along the river of time. After an unknown period, accompanied by a burst of spacetime power, the hibernation pod fell out of the river of time...