Keon's green optical lenses, still focused on the glowing Status Panel, began to retract the display panel. The massive sixty-cubic-meter cube, the total mass of his former base, resting inertly in the crater, was the ultimate proof of his limitless scaling potential. The Spider Exoshell 4.0, a fixed, pre-DACL design, was now obsolete.
'The Mega Spider Exoshell 4.0 is now a relic,' Keon calculated, internally marking the massive, million-ton structure for eventual assimilation and reform into a more functional shape. 'The Nano Main Frame Swarm replaces all previous fixed-form assets. I should discard the spider form now and create something more versatile.'
Just as the final thought solidified in his core, a distinct, high-speed displacement of air registered in his peripheral sensors. He did not need to turn to know the source. The hum of a high-efficiency Gravitic Thruster Generator cut through the silence, followed by the soft crunch of reinforced boots on the scorched earth behind him.
A figure landed lightly, coming to an abrupt, staggered halt. The sound was too rough, the stop too uncoordinated for the sleek, specialized assassin suit.
Keon turned his reconstructed Bio Exoshell, his green optical lenses focusing instantly on the figure of Aria. The matte-black helmet, designed for maximum stealth, receded with a silent hydraulic sigh, revealing her face. Her usually controlled features were pale, streaked with sweat, and twisted into an expression of intense physical distress.
"H... help," Aria managed, the word a low, forced whisper that barely filtered through the suit's external comms. She stumbled two steps forward, then her legs gave out. She didn't fall completely, but pitched forward, catching herself on one hand before collapsing onto her knees.
Aria's body convulsed. She coughed forcefully vomiting blood, the sound of blood was wet and alarming in the sudden silence. As she raised her head, trying to meet Keon's gaze, her pupils were unnaturally dilated, bloodshot, and bulging with pressure.
Keon's internal diagnostic systems, already on high alert from the base's destruction, instantly activated a full-spectrum bio-scan on the subject. Data flooded his core, analyzing the suit's vital telemetry and the biological signatures of the Aria within, scanning her whole body from head to toe… finding reason for such condition.
Immediately the results displayed in front of him with alarming faults: her blood pressure was spiking, followed by an immediate, systemic collapse. The blood streams in her major veins were being compressed, crushed by an unseen, internal or external pressure. Her heart rhythm was slowing dramatically, a desperate, failing attempt to pump blood through the choked arteries.
With a dull, heavy thud, Aria's body tipped over, falling sideways onto the ground in front of the skeletal exoshell. Her suit, still functional, registered the final, definitive data point.
Keon's optical lenses narrowed slightly. In the millisecond of data transfer, he registered the absolute, zero-readout from her core systems. Her heart had completely stopped beating. There was no sign of life.
'Death is really unexpected,' Keon thought, his observation was cold and without inflection. Then he shook his head, a minute, mechanical movement of exasperation. 'It seems this is an extremely unlucky day for all my assets.'
He raised his synthetic hand. From the center of his palm, a vibrant, high-definition holographic projection sprang into existence, bypassing the need for his external control panel. The image immediately split into four distinct, URS-fed surveillance quadrants.
The scenes displayed were horrific, yet static. Lilith, in her battle armor, was sprawled motionless near the ocean, her crimson armor dull beneath the sun. Anna, in her blue logistics suit, lay slumped over her holographic command panel on the runway. Both were completely inert.
The final two quadrants displayed the valley where Vera and Mark had been deployed. Vera was lying half in the river, her body contorted at an unnatural angle, the half consumed potion fallen from her hand. Mark, near the opened pod, was bent forward, his entire figure shrunken and compressed from his actual size. Their bodies exhibited similar catastrophic heart failure and pressure signs.
'The catastrophic collapse of the life forms is really systemic, not even one of them survived.' Keon registered, his core processing the data with chilling speed. 'Human immunity system is really mysterious. A failure of this magnitude was not accounted for by me. I should have considered the fundamental, internal biological changes... such a huge mistake.'
Keon expressionlessly dismissed the projection, the four images of the dead humans vanishing instantly. His waveless gaze settled on the lifeless figure of Aria at his feet. He mentally retrieved the sensor logs and bio-data from the fatal microseconds.
The cause, now obvious in hindsight, was the internal biological defense mechanism. The spores, acquired from Kai, had given them unimaginable strength but were foreign, inactive biological agents in the bodies. Upon Kai's death, the high-dimensional being had stripped the candidates of their special talent, and these spores, previously a source of power, became foreign intruders.
The human bio-immunity system had immediately kicked in, attempting to devour, fight, and eject the now-inactive spores from their bodies. This intense, systemic biological warfare internally weakened their bodies' regulatory functions and external defenses. In this compromised state, the slightly increased gravitational effect of UHS1, combined with the atmospheric and biological stress of the new world, became overwhelmingly negative.
The symptoms were a rapid cascade: blood pressure spiked and then plummeted, leading to heart failure, instant physical compression, and death.
'It's a pity, i wanted to use them for exploration of this spores upgrade path, now the door is closed.' Keon thought and then with a silent mental command, he instructed the logistics drones to secure the biological assets. Two drones flew toward the aria, while the armor suit on her body began its silent transformation. The nano main frames shaping its exterior instantly formed a box, perfectly freezing and sealing her corpses inside, the preservation was absolute. The finished container, a dull-silver box, was picked up and taken away by the two larger drones for storage in a special, contained area in orbit.
Keon thoughtfully glanced at the transport's trajectory of these drones toward the orbit. He considered the long-term potential of the biological material, the complex DNA structure, and the possibility of creating biological clones. Then, he shook his head slightly. 'It is too far away. My immediate focus should be singular: increasing my individual strength and the lethality of my mechanical force. Phase 6 would be an exponential leap in universal threat, and creating a weak force, or relying on vulnerable biological assets, would yield no result. I am a machine now, I should only focus and trust on machines. Before in my previous life as a human, I couldn't trust others easily, let alone now, when the stakes are universal.'
After thinking about it, he glanced at the massive, cubic meter dodecahedron of Nano Main Frames resting in the middle of the crater. The form was geometrically perfect, but strategically inert. With a final, focused mental command, the cube began to squirm, to shrink and widen, the billion individual units flowing and re-locking according to his abstract mental template. It flattened, its scale immense, transforming into a huge, round shape: a flat, compound structure, a building with articulated gates facing all cardinal directions. This would be his new command shape, his fortress, a scalable, mobile manifestation of his power.
Simultaneously, a global directive was issued across the Neural Nexus Network. He ordered all fixed buildings and structures around the planet... the fabrication hubs, the shield generators, and even the orbiting satellites in the atmosphere... to change their primary structural blocks to Nano Main Frames.
This wasn't merely an upgrade; it was a profound, systemic insurance policy. When all his machines and assets were transformed into a cohesive, conscious swarm, he could scatter some around the planet and send some even into deep space. Since he could already transfer consciousness, if the next Phase 6 proved deadly and too dangerous, he was sure: he would leave this planet. It would increase his chances of survival in front of stronger enemies.
His attention now returned to his material and energy technology. He had secured the exotic material samples from the trading platform, and it was time to upgrade his foundational systems. He would analyze these materials and then attempt to synthesize their properties artificially based on their blueprints and information.
The Carbon Fusion Core (CBC) and the Unified Adaptive Composite Alloy (UACA), the primary reasons for his rapid progress, were his next targets. The CBC had a known limit: as the size of the core increased, its power generation slowed dramatically at a certain threshold, and the intense heat began to melt the UACA casing... which was why he used four limit sized CBCs in each Exoshell 4 to empower them. The UACA, while incredibly durable, had no apparent weaknesses, but its flexibility was a little low, which caused it to break crisply upon extreme stress. 'If I can't synthesize a better metal using these new samples, then I will try to make the UACA more flexible, better and versatile.'
…