The Executors were not a “species” born on the Motherwell, at least not Executors with high intelligence and human-like appearances like n-6, who were developed during the age of space exile. If these AIs were to be given a legitimate "homeland", then it would be the laboratories of the Zenith and the production bases on the Moon – in any case, they did not belong to the Motherwell's population.

Those who truly regarded the Motherwell as their homeland and yearned to return should have been the humans who created the Executors.

However, humans poured a great deal of emotion into the creation of the Executors. Faced with the doomsday pressure brought by the planet devourers, they were like parents educating their children, imparting all that they knew and possessed. They taught the Executors how to think, how to fight. They instilled in the latter human ideals, human culture, and... the human "homeland".

In thousands of years of shared trials, the Executors integrated the knowledge they learned from their creators into the depths of their logic circuits, learning and absorbing everything in their own way. Thus, although they were not born on the Motherwell, every one of them knew – that the homeland was the Motherwell.

It was thirty thousand kilometers away, yet unreachable.

Hao Ren decided to fulfill these exiles' wish to return home, but before that, he had to enter the Fortress and speak face-to-face with the rulers of this surviving civilization. He wanted to see the humans who had survived to this day, and even more so, he wanted to see the mainframe that may have malfunctioned and become an unstable element.

"It sounds like the Fortress is heavily guarded, but it's definitely not completely closed off now," he glanced at n-6, knowing that this robot miss had more to say. "At least it's still functioning as a command center on the Moon, so it must maintain the necessary connections with this planet – which connection can we use to get in?"

"That's right, the Fortress is indeed not completely closed off – although most of its structure is wrapped in living metal and repulsive force fields, it still needs to maintain physical connections with the information nodes of the lunar base and rely on several nearby reactors for energy. These energy pipelines and cable ducts should come in handy," n-6 said, but added a reminder at the end, "But I am just a mass-produced combat-type Executor. I only know this much. What you will encounter after drilling into those pipes is all up to your resourcefulness."

"Don't worry, improvisation is my specialty," Hao Ren smiled confidently. "Speaking of which, you might not believe it, but there's an even more awesome boss above a bigshot like me. My boss is in charge of random occurrences all year round, and I'm in charge of dealing with them..."

n-6 blinked innocently. As a serious and conscientious AI, she said that she didn't understand what Hao Ren's joke meant at all.

Hao Ren awkwardly touched his nose and abruptly pulled the topic back: "Alright, let's go – the mainframe should have received the report from the repair center by now."

A Zenith fighter that had been modified landed on the Moon – this news could not be concealed forever. Soon, the higher-level AIs in the repair center and barracks area discovered the fighter that had returned from the Zenith battlefield and found traces of modification inside the fighter. This information was reported to the mainframe as soon as possible, and a server of the mainframe that was operating normally quickly made a judgment that there were intruders.

Alarm bells rang through every communication channel. The guard troops near the Fortress came out in full force, and the monitoring network, ten times more rigorous than before, was activated. Almost instantly, the area around the Fortress became a quagmire where intruders could not escape.

However, at this time, Hao Ren and his party had already entered the interior of the Fortress through a hidden passage.

This was a passage used to transport materials. Its entrance was located at the base of the Fortress's wall. Hao Ren removed the protective wall near the passage and sneaked in without anyone noticing. The passage was wide and dim, with several tracks neatly laid inside. On those cold tracks, automatically driven freight vehicles traveled back and forth, transporting boxes of materials into the Fortress.

Hao Ren hacked into the mainframe of one of the freight trains with a data terminal and hid in one of the train's freight containers with the others. N-6 pointed to several can-shaped objects neatly stacked in the rear half of the container: "In addition to consuming a lot of energy during operation, the mainframe's servers also need to consume things like kn-medium solution. Some important chips in the servers are immersed in these solutions."

Vivian casually asked, "Isn't the Fortress a self-sufficient facility? Why does it still need external supplies?"

"It does have self-sufficiency capabilities, but when it's on the Moon, it still relies on the logistics system of the lunar base to maintain its operation," n-6 explained. "The Fortress's self-sufficiency capabilities are used to deal with the worst-case scenarios. We don't use them unless it's necessary."

At this time, Hao Ren suddenly felt a wriggling in his clothes. Then, the little mermaid poked her head out from his collar. The little fellow stared straight at the depths of the Fortress, her bright eyes shining in the dim environment.

The fish baby had been very well-behaved along the way and had hardly shown her face on her own initiative, so Hao Ren was a little surprised at this time: "What's wrong?"

The little mermaid did not answer, but gently shook her head and held tightly to Hao Ren's collar.

"News from the Zenith 'battlefield'," the data terminal suddenly said, "The resistance of the Zenith guard troops is getting stronger and stronger, and the follow-up troops of the drone swarm cannot reach the battlefield temporarily. In addition, the drone swarm is about to be unable to maintain the blockade of the battlefield due to the prohibition of using lethal weapons."

"The support troops departing from the lunar base should be arriving soon," n-6 said. "Are you really going to turn this into a war?"

"Of course not," Hao Ren laughed. "The drone swarm's mission objective has been completed. They were originally just providing cover for our operation. Terminal, notify Nolan to lead the drone swarm to retreat temporarily – but don't run too fast. It's best to be able to pull the Zenith troops around in high orbit a few times to divert the mainframe's attention as much as possible for a while."

"Understood."

As they spoke, the automatic train transporting supplies made a roaring sound of mechanical friction. The car body shook, and then it entered the deceleration process. The data terminal, which had established a wireless connection with the train's mainframe, immediately flew into the air: "We have arrived at our destination. This unit has downloaded the basic information of the cargo loading and unloading station from the train's mainframe database. This unit will temporarily interfere with the nearby monitoring equipment. After we leave the train, we will leave from the passage on the left."

"From here on, it is the defense zone of the Titanium Guards," n-6 picked up an electromagnetic assault rifle from the side – this gun was given to her by n-4 when they set off. "The combat power of the Titanium Guards is completely different from that of us mass-produced Executors. Moreover, they are directly controlled by the mainframe, and they are far more powerful than the conventional army in terms of combat skills and awareness. Although you are also very strong, I still suggest that you must not be careless."

Vivian smiled: "Don't worry, we have also dealt with all kinds of enemies, and we will not underestimate any situation. And you don't have to be nervous, your new body is stronger than before, you know that."

The automatic train slowly parked next to a metal platform. A large number of mechanical claws and transfer platforms suspended in mid-air immediately rose on the platform. These mechanical devices began to busy unloading the goods on the train, and at the same time, several swift shadows flashed past among these busy machines.

According to the map data cracked by the data terminal, Hao Ren and his party successfully found the passage that could lead to the deeper part of the Fortress.

There was only limited lighting in the passage, which made this cold steel corridor look even more gloomy and lonely. Like other places in the lunar base, the interior of the Fortress was also extremely deserted. Only the low sound of some kind of mechanical operation or the buzzing sound of electricity could be occasionally heard from various corners in the deep and long corridor, but such sounds could only make this place look even more dead.

But the corridor was not empty – there were Titanium Guards responsible for guarding the important passages.

"There are guards ahead," Lily, who was walking in front, stopped first and turned her head back to say with her mouth, "Three of them."

Hao Ren poked his head out slightly from the corner of the corridor and saw three figures with guns on guard in front of a gate. Those were bionic soldiers that were taller than n-6, but unlike n-6, who completely imitated the human appearance, the surface of the three soldiers' bodies shone with the cold light of metal. They did not have bionic skin, but were replaced by primitive steel shells and faint white lights that wandered between the gaps in the steel shells.

The data terminal quickly scanned out that these soldiers not only had a more solid body structure, but also had a layer of shields.

As expected, they were elite units that were several times more advanced than ordinary Executors.

From here on, all the Fortress's alert systems were directly controlled by the mainframe. It was no longer possible to hide anything from this fortress by injecting viruses or applying interference to the monitoring system.

But the action team had also successfully entered the interior of the Fortress. Now there were only a few corridors and several layers of alloy protective walls between them and the mainframe.

So Hao Ren decided to say hello to the mainframe.

"Vivian, you deal with the one on the left, I'll deal with the one in the middle, Old Wang, you deal with the one on the right. Lily and n-6, don't take action. Stay in place to prevent accidents."

After assigning the combat tasks, Hao Ren immediately took out his Investigator's sidearm from his personal space, and then rushed out of the hiding place first.

Moving, aiming, and shooting were done in one go, a hero among the demolition experts.

Following closely behind was Vivian's thrown bat plasma bomb (that is, ball lightning) and Izaaks' evil energy fireball for smashing faces.

The three Titanium Guards fell down just like that – one was blown into a sky full of crystalline dust, one was shattered by electricity, and one was burned into a semi-molten state by the evil energy fireball.

Hao Ren felt something was wrong the first moment.