Chapter 1 Aftermath of the City Ruins

After seeing the reliefs in the city ruins, Hao Ren knew that the native civilization of this planet had launched a grand rescue operation at the last moment. They launched giant spaceships to send some "seeds" into space. Although there was no follow-up record of this operation on the reliefs, it at least offered a possibility: part of the humans on this planet might have escaped.

So his suspicion was not unreasonable: the aircraft seen during the day did not necessarily come from the planet's surface.

"I think the landlord is right," Lily, as a literary dog with a quirky imagination, was the first to express her support. "The planet's surface is the home ground of the Progenitor. Staying on the ground to fight the Progenitor in close combat is basically suicide. So compared to the human resistance forces staying on the ground, I think the 'seeds' launched into space have a much higher chance of survival."

"To be honest, even the arks launched into space... might not survive," Nangong Sanba clicked his tongue. "The Progenitor has space combat capabilities, and spaceships are always more fragile than ground fortresses. Maybe that wave of people who were launched into the sky didn't escape at all. The resistance forces staying on the ground might have created shelters by finding the Progenitor's neural activity patterns."

"Both possibilities exist. The specific situation can only be concluded after investigation," Hao Ren shook his head. "In any case, the existence of survivors is certain, and they are still trying to repel those tentacles on the surface today... Nolan, do you have any spare probes?"

"Probe reserves are sufficient. I brought a lot of those little things. But now there are only models suitable for use within the atmosphere. The storage container for the air-space general-purpose probes was destroyed during the warp. I have to repair the factory module before I can produce another batch."

"Within the atmosphere... that's fine. Expand the scale of the probes again. I want you to complete a scan of the planet's surface and the area within ten kilometers underground within two days. If you find the survivors' base, hack some data."

"Nolan understands."

"Also, can the engineering assembly station in the laboratory be used?"

Nolan was silent for two seconds, seemingly confirming the equipment's status, then gave an affirmative answer: "The laboratory is in good condition. The energy is slightly insufficient, but it is more than enough to start only one engineering assembly station."

"Convert a few autonomous machines into armed models. Tomorrow I will take them to the forest boundary in the northwest direction."

Vivian blinked, immediately reacting: "You're going to the places where those aircraft crashed?"

Hao Ren nodded lightly: "There may be important information there—if the data modules of the aircraft can be recovered, we can probably take a big step directly."

"That's quite close to the Progenitor's tentacles—although that tentacle was injured in the previous bombing, that little injury is completely insignificant to the Progenitor. I'm afraid that tentacle will have recovered by the time you get there," Vivian frowned slightly. "And it was just attacked, and it's probably in a very sensitive state right now. Wouldn't it be a little reckless for you to go there at this time? We can wait a little longer, until the nerve response of that tentacle decreases before going there. Anyway, the wreckage is there and won't run away."

Hao Ren had his own ideas: "The longer the time, the more the clues will be destroyed. Before discovering more survivor units, those aircraft wreckage are our only source of information. As for the Progenitor's tentacles... that thing is not as sensitive as you think. I discussed this issue with Zohm. In fact, because the Progenitor is too huge in size after adulthood, and ordinary 'small creatures' can hardly pose a threat to them, an adult Progenitor's perception tends to react to large targets and high-energy sources. For those too small 'attachments,' their nervous system, no matter how powerful, cannot fully focus on them. So a few people standing on the Progenitor's tentacles is like a speck of dust falling on a person. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't care: unless you fire a cannon on the tentacle."

Lily waved her tail beside her and added, "So as long as we are careful when we pass by, and don't do anything like meteor bursts, lightning chains, or fusion bombs, there won't be any problems. The tentacles will treat us like small animals running out of the forest."

The husky girl had already directly included herself in the exploration team for the next day. This dog really can't live without joining in the fun.

Hearing Hao Ren and Lily's words, Vivian thought for a while and felt that there was no problem, so she nodded lightly to express her approval.

"Then that's settled," Hao Ren clapped his hands. "Now that Nolan can't move, we'll gradually expand the range of activities with her as the center. Tomorrow I'll still take Lily, Vivian, and May with me, and the others can use the ship as the center and move within a radius of five kilometers to continue collecting environmental data and clues. Sanba, you stay on the bridge and monitor the communication equipment and radar, and take care of Dou Dou."

The little mermaid immediately stood up from the water: "I want to go with Daddy!"

"Be good, it's dangerous outside. It's safer to stay on the ship," Hao Ren pressed the little fish seedling's head. "And that's a mountain, there's no place for you to swim."

The little guy was quite obedient: "Oh."

The exploration plan for the next day was decided like this, and nothing else happened that night.

After experiencing the space attack and emergency landing, and conducting almost a day and night of exploration on an unfamiliar planet, even people with extraordinary physiques would feel some mental fatigue, so Hao Ren slept exceptionally soundly that night. When he woke up, the alien sun had already filled the earth with light.

Nolan didn't need to rest. While everyone was asleep, she was still working silently, trying to bring more shield generators back online, rebuild the crystallization amplification unit of the power furnace, complete the armed autonomous machine modification task assigned by Hao Ren, and launch more probes.

By the time the next day dawned, she had already completed a rough scan of the entire continent with probes: this was still the result of low work efficiency due to the severely damaged ship's main computer, insufficient data processing capacity, and probe control bandwidth.

This planet had more than one continent. Nolan had only completed the scan of one of them, but on this continent alone, she had found thousands of ruins and relics that could be described as large-scale. A considerable part of those ancient ruins that had been more than half swallowed by nature showed signs of being severely damaged by the Progenitor, and Progenitor tentacles could be seen everywhere around the ruins: including those still active and those that appeared to be dormant. Nolan discovered that the state of the Progenitor on this planet was very strange. It showed a kind of... half-dead "inert state," which was a phenomenon that had not been observed on other planets.

In addition to these ancient ruins and Progenitor traces, Nolan also discovered more clues related to "survivors": a large number of "fresh" bomb craters and forest fire points that still had thermal signatures were basically distributed around the tentacles that the Progenitor had extended out of the ground. The data showed that they had basically been bombed recently. In addition to the bombing that Hao Ren's group encountered, the most recent attack occurred a few hours ago.

It seemed that the survivors on this planet were still very active. Every once in a while, they would launch an active attack on the tentacles on the continent. What was strange was the Progenitor's reaction to these attacks—from what Hao Ren observed, the tentacles would indeed destroy those invading war machines with thunderous means, but his counterattack was only that, with no earth-shattering rampage after the thunderous rage, no disaster of blood tides for miles, and not even further pursuit.

In any case, Nolan couldn't understand why the Progenitor on this planet had this behavioral pattern: he had clearly destroyed this planet's civilization once already.

As for the survivors' base... Nolan did not find anything similar on this continent. She also did not capture any live footage of the survivors' war machines launching an attack that night. Perhaps those troops came from other continents on the planet, or perhaps, as Hao Ren guessed... they came from space?

In any case, the information that probes could collect was limited. To understand the further situation, it depended on the actions of Hao Ren and the others today.

Vivian used the materials that could be found on the ship to make a simple but delicious meal (thankfully, the residential area's section was well protected in this accident, including the kitchen and food warehouse). After breakfast, the dog-man duo plus a siren set out on a journey to find the wreckage of the aircraft.

This time, there was no need to collect data in the forest along the way or explore the ruins. With a clear goal, Hao Ren and his group traveled very fast, quickly crossing the dense forest and arriving at a place where the vegetation on the edge of the forest was relatively sparse.

"According to the navigation provided by Nolan, the wreckage scattering area is in this area," Hao Ren walked in the front, widening his eyes to observe the surrounding situation. "Everyone, be vigilant, we have entered the Progenitor's tentacle's sensory range."

"About one-third of these plants are derivatives of the Progenitor," the data terminal floated next to Hao Ren, checking the energy readings in the environment and the magnetic field changes emitted by the surrounding plants at any time. "They are transformed from the 'capillary structures' at the end of the tentacles. This unit can sense weak nerve signals passing between those broad-leaved trees... These trees have 'seen' us, but the Progenitor's main body has not reacted to this."

Hao Ren nodded: "So my judgment is correct. As long as we don't do anything stupid, this tentacle won't care about a few specks of dust floating by."

Nangong Wuyue turned her head to look at Hao Ren, and then looked at Lily, who had been looking excited and bright-eyed since they left. She couldn't help but mutter, "I feel like being with you is like courting death. Do you ever not cause trouble..."

Hao Ren: "..."

Just then, Lily suddenly twitched her nose and pointed in a certain direction: "Landlord, landlord, there's a burnt smell over there~~"