Chapter 1009 - 52: Dangerous Experiment

To be honest, Lille really didn’t expect that Ultron had grown to such a scale:

The Ultron mechanical soldiers they defeated probably numbered close to ten million, not to mention the complete destruction of the entire Mechanical Nest City—

If they hadn’t absorbed all of Europe’s industrial resources, they would have exhausted their supplies halfway through the city...

Even with the backing of European industrial resources and an unprecedented nuclear bomb, the battle situation remained grim.

This highlighted the importance of fighting Ultron as early as possible: a nuclear bomb of the King’s Throne yield wouldn’t be enough if they delayed any further, even if they had more.

Moreover, with Ultron’s increasingly terrifying industrial capabilities, no one could predict when it might dig up nuclear fuel and possess nuclear weapons. If Ultron had nuclear weapons, it would mean waiting for death.

As for the situation in Africa, Lille did consider reinforcements, but unfortunately Ultron had also thought of this, with a powerful electronic warfare interference system making any wireless signals unable to cross the Middle East, and ships, aircraft, and drones also could not penetrate the blockade as Ultron expanded.

At the start of this great division, it was the Rocksen Group guarding the Middle East, during which time Europe could still dispatch drones to attempt communication, but after it changed to Ultron, there was only silence.

This meant that Lille considered African support plausible, but it was not within the strategic deployment and consideration, so he never brought it up in combat meetings—

Fortunately, his former allies didn’t disappoint him. During the rise of the Atlas Group, he abandoned financially concentrated cities in favor of prioritizing the development of Africa, and after several years, these Africans also proved themselves once again.

"...We have had several encounters with Ultron; they almost occupied the entire North African region, from the coastline to jungles, savannas, deserts...

Our drones and military forces couldn’t penetrate, and each piece of intelligence returned to meetings came at a heavy cost, but it was the first time Ultron mobilized on a large scale from North Africa—

At that moment, I realized it was time, and this had to be our best opportunity, we must seize it!"

The speaking Mos appeared somewhat dazed to Lille:

The last time they saw this Tanzanian Mining Minister was when they were vying with Rocksen for uranium deposits. This overseas educated elite black man had modern knowledge but hesitated to act and even couldn’t learn how to communicate with workers.

Then he was a slightly overweight black man, but now...

He was almost filled with prosthetics, and though still small in front of Lille, two meters tall, he was a giant among ordinary people.

Even in Night City, he was a heavy prosthetics user, not inferior even compared to the Vortex Gang.

But Lille could roughly understand why this was so: not to show a "leading by example" feeling, but because Mos and Captain Carter were buried under the mines for some time and definitely had radiation symptoms. Directly replacing the diseased parts was a very direct and effective treatment method.

It was this once naive university student who launched a coup, now he was the Executive Prime Minister of the African Union...

This was absolutely beyond what Lille had anticipated.

Mos, realizing something, smiled and said: "The uranium deposit issue taught me one thing: if you want to hold the future in your hands, then go for it directly, rather than standing still thinking and thinking—

When I received intelligence from Prince T’Challa and observed that Ultron in Africa left, I made this decision.

When we broke into Ultron’s base, the number of mechanical soldiers there was far less than we imagined. As we advanced into the base, released reconnaissance drones towards the Middle East, and received returning information, we knew..."

As he spoke, Mos looked up toward the sky.

The explosion of a 50 million-ton TNT-class super nuclear bomb was not just visibly a massive fireball phenomenon.

Or rather, the fireball itself wasn’t simple; people thousands of kilometers away could see its glaring flash, and the mushroom cloud from the explosion easily ascended beyond a hundred kilometers, creating a huge dense cloud formation visible hundreds of kilometers away—

And the expansion of the cloud would ultimately create phenomena observable within thousands of kilometers without any equipment.

The air ionized, flickering with peculiar light, scattering smoke and dust that would affect visibility of hundreds to thousands of kilometers, with radiation levels sharply soaring...

Textbooks record these phenomena, but the exaggerated data was the first in history.

"...I knew not even Europeans would have the courage and capability to produce such an explosion, so I suspected this must be you— of course, if it was the Rocksen Group, we would also have to prepare to handle them."

Lille nodded slightly: "I didn’t expect your appearance today."

"An immature young person, right?" Mos had a somewhat peculiar expression, "but you should be younger than me; if aside from that, I think what you said was true."

Before Lille transformed into his current complete metal body, his thin frame easily reminded people of his past:

He was a young man who suffered, an accident trapped him in paralysis and illness during his growing years. Though he struggled to overcome the pain, his body was always underdeveloped, his face perpetually youthful.

Now it was different; unless people deliberately thought about it, they would even forget Lille’s age and experience, as if he was born invincible.

Lille skipped over this issue, looking at the busy soldiers and engineers in the Mechanical Nest City, a weight lifted from his heart.

"We must handle this place properly."

The core of Ultron’s Mechanical Nest City was the manufacturing and data center that developed horizontally, endlessly.

But machines didn’t appear out of thin air; at various metal, petroleum, and other resource points, it dug very deeply downward, directly building factories on some surface resources, while Shallow resources were developed as surface resources, and deep resource extractions opened deep rifts in the earth...

The resources of the entire Middle East had been almost hollowed out by it, whether oil or other things.

If the alloys in the Mechanical Nest City weren’t affected by radiation, they could be recycled. Engineers could also scan the design of this nest city to refine industrial design.

This was once Hell, but that was once, and Hell had now been conquered.

Then...

Lille looked at Mos: "Ultron is no longer a problem, what’s left is settling accounts with the United States and the Rocksen Group.

I’ve already resolved the communication disorder issue. Inform your team of engineers to prepare for cross-ocean communication construction. We need to unify production technology and proceed with industrial recovery as quickly as possible."

"So quickly?" Mos was startled, "Shouldn’t we rest first?"

"No... we might not have that much time."

Lille found something in Ultron’s database, indicating that they might not have enough time to slowly develop and then destroy the old bases of the Rocksen Group and the United States.

The Rocksen Group is attempting a dangerous experiment.