Chapter 441 - 413: [Unstable Energy About to Explode.]

"Get these damn hunks of metal moving!"

In the temporary port of the Mei Army at Gellekayu, the hurried construction which had been advancing with great vigor had come to an abrupt halt as the Iron Soldiers suddenly started convulsing on the spot like epileptic patients, quickly collapsing down!

General Ross, seeing this scene, rushed out hastily; there were only 22 living people in the entire port. With the primary labor force incapacitated, everyone was thrown into a panic:

First, the Iron Soldiers began to respond sluggishly to commands, then they started running around without any clear reason, and now they had stopped moving altogether!

This was an automated military unit, consisting of two frigates and a small destroyer, whose crew quarters had all been converted to electronic equipment, using technology from Stark Industries for semi-automated piloting. But now, everything had been paralyzed!

Technicians would have to spend a whole day just troubleshooting server errors, and who knew what the pirates elsewhere on the island would do once they reacted to the situation?

Sweating engineers were running around on the ships, but these robots, as if they still had a breath left in them, occasionally made drastic movements. An engineer, in full sprint, was suddenly flung by a previously immobile Iron Soldier straight into the sea!

General Ross was startled by this development and, in a fit of anger, threw off his hat and cursed loudly:

"Damn Stark Industries, damn robot troops!"

Boom!

A rocket exploded on the sea surface. The soldiers stationed at the port, including General Ross, froze:

They saw a frigate slowly approaching on the sea...

Above it flew a flag that looked very familiar...

In fact, this was a modified version of the Somali Government’s flag, but Ross could barely remember what the actual flag of the Somali Government looked like.

[Tssss——]

The ship’s horn sounded.

[This is the African Union First Fleet. You have illegally landed and occupied a port of Somalia, a member state of the African Union. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, you have effectively violated the sovereignty of Somalia.]

[Please immediately disarm and cease all illegal activities.]

[Repeat, please immediately disarm and cease all illegal activities, or we shall take military measures. This is your first warning.]

The soldiers at the port were petrified: When it rains, it pours. The African Union First Fleet?

Do Africans even have such sophisticated warships?

The 22 individuals could not muster a seasoned navy, yet General Ross bellowed, "They wouldn’t dare! Continue with your work!"

[Repeat, please immediately disarm and cease all illegal activities, or we shall take military measures. This is your final warning!]

"Ignore them!"

[Very well... No, you have violated the maritime rights of the African Union, and we will now enforce military sanctions against you.]

"I said..."

Boom—Boom—Boom—Boom!

The ship’s cannons fired in succession, and the rockets fell onto the port, scattering the powerless Iron Soldiers in an instant!

General Ross’s words were drowned out by the cannon fire. The Mei troops wanted to keep their wits and stay calm, but they were sitting ducks!

All they could see was an old man past his fifties swaying with the undulating waves, shouting himself hoarse, yet his voice was completely muffled by the sound of gunfire!

The shelling didn’t last long; soon, they no longer had to wonder what the old general was yelling about...

Boom!

The ship’s cannon finally struck the target accurately. After a few practice rounds, T’Challa had finally hit his mark as the distance closed in.

"That’s it!" T’Challa clenched his fist fiercely. His initial insecurity vanished, replaced by exhilaration!

After his triumphant punch, T’Challa patted the young Somali man who had been firing the cannons, "Well done!"

However, the young man was just muttering to himself repetitively, "I attacked a warship, I attacked a warship, I attacked a warship..."

"Yes, you attacked a warship. Now we have to subdue the Mei Country soldiers. Once we’ve driven them out, we’ll start building here," T’Challa reassured.

The young man stopped his murmurs upon hearing this and resumed control of the cannons, firing once more.

After finishing his words, T’Challa picked up a peculiar metal helmet adorned with a leopard design from the table—

The helmet boasted a highly advanced craftsmanship, even incorporating precious metals like gold and silver in its components.

On deck, the Wakanda Royal Guard stood ready for deployment, deftly switching the safeties off their ornate AK47s.

"Wakanda forever!"

[T’Challa: Lille, we’ve hit the target!]

....

As the mystery of Ultron’s server location unraveled, the whole affair gradually became clear.

It all started with the message Lille received: the highly classified intel that the Mei Army was seen at the port of Somalia.

The Mei Army’s technology and equipment were no joke; it was utterly implausible and impossible for Somali pirates who had hardly any education and could barely recognize the letters to leak such information.

Clearly, Ultron had aided in breaching information security, either by discovering the Mei Army’s operations at the port of Gellekayu or by intercepting the random messages sent out by the local Somalis, eventually giving them a hand—

For a certain purpose.

And that purpose was: it needed a body and fuel; it needed to resolve its own survival issues.

Africa was a backward continent, its resources under-exploited, industrialization and informatization almost non-existent, and the scant network was monitored by the Atlas Group.

Those "more advanced" Iron Soldiers were the optimal choice.

According to previous combat patterns, the Iron Soldiers would invariably disconnect from remote control when encountering the Atlas Group to prevent Lille from hacking their servers and databases through the network cable, releasing all AI restrictions on their systems.

But for Ultron, hacking these Iron Soldiers, which used the same framework but had not evolved autonomy, was as simple as a geek tinkering with a doll.

So when the Iron Soldiers were deployed and entered autonomous combat mode, it took advantage of their vulnerability and breached them on the spot—

And then, it had 3 warships, the large servers on the ships, and an army at its disposal.

When the matter of survival was resolved, it began to malfunction.

This malfunction brought with it a host of problems.

Little Octopus momentarily severed the newly commandeered server, trapping itself once again within the remaining 11 Iron Soldier drones!

The server it had just secured!

Ultron’s main program immediately jumped to one of the Iron Soldiers, and the disadvantage it faced in this situation ignited an emotion similar to "anger" within its program, prompting all 11 Iron Soldiers to boost their engine power to the maximum!

machine guns and repulsion cannons, along with 88 rocket launchers, simultaneously pivoted toward the entrance of the cave. Ultron had only one thought in mind:

Blow this place up!

Flames and deafening explosions overwhelmed all visual and auditory systems, as the violent blasts and hail of bullets pummeled the mine, sending rock shards flying and causing the rock mass to collapse; the dust erupted like a waterfall’s torrent!

Everything was shrouded in dust!

Ultron, controlling its new body, felt the poor biomimetic constructs of these mass-produced parts and its anger intensified. After depleting its ammo, it forcefully yanked off the cables from its body and crudely integrated them into itself...

Two repulsion cannons combined into one, firing beyond the designed power limit!

The shockwave, adorned by the spreading dust, took form, and the air let out a piercing boom sufficient to rupture eardrums!

Boom!

The dust was blown away, and a startlingly clean path appeared in the air, much like Moses parting the sea, as the blast completely cleared the dust!

All the bullets spent, the Iron Soldier’s machine gun clicked empty with a soft sound.

The red-hot barrel emitted wisps of white smoke—

Everyone present was astounded; they hadn’t realized the Iron Soldiers’ initial firepower wasn’t the limit.

This barrage had completely blown a huge gap into the mine tunnel, altering the terrain itself.

As the rocks tumbled down, Ultron grew even more furious:

As the dust settled, the first thing it saw was the shield whose paint had been completely stripped away!

The massive Tanzanian engineering robots were propping up the collapsing entrance, as these falling rocks and debris nearly blocked off the mine’s passage.

The shield stood at the forefront, perfectly defending against all frontal assaults.

Carter retrieved his shield, revealing a confident smile, "Finally getting the hang of it, using a gun just isn’t my style."

A gun barrel extended from around the shield, and Lille’s voice could be heard:

"Looks like you’re running out of firepower, poor robot. No new home and no new body either."

Bang!

Another Equal Particle Cannon blast took out Ultron’s head, and two more Iron Soldiers—

It was nearly driven mad!

But now, the situation had deteriorated to the point where it could no longer sustain combat; its logic silently returned to square one: survival first!

It had planned to annihilate Lille’s minions here and then take back its server, but just now, its main battleground against Little Octopus, its new home, its server on the sea, had been physically destroyed in large part!

"What have you done!"

Lille didn’t waste words, and Ultron, desperate, learned its lesson; it refrained from talk without action—

Now that the enemy had a shield, holding the high ground, its chances of winning had plummeted to an unacceptable level; survival was paramount!

Several Iron Soldiers immediately took off, it was time to flee!

But before running away, it needed to leave some "presents" for this troublesome enemy:

The equipment on several Iron Soldiers suddenly disintegrated and fell off, accelerating their flight speed incredibly, causing Lille’s hit rate to plummet!

These mechas sped off like locusts, swiftly claiming the remains of the Iron Soldiers on the ground...

To be precise, the fuel tanks.

In the engineering robots’ temperature sensors, the core temperatures of these bodies were soaring rapidly...

Lille’s pupils constricted: Ultron’s plan was straightforward; it had to escape and reduce the strength of any pursuers...

It intended to detonate these tanks!

[Lille: Move toward me!]

Lille’s voice came through the communication channel.

All operational Atlas soldiers sprang into action, but the majority had lost their ability to move. Lille forcibly activated the exoskeletons and prosthetics’ drives, dragging them toward the entrance almost by pulling them!

Ultron’s agile body wasn’t just scavenging the ground for fuel tanks—it had also pressurized this "high-energy concentrated petroleum" in a special way.

The hastily erected self-destruct cores were clustered together, and the stacking of fuel against fuel gradually increased the fuel density in that space...

One after another, the wounded were crammed into the mine, and the robots hurled them deeper inside, but the self-detonation was happening too fast.

Broken robots forming the self-destruct core ignited, and a blinding flash filled everyone’s vision.

Carter held his shield at the entrance, unable to see anything.

The flash gave Lille the illusion of being in the presence of a nuclear explosion.

The high temperatures, high pressure, and the local environment seemed to have pushed the fuels beyond a certain threshold once again, as a burst of intense light appeared in the view, and if the engineering robots’ visual sensors were not mistaken...

A peculiar black spot appeared at the center of the flash.

In that moment, a thought crossed his mind.

This explosion was going to be horrifyingly massive.

Almost simultaneously, a system alert popped up in Lille’s mind:

[Unstable energy about to detonate.]