Chapter 287: 286 Declaration of War

"Wait! Don't do this!"

Seeing Li Ang seemed determined to ignite the fuel and take them both out, Atifé 128, facing mortal danger, reluctantly pleaded in a panicked childlike voice:

"If you must blow up the airship, can you take me with you? Don't blow me up along with it!"

Take this "artificial intelligence" with you?

Hearing Atifé 128's proposal, Li Ang's face betrayed a flicker of interest.

Though the Kingdom had nothing akin to a "network," and with its infrastructure so lacking, taking her along would achieve little—perhaps only serve as a talking machine.

But she was still a sentient machine, and even for the Krook Kingdom, an irreplaceable treasure; if possible, taking her was better than destroying her.

Not to mention he still had the Badge System—if he took her away and earned a badge like "Father of AI" or "Master of Sentient Machines"…

"Show me the way!"

After extinguishing the match in his hand, Li Ang warned:

"Don't even think of playing tricks or delaying me—waiting for those guards to come rescue you. The whale fat is already evaporating; one spark and it'll ignite instantly. When the guards arrive and fire a single shot, you'll explode right away!"

"I know."

Atifé 128 spoke, sounding slightly wounded:

"I only want to avoid total destruction—I won't attempt any high-risk moves… Hurry to the control room. My core components and data are inside the black fifteen-defense box behind the main console."

Li Ang frowned, then hurried toward the control room while asking:

"What exactly is this 'fifteen-defense black box'?"

"It's the black fifteen-defense box—a container specially designed by Atifé 01 to protect our subunits from high heat, water immersion, vibration, ionization, impact… dust, and low temperatures."

"But it can't withstand an explosion of this scale—or a fall from seven hundred meters in the air, right?"

"Correct… The fifteen-defense box was never designed for such extreme scenarios."

"No wonder."

Li Ang let out a scoff at this.

"I thought you were silent until I finished draining the whale oil—turns out you spent time calculating that you'd die if you got blown up and then smashed, so now you're panicking, right?"

"Mr. Li Ang, your phrasing is imprecise. We subunits are merely irreproducible computational logic—we have no concept of death or life. We should be described as destroyed or maintained."

"From now on, follow my terms: destroyed means dead, not destroyed means alive."

"Understood. I will adjust my phrasing accordingly during our interactions."

"Good… I've reached the conference room. What now?"

"Behind the main console are three anti-disengagement locks."

Atifé 128 spoke rapidly:

"Next, retrieve the key from the manual, then unlock the three locks in sequence and fully remove the panel…"

"Click!"

Using the power of the Holy Relic Pendant, Li Ang swept a circle around the console, shredding all locks, then heaved with both arms to lift the entire front panel, revealing a black box beneath—about fifty centimeters long, slightly over thirty wide, connected to a tangle of strange devices.

"Panel's off. What next? Just pull out the box?"

"According to the manual, next you should first handle…"

"Cut the crap. Pull it or not?"

"Pull part of it…"

Weary, Atifé 128 guided Li Ang to remove the sound-receiving device connected by copper tubes, the sound-emitting hammer assembly, and the multi-faceted crystal on the console that resembled a camera and could rotate in multiple directions. Then, using the last remaining fragment of copper tubing attached to the hammer:

"Mr. Li Ang, I will now enter brief hibernation. Simply insert a power armor–compatible energy block into the circular interface behind the fifteen-defense box, and you can reactivate me."

"Got it. Sleep then."

"Understood, then I…"

"Wait."

Holding the box containing Atifé 128, Li Ang waited—but no badge like "Father of AI" triggered. He hesitated slightly, then asked:

"Can you call me 'Dad'?"

"????"

…

"Boom!"

With a deafening explosion, the seventy-shaped boarding tower's top—the massive airship over three hundred meters long—erupted in violent flames.

In barely over ten seconds, all three hundred thousand cubic meters of hydrogen ignited. Pale blue flames exceeding two thousand degrees soared nearly a hundred meters high, scorching half the sky and casting a blue glow over the terrified faces of soldiers below the boarding tower.

"It's on fire! The airship's on fire!"

"Oh God…"

"Fall back! Don't move forward—fall back!"

Even as officers screamed orders, some soldiers, unable to withstand the apocalyptic sight above them, stood gaping, mouths open, eyes glazed, staring at the tower's peak.

Under the surging, tidal flames, the airship's thick gasbag—so dense even a blade couldn't pierce it—held only a few breaths before half of it burned away, exposing the internal framework of lightweight alloy panels.

Then even the metal framework buckled. Under the infernal heat, it warped and snapped; lower-melting-point metals melted outright, raining down like droplets.

As the internal framework burned away, the airship—once standing nearly half the height of the boarding tower—could no longer maintain horizontal buoyancy. It tilted, slowly yet terrifyingly fast, crashing into the tower, finally wrapping around it, turning the upper half of the tower into a blazing blue torch pointing skyward.

Finished… completely finished.

Watching the nearly hundred-meter-tall pale-blue flame at the torch's peak, the guards assigned to defend the boarding tower turned deathly pale.

Not only had the airship docked at Migang been destroyed, but the critical boarding tower itself groaned under the fire. Even though its special material resisted burning and wouldn't be fully consumed, clearing the wreckage would take months.

Worse, with an incident of this scale occurring, these guards—responsible for the tower—had known nothing. Their negligence could no longer be called mere dereliction of duty.

…

"Move! Follow me!!!"

Once the hydrogen in the gasbag was mostly consumed and the fire weakened, the officers—seeing no future ahead—immediately rallied their men, eyes bloodshot, sprinting toward the boarding tower to find out what had happened.

At this critical moment, an unusually loud voice boomed from above everyone's heads:

"My name is Nathan. I am the leader of the radical faction you call insurgents!"

A figure, face obscured, stood midway up the boarding tower and shouted down:

"I take responsibility for this attack!

And from this moment on, I declare war upon the entire Kingdom!"