Chapter 427: The Ark

"A corpse!"

Upon seeing the corpse of the Pathfinder on the Golden Ship, which was even more terrifying than his own chassis, Sun Cheng's face lit up with joy; he hurriedly shoved aside the few robots blocking his path and rushed toward the remains.

He arrived beside the Golden Ship in two or three steps and stood still, shooting two beams of light from his eyes to scan the Pathfinder, who looked as if he were merely sleeping; the joy that had just surfaced on his face vanished in an instant.

"Master!"

Mola had also noticed the Golden Ship and walked over, just about to speak, when he saw Sun Cheng suddenly extend his arm and press it against the Pathfinder's head.

After a dozen seconds, he saw him shake his head with a face full of disappointment.

"Dead!"

He sighed, though it was within his expectations.

This Pathfinder had been in hibernation and died because the energy in his Spark was completely exhausted.

This was a way of dying that Decepticons generally viewed as cowardly; although Mechanical Lifeforms possessed lifespans far exceeding those of humans, they were not incapable of death.

The more powerful the chassis, the more terrifying the daily energy consumption; once a Spark went long-term without energy replenishment, the components, skeleton, and even the armor on the surface of the Mechanical Lifeform would not receive effective maintenance, thereby beginning to decay and eventually becoming completely rusted away.

The Pathfinder on the Golden Ship had clearly suffered extremely heavy injuries; he might have domesticated the then-uncivilized ancient Indians, controlled them to build this underground hiding place for him, and then entered hibernation, waiting for potential rescue.

It was just a pity that the energy remaining in his Spark was clearly insufficient to allow him to safely pass through thousands of years of hibernation.

He was dead, having already perished more than two thousand years ago.

Now lying on the Golden Ship was merely a completely decayed body; Sun Cheng had just scanned it and discovered that this corpse was no different from completely rotted scrap iron.

"Master, how should we handle him?"

Mola also noticed the state of the corpse and asked him respectfully.

"Just leave him here!"

It was just a completely decayed corpse, with even the Core and Spark inside rusted through; other than recovering it for smelting to obtain some precious metals, it was of no use at all.

Sun Cheng was not short on that bit of metal ore, so he might as well leave him here.

Seeing Mola's eyes staring fixedly at the Golden Ship beneath the suspected Pathfinder's corpse, he found it somewhat amusing.

"... Do you want this Golden Ship? I'll have the robots move it away in a moment..."

The Golden Ship lying beneath the Pathfinder was naturally not pure gold, though the gold content was quite high; he had already scanned it while checking the corpse just now, and the purity reached over eighty percent, containing a certain amount of silver and other metallic elements.

The Golden Ship forged by the ancient Indians was not the type of large sailing ship that became popular globally after the Age of Discovery, but rather a simple boat shape similar to a bamboo raft, composed of eight long, column-shaped gold bars about twenty-seven centimeters wide and less than eight centimeters thick, nearly seven meters long, held together by five smaller circular gold bars passing through them.

However, South America truly lived up to its reputation as one of the regions with the richest mineral resources on Earth; presumably, even if there weren't gold mines everywhere three thousand years ago, there wouldn't have been a shortage of them.

Otherwise, the ancient Indians could never have produced several tons of gold in a short period to manufacture this Golden Ship.

Hearing his words, Mola did not feel embarrassed and hurriedly nodded in response: "Yes, Master. The political situation in Bolivia is currently short of money everywhere. Humans are really treating my Ministry of Interior as an ATM now; the problems the new government needs money for are basically all being dumped on me!"

Blue light flickered in Sun Cheng's eyes, as if he hadn't heard the complaint at all.

He still had use for Numar for the time being; as long as the other party didn't court death, he wasn't the type of person with a heavy desire to kill, so leaving him his life in the end was fine.

The base's technology for cultivating Humanoid Decepticons was not yet perfect, which was also an important reason why Sun Cheng was not currently planning to send large numbers of this type of Humanoid Decepticon spy to infiltrate various South American countries.

However, after thinking about it, he still loosened up slightly: "Chongchi has already briefed me on the Bolivia matter. Numar is still very useful to us for now; as long as it isn't too excessive, it's fine to give him the money and weaponry he wants. Leave it to Yuri to negotiate; mineral resources, the military, and the power of the new government—we want everything we can secure. He is more skilled at this than we are... I will have the base dispatch another batch of Humanoid Decepticons as soon as possible to assist you in digesting Bolivia quickly... Remember, we don't have much time left..."

"Yes!"

Mola naturally couldn't understand what his last sentence meant, but as a low-level Decepticon cultivated by the base, he had an innate loyalty to his master, so even if he didn't understand, he wouldn't voice any doubts.

After speaking, Sun Cheng ignored him and looked around the not-so-spacious temple, soon feeling disappointed.

Aside from the Golden Ship holding the Pathfinder's corpse, the temple was bare and empty; there was nothing.

The detection function also failed to detect the existence of any hidden compartments, which couldn't help but make Sun Cheng somewhat disappointed.

"Where is the spaceship..."

He looked at the corpse on the Golden Ship in disappointment for a good while, when suddenly, as if something had struck him, he quickly walked back to the suspected Pathfinder's corpse.

"... Gold might count as a precious metal to Earthlings, but to Mechanical Lifeforms, it is almost useless... So why was it smelted?"

"... Given this Pathfinder's size, it is clear that the humans of over three thousand years ago could not have easily moved it... So the Golden Ship must have been made beforehand, and then the Pathfinder lay down on it..."

"... Then the question arises: to manufacture a bulky and impractical object using this metal that is useless to Mechanical Lifeforms and place it here—was it really just to facilitate his own hibernation... or was it to cover up something..."

The more Sun Cheng thought about it, the more he felt he had grasped something; his gaze fell upon the Pathfinder's corpse on the Golden Ship before him, and he silently apologized in his heart.

Then he violently flipped it off the Golden Ship and threw it to one side.

The Spark within that corpse had already completely withered away more than two thousand years ago, and the chassis had been completely rusted.

At this moment, as he forcefully flipped it away and it hit the ground, accompanied by a "clatter" of metal colliding and rubbing, large pieces of armor fragments scattered all over the floor.

Sun Cheng didn't bother with them; he focused his attention on the Golden Ship where the corpse had originally been lying. Seeing that there was still nothing unusual to be seen, he didn't care, instead grabbing each side of the Golden Ship with his hands and pushing it aside after lifting it with force.

"Boom!"

The multi-ton Golden Ship slammed heavily onto the floor beside it, instantly collapsing a section of the ground and splashing up a large cloud of dust, enveloping both Sun Cheng and Mola, who were closest.

But Sun Cheng didn't care in the slightest; he quietly looked at the dense rows of text on the ground beneath the Golden Ship, as well as a soccer-ball-sized Metal Sphere embedded in the floor, and the corners of his mouth curved into a long arc.

"Found it!"