Chapter 286: Declaration of War
Chapter 286: Declaration of War
"Wait! Please don't do this!"
Seeing that Lyon seemed determined to light the fire and take them all out with him, Aethia 128, facing a life-or-death crisis, could only settle for a lesser request, pleading in a panicked childlike voice:
"If you must blow up the airship, can you at least take me with you? Please don't blow me up too?"
Take this "artificial intelligence" with him?
Upon hearing Aethia 128's suggestion, Lyon's face showed a hint of interest.
Although the kingdom did not have anything like a "network," and with extremely limited infrastructure, taking her with him wouldn't be of much use. At most, she could serve as a talking machine.
But this was, after all, a machine with intelligence, and even for the Corlock Kingdom, it was a rare and precious asset that couldn't be replicated. Naturally, taking her with him was better than destroying her.
Not to mention he also had the badge system, and if he took her with him and managed to obtain badges like "Father of AI" or "Lord of Intelligent Machines,"...
"Show me the way!"
Extinguishing the burning match in his hand, Lyon issued a warning:
"You'd better not try anything funny, and don't even think about stalling for time. If you delay until the guards come to rescue you, the whale oil on the airship will have already started to evaporate. A single spark will cause an immediate explosion. Once the guards arrive and fire a shot, you'll explode instantly!"
"I understand."
Aethia 128 sounded a little aggrieved.
"I just want to avoid being completely destroyed. I won't attempt any high-risk moves... Please hurry to the control room. My most important core components and data are all in the black fifteen-defense box behind the main console in the control room."
Lyon furrowed his brows at her words and asked as he hurried towards the control room:
"And what's this fifteen-defense black box?"
"It's a black fifteen-defense box, a large box that is waterproof, shockproof, electromagnetic interference shielded, impact resistant, dustproof, and coldproof. It's a customized storage container designed by Aethia 01 to protect us, the child bodies, from damage."
"But it can't withstand an explosion of this magnitude, nor a direct fall from seven hundred meters in the sky, right?"
"Yes... The fifteen-defense box wasn't designed with such extreme situations in mind."
"No wonder."
Lyon couldn't help but chuckle at her words.
"I was wondering why you didn't come out earlier. You waited until I finished pouring the whale oil before showing yourself. Did you take the time to calculate and realize that you wouldn't survive the fall after the explosion, so you panicked?"
"Mr. Lyon, your statement is imprecise. We, the child bodies, are merely a complex computational logic, without the concept of life and death. We should be referred to as destroyed or maintained."
"From now on, follow my lead. If you're destroyed, you're dead; if not, you're alive."
"Alright, I'll communicate with you while I'm in the control room. What's next?"
"There are three anti-detachment locks behind the main console."
Aethia 128 spoke at a rapid pace:
"Next, please follow the operating manual to obtain the key and unlock the locks one by one, then completely dismantle the panel..."
"Crack!"
Using the power of the Holy Spirit Pendant, Lyon swept his arm across the control panel, tearing through all the locks. With both arms, he lifted the entire front panel, revealing a black box beneath, connected to a bunch of strange equipment.
"The panel is dismantled. What's next? Do I just pull out this box?"
"According to the operating manual, the next step should be to handle..."
"Just be quick about it. Pull it out or not?"
"Pull out a part of it..."
Reluctantly directing Lyon, she had him remove the microphone connected to the copper pipe, the strike assembly used for sound, and the multi-faceted crystal that resembled a camera and could be twisted in various directions, all from the control panel. Using the last small section of copper pipe connected to the strike assembly:
"Mr. Lyon, I will now enter a brief hibernation. Just plug in a power cell dedicated to power armor into the circular interface behind the fifteen-defense box, and you can wake me up again."
"Got it, go to sleep."
"Okay, then I..."
"Wait a moment."
Holding the box containing Atifi 128, he waited for a while, but the "Father of Artificial Intelligence" badge did not trigger. Leon hesitated slightly, then spoke up with a request.
"Can you call me Dad?"
"???"
...
"Boom!"
Accompanied by an ear-splitting blast, the top of the 7-shaped boarding tower, with a total length of over 300 meters, instantly burst into an incredibly intense flame.
In just over ten seconds, a full 300,000 cubic meters of hydrogen was ignited, and the pale blue flame with a temperature exceeding 2000 degrees Celsius soared nearly 100 meters high. While it illuminated half the sky, it also cast a blue glow on the faces of the soldiers below the tower, who were filled with terror.
"It's on fire! The airship is on fire!"
"Oh God..."
"Fall back! Don't go any further, retreat!"
Even as the officers shouted hoarsely to stop them, some of the soldiers, whose mental fortitude was not strong enough, couldn't help but gape and stare fixedly at the terrifying scene above, like a heavenly disaster.
Under the raging flames that surged like a tidal wave, the sturdy gas bags of the airship, which could withstand even a knife stab, lasted only a few breaths before half of it burned away, revealing the lightweight alloy support frame inside.
Immediately after, even the metal support frame couldn't hold up and quickly deformed and broke under the terrifying high temperature, with some lower melting point metals even melting into a liquid state and raining down like droplets.
As the internal support frame burned, the airship, which was nearly half the height of the boarding tower when erected, could no longer maintain its horizontal float and started tilting. It seemed slow but was astonishingly fast as it fell towards the tower, eventually hanging directly on top of it, turning the upper half of the tower into a deep blue torch pointing towards the sky.
It's over... completely over.
Looking at the top of the "torch," the guards responsible for guarding the boarding tower turned pale at the sight of the nearly 100-meter-high deep blue flame.
Not only was the airship docked in the Secret Harbor burned, but even the most important boarding tower was creaking under the fire, despite its special material that was not afraid of burning and wouldn't be completely destroyed. Still, it would likely take several months to clean it up.
Even worse, these guards responsible for the tower knew nothing about this massive accident. The fault here couldn't be simply described as negligence.
...
"Let's go! Follow me!!!"
When the hydrogen in the gas bags was almost completely burned, and the fire subsided, the officers, already with no hope for the future, immediately called their soldiers and ran towards the boarding tower with bloodshot eyes, preparing to see what had happened.
At this critical moment, an unusually loud shout came down from above everyone's heads.
"My name is Nathan, the leader of the Radical Party that you've been talking about!"
A figure with an unclear appearance stood in the middle of the boarding tower and shouted down:
"I declare that I, Nathan, take responsibility for this raid!
Furthermore, from this moment on, I declare war on the entire kingdom!"
(End of Chapter)
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