But she ultimately couldn’t help...

Lingtong opened her eyes and looked at the screen beside her.

In the corner of the screen, war reports swiftly scrolled by, reports concerning the Black Storm were highlighted by the high-level autonomous mechanisms.

These few reports caught her attention.

The Black Storm was besieged by over a dozen Spirit Cultivators;

The Black Storm requested Amina and others to protect the human battlefield within limits, and the Three Spirit Cultivators began to combat the Pillar Blade Beast;

The Black Storm started to escape;

The Black Storm entered the body of the Third Pillar;

The Black Storm began to counterattack.

An energy reaction from a Spirit Cultivator was rapidly disappearing! The Black Storm killed a Spirit Cultivator!

The second! The second one has been killed!

The Black Storm began to chase the enemy Spirit Cultivators!

War reports, in theory, shouldn’t have emotions; simplicity is best; yet these few reports conveyed the messenger’s excitement in words and characters.

Humanity seemed to see hope in him again.

Lingtong pursed her lips in a smile, yet there was a tinge of melancholy in her eyes.

Although her improvement was significant, she still couldn’t keep up with the pace of her ’subordinate.’

"Sir," the auxiliary mechanical body beside her reminded, "you should take a break, our mechanism is expected to re-engage in the battle in twenty-five minutes."

"Hmm," Lingtong closed her eyes again, "prepare two stimulant injections for me."

"Understood, sir."

"The Black Storm is unbelievably powerful."

An auxiliary mechanical body commented,

"Their power is something beyond our understanding, individual might beyond belief in conflict with our survival ideology, yet without him, doomsday would be upon us."

Another auxiliary mechanical body offered a counterpoint: "If a favorable situation is created by individual might, can it really last? Won’t it have problems later?"

"A good situation is always better than a bad one, our priority is to survive first."

"Alright, but I still believe there should be no carelessness in principle, see him as an individual with enormous contributions to the collective rather than as one the collective needs to look up to."

"Why don’t you go tell that to the so-called Ancient Civilization? They’ve reached almost stage 2.0 and still shout about the Great Pioneer every day."

Lingtong suddenly asked, "It seems this information isn’t something you should have access to, what channel did you get it from?"

The four auxiliary mechanical bodies instantly fell silent.

They looked at each other, hesitating, not knowing what to say.

One auxiliary mechanical body scratched its head, "We definitely didn’t do anything against the rules, believe us, we just gossip about things... gossip is merely a beautiful extension of thought."

Lingtong didn’t ask further.

She was just scaring these ’youngsters.’

"Alright, you all..."

Beep—

Woo—

The cockpit was suddenly covered in red light.

Lingtong stood up abruptly, her hands reaching into the operating ’sleeves,’ her eyes filled with flashing lights.

But there was nothing on the big screen.

What’s happening?

"Damn!"

An auxiliary robot responsible for external intelligence suddenly cursed, and an image appeared on the big screen.

It was a massive asteroid, with a diameter of several hundred kilometers, currently accelerating from outside the atmosphere.

Facing Earth, the ’edges’ and behind it, a large number of propulsion tail flames appeared.

High-quality asteroid impact;

The simple weapon of the Ancient Civilization is indeed plain yet powerful.

...

* (PS: Sorry for being a bit late today. Handling the plot is quite a challenge; I wanted to add some twists but feared disrupting the flow of the story, it’s quite frustrating.)

* (Also, it seems our book won’t have any resources; with over thirty thousand subscriptions, it seems to be capped; the developmental resources pack planned in September for December hasn’t been scheduled yet. But I’ve come to terms with it. The author can only focus on writing a good story; nothing else matters.)