The storm is coming.
Deep within the Ark base, inside the highest-level emergency meeting room, codenamed "Rock," the air felt as heavy as if filled with lead. The heavy alloy door slid silently open, shutting out the piercing alarms and chaotic running that still echoed in the corridor outside. Yet, the oppressive feeling inside the meeting room was even greater than outside.
Pale emergency lights streamed down from the ceiling, illuminating tense, bloodless faces. Around the oval conference table sat the Ark's core decision-makers: Technical Director Su Mu, Operations Director Lei Gang (a burly man as if carved from granite, his face livid, his fists clenched and crackling on the table), Resource Coordination Director Zhao Qiming (a lean, middle-aged man, his forehead covered in fine beads of cold sweat, his fingers unconsciously swishing across the screen, calculating something in vain), and several heads of other key departments. Each face was filled with solemnity, anxiety, and a hint of the bewilderment of the sudden disaster.
Lin Mo sat in the main seat, his back straight, like a sword thrust into the center of a storm. On the holographic projection screen before him, two catastrophic images were displayed side by side: on the left was a screenshot of the glaring blood-red energy ring as the Pillar of Creation's main platform collapsed, alongside a continuously scrolling, shocking data flow fuse report; on the right was the last frozen image transmitted back from Hawkeye Outpost No. 3, filled with explosions, screams, and the hideous silhouettes of mechanical beasts. In the corner of the screen, the timestamp 06:47:33 UTC stood like a clot of solidified blood.
"The situation is clear." Lin Mo's voice broke the dead silence. It was low and hoarse, yet it carried an undeniable penetrating power, forcibly suppressing the panic that permeated the conference room. "The platform collapsed, and the outpost was attacked. The timing is highly overlapping." His sharp eyes swept across the crowd. "This is not an isolated incident. This is a deliberate attack against the Ark, the Covenant, and the new order we have just established!"
"Damn it!" Lei Gang slammed his fist down on the heavy alloy tabletop, making a dull thud that even made the water glass on the table jump. "Which son of a bitch is so bold as to touch my outpost? Those mechanical bastards..." His teeth chattered, his eyes burning with rage as he stared intently at the blurry outline of the monster on the screen. "I'm going to tear them down to scrap metal!"
"Now is not the time to vent, Minister Lei!" Su Mu's voice was as cold as ice, instantly cutting off Lei Gang's anger. Her face was still pale, but her eyes were unusually calm and sharp, like quenched ice. On the personal light screen in front of her, the preliminary crash analysis report sent by the technical team was being refreshed rapidly. "The direct cause of the platform crash was that the water level in the core data pool fell below the critical point, causing the underlying algorithm supporting the entire shared architecture to overload and crash. But the root cause," she raised her head, her eyes swept across the crowd, and finally landed on Lin Mo's face, "is the vicious cycle of the data sharing ecosystem. More and more low-quality, false data are input, and less and less valid data. The platform is like a patient who is constantly bleeding. Any additional pressure - even just a regular data request peak at a certain node - may become the last straw that breaks the camel's back."
She paused, her fingertips swiping across the screen, bringing up a set of startling comparison graphs. "Look, the effective information entropy of the data packets uploaded by Anvil City and Quicksand Collection over the past seventy-two hours has plummeted below its all-time low! Meanwhile, the high-precision environmental data and restoration blueprints they've retrieved from the shared pool have reached a peak! They're trading trash for gold! In the final three minutes before the platform collapsed, a large-scale resource exploration AI from Quicksand Collection was performing a massive geological modeling operation using shared pool data! It was this operation that ultimately crushed the platform!"
"These treacherous hyenas!" Zhao Qiming cursed, his voice trembling with anger. "They're digging their own graves! What good will it do them if the platform collapses? Everyone will die!"
"Benefits?" Su Mu's lips curled up in a cold, almost sarcastic arc. "The benefit is that in the chaotic period when the platform collapses and order is vacuumed, they can use the data and force accumulated in their hands to grab the remaining resource points in the ruins more quickly! Without the restriction of shared rules, the jungle law of the survival of the fittest is the biggest 'benefit'! Don't forget, what they did before the signing of the Convention!" Her words were like a sharp scalpel, instantly dissecting the cruel reality of the ruins world that was still rotting and festering under the seemingly healed scar.
The conference room fell into a deeper silence. Despair and anger intertwined, weighing heavily on everyone's heart. The platform's collapse meant the foundation of reconstruction had collapsed; the attack on the outpost meant that external threats had already set their fangs on the Ark's throat! Internal and external troubles made the situation precarious!
"The situation of Hawkeye No. 3..." Lin Mo's voice pulled everyone back from their heavy thoughts, and he looked at the Minister of Operations Lei Gang.
Lei Gang's face was ashen, his eyes bloodshot. "Communications have been completely interrupted. According to the latest analysis of the signal source, the main structure of the outpost... has most likely been destroyed. The first rapid response team we sent has arrived at the periphery, and the images sent back..." He took a deep breath, his voice filled with suppressed grief and indignation, "a scorched earth. The main force of the mechanical beasts has evacuated, but what remains at the scene... is a massacre. No signals from survivors have been found. The enemy... is very professional and cruel. Moreover," he pointed to the hideous outline of the mechanical beast on the screen, "the structure of this thing does not match any known mechanical beast model recorded in our database! It is a... brand new, more destructive model!"
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