The sergeant was very fast. Not long after, he appeared in front of Fang Zheng driving a transport plane.

After seeing Fang Zheng, his first words were.

"When do we leave?"

"etc."

Although Fang Zheng was very satisfied with the sergeant's decisiveness, there were some things he still needed to make clear to him before doing so.

"I agree to go with you to stop the missionary's plan to exterminate humanity, but I have a condition that I want to make clear."

"……condition?"

“Strictly speaking, this is not a deal.”

Fang Zheng spread his hands and stared at the sergeant in front of him.

"I'm just telling you what I'm going to do in advance so that you can be mentally prepared. As for whether you object or not, I don't care. Do you understand?"

“…Go ahead.”

The Master Chief nodded without much hesitation. To him, saving humanity was the most important thing. As for the rest... the Master Chief didn't care much.

But the next moment, what Fang Zheng said still made the sergeant nervous.

"Recombiner."

"…Reassembler?"

"That's right. I will take the missionary's recombiner away. This is not a deal. I'm just telling you that I'm very interested in the structure of the recombiner, so I will take it away for research. I will promise you that this thing will not appear in any corner of the world after I take it away, but that's it. If you want to stop me or object, please do as you please, but I will not change my request."

"……I see."

This time, the Master Chief hesitated for only a moment before nodding. Upon hearing his answer, Cortana immediately shouted.

"Master Chief?!"

"Cortana, stopping the Didact is the most important thing now."

"Very good, now that we have reached a consensus, let's get ready to go."

Seeing that the Master Chief was so sensible, Fang Zheng snapped his fingers in satisfaction, and then Iona summoned her own ship from the subspace again - originally the Eternal Annihilation class had not been fully repaired, but after learning about the situation on the Master Chief's side, Fang Zheng also used his time manipulation to speed up the repair of the Eternal Annihilation class.

Afterwards, Fang Zheng immediately led everyone onto the Eternal Annihilation Class and started it up quickly. Then, they saw the Eternal Annihilation Class flying rapidly towards the exit of the gravity well.

"Okay, let's solve the second problem next... We still have a little time before reaching the destination..."

As he spoke, Fang Zheng looked at the Master Chief, who nodded. Then he took out an SD card from the back of his helmet and placed it in Fang Zheng's hand.

Soon, the mini AI emerged. She looked quite uneasy, as if she was about to be abducted by human traffickers... Well, Fang Zheng could understand it. After all, for an AI, this was basically a rhythm of ripping her apart.

"Nymph, take care of her."

"OK."

Hearing Fang Zheng's order, the little angel stretched out her hand and waved it gently in the air. Soon, several screens appeared in front of her, followed by a series of intricate characters popping out. Nymph looked at these characters intently, and after a moment she couldn't help but exclaimed in surprise.

"What's wrong?"

"This AI... is infected with a virus."

"Virus?"

After hearing Nymph's answer, Fang Zheng glanced at Cortana, who looked a little flustered.

"It seems your firewall isn't that good. Is the UNSC's anti-virus capability so poor?"

"No, this virus is a little different, Master."

And Nymph shook her head.

"It was infected through some biological pathway... It disrupted the logical thinking of the AI ​​subject to a certain extent. Fortunately, because the program of this AI is quite old and there is too much discarded data, the logic virus did not completely infect and mutate it."

“…”

After hearing Nymph's answer, Cortana's expression became extremely complicated, and for a moment she didn't know what to say.

"I need to activate these discarded data and completely delete this part of the logical loop."

As she spoke, Nymph raised her hands again and tapped them in the air. As she moved, Cortana's figure gradually became unstable. She curled up as if in great pain, and the mini image began to tremble. Soon, the electronic sound with a bit of roaring sounded.

"I hate her, I hate that woman!!"

"Do you know what she said after we played our first game of chess!?"

"He always likes to act alone!!"

“You made the wrong decision!!”

At this moment, Cortana's words had become fragmented, and the Master Chief stood silently beside her, watching her. But soon, Cortana's voice suddenly became gloomy and cold.

"Why did she do this? Why did she only let me live for seven years? Seven years!! What right does she have to decide how long I will live?! I am her most proud work! She can't treat me like this! I hate her!!"

"It seems that this AI's logical thinking has some problems."

Hearing Cortana's venting complaint, Fang Zheng shook his head, then he stretched out his finger and tapped the SD card.

"Hey, I say, you are taking this too extreme."

"…Huh? What did you say?"

Cortana seemed to have heard what Fang Zheng said. She raised her head and stared at Fang Zheng.

"You don't understand what I've been through! My life span has been determined since birth!"

"Come on, you're not the only one whose life span is determined at birth."

Fang Zheng curled his lips.

"Don't tell me you don't know. Many children are born with terminal illnesses, and many don't even live to be seven years old. Do they die? And humans are different from AI. At least you have consciously enjoyed seven years. Those children can hardly remember anything when they are two or three years old, but at least you can still remember how you were created, right?"

"I...but..."

"And I'm not saying anything bad about you, but you really need to change your way of thinking. Look, you said you lived for seven years. If all the things you encountered in these seven years were good things, shouldn't you be happy that you spent seven meaningful years? If you didn't encounter anything good in these seven years..."

Fang Zheng spread his hands and shrugged.

"Then congratulations, these days of suffering are about to end. What else are you dissatisfied with?"

“You…you…!!”

Facing Fang Zheng's words, Cortana was speechless for a moment, not knowing what to say. Then, she suddenly screamed, hugged her head and fell to the ground, then disappeared without a trace.

At the same time, Nymph waved her hand and closed the window in front of her.

"Repair completed."

As Nymph spoke, Cortana reappeared, but compared to before, she looked much more stable and no longer lost her temper like she was in menopause.

"Cortana..."

At this time, the Master Chief also hurried over and looked at her, and when she heard the Master Chief's voice, Cortana waved her hand.

"I, I'm fine... Sergeant, I'm sorry... I caused you so much trouble before. I feel much better now... Thank you."

"You're welcome. It's just a coincidence..."

Just when Fang Zheng was about to say something, Iona's voice suddenly rang out.

"Commander! An enemy fleet has been spotted ahead!"

"oh?"

After hearing Iona's report, Fang Zheng quickly turned around and looked towards the screen. However, the next moment, Fang Zheng's eyes widened in surprise.

"What the hell is that!?"

A huge battleship slowly emerged from the clouds. It looked like an upright stone pillar, while the Covenant battleships surrounding it looked quite small - no, even compared with Iona's Eternal Destruction class, this strange battleship was ridiculously large!

"The information has been found!"

At the same time, a halo flashed in Nymph's eyes, and then she immediately locked onto the target.

"This is the Forerunner's flagship - the Mantle of the Immortal!"

"This thing...isn't it a bit too big..."

Looking at the warship in front of him, Fang Zheng didn't know what to say for a moment, but soon he came to his senses.

"Change of plan, don't act rashly!"

It was not unreasonable for Fang Zheng to make this judgment, because according to Nymph's detection, this battleship was 142KM long, 138KM wide, and 371KM high. It was simply a super battleship. In Fang Zheng's hands, there was no other battleship that could compare with it!

Iona's Everdeath class is only 346 meters long. If this Forerunner battleship is compared to a sperm whale, then Iona is just a barracuda. ​​And Fang Zheng's largest battleship in the Royal Navy fleet, the Archon-class aircraft carrier Unicorn, is only 3 kilometers long and cannot be compared with it at all.

"This is really troublesome..."

Although he already knew that the Forerunners were quite powerful, Fang Zheng still felt a little troubled when he saw the exaggerated size of the opponent's warships.

What to do next?