I received a call from Tian Zhan, saying that an expatriate had an accident, and the situation seemed serious and could not be explained clearly over the phone.

So he changed his original plan and drove the spaceship and landed people directly on the Gaia Space Station.

The task of arranging accommodation was handed over to Yuhui Core.

It doesn't matter where you live, it would be more convenient to live in the space station in the orbit of Gaia, the planet next to the urban planet.

Then he took the minister to Tian Zhan's office.

As soon as he opened the door, Chen Ming asked Tian Zhan, "What's the specific situation?"

Tian Zhan decisively projected a star map in front of him, marked a point on it and said, "I sent a team to this place to find new plants before."

"Just now, they said they were attacked by the mechanical tribe."

The Minister of Psionics was very concerned about this matter and asked, "Mechanic race? The border colony planet was attacked by mechanical race?"

"Yes, he said it was a large-scale attack by the Mechanic Clan. The patrol fleet and the space station in orbit seemed to have been destroyed, but the specific situation could not be confirmed."

"Can we still get in touch?"

"No, I just kept asking him not to hang up, but the call was disconnected. Maybe the superluminal communication base station was dismantled, or..."

Chen Ming and the minister looked at each other and seemed to have guessed a possibility.

That is, the first wave of invasion and attack by the mechanical race has begun after the test.

Things happening on the front line have not been reported up through the government and military systems so quickly, so it is possible that people at the bottom may know what is happening earlier than those at the top.

The Minister of Psionics looked a little depressed and said, "The early warning system has no effect at all? So many resources have been wasted."

Chen Ming was not very interested in this thing at the beginning, so he was not surprised by this situation.

"These things are often ineffective at critical moments, and they are mechanical, so it shouldn't be too difficult for them to avoid early warnings with their technology."

"Let's go and take a look."

The military forces of Gaia and Origin are under the direct command of Chen Ming, and he also has the strongest combat power.

If something happened to one of his own people, he couldn't just sit in the office and hand the task over to others or Yu Hui.

The Minister of Psychic Power said immediately: "I will go too."

It would be fine if Chen Ming's men only encountered some scattered mechanical people.

But if this is really the first round of invasion by the mechanical race, then he must get to the bottom of the situation.

If we go with Chen Ming, we will definitely get to know the truth earlier than the news is reported up the chain.

Chen Ming tacitly agreed with the psychic minister's words, and then asked Tian Zhan: "Did they bring special equipment when they went on the mission?"

“Everyone brought it.”

"OK."

Chen Ming put his hand on the minister's shoulder, and the two of them were wrapped in metallic liquid and disappeared into the space station in the blink of an eye.

At the same time, in the only colonial city on a backward colony planet in a marginal star field of the empire.

The impact and smoke of the explosion, the roar of weapons and the flames almost covered the entire city.

A large number of mechanical units were dropped from orbit onto the surface of the planet, constantly destroying the industrial facilities on the surface of the planet, and after the industrial facilities were destroyed, they targeted cities and civilians.

The ruins and broken limbs of buildings have almost become the main theme of the city.

And deep underground in the city.

A small air-raid shelter that could accommodate thousands of people was filled with cries, sighs, and wails of pain.

The people who had come here to seek refuge when the mechanical race first attacked were listening to the noise outside with great concern.

At this time, the planet's communication signals had been completely disconnected. With no idea what was happening outside, panic was spreading among everyone.

In the face of such a natural disaster, they could do nothing.

Among them was a field team sent by Tian Zhan.

Compared to other locals, their panic was not as severe.

But facing the danger above their heads, they couldn't be completely relieved.

Just when they were at a loss.

A device on the field team leader's body suddenly seemed to receive some signal, and a voice came out: "Go to the corner."

Although the device still had no signal, the team leader and nearby team members still felt relieved at that moment.

They immediately ran to the corner of the underground air-raid shelter as instructed, and huddled together to completely block the view of the surroundings.

Immediately afterwards, a large amount of metal liquid overflowed from the equipment in the team leader's hand, forming two liquid balls the size of a person in the middle of the people.

Chen Ming and the Minister of Psychic Power walked out of the metal group.

"Director Chen!"

Chen Ming put his index finger in front of his lips, signaling everyone to be quiet so as not to attract unnecessary attention.

He didn't want others to see him walking out of the liquid metal and think that he was the only life-saving straw.

Although he didn't mind saving people in times of crisis, he was not willing to do something that would directly put pressure on himself.

"How is it going?"

After Chen Ming asked the same question as he had asked Tian Zhan before, the team leader immediately took out his terminal and handed it to Chen Ming, saying, "This is the video we just saved. Take a look."

The content of the video is very simple.

The team leader leads the team to conduct surveys in the wilderness to collect local plants as alternatives to Gaia plants.

The planets in this border star region are not highly developed, and even now you can occasionally find some unrecorded plants.

Even if we fail to find suitable plants to replace Gaia plants, we can still gain some results by finding some new and unrecorded plant species.

Chen Ming sped up and skipped over the previous content.

The time in the video quickly turned to night.

The team members had been in the wild for several days and were preparing to return to the only colonial city on the entire planet to rest, replenish supplies, and prepare for the next outing.

However, at this moment, a team member suddenly pointed to the sky.

Then the team members raised their heads together and saw the fire blooming in the space in the dark night. The blazing flames were extremely obvious in the sky.

The team that came out of Chen Ming's side must have connections with the local government, so the team leader wanted to confirm the situation with the government as soon as possible.

However, the team leader could not contact the local government, and the government’s phone had been flooded with calls.

Just as the team members were considering whether to return to the city, they saw a burning fireball suddenly appear in the orbit of the planet beneath their feet and fall towards the ground from space.

Judging from the internal structure illuminated by the fireball, that was the orbital space station that the crew members often visited.

The team leader immediately took the team members to hide in the nearest underground shelter in the suburbs.

Contacted Tian Zhan.

Then, it was just as Chen Ming knew.

Chen Ming roughly understood the process and asked, "You should have only seen the battle between the patrol fleet and the enemy, and then the space station was destroyed, right? How do you know it was the mechanical race?"

Chen Ming nodded slightly.

The structure of the Mechanical Clan's Spine Cannon is indeed quite special and conspicuous, and the energy light pollution emitted when activated is also quite distinctive.

People who are familiar with the situation can safely infer that it was the Mechanical Race when they saw traces of the ridge cannon being activated in space on the surface.

He also noticed that many people in the shelter were talking about what was happening outside, and apparently many people had also seen traces of the mechanical race.

It can basically be confirmed that they are mechanical race.

The Minister of Psychic Powers at the side was listening to what Chen Ming and the team members were talking about, while also observing the situation in the shelter.

He suddenly said, "It looks like there are only about three or four thousand people here. I don't know what the situation is like in other places. I don't know if the shelter can protect against the mechanical tribe."

"It's unstoppable."

Chen Ming gave a direct answer.

While he was communicating with his team members, he had already released the liquid metal through the wall of the shelter.

He saw the invasion of the mechanical race and the tragic situation in the city, but he could not see any survivors.

There is no one left alive on the surface of the entire colony, and the shelters in the city...

Chen Ming used the metal liquid to find the city design drawings in the office of the Urban Planning Center in the government building, and then dispersed the metal liquid and checked them one by one.

There have been no problems with the several shelters near the edge of the city so far, but all the shelters inside the city have been breached by the mechanical race.

In the shelter, there were men, women, young and old, including babies.

All humans were killed by the machines.

Not even one body in those shelters was intact.

Even just watching, Chen Ming felt a surge of anger.

Any normal person would feel the slightest bit of emotion when seeing the miserable state of his fellow human beings.

The entire planet originally had a population of at least eight million, according to Chen Ming's rough statistics.

There were still 60,000 of them left, all scattered in the shelters on the edge of the city.

The Minister of Psychic Energy frowned and confirmed, "Only 60,000 left?"

"Yes, there may be some in the wilderness, but it is definitely not more than 65,000."

"If left alone, the number will continue to decrease."

"Um……"

Chen Ming suddenly paused: "Speaking of which, another mechanical tribe found a shelter."

"There are almost nine thousand people in that shelter."

"Can it be saved?"

"We have saved them, but saving these few people won't cure the problem."

The Minister of Psionics proposed an idea and said, "We need to confirm how many Machines there are and the scale of this attack."

"It's definitely not small." Chen Ming said, "I just got a spaceship to repair the broken communication base station, and then contacted other nearby star systems."

"What's the result?"

"In the entire star field, no place has replied to my message."

“…”

"Maybe their respective communication systems exploded..."

"Hmm...ah..."

“…”

Chen Ming's words silenced the Minister of Psychic Power and the team members. Although some wanted to find excuses to fill in the gaps, everyone knew what the most likely scenario was.

The Minister of Psionics sighed and said, "The real war of the mechanical race is about to begin. It is coming so fast that we haven't even had time to completely digest and absorb the resources in the mechanical race star field."

"We haven't even had time to systematize the Shining Civilization technology we just acquired."

Chen Ming did not hesitate for a moment. He simply said to the Minister of Psychic Energy, "Go recruit people."

"What kind of people are you recruiting?"

"We want everyone. I'll give you a rough list of the technologies that the survivors have saved. We're hiring people for every specialty. We need to sort out these technologies as quickly as possible."

“All the technologies that can be used are used as quickly as possible to produce the finished product, and I am responsible for verifying the effect and optimizing the finished product.”

"Hasn't the Empire been preparing? It's time to put it into action."

"And what about the neighboring legions?"

The Minister of Psionics thought for a moment and replied, "The 19th and 20th Legions, the two newest legions of the Empire, may not be able to withstand the mechanical race with their military strength."

Chen Ming frowned slightly and said, "I remember that it was a long time ago that I shared the technology of the earliest shining civilization's spaceship."

Chen Ming remembered that although the types of ships in the empire had not changed much to date, there had been progress in ship design.

After all, the updating and iteration of stable ship technology and the expanded application of new technologies are not that difficult.

Logically speaking, the gap between the Empire's ship technology and the Mechanical Clan's warships is not that big, at least not as big as that of Ultraman.

The Minister of Psychic Powers explained, "They were only formed not long ago, so they were assigned to a place like this. They have never fought a high-intensity war."

“That’s all bullshit.”

Chen Ming cursed, and then said: "Even if you can't win, you have to fight. Even if you can't bear it, you have to bear it. They are soldiers. I don't think I should say anything about this, right?"

"Yes, I think too much. After being with you for a long time, I always want to make people as safe as possible. I don't have the ability to protect people like you do."

"I don't have the ability to protect the entire empire."

Chen Ming's words made the Minister of Psychic Power sigh again.

He asked, "What about us? Should we run away with our people, or should we find a way to kill the mechanical people here?"

“I can’t run away.”

Chen Ming immediately gave his judgment: "It seems that the mechanical race has smashed the entire star field, and all military forces have been completely destroyed."

"Although there are more than a hundred star systems inhabited by people in this marginal star region, the total population is only around one billion."

"Most of them are on various types of mineral planets. It's too difficult to take them all away. They are too scattered."

"We must kill all the mechanical people before we can protect the people."

Chen Ming clenched his fist and tapped his chest lightly, saying, "I'll go take care of them."

"But the mechanical tribe will be on guard against your abilities, and top psychics should be used as trump cards. You can't just do it casually..."

Chen Ming interrupted the minister and said, "I have my own ideas."

"Besides... they should have been on guard when I destroyed that prototype super-ship."

(End of this chapter)