“What exactly are you?” Xia Fei grimly asked.
Dimsky was in disbelief. Feigning calm, he replied, “We’re robots, of course. I am Dimsky and he is Warstar. Do you have some other questions?”
Xia Fei shook his head. “I’ve said it before: None of you are ordinary robots. Your technology has far surpassed the limits of ancient mankind. While you can deceive others, you can’t trick me. As one of the few people in the Panhuman Alliance who has studied ancient technology, I know very well that they never developed liquid metal. Neither the present nor the past human civilizations have ever had this kind of technology.”
Dimsky and Warstar exchanged glances, both robots falling silent.
“The actual bodies of Warstar and the Sentinel Goddess both have a very special symbol which looks like a snowy mountain. If my guess is correct, the original bodies of Dimsky and Xana probably have the same symbol.”
Xia Fei continued. “On my first meeting with the Sentinel Goddess, I already noticed that her AI is different from ordinary robots, and her logical thought processes are more meticulous. Later on, when I met you two, I realized that your AIs are almost the same as the Goddess’s. It seems like your systems place more emphasis on logic.
“In short, the intelligence and strength displayed by you four is far greater than any other robots I’ve met. I can even boldly speculate that you’re not built by humans!”
The ruins were very quiet. Dimsky sighed and said in a self-mocking tone, “I didn’t think you would find out so quickly. For you to notice so many details, you truly possess some sharp eyes.”
Xia Fei lit a cigarette, sat down, and quietly waited for an answer.
Warstar leaned back and placed his hands behind his head. “I won’t hide it from you. In truth, we came from an extinct race of this universe, the mech race.”
“The mech race? A race made purely of robots?”
“Correct. There’s no longer any record of the mech race, but we were once a powerful existence in the universe. We possessed both technology and culture, and we lived like all other sapient lifeforms, but unlike them, the mech race didn’t know anything about sickness or death. Our level of technology was very high—as can be seen by now—that even after so many years, no one has been able to surpass our technology peak.
“Once the mech race became a peerless existence in the universe, it naturally garnered the attention of the Law Adepts. In order to fight back against those powerful Law Adepts, we began our research of artificial abilities!”
Xia Fei asked, “Was that air control technology you just used one of these artificial abilities?”
“Correct. There were many other kinds besides air control, almost all of them representing a force of nature. Fire, water, ice, and lightning were all under our control.
“In the eyes of the Law Adepts, the mech race were freaks, for we didn’t exist in the same way as other sapient lifeforms and were also extremely intelligent to the point that we could even imitate abilities.”
“If you were that strong, why didn’t you try and build Titans?” Xia Fei asked. The question of Titans was the one that he had always been concerned about. He had only ever seen their blueprints, but he had no understanding of the actual fighting power of these massive ships.
“No, we and the Yulani began our ascendancy at almost the same time. The Titans were only developed after we were exterminated,” Dimsky explained.
“Although we didn’t have Titans, those Law Adepts remained wary of us due to our strongest leader, Radix.
“Radix was the father of the mech race. He was of the first generation of the mech race to be built, and he led a group of nameless and obscure robots into possessing a highly developed technology and culture. Without him, there would be no mech race.
“Alas, good times don’t last forever. The Law Adepts invited Radix to their world to look around, and Radix was a carefree and restless mech who loved traveling. Thus, he accepted their request, but not long after he left the mech territory, we were suddenly surrounded and attacked by Law Adepts!
“The battle was extremely brutal. Without Radix, the mech race was like a warrior with only one arm. No matter how powerful our technology or how numerous our warriors were, we could not stop the advancement of the Law Adepts.
“The abilities displayed by the Law Adepts in this battle were far too incredible. With one wave of their hands, they instantly wiped a mech fleet from the sea of stars!”
Warstar had a fearful look on his face, and it was possible to see just how cruel that battle between the mech race and the Law Adepts was that a proud mech warrior like him could be so stricken by pain and grief.
“That was a war that pitted the limits of science against the limits of the physical body, and we were utterly crushed. It was just like how Warstar fought against you with all his strength and still lost, though it’s far more gruesome,” the robotic cockroach Dimsky said. That war had apparently cast a shadow on his heart, and he seemed to believe that technology could never overcome powerful combat techniques.
Warstar gave a self-deprecating laughter. “Seeing that the mech race was about to be exterminated, the elites of our race organized a fleet which was meant to help the Sentinel Goddess escape. I, Dimsky, and Xana were members of this fleet. The Sentinel Goddess was Radix’s daughter, created by his own hand, and she possessed databanks and AI far more advanced than ours.
“The Law Adepts naturally wouldn’t just let us leave easily, so a bitter pursuit battle ensued. All the warriors sacrificed their lives to fight back against the Law Adepts, and in the end, only the four of us managed to escape, becoming the last survivors of the mech race.”
Xia Fei was stupefied. He deduced that the Sentinel Goddess was different from other robots, but he never imagined that she was connected to a powerful civilization of the universe which had consisted of only robots.
“Eventually, after a long period of wandering, we came upon ancient mankind. The humans did not know of our identity, nor did we know that we had come from the once glorious mech race. They took us in, and we helped the humans build robots, helped them with production, and research.”
Xia Fei suddenly understood. “I finally understand why the Sentinel Goddess appeared so uneasy when I mentioned that she could’ve chosen to fight back against the Law Adepts instead of exterminating humanity. It turns out that she’s suffering from psychological trauma.”
Dimsky replied, “Anyone would have trauma from that. Those Law Adepts possess the power to destroy the universe and aren’t as simple as one might think.”
After some thought, Xia Fei asked, “Why didn’t you try to create highly advanced robots like yourselves once you entered human society?”
Dimsky explained, “It’s not that we didn’t want to, but we lacked the technology. The Sentinel Goddess’s databanks aren’t complete, and though she’s Radix’s daughter, she’s not given core technologies like liquid metal or the hyperengine.
“Radix hoped that his daughter would have a life close to an ordinary sapient lifeform, so he went at great lengths to perfect her AI, but you see the result. The Goddess is more melancholy and moody than us, her thoughts more meticulous.
“In the robot system, emotion is the process that is the most difficult to translate. In order for the Goddess to be as close to other sapient lifeforms as possible, Radix expended a great deal of time and energy. A large part of her massive body is allocated to her emotion systems and her AI as well as the logical systems, but the parts devoted to engineering and technology are much smaller. The main designs for human robots were actually completed by me. The Goddess played more of a manager role,” Dimsky said.
Xia Fei asked, “You’re the Sentinel Goddess’s finest warriors. Did none of you have the liquid metal technology?”
Dimsky and Warstar bitterly smiled. “We survived precisely because we weren’t the finest.”
“What does that mean?” Xia Fei curiously asked.
“When the Sentinel Goddess’s escort fleet was being pursued by the Law Adepts, our true elites all joined the battle. As I, Warstar, and Xana were the weakest, we were ordered to protect the Goddess.”
Xia Fei nodded. That these three mechs were not the strongest members already left him shocked. How absurd were the true mech elites or even the mech king, Radix?
“It’s no wonder the files concerning robots found in ruins did their utmost to downplay the existence of your group and the Sentinel Goddess. It’s because you came from the mech race,” Xia Fei muttered.
Dimsky said, “This was also by request of the Goddess. For us, having a quiet place to hide ourselves was good enough. If the Law Adepts find that we are still alive, they may come after us.
“Later on, the Yulani developed the ultimate warships, the Titans, and they gave the humans a copy. They hoped that the humans, just like them, would attempt to fight back against the threat of the Law Realm. At the time, humanity was still very weak and small, and it didn’t have the ability to build Titans, so those blueprints were sealed.
“After many more years, humanity had reached a high level of technological advancement and had become a force in the universe that couldn’t be ignored, but the threat of the Law Realm lingered. Humanity began to research genetics crazily and even started building Titans. The Goddess was unable to persuade humanity’s rulers to do otherwise.
“You should know what happened next. After a long period of consideration, the Goddess decided to destroy the human civilization to give humanity some hope of survival; after which, she led all the robots to reside in the Hidden Realm shamefully until the present day.”
Phantom sighed. “What an incredible story. The relationship between humans, mechs, and robots is truly complex, far from what the stories say.”
At this moment, Hami came back with Furball. Furball’s mouth was full of sand from the wind, and as he spat it out, he looked resentfully at Xia Fei.
Hami naturally knew nothing about the mech race. In his eyes, Dimsky and Warstar were robots just like him, just with stronger abilities.
Xia Fei stood up. “Let’s talk about the rest later. Xana is attempting to begin a second war between the robots and humans. The two of you don’t want to see this, either, so let us consider how we can shut off the crazed Xana.”
Warstar and Dimsky expressed their agreement. Dimsky looked at Warstar and said, “I have a way of finding Xana’s actual body, but we first must find that ship. Only Warstar knows the location of that ship.”
“What ship?” Hami asked, utterly baffled.
Xia Fei nodded. He understood that Dimsky was referring to the ship that they and Sentinel Goddess had used to reach human territory—a ship of the ancient mech race!
After a momentary daze, Warstar nodded and said, “Alright, I’ll take you there!”
