Six days had passed.
In just six days, the subterranean core of Fort Horizon had undergone a total transformation. The once empty and silent ruins of the hall were now filled with the roar of operating machinery, the hiss of leaking high-pressure steam, and the reassuring clamor of human voices that signaled a blowout in productivity.
Andy had redesigned the core area, splitting it into two major wings to serve as the foundation for stockpiling materials and building supporting facilities. Truthfully, this layout wasn't what Andy had initially planned; it was forced upon him.
Originally, Andy wanted to excavate the "Xeno-Tech Analysis Station" and move it to a more spacious location to pair it with the other black boxes. However, once he started, he realized the device's base was rooted deep within the earth's crust, seemingly connected to the leyline energy network. Whether he used cranes or thermal cutting, the thing wouldn't budge. Even after deploying anti-gravity drones—which resulted in two burnt-out engines—he hadn't managed to scratch its surface.
At that moment, Andy truly lost his temper. In a fit of rage, he commanded the engineering team to use directional demolition to force a 200-meter underground tunnel beneath a nearby section of the factory that was still relatively intact.
Thus, a massive "L-shaped" underground industrial zone was born.
The West Zone centered around the "Molecular Matter Reconstructor," serving as the raw material production center. The East Zone housed the "Xeno-Tech Analysis Station," activated just two days prior, which now functioned as the core component conversion center. At the bend of the "L," where the two zones met, Andy had forcibly linked them using a massive array of conveyor belts and a precision machining line.
Finally, the production workflow was fully operational.
In the past, Andy's production was a case of "if you want technology, you have technology; if you want capacity, you have technology." To build high-end goods like anti-gravity arrays, vacuum field shields, or attitude stabilizers, he had to scavenge for production capacity all over the world. When he wanted to mess with xeno-tech, he could understand most of the principles, but he'd get stuck because he couldn't find the matching core components.
Now, things were different.
The Reconstructor "ate" industrial waste and spat out high-purity basic materials; the Analysis Station "ate" xeno-scrap and spat out universal black-tech components. By combining the two with the precision machining line in the middle, Andy now had the ability to turn any form of physical trash directly into high-tech products.
Outside, Sisyphron and his men were on a demolition frenzy. Every scrap steel beam, every piece of rotted alloy plating, and even the copper cables buried for millennia beneath the floor tiles of the Fort Horizon ruins were dug up. Truckloads of industrial waste were fed into the Reconstructor's intake. With a steady hum, they were transformed into shimmering ingots of chrome-moly steel and tungsten-titanium alloy.
Immediately after, these warm metal ingots were sent to the adjacent machining center to be milled into armor plates, skeletons, and gun barrels.
Simultaneously, Roger and the Engineering Department II brought the xeno-stockpiles seized from Kaka, along with various strange wreckage collected recently, to the East Zone Analysis Station. The station accepted everything, reducing the items into biological neural bundles and non-replicable black-tech components.
Finally, in the assembly workshop, parts from these different sources converged. After the grueling effort of dismantling the T-9000 exoskeletons, brand-new "Sentinel-class" assault power armor suits were finally being assembled.
"Bauer! How's the yield on the neural bundles?" Andy asked over the comms channel.
"Stable as a rock, Boss!" Bauer's voice crackled with excitement. "Holy crap, this Analysis Station is a miracle. The Type-IV neural bundles it converts are incredibly active. Hooked up to our servo motors, the latency drops straight to zero!"
Beyond the exoskeletons, the drones had also been upgraded. Andy applied the micro high-energy battery technology—reverse-engineered from Joker's ring—to the "Raptor" drones. While Andy's current craftsmanship couldn't make them as small as a ring, a fist-sized battery pack was no problem. The energy density of these packs was fifty times that of Imperial standard batteries. Previously, a Raptor had to return for a charge after thirty minutes. Now? It could idle on aerial patrol for an entire day.
This meant Andy's aerial strike range had expanded from line-of-sight to a radius of over a hundred kilometers.
But none of that was the most important thing. The most important thing was Andy himself. He walked up to the now-repaired "DAOT Universal Maintenance Pod." The hatch slid open, revealing the pale blue restoration gel inside. Andy removed his yellow robe, exposing a metallic body covered in scratches. After careful consideration, he decided to upgrade himself as soon as possible.
As an Iron Man, Andy's processor power was excessive, but his engineering body's hardware was lagging behind. The super-cables and hydraulic architecture limited his performance. Now, he intended to replace his entire transmission network with Type-IV high-grade biological neural bundles.
The process promised to be a bit macabre—after all, he was taking himself apart and putting himself back together.
Andy lay down inside. "Six, take over the maintenance program."
Six controlled the mechanical arms inside the pod and began "disemboweling" Andy. Old cables were pulled out one by one and tossed onto the floor. New, silver-white neural bundles were implanted deep into the metallic skeleton, connecting to every servo motor and sensor node.
Three hours later, Andy stepped out of the maintenance pod. The sensation of his body moving instantly to match his intent was an absolute rush. His computing power could finally be fully translated into physical action. Now, even without any external armor, his body's reaction speed alone would allow him to dismantle a Dreadnought with his bare hands.
Stepping out of the underground facility, Andy reached the surface. Fort Horizon had become a steel fortress. The site selection for these ruins was perfect; the underground geothermal power network was still functional—you just had to plug in a pipe.
A steady stream of electricity powered the factories and defense systems. Furthermore, the industrial foundations were incredibly sturdy, cast from a high-strength polymer that Andy hadn't fully analyzed yet. This saved him at least two to three months of infrastructure work, allowing him to "move in" immediately.
At the edge of the city, Gamma-9 and his men were constructing a defensive line. They repurposed the secondary battery components stripped from the New State during the evacuation, creating brand-new twin-linked Storm Bolters and Lucius-pattern laser arrays, all of which were now mounted on the perimeter walls. Several 155mm "Iron Ostrich" self-propelled howitzers were also deployed on high ground, creating a lethal crossfire network. If anything dared to approach the city, it would be instantly shredded by the dense firepower.
Beyond the defensive line lay the endless desert—resource-poor, harsh, and plagued by frequent sandstorms. To survive, the Zais people had to move their homes onto massive landships, constantly roaming and pillaging. Stopping meant being buried by the sand or swallowed by another landship.
But Deep Space Industries was different. Andy had no intention of building a landship just yet; he was going to take root here.
After the previous battle, the soldiers were training near the outposts. Their spirit had completely changed, shedding the listless air of under-hive refugees and gang thugs. With a steady supply of resources, they had evolved into an armed group that, even by galactic standards, could be considered well-equipped and highly trained.