The area where Ian had descended seemed to be devoid of active mutant survivors, resulting in relatively few sentinel robots.
The two waited for over two hours, and even though dawn had broken, the main force of the sentinel robots had yet to arrive.
Even after sunrise, the sky was still covered with thick clouds, making the daylight appear dim.
Taking advantage of this faint light, Ian finally saw the state of the city beneath them.
Crumbling skyscrapers, collapsed houses, abandoned cars—these apocalyptic sights were everywhere, leaving the impression of total desolation, just short of a landscape littered with bones.
"This doesn't look like the result of a war between sentinels and mutants," Ian mused, doubting that such destruction could be caused by their conflict.
After all, mutants with large-scale destructive capabilities were very rare; most mutants were only slightly stronger than ordinary people.
And those massive craters, some with diameters of several meters or even dozens of meters, were clearly the handiwork of human heavy weaponry.
"Even a simulated Third World War wouldn't cause this extent of damage. Perhaps only a world-ending nuclear war could leave such devastation?" Aisha speculated, perplexed.
The scene did resemble a nuclear wasteland, but Ian dismissed the theory. "It's not nuclear war. I haven't sensed excessive residual nuclear radiation."
After a global nuclear war, it would be impossible for a city with no radiation residue to have no survivors.
"It seems this world has experienced events far more complicated than we initially expected."
"They're coming!" Ian remarked suddenly as he spotted a large fleet of aircraft encircling them from the distance.
At a glance, there were at least over a hundred aircraft.
Clearly, the battle from the previous night had elevated the sentinels' threat assessment of Ian to a very high level.
No wonder the sentinels had taken so long to arrive.
A fleet of over a hundred aircraft, carrying at least a thousand sentinel robots, was a formidable force capable of easily destroying a small nation.
However, Ian remained unfazed. The difference in power levels was such that numbers alone could not bridge the gap.
"Let's go. It's time for us to set out!" Ian said, pulling Aisha as they ascended into the sky.
The aircraft stopped about a kilometer away from Ian, seemingly activating the sentinel robots onboard.
But Ian was indifferent to their plans. The moment these aircraft entered his line of sight, their fate was sealed.
Raising his left hand, palm upward, Ian slowly clenched his fist.
In an instant, the over-a-hundred aircraft, along with the sentinels inside, turned to ash, leaving only a single aircraft encased in a giant lead sphere.
Ian led Aisha toward the encased aircraft. The lead sphere, like a liquid, enveloped them as they entered.
Inside the lead sphere, the lone aircraft was split open, revealing that all the sentinel robots inside had been destroyed, leaving only its control system functional.
The screen displayed the message "Connection Interrupted."
While high-tech signal-blocking equipment was impossible to preserve in the time-space passage, the physical isolation of lead metal achieved the same effect.
Since the aircraft hadn't initiated a self-destruct sequence due to the disconnection, Ian's next task became straightforward.
By infiltrating and gaining control of the aircraft's systems, Ian retrieved its flight logs, which revealed the location of the sentinel headquarters.
Surprisingly, the headquarters was not on any continent but situated in the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Sentinel technology seemed oddly skewed—while their sentinel robots were exceptionally powerful in combat, their aircraft control systems were unimpressive.
It took Ian less than a minute to hack into and gain control.
At that thought, Ian dismantled the aircraft's control chip and other components, assembling a handheld electronic device on the spot.
The device itself was secondary; what mattered was the infiltration program Ian spent an entire hour writing.
Once the infiltration device was complete, the remaining aircraft wreckage was disassembled, clearing the area.
Ian then retrieved the Elemental Furnace. The marble-sized furnace expanded to a one-meter diameter.
Inside the furnace, a fiery red sphere could be seen—a massive reserve of energy resembling a miniature sun, though it wasn't blinding.
In addition to the vast energy reserves, the furnace also contained large amounts of atomic material, serving both as fuel for nuclear reactions and as Ian's stored resources.
Using the Elemental Furnace, Ian extracted a significant quantity of atoms to rapidly "grow" a spindle-shaped aircraft.
This craft was a mere shell with no complex systems, but with Ian's capabilities, it functioned as a fully operational aircraft.
The Elemental Furnace was embedded in the tail of the craft, slightly opened to release high-energy particles, propelling the craft with tremendous force.
The makeshift aircraft then carried Ian and Aisha, streaking across the sky like a beam of light.
However, Ian's destination was not directly Hawaii but northern North America.
Based on the flight logs, the sentinels' largest production and storage base was in northern North America.
This base was constantly guarded by a thousand active sentinel robots and held an underground reserve of over thirty thousand sentinel robots ready for activation.
The aircraft stopped ten kilometers from the base, its front hatch opening to face the sentinel facility.
Ian called back the Elemental Furnace, shrinking it to watermelon size and placing it in his hand.
He aimed at the sentinel base and launched a dazzling energy sphere from the furnace. The sphere, trailing a long tail, struck the base ten kilometers away in an instant.
The enormous sentinel base had no time to react before it was engulfed in fire, leaving behind a hundred-meter-deep crater. The surrounding ground for several kilometers had turned to glass, and the pit was filled with molten rock and liquefied metal.
This move, Ian named the "High-Energy Particle Cannon."
The energy sphere was a neutron cluster carrying vast energy, a byproduct of nuclear reactions.
Satisfied with the results, Ian nodded. The test was a complete success, and the technique could now be used as a regular combat method.
However, based on the test results, the move still had room for improvement.
Just then, Aisha alerted him, "It's not over yet! Something's coming out!"
Ian looked closely and saw several sentinels, ablaze, crawling through molten ground.
The particle cannon had targeted the underground storage for sentinel robots. While all surface-level sentinels had been destroyed, and most underground ones too, a few on the periphery had survived and were now emerging.
"No problem!" Ian smirked disdainfully.
He fired a series of small energy clusters from the furnace, obliterating the sentinels one by one. These were particle guns!
Sentinels might adapt with various X-abilities, but they weren't indestructible. Overwhelming attacks could still annihilate them.
Clearly, the particle gun met that standard!
(End of Chapter)