Outside of the aliens' mother s.h.i.+p, Yao Yuan was still piloting the supermagnetic orbit cannon. He was surrounded by at least 10 Prototype 003 s.p.a.ce Combat Jets. All of the jets had activated their ECS system, completely s.h.i.+elding the cannon from view. This made sure that the mother s.h.i.+p wouldn’t be able to snipe the cannon with long distance targeting.

After Yao Yuan took the first cannon shot, he immediately climbed back into Red Lightning to push the supermagnetic orbit cannon out of its original position. The caution was warranted because 10 seconds later, that spot was bombarded with weapons of varying kinds. If the cannon hadn’t been moved, it would have been blown into pieces.

While Yao Yuan was moving the cannon, he activated his Anima power to order the troopers to surround the cannon, to cover its location. With the help of the ECS system, he could finally get close enough to inspect the damage done by the supermagnetic orbit cannon.

Its damage was even greater than Yao Yuan expected. Of course, it couldn’t rival the Requiem, but it was at least the pinnacle of electromagnetic technology. It was the best of all the weapons from the 4th revolution.

That one cannon shot had pierced through the mother s.h.i.+p’s electromagnetic s.h.i.+eld completely, and the outer wall of the actual mother s.h.i.+p had a hole. Due to the issue of the small bullet and other technologies, the actual damage was a lot smaller than what was described in theory. However, it was enough to critically damage the mother s.h.i.+p. The Requiem was short-circuited, and the electromagnetic layers started to dissipate. Plasmatic explosions were happening around the cannon's wound. Incidentally, the cannon shot had hit a key location, and even though there wasn’t an actual explosion, it did deprive the alien the ability of using the Requiem.

Yao Yuan and the troopers rejoiced from this observation, but what happened next chilled them from head to toe.

It was an unbelievable scene. It was as if a giant, invisible hand was smoothing out the damage on the outer wall. With a swipe, the damage disappeared. It was as if the events earlier had never happened.

Not only that, under everyone’s watchful eyes, the outer wall started to repair itself. It was hard to describe. Simply put, the outer walls were like human tissue, starting to mend and recuperate…

"Nano repair technology…"

Yao Yuan closed his eyes with a painful sigh. This was a technology that he was familiar with, and the full name was nano bot repair and recovery system.

The supposed nano bots weren’t exactly robots that were nanosize, they were extremely small mechanical marvels that could perform humanly impossible tasks. The idea behind this technology had been raised back when they were still on Earth, or during 3rd revolution. Yao Yuan remembered a lot of research had been done on this technology. In other words, the burgeoning of this technology was way back in the late 3rd revolution.

However, the 3rd revolution era didn’t have the necessary technological knowledge in fields like metallurgy, energy technology, or electronics to realize nano repair bot technology. The scientists were in agreement that this technology will not be realized during the 3rd revolution.

After the Hope gained the scientific knowledge from the junkyard civilization and entered the 4th revolution, they finally came into contact with actual usable nano bots. The nano bot was a crystalloid mechanical creation about 20 nanometers in size. It required metallurgy from the 4th revolution to be able to manufacture something so small. At the same time, with the arrival of the supermagnetic computers, mankind could create rudimentary AI, and the microchips could reach the size of nanometers and had functions equal to microchips that were several ten millimeters big from the 3rd revolution.

With the combination of many elements, the actual nano bot technology could be realized near the end of the 4th revolution.

The purpose of this technology was simple. The s.p.a.ce merchants were giving us one of the examples. It could help with repairs of metallic devices and surfaces. Not only that, it could help with painless surgery. Instead of going through an operation, the nan.o.bots could enter the human body through ingestion and fixed problems, like recovery of human issue, extrication of tumorous cells, and so on, from within. In conclusion, the technology would be indispensable to the civilization.

For another example, if the Hope had enough materials and nano bots, the central mainframe could design a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and the nan.o.bots would magically build a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p using the materials. The whole process would look like they were ‘growing’ a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p out of thin air. For a civilization from the 3rd revolution or earlier, it would be something akin to a myth!

The s.p.a.ce merchants’ technological advancement was unconventional to say the least, but it was undeniable that they had access to a few technologies from the 5th revolution and plenty of others from the 4th revolution. The appearance of this nano repair bot technology completely undermined Yao Yuan’s original plan of disabling the s.p.a.ce merchants’ power level by completely destroying its energy circuits.

The damage inflicted wouldn’t be able to compete with the ma.s.ses of repair nano bots. The nan.o.bots were too small to snipe while they were protected by the electromagnetic s.h.i.+elds. Their repair speed was incredibly fast as well. In less than 10 minutes, the holes on the wall and the ruined energy circuits were all as good as new. This was absolutely despairing for mankind.

Unless the Hope had a mult.i.tude of Supermagnetic Planet Annihilating Rail-Cannons or the perfect version of the supermagnetic orbit cannon, even with the s.p.a.ce merchants standing still for mankind to take shots at them, mankind wouldn’t be able to harm their mother s.h.i.+p. The repair speed was simply too fast…

"All hope is on your group now, Ying. We are unable to harm the mother s.h.i.+p from the outside. They are only slightly better than us technology-wise, but it has created a deep chasm that we were unable to cross. Your team is humanity’s last hope… I leave everything in your hands."

After the nano bot completely repaired the aliens' mother s.h.i.+p, the electromagnetic layers appeared in front of the mother s.h.i.+p once more. Yao Yuan waited until the Requiem had almost finished charging before he took another shot at the mother s.h.i.+p’s surface energy circuit. This again disabled the Requiem. This time, three Prototype 003 s.p.a.ce Combat Jets were sacrificed before the supermagnetic orbit cannon could escape the mother s.h.i.+p’s detection…

With a bitter smile, Yao Yuan studied the sparks that were flying off the cannon. Even the edges of the seating base were coming loose. He understood that the next time he fired the cannon would be his death. Humanity had shown all its cards, and they were all failures. The only hope… the only hope left was Ying’s team, the team that was inside the mother s.h.i.+p!

Speaking of which, Ying’s team only had seven members left: Ying, Ebon, Liu Bai, Zhang Heng, Ren Tao, Xiao Niao, and another Survivor. The rest of the troopers had either sacrificed themselves or Ying had them stay behind to stall the pursuing alien troops. In other words, when they reached their destination, the unit had suffered a 70 percent loss!

After leaping through the walls and evading the enemy units, the seven people finally reached the reactor room. However, before entering the area, they realized that around its perimeter were plenty of the weird siege machines, the ones the big-brained aliens used to launch mind-break attacks. They were all abandoned. This last line of defense should be held up by the big-brained aliens. They were right that with mankind’s current technology, they were defenseless against the mind-break attacks. However, they failed to calculate the presence of two Thinkers who were not only immune to the mind-break attacks but were able to turn the attacks back onto the attackers. This was obviously out of the s.p.a.ce merchants’ expectations. 20 minutes were not enough for them to set up another line of defense, so after the big-brained aliens pulled back, the place was left undefended.

When the team entered the room, technological marvels that were beyond human comprehension entered their gazes. One of the most eye-grabbing was a gigantic plasmatic bottle that could convert nuclear energy into plasmatic form before transferring it out. The high-tech scene took their breaths away.

Of course, that didn’t distract them from their actual mission. Many had been sacrificed for this one moment, so they needed to complete the mission…

To find out a way to destroy the reactors, to create a giant explosion, to bring all of the s.p.a.ce merchants down with them to h.e.l.l!