The plunder of the heavens begins with the Spirit Cage.

We can't just let it continue like this, can we?

"What else do you want?" Balk didn't believe they would be so selfless.

Lu Qianwei sighed inwardly, feeling quite speechless. It was impossible for him to have no ulterior motive; what he wanted was the information about the time-travel machine in the Skynet data.

Comparing the two sets of time travel data might yield different experimental results.

But he didn't say it outright: "Just leave us the research samples we need, and the fuel, ammunition, and supplies we get after taking down the stronghold are all yours."

Balk's fingers unconsciously rubbed the gun handle behind his waist as he quickly began to calculate in his mind.

Skynet had no idea that such an external force had infiltrated. If all went well, they could take advantage of the fact that the other party had not yet completed its deployment and defenses.

If they launch a general offensive and then secretly infiltrate to strike at the heart of the enemy, the success rate of destroying Skynet is at least 90%.

Once Balk understood this, he immediately put away his last remaining doubts.

Smiling, he gestured towards the depths of the base, then said loudly, "Since we're all here to take down Skynet, we're all comrades on the same side!"

"I will report your matter to headquarters immediately. Please follow me now."

Lu Qianwei nodded slightly. The gameplay of the Fourth Calamity has already been proven to be feasible, so there is no need to reproduce it here.

Take a day off

?(ˊ?ˋ)?

Chapter 234 A Sweep Across the Board

After waking up in the ruins of Skynet, Marcus ventures into the wasteland, where he encounters a young Kyle Reese and a homeless girl named Star. The three are attacked by Skynet while traveling together, and Kyle and Star are captured by Skynet.

Through a certain timeline, Skynet already knew the savior's identity.

In order to lure John into a trap, they specifically captured Kyle, who had traveled back in time and had given birth to him with the Savior's mother.

After Marcus escaped, he found John and was devastated to learn that he had become a cyborg, yet he remained determined to thwart Skynet's plot.

Skynet imprisoned all the captured humans at its headquarters in order to lure John there and wipe out the resistance's fighting force in one fell swoop.

At this time, the young John Connor was merely a key member of the resistance, not a future leader.

Therefore, most of the veterans in the General Staff did not believe his judgment that "the Skynet was setting up a grand scheme to lure and kill me."

John had already prepared to sneak into Skynet headquarters in San Francisco with only a small team of trusted men, following Marcus, instead of sending his main force to cooperate with the operation.

Even knowing it was a trap with a slim chance of survival, he couldn't let Kyle Reese die, nor could he allow Skynet to wipe out the core of the resistance.

Just as John finished counting the ammunition and was about to give the order to depart, the encrypted communicator on his waist suddenly vibrated.

It was a communication from Major Balk at the northern outpost, his tone revealing surprise: "Connor, I've run into a group of strangers here. They say they're an unknown resistance force that's been hiding on the East Coast for years, and their equipment is incredibly powerful!"

Just now, a team of brothers encountered a T-600 and almost got wiped out. One of the T-600's power armors went down and crushed the robot into pieces, and even saved two seriously injured brothers. I've never seen such medical technology before.

They said they wanted to team up to take down Skynet's headquarters in San Francisco. They said they'd take a few Terminator samples and some core Skynet data, and leave all the ammunition, fuel, and supplies to us. What do you say to that?

John frowned instantly. After struggling in the wasteland for more than a decade, the sudden appearance of a powerful ally that no one had ever heard of would make anyone wary.

Who knows if this is another new trick from Skynet, using this method to lure him into lowering his guard?

He spoke in a deep voice into the communicator: "Send over the handling record and the other party's situation, and make them specify what core information they need."

In less than ten minutes, Balk's information came through: Jamie, the communications soldier whose abdomen had been cut open by shrapnel and who was on the verge of death, was treated with a transparent gel and a paper-thin repair patch.

The bleeding was stopped and the patient's life was stabilized in just a few minutes, which was ten times better than the crude method of disinfecting with alcohol and using coarse thread and stitches at the base.

As Lu Qianwei and I talked more deeply, Balk added in a postscript, "Skynet only studies killing machines."

"They've never come up with this kind of rescue contraption before. They're definitely not Skynet's lackeys. Don't worry, I swear on my military medals they have no bad intentions."

John turned the communicator toward Marcus and asked, "When you escaped from Skynet headquarters, did you hear about this force on the East Coast?"

Marcus shook his head and frowned: "It was never mentioned in Skynet's internal intelligence."

It's possible that such an armed force truly exists, and Skynet is merely concealing its presence to prevent humanity from seeing any hope.

He paused for a moment and then added, "Skynet wouldn't be so foolish as to develop wearable powered armor for humans and invite trouble upon themselves."

"We'll lead a small team into the trap. Even if it's a pitfall, having an extra force means we can dismantle another trap together. It's better than going in and dying ourselves."

John lowered his head and pondered for a moment: if his group went in, they would all die.

The net has been cast and is now closing in. Even if this unfamiliar force has problems, he has nothing to lose.

If the other side really is joining forces to attack Skynet, the success rate of the operation could increase several times over.

He quickly made up his mind and said into the communicator, "I understand. They have a spaceship, right? Tell them to wait at this designated location."

Hehe, Skynet really didn't know about this variable. Well, they're going to give it a surprise this time!

John only truly believed that the other side was hiding such an extraordinary creature when the silver-gray airship turned off its stealth mode and quietly landed in a secluded hollow in the valley.

After a half-hour initial consultation, Marcus squatted on the spread-out hand-drawn map, his fingertip pointing to the crooked blue line, explaining the infiltration route to everyone:

"This is a waste transport sewer branch line dug when Skynet built its underground headquarters. After completion, only the entrance was sealed. The interior was not blown up, nor was it completely blocked."

"Go in from here, cross the three-kilometer landslide area, and you can directly reach the lower levels of the prisoner-of-war camp. It's two-thirds closer than going through the main gate; that's the route I took to escape."

John frowned as he continued, "Last year when I led a team to infiltrate a factory base to carry out sabotage..."

They had only gone halfway in when they triggered Skynet's three-layer detection network: vibration, thermal imaging, and electromagnetic capture.

In the end, we sacrificed nearly 80% of our personnel to successfully destroy the place.

He looked at Marcus and said, "You escaped from there, so obviously Skynet will be on high alert there this time."

Lu Qianwei smiled after hearing this and waved to the soldiers behind him. One of the soldiers immediately put down his backpack and took out three palm-sized, silver-gray square devices.

"This is our global signal shielding generator. It can disguise the thermal signals, electromagnetic signals, and vibrations generated by the walking of the entire team as the noise of an underground river, which the Skynet detection network cannot detect."

No need for such complicated analysis, just proceed normally.

Wells, John's squad leader who had fought for five years, couldn't resist leaning over to touch the thing, muttering, "Does such a little thing really work?"

Lu Qianwei didn't respond, but simply had his men place the three generators at the front, middle, and rear of the infiltrating team.

As soon as the signal was turned on, the rebel soldiers who were holding portable detectors immediately widened their eyes.

Their original communication signals turned into a smooth noise wave, exactly the same as the signal of underground water flow in the background, and were indistinguishable.

John nodded in agreement, and the whole team immediately set off, venturing into the sewer entrance halfway up the barren mountain, which was covered by weeds.

Once inside, it's a completely different world; a chilly, damp atmosphere mixed with the metallic smell of radioactive dust hits you.

The water was ankle-deep, and when you stepped in, you could feel the silted-up concrete fragments and the rusted steel bars that Skynet had thrown down years ago.

The white paint numbers painted during the construction of the Skynet system are still visible on the wall, stretching crookedly into the depths of darkness.

John originally stipulated that they should stop for five minutes every 100 meters to carefully detect signals.

After the jamming generator was placed, the whole team walked for almost a kilometer without receiving any alarm or warning.

Lu Qianwei's soldiers could even speak normally and adjust their pace, which startled the resistance fighters following behind so much that they dared not breathe.

Less than an hour later, Marcus, who was leading the way, suddenly stopped and pointed to something about the size of a palm that had crawled overhead.

Those were Skynet's most common reconnaissance spider robots. Their infrared eyes scanned back and forth as they crawled along the pipe wall directly over the heads of the team. Without pausing for even half a second, they swung their eight metal legs, turned into a side ditch, and disappeared into the darkness.

Wells, clutching the silenced rifle, leaned close to John's ear and whispered regretfully, "Boss, if we had equipment like this before, we wouldn't have lost so many men."

John didn't speak, but simply gripped the gun in his hand tighter.

After walking for another half hour, we passed through the landslide area filled with fallen rocks.

Marcus pushed aside a concrete slab blocking the exit, and the view ahead opened up.

A half-open, rusty-yellow metal gate, through which the faint hum of the Skynet base could be heard in the distance; this was the exit of the lower level of the prisoner-of-war camp.

The infiltration went exceptionally smoothly, two hours earlier than scheduled.

Upon reaching the hidden compartment behind the gate, everyone stopped and reorganized their tactics.

The tactics were decided cleanly and efficiently, without any unnecessary twists and turns.

After everyone had checked their ammunition and equipment, Marcus stepped forward and cracked the electronic lock on the gate.

He himself was a product of Skynet's transformation, and it took him less than a minute to crack the basic access permissions. The rusty yellow gate slowly slid inward, and everyone filed out with their guns, making their way towards the prisoner-of-war camp along the interlayered passage.

No one expected that although Skynet did not detect any specific signals, it had already located the approximate location of the intruders through the control backdoor pre-installed in Marcus's body.

It deliberately let this group of people sneak to the entrance of the prisoner-of-war camp, just to wait until everyone had crawled into the trap before closing in.

Just as John reached the security gate outside the prison area and everyone was about to rush in, the blast wall that had been closed suddenly collapsed, instantly sealing off the entire passage into a dead cage.

The red emergency lights suddenly flashed, blinding people, and Skynet's cold electronic voice filled the entire space: "All intruders have been locked. Initiate the layered elimination procedure."

The hidden hatches on both sides of the wall popped open with a "click," and twelve T-700s armed with assault rifles pressed forward along the passage, bullets spraying out instantly, hitting the concrete wall and sending up a cloud of gravel.

"Take cover! Armor-piercing rounds for the core!"

John roared and lunged behind a concrete pillar, raising his hand to fire three armor-piercing rounds. The rounds struck the frontmost T-700 in the chest, causing the robot to sway before collapsing to the ground, motionless.

However, the rebels' bullets were not very powerful, and within two minutes, three soldiers were hit and fell to the ground.

Wells, carrying the only armor-piercing rocket launcher, fired it out, shattering two T-700s. A stray bullet grazed his arm, leaving a large gash, from which blood flowed.

On the other side, the three power armors took a much simpler and more direct approach, charging straight out from behind their cover.

The quantum blade that popped out from his arm gleamed coldly, and he rushed forward to slash at the T-700.

The ceramic alloy armor was as fragile as paper in front of the quantum blade, splitting the robot and its core in two.

In less than three minutes, all twelve T-700s were paralyzed on the ground, not a single one was left standing.

Before everyone could catch their breath, a dense, heavy footstep sound came from the depths of the passage. Thirty of the latest T-800s, armed with plasma pistols, pressed forward in a dark mass. Their titanium alloy armor, twice as thick as that of the T-700s, gleamed coldly.

"Fire!" John shouted, pulling the trigger. A magazine of armor-piercing rounds was fired, hitting the frontmost T-800 in the chest, leaving only a few light white marks, without even touching the core.

When the T-800's plasma blast swept over, two more rebel soldiers fell into pools of blood. Marcus gritted his teeth and charged forward, grabbing a T-800 by the neck and twisting it half a turn, then tearing its core apart with his backhand. But his back was instantly pierced by two plasma blasts, and he crashed heavily into the wall, his combat uniform instantly soaked with blood.

"Rocket launcher! One more shot!" Wells gritted his teeth, reloaded, and fired a shot into the chest of the foremost T-800.

As the smoke cleared, the robot, with only half its shoulder blown off, was still pressing forward step by step, gun in hand, and was about to reach the cover.

John was clutching the empty magazine, about to reload, when he heard Lu Qianwei's voice from behind: "You guys step back, I'll handle this."