The Central Air Conditioning Facility building in Titan’s Light provided temperature regulation and oxygen supply for the entire city.

It was precisely because of this central air system that Titan’s Light could maintain an ambient temperature above ten degrees Celsius within an environment reaching minus one hundred and fifty degrees. Coupled with the energy required to ionize massive amounts of water to manufacture oxygen, the entire facility consumed enormous power every second. Consequently, it required a small nuclear power plant to sustain its operations.

The nuclear reactor was built directly inside the building, integrated with the air conditioning facilities. Its total volume occupied nine stories, with seventy percent of the building’s space dedicated to housing this colossal machine.

High-tension barbed wire served as the building’s first line of defense, which Yang Ying easily breached by riding his motorcycle through a gap torn open by a centipede.

He pulled up to the parking lot outside the main entrance, parked his bike, equipped his lightsaber and laser pistol, and approached the front door, peering inside through the glass.

Beyond the door lay a vast and grandly decorated hall, the atmosphere soured only by several pools of blood staining the floor. Yang Ying saw no bodies, but the drag marks in the crimson evidence suggested they had been cleaned up. Dozens of decorative panels depicting the building’s vital contributions to Titan’s Light adorned the snow-white walls, now marred by scattered splatters of blood.

Yang Ying opened the door and stepped inside, casually snapping a picture of the building's directory map displayed nearby with his helmet camera, before heading straight for the main control room.

The central air conditioning was one of the city’s most crucial installations, and theoretically, it should possess specialized communication methods for emergencies. Yang Ying was here precisely to find a way to contact the outside world.

In his view, being cut off from intelligence was far more dangerous than venturing into perilous territory. With sufficient intel, one could stroll casually even amidst enemies.

Besides, this place might not be so perilous after all. That giant centipede had expended its last reserves to test the facility's defenses for Yang Ying. The fact that no creature had emerged for so long to check on the corpse suggested a severe personnel shortage, or perhaps the enemy had already abandoned this site.

Yang Ying took the elevator to the ninth floor, where the control center resided—the nerve center capable of managing the entire facility’s operation.

As the elevator doors parted, Yang Ying saw a robot patrolling the corridor ahead. It detected the movement of the elevator and turned toward him.

The robot stood barely waist-high, possessing three wheeled feet, with small rockets mounted above them for directional control and propulsion. Its upper body consisted only of a head, featuring a detection lens where eyes should be, and a laser cannon barrel where a mouth might be. Despite its simple structure, the robot was highly functional.

Yang Ying recognized it as a D3-16 Security Drone; the original owner of his body, a mechanical repairman, had serviced several of these units.

According to their internal programming, these drones would immediately transmit an intrusion alert upon encountering an enemy while simultaneously increasing the distance between them. Since their armament was a laser gun, their close-combat capability was virtually nil, making distance their greatest advantage.

To the patrolling drone before Yang Ying—whether friend or foe—he registered only as an intruder. The machine adhered strictly to its programming; reasoning with it was futile.

Yang Ying instantly drew his laser pistol and fired, shattering the robot’s detection lens. The machine spun crookedly twice on the spot before collapsing.

The elevator doors hadn't even finished opening yet.

"Fast," Yang Ying mused internally, equally astonished by his own reaction speed. Since awakening his psychic power, his already keen senses had sharpened further.

To prevent the disabled unit from alerting other security drones, Yang Ying kicked the wreckage back into the elevator car and proceeded inward. Along the way, he encountered and eliminated several lone patrolling drones by striking first while they were caught off guard.

The control center was situated in the innermost hall on the ninth floor, spanning several hundred square meters. The main entrance required several layers of authentication, but all had been destroyed, presenting Yang Ying with a ruinous threshold, save for the final door, which remained relatively intact.

Yang Ying pushed the door open and was immediately confronted by more than a dozen security drones turning their heads toward him simultaneously. Yang Ying’s brow twitched; he slammed the door shut, rolled away from his original position, and retreated.

Instantly, a barrage of laser beams pierced through the door, riddling the opposite corridor wall with pockmarks. Simultaneously, the entire building’s alarm blared loudly.

Yang Ying’s evasion was timely, and he remained uninjured, but advancing against such concentrated firepower was impossible.

He fell back to a corner, shielding himself behind the wall, and cautiously peeked out to observe the robots’ movements.

"I should have known this control center, the most vital area of the entire facility, would have robust defenses!"

Because these robots lacked any discernible presence—no emotion, no breath, no heartbeat—Yang Ying found it incredibly difficult to detect them before they acted.

From behind the cover, he watched the robots stream out of the doorway in two files, smashing the door off its hinges. The machines then opened fire on the corner where Yang Ying was concealed, pulverizing a large section of the wall into dust. Yang Ying immediately backed away to evade.

At that moment, he heard the rapid sound of robots approaching from behind him.

Surrounded?

The standard move in such a situation was... the ventilation shaft!

Yang Ying looked up. There was indeed a shaft in the ceiling. He instantly channeled his psychic energy, rotating the four screws anchoring the grate at its corners with the precision of fingers, and removed the panel.

He then leaped into the shaft and reinstalled the grate. The robots pouring out of the control center had just rounded the corner, passing directly beneath him.

Yang Ying lightly dabbed at a sweat he didn't physically possess. While each individual robot was easily dispatched, their combined force presented a serious problem.

The robots converging from all directions, unable to locate the intruder, began to disperse, crashing aimlessly through the corridors.

Unable to find an opportunity to descend, Yang Ying crawled through the ventilation network until he reached the area directly above the control center. The vent opening here was perfectly positioned over the center of the room.

He flattened himself against the vent and surveyed the layout below. The control center housed nearly a hundred computer stations. Embedded in the wall opposite the entrance was a main screen composed of twenty-five smaller monitors.

On the left wall, a large pane of transparent glass was set in place, allowing personnel inside to stand before it and observe the nuclear reactor and central air systems.

Seven security drones were stationed throughout the hall, strategically positioned to cover every corner of the main control area.

The entire ninth floor housed at least fifty security drones—a number exceeding Yang Ying's known combat limit. He held a clear understanding of his capabilities and would not attempt what lay beyond them.

It was then that he spotted the main control console not far from him, and an idea crystallized in his mind.

With such a massive number of drones, reprogramming them one by one would be far too tedious. It was most likely that a central coordinating program governed all the robots, and that program was probably housed within one of the control center's computers.

Yang Ying carefully manipulated his psychic power as if it were fingers, pressing the keys on the console to boot up the system.

The security drones paid no heed to the changes unfolding on the large screen, suggesting their programming contained no specific instruction for such an event. Thus, Yang Ying’s actions were ignored.

Although technology had advanced considerably over the last five centuries, intelligent robotics had not yet developed. The archaic adherence to programmed instructions was the universal flaw of all current machines.

Manipulating buttons from a distance with such fine motor control was incredibly difficult for the novice psychic Yang Ying. Soon, his vision blurred with dizziness, but he persisted until he located the main control program for the security drones within the system.

Then, he executed the command: System Shutdown—All Units!

Immediately, every security drone froze in place.