Aloy had a lot of questions on her mind, but now was not the time to dig deeper.

As the serpents of Sunset Castle, the guards of Shadowcalgar have long known that there is a ruin beneath the city, and they will report it to the High Priest Bahawa as quickly as possible, and arrange for men to enter the ruin to eliminate the invaders.

There isn't much time left for Yongjin and Aloy to operate, and they must speed up their quest to explore the ruins.

Compared to Vault 53, the facilities of this underground ruin look more formal, and the Focus opened by the two of them can see a lot of residual information.

Alethea was struggling to sort through the mess, and she noticed a recurring name in the fragmented messages.

"Project Dawn of Zero."

Alethea said solemnly to Yongzhen: "Considering that the name given to this world is Dawn of Zero, there should be a lot of core secrets buried in this ruin. ”

"Yongzhen, you go ahead and I'll alert you when you find important information."

Forever nodded without a trace, and led Aloy through the ancient caverns overgrown with stalagmites.

Meanwhile, Bahawa was happily contemplating how to get rid of his rivals in his mansion when the sound of rude shouts from the courtyard interrupted his good mood.

"Lord Bahawa! Subordinates have important information to report. ”

"Hmph~ Come in."

The herald approached Bahawa's study, beat his chest and saluted, and immediately told the story of the ruins.

"Intruders?"

Putting down the wine in his hand, Bahawa asked unhappily, "Where did the invaders come from?" Didn't I order you to seal off all entrances to the ruins? ”

The herald didn't know why, either: "Yes, the known entrances to the ruins are guarded, and I suspect that the intruders entered the ruins by unconventional means. ”

"Tsk~"

Bahawa smacked his lips: "Why did you ...... at this time?"

"Forget it."

Adjusting his mindset, Bahawa calmed down again: "Send an army into the ruins, eliminate the invaders, live or die." ”

"Yes!"

……

The location of the underground ruins was directly below the Imperial Palace, and the frequent movement of soldiers came and went near the outer walls of the Imperial Palace, which naturally attracted the attention of the Imperial Palace guards.

Limited by strict military orders, the guards could not leave their posts without permission to ask their comrades passing by about the situation, but it was inevitable that they would wander after all.

Even the sentry blocking the way of the beam was diverted.

'Opportunity! ’

I don't know what's going on outside, but now is the best time to do it.

While the sentries turned their attention to the outside of the palace, their standing was a little sloppy, and Lu Xiao jumped quickly on the beam, jumping behind a masked man at the back of the position.

In order to avoid the smell of blood from causing other secret sentinels to think, Lu Xiao did not use a Hidden Blade to assassinate.

He grabbed the enemy's head and neck with both hands and twisted it hard, and with a crisp "click", the broken dark whistle of the neck bone fell softly.

The heavy sound of soldiers running and stomping outside the palace muffled the slightest movement when their necks were broken.

Lu Xiao repeated his old trick to clean up the dark sentry from the rear, and when he eliminated the fifth person, he attracted the attention of the nearest secret post.

"Whoosh!"

Lu Xiao raised his hand as fast as he could, throwing out an energy flying knife, piercing his neck before the other party could shout.

The dark whistle with the trachea cut could not make a sound, only a low "ho-ho" sound.

The sound of the sentry falling to the ground finally alerted the others, but it was clearly too late to notice the anomaly.

"Whoosh!"

Lu Xiao had already captured the remaining 4 secret sentinel positions, and at the same time as jumping out from behind the pillar, four accurate magic arrows were shot out by the folding bow at the same time.

"Ugh!"

The four sentries were very unified with arrows in the neck, clutching their necks in pain.

After landing, Lu Xiao did not stop, and continued to act with a kick under his feet, ending their pain with his Hidden Blade one after another.

"Whew~ That's it."

Thanks to the sudden abnormal movement outside the palace, he finally seized the opportunity to break through the defenses of the roof sentry.

Once the obstacles are cleared, the next "road" is easy to go.

Entering the palace along the beam, Lu Xiao had already used his eagle vision to reconnoiter the route in advance, and accelerated to gallop in the direction of the dormitory.

……

When Lu Xiao officially infiltrated the palace, Yongzhen and Aloy arrived at a rotunda under the guidance of Altheia.

Alethea activated the holographic theater's stored video files, and a projection of an elderly white man in military uniform appeared in the center of the theater.

"Welcome to Project Zero Dawn, I'm General Herres, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

"I'm sure you've heard some rumors that Zero Dawn is a top-secret superweapon program that will help us deal with Faro's war machine."

"Unfortunately, these rumors are all fake news that I deliberately put out."

Although Herris's expression looked calm, there was a clear sadness in his eyes.

"Zero Dawn is not a superweapon program, it can't save us, no one can save humanity...... I'll tell you why. ”

Herrys's image raised his hand, and a projection of a war machine with a scorpion tail appeared beside him.

"By the time we discovered the Farrowie War Machine's smart protocol vulnerability, it was already too late, and no one could stop the spread of the machine plague."

From the apex of this degrader, countless new war machines have been splintered, and their numbers have increased rather than diminished with the change of generations.

"The war machines have taken over the production lines of the Faro Corporation, and they will constantly replicate themselves, endlessly absorbing biological energy to sustain their activities until they destroy the entire Earth's ecosystem."

"Our planet will inevitably become a barren land in the near future, and the extinction of humanity is inevitable."

General Herris sighed, "If we had a crack code, we could shut down the entire fleet at once." ”

"Unfortunately, the Faroese Fleet's cipher-compiled communication protocol uses a multi-stage winding waveform, and it would take at least 50 years to crack one of the ciphers alone."

"The time limit for the Faro fleet to destroy the biosphere is only 16 months, which is the resource we lack the most."

"The destruction of the Earth's biosphere cannot be escaped by hiding underground or in space."

"As soon as the robot loses all bioenergy and automatically shuts down, humans have no home to go back to, and the barren earth will no longer be suitable for any life to survive."

Herrys's tone was a little low: "If we are doomed to victory, why should I encourage soldiers and civilians across the country and the world to participate in the struggle and give them false hope?" ”

"There's only one reason, to buy time for the huge project you're about to do here."

"The destruction of the Earth's biosphere is doomed, and no means can stop it."

"The true purpose of Project Zero is to hope for a chance to be reborn after the mass extinction, and to bring a ray of hope to the endless darkness."

"The rest of the instructions will be handed over to the person in charge of Project Zero Dawn, Dr. Elizabeth Sobek, and Herres is done."

General Herris finally straightened up, slowly raised his hand and gave a military salute, before his hologram disappeared from the theater.

"This ......"

Aloy breathed in disbelief: "Humanity was destroyed once? Is this true? So how are we ......?"

"Freshman."

Yongzhen rubbed Aloy's head and sighed softly, "The desperate Zero Dawn project has succeeded, and it has brought new life to the extinct humanity, which is you...... We. ”