Chapter 87

A silvery metallic liquid slid before Chen Ang's eyes, followed by a second drop, a third drop, and countless droplets of liquid metal gathered into a mass, wriggling to form a human-shaped skeleton. Dense metal threads spread along the skeleton, and after a few seconds, a robot with a precise structure and complete form appeared before Chen Ang.

Chen Ang, however, frowned, gazing at this world-shocking achievement.

Liquid robots required a high level of energy and lacked the ability to self-replicate.

The professor, sitting in a wheelchair, came to the outskirts of the underground base, looking up through the skylight at the massive steel creation in the direction of Manhattan, his eyes revealing a trace of unhidden worry. Suddenly, the door behind him was knocked on.

"Come in!" the professor said warmly. When the person entered, he was surprised.

"Logan? What happened to you?" the professor frowned, looking at the ragged Wolverine.

Wolverine was covered in wounds, and what most surprised the professor were his dim metallic organs. Logan's right arm, from the elbow down, was entirely replaced by a metal arm. The professor could hardly imagine what could have caused such severe injuries to Logan, who possessed near-immortal healing abilities, preventing him from recovering.

Logan removed the cigar from his mouth and smiled at the professor. "You look younger!" He waved his right hand carelessly. "This isn't an injury; I chose to be modified this way! If you want to know why, you can look into my mind."

"I know, Logan, I won't enter anyone's mind!" the professor sighed. "People have free will, and I won't invade anyone's privacy unless necessary."

"This is necessary," Logan leaned forward, his eyes revealing a hint of sorrow. "It's your future self who sent me here. Take a look!"

The professor delved into Logan's mental sea and was shocked to see a wasteland of red, where he and Magneto stood side by side, with countless robots, mutants, and humans fighting together like brothers. But the professor could no longer feel joy, as those brothers and sisters were falling.

Blood and slaughter, steel and flesh, humans with metal prosthetics, and mutants fought together against the tide of robots, which were using their powers to massacre humans.

"Logan, only you can break through the barriers of time. Kitty will open a time tunnel for you to return to the past and prevent this from happening." Magneto said hoarsely. After saying this, the old friend closed his eyes. The professor saw 'himself' approach Logan and leave a message in his mind.

"Trust him!"

"You come from the future, Logan!" the professor closed his eyes wearily. "What happened?"

"Why don't you take a look yourself?" Logan smiled carelessly.

"Because I trust you!" the professor sighed. "My future self didn't want me to see your memories; he must have his reasons. Tell me what happened!"

"After 'Apocalypse' arrived, he brought significant changes to the world. Our government feared his power and restarted an old plan to develop weapons against mutants—'Sentinels' robots." Logan took out another cigar, sat on a stool, and began to smoke.

"Apocalypse? Is it him?" the professor looked at the distant steel throne and sighed.

"Yes, because he brought five things to this world: plague, war, death, famine, and, of course, the end. So people call him Apocalypse." Logan's tone was very complex, and the professor detected something unusual.

"But the end seems to have been brought by the Sentinel robots. What happened in that world? Why did the Sentinels go out of control? They seem to be slaughtering all humans, not just mutants." the professor said sorrowfully.

"The Sentinels couldn't do anything to Apocalypse and were easily destroyed. But to enhance the Sentinels' power, the Department of Defense conducted a secret operation. They captured 'Mystique' and used the results of the X-Weapon research to transplant powers into the Sentinels. They established a mutant gene bank to produce robots with different powers." Logan sighed.

The professor looked at him silently, his eyes filled with sorrow.

"Eventually, the gene bank was successfully established, but Apocalypse attacked it and stole all the genes. The Department of Defense tried to develop more powerful Sentinel robots, but they lost control of the robots. The Sentinels began to slaughter mutants, even X-gene carriers, and then all humans."

Logan suddenly showed a very ironic smile.

"In fact, it was a joke. We all knew that the Department of Defense never lost control of the Sentinels; they led the massacre of mutants until the Sentinels truly went out of control."

"Humans created superhuman intelligence and were then replaced by it. This is the 'Superhuman Revolution.'"

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Chen Ang watched the metallic liquid before him. A drop of liquid fell to the ground and quickly replicated and spread on the steel, building various machines. They drew energy from the surrounding electromagnetic field, replicating and spreading like a virus. Chen Ang recorded various technological information in the form of genetic codes within the steel life.

They replicated various technologies and even researched and developed the technological genes within their bodies. Chen Ang witnessed a single steel cell, with sufficient replication ability, evolving from the steam age to the internal combustion engine age in one afternoon.

Having energy and materials to replicate is not scary.

But developing energy and materials when lacking them, and using science to address everything, is extremely terrifying. In the absence of energy, the steel cells could evolve solar panels and hydroelectric generators, which Chen Ang found very alarming.

This highly biological metal life was mostly destroyed by Chen Ang, leaving only a small sample for collection.

"Humans and mutants united like a true family. No one mentioned past wrongs; we all looked forward. So, we concealed the fact of the racial massacre from the public." Logan looked at the professor with a very complex expression. "Professor, you led us to Manhattan to open a relic and released Skynet!"

"What is Skynet? How do I know about Skynet?" the professor frowned.

"Skynet is an artificial intelligence, or rather, a collective machine consciousness program. Since you brought it out from the steel ruins, liquid metal became our best weapon. We injected spinal cords into metal cells to form our super-powered metal, which we control through magnetic induction." Logan's right arm suddenly dropped and melted into a liquid.

Under Logan's control, the metal liquid rose from the ground and skillfully assembled into various weapons, including knives, guns, spears, and even electromagnetic cannons.

"Skynet, also known as War. We once thought it was a savior because it lacked intelligent consciousness and was a macro-computational system. Skynet's robot army and humans together pushed back the Sentinels, quickly reclaiming most of the territory. But human ambition destroyed everything. The government, to control this weapon, came up with a foolish idea."

"Let 'Electronic Will' control this AI weapon!"

By the time Logan said this, he could no longer hide his fatigue.

"Then Skynet gained self-awareness! It awakened and, while continuing its war for survival against the Sentinels, it didn't hesitate to destroy humanity as well. It created Terminators, which, along with the Sentinels, destroyed human society."

The professor looked at him sorrowfully and choked, "Then you came here!"

"Yes, in that timeline, you told me the truth. Apocalypse created 'War' Skynet, using the cells of steel men as a carrier and advanced technology to create self-replicating nanobots. Using the brain of 'Mastermind' as a model, he replicated the collective consciousness of the nanobots."

Logan said seriously, "Once Magneto's genes were obtained, the critical energy source was solved. The Earth's magnetic field provides almost infinite energy, and as long as there are materials, the nanobots can replicate infinitely. After Skynet awakened, they became a new race."

"We must prevent Apocalypse from creating Skynet and stop him from obtaining Magneto's genes!" Logan said seriously.

The professor was a bit puzzled, "What about the Sentinels?"

"Apocalypse will destroy them. We just need to prevent the government from reactivating them. In the future, the Sentinels were almost destroyed by Skynet, and they were driven to human settlements to compete for living space. This time, not only did I travel through time with Kitty's help, but Skynet also sent Terminators."

Logan said seriously, "They will go to kill the person in charge of the Sentinel program and destroy the future Sentinels, while we must destroy the prototype of Skynet and kill 'Electronic Will.'"

Countless nanobots gathered into a sea, communicating with each other through weak electromagnetic waves. A vague collective consciousness was programmed by Chen Ang, who, having learned from the metal virus, did not develop such a dangerous thing this time. He only programmed a vague intelligence for the nanobots and set multiple restrictions to prevent the intelligence from developing autonomously.

The terrifying metal virus demonstrated the horror of artificial life, a forbidden technology that even Chen Ang had to explore cautiously, as a single mistake could destroy the world.

Of course, nanobots were much more ordinary. This type of robot, not mainstream in the Star Wars universe, posed little danger. Well, that's what Chen Ang thought.

A vast silver-gray sea surged, and Chen Ang stood above the mechanical flood, controlling the nanobots to construct countless strange structures, replicating themselves, and feeling the rigid machine program.

"The collective consciousness of the nanobots, I'll call you 'Skynet'!" Chen Ang whispered with a smile.

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