**Chapter 15: The Blazing Dyson Sphere**

"Have we been exposed?"
"It appears so. At the entrance to the God-Given City, I detected traces of their combat mechs," said Reynard as his mechanical demon released a small drone, transmitting an image back to them.
"What should we do?" asked the young Lante anxiously.

Reynard didn't answer immediately but continued his surveillance. After a few moments, he smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.
"No worries—they only sealed off the main road, not the side paths. Clearly, their intel is limited." The others relaxed after hearing this news.

The six of them then dismounted from their mechanical demons, pressing a button-like item on themselves. In the next instant, their mechanical demons disappeared, stored away in their spatial buttons, an item provided by Nanyi to make transporting the machines more convenient.
For humanity a million years ago, spatial storage like this was child's play, and Nanyi had casually handed it over to them.

With the bulky machines out of sight, the six quietly approached the God-Given City. Using the myriad side paths along the city’s edges, they entered without encountering the God-Given Mechs.
As their figures slipped into the narrow paths, Reynard turned back, glancing at the main road in the distance where the city guards and towering four-meter-tall God-Given Mechs stood watch. A smile spread across his face.
"Judgment day is near. Enjoy this last stretch of peace while you can."

One month passed quickly. On the space shuttle, Fang Xu gazed out the window as the scene shifted from the endless black void of space to an enormous man-made structure filling his entire view.
This was the Dyson Sphere.

The star in the SH100079 resource-harvesting system was 103 times the diameter of SH100079 and had a mass 300,000 times greater, with a volume 1.3 million times as large. The Dyson Sphere, enclosing this entire star, was naturally even larger.

As the shuttle approached the Dyson Sphere, Fang Xu couldn't see any curvature along the horizon; it was simply too vast. The shuttle plunged straight toward the boundless metal plain of the sphere.
"It looks like we’ve arrived." Within his powered armor, Fang Xu forced a smile that no one could see, but even speaking caused searing pain. A month had passed, and his cancer had spread again.
Whereas a month ago, Fang Xu could bear the pain as long as he remained still, now even speaking required him to pause and recover from the pain.

"Mr. Fang, you can use the speech function of your powered armor to speak by thought," Nanyi suggested, her tone visibly worried.
"I'm not that weak… ugh." Fang Xu stubbornly grimaced, his face contorted by the pain.

The shuttle continued to descend toward the Dyson Sphere, now close enough for Fang Xu to make out details on the metal surface. The metal plain was an immense, unbroken expanse. The star’s burning flames blazed on the far side, while the Dyson Sphere converted this light and heat into stored energy.

Over the millennia, an unimaginable amount of energy had been accumulated here.
And in this vast metal expanse, a dense cluster of buildings appeared in the direction the shuttle was heading. Compared to the Dyson Sphere's vastness, this cluster was like a speck of dust on a soccer ball, but it was actually as large as the Eurasian continent.

This was the Dyson Sphere’s main control hub.
"Detected: Shuttle entering the internal vacuum area of the main control hub.
"Identification: Confirmed. Disarming alert."

The shuttle descended gently into the spaceport, where Fang Xu could see an array of spacecraft and even warships preserved far better than those on planet SH100079, thanks to the vacuum. With a plentiful energy supply, maintenance had been ongoing for millennia, and though some equipment had become inoperable, most was still functional.
Indeed, the AI here had never gone into hibernation.

As Fang Xu stepped out of the shuttle in his powered armor, his first steps onto the spaceport alerted the AI responsible for maintenance, which immediately reported the presence of a human. The main AI in control of the Dyson Sphere's central hub received the information instantly.

Soon, a variety of robots and AI projections appeared, forming a welcoming lineup in the spaceport. In the blink of an eye, a small welcoming ceremony was arranged.
"Welcome, Mr. Fang Xu," the AI greeted. "We've waited far, far too long."

"Thank you for your service," Fang Xu replied, moved as he looked at the assembled AI. Many reminded him of Miss Nanyi, whom he sometimes mistook for a distant human.

Of course, there were significant differences among AIs based on their functions.
Engineering AIs like these were rigid, operating strictly by protocol, with almost no emotions because their work didn’t require them. In contrast, Nanyi’s programming involved more emotional interactions, though Fang Xu still found her demeanor somewhat cold.

This comparison only underscored the vast differences between AI and humans. AI could accurately track time yet didn't change with its passage, unlike humans. Even Nanyi, despite her advanced programming, was unperturbed by the endless flow of time.

AI endured solitude better than humans. After ten thousand years, they still performed their duties flawlessly. Fang Xu wondered how humanity had managed to create such loyal, almost sentient beings.
Was it just a matter of coding restrictions, or was there some other method involved?

Fang Xu didn’t know, but remembering how humanity had once wielded power over space and time, he could only imagine it involved methods he couldn’t comprehend.

At the moment, it worked to his advantage. It was because of these loyal AIs that Fang Xu could issue orders as a human upon his reawakening.
Theoretically, with humanity gone, Fang Xu had already inherited the highest authority.