Since no one had managed to escape, William didn't need to worry about keeping things secret for now.
Moreover, it was already September, and summer had ended. The island was once again surrounded by storms.
Anyone trying to get in would either have to risk their ships being wrecked by the storm and reefs or wait until next summer to fly in by helicopter.
Hovering above the underground passage, William retrieved over a dozen spherical probes from his storage space and casually tossed them into the tunnel.
"Scout the path first."
"Understood, SIR."
Turning around, he flew toward Laura's treehouse and entered through the small balcony.
Since the Sentinel armor had inherited several functions from the Mark series, Sunday took over and activated the scanning mode, sweeping through the wooden cabin.
Through the helmet's virtual display, a photo of Laura and a middle-aged man appeared.
"SIR, this man in the picture is Earl Crawford, alongside Miss Laura. This serves as further evidence that Miss Laura built this treehouse."
William picked up a notebook and some loose papers from the table, quickly confirming they belonged to Laura Crawford.
"Change the priority of the probes—focus on finding Laura first and exploring the underground world second."
"Priority changed," Sunday confirmed before displaying an image of a pile of large diamonds, none smaller than a matchbox.
"Miss Laura collected 16 diamonds, with the smallest weighing 231 carats and the largest 1,725 carats. This one ranks as the third-largest diamond ever discovered worldwide."
Walking over to the pile, William picked up the largest diamond and held it up to the sky, examining it.
Sunday continued, "SIR, it appears Miss Laura carefully selected these 16 diamonds. Not only are they of the highest quality, but they also have a faint blue hue or are fully blue diamonds."
"Hmm." William hummed softly and waved his hand, teleporting all 16 diamonds away.
"Store them safely. If we find Laura, return them to her. If not… well, we'll see."
"Understood, SIR."
William had no interest in taking what belonged to his subordinates. Besides, if Laura had found this many diamonds underground, it likely meant there was an open-pit diamond mine below. If he wanted diamonds, he'd just go find them himself.
After storing the diamonds, his attention shifted to a radio transmitter. Seeing its indicator light still on, he asked Sunday,
"Based on this transmitter's power supply, can we estimate how long ago Laura left?"
"Apologies, SIR. There is a small solar panel connected outside the treehouse. However, judging from the dust accumulation inside, this place has been abandoned for at least six months."
Looking at the thick layer of dust, William fell silent for a moment before shaking his head.
Hopefully, there really was an underground world down there—otherwise, she might have starved to death.
Shutting off the radio, he flew out of the treehouse and began circling the island. As he scanned the surroundings and deployed additional probes, he confirmed that there were no living humans left and no traces of special creatures.
Only then did he fly toward the underground passage and dive in.
He had expected the tunnel to be deep, but even after deliberately slowing down, he reached the end in under a minute. According to Sunday, he had only traveled about a kilometer underground.
"SIR, our probes lost signal immediately after passing through that water curtain ahead."
Staring at the shimmering barrier, William didn't hesitate long before flying through it.
Then, everything suddenly became clear.
"Hell… is this the underground world?"
Looking up at the sky—where a sun-like sphere emitted both light and heat—then glancing at the distant Brachiosaurus stretching its long neck to nibble on treetops, William felt certain this wasn't underground at all.
"SIR, WARNING! WARNING! I have lost connection to my server. All current computational power is running solely on the armor's onboard nano-computer."
Hearing Sunday's slightly robotic warning, William turned around and flew back through the water curtain into the underground tunnel.
A few seconds later, Sunday's voice returned to normal.
A wild yet oddly reasonable theory popped into William's mind.
"Sever the armor's connection to you and copy a subroutine into the suit's independent system to assist with data recording and exploration."
"Understood, SIR."
Re-entering the mysterious world, William closed his eyes and quietly focused on sensing Earth's presence.
Within seconds, his expression changed to one of excitement. "God… Which damn alien did this?"
Muttering to himself, he shot straight up toward the "sun."
In less than ten seconds, he broke through the atmosphere and turned around, taking in the sight of a planet that bore a 70% resemblance to Earth.
Overcome with exhilaration, he waved his hand, releasing a 35-meter-long scout ship from his storage space.
Boarding the ship, he opened a portal and contacted Sunday on X17.
"Deploy spacecraft and all available probes. I want complete data on this planet."
After opening a portal in the planet's upper atmosphere, William lowered his head in thought.
"Deploy combat droids to the water curtain entrance and establish a concealed defense perimeter. If any humanoid creatures appear, notify me immediately."
"Understood, SIR."
With his orders given, William focused his mind and teleported back to the entrance of the water curtain.
By now, he had figured out that the shimmering barrier was actually a portal.
Extending his psychic power, he carefully probed the water curtain.
As expected, within moments, he confirmed that—having already mastered the Space Stone—this was indeed a teleportation gateway.
Destroy it.
The thought emerged abruptly and irresistibly in his mind.
After all, with his ability to open portals, he could return here anytime with just a thought.
"ROOOOAAARR!"
Just as he was contemplating how to destroy the portal, a thunderous roar echoed from afar, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Opening a portal, he deployed over a hundred combat droids and several airborne servers equipped with communication systems.
Then, without hesitation, he soared into the sky, heading toward the source of the roar.
In just a single breath, he reached the scene.
Suspended hundreds of meters in the air, William saw a massive, seven-to-eight-meter-tall gorilla covered in dark fur and rippling with muscle.
Surrounding it were three colossal Tyrannosaurus rex, each about fifteen meters long and six meters tall.
"SIR, it appears there is a human on the giant gorilla's shoulder."
Sunday, now running on the armor's internal system, immediately highlighted the anomaly on William's HUD.
Focusing on the figure atop the gorilla's shoulder, William muttered in surprise,
"That's Laura Crawford?"
"If Miss Laura does not have a twin sister, then yes, that is 100% her."
"ROOOAAARR!"
Trapped between three T-Rexes, the giant gorilla roared aggressively, its body shifting as it tried to avoid being surrounded.
Meanwhile, Laura, perched on its shoulder, appeared to be… giving it orders.
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