Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 243: Empty Target

Yu Le cleared his throat and stopped yelling.

Layers of mechanical spiders were still climbing above their heads, sliding their feet over the smooth glass, making an unbearable scratching sound. Ji Xiaoman emptied her backpack and blocked every gap with solid materials. However, this measure could only help them buy an extra hour or two at most—those mechanical spiders were already slicing through the glass.

While Ji Xiaoman hadn’t finished blocking the gap, hundreds of mechanical spiders slipped into the space. Ji Xiaoman activated all her prosthetic limbs and jumped lightly in the entire space, smashing the machines that tried to approach Yu Le with her fists.

“Not calling for help anymore?” In a short pause, she looked at Yu Le with a complicated expression.

“It’s good when the effect is there.” Yu Le focused his energy back on the machine in front of him. “There’s a new signal coming through. Little Captain, pay attention to it and cover me. There are programs coming, and I have to work hard to spread them out.”

“The effect has arrived?”

“The whole world knows that we are here and knows we’re fighting alone. Would the rebels guiltily shout for help like this?” Yu Le snorted. “Knowing this, Zhuo Muran won’t focus his attack on us. On the other hand, if Professor Ruan wants to figure out the situation, we’re his best breakthrough point.”

Now even the Mainbrain couldn’t get them out. Regardless of what the battle was like on the Mainbrain’s side, Professor Ruan would find someone to protect them so he could get as much information about their plans as possible.

They were in the resource-rich forest petri dish. There were no worries about reinforcements.

Yu Le purposefully yelled for Tang Yibu, who could certainly guess what his purpose was—knowing that their situation was critical and they needed the help from the rebel army… Aside from this, he was quite happy to give Tang Yibu a scolding.

It felt good.

After enjoying the aftertaste of scolding several war giants at the same time, Yu Le was in a good mood, which made the operation a little faster.

“I don’t understand some of these things.” Ji Xiaoman squished a single mechanical spider, causing sparks to scatter. “I just want to know, in case they don’t come…”

“If the rebels don’t even have this ability, even if we succeed in escaping here, we’ll die sooner or later.”

Yu Le smacked his mouth as the clattering above their heads started getting louder. “I haven’t been fooling around in the Sea of Ruins all these years for nothing. Professor Ruan’s people will come. Trust me, Little Captain.”

Ji Xiaoman patted off the debris in her hand and rushed to the next one. “…Okay.”

It didn’t take long for the scratching sound at the top of the space to suddenly decrease. Several vague figures appeared on the other end of the glass. They had no intention of breaking the glass, but quietly cleaned up the mechanical spiders.

The mechanical spiders were scraped to one side of the glass, becoming indistinct. Ji Xiaoman barely found a relatively translucent place. Five people appeared on the glass above them, two of whom she recognized…

“This is for the debt for the steering wheel.” Zhong Qing stuck to the other side of the glass with a straight face. “And there are still a lot of favors left. Tell Yu Le, I don’t like this place very much, and I still want to go back…”

“Why are you here?” Ji Xiaoman cleared the air and interrupted the chattering teenager.

“Shh, shh, shh. Keep your voice down. We have to help you secretly!” Zhong Qing quickly waved his hand. “I help them detect the environment. Biological detection is difficult to expose. We have to forge signals to mislead the Order Supervisors that those things are still there.”

Ding Zepeng was hanging a complex mechanical device on his chest and nodded to Ji Xiaoman when he heard the words.

“Then stall for time, they seem to…”

“Let me explain.” A strange man put his face on a glass plate. “We have someone on the Order Supervisors’ side. After two hours, he can help you get a chance to safely escape. The blockade outside right now is very strict. Even if you go through an escape pod, you will soon be caught.”

Ji Xiaoman wiped away her sweat. “The Order Supervisors can’t get in, so how did you guys? Sorry, I have to be sure.”

“Professor Ruan contacted us urgently just now. He set up a secret door. Haiming is his student and has authority and the ability to control it,” Ding Zepeng said. “I know what you want to ask—sorry, I’m afraid you two can’t use it. Its location is quite remote. It’s easy to get in, but hard to get out. When the matter is over, we will go with you to the escape pods.”

Then he took a few deep breaths.

“This is Zhang Yazhe.” He pointed to the strange man who had just spoken. “…The one over there is Chi Lei. They are the top explorers of this refuge, and they are all credible people. Don’t worry, Miss Ji. Continue to assist NUL-00.”

“What did I just say?” Yu Le’s tone had a smile in it. “And you were worried no one was coming.”

Ji Xiaoman pursed her lips, nodded to Guan Haiming, and jumped back to the ground from the glass ceiling.

Her sturdy prosthetic limbs crushed the last mechanical spider.

“Lao Yu, continue.” She sat back in the co-pilot seat and began to adjust the parameters. There were still remnants of blue fire on her prosthetics.

“I seem to remember someone saying there’s only one escape pod left? Oh my god, I’m so touched. Comrade Ji Xiaoman, if you want to stay so badly, next time you can just—”

“Shut up.”

In the desert.

Zhuo Muran didn’t have time to change his exoskeleton. As soon as he stepped into the cabin of the spacecraft, he strode to the command room. The Mainbrain had always maintained contact with him, and the news he just received wasn’t optimistic.

“Activate the backup equipment in the Western District and be ready to turn off the energy supply here at any moment.”

He pulled up a chair and sat down. Tang Yibu’s attack left him with many deep cuts. Zhuo Muran took two bottles of R-β blood extract and drank it. “Turn off protection protocols 18, 33, and 47. Place the heavy-duty units according to the diagram to ensure that the energy supply can be turned off within 90 seconds.”

If the worst were to happen and NUL-00 was really able to capture all the calculation cubes, Zhuo Muran could stop it by cutting off the energy supply—although the Mainbrain had added countless insurances to this supply, it can approve removing the protection and have them destroy the energy supply device.

Zhuo Muran glanced out the window gloomily. The night was like ink.

Everything was going to be fine. There was still a backup.

…Even if the ones they were facing were the original Ruan Xian and NUL-00.

Ruan Xian was in a bitter fight.

R-β went completely crazy. She no longer maintained the appearance of a beautiful woman, but grew abnormal hyperplasia all over her body, making it more suitable to advance through the currents and crevices. He wasn’t sure if this was a special improvement by the Mainbrain. Anyway,  Ruan Xian himself didn’t realize the S-type Prototype could be used in this way, but he didn’t regret it at all.

The hot air brought convenience instead—the deadly germs spewed out by R-β couldn’t float too far. As long as she wasn’t allowed to approach Tang Yibu, he would be safe.

Ruan Xian glanced at Tang Yibu beside him.

The android’s eyes were closed tightly. His whole body was tense, and his back was slightly arched. Protruding blood vessels could be seen in his neck and temples. The brilliant golden color was slowly eroding the blue arcs. Originally accounting for one-ten thousandth eroded, it gradually became one-thousandth, one-hundredth, and one-tenth.

R-β continued to attack in the direction of Tang Yibu, and every time was blocked by Ruan Xian. Although she had lost her human body form, her facial features could still be clearly seen on her head.

“Are you going to die for it?” she hissed. “It’s not you that MUL-01 is unwilling to give up. It’s NUL-00. With Professor Ruan around, you are a target that can be killed… Once the protection is opened, this area would be attacked with concentrated fire, and at that time, I will crush your brain with my own hands.”

“Surely you can guess this. You’re not going to really die for it, are you? According to your usual style, you’re not like that—”

“Of course not.” Under the cover of another dense burst of blood bullets, Ruan Xian shot off the limbs of R-β that was trying to get close. “If I die, Yibu won’t be able to find me.”

He answered quite calmly.

“He’s actually not courageous and worries easily, although he doesn’t want to admit it himself… I have already told him, ‘Don’t be afraid’. Why would I do something stupid like dying without authorization. What’s more—”

“What’s more?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not the type who dies easily.” Ruan Xian’s voice was a little hoarse. The high temperature was steaming all the moisture off his body. He raised his gun again.

The upper half of R-β’s face was almost blown away, and a piece of her brain spilled out.

“Ruan, you can’t…”

“Don’t bother. The Mainbrain has already used this trick.” Ruan Xian didn’t stop shooting. “Sorry, I have a problem with my brain. I’m not a good person, and I wouldn’t cry for an empty shell.”

R-β let out an angry hiss and didn’t maintain her facial features or voice anymore. She—or rather, it—transformed its body into a multi-legged fleshy snake. It started swimming through the gaps between the cube and spouted poisonous mist from its head.

The gold color was getting larger. It was about to occupy half of the mountain from the blue color. The temperature was boiling. Ruan Xian bit the tip of his tongue and gave Tang Yibu another bloody kiss.

This time, he wouldn’t let anyone take him away from him again.

It wasn’t about cherishing one’s own work; it wasn’t about memories. So far, Tang Yibu was the only good thing in his life.

Unable to break through the opponent’s carefully set defenses, and unable to obliterate the S-type Prototype in one breath, R-β began to panic. It abandoned its last defense and began to drill in Tang Yibu’s direction in spite of everything. It elongated its flesh and broke into three pieces, each squirming into smaller pieces of flesh, hoping to break through Ruan Xian’s defenses.

The cubes with golden arcs suddenly moved and broke away from the formation and floated to Ruan Xian’s side. Tang Yibu, who was in a semi-sleeping state, stretched out his hand and grabbed Ruan Xian’s hand and clasped it.

Ruan Xian smiled.

He put on the head device that Tang Yibu had taken off and inserted the probe again. This time he didn’t enter a white system space but looked up into the darkness.

The other little projections had long disappeared, leaving only Tang Yibu’s golden spiritual core in the middle of the void, cautiously sticking out a little soft tentacle.

Ruan Xian knew what the other party was doing.

…The android had opened up some of his core permissions to him.

Ruan Xian kissed the ray of light without doing anything extra. He took over the calculation cube next to Tang Yibu and directly smashed it into R-β a hundred meters away. The two split pieces of flesh were crushed into meat sauce.

The golden color continued to swallow everything.

As if perceiving a change, the Mainbrain suddenly gave up resistance. Tang Yibu, who was holding back his strength, stepped forward and almost bumped into the cube in front of his face. At the same time, the closure of the “last line of defense” was abruptly withdrawn, revealing a sky packed with armed aircraft.

Dense spots of light lit up in an instant, and all kinds of shells and artillery rushed towards them, for fear that Tang Yibu would forcibly seize control before the energy supply device was destroyed.

In a short moment, the “body” that originally belonged to the Mainbrain was completely taken over by Tang Yibu. The Mainbrain stopped most of the calculations, stuffed itself into the spare body prepared by Zhuo Muran, and flew away like an arrow…

This was a serious war.

They were competing in speed to see if they could cut off the energy supply faster than if “NUL-00” could control this precious “body” and swallow up all the large piece of fat.

…At least, this was what the Order Supervisors thought.

In fact, they were indeed competing for speed.

The second the surrounding dead wall was withdrawn, Tang Yibu grabbed Ruan Xian and put him behind his back and ran away. He didn’t care about the extremely precious hardware equipment in front of him and left behind a group of heavy spaceships attacking an empty target. Ruan Xian hugged Tang Yibu’s neck tightly. For the first time, he saw Tang Yibu running so desperately—he left behind a string of afterimages, and the wind was blowing against them so fast it almost peeled off their skins.

Then the android jumped high, stretched out his arms, and lunged forward.

The spare body of the Mainbrain that was flying at a low altitude was pounced on.

Tang Yibu’s sweaty face was covered with dirt. He slammed into the ground in an undignified manner, causing Ruan Xian to fall off his back.

“I caught you, little brother,” he said happily.

The author has something to say:

Mainbrain: …This is different from what was said.

Tang: (ψ°▽°)

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 242: Don’t Be Afraid

The influence in Ruan Xian’s brain hadn’t been removed. The white space was full of warning symbols, and only electric light filled the darkness of reality. The two images kept alternating in his view. The difference was that this time, there was Tang Yibu in both visions.

The one in reality was holding him quietly in his arms. Ruan Xian sniffed and caught the fresh smell of scorched flesh. Tang Yibu had fresh wounds on his body. Ruan Xian followed the smell of blood and tried to wipe it away from his wound.

Throughout the whole process, Tang Yibu just buried his face into the crook of Ruan Xian’s neck, as if resting.

He didn’t ask questions, nor did he report the latest situation with interest. Tang Yibu didn’t look happy, and his voice sounded depressed. Ruan Xian was becoming more helpless. He wanted to give Tang Yibu a hug, but it was hard to use his strength with ungrown arms.

“Yes, we are about to win. The program has successfully spread.” Although it was unclear what was going on with the android, their strategy was the best. “There are still remnants of poison gas around here. You’d better…”

“Oh,” Tang Yibu said.

Ruan Xian glanced at him strangely. “R-β may come over at any time. It’s very dangerous here. You better…”

“Oh,” Tang Yibu said again.

Ruan Xian coughed twice, weakly pushed the person away, and looked at Tang Yibu up and down through the flashing lights. “What’s the matter with you?”

The last time he saw Tang Yibu like this was when they were still in the Mainbrain’s city. Since he was sure that he could find their answer on this trip, Tang Yibu’s mood had become quite high, which was quite in line with his style. Now, he was holding back the pain and he didn’t betray, but the other party was behaving like a wilted eggplant.

“I don’t know what’s going on with me,” Tang Yibu muttered. “But when I rushed over, I didn’t think about the issue of trust or distrust… I just kept thinking, ‘Ruan Xian is hurting like this’. I know we need to endure pain for this plan, but ‘knowing’ is not the same as ‘feeling’.”

The more he spoke, the sadder he became. “It’s fine if you scream out a few times since that’s part of the plan, but right now I just want to escape with you.”

“…But we’re just one step away.” Ruan Xian didn’t know what to say for a while. There was a rustling sound in the darkness. R-β was climbing this way.

“I know. This is just an expression. It’ll be too much of a loss to run away now when we’re close to beating MUL-01.” Tang Yibu sniffled.

“Then continue.” Ruan Xian struggled to move his badly burned joints, trying to make them a little more flexible.

However, Tang Yibu was completely unaware of the tense battle situation. He casually hit a nearby calculation cube and once again fell into contemplation. Ruan Xian couldn’t wait to hold the other party down and try to hide this ostentatious guy. The crawling speed of R-β from below was getting faster.

“Emotional adjustment completed.” In the heat, Tang Yibu’s voice seemed a little suffocated. “I got it.”

“Got what?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Tang Yibu said very solemnly. “I want to seriously publish my findings.”

Having said that, Tang Yibu began to instruct π on how to shrink back to its spherical shape. God knew where he pulled this information from.

“…” The original tension was completely disrupted by Tang Yibu. Ruan Xian was at a loss for a moment and almost forgot the next step of their plan.

Although he had no clue about what Tang Yibu wanted to say, Ruan Xian breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the other party’s state was restored. Focusing his energy back to the space of the Mainbrain, the switch from reality to illusion made him a little dizzy.

In the virtual space, the expression of the other “Tang Yibu” was even less beautiful.

Although NUL-00 used top-of-the-line encryption techniques, the Mainbrain successfully broke the programs they distributed.

…It hadn’t seen such a simple and crude DDoS attack for so many years.

The program itself was quite beautifully made, but it was ridiculously simple. If the attack program prepared by Professor Ruan was a destructive nuclear weapon, this was at most a warehouse of pepper spray—it continuously generated junk data in various locations, impacting the communication connection of the Mainbrain making it impossible for the Mainbrain to relay its instructions.

The pile of junk could proliferate frantically and was spreading everywhere thanks to Professor Ruan’s “communication device”. For a while, the Mainbrain’s communication network became a sea of garbage and was severely clogged.

No matter how the stronghold system tried to connect to the Mainbrain, all they could get was a red “:D” on their screen as a result. However, this piece of junk was so strongly defended by NUL-00 that the stronghold couldn’t break it.

But on the other hand, something of this magnitude couldn’t hurt the Mainbrain. At most, it was cutting off its connections to other strongholds.

MUL-01 looked at its own state. The “last line of defense” was activated, and NUL-00 was cut off from the outside world and locked inside the last line of defense. Just in case, Zhuo Muran had already prepared a backup body for its escape. The black box had been activated, and it could save its system at any time and immediately escape.

This attack was not destined to end with its own “destruction”.

The situation of NUL-00 was much worse. It and Ruan Xian suffered heavy damage, and there was no energy replenishment. It could be said that the mountains and waters have reached their end*. Things were becoming stranger. While the Mainbrain tried its best to calculate, it couldn’t figure out how the two of them planned to kill it…

*(山穷水尽) Idiom referring to being at the end of one’s resources (AKA the end of one’s rope).

It also had a vulnerability that wasn’t life-threatening, but the consequences could be quite serious.

…Due to the bouquet patch, its thermal design wasn’t optimal.

Normally, it would use peripheral hardware to support its computation, but now that communication was blocked by the “junk” that was crazily proliferating, it couldn’t use resources other than its own. The backup plan was to establish a secondary network on the periphery, but that required small and medium-sized strongholds to work together and set it up manually. Even if Zhuo Muran gave the orders on its behalf, the small and medium-sized strongholds were still in chaos and wouldn’t be able to complete the fortification quickly.

First mess up the surrounding strongholds, then, using themselves as bait, they would distract the Mainbrain at close range, and launch a spam program.

The seemingly inexplicable actions of the other party clearly blocked its way. During this period, if the Mainbrain continued to calculate with its given resources…

It would overheat.

The solution was simple. It had to stop some processing and leave the calculation cube idle. This matter was easy in itself, but there was NUL-00 nearby who was eyeing it…

The NUL-00 program was primitive and had various restrictions that needed to be calculated that were less than its own. The Mainbrain didn’t know how much. Still, NUL-00 didn’t need to take the situation and management of other cities into account. It could be said that its life was so idle that it would never encounter an overheating crisis.

NUL-00 was ordered by Professor Ruan to seize its “body”.

The more the Mainbrain thought about this, the more certain it became.

This really couldn’t kill it. As long as the Mainbrain could escape to its spare body, it would reach its spare hardware within a week. However, this would give NUL-00 the chance to obtain considerable computing resources and upgrade the war to a whole new level.

The Mainbrain had to consider countless countermeasures for its overheating problem, even taking into account a nuclear explosion, but it never thought NUL-00 would come to its door in person. It turned out that Professor Ruan’s control over NUL-00 and Ruan Xian had reached this point?

But if this was the enemy’s purpose… It was strategically valid, and the feasibility did exist, provided the two had enough supply of energy.

The Mainbrain immediately scanned the situation of the two people carefully.

Very unpleasant. It “smelled” food.

At the same time.

“It’s enough to make sure that MUL-01 understands the situation.” Tang Yibu carefully unplugged the machine on Ruan Xian’s head, exposing the bloody probe. “It’s not easy to wear this thing all the time. The virtual space has little observational value.”

“I can see your central projection there.” Ruan Xian smiled reluctantly. “Forget it. I’ll treat you first—”

Tang Yibu seemed quite taken by Ruan Xian’s statement and didn’t continue to ask. “I still have some blood vials you gave me in the Glass Conservatory. Let’s replenish some energy first. It’s not good if we keep losing it.”

Ruan Xian glanced suspiciously at Tang Yibu, whose clothes were in tatters.

Tang Yibu smiled and stuck π, who had fallen into a coma, between two calculation cubes. He put his hand into the inner pocket near his heart, first took out a few small tubes of blood, and then took out a small can. The canned food was smaller than the palm of your hand, with a thin layer. High in energy value… It looked very familiar.

“Since we’re in a relationship, gifts given by lovers should be well preserved.” Tang Yibu said triumphantly. “Zhuo Muran and the Mainbrain can’t guess this. Considering the situation, hiding this thing on my body is the most cost-effective—”

“Don’t say the next sentence,” Ruan Xian interrupted. “Let me be happy for a few more seconds.”

Tang Yibu’s gaze softened.

The canned food with dents on its surface was finally opened. The smell of fragment food broke through the burnt stench. Tang Yibu threw the last blood vial into his mouth, squeezed the lid of the can into a spoon, and fed Ruan Xian spoonful by spoonful.

Although they lacked water, the replenishment of energy was immediate. The scorched black tissues cracked and peeled off as pale skin slowly enveloped his muscles. Ruan Xian choked. The food was so dry that he had difficulty swallowing it, but at least he no longer looked like a corpse. The pain slowly stopped when he swallowed another spoonful. Seeing that there was only one-third of the canned food left, he hurriedly stopped eating.

Tang Yibu didn’t care about the amount of remaining food. His eyes curled up with a smile.

“Now exchange positions.” Tang Yibu ate the remaining third in one bite, stuffing it into his mouth, causing his cheeks to bulge. “Ruan Xian, you have to protect me this time.”

Ruan Xian just took out the blood gun and was taken aback when he heard the words.

“…And π.” After pausing for a moment, Tang Yibu also filled in for the iron bead.

Since they met again, the android had not opened any topics related to “betrayal”. There wasn’t much worry on his face, and his actions seemed as natural as breathing.

It was as if what he was facing wasn’t MUL-01 but a less-than sumptuous dinner.

Ruan Xian closed his eyes. More than a dozen gunshots sounded. R-β, which had caught his ankle, slipped again. Tang Yibu took the opportunity to rush to the edge of the Mainbrain and began to move.

More than a thousand calculation cubes seemed to return to their place, but the blue arc had turned into golden light. The golden arcs started to spread, occupying less than one-tenth of the space.

This wasn’t simply borrowing like before. Tang Yibu no longer used them as weapons but was beginning to formally invade.

The entire space covered by the defense line was getting hotter. The calculation cube with flashing blue light was forced to gradually extinguish and was then swallowed one by one by the golden light. Tang Yibu curled up and set himself up as another core, then began to seize control of the Mainbrain’s body with all his strength.

Ruan Xian stayed by his side. He first kissed Tang Yibu’s hair lightly and then raised the blood gun with both hands.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 241: Embrace

When M-β was attacked, R-β was sitting on its back. She was almost blown to smithereens by the explosion, but her pieces of flesh squirmed and gathered together again, regaining her human shape.

There were only two opponents left.

Tang Yibu turned his gaze to the woman’s head and began to think about how to smash her brain just right. However, Zhuo Muran’s reaction was faster as she seemed to have received some instructions. R-β immediately left the battlefield and rushed towards the core of the Mainbrain.

Her shoulders and arms were crushed by the cubes gathered on the surface, but she immediately recovered. She endured the high temperature and rushed towards the metal cage in the center. When she was about five meters away, Tang Yibu could no longer control the cubes in that area, which made R-β advance faster.

Her goal was Ruan Xian.

At the same time, following Zhuo Muran’s gesture, armed machines lined up in a half-arc in the sky, and defense ammunition was poured towards Tang Yibu. More D-type products flew by, trying to isolate him.

After losing M-β, there was nothing else the Mainbrain had that could keep up with Tang Yibu’s speed. Zhuo Muran saw the situation wasn’t good and had turned his offense into defense. Despite the black cube rotating at high speed, it couldn’t penetrate the enemy’s body as easily as before—most likely because it was made of the same material as Zhuo Muran’s exoskeleton, which was made from the D-type Prototype.

The black cube rotated around Tang Yibu and finally arranged a circle of cubic layers that was very similar to the Mainbrain. They turned faster, squeezed together, and finally, the metal cube that was wrapped in the middle turned from black to red and began to melt.

Tang Yibu resisted the pouring bullets and gestured directing the peripheral cube to move. After a while, the metal in the center gradually melted into a grid, changing its shape into a knife.

“Not going after it?” After several hours of fighting, Zhuo Muran finally spoke to Tang Yibu for the first time. He didn’t sound at all surprised.

“We have an appointment.” Tang Yibu responded simply.

He ignored the heat, grabbed the hilt of the knife, and stabbed it straight into his abdomen without hesitation. The still scorching metal encountered warm blood and made a loud sizzling sound.

The material from the D-type Prototype was quenched by the flesh and blood of the A-type Prototype. It had lost its computing function and turned into a dead thing. Now, without fire support, it could play a greater role.

Tang Yibu pulled out the black knife; his eyes were a little red. He didn’t give Zhuo Muran time to react. He stepped on the metal cube floating in the air and accelerated, as fast as a meteor, towards Zhuo Muran.

The knife wasn’t long, but it was able to cut through Zhuo Muran’s sturdy exoskeleton, lopping off a piece of the armor. Zhuo Muran’s skin was scratched, and a stream of blood gushed out.

Now that R-β wasn’t by Zhuo Muran’s side, the armed machines that were bombarding him weren’t enough. There was nothing for Tang Yibu to be afraid of. He was like a sharp arrow, sprinting around Zhuo Muran at a speed invisible to the human eye while he chopped off large pieces of Zhuo Muran’s armor.

He was gradually stripping him.

Zhuo Muran didn’t seem to care. He shrank his body and protected his key points. At the same time, more light screens flashed around him, sending out instructions. More advanced armed machines continued to come from afar, forcing Tang Yibu to speed up.

Looking at this situation, what they were doing was no longer a farce. It had been upgraded to an assassination. Troops arranged nearby were rushing here. Heavy fort-like floating islands had appeared on the horizon.

Time was almost up.

“In a bad mood?”

Ruan Xian in the system was lying on the ground and took the initiative to speak first. “Tang Yibu” was expressionless. The flow of information from Zhuo Muran was surging around him. Ruan Xian could make out some of the floating codes.

Tang Yibu had successfully controlled the situation.

Which meant he needed to work harder on his side. Ruan Xian looked at his fingers—his body was severely damaged, but his brain had temporarily isolated the external pain. However, abnormal projections were still gradually appearing. The image of his hands kept shaking as sand-like particles fell upward, gradually disappearing.

“M-β has been destroyed, but R-β and Zhuo Muran are still in good condition. Heavy weapon support is already on the way, and you…”

“Tang Yibu” brought his face closer and grabbed Ruan Xian’s head with one hand.

Ruan Xian was suddenly overwhelmed by agonizing pain. He knew the Mainbrain had removed the shielding system, and now his long-neglected external pain swarmed up. It seemed as if red-hot molten iron had covered his entire body, while his lungs seemed to be stuffed into a spinning blender. Ruan Xian almost fainted.

“If you are destroyed, your brain must be specially treated, and the S-type Prototype will be completely scrapped.” The Mainbrain spoke in a quite familiar voice. “…What a pity, but I have to live.”

Ruan Xian looked at the face that was exactly like Tang Yibu and laughed bitterly. The Mainbrain was truly the Mainbrain. Even if it didn’t know what they wanted to do, even if a more precise threat wasn’t determined, it was willing to sacrifice its curiosity in exchange for the most stable security.

Regarding this point, his Tang Yibu was much, much cuter.

…And they bought enough time.

Ruan Xian no longer had the strength to resist the attack of the Mainbrain. Even if he withdrew from the system, the scene implanted by the other party was still flashing in his mind and would mix with the reality in front of him. The picture he was seeing was cut between the white room and the Mainbrain’s body. For a while, he would see “Tang Yibu”, then it would cut to R-β who was rapidly approaching.

The poisonous gas and his wound were about to overwhelm his body. His flesh was completely eroded that Ruan Xian couldn’t even lift his arms.

But he was still holding the metal box, and it was still possible for him to click a button.

A flare passed through the gap in the array of cubes, and a small red smiley face exploded in the night sky. The sky was now crowded with armed machines, with explosions constantly happening. While not too conspicuous, the symbol was clear enough.

Tang Yibu pulled out his knife from Zhuo Muran’s arm. The latter had swallowed a tablet that quickly healed his wound. Zhuo Muran didn’t seem to understand what fatigue or limits were. He kept calling for support and kept constant vigilance. After several stabbings, except for the irreversible damage to the exoskeleton, there was actually no other loss.

“This is your attack?”

The D-type machines had almost completely surrounded the space. Tang Yibu’s movable range was getting smaller.

“Of course not.” Looking at the smiley face in the sky, Tang Yibu smiled equally as bright.

In the next second, a sharp alarm exploded, but the alarm didn’t come from inside the Mainbrain. Countless red light screens emerged from Zhuo Muran’s side as warning sounds blared off one after another.

“The Mainbrain has lost control of its surrounding system?” Zhuo Muran replied in a unified voice, as he had no time to type it out. “Impossible. Ruan Xian, no, Professor Ruan’s attack system hasn’t been completed yet. Don’t mess up. Confirm each other…”

“We never said, ‘our target is the Mainbrain’.”

Tang Yibu clenched his newly forged knife. His beautiful face was covered with blood. His clothes had already been damaged, and his waist bag and backpack were nowhere to be seen. There was only his undergarment lining that was covered with burn marks and blood.

“Surprise?” he said expressionlessly.

Zhuo Muran’s face turned ugly. The commander was a smart man. At this point, he should have seen through it…

“…You’re using yourself as bait.” In the flickering field of vision, the white room where the Mainbrain was located was filled with warning signs.

“Having Ruan Xian himself invade at close range was nothing more than a bluff.” Ruan Xian didn’t need to speak. The connection device was still in his head, and the pins were still attached to his brain. “You were indeed fooled.”

The program they created was spreading outside the Mainbrain.

After all, what this mechanical box was connected to was the best communication device in the world. Professor Ruan originally planned to collect tens of millions of points and gather them in one place, but they reversed it.

It was just that they had to prevent the Mainbrain from noticing it when the program started until they were ready to attack. In order to restrain the Mainbrain’s attention to the greatest extent, there was no more appropriate approach than placing two “key objects of focus” on the field.

The Mainbrain, which had lost control of its surroundings, didn’t panic.

“Even if you started learning again from the first day you appeared, you couldn’t have made a program strong enough to destroy me.” The Mainbrain looked at the data returned from various places and began to crack the program that was spreading frantically, intending to analyze its characteristics.

Compared to the calm Mainbrain, Zhuo Muran’s foreboding was getting stronger. He subconsciously wanted to prevent the Mainbrain from analyzing it, but he couldn’t give a reason. The other party’s meaningless practices were gradually beginning to become clear, and he had a bad feeling of being slowly bound by cobwebs.

He took a breath, turned on the contact device, and directed the machines around him to pile in front of him to resist possible attacks.

However, his opponent had disappeared.

Zhuo Muran, who had never let his targets escape his sight on the battlefield, was, in a rare moment, stunned for a few seconds.

Tang Yibu was rushing to the inside of the Mainbrain as quickly as possible. Zhuo Muran thought for a moment and ordered, “Do a good job with the screening. Except for samples analyzed by the Mainbrain, don’t give other programs the possibility of getting in. Focus on the areas and Petri Dishes that Professor Ruan has greater influence on. Once there’s an abnormality, report it to me immediately… Others will deal with the rebel forces that are bound to appear.”

Seeing Tang Yibu rush in, Zhuo Muran added another sentence.

“Now activate the ‘last line of defense’.”

A dead wall dozens of meters thick quickly rose around the cube array, quickly wrapping the huge body of the Mainbrain. The two people who came to disrupt the situation were locked in. There was a resounding silence from the outside, and the rough male voice was no longer heard on the broadcast system.

The last line of defense was originally prepared for Professor Ruan. It only allowed the Mainbrain’s instructions to spread out and reduce all incoming information as that information had to be screened layer by layer. The current situation was too weird. Regardless of whether the other party had a program that could destroy the Mainbrain or not, MUL-01’s safety must not be compromised.

Even if the probability was 0%.

Keeping the system of the Mainbrain was key. Now, even if the two people inside turned into nuclear weapons and exploded, the Mainbrain wouldn’t be destroyed. The cube array that was flashing blue light had turned into a huge, lifeless cube. The place where it resided seemed to have been cut off from the world, leaving only a void.

This situation must be stabilized first.

“After things are delivered, immediately connect to the interface corresponding to the dead wall.” Zhuo Muran gave the last command before flying to a command ship not far away.

NUL-00’s equipment was completely destroyed by him. Whether it was water or energy, they had no supplies. R-β was toxic enough. Even if they want to use her as food, the damage would be far greater than the supplementation, so the gain wouldn’t be worth the loss.

It was only a matter of time before the two failed.

The area was tightly sealed, with only a burning blue light left inside the Mainbrain. R-β crawled toward Ruan Xian persistently, but when she was about an arm’s length away from her target, something grabbed the back of her neck and slammed her to the ground. The iron bead rattled weakly, removing its tangled metal limbs, revealing Ruan Xian, who couldn’t move.

“Shh.” Tang Yibu stretched out and took Ruan Xian’s mutilated body into his arms.

“Mr. Ruan, I’m here to pick you up.”

He kissed the other party’s lips earnestly, without any intention to get blood.

“…We are about to win.”

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 240: Two Cages

Around the Mainbrain’s core, the heat between the calculation cubes distorted the air.

The iron bead was in a terrible rush. It didn’t even have a chance to rattle. There were more and more cleaning machines gathering. Even if it could destroy one at a time, the speed wasn’t fast enough. The iron bead was too small that it could only protect Ruan Xian’s body at most. His arms and legs were still seriously injured—the cleaning machines had more or less scraped off pieces of his flesh from there.

The iron bead didn’t understand humans’ injuries. It could only sensitively perceive the speed of recovery of the person behind it getting slower. Ruan Xian had almost no bones left in his hands, but there had been no signs of recovery for more than ten minutes. In the hot air, the blood clotted extremely quickly, burning into a thick blood scab on the surface of the bones.

Another wave of cleaning machines squeezed through, almost knocking the iron bead into Ruan Xian’s body. Most of Ruan Xian’s clothes were burned, and he was tightly holding a box in his arms. The iron bead didn’t have anything to hold onto, so it could only poke its thin feet into Ruan Xian’s skin and clamp on his spine.

A little blood flowed out along its movements.

Tang Yibu—its big friend had asked it to protect this person, but it couldn’t protect him anymore. The cleaning machine had listed it as an object to be cleaned. Its beautiful shell was marked with countless scratches, and the original shiny metal surface had been scorched black by the heat weapons. A few more beams of light came over and blasted into its weakly protected mouth slit. π couldn’t help but let out a scream and almost fell to the ground.

Though it had eaten a lot of rare materials, it couldn’t bear the large number of opponents. Its iron shell was slowly breaking, and fragile white tissue was leaking out. π winced twice.

It couldn’t help but think that things were too complicated. It didn’t know how to take advantage of the situation to escape. The iron bead lay on Ruan Xian’s back and rattled for a while, just wanting the battle to end quickly.

It had to survive this crisis and π vaguely knew why. The human blood under its body seemed to have a strange effect. Eating it would make it feel particularly satiated. The iron bead hesitated for a while, then began to chew on the flesh and blood cut off by the cleaning machine.

Sure enough, the familiar feeling came back. Its shell was recovering, and its entire body felt warm. Fortunately, these cleaning machines didn’t have mouths, and it thankfully had attached to Ruan Xian’s spine.

Its big friend would come pick it up, and the human under it was also quite good to it.

So it had to work a little harder.

Soon, the warm feeling turned into pain. The shell kept going back and forth between being damaged and repaired. The iron bead didn’t understand the reason, but it instinctively kept eating, hoping that it would feel better. It opened its mouth to the max, biting at the approaching cleaning machine and gobbling down the pieces of flesh stuck to their mechanical blades.

Its consciousness was getting vague, but it couldn’t sleep yet. Tang Yibu hadn’t come back yet.

In the dimness, the iron bead felt that its mouth seemed to have become bigger. The enemies that were in front of it were farther away. There seemed to be a lot of unfamiliar parts on its body, but it didn’t have time to think about them. There was only one thought in its mind.

This person has to be protected. Although he is weak, his heart is still beating.

“What is that thing?!” the garrison leader said in horror.

Under the scanner, something was attached to Ruan Lijie’s spine. At first glance, it was a ball the size of a bowling ball, but then it swelled a few times. It looked like a terrifying flower bud as it kept gnawing at the surrounding cleaning machines at lightning speed. They sent thousands of cleaning machines, which would have cut Ruan Lijie down into a skeleton, but the result now was just attrition to his limbs at best.

The ball didn’t even stop there. It continued to grow. The enlarged spherical object cracked in a more exaggerated form so that its original appearance couldn’t be seen any longer. Countless mechanical limbs stretched out, bypassing the floating calculation cubes, and wrapped around the gaps to form an octahedral metal cage, protecting Ruan Lijie in the middle.

The metal limbs were pulsating regularly, and each corner of the octahedron gave birth to petal shaped mouthparts, which kept opening and closing all around. The scene had turned creepy. The “corpse” was curled up in the blue light from the electric arc, and behind it was a huge metal flower.

They had never seen anything like this.

The cleaning machine could no longer get close. Once they approached the living guard cage, there was always a mouth—and sometimes even more than one—biting it, gnawing their central parts to pieces.

…The battle situation didn’t seem to be as simple as he thought. The leader pinched himself severely before recounting the information to Zhuo Muran. As humans, the Order Supervisors withdrew at Zhuo Muran’s order, but now that even machines couldn’t do anything, he didn’t know what to do.

He hoped that Commander Zhuo could spare time to look at this. The leader thought this as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“Withdraw the cleaning machines. That thing can digest metal. Don’t get close to it!” The leader conveyed his instructions. “The Mainbrain will not be defeated by a human clone. Continue to improve the surrounding encirclement network and prepare for the aftermath!”

However, Commander Zhuo didn’t have the energy for the time being.

Tang Yibu was knocked to the ground. His back crashed into the concrete floor. Thousands of calculation cubes flickered and spun around in vain.

Zhuo Muran didn’t give him a chance to breathe. Accompanied by the rain of bullets, M-β darted towards him, wrapped in a poisonous mist. Tang Yibu got up with difficulty and barely managed to dodge, but he almost ran into Zhuo Muran’s attack.

With the help of the calculation cubes, Tang Yibu barley managed to tie M-β and R-β. As a user of the D-type Prototype, Zhuo Muran’s appearance directly disrupted the balance. Half of Tang Yibu’s shoulder was almost crushed by M-β. He had to swallow a lot of the compressed blood agent to stabilize his injury.

However, the worst thing wasn’t purely poor combat power. Zhuo Muran was commanding M-β and R-β, and the actions of the three were extremely clean. Tang Yibu’s body was barely able to recover, but his backpack full of food had become ashes.

There was still some food left in his pocket, and he still had more than half the blood agents made by Mr. Ruan, but they would be consumed sooner or later. The bodies of the three opposite him had precision nuclear energy tanks built into them, so there was no need to worry about them collapsing halfway.

Tang Yibu commanded the calculation cubes to assemble and made a simple flying platform. They carried him into the air and temporarily separated him from his opponent’s pursuit. However, Zhuo Muran quickly chased after him. Without saying a word, he directly activated all the weapons on the exoskeleton and bombarded Tang Yibu.

The calculation cubes blocked most of the attack, but there were still some stray bullets that hit his abdomen. Tang Yibu whimpered, barely swallowing his groan, as dark red blood splattered on the black metal cube.

Those small cubes couldn’t fly too far away from the massive body of the Mainbrain that was running under his feet.

“Mr. Ruan,” Tang Yibu shouted softly, even though he knew the other party couldn’t hear me.

The time they spent together making plans made him relax, and he liked the feeling very much—the two of them were planning together, just waiting to put it into action, and there was no time to be vigilant of each other. Those days were his things, and at this moment, Tang Yibu desperately hoped to get them back.

Zhuo Muran wouldn’t wait for him to recover. He flew around Tang Yibu, seizing all his flaws, and attacked. Smoke coming from the exoskeleton left faint traces in the air. M-β attacked from below and smashed into a calculation cube that was supporting Tang Yibu.

At this moment, there were a few more fist-sized blood holes in Tang Yibu’s shoulders. He relied on his reflexes to barely manage to keep his neck.

Three hours had passed, but they still needed time.

Blood flowed into his eyes. In the blood-red world, Zhuo Muran was talking to someone. Tang Yibu ordered the little cubes to protect him as he barely landed, then woefully avoided R-β germ attack.

He needed to wait for an opportunity, an absolutely safe opportunity. Not yet. Tang Yibu squinted his eyes at M-β, who was closely behind him, and completely gave up the attack and turned to a defensive style. Then he looked at the biggest threat…

After ending the call, Zhuo Muran followed again, but his face was a little more solemn. However, the other party had no intention of talking and just focused on helping M-β block him.

…Not yet.

The other party was too concentrated, so his plan may not work. They had to wait for Yu Le to weaken the connection, and then they would have the winning ticket in hand. However, although the signal was stable from time to time, it didn’t maintain the weakest level. The great ruins pirate was able to hold up better than he thought.

Although it would take longer, the effect would be better. Tang Yibu glanced at the core of the Mainbrain and inexplicably felt uncomfortable.

However, what Yu Le did was even more desperate than he thought.

Near the Mainbrain’s body was a broadcasting device that was used to facilitate commands. It was just an ordinary loudspeaker. The Order Supervisors that usually managed them had been withdrawn.

“We’re in Petri Dish No. 1306. Help!!!”

A roar of excellent sound quality resounded through the night sky so loudly that it even made the cubes around the Mainbrain stop rotating for a moment.

“Tang Yibu! Ruan Lijie! I know you two bastards are listening! If laozi dies here, I’ll become a ghost—hey, Little Captain, are you sure this can be connected to the Mainbrain? Oh, oh—a ghost that will come back and haunt you! This stupid device isn’t useful at all, so contact me as soon as you hear this!”

Tang Yibu: “……”

M-β and R-β stopped their movements out of confusion, and Zhuo Muran was still some distance away. Tang Yibu didn’t let go of this moment…

He didn’t even bother to treat his body and basically gave up on defense. He directed all the calculation cubes to rush to the chest and abdomen of M-β. Realizing this wasn’t good, Zhuo Muran ordered M-β to duck, but his speed wasn’t fast enough.

More than a thousand cubes crushed M-β’s chest and then exploded.

The explosion was so powerful that it destroyed the nuclear energy tank in M-β’s body and set off a small nuclear explosion. Tang Yibu was at the edge of the explosion. He stuffed a mouthful of blood agent into his mouth and tried his best to have the calculation cube surround M-β tightly. This was a makeshift version of an explosion-proof box made from out of Mainbrain.

A burning light leaked out, stinging Tang Yibu’s eyes.

Given that the people present were all equipped with high-level armaments, Tang Yibu didn’t expect the radiation to kill anyone, but his purpose had been achieved—when the calculation cubes dispersed, M-β had disappeared without a trace.

Focusing on “defense”, Tang Yibu quietly stuck powerful sucker bombs on those cubes for more than three hours. Hundreds of bombs had exploded all at once, and even then, the damage didn’t make a dent in the Mainbrain’s cube, but it was enough to crush the nuclear energy tank.

Tang Yibu had to laugh as Yu Le was still scolding through the loudspeaker.

“Come on, continue.” He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and said to Zhuo Muran, who was now livid, “Now it’s my turn to attack.”

The author has something to say:

The passive (?) beating is finally over. The second evolution of the iron bead √

Ruan: So cool behind.jpg

Tang: …I can’t afford it!

Kinky Thoughts:

MPV π.

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 239: Call For Help

He must be crazy, as only a madman would accompany another madman to do crazy things.

While Yu Le mulled over this thought in his head, he followed Ji Xiaoman’s fingertips with his eyes. The little girl patiently explained the meaning of the parameters, and the uneasiness in her voice slowly disappeared.

At first, Yu Le had a casual listening attitude, but after listening for a while, he found that things weren’t as complicated as he thought—the difficulty wasn’t in the complexity of the operation skill, but rather in the reaction ability and its finesse.

It was like driving a small boat in a storm with huge waves. The flow of information from the Mainbrain enveloped everything. He needed to look for changes in those readings, look for gaps, and try to ensure the stability of the output signal.

“The detection system of the Mainbrain will continue to weaken the connection, but this thing can automatically switch lines.” Ji Xiaoman pointed to the reading signal that kept beeping. “This mechanism can barely maintain stability, but…”

“It’s more reliable for people to manipulate, right?” Yu Le rubbed his eyes hard. “Little Profiteer, I just have one request.”

Ji Xiaoman stopped moving and looked at Yu Le.

“Let’s poke holes everywhere so Xiao Ruan can feel at ease. The Mainbrain will continue to fill those holes, depending on whether or not we can stabilize them, right? The numbers look a bit uncomfortable. With so many screens, I can’t take a closer look and remember them.”

Yu Le stretched out his hand and clicked on a column of densely packed charts. “Can you change it to a wave diagram?”

“…The changes on the display can be done, but there will be a little error.”

“A little error is fine. I can’t remember the range those numbers should be in. I need—how to put this—something more intuitive.”

As if he wanted to enliven the atmosphere, Yu Le grinned.

“Tu Rui is better at counting than me. I usually do it by hand. Change it, Little Profiteer. I can try a few times and see if I can find the feeling.”

Ji Xiaoman tried hard to return a smile, but a shadow covered her face, which made the effect a bit scary. She jumped out of the chair and ran to another operating table. After ten minutes, the numbers flashing frantically on the light screen turned into images that ebbed and flowed like an electrocardiogram.

While the memory was still fresh in his mind, Yu Le arranged the button partitions to make the light screen look more like a ship’s console. Making sure that the image in front of him was intuitive enough, he started the manual operating system.

“You can go find the escape device.” In the rumbling noise, Yu Le nodded. “If I’m unclear about something, I’ll call you.”

Yu Le didn’t intervene at first, letting the system work automatically. When he had a little feeling based on the fluctuation of the curve, Yu Le began to manipulate it by himself. The initial effect wasn’t bad. The value representing the strength of the connection slowly climbed. However, there was no attack program at the moment. This thing was just a large external calculator. Yu Le, as its maintainer, didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment.

This was simpler than he thought.

Ji Xiaoman was still groping for clues in the corner of the space while checking the text on the light screen from time to time. She was trying to find the escape pods. Yu Le hummed a song as he operated various buttons to the rhythm when, suddenly, the situation almost made him choke on his spit.

“Little Profiteer!”

“The signal channel is closed.” Ji Xiaoman walked around from behind a mechanical pillar as she spoke hurriedly. “The distance is too close. This is unlike the handiwork of the Mainbrain. It’s probably something the Order Supervisors had done here.”

“The calculator doesn’t even work. I really want to fucking kill them all.” A layer of sweat appeared on Yu Le’s forehead.

If that pile of curves was really an electrocardiogram, then their “patient” wasn’t far from death. There was a clear trend of returning to zero in various degrees. The rumbling of the machine was getting smaller, and the feedback of the operation was getting weaker. Fortunately, Professor Ruan’s design was of excellent quality, so the basic connection could still be maintained.

Seeing that the only remaining reading kept falling, Yu Le’s face got longer.

“I found the escape pod.” Ji Xiaoman ran close, panting; her vest was drenched in sweat. “Lao Yu, if you can’t handle it, let’s withdraw first.”

“Wait a bit.” Yu Le didn’t move. “Besides, those guys out there can’t get in now, so don’t worry.”

Ji Xiaoman wiped the sweat from her face and had no objection.

“I know it’s impossible for Xiao Tang to put us in his heart, but if he doesn’t take us seriously, there’s no need for him to hide this possible accident.” Yu Le thought for a while, then began to adjust the arrangement of the buttons on the light screen. “If they didn’t expect it, it would be a matter of virtue if we ran away now. If you don’t expect it but don’t say it, then choose you can’t do it, I’ll be very upset.”

“…” At the beginning, there was a certain person who swore they would be the first to run. Ji Xiaoman looked at Yu Le silently.

“We’ll try until dawn. It’s dark and wet outside now, which makes things more dangerous to escape.”

After Yu Le adjusted the buttons, the rhythm of the operation became faster. “But it’s enough by myself. Xiao… Man, you can fight better than me. Take an escape pod and go first. There shouldn’t be just one escape pod, right?”

Ji Xiaoman didn’t answer immediately this time. She turned her gaze, then said, “No, just one.”

After that, she sat back in the passenger seat and pulled up a few light screens in front of her. “I heard in the refuge that there are ventral cockroaches in the forest. It is indeed dangerous to go out at night.”

“Nn,” Yu Le responded vaguely, staring at the light screen in front of him.

The entire space was dyed red. After the buzzing was reduced, it was as quiet as a coffin.

“This really won’t work. You can’t make up for the error.” Seeing that Yu Le was silent, Ji Xiaoman also pulled up an operation screen. “I’ll help you adjust the error. You can stop trying to operate the machine.”

A mechanical hand pressed on Yu Le’s shoulder. “Like Mr. Tu, I’m also very good at ‘counting’.”

Yu Le’s taut shoulders loosened. The movements of his hands didn’t stop, and there was a strange emotion in his voice. “Then I’ll leave it to you, Little Captain.”

In a daze, he seemed to have returned to the Sea of Ruins. Like countless days before, he drove a giant ship, leading the ruins pirates to sprint through rubble and debris. As long as he glanced at the corner value occasionally, someone he trusted would help him take care of the details.

This felt pretty good.

The pattern on the light screen began to fluctuate again. The two of them tightened their nerves and tried to fight against the increasingly sealed connection channel. Everything seemed to be developing in a stable direction. Yu Le breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to speak—

Without warning, the entire space turned dark.

“There’s no power?!”

“Impossible.” Ji Xiaoman’s voice was full of shock. “This machine produces its own electricity, and the energy source is underground!”

“Then we’re being attacked,” Yu Le shouted. “Is there a way?”

“It won’t last long. Professor Ruan won’t leave such an obvious loophole. Someone is interfering with us. As for what…”

“Oh, I think I can guess.” Yu Le hissed. “Something is coming from above.”

Indeed, in the darkness, there was a slight rattle above their heads.

“But…”

“No one can get in but it shouldn’t be difficult to send small things in. It seems that people need to fill in more than just the details of the operation—this thing is divided into so many layers. It wasn’t meant for just two people to operate in the first place.”

When building this, Professor Ruan had limited manpower, so it was impossible to make it 100% perfect. As the rustling sound from above was getting closer, Yu Le began to increasingly doubt his judgment.

In Professor Ruan’s design, there should have been guards here to fill in those small security holes.

…But it was just the two of them.

The next moment, the lights returned. Yu Le and Ji Xiaoman raised their heads almost at the same time—

Countless human-sized mechanical spiders were moving towards them. They changed their shapes and squeezed through the ventilation cracks between the glass plate, with their speed remaining constant. Looking from the bottom up, they densely covered everything above, as countless mechanical legs were entangled in a ball.

The amount and size were enough to crush them.

“Alright,” Yu Le said deeply. “We tried our best. Let’s go, Little Captain.”

Ji Xiaoman: “……”

“At least we gave those two more than three hours of manual support. Getting attacked by that thing won’t help, and my driving skills can’t solve the problem.”

“No, that’s not the problem.”

Ji Xiaoman swallowed with difficulty.

“The power outage just now… They’re carrying EMP interference. If the escape pods are affected, we run the risk of getting stuck in the middle of the passage.”

“……”

“It’s safer to stay here.” Ji Xiaoman stood up quickly. “Lao Yu, go on. I’ll block the air gap above first.”

Yu Le glanced at the dense legs on the other side of the glass plate and felt his scalp go numb. “Why do I have the feeling we won’t last long? This is too passive.”

He squeezed the armrest of the chair tightly and thought for a moment. “Are you sure this is a contact device?”

“Yes, if there’s no attack program.”

“Okay.” Yu Le took a deep breath and cracked his knuckles. “Try and hold on first. I think we don’t have to escape.”

“……?”

“I’m going to call for help,” Yu Le said. “The super loud kind.”

“……”

The edge of the Mainbrain’s city.

Professor Ruan detected strange movements near the Mainbrain’s body, but the information he got was too bizarre. He wasn’t sure if he had lost any key clues—NUL-00 and Ruan Xian were near the Mainbrain’s body… with barely any decent weapons in their hands.

He couldn’t figure out the thoughts of those two, but he couldn’t stand by and watch them get caught by the Mainbrain. Unfortunately, his program and hardware weren’t ready, which only made the situation quite frustrating.

The black box in the glass trough spat out a large string of bubbles. The three-legged machine was circling around anxiously.

“Team 67, 29, and 14, who are closest to the desert, help clear the possible encirclement. Team 73, try airdrop supplies…. Attack? No, not yet.”

They only had one chance, and the Mainbrain didn’t seem to be vulnerable now. If they attacked rashly and were defeated, the rebels would have no recourse.

In short, first stabilize the situation, and then come up with a more effective rescue plan…

Suddenly, in the line he had left for Yu Le, there was an angry roar…

“We’re in Petri Dish No. 1306. Help!!!”

Kinky Thoughts:

This chapter in a nutshell:

Yu Le gives an emotional speech about trying their best to the end. Ji Xiaoman is moved and lies about the escape pod to stay with him

Right after the speech, a horde of spider machines sent by the Order Supervisors appear.

Yu Le: Welp, we tried our best. Time to peace out.

Ji Xiaoman: … …. Can’t. The escape pods were hit by the EMPs and might not function.

Yu Le: … … Mayday, mayday!!!

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 238: Disadvantages

As night fell, the huge clusters of black cubes began to become more active. The arc between the small cubes leapt from time to time, so that even with the nearby lighting being good, the blue arcs of light were still particularly conspicuous.

The Order Supervisors stationed nearby had never encountered this situation.

They deployed their electromagnetic isolation nets, set up missile disruptors, and turned on invisible programs to protect the Mainbrain from being hit by any long-range weapons. The calculation cubes themselves were extremely resilient, so it was difficult for pure attacks to be effective.

The behemoth was like a dragon with diamond scales, and they never thought it would one day help a louse.

Not long ago, they did spot the armored off-roader but didn’t find any weapon response inside the vehicle. The most dangerous thing was probably NUL-00, but the Order Supervisors had known about it in advance—NUL-00’s body was just ordinary flesh. No matter the size or strength of it, it couldn’t hurt the body of the Mainbrain.

What was more, NUL-00 got off the car halfway.

It wasn’t that no one had done this before. They would accidentally discover the location of the Mainbrain and, either out of hatred or worship, would try to rush to the magnificent body to give their own death an extra sense of ritual.

In the treatment of such sporadic lunatics, the Order Supervisors would kill them before they were even halfway there. This time, the armored off-roader was quite strong and burned for a long time. Considering the situation was like killing a chicken with a bull’s knife*, they decided to just let the car smash into the edge of the Mainbrain.

*(杀鸡用牛刀) Metaphor referring to doing small things without taking a lot of effort.

However, the driver didn’t die. He carried a box on his back and climbed to the center of the Mainbrain, and then curled up there motionless.

“That’s about it.” The garrison leader wiped the sweat from his face. “We thought the S-type Prototype would be active with NUL-00, but…”

As a result, the man that was stuck at the center of the Mainbrain, didn’t mind that he was turning into charcoal. Except for blowing up his body clean with heavy weapons, the garrison leader couldn’t think of any other ideas. However, they would miss their best chance—NUL-00 was still wandering around, and there was no guarantee the weapon system would work.

Then again, with M-β and R-β presence, NUL-00 couldn’t do any damage. The two visitors were like tough chewing gum stuck to the bottom of one’s shoe. They didn’t really cause a serious problem, but they couldn’t be shaken off.

It was simply inexplicable.

As a result, the commander had directly appeared at this moment, so the leader of the garrison was at a loss as to what to do. Should he let the garrison retreat or not?

Zhuo Muran didn’t immediately participate in the battle. He glanced at the mechanical box attached to the central part of the Mainbrain. He glanced at Tang Yibu, who continued to confront M-β. He pondered for a moment, opened a light screen, and rummaged through the data. Not long after, an angry old man appeared on the light screen.

“There are signs of invasion in the machine expedition area of Petri Dish No. 1306. What’s going on?”

“I was going to ask you!” Even in the face of the Commander of the Order Supervisors, the old man’s tone was unceremonious. “Didn’t you say that Ruan Xian wouldn’t risk it? I even rejected the A-level garrison application. Now the garrison is shit. Everyone’s locked up with that thing. The B-level guards are all useless. How can we study with peace of mind?”

“Are you sure there are no offensive programs installed inside the machine?”

“This is the first item during our key inspection that we check for! Of course not! The system of that thing is cleaner than my face!”

“Let me ask it another way. Can it make its own attack on the system?”

“…God, it’s just a communicator! It’s used for spreading stuff. Spreading! To propagate, it first has to have something to propagate! Take a step back, it can be at most be an auxiliary computing device.”

The old man scratched his head in anger.

“It depends on the design concept and technical solution, understand? You group of wooden heads only look at the danger all day long. Whether it is dangerous or not, what we care about is its value! In case the two who went in breaks it…”

“That is, if an external facility is connected to it, it can be used as a computing aid, but it will not pose a direct threat to the Mainbrain,” Zhuo Muran calmly interrupted the old man’s shouts.

“Yes!”

“Thank you.” Seeing that the old man was still planning to speak, Zhuo Muran simply cut off the communication and looked at the Mainbrain.

Ruan Lijie’s device was too crude, so he would need to go deep into the Mainbrain. Otherwise, the distance was too far, and he wouldn’t be able to break the Mainbrain’s defense system.

He was probably relying on the “communicator” that Ruan Xian left in Petri Dish No. 1306 to last until now. The Mainbrain felt no pain and wouldn’t tire. Without the support of existing programs and a reliable backup, Ruan Lijie’s failure was only a matter of time.

NUL-00 took a long time to peel away thousands of calculation cubes from the outermost layer of the Mainbrain, but ultimately the impact on the Mainbrain was minimal. Without continuous wireless energy supply, the other party couldn’t pack them up and take them away. At most, he could only use them to deal with M-β here.

…Are these two performing an act?

But this wasn’t the first time Zhuo Muran had seen such a “performance”. Thinking about the inexplicable chase in the Glass Conservatory, Zhuo Muran didn’t plan to let his guard down.

Since Ruan Lijie and NUL-00 were still in human bodies…

Zhuo Muran said to the leader of the garrison, “Continue to supply poisonous gas No. 93 to the center of the Mainbrain, then call all the cleaning machines to clean up the dirt. It doesn’t matter if they can’t attack the head. Let them continue cutting off his flesh as fast as they can consume.

“Contact the people in Petri Dish No. 1306. Tell them to block the signal as much as possible. Have the logistics team destroy all food supplies. All humans and mechanical beings containing biological tissues are also to be withdrawn. Have the Type-D machines form a physical enclosure in the periphery and equip as many poisonous weapons as possible.”

“Yes.” The leader took a deep breath between his teeth.

After Zhuo Muran gave the order, he tightened his gloves and quickly operated the light screen as if communicating with someone.

In less than three minutes, the orange-red poison gas began to diffuse to the middle of the Mainbrain. The scene was somewhat splendorous, accompanied by the flashing blue light of the arc. Due to the gas, the Order Supervisors could no longer see the curled up human body clearly. They could only confirm his movements through the scanning screen—the man was curled up tighter and breathing weakly, but he was still alive.

The cleaning machines didn’t go through smoothly. Those insect-like machines squeezed through the gaps in the cube and headed towards the person, but they were shredded one by one by a round thing and were thrown to the ground—just looking at the appearance, that thing looked like a Grove R-660, but it had a clearly mutated mouth. It circled around the person, vigilantly biting anything that got too close, one by one.

The leader secretly glanced at Zhuo Muran’s direction. He was uncertain whether he should be nervous facing such an inexplicable battle. Their commander was advancing towards NUL-00 most likely to join the battle in person.

No matter how they looked at it, the opponent was bound to lose, and Commander Zhuo’s behavior was too fussy. It seemed it was better to be managed by the Mainbrain. The leader glanced at the scan screen with lingering fear and looked at the living dead man who was still breathing.

The people in the rebel army were truly crazy.

In the system of the Mainbrain.

MUL-01 finally settled on Tang Yibu’s appearance. It crossed its arms and looked at Ruan Xian on the opposite side.

After a few hours of battle against “this one” Ruan Xian spent most of his time defending. Except for its thought system being invaded and a little “epidermal damage” caused by NUL-00, the Mainbrain didn’t suffer any substantial damage.

It became seriously confused.

“NUL-00 had stopped its plundering behavior. This is my home court. There is always a limit to its plundering.” The Mainbrain temporarily stopped its attacks. “And you… are attacking my brain here, but your physical body is rapidly depleting. I can’t think of any other explanation than self-abuse.”

Ruan Xian didn’t answer, but carefully perfected his defense.

“Your invasion and the use of the equipment in Petri Dish No. 1306 did surprise me. However, it turns out this kind of invasion is indeed meaningless.”

The Mainbrain fiddled with the fast-flashing characters under its hand and continued to stimulate Ruan Xian.

“By 6 in the morning, order in all small and medium-sized strongholds will be restored. I found no trace of a backup. You will die here, and the best ending for NUL-00 is to escape. What exactly do you want? Is this really at the behest of the other Ruan Xian?”

Ruan Xian finally moved. He held back the overwhelming discomfort in his brain and barely uttered a word.

“Guess?”

Forest petri dish, deep in the ruins of the Institute.

“I really can’t drive this thing.” Yu Le’s voice changed its tone. “Didn’t Xiao Tang say that if we turn on this thing, we’re already halfway won? Okay, it’s now on. I don’t see the need to drive it… Even if it’s a ship or a car, I can barely understand it. What the hell is this?”

Yu Le sat in the main driver’s seat, touching and grabbing things with a look of pure confusion.

“I can help you understand how it works.” However, Ji Xiaoman’s face was also full of doubts. “There may be similarities in operation… But to be honest, I’m not too sure.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, try it first.” Ji Xiaoman debugged the buttons one by one and started summoning light screens. “In a while, I have to find the ejection device so we can escape. Since you’re idle here, just listen to what Tang Yibu said and try your best.”

Facing the layers of light screens in front of him, Yu Le sighed fiercely, then stretched out a finger and poked it.

“You said those two guys are okay. From the time this place closed, there hasn’t been a reply from Tang Yibu, and no movements from Xiao Ruan at all.” Although he couldn’t understand any of the indicators on the light screens, Yu Le habitually stretched out his hand and adjusted the light screens to a position that was convenient for operation.

“I don’t know.” Ji Xiaoman bit her lip and continued to ponder about the button in front of her. “But this place shouldn’t block external signals.”

In the dim and weird environment, the two fell silent. Only the sound of the humming machine was left in the air.

After a few minutes, Yu Le took the lead to break the silence. He leaned back in his chair and faced the light screens floating in the air, as if resigned to his fate.

“Forget it. Come on, come on. A last-ditch effort. Little Profiteer, teach me well. I’m going to toss around with this system… By the way, there shouldn’t be any self-detonation button for this thing, right?’

“No.” Ji Xiaoman shook her head and sat down in the “co-pilot seat” beside Yu Le.

“Okay.” Yu Le spit in his hands and rubbed them together. “Let’s do this.”

“Anyway, it’s still early before dawn.”

The author has something to say:

Mainbrain: @Confusing Behavior Award

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Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 237: Predator

After these words, the Mainbrain’s offensive suddenly became violent, as if it wanted to crack his defenses in one go. Ruan Xian expected this reaction, but it was more difficult than he thought. The good thing was that his physical body was now replaced with a system signal. Now all he could feel was the pain in his brain, as he could no longer feel his body.

Before connecting to the machine, Ruan Xian had already curled his body into a stable position, holding the mechanical box tightly in his arms. He couldn’t feel the burning pain on his body or the wounds caused by the cleaning machines, which was a good thing in some ways.

He had successfully hacked into the system of the Mainbrain. From the judgment of ordinary machines, his body was now associated with the hardware of the Mainbrain. They wouldn’t move him and the mechanical box casually—as long as Tang Yibu stabilized M-β, he wouldn’t be killed so easily.

Ruan Xian looked at the virtual hands of the program, then turned his gaze to the projection of Tang Yibu’s mental core. The golden light mass floated warmly. Although he couldn’t see Tang Yibu’s face, Ruan Xian still had a weird sense of solidity.

This made the pain in his brain lighten by a few notches.

Realizing that it was facing “Ruan Xian”, the virtual image of the Mainbrain could no longer remain stable. During the frequent attacks, the image of “Tang Yibu” was horribly distorted. Compared to the human form, it was more like a broken photo or a distorted mass of flesh. It seemed the Mainbrain wasn’t sure what kind of image could shake him, so it kept changing its form.

Ruan Xian wasn’t distracted by it. He focused all his energy on instant defense. Without a ready-made program like Professor Ruan’s and exterior support, he didn’t dare be distracted.

It wasn’t time yet.

Tang Yibu didn’t look at what was happening to the body of the Mainbrain.

As long as he stopped M-β and R-β by himself, Ruan Xian wouldn’t die. Tang Yibu knew this well, but still didn’t want to see it.

“Go to Mr. Ruan.” He leaned on the edge of the Mainbrain’s body and patted π’s shell. “It’s best to clean up those cleaning machines. Destroy them one by one.”

The wreckage of the armored off-roader fell at his feet. Its shape was deformed due to the high temperature. Since the iron bead had transformed, it could now tolerate the high heat and could still move freely. It rubbed Tang Yibu’s hand and squeaked softly, while its three small eyes flickered at the wreckage all over the ground.

“Yes, we don’t have a car anymore.” Tang Yibu added, “…I’m a little sad too.”

“Gwah…”

“Let’s go. It’ll be very dangerous here soon.”

The iron bead rubbed Tang Yibu reluctantly again, then stretched out its four limbs and firmly clung to a black cube that was spinning fast and moved towards the direction of Ruan Xian. As soon as π stepped on the hot metal cube, it tentatively took a bite, but it didn’t even leave a toothmark behind.

After a few disappointing clicks, the round figure of the iron bead disappeared among the ocean of floating cubes.

Tang Yibu adjusted his breathing for a while. His only kind was behind him, with his creator burning quietly and slowly at the center of this suspended cluster of cubes.

M-β finally landed in front of him.

Its form was still like that of a hairless tiger, but it could be seen that the Mainbrain had restricted its mouth. R-β was riding on its back, looking at him with eyes similar to Ruan Xian.

Just as he was observing the opponent, the opponent was also evaluating him.

“You didn’t make any upgrades.” R-β opened her mouth. The voice was pleasant to the ears. “Without the S-type Prototype, you—”

She couldn’t finish her sentence.

A palm-sized black cube obeyed Tang Yibu’s command and broke away from the cube formation, directly shattering R-β’s skull. Upon seeing this, M-β took a step back, lowered its body, and let out a low growl.

“This is the body of MUL-01.” Tang Yibu spoke while staring at the recovering skull that was splattered like a rotten tomato. “In other words, the external equipment that it can control—I can also use as well.”

There was no physical transformation, no cutting-edge weapon—he didn’t even fish out Professor Ruan’s attack program, but now he had the fastest and most robust weapon in the world.

Dozens of black cubes separated from the body of the Mainbrain. The blue arcs of light were disconnected from the surrounding cubes and coiled and flashed on all sides of the cubes. They obeyed Tang Yibu’s command and rotated around him.

Compared with the huge body of the Mainbrain, these dozens of calculation cubes were almost negligible. At the moment, the Mainbrain was concentrating on Ruan Xian, so Tang Yibu took the opportunity to have them “rebel” and take them for his own use.

However, he just stood at the edge of the body of the Mainbrain, quietly looking at the enemy in front of him without any intention of taking the initiative to attack.

M-β was like a real tiger. It cautiously circled around Tang Yibu for half a circle. After half a minute, it stopped, stretched out a dozen wrist-thick cannons from his exoskeleton, and blasted them in Tang Yibu’s direction. Along with the explosion, M-β rushed out like an arrow, opened its mouth in the direction of Tang Yibu, and bit.

R-β didn’t choose to watch the battle. Her body was filled with blood mist, and she attacked relentlessly with M-β.

Tang Yibu didn’t take these attacks hard. He stepped on the gap in the body of the Mainbrain and quickly climbed to the top, avoiding the explosions. He then flashed away, leaped with his back to the ground, and made a few gestures with his hands—the black cubes started to rotate at a high speed, leaving black afterimages in the air, shattering one of M-β’s front paws.

The blue arcs coiled around the surface and maintained a high temperature. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. In the next moment, dark red blood entered from R-β’s body down the pipe, and M-β’s front paws were immediately intact again.

“…You can’t win.” Although her head was broken once, R-β didn’t seem angry, and instead just slowly finished her sentence that was interrupted.

“I really can’t beat you.” Tang Yibu fell to the ground. His entire body was tense. “But you can’t get past me either.”

R-β squinted. They had received instructions from the Mainbrain that it was imperative to get rid of the intruder entrenched at its core. However, the Mainbrain didn’t specifically leave the door of convenience open for them. If they entered the dense suspended cube array, their mobility and state would inevitably be affected.

At that time, NUL-00 would be quite a deadly opponent.

But NUL-00 didn’t seem to be at ease because of this. He was flat-faced. The corners of his mouth drooped as an increasing number of black cubes floated around him. Their rotation became more and more regular, and a faint electric arc began to slowly connect the palm-sized metal cubes together.

NUL-00 was snatching resources from the Mainbrain a little by little similar to boiling a frog in warm water*.

*Refers to boiling a frog slowly to death. Metaphor used for people who cannot or are reluctant to notice or react to an emerging threat. || In this context, it’s saying Tang Yibu is slowly taking resources from the Mainbrain, and because he’s taking a little at a time, the Mainbrain won’t notice until it’s too late.

Having the A-type Prototype meant NUL-00 should be proficient in his offensive, but instead it was clearly putting on a defensive style. They couldn’t kill him, they couldn’t get around him, and if they didn’t do anything, he wouldn’t take the initiative to attack them. He was truly a piece of sesame seed candy*.

*(牛皮糖) Referring to a sticky, chewy candy that’s a metaphor for a very difficult person (to deal with). It’s also a double entendre because the Tang in Tang Yibu’s name also means candy.

However, the Mainbrain’s command must be executed. Looking at the current situation, the longer time dragged on, the more cubes NUL-00 would steal. His computing power was growing rapidly, and the pressure on their side would only increase.

R-β glanced around.

The Mainbrain, who was currently fighting with the intruder, was obviously aware of this. When the black cubes around NUL-00 began to count in the hundreds, the border garrison finally began to act—the gap between the calculation cubes was too narrow that dozens of laser snipes were futile. They put on thick heat-resistant suits and mounted oxygen tanks on their backs, and began to move in the direction of the center.

R-β breathed a sigh of relief and continued to fight NUL-00 with M-β.

Tang Yibu knew what the Mainbrain wanted to do.

While machines would be confused by the rules, humans wouldn’t. As long as the stationed Order Supervisors were close enough and possessed extremely destructive weapons, they could naturally kill the unsuspecting Mr. Ruan.

It was time to act.

“This is a formal warning.” Tang Yibu stared closely at M-β, who was spinning around him, looking for flaws and waiting for the opportunity to attack. The sound echoed under the gradually darkening sky through the amplifier on his collar. “I am the prototype of MUL-01, NUL-00. Please don’t get involved in a battle you shouldn’t be involved in.”

“Your target is my love interest. It’s not too late to retreat now.”

The blood-red sunset sank into the other side of the desert. The computing cube next to Tang Yibu was like a weird swarm of bees. In the cobweb-like blue light arcs, those golden eyes were particularly dazzling.

A commotion broke out in the garrison that was heading deeper towards the center. Still, one of them took the lead and continued forward. As soon as the man stretched out his arm in an attempt to make way, the black cubes squeezed together violently, crushing his arms to dust and splattering blood everywhere.

“I warned you,” Tang Yibu continued. The black cubes around his body began to spin even faster.

“I’ll kill anyone who dares to retreat.” A familiar voice joined the conversation. Zhuo Muran jumped off the aircraft wearing a complete combat exoskeleton on his body. He made a long face.

“Don’t worry. Without support, NUL-00 could only peel off the outermost layer. Did you see him control any of the cubes in the inner layer?”

Tang Yibu clicked his tongue. A change in their plans had really appeared. Zhuo Muran shouldn’t have come this fast.

Zhuo Muran’s statement was correct. The closer they got to the inner layer, the more difficult it was for him to capture the black cubes. The hardware between Tang Yibu and the Mainbrain was still too far apart. Even if the Mainbrain’s defenses weren’t focused on him, Tang Yibu couldn’t immediately obtain resources that could rival his opponent.

It was one against three. This wasn’t good.

…Unless he could take one out in the planned time slot.

Forest petri dish, before the sunset.

When he was about to reach the tenth floor, Yu Le’s entire suit was already soaked with sweat. The tenth floor was tightly guarded, and he couldn’t control his heartbeat. Looking at Ji Xiaoman’s sweaty neck, it was obvious he wasn’t alone.

Security checks were carried out layer by layer. Even with Tang Yibu’s technical support, Yu Le still felt a little exhausted. In normal times, he could still say a few words to Ji Xiaoman, but at the moment, there was surveillance watching him, so he couldn’t make a peep.

Ji Xiaoman quietly grabbed Yu Le’s cuffs, lowered her head and stared at the ground. Her whole body was taut like an arrow that could leave the string at any time.

With a soft sound, they arrived at the tenth floor.

After layers of reporting, the two had long been free of mud on their shoes. The corridor in front of them was obviously newly renovated. The walls were brand new white, which was illuminated brightly by the lights. They slowly moved forward on the clean floor while surveillance machines embedded on the edge of the corridor turned to look at them one by one, scanning repeatedly and never stopping.

Every step forward was like the beat of their heart.

Suddenly, one of the surveillance machines found a clue. Its warning light sounded, and the entire corridor turned dazzling blood red. This time, Yu Le, a born ruins pirate, reacted quickly—he grabbed Ji Xiaoman and ran straight to the end of the corridor, easily opening all the props Tang Yibu had given them.

“What’s going on?!” When this was done, Yu Le still had some energy to yell at the communicator.

“The security system on the last level is too complicated for me to crack.” Tang Yibu didn’t sound very happy at the moment. “It’s going to be closed sooner or later anyway. You should have opened the props already. This will temporarily disrupt the door and weapon operating systems, so just rush in as soon as possible.”

“Why didn’t you fucking say such an important thing earlier?!”

“If I said it earlier, you will be more nervous and exposed yourself even faster. If the alarm is triggered as soon as you get out of the elevator, the time may not be enough for you to run to the entrance.”

“……Fuck.” Yu Le gritted his teeth.

Before the heavy partition door came down, Yu Le lowered his body and dragged Ji Xiaoman into the room at the end of the corridor. Unfortunately, when they crossed the door, Yu Le didn’t get the opportunity to catch his breath—after the partition door descended, a deafening pumping sound exploded in his ears and the oxygen in the space began to rapidly pump out.

“Hurry up, Little Profiter, hurry up!” Yu Le groped around in the dark. “Hurry up and start this damn thing or we’ll suffocate here!”

“Don’t be nervous. I’ll help you.” Tang Yibu continued to guide. “The switch is in the upper left corner of the middle row in the M area. Miss Ji should understand. I’ll take care of the palmprint lock for you.”

The room was pitch black when suddenly a light lit up from Ji Xiaoman. The little girl was pale. She turned on the lights on her prosthetic limbs to their max and hurriedly looked for the switch—there was already a cacophony of human noises coming from outside the door. The Order Supervisors had found their invasion and most likely had blocked off the door.

Finally, as the partition door began to crack open, Ji Xiaoman found the switch among hundreds of operation panels and pressed it with one hand. The light screen with the outline of a handprint floated in the air, and a complete palm print appeared in the middle. As the scan ended, the sound of pumping in all directions stopped abruptly, and there was no more movement outside the door. From nowhere came a rumbling sound of something being launched, and the dark space was illuminated by lights.

“Well done.” Tang Yibu’s interest didn’t sound high. “Open it and we have halfway won. The next act is up to the two of you.”

“Holy shit.”

This time, Yu Le didn’t care about Tang Yibu’s tone. He looked at the “ground” beneath his feet and swallowed.

What was under them wasn’t a floor, but a thick layer of glass that was strung together by a huge machine in the middle, partitioning the space into transparent cylinders. They couldn’t see the top from above or the tail end beneath their feet.

The machine in the middle looked like a withered corpse of a dragon, completely lacking the regular beauty of what machines should have. It was undulating slightly, as if it was a living thing. Their location seemed to be on the main console, which was the most complex part of this thing—a variety of switches embedded in the uneven dark brown console and odd-shaped pipes stacked on the edge of the thick glass. There were three chairs in a slightly more spacious area, which looked a bit like a navigation platform.

“How can I put this…”

Yu Le stared blankly at the main seat in front of him as well as the huge and weird machine in the middle.

“If this mission was the one I imagined… This is definitely the most, uh, overrated moment in my life.”

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