Chapter 645
Infiltration
Chapter 645 Infiltration
Yu Sheng was startled by the sight in the hall—the “collectibles” taken from living people almost filled the place. They were placed in storage tanks or display cases like some kind of art exhibits, and were illuminated by carefully arranged lighting. Just one look was enough to tell you how perverted the owner of this place was.
The sight completely horrified him. After letting out a gasp, he turned to the blonde elf standing beside him and exclaimed, "Lo, this 'Old Joe' is way more freaking freak than you described!"
Luo had snapped out of her daze. Hearing Yu Sheng's words, her expression became somewhat subtle. She glanced at Old Qiao's mutated, steel-like body, then at the heart that had sprung from his chest, and after a long pause, she couldn't help but say, "Boss, don't you want to look at your own style..."
"What's wrong with my art style?" Yu Sheng asked, looking completely bewildered. "I'm radiating righteousness..."
Luo decisively chose to skip the topic, turned his head to look at Old Qiao, who was tied up, and frowned slightly: "This is just an avatar. Simply tying this up won't help. His real body is still somewhere else... but I don't know where it is."
“Tie one up and we’ll see, we’ve already found his lair anyway,” Eileen said casually while controlling the spider silk. “But speaking of which, why isn’t he reacting much… Did I kick his body to death just now? That shouldn’t be the case, this thing looks like a robot, how could a broken neck be a fatal injury?”
Upon hearing this, Luo went over to check the condition of the steel shell on the sofa. She hesitated for a moment before extending several mechanical limbs from behind her and piercing into Old Joe's chest and abdomen. After checking the remaining signal lines for a while, she finally spoke hesitantly: "His mental activity has been severely damaged, and part of his mind is trapped in the dead loop of this body. But this 'trance' should not last long. Once his mind trapped in this body is completely 'dead,' his main body will awaken."
Eileen instinctively asked, "What will happen if I wake up in a fright?"
“Old Joe won’t just give up—there are still a lot of clone soldiers stationed in this base, and he definitely has more than one spare body.”
“Then let’s fight!” Eileen perked up at the idea (though she didn’t know what was so exciting about it). She quickly climbed onto the back of the sofa, hands on her hips. “I’m telling you, with six regiments of troops, do you think we can’t take over this wretched place…”
As soon as the little puppet finished speaking, Yu Sheng next to him chimed in, "We still have some time, right? Let me get ready first."
Luo looked at her current boss with a puzzled expression: "What do you need to prepare..."
Before she could finish speaking, she saw Yu Sheng raise his hand and pull open another large door from the side, then crawl through it and carry a set of equipment from a place that looked like a warehouse across the street.
The thing consisted of a huge storage tank and a series of pipes, valves and other structures. On the edge of the upper part of the "lid", a large number of mysterious runes could be seen shimmering with light. At first glance, it looked like the style of the Flying Feather Starfield. However, compared with the "magical treasures" made by those immortals, this thing was obviously more sinister.
Luo immediately felt that this thing looked familiar, so he quickly recalled it, and the righteous faces of the three heroes of the Demon Suppression Tower flashed into his mind, along with their resounding declaration during a previous meeting:
"We are a righteous sect that has sworn to serve the True Lord of Life to the death..."
As she pondered, she heard a soft hissing sound, and wisps of blood mist appeared in the surrounding air, spreading and permeating in all directions as if they were alive.
“I’ll put a diffusion device here first,” Yu Sheng said casually as he started up the “magic weapon” that had been transported from Shuji, following the instructions, “and then I’ll make this place fuzzy.”
Luo blinked, feeling like she had a lot to say, but it all got stuck in her throat and she couldn't say it.
So she simply exhaled softly and turned to look at the place that was still deeply imprinted in her memory.
Those disgusting "artworks".
Those lingering fears in the depths of memory.
The steel monster lying on the sofa, tightly bound by black threads.
She didn't want to recall it, but she still remembered the days when she worked here as Old Joe's "lab assistant".
Back then, she dreamed every day of escaping that terrible cage, and many years after escaping, she dreamed every day of finding this place again—fate is such an unpredictable thing, and now, she has truly returned.
Not only did he return, but he also brought a group of powerful helpers... Although the style of the story seems a bit off, and the whole process is not quite what I had imagined.
Luo laughed, her face beaming with an unprecedented radiance.
"What are you grinning about!" Eileen's voice suddenly came from the side. The commotion of the evil red-eyed dwarf made Luo jump. "Hurry up and tell me about this place—terrain structure, defense map, and stuff like that. I've seen movies where they have these things when they're deep in enemy territory. We're not familiar with this place. You've lived here before, after all."
“My intelligence may be outdated—after all, it’s been too many years since I left this place,” Luo suddenly realized, pulling out his data terminal as he spoke, “but the general layout here shouldn’t have changed. The entire base was built based on the original cave structure of this asteroid…”
Hissing air echoed in the room as the crimson mist spread and rapidly seeped into the walls and floor. While listening attentively to Luo's explanation, Yu Sheng also focused a significant portion of his attention on the "diffusion device." He could feel the connection between the crimson mist and himself, and his senses were expanding within this hidden base as the mist seeped in—in another perspective, he could already see the pipes and supporting structures surrounding the hall. His vision gradually broadened, and the mist before him slowly dissipated.
The "diffusion device" created by the three sliding kneeling heroes is indeed a good thing. Its diffusion and infiltration efficiency is much higher than his old method of finding a place to die and then bleeding all over the ground. But even if it is more efficient, and even if the size of this secret base is limited, he still needs some time to fully control this place.
When Old Joe's avatar returned, the "contamination" he carried was ultimately limited. Although it was enough to plunge him into hallucinations and madness, it was far from enough for Yu Sheng to exert sufficient influence on the facility.
Just then, Luna, who was guarding the door, suddenly looked up: "There is an unknown unit nearby. Assemble."
“Old Joe’s true form has ‘awakened’,” Luo suddenly felt her breathing quicken. She couldn’t tell how much excitement and nervousness she felt at that moment. “He will probably let the clone soldiers in first, and also arrange for some avatars to lead the way. The most likely route is from the second passage…”
“I need a little more time,” Yu Shengfei said quickly, “Don’t let anyone come in and cause trouble.”
"Easy to say!"
Eileen was full of confidence, then stood on the back of the sofa and waved her hand—
Twisted spatial rifts appeared out of thin air throughout the hall, and a large number of mass-produced dolls with dead fish eyes were teleported into the hall.
“Hey, I have a suggestion,” Luo said, his eyes lighting up as he looked at Eileen. “There’s a ventilation duct where your puppet army can go…”
Eileen's eyes widened immediately: "Me, the dignified Alice doll, crawling into a ventilation duct?!"
Without looking up, Yu Sheng said, "The awesome special forces soldiers in movies all crawl into ventilation ducts."
"Yes, really?"
……
An ominous red light flickered in the corridor leading to the core area of the base. The sound of rapid footsteps broke the surrounding tranquility. Fully armed clone soldiers ran silently through the connecting passage, and a tense and oppressive atmosphere lingered in the air.
A steel body over two meters tall strode at the front of the procession, its two "eyes" flashing an angry red light.
However, there seemed to be some lingering fear from the "nightmare" in that anger.
Intruders have entered his base—they've outmaneuvered the great "Joe" through some trickery that may have involved dark psionic energy or warp energy!
The red light in the steel giant's eyes flickered, and those terrifying and absurd "illusions" resurfaced in Old Joe's mind.
He felt like he was having a long nightmare, which seemed to have started when he left the Grey Dwarf Star, but it also seemed like there were signs before that. He was in a daze in the nightmare, his mind was trapped in a quagmire that kept looping and sinking. Some kind of fatal malfunction in his body caused his mind to be trapped in the dead loop of the malfunctioning body, so that he was unable to take action in the real world for a long time.
He couldn't remember many details of the nightmare. He wasn't sure how he broke free from the vicious cycle, but it was clear that the malfunctioning body was completely destroyed. Before that destruction, he only vaguely remembered seeing the intruder and... Luo's figure.
"It's time to put an end to this mistake..."
Old Joe muttered to himself through gritted teeth.
The several enhanced mechs he left in the base have been activated, the clone soldiers stationed outside the core area have also assembled and entered, and a psionic force is entering the fortress through the upper passage. The base's own defense system has also been activated—no matter what the intruders are, they won't be leaving alive today.
But... why is there still such a strong sense of unease stirring in my heart?
In front of his subordinates, Old Joe appeared as authoritative and powerful as ever, but he always felt uneasy, as if large gaps had appeared in his memory, and some key and dangerous information had been overlooked, but he couldn't remember what it was.
A strange noise suddenly came from the ceiling, interrupting Old Joe's thoughts.
There was a "thud" in the darkness, like something falling to the ground.
The clone soldiers reacted instantly, and the sound of bullets being chambered echoed in the corridor. Old Joe cautiously walked forward and suddenly saw a dark shape on the ground not far away.
It was a dirty doll.
(End of this chapter)