Chapter 648
Old Joe's True Form
Chapter 648 Old Joe's True Form
The shuttle's owner was beyond furious. The "fall" of the last secret launch channel was the final straw that broke Old Joe's back. After realizing that all the systems in the fortress were out of his control, he simply pushed the control stick to the limit, recklessly increased the engine output to the maximum, and then opened the self-defense machine gun on the shuttle.
The anti-gravity engine and propulsion engine roared simultaneously as the flimsy aircraft struggled to break free from the platform's static force field. As the aircraft moved with difficulty, two lightweight particle cannons simultaneously emitted sharp whistles, sending bursts of scorching high-energy particles toward the isolation gate at the end of the passage and the locking mechanism next to it.
However, at that moment, a series of loud, rapid sounds coming from afar suddenly interrupted Old Joe's last-ditch effort.
It sounded like a massive war behemoth was demolishing buildings along the way. The terrifying sounds of collapse and the thunderous cracking of walls and supporting beams exploded in the confined space of the base. The sound grew closer and closer until the entire passage began to shake. Then the lights on one side of the platform began to flicker violently. As part of the power suddenly went out, a large hole collapsed in the isolation wall leading to the fortress, and smoke instantly billowed out, accompanied by deafening noise!
"What the hell is this situation...?"
Old Joe only had time to utter a cry of surprise before he saw a massive, silvery-white figure burst out of the smoke, surrounded by blazing blue flames, hurtling straight toward his shuttle like a kinetic energy projectile charging at full speed.
"boom!!!"
The shuttle, which had just struggled to break free of the stagnant force field, hadn't even had time to accelerate forward when it was headbutted by the silver-white behemoth and flipped over, almost slamming sideways against the wall of the launch channel. Half of the fuselage was instantly smashed into a twisted mass of metal scrap. Immediately afterward, the out-of-control rapid-fire cannon coils burst into flames. Before Old Joe could even figure out what was happening, he saw a huge fox head suddenly emerge from the sea of fire outside the cockpit window.
The mouth was bigger than his entire body—the giant fox demon grabbed the front half of the shuttle in one bite, then started swinging and jumping around wildly, leaping and tumbling about countless times until she finally tore off both ends of the shuttle. Then, with one paw on the fuselage, she used her mouth to tear open the last layer of protection outside the cockpit.
Hu Li poked its head out into the cockpit and rummaged around, pulling out a figure that was twisting and struggling wildly with its mouth, then spat it onto the ground next to it.
Well, as expected of the warlord who took "mechanical ascension" to its extreme, a normal person would probably have died several times over after this, but Old Joe actually remained conscious in this situation, and even pulled out a small pistol for self-defense the moment he landed, and fired at the giant fox demon in front of him one after another - however, Hu Li seemed to feel nothing, she just felt a little itchy in her nose, so she sneezed twice.
The first sneeze knocked Old Joe to the ground, knocking his weapon away in the process. The second sneeze, accompanied by foxfire, welded half of Old Joe's leg to the floor.
"My benefactor~~" The giant fox demon raised its head and shouted joyfully towards the large hole in the wall not far away, "The filling has been dug out!"
“Here he comes… You’re too fast,” Yu Sheng said as he ran out of the hole, followed by Eileen, Luna, and Luo. “No need to rush. I’ve melted the outside of this passage into one solid mass. He can’t escape.”
Old Joe's body was severely injured and "welded" to the floor by foxfire. He struggled desperately but could not escape, and could only watch helplessly as several figures emerged from the dust and smoke.
The leader was a human male who looked to be in his early twenties and had an unremarkable appearance. His face was so pale that he looked like he was about to die from blood loss. On his shoulder sat a black-haired, red-eyed doll whose appearance was exactly the same as the strange dolls that had appeared in groups in the fortress. Beside them, a tall figure who was almost two meters tall walked out gracefully. It was the "artificial saintess" who had previously wiped out several action teams. She was wearing a robe in the style of an Algrid Star Maiden, which looked like a nun's habit.
Old Joe's gaze passed over the figures, but finally landed behind Yu Sheng.
It was Luo, an Algrid elf wearing a long silver-white dress and with her golden hair flowing freely, standing behind Yu Sheng, looking calmly at her "old rival".
Old Joe suddenly stopped struggling, but his eyes still held a hint of disbelief, as if even at this moment, he still couldn't believe that this "experimental animal" who had escaped from his laboratory had actually led people to break through his fortress and stood here as a victor.
At this moment, Yu Sheng suddenly frowned: "Why is this also an iron shell?"
He looked at the enemy in front of him and found that "Old Joe," who was trying to escape at the last moment, was also a "robot." The two-meter-tall, burly figure and the intimidating appearance with exposed mechanical structures all over his body seemed to be no different from the "avatar" that had appeared on the Grey Dwarf Star before, except that it looked a little more refined and had a thicker torso for protection.
“This metal shell is different from the others,” Luo said with a faint smile. The smile was cold and contained a complex meaning that she herself probably couldn’t explain. She muttered to herself as she walked forward. The mechanical limbs behind her stretched out and slowly bent down toward Old Joe. “He’s hiding in here… After all, without this shell, he’s nothing.”
The steel-clad body lying on the ground instinctively leaned back: "You, what are you going to do, you bitch... I took you in back then! And now you're like this..."
Old Joe looked extremely panicked, but in that seemingly guilty exclamation, one of his arms suddenly shot up—from inside the forearm armor, a scorching plasma blade suddenly sprang out, aiming straight for Luo's neck.
Almost simultaneously, however, a mechanical limb behind Luo was already blocking the path of the attack—the living metal at the end of the limb formed sharp needles that precisely pierced Old Joe's arm joint. A tiny spark flashed by, and the plasma blade was extinguished.
Another figure flashed past, and Luna deftly sliced off both of Old Joe's arms with a flick of her finger. Luo whispered a thank you, her gaze still fixed on Old Joe. She extended the mechanical limbs behind her, switching their ends to tool mode, and said unhurriedly, "I've practiced this many times..."
"Do you remember? There was a 'lab riot' back then. A Gibraltar boy almost got close to your true form. His companions had managed to disable all your weapon systems before that, but they didn't expect that there was a knife hidden under the arm of your body..."
“I’ve really practiced it many times, Joe.”
The tool head at the end of the mechanical limb hummed as it began to dismantle the armor on the chest of the steel body. Old Joe swayed in vain: "I should have known...you were involved that time too...I shouldn't have dug into your spine, I should have gouged out your eyes first!"
The armor plating was ripped off, revealing a living, breathing metal cladding underneath.
"I'm really fast at tightening screws... and I'm also very good with laser cutters, right?"
Luo smiled, hacked into the control center of the living metal, and after stopping the interference, he separated it.
The intimidation, which was all bark and no bite, finally turned into terror.
“What exactly do you want? I can give you anything within my authority—or do you want the information on those secret society contacts? I have plenty of intelligence! Luo, you're a rational person…”
"Shh-"
Luo put her finger to her lips and gently hissed, while simultaneously severing a wire near Old Joe's neck with a mechanical hand. Only then did she reach into the now-stagnant living metal and slowly dig out a strange device.
The connecting cables were stripped off one after another, accompanied by a hissing spark. Yu Sheng could see the thing clearly—it was a cylindrical device of unknown material, with complex metal tops and base structures at both ends. The middle section was a transparent tubular container, inside which floated a wrinkled brain. Below the brain, there was a shrunken and deformed notochord, as well as a large number of tiny pipes.
This is Joe.
The moment the container was removed, the struggling steel body trembled a few times before ceasing operation. Lights suddenly flashed at both ends of the biological storage tank in Luo's hand, and a mechanical, synthesized voice came from its base: "Life support system! I need a life support system! Quick, this device won't last much longer—"
“Once you’ve explained everything you need to, I’ll naturally put you on the life support system,” Luo slowly stood up, looking expressionlessly at the brain in the tank. “Don’t waste your energy. All the systems in this base are now under my boss’s control. The escort ships and fighters you left outside have also been disarmed—all the clone forces have surrendered. Those who resisted are now cold corpses in space. No one will answer your orders anymore.”
A mechanical eyeball twitched uneasily atop the storage tank, as if afraid to meet Luo's unusually calm gaze: "Boss? Your boss?"
The mechanical eyeball suddenly stopped and looked at Yu Sheng, who was standing to the side.
A string of incomprehensible noises emanated from the sound synthesizer, and all the clues and guesses seemed to finally connect at this moment, giving Old Joe the long-awaited answer.
Yu Sheng grinned and gave the brain in the storage tank a friendly smile: "Nice to meet you—catching you was really a lot of work, I'll just deduct the cost from your estate later."
The brain inside the tank visibly twitched (it's unclear how a brain can twitch), and the mechanical eyeball at the top of the container finally turned to the blonde elf beside it: "Lo! You're no different from me! Your loyalty to the corporation..."
Luo simply hefted the jar in her hand lightly: "Ah, I might slip."
Old Joe immediately fell silent.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere quiet,” Yu Sheng clapped his hands, “and have a good chat with this brain in the jar.”
(End of this chapter)