Chapter 369: Withdrawal

Chapter 369: Chapter 369: Withdrawal

At that moment, Hopka descended, grabbing Long Ming’s neck with his left hand and slamming him violently into the ground.

BOOM!

The entire ground shattered.

But just then, Hopka suddenly noticed a red light glowing from within Long Ming’s slightly open mouth.

’Not good!’

Hopka instinctively sensed danger.

Unfortunately, he was a step too late.

ZAP—

Long Ming opened his mouth and fired a violent red beam, blasting the body of the Prisonbreaker.

Hopka was sent flying.

Long Ming then scrambled back to his feet.

Meanwhile, Hopka struggled to get the Prisonbreaker back up. The entire Mechanical God was flickering with electrical sparks.

"Dammit!"

Hopka’s expression grew uglier.

He hadn’t expected the evolved monster to be so monstrously powerful. Of course, the main reason he was in such a sorry state was that he was already in bad shape after his fight with the Type IV Alien Heluya.

But Hopka didn’t back down. He charged furiously at Long Ming again.

Long Ming opened his mouth once more.

Hopka was about to dodge when Long Ming spewed a thick cloud of red mist, completely enveloping him.

BEEP BEEP!

The surface temperature of the Mechanical God spiked instantly.

Red warning boxes popped up one after another.

"Warning: Abnormal Temperature!"

"Warning: CS Circuit Malfunction!"

...

If the Prisonbreaker were at full capacity, it naturally wouldn’t fear the red mist. But in its heavily damaged state, much of the red mist seeped directly inside.

For a moment, the Prisonbreaker’s movements became sluggish.

’This is bad!’

Hopka immediately sensed the danger.

Just then, Long Ming became a blur, streaking past Hopka and out of the red mist.

When the red mist dissipated...

CRACK!

...the Prisonbreaker was on one knee, a shocking gash torn open across its chest, severing internal circuits and equipment.

Long Ming turned his head in excitement, preparing to finish Hopka off.

However, just as he was about to land the killing blow on Hopka and take down the Fourth Generation Mechanical God, the sound of urgent footsteps echoed.

Startled, Long Ming whipped his head around to look.

He saw Woperi and the others, having dealt with the Aliens outside, rushing in.

"Captain!"

Woperi was shocked to see Hopka defeated and immediately aimed his Shoulder Cannon at Long Ming, firing.

Long Ming instantly leaped back to dodge, moving to the left.

Woperi and his team rushed to Hopka’s side, forming a protective circle around him. ℯℯ𝑙.

Long Ming decisively gave up the fight and dashed out at high speed through the corridor they had entered from. There was no way he could beat this group with their two Fourth Generation and two high-end custom Third Generation Mechanical Gods.

"That thing’s getting away!"

Fakadon said to Woperi.

"Forget the chase for now, save the Captain!"

Woperi quickly began to pry open the damaged Mechanical God with his bare hands.

A burly man, two meters tall with a rugged face and muscles like stone, was revealed inside.

Fakadon immediately took out a recovery agent and administered the injection.

A moment later, the weakened Hopka finally caught his breath.

"Captain, what on earth happened? How could you lose to that monster?"

Fakadon asked in confusion.

"I spent all that damn effort killing the Type IV Alien here, only for that monster to absorb its corpse and evolve! If I’d known, I would have killed it on sight!"

Hopka was fuming.

"So what do we do now?"

Woperi then asked.

"Ignore it for now. Find what we came for and let’s go. This fortress is too dangerous. The longer we stay, the more likely things will go wrong."

Hopka raised his wristband and recalled his battered Mechanical God as he spoke.

"Right!"

Woperi and the others all responded.

They immediately headed down the left-hand corridor.

Soon, they reached the inner laboratory.

They explored deeper, constantly searching for the scout’s fallen Mechanical God along the way, but they never saw it.

Finally, they arrived at the deepest part of the lab, where a massive piece of machinery came into view.

"This should be the machine, but where’s the gene-serum?!"

Woperi said, staring in astonishment at the empty storage area on the device.

"Yeah, and we didn’t see the fallen Mechanical God on our way here either."

Fakadon was also very confused.

"It looks like the intel was wrong!"

Hopka said, his expression shifting.

"Captain, are you saying that guy Geert lied to us?"

Woperi asked with a dark expression.

"I’m not sure right now. Either Geert’s intel was wrong, or someone took it before we got here."

Hopka replied in a cold voice.

"How is that possible? The monsters squatting here haven’t even been wiped out. Who could sneak in and steal the gene-serum right under the Aliens’ noses?"

Woperi simply couldn’t believe someone could get in and take the item so silently.

"I don’t know either. Now we’re in trouble. How are we going to explain the lack of gene-serum to the General?"

Hopka had a massive headache.

...

「On the other side.」

Long Ming was sprinting through the corridors. The low-level Aliens he encountered scattered like startled birds at the sight of him.

He quickly checked the map and ran toward the nearest extraction point.

Soon, Long Ming reached the fortress’s observation deck area. An unused mechanical extraction platform was located there.

He decisively jumped onto the mechanical platform.

’It’s still early, and there’s probably a lot more good stuff inside the fortress.’

But Long Ming still chose to leave without hesitation.

VMM—

The entire extraction platform lit up with a faint halo. Long Ming began to float, then vanished in a flash of white light.

When he came to his senses, he had appeared in the deserted Starry City.

Long Ming raised his wristband and tapped "Log Out."

「In room H4562.」

With a soft hiss of depressurization, the lid of the neural connection pod opened.

Long Ming climbed out.

An excited expression spread across his face. ’I actually managed to escape.’

However, Long Ming’s head felt groggy, and his body felt completely drained. He was utterly exhausted.

He stumbled to the side of his bed, fell onto it, and instantly fell asleep.

...

---------------------------------------------

「Luoying Star Sea.」

A planetary fortress of immense size, covered entirely in black armor with black metal spikes extending from its surface like a sea urchin, floated in the starry sky.

Countless ships patrolled the surrounding space.

This planetary fortress was none other than the Second Legion’s strategic weapon: the Spine Fortress.

「Inside the Spine Fortress.」

In a cold corridor, a woman in a major general’s uniform—with short, coffee-colored hair, fair skin, deep eyes, and a cold expression—quietly watched as Colonel Hopka and Major Geert argued.

"Ma’am, you can’t fail your mission and then pin the blame on me. I can’t take that fall."

Major Geert was so anxious he was practically jumping up and down.

"I’m not pinning the blame on you. Your intel was wrong. Let’s not even mention that the lab had more than just a Type IV Alien—there was also a very strange monster. But those are minor issues! The main point is that when we fought our way into the lab, the gene-serum was nowhere to be found!"

Colonel Hopka said to Major Geert.

"How is that possible? I saw it with my own eyes!"

"I don’t care if you saw it with your own eyes. It wasn’t there, and that’s a fact. Plus, I never saw your fallen Mechanical God either."

"Then someone must have beaten you to it!"

Major Geert immediately retorted.

"Bullshit! With those monsters guarding the place, who could have possibly gotten in and taken it without a sound?"

Colonel Hopka shot back, his face dark.

"Enough. Both of you, stop arguing. I don’t care what the reason is; the mission failed. Hopka, you can explain it to the General yourself."

Shabelle stopped the two, reaching out to push open a metal door beside them.

Hopka stared at the open doorway, looking at Major General Shabelle with extreme nervousness.

Unfortunately, Major General Shabelle was completely unmoved.

He could only brace himself and walk through the doorway into a pitch-black room. He called out in a small, nervous voice.

"General, are you there?"

"You think the General can hear you when you’re whispering like that?"

Shabelle walked in with Geert and spoke coldly to Hopka.

"I was just worried the General might be sleeping."

Cold sweat beaded on Hopka’s forehead.

Just then, an eerie red glow lit up in the dark room, followed by a low, hoarse voice.

"What is it?"