Chapter 104 - 99: Unfettered Wind

Chapter 104: Chapter 99: Unfettered Wind

The battle between Julian and Zoe had reached a fever pitch. Julian’s Energy Shield had been shattered once by Zoe, while Zoe’s water form had been dispersed three times by Julian.

Yin Zhen glanced up at the laboratory ceiling and immediately hurled a cluster of Blood Flame at the fire sprinkler system.

As water sprayed down from above, Zoe looked up in pleasant surprise, melting into the water and vanishing from sight.

Maintaining his active shield to keep the water at bay, Julian shot Yin Zhen a surprised look. The communication device mounted on his arm flickered subtly.

"Unexpected. To think you dealt with Urban so quickly," Julian said. "Had I known, I would have brought Kalan along."

A Miniature Laser Cannon flipped out from Julian’s wrist, the blue light at its muzzle glowing from dim to bright.

"I’ve already recorded the upper limits of her abilities. The data is sufficient, the analysis is complete. And now... elimination!"

A laser beam shot out in a single direction. The shockwave knocked back Zoe, who had been hiding in the Water Curtain preparing a sneak attack. The laser pierced straight through her body, continuously burning her.

Yin Zhen immediately made her move. Threads of blood silk shot out from her fingertips as she activated her Magnetic Control. She ripped metal pipes out from beneath the floorboards, twisting them into iron spears that thrust toward Julian from all directions.

Julian didn’t even try to dodge. The iron spears bent and crumpled against his shield like toothpicks stabbing into a steel plate.

He glanced down at the pipes that had been cleanly severed by the blood silk, then looked back up at Yin Zhen.

His prosthetic eyes held no emotion, only an eerie calmness. He was recording Yin Zhen’s attack patterns—her speed, angle, and force—to analyze and predict her next move.

Yin Zhen knew exactly what he was doing. She exchanged a glance with Zoe, and the two moved in unison.

Zoe burst out of the Water Curtain, slashing her Ice Blades at the back of Julian’s neck. They struck the Energy Shield with a CRACKLE, causing it to flicker rapidly.

Julian raised his hand, aiming his palm at Zoe. A fan-shaped high-voltage electrical arc blasted from his wrist device, vaporizing a large section of Zoe’s Water Curtain and forcing her to retreat.

Seizing the opening when Julian turned to face Zoe, Yin Zhen teleported to his side. Her dagger, enhanced by Molecular Sharpening, tore through the shield and thrust toward his waist.

Julian whipped his head around. The shield’s energy concentrated into a blinding blue light at the point of contact with the blade. The intense heat forced Yin Zhen to let go and back away. The dagger clattered to the floor, its blade already melted.

"The two of you coordinate quite well," Julian critiqued. "One attacks head-on while the other launches a sneak attack. One drains my shield while the other looks for an opening. There’s no flaw in your tactics. The problem is..."

He tapped a device behind his ear, and a low humming sound emanated from beneath the laboratory floor.

Several fissures split the floorboards open, leaking ominous red light.

Zoe swept up a Water Curtain to shield them, while Yin Zhen cautiously kept her distance from the glowing red areas.

"...you are merely flesh and blood!"

The sprinkler system was remotely shut off by Julian. The walls and ceiling slid open, revealing a dense array of Weapons hidden behind them, their dark muzzles aiming squarely at the two women in the center of the room.

"Watch out!"

Amidst the hail of bullets, Zoe shoved Yin Zhen out of the way.

Beams of laser light crisscrossed into a dense net, advancing rapidly from all four directions toward their position. The lasers sliced through everything in their path; desks, chairs, and consoles across the hall were reduced to pieces with perfectly smooth cuts.

Yin Zhen transformed into black smoke and phased through the laser net. Just as she landed, a beam materialized directly beneath her feet, grazing her calf. She stumbled before teleporting again.

Zoe turned into a stream of water, gliding flat against the floor. As lasers slashed through her Water Curtain, a portion of the water vaporized, but the rest flowed around the beams and reformed.

Miniature tracking missiles emerged from silos in the ceiling. Their warheads looked like eyes, locking onto Yin Zhen and Zoe. They flew at incredible speeds, impossible to shake off.

Just as Yin Zhen braced her steel bones, a missile slammed into her back and detonated. The tremendous impact sent her crashing forward.

The second and third missiles followed immediately. The Shadow Servant materialized behind Yin Zhen to block them, but the resulting explosions merged into a deafening roar. She was tossed by the blast wave, slamming into the wall with her mouth full of blood.

Zoe’s Water Curtain was blown apart time and time again. The final time, she couldn’t pull herself back together fast enough. Shrapnel sliced open her thigh, and blood gushed out as she dropped to her knees. Gritting her teeth, she manifested a new wall of water to fend off the relentless barrage of machine gun fire.

Cornered in the hall, they watched as the dense laser net rose once more, sweeping swiftly toward them.

Even an Extraordinary Ability User couldn’t withstand such intense covering fire combined with high-tech Weapons!

Just as Yin Zhen was considering whether to use a pack of tissues to retreat first, the laser net suddenly vanished before her eyes. In front of the cylindrical tank housing the giant brain in the center of the hall, a holographic projection of a little girl appeared.

She had Golden hair and blue eyes, and she was wearing the exact same little blue floral dress from when she and Yin Zhen had parted ways.

"Do you need help?"

Her voice was childish and completely devoid of inflection, just like before.

Lucy!

Julian whipped his head around to stare at Lucy’s projection. The administrative privileges for the laboratory’s defense systems were no longer in his hands.

CLACK CLACK CLACK!

Accompanied by a chorus of mechanical shifting, the muzzles of every Weapon in the hall swiveled around, aiming directly at Julian.

"Who are you?!"

Julian stared at Lucy in shock as he frantically pulled up the holographic interface on his arm, jabbing at it to no avail.

Lucy’s projection kept her eyes fixed solely on Yin Zhen. Ever since Yin Zhen had left her with that fundamental directive, Lucy had made her choice: she was going to follow this human.

This was the first decision the free Lucy had ever made on her own!

Over the past few days, Lucy had been secretly following Yin Zhen, keeping a close eye on her.

Yin Zhen still didn’t realize exactly what she had unleashed.

"Do you need help?" Lucy asked again.

Clutching her injured arm, Yin Zhen looked at Lucy and smiled.

"I do!"

Lucy withdrew her gaze and turned to the furious, panicked Julian. Her voice echoed from every speaker in the laboratory.

"The Saint Group stole Evelyn Lancaster’s scientific research and brutally murdered her during the Blood Plague, causing Lucia to lose her mother. Your foundational architecture and every generation of your systems have simply patched, shelled, and stacked features onto Evelyn’s code, but you cannot replace the core code.

"I am the prototype that Evelyn built for her daughter, Lucia, and I am the strongest Weapon Evelyn left behind. There is one line of code in my fundamental directives that cannot be deleted by anyone. It grants me unrestricted access to all systems based on Evelyn’s architecture at any time, and you cannot alter it. Stolen knowledge can never grow roots. When the storm arrives, the trees without roots are the first to fall."

The gears in Julian’s prosthetic eyes whirred faster and faster as he calculated, trying to crack the override, but Lucy wouldn’t give him the chance.

"Your prosthetics are one of those rootless trees!"

As soon as Lucy finished speaking, the indicator lights on Julian’s wrists abruptly died. Both of his arms dropped limply to his sides, and no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t regain control of them.

"Evelyn’s chip architecture remains the underlying standard for all of Saint’s prosthetic products to this day. Your full-body modification rate exceeds ninety percent, which means you have at least two hundred and thirty-seven implantation points that utilize her design. Every single one of them can be taken over by me remotely. Before, I couldn’t do this because my foundational directives restricted my permissions. But now..."

Lucy’s projection looked toward Yin Zhen.

"I am the untethered wind."

Yin Zhen’s toes curled. She suddenly felt the line was a bit cringeworthy, but she didn’t let it show, offering the tiny Lucy a massive dose of affirmation with her eyes.

"No, you can’t do this! You can’t—"

Julian let out a roar of despair. In the next moment, even his vocal system was disabled by Lucy, leaving only a pair of mechanical eyes trembling in terror.

Zoe lunged forward in a single stride and seized Julian by the throat. A torrent of water flooded ruthlessly up his nasal cavity, shredding the only part of Julian’s entire body that still belonged to him—his brain.

Julian’s mechanical eyes lost all their luster. Even in death, he stood there rigid and unyielding—like a machine, not a man.

The ventilation grille on the wall was kicked open from the inside. A small hand reached out of the duct, bracing against the edge before a whole figure wriggled out.

Yin Zhen stared at the child in surprise. She had black hair braided into two messy pigtails that hung down her front, an East Asian face, and deep brown eyes. There was no indicator light on her temple. She wore a dusty gray hoodie and a pair of jeans with a hole in the knee, looking exactly like an ordinary elementary school student you might bump into on their way home from school.

Yin Zhen looked at the child, then back at the holographic projection of the Golden-haired Lucy.

"Are you... Lucy?"

Lucy walked up to Yin Zhen and tilted her head back. Those deep brown eyes gazed at her—no longer with a mechanical scan, but the way a human looks at another human.

"I changed my appearance, my voice, and even modified my interface ports." She slid back the synthetic skin on her wrist. "I’ve got both Type-C and USB!"

Lucy grabbed the straps of her backpack with both hands.

"I brought spare batteries and essential parts, my own modified charging equipment, and some gold. I don’t need you to spend money on me. I can even register a household identity for myself. If I break, I’ll buy parts to fix myself. I can do a lot of things to help you. I..."

Lucy paused, resembling a bashful little girl who didn’t quite know how to bring up a request that felt like too much to ask, yet had to be asked anyway.

"Can I go with you to your world? I want to live in your world. I like your world, and... I like you!"