Chapter 651: Liberation

Display Rack No. 127.

The sound of machinery sliding softly echoed as the display rack hidden in the ceiling compartment slowly descended. The object on the hanger gleamed with a pale white luster under the light, reflected in the eyes of everyone present.

It was a section of spine, carefully treated and "processed"—something Luo had lost in this fortress many years ago.

She stood quietly beside this "craft," her expression complex and unreadable. For a moment, Yu Sheng almost thought she might cry, but perhaps that fragile emotion had long since faded from her life. She still stood there silently, and only after a long time did she softly break the stillness: "Ah... it really is here."

Aileen sat on Yu Sheng's shoulder, twisted her head to look at the spine, then twisted again to look at the golden-haired elf beside her. After a while, apparently unable to bear the somewhat oppressive atmosphere, she finally couldn't help it: "You're not planning to put that thing back in, are you?"

"How could I!" Luo's emotions instantly became disjointed again. She stared at the little doll with an incredulous expression. "Who can screw their head back on after it's been twisted off?"

"I can," Aileen said, utterly confident. "Let alone twisting it off—I can even snap it off and put it back on. Want me to snap one off for you now? I'd have to use a different body, though. This one won't work; if this one breaks, Yu Sheng has to glue it. Oh, by the way, did I tell you? Malin's family's nanomachine swarm doesn't do glue..."

Luo: "..."

"Why do you have to take her seriously?" Yu Sheng sighed from the side, waving at Luo. "Alright, just take it down and bring it with you. That'll put an end to one of your obsessions. But speaking of which, I'm genuinely curious what you plan to do with it."

"I..." Luo opened her mouth, but her expression quickly fell into conflict. "I actually haven't figured it out yet. For many years, I planned how to completely get rid of Old Joe, and planned to reclaim what belonged to me. I imagined everything, but I never thought about what to do afterward. And besides..."

She paused here, her gaze involuntarily sweeping over Yu Sheng and the others a couple of times, her expression subtle. "The situation in front of me doesn't match my plans all these years either—when did I ever think I'd come back in this form?"

"Plans often can't keep up with changes," Yu Sheng said, broad-minded. "If you don't have an idea for now, just decide later. Let me find you a box to store it in. You can put it in your 'dormitory' back in the valley later."

With that, he casually opened a door, took a cardboard box from the basement of 66 Wutong Road, and handed it to Luo while explaining, "This box was originally meant to be modified into a bed for Aileen, but she didn't want it. I think this size is just right..."

Luo looked at Yu Sheng, then at Aileen, then at the cardboard box again, and finally accepted this "gift" with an almost astonished expression.

She felt that her emotions today really couldn't stay coherent.

Yu Sheng watched Luo put away the section of spine, then seemed to concentrate slightly as if sensing something. After a moment, he spoke again: "Also, I found a group of people in this fortress who don't look like combat personnel—I sealed off their area right when Old Joe's forces started attacking. I'm guessing... you might want to meet them."

Luo was momentarily stunned, but in the next instant, she reacted and realized what Yu Sheng meant by "non-combat personnel."

"Should I send some mass-produced dolls to bring them here?" Yu Sheng looked into Luo's eyes. "Those people are all safe. They're just a bit nervous because the base suddenly sealed off."

Luo took a soft breath.

"No, I want to go see them myself."

"Alright, we'll go together."

So the group moved toward the exit of the hall.

As she passed by the now-empty biomass storage tank in the middle of the hall, Luo suddenly stopped again.

She looked at the now-empty tank and the screen beside it that had gone dark. Her expression carried a hint of mixed emotions.

"Actually, in the end, Old Joe got what he wanted."

Yu Sheng turned around: "Why say that all of a sudden?"

"...After the brain is sealed off for a period, the perception of time becomes greatly extended, and the panic and pain I inflicted on his neural circuits increased exponentially. By then, all he wanted was a quick death—death, for him, was a wish fulfilled."

"What, do you regret finishing him off too quickly?"

"Of course not," Luo immediately shook her head. "I've waited too long for this day. I didn't want any more variables. Every extra second would be irresponsible to all these years of waiting. And to be honest..."

She slowly curled the corners of her mouth, finally revealing a pleased smile: "The moment I burned that thing... it felt really good."

...

The lower level of the Deep Rock Fortress core area was the "laboratory" section of the entire base. The corridors and rooms here were tightly sealed by layers of security systems. The residential area was within the fire coverage of the turrets, and the "Living Metal Control Center" and "Modification Center" were the core of the entire area—more than an experimental facility, it was a large prison with a laboratory attached.

At that moment, in the connecting hall at the edge of the laboratory area, more than a dozen figures in white lab coats were gathered uneasily, staring at the high wall at the end of the hall.

Humans, elves, orcs, demon subspecies...

Different faces, from different homelands—the only thing they shared was the fear and tension on their faces right now.

Not long ago, a series of huge explosions had shaken the entire facility. Something big seemed to have happened outside the isolation wall, but no one knew what. After a brief power outage, some clone soldiers had appeared in the residential area, telling everyone to stay quiet, but soon those soldiers seemed to receive orders from above and hurriedly left the corridor.

That was the last time anyone saw them.

After that, the entire laboratory area was sealed off—not like before, sealed by the security system, but physically "sealed."

A few bold people ran to the end of the corridor in the residential area and saw that the door there had disappeared. All the passageways had deformed like living things, then "grown" together, blocking the way out tightly. The elevator also seemed to have malfunctioned. The display on the door kept showing a strange message: "Not done fighting yet, don't move." The surveillance system on the ceiling seemed to have gone haywire, spinning around everywhere, but the turrets had retracted into their recesses—something that had never happened before.

Rapid footsteps came from the side.

A tall male Algren elf wearing a lab coat ran over from a corridor on one side of the hall. He jogged to the group of more than a dozen people, stopped in front of a short Gipro girl with obvious feline features, and panted slightly: "Momo, I just checked the comm station. The equipment there is all locked, seems completely disconnected from the main system. Also, there's still airflow in the ventilation ducts, but there seems to be something blocking the pipes—too dark to see clearly. Looked like vines or something."

"Momo, what should we do now?" another uneasy young Algren asked. "Something seems to have happened in the base... those soldiers haven't come back. Maybe we should—"

"No," the Gipro girl with short light-brown hair immediately shook her head, her ears trembling slightly in the air. "All the passages are blocked. Forcing open the ventilation ducts will also trigger the alarm. And we don't know the exact situation outside... we don't have the shuttle activation key."

Suddenly, a slight vibration came from behind the high wall at the end of the hall, interrupting everyone's conversation.

The vibration sounded several times, as if something was restarting. Then came a soft friction sound like living metal squirming, and the elevator gate at the base of the high wall suddenly lit up with green light. The scrolling text on the gate changed.

Momo, who had the best vision, stepped forward bravely and saw the text on the screen read: "Done fighting now."

Her ear twitched.

Then, before she could figure out what this meant, the elevator door suddenly opened.

An Algren human, a human, a "robot" dressed like a Stellar Maiden, and a foxperson with many tails.

All unfamiliar faces.

—Tension, confusion, bewilderment.

Luo was the first to step out of the elevator. She saw more than a dozen men and women gathered in the hall, each wearing a similar expression. Those lab coats that had once been branded into her nightmares for years appeared glaring and pale under the light. And the shortest, thinnest figure stood at the front of everyone, seeming to be the "leader" here.

It was a Gipro girl with light-brown hair and similarly light-brown cat ears, but only her left ear was natural; her right ear had been replaced with a mechanical structure. She stood in front of the elevator, as if gathering her courage. All the hair on her tail was bristling, and her hands were clenched into fists in front of her—the right hand gleamed with a metallic silver luster.

Luo walked straight toward her.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"I, I'm Momo," the Gipro girl answered instinctively. Her racial talent seemed to make her keenly sense a certain... frightening aura from Luo—the smell of a predator who had survived internal struggles within the Black Spot Group. But this aura wasn't so terrifying; it was strong yet carried a hint of friendliness, which confused her. "I'm the... lab assistant here."

Luo looked the Gipro up and down, then nodded slightly and reached out to press on her shoulder.

"Don't be afraid," she said softly.

Aileen ran over from behind—she first burrowed into Hu Li's tails and rummaged around, then emerged holding something round and rolled it to Luo's side. She tossed the thing in her hand onto the ground, announcing proudly: "Old Joe's dead!"

The round mechanical head rolled across the floor with a loud noise.

Momo jumped twice.

The first jump was because she had just noticed Aileen—the little doll had been standing on the ground, hidden by one of Hu Li's tails, and no one had spotted her.

The second jump was when she recognized what that round mechanical head was.

"Old Joe is dead." Luo looked at everyone and repeated the words deliberately.

(End of chapter)