By Ren’s aesthetic standards, his god would probably need to be wrapped in a thick layer of iron to even come close to being considered “handsome.”
The small truck got back on the road.
In the distance, the light vortex could occasionally be seen moving between the distant dome and skyscrapers before diving back underground, disappearing to who-knows-where.
It wasn’t hard to guess—it was constantly sweeping through streets and buildings, turning those who couldn’t escape in time into frenzied fusion entities.
The truck carried W’s core processor. Since he was needed to coordinate the evacuation, Pei Ran didn’t want to take any risks. She deliberately drove deep into the quiet, uninhabited parts of the Green Zone, circling back and forth along the empty streets.
Sitting in the passenger seat now wasn’t that battered metal sphere but a human—it felt strange.
W updated her on the situation from time to time.
“The western exit is swarming with frenzied fusion entities, and so is the northwest exit. We just fought off one wave and are doing our best to keep the exits open.”
“Third Avenue in the Yellow Zone is already blocked by frenzied fusion entities—no way through.”
“The light vortex just swallowed our T4 and T7 evacuation teams in the Yellow Zone. No survivors. Its movement speed is too fast, and its coverage is too wide—there’s no avoiding it.”
“The T5 team is gone too.”
At this rate, Black Well’s military forces would likely be wiped out.
Without soldiers, Black Well’s civilians would be like lambs, slaughtered at will by the frenzied fusion entities.
“The good news is, a lot of residents have already managed to evacuate Black Well.”
“I’ve also done my best to notify all intelligent robots within Black Well, instructing them to evacuate as well.”
“I’m racing against time to copy as much data as possible from Black Well’s databases and other useful information directly into my core processor.”
He was multitasking, handling all the final tasks before the evacuation.
Pei Ran asked curiously, “Has the command center started evacuating?”
“Marshal Vina was escorted out long ago. The last group left in the command center is already evacuating. I informed Qiao Sai that I’m not in the server room, so they don’t need to come down for me.”
After a while, he finally said, “Pei Ran, there are too many frenzied fusion entities. We have to leave too.”
Blue Zone, Quarantine Center.
Earlier That Night.
The quarantine center had night-shift personnel on duty because some important figures had recently been locked up in the isolation cells.
The evacuation order had been issued long ago.
Even without the order, everyone knew they had to leave.
Looking out from the windows of the quarantine center building, the streets outside were already in chaos—people fleeing for their lives everywhere, the crowd surging relentlessly toward the southern entrance.
Mixed among the humans were many strange things—
Creatures that looked human, yet not quite.
They were grotesquely shaped, each more bizarre than the last, as if human bodies had been fused with all sorts of oddities. Some even had robotic parts, moving with agility, leaping and bounding across the streets, weapons in hand, firing indiscriminately into the crowd.
They bared their claws and fangs, chasing the panicked masses, slaughtering freely in absurd and horrifying ways.
Anyone who had spent time in the terrifying world outside Black Well knew—these were frenzied fusion entities.
The staff on duty at the quarantine center were all rushing out, their footsteps echoing through the empty hallways.
Lin Yu had been on shift that night. After receiving the evacuation order, she grabbed her bag, hastily packed a few essentials, and was about to leave.
Then she glanced up at the surveillance screen in the office.
Several people were still locked in the isolation cells.
The alarms in the isolation rooms blared just as shrilly, and on the screen, the prisoners had long since been jolted awake by the noise. But trapped inside sealed rooms, there was nothing they could do.
A colleague at the door urged her anxiously, “Let’s go! There are more and more fusion entities outside. If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late.”
Lin Yu looked at the screen. “They’re locked in isolation. The fusion entities can’t get in.”
The fusion entities couldn’t get in—but those inside couldn’t get out, either.
Black Well was evacuating. Given the situation, no one knew when—or if—they’d ever return.
The sealed isolation cells had no food. They were less like safe fortresses and more like enclosed tombs.
Staying inside meant only one outcome: a slow death by starvation.
Lin Yu pressed his lips together, then decisively tapped the screen and scanned his iris.
His colleague knew what he was doing. “Lin Yu! You don’t have orders from above! Unauthorized release is a punishable offense!”
But Lin Yu had already made up her mind. Rules be damned.
“Everyone’s running for their lives. Who’s left to punish me?” She kept her hand on the control screen. “These are human lives we’re talking about.”
The doors of the isolation cells opened one after another. Lin Yu also unlocked all the tightly sealed doors in the outer corridor before grabbing her bag and rushing out of the duty room.
Inside the isolation cell, Lieutenant General Delsa had long heard the continuous, piercing alarm and knew full well that something catastrophic had happened in Black Well.
He got up from the bed, dressed quickly, and swiftly inspected the items in the room.
Of course, there were no weapons in the isolation cell—but there was water (if the supply hadn’t been cut off), along with the leftover takeout box from dinner and two extra bags of bread he had requested the day before.
These were all the supplies he had on hand.
With these, he could barely survive inside this metal box for a while.
But then what?
Escaping from here was impossible. He could only hope that when the evacuation happened, someone would remember there were people locked in the isolation cells.
Just as his agitation peaked, the door of his isolation cell suddenly slid open automatically.
Lieutenant General Delsa immediately stood up.
He swiftly fashioned a makeshift backpack out of a spare pair of pants, stuffed the food inside, filled an empty bottle with water, slung it over his shoulder, and strode out without hesitation.
The doors of the other isolation cells had also opened. Delsa saw Basserway and his assistant slipping out of their rooms.
The moment Basserway spotted Delsa, his face lit up as if he’d found a savior. “Lieutenant General Delsa, what’s going on?”
What was going on? It was obvious—Black Well was facing a crisis. A light vortex had breached the city.
The moment he stepped out of the isolation cell, anyone who wasn’t deaf could hear Agent W’s repeated emergency broadcasts blaring through the corridors.
Basserway was a despicable man. If not for their previous forced cooperation, Delsa wouldn’t have bothered with him at all.
Ignoring Basserway’s question, Delsa left them behind and headed straight for the central administrative office at the end of the corridor.
The staff had evacuated in a hurry—the office door was wide open, empty inside. Delsa quickly rummaged through the room but found nothing usable as a weapon except a rubber baton.
Gripping the baton, he strode back out.
The moment he stepped through the quarantine center’s main doors, his heart clenched.
The streets were littered with blood and corpses.
But there were still survivors. In the Blue Zone, the crowd was surging westward along Seventh Avenue, then turning south at the intersection with First Avenue in the Red Zone, all rushing toward the southern exit.
Delsa followed the flow of people along Seventh Avenue. But just as he reached the intersection with First Avenue, the crowd ahead suddenly slowed.
Screams erupted. Some were even turning back, running in panic.
There was no green light vortex visible between the factory buildings and skyscrapers ahead—it had to be frenzied fusion entities.
Suddenly, gunfire rang out.
Someone in the crowd ahead asked nervously, “Is that the military?”
No.
Delsa knew better. Because he saw several fleeing people collapse onto the street, their heads shot through.
The military would never fire on Black Well’s civilians. Ahead, there had to be weapon-fused frenzied fusion entities.
Delsa listened carefully to the gunfire.
These weren’t standard-issue military firearms. The sound matched the RX-17B rifles mounted on Striker-13 combat robots.
The streetlights here were likely damaged—the road was half-dark, illumination flickering. Delsa squinted toward the source of the gunfire.
Sure enough, a horde of combat robots turned the corner ahead.
They had already transformed into fusion entities, their bodies grotesquely fused, advancing relentlessly.
Weapons were grafted onto their arms, muzzles flashing as they fired. Civilians stood no chance—bodies dropped one after another, the street littered with corpses, blood pooling everywhere.
These goddamn AI bastards.
Delsa cursed inwardly.
And now, mutated into fusion entities? The worst kind of bastards.
A rubber baton was useless here. He needed cover—fast.
Turning back was too late. In the chaos, Delsa ducked into an alley between two skyscrapers.
It was a short dead end, but in the dim shadows, an antique military vehicle sat parked.
The door was ajar. The driver’s seat was soaked in blood—no sign of the soldier who’d been behind the wheel.
The keys were still in the ignition. Delsa’s pulse spiked with hope.
He quickly searched the vehicle. No firearms, but half a crate of C401 pulse fragmentation grenades.
If he could evade this wave of deranged robots, driving to the exit would be infinitely faster.
Delsa steadied his breathing and hunkered down in the alley, waiting for the fusion entities to pass.
Outside, gunfire continued relentlessly.
Countless people stampeded in panic—footsteps, screams, and wails drowning the night.
Across the street, a young couple holding hands was running at full speed—but no matter how fast they ran, they weren’t faster than bullets.
Their heads exploded one after the other with precise shots, blood gushing out as they collapsed together.
There were others—likely friends. One had their leg hit, and the other two immediately turned back, grabbing their companion’s arm, trying to lift them up. But in the next second, their chests were riddled with bullets. All three fell to the ground in the middle of the street.
This was a true massacre.
The dominant side was carrying out a one-sided slaughter, ruthlessly gunning down unarmed civilians.
Even during the Third Federal National Defense Unification War, there had only been confrontations between armies, battles between soldiers—never a bloodbath of civilians like this. Such a brutal scene had never been witnessed before.
Lieutenant General Delsa’s temple was throbbing violently.
This was just like the scenes in his dreams.
For the past two years, almost every night, as soon as he closed his eyes, he would relive the same dream over and over again.
In the dream, the entire world had been overrun by these silver mechanical beasts.
They were cold and merciless, seemingly intent on completely exterminating humanity from the continent. They searched and slaughtered relentlessly, leaving no one alive.
The few remaining humans could only cling to life like rats, hiding in underground tunnels.
On the streets outside, under the endless crack of gunfire, people fell in swathes—like wheat being harvested by a sweeping scythe.
Lieutenant General Delsa’s fist rested on the steering wheel, his whole body numb, the blood of a soldier surging in his veins.
His gaze slid toward the box of pulse rupture grenades.
He took a deep breath, leaned over, dragged the box toward him, turned the key, and started the vehicle.
On Seventh Avenue, the twisted hybrids of the Attacker-13 model combat robots were still advancing in a massacre, mowing down the fleeing crowd.
Their silver metal shells twisted together with scraps of human clothing; robotic and human features fused chaotically, turning them into grotesque, monstrous creatures.
Suddenly, from a nearby alley came the roar of an engine.
An army-green antique military vehicle burst out.
It drifted sharply into the middle of the road, revved hard, and charged at full speed straight toward the group of combat robots.
The robots didn’t flinch. They didn’t even try to dodge. Instead, they locked on and unleashed a furious barrage at the driver’s seat.
Everything went black. In the final moment of his life, the last thought that crossed Lieutenant General Delsa’s mind was:
Go to hell, you mechanical bastards.
He slumped forward onto the steering wheel.
Yet, like an old battlefield comrade, those pulse fragmentation grenades remained steadfast to the end.
One second. Two seconds. Detonation.
His final calculation had been precise.
As the vehicle plowed into the ranks of combat robot fusion entities, it erupted in a cataclysmic explosion—a deafening roar that shook the earth.
The half-crate of grenades unleashed devastation across the entire stretch of road.
Blinding white light erupted, searing the retinas of fleeing survivors. The shockwave sent people sprawling onto the pavement. When they turned back, the street behind them had fallen eerily silent.
The combat robots had been shredded into fragments. The road was littered with mechanical debris and gory scraps of flesh.
All that remained of the military vehicle was a smoldering chassis.
“Was that a soldier?”
“Looked like it.”
Someone murmured, “Yeah… a soldier drove straight into them.”