393: Chapter 390 Oh ho ho ho ho!

Ye Ouyang squatted beside Lin Yuan, his golden claws already pressed against the edges of the deepest wounds on his body.

Gold Weave Cells injected.

Those tiny, warm golden fluids seeped into the wounds from the tips of the claws and immediately began to work—reading the genetic blueprint, extracting nutrients, and repairing tissue. The puncture wound in Lin Yuan's chest began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye, but Ye Ouyang's brow furrowed.

Too slow.

It wasn't a problem with the Gold Weave Cells. It was that there weren't enough nutrients in Lin Yuan's body. That red armor had sucked too much of his blood; he was almost drained dry. No matter how fast the regeneration was, it was useless without raw materials.

Ye Ouyang looked up, his gaze sweeping across the entire basement—then landing on the two trembling Researchers in the corner.

They cowered behind an Experimental Table, and seeing Ye Ouyang look at them, they shuddered and simultaneously raised their hands.

"Su-surrender—"

"Is there anything to eat?" Ye Ouyang interrupted them. "Food, or nutrient solutions, anything will do!"

The two Researchers blanked for a moment. One of them reacted quickly, spinning around to rummage through a drawer behind him and pulling out several silver-white nutrient solutions—identical to the ones used by GUPA—and holding them out.

"Yes, yes, yes! Don't kill me—"

Ye Ouyang grabbed them, twisted off a cap, and poured it into Lin Yuan's mouth. Lin Yuan was unconscious, but his swallowing reflex was still there, and the nutrient solution flowed down his throat.

"I'm not going to kill you." Ye Ouyang said without looking back while pouring. "Just wait here to be arrested."

That Researcher nodded frantically and shrank back behind the Experimental Table. The one next to him hadn't moved, just staring blankly at Ye Ouyang's golden back. It wasn't that they didn't want to run, they simply didn't dare to—the four people over there were still fighting, and any stray bullet could take their lives.

After finishing one nutrient solution, Lin Yuan's face was still pale, but his breathing had stabilized a bit. Ye Ouyang stuffed the remaining ones into his hand, stood up, and looked at the two Researchers.

"Watch him," he said, pointing at Lin Yuan. "Maybe it'll reduce your sentence a bit."

The two Researchers nodded frantically.

Ye Ouyang turned, his golden figure leaping several times as he charged back into the battlefield.

Shen Mingyuan had already fired several shots.

Black-red plasma bullets exploded against the dark silver armor, leaving scorched burn marks every time. But Li Jianguo didn't care at all—as soon as he was injured, he immediately reached out to tear off the damaged part, grabbed a few new Metal Trilobites from the metal cabinet behind him, slapped them onto his body, and was restored to his original state within seconds.

There were at least thirty more in that cabinet.

Shen Mingyuan gritted his teeth, constantly adjusting the angle of his muzzle, trying to find a chance to hit the head or other areas not covered by the Metal Trilobites. But Li Jianguo moved too fast, dodging every time he aimed.

Lu Jianchuan and Wei Ziqing stood side by side in front of Li Jianguo.

Wei Ziqing held his gun with both hands, his mind racing.

The Second Form. If a single shot could Breakthrough his defense, it would all be over. But what if it couldn't? Once the armor burst, he would completely lose his combat effectiveness. There would be one less person on this side, and the situation would collapse immediately.

But grinding it out like this wasn't an option either. Shen Mingyuan could break the defense, but Li Jianguo could replace the armor. This would only drain Shen Mingyuan's energy.

What to do?

He and Lu Jianchuan glanced at each other.

With just that one glance, Li Jianguo sensed something. His footsteps paused, and just as he was about to retreat—

Wei Ziqing's Long Spear swept across, the shaft carrying immense force as it slammed into his head! Li Jianguo was knocked sideways, and before he could steady himself, a second strike was already pressed against his chest.

The spear tip pressed against the dark silver armor, the shaft held horizontally between the two. Li Jianguo grabbed the shaft with both hands, trying to push it away—

Too late.

Lu Jianchuan had already moved.

The silver-white figure switched to Explosive Combustion Form in an instant, dark red energy conduits lighting up on the surface of the armor, and the propulsion jets on his back suddenly fired! He didn't attack Li Jianguo directly, but instead slammed a fist into the butt of the Long Spear—

Boom—!

That punch carried all the thrust of the Explosive Combustion Form, slamming into the spear's end like driving a nail. The force traveled along the shaft, the spear tip pressing against Li Jianguo's chest, forcefully sending him flying!

轟!

Li Jianguo hit the basement wall, and the concrete surface exploded into a large web of cracks. He looked down at his chest—there, the dark silver armor had cracked open.

It wasn't the scorched burns like Shen Mingyuan's; it was genuine damage. Several Metal Trilobites had been shattered by that massive force, revealing the silver-white base underneath.

A true Breakthrough of defense.

Now was the time.

Wei Ziqing gripped his Long Spear with both hands, without hesitation.

The black heavy armor burst from his body, fragments flying in all directions, revealing the black-and-white interwoven Second Form within. He turned into a streak of light that the naked eye couldn't catch, piercing straight toward Li Jianguo with both man and Long Spear—

That spear was too fast.

So fast that Li Jianguo didn't have time to reach for new Metal Trilobites, so fast that the Researchers couldn't even see what had happened.

The spear tip pierced into Li Jianguo's chest from the front and came out through his back.

Dark red blood gushed from the wound, splashing onto the basement floor.

Wei Ziqing stood before him, holding the Long Spear, panting heavily.

Then he let go, canceling his transformation.

The Long Spear disappeared. He fell backward, rolling a few times on the ground, lying on his back, gasping for air, unable to rise again.

Li Jianguo stood in place, looking down at the hole through his chest.

He wasn't dead yet.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but only blood flowed from the corners of his mouth.

His body swayed, he took a step forward, and swayed again.

Then he knelt down.

Am... am I going to die?

Li Jianguo knelt on the ground, propping himself up with his hands, head bowed. Blood was still gushing from the hole in his chest, dripping one by one onto the concrete floor, the sound very light but exceptionally clear in the empty basement.

Is this the taste of death?

He gasped for air, but his lungs didn't seem to work—the place that hole had pierced through was probably his lung. Every breath was like a leaking bellows; the air he sucked in could never fill his chest. His gasps grew heavier and more urgent, like a fish thrown onto the shore.

So this is what it's like to be unable to breathe.

Thinking about it now, the people who were researched... they must have felt much the same.

No, they must have been in even more pain. They were in a conscious state, watching their bodies being modified, extracted, and drained dry bit by bit. He was only hurting for a little while.

He suddenly wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. His vision blurred, and the images before him began to shake like the static on an old television screen. Then those static flakes began to piece together, forming images of the past.

The orphanage.

A tiny version of him stood behind the iron bars, watching a family of three walk by outside. That child was being carried on his father's shoulders, holding a candied hawthorn stick, laughing loudly. He didn't know what that felt like; he just watched.

Then there was that day.

A middle-aged man in a military uniform stood at the door of the director's office, looking down at him. That man's gaze was very cold, but for some reason, he wasn't afraid.

"Come with me," the man said.

He nodded and followed.

In the days that followed, he had a home. He had a father.

His father taught him to recognize characters, taught him to read, taught him history. Those books on modern history filled his bookshelf, every page marked with red pen by his father.

"Look here." His father pointed to a certain passage in a book, his voice not loud, but every word was heavy. "The Qing Government closed the country to the world, considering itself the Celestial Empire. And the result?"

He was still young then and didn't quite understand, just listening.

"Being backward means getting beaten," his father said. "This is a lesson paid for in blood. Our country cannot be beaten again."

Later, when he grew older, he began to understand what was written in those books. The Opium War, the First Sino-Japanese War, the Eight-Nation Alliance, the Treaty of Nanking, the Treaty of Shimonoseki... every word was like a knife carved into his heart.

His father came from a military family. His father's father, his father's father's father—generations had fought for the country. They had fought the Japanese, the Americans, and those who wanted to tear this land apart.

"Why do we become soldiers?" his father asked him.

He shook his head.

"It's so our children don't have to go through what we went through," his father said. "It's so this country will never be bullied again."

He remembered.

Later, he began to participate in those experiments, watching the people locked in cages, hearing their screams. He had asked his father: Is this really right? Those... things that can't be spoken of openly. He knew those things would kill many people, and he knew those things were evil in the eyes of others. But he also remembered what his father had said—

"If one day a war really breaks out, far more people will die than this. How many families will be destroyed then? Those people won't ask how these armors were made; they'll only ask why we couldn't defeat others."

"What we are doing now is preventing war."

He believed it.

He had always believed it.

Now he was dying.

He raised his head, looking at the blurry figures in the distance—Lu Jianchuan, Shen Mingyuan, Ye Ouyang, and Wei Ziqing, who was already lying on the ground. Their faces flickered in the static screen, unclear.

Have I failed your trust, Father?

No...

His hands pushed hard against the ground, his knees trembling, but he still supported himself, bit by bit, trying to stand up.

No, I can't fall yet.

I can still fight.

My factors... I'm in a near-death state now; the factors should have activated. As long as they're activated, as long as I Fusion with this armor one more time—

Help me.

Help me one more time.

I still have to stand up.

I still have to—

The evo factor inside him moved.

Those particles that had been dormant for eighteen years were forcibly awakened on the brink of death. They began to surge within him, beginning to resonate with that broken dark silver armor. The Metal Trilobites clinging to his body seemed to sense something, beginning to wriggle and gather toward the wound—

His evolution began.