LRAB Chapter 496: The Three Imperial Families Meet
Chapter 496: The Three Imperial Families Meet
"cough!"
Even with Jasmine's current calmness as the master of all things, her cheeks couldn't help but turn slightly red.
She explained with forced calmness.
"This is just a project direction, just one of the branch projects of the battle dolls."
"The emotional modules they carry are designed to better simulate biological reactions, thereby improving adaptability and survivability in complex battlefield environments. This is pure... science."
Her explanation sounded impeccable, full of rational scientific brilliance.
however.
Hualei didn't believe it at first.
She just tilted her head, and stared at Jasmine with those clear and pure eyes.
After a moment, she spoke softly with an extremely certain tone.
"Sister Jasmine, you lied."
Jasmine's heart skipped a beat.
Hua Lei didn't give her any chance to explain and continued to add.
"When I accessed the database earlier, I looked up all the information about the 'Emotional Series' dolls from the old civilization."
"My dear sister's body structure, energy core design, and neural transmission system all prioritize 'experience' and 'resonance', reducing combat performance to the minimum."
"This kind of puppet is totally unsuitable as a weapon of war."
Hua Lei looked at the doll girls that were beginning to take shape on the screen and came to a conclusion word by word.
"So, Sister Jasmine, you definitely have selfish motives, right?"
This well-reasoned questioning made Jasmine's defense seem pale and powerless.
The hall fell into deathly silence.
The way Violet and Little White Lotus looked at Jasmine also became a little strange.
Violet's tone was full of knowing sarcasm, as if she had guessed something long ago.
Xiao Bailian quickly got rid of her initial gossip mentality. She looked at those puppets that were "not suitable for fighting" and her mind began to quickly calculate another account.
Not suitable for combat, but with precise construction and focused on emotional experience?
Isn't that...
Top-tier luxury goods?
If I package this and sell it to wealthy people with special fetishes...hiss! What a profit!
For a moment, the look in Xiao Bailian's eyes when she looked at Jasmine was even more passionate than when she looked at the entire city before.
Being stared at by three pairs of eyes, each with profound implications, Jasmine felt as if she were being roasted on a fire.
"I don't!"
She almost blurted it out, her voice rising a few degrees.
"This is all for... research! Studying the mental resilience of different types of puppets when facing the erosion of the Rift! This will be of great reference value for our future exploration of the Rift!"
Even she herself felt that she lacked the confidence to say this.
Just when the atmosphere became extremely awkward.
“Beep—beep—beep—!”
The sharp and rapid alarm sounded throughout the entire circular hall without any warning!
Above the dome, the holographic image that originally simulated a brilliant galaxy disappeared instantly, replaced by a glaring blood-red, with a huge "WARNING" sign flashing in the center.
This sudden change surprised everyone.
Jasmine, on the other hand, breathed a long sigh of relief as if she had grabbed a life-saving straw.
Finally solved!
She turned around almost immediately and walked quickly to the main control console on the side of the hall.
As she approached, streams of data and surveillance images flashed rapidly on the screen. Her expression instantly changed from the previous embarrassment to the absolute focus and calmness of the Lord of All Machines.
Violet and Little White Lotus also put away their joking thoughts and quickly followed.
"What's wrong?" Violet asked.
Jasmine didn't answer immediately.
Her fingers tapped rapidly on the virtual keyboard, calling up deeper data.
As parameters popped up one by one, her originally relaxed brows gradually hardened into the shape of a "川" character.
"The South Zone's space stability monitoring system has detected an abnormal high-energy reaction."
Her voice was steady, yet it held an unusual solemnity.
"There is a rift gate forming in the abandoned industrial area of the South District."
"Rift Gate?" Violet was a little surprised. "Is there anything special about it?"
Generally speaking, ordinary rift gates are no longer a fatal threat to today's elves. As long as they are dealt with promptly in their early stages of formation, they won't cause too much trouble. Violet herself is confident that she can easily seal one.
What's more, this is Jasmine's territory.
As the master of all machines in the Mechanical City, she owns the monitoring and defense systems of the entire city. Dealing with a rift gate should be easier than eating and drinking.
But Jasmine's current reaction clearly shows that this rift door is very tricky.
"This... is very special."
Jasmine raised her hand and amplified one of the data streams, presenting it to everyone.
It was an energy growth curve that was so steep that it was almost vertical.
"Its energy index is soaring exponentially, and the speed at which the spatial structure is expanding exceeds the records of any known model in the database."
Jasmine's fingertips slid across the screen, calling up another set of sensor data.
"And the most important thing is..."
"I was inside and sensed the presence of my own kind."
The same breath.
Leprechaun!
Violets, little white lotuses, and even the flower buds all changed their expressions instantly.
"Could it be Feiying?"
Xiao Bailian almost blurted out this idea. This was their most anticipated and direct association.
Jasmine slowly shook her head, denying this guess.
"The aura is very strange, and...very chaotic and violent."
She closed her eyes and carefully distinguished the faint yet domineering aura fluctuations coming from the distant southern area.
"It's filled with the meaning of ending and destruction. It's completely different from Feiying's authority."
Not Feiying.
This answer made everyone, who had just felt a glimmer of hope, feel depressed again.
"Whether it's Feiying or not," Violet's expression returned to calmness and decisiveness, "a strange fairy in unknown condition suddenly appeared in your city through the Rift Gate. This is definitely not a good sign."
"We have to go and see."
"That's right!" Xiao Bailian immediately agreed. She didn't want the hometown of her future "super sponsor" to be stolen.
Jasmine nodded. She certainly understood the seriousness of the matter.
She raised her hand and gave a series of instructions to the console.
"Order: Southern Area Defense Clusters 7 to 12, immediately proceed to coordinate E7 and establish a blockade."
"All Sentinel drones take off, initiate wide-area energy scans, and lock onto the core of the rift."
"Connect to my personal terminal. I'll go there myself."
When the order was given, the entire mechanical city seemed to wake up from its slumber. Countless streams of light rose from every corner of the city, converging into a torrent of steel, rushing towards the south district.
Jasmine turned around and looked at Violet and Little White Lotus.
"Let's go."
"We'll know what's going on when we go over there and take a look."
Jasmine's answer was straightforward.
She turned around, her movements quick and decisive, without a single unnecessary word.
A sleekly shaped magnetic levitation car was already waiting on the platform at the top of the tower, and its hatch slid open silently.
"Walk."
Following Jasmine's order, everyone quickly boarded the bus.
The maglev car did not make any engine roar, but turned into a blue stream of light in a faint energy halo, instantly piercing the night sky and rushing towards the south district.
The scene outside the car window was rapidly receding.
At first, it was the brilliant galaxy composed of countless lights and streams of light in the core area of the Mechanical City.
But soon, the prosperity was left behind, replaced by increasingly sparse lights and large areas of abandoned buildings with hideous outlines shrouded in darkness.
This is the South District, the industrial graveyard of the old days.
In less than a minute, the maglev car suddenly slowed down in front of a huge circular metal platform and hovered steadily.
The hatch opened, and a smell mixed with rust, tar and ozone produced by space distortion hit us in the face.
When everyone got out of the car, they were immediately shocked by the scene before them.
Not far in front of them, an irregular black crack, like a hideous scar, was forcibly branded on the real space.
Its size was still expanding, and at the edge, the space was twisting violently like boiling water. Dark purple arcs of electricity flashed from time to time, making sharp "sizzling" sounds.
A chaotic, violent, and ominous energy was continuously escaping from the crack, corroding everything around it.
"What an amazing energy fluctuation." Violet's face was full of solemnity.
"Tsk, this place is so poor that you can't even pick up a whole piece of iron sheet, and yet it takes such a big fuss to open a door." Xiao Bailian complained while looking around vigilantly.
Jasmine didn't say anything.
She simply raised her hand, and a small, high-tech detection device automatically popped out from her wrist armor and hovered in front of her.
She stretched out her finger and tapped the instrument's virtual screen several times quickly.
"Activate the 'Bee Eye' detection unit, enter the rift, and send back real-time images."
hum.
A dozen metal bees, each only the size of a fist, rose rapidly from under the platform. Their wings vibrated at high speed, making an almost inaudible sound.
These "bee-eye" drones formed a tight formation in the air and plunged into the dark and twisted crack door without hesitation.
Almost at the same time, clear images began to appear on the virtual light screen in front of Jasmine.
Chaos, desolation.
This is the first impression sent back by the drone.
It was a fragment of a world that was collapsing. The sky was eternally dim, the earth was covered with cracks, and there were collapsed ruins and scorched earth everywhere.
The drone's camera swept across the ground.
There was no sign of life, only white bones that had been eaten clean and large areas of the remains of the disaster beasts that had turned to ashes.
The black ashes covered the entire earth, and when the wind blew, they raised dust all over the sky.
"What on earth happened here?" Violet looked at the devastated scene, her heart tightening. "These traces of destruction..."
Hua Lei also opened her eyes wide. She could feel that there was an aura lingering on the dead land in the picture that made her feel extremely uncomfortable.
"Energy residue analysis shows a high concentration of the Final Force reaction."
Jasmine gave a cold answer that shocked everyone.
The power of the end!
Isn’t that the exclusive authority of the end times?
Just when everyone was confused and prepared to ask Jasmine to mobilize more drones for further investigation.
boom--!
The crack door, which was already extremely unstable, suddenly bulged outward!
A torrent of energy a hundred times more violent than before gushed out from it!
Followed by.
A figure wrapped in dark red flames suddenly rushed out from the depths of the twisted crack like a cannonball!
The figure's speed was extremely fast, leaving a trail of black and dark red in the air.
And in the figure's arms, it seemed that he was holding something tightly.
Violet's pupils suddenly contracted the moment she saw the figure clearly.
That familiar red hair, that breath of the flower of fire that was still recognizable even though it was stained by darkness...
"Fei Ying?!"
An exclamation of disbelief escaped Violet's mouth.
She almost subconsciously wanted to rush forward.
"and many more!"
A cold hand suddenly grabbed her arm.
It's Jasmine.
"She doesn't seem to be in a good condition!" Jasmine's voice was tense, filled with unprecedented vigilance.
Between words.
The figure had fallen from mid-air and hit the metal ground not far away with a dull thud.
The force of the impact caused the solid alloy platform to dent and crack.
The flames, intertwined with dark red and pitch black, slowly dissipated.
Feiying's face, pale without a trace of blood, was revealed.
She knelt on one knee, panting heavily, her body trembling with exhaustion and excruciating pain. The flames on her body were no longer pure crimson, but now mixed with an ominous pitch-black. Her entire body exuded a chaotic and dangerous aura.
Violet's heart seemed to be gripped tightly by an invisible hand.
"Feiying, are you...are you okay? We've been looking for you." She broke free from Jasmine's hand, took two cautious steps forward, and spoke gently.
Feiying slowly raised her head.
Those eyes that were once as bright as fire were now empty and dead, without any emotion.
She didn't answer Violet's question.
He just used an almost mechanical and extremely stiff movement to carefully and gently place the thin and shriveled little girl in his arms on the ground.
After doing this action, she seemed to have used up all her strength.
"Don't come near me!"
A hoarse, distorted voice, completely unlike her own, squeezed out of her throat.
She stared at Violet who was trying to get closer and screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Hurry... find a way to save her first!"
These words completely shattered the last bit of hope in Violet's heart.
out of control.
Feiying's condition is absolutely out of control!
Xiao Bailian and Hua Lei also realized the seriousness of the problem, and the expressions on their faces became extremely serious.
"Feiying! What exactly happened to you?" Violet asked anxiously, feeling heartbroken.
However, Feiying did not give any further explanation.
After putting down the little lotus, she seemed to have removed the last shackles, and seemed to have triggered a switch that was out of control.
She suddenly stood up from the ground, turned around and staggered away from the crowd.
Wherever she went.
boom! boom! boom!
Pitch-black flames exploded out of thin air beneath her feet!
Wherever the black flames touched, whether it was an abandoned factory building or a sturdy fortification, it twisted and collapsed silently, turning into molten iron and flying ashes.
In just a few breaths, she left a long, spreading trail of destruction behind her.
"She's completely out of control!" Jasmine's voice was cold yet decisive. "We must find a way to control her immediately!"
If she continues like this, the entire South District will be razed to the ground!
Violet looked at Feiying's crazy and resolute back, then glanced at the dying little girl on the ground, gritting her teeth.
She made a split-second decision.
"Principal! This little sister left by Feiying is now in your care!"
Before she finished her words, a brilliant purple light bloomed around Violet, countless petals danced, and her whole body turned into a stream of purple light, chasing in the direction of Feiying.
"Xiaolei, let's go!"
Jasmine shouted to the bud, and countless nanomachines instantly covered her body, forming a set of silver-white armor full of technology. The thrusters on the back sprayed out blue flames, following closely behind Violet.
Hualei also nodded heavily, and black and white light lit up on her body.
Three figures chased into the destructive zone created by the black flames without hesitation.