Give you one second to escape
1864 Words
Footsteps outside were coming from more than one person.
“Brother Knife, don’t be angry. Anyway, this girl is just a bonus. At least there are 30 silver coins in the account, and the chip is from the information city.”
“Tsk, Zoe didn’t just deceive us by not paying back the money, she also secretly had such a high-end item.”
The voices grew closer, and they were arguing in various ways.
“Do you think the information obtained from today’s chip exchange is reliable?”
“If the parts for Sariel really are in Undercity, we’ll have our chance to turn things around!”
“Could Kavos be spreading false information?”
“He had no reason to lie to us; at least his dog was eating well.”
“Haha, this thing of Zoe’s is only useful once she’s gone… Hmm? Zoe? No, who was it?!”
The sound of conversation abruptly ceased, and the Greenhand Brotherhood cyborgs returned, standing at their base, finally catching sight of the figure beside the trash can.
That figure is of short stature, appearing frail and delicate. The light casts shadows on her, making her almost blend into the darkness.
But they still managed to see the man’s face clearly.
It’s the face of a young boy named Zoe, a subterranean city dweller, now stained with dirt and oil. Despite its small size, equivalent to that of a Reformer’s palm, this face once belonged to the owner of the organ they just fed to the Chagus family’s dog.
Unexpectedly, the person who should have died appeared here suddenly, and in an instant, the mercenaries of the Greenhand Brotherhood were enveloped in an eerie silence.
No one in this world could survive nearly twenty hours after having their organs removed unless someone had performed body modifications on her.
But wasn’t Zoe discarded into a junkyard? How could there be a mechanic in such a desolate place like a junkyard? And why would this masterful mechanic choose to revive a human who has nothing left but a brain?
The crowd’s gaze slowly moved downward. When they saw the rusted iron wire suturing Zoe’s chest and abdomen, shock crossed their faces.
Zoe stood across from them, seemingly unaware that her survival was a miracle, lost in immense grief.
“You killed my sister.” She slowly raised her eyes.
“You killed my sister.……"
She repeated, her voice hoarse, filled with anger, pain, and a deep, bone-chilling despair that came from profound awakening.
“You killed her!”
She stood alone against nine regenerated beings, like an ant trying to shake a tree.
Greenhand Brotherhood members finally snapped out of it, looking at each other, and suddenly burst into loud laughter amid Zoe’s gloomy, oppressive grief.
“We killed your sister, but so what? Who told you that you still owe us money?”
“People like you and your sister, living like the thousands of rats in the underground city, dirty and smelly, living to pollute the air, pollute the water, pollute the city, it would be cleaner to die than to live.”
The mechanical limbs raise, and a gun protrudes from each, its dark muzzle aimed at Zoe’s head.
“Since we were able to kill you once, we can smash you again. Zoe, where is the mechanic who stitched up your body? As long as you reveal the whereabouts of that mechanic, we might show some mercy, take care of your body and your sister’s, and let you two mice be buried together.”
The gun on the cyborg’s arm has a heavy barrel. When Zoe was young, she once saw a cyborg on the street use this type of weapon to blast off half of a vendor’s head, leaving her scared sleepless for days and nights.
But this time, she felt no fear at all.
“You killed my sister! You’re not getting away with it!” she shouted harshly.
“Boom–”
The response was the sound of heavy gunfire.
“Underestimating oneself.” And the mockery of people’s transformation.
Her figure was instantly engulfed by the explosion, leaving behind a sky filled with lingering smoke. Amidst the swirling dust, the modified humans sneered as they retracted their weapons, their expressions disdainful and dismissive, as if they had just stepped on a tiny ant.
But after a while, their smiles gradually stiffened on their faces once more.
The lingering smoke wreathed around the area where heavy gunfire had struck, leaving pockmarked holes. However, there were no traces of flesh or machinery at the entry points, as if the bullets had merely hit the ground without ever hitting a human target.
And at that moment, their target Zoe suddenly appeared above the explosion—on a wire suspending a base lighting bulb.
The wires crackled with electrical current, causing the lights in the barracks to flicker. Zoe sat stooped, her head tilted, as her hands, scorched by the circuits, emitted a burnt smell.
But she didn’t seem to notice.
At this moment, Zoe’s gaze is intensely focused on the modified humans, tinged with a hint of delight, like an animal surveying its prey from above.
[Error]
[Error]
【Cyber Hacking (******)!】
【Hacking 1%…21%…58%…】
Meanwhile, the mechanical prosthetics of the Greenhand Brotherhood began emitting a series of error messages. Amidst the red alert, the augmented individuals of Greenhand Brotherhood watched as all their firearm firewall programs rapidly failed, and their retracted guns slowly began to emerge and turn towards them…
“Zoe, you… are you a hacker? No, no, no… what kind of monster are you?” Finally realizing something was wrong, someone tried to cut off the program on a modified organ, only to find it quickly covered by even more precise data connections.
And from the sutures on his chest, the teenager slowly dug out a rusted dagger.
“I am not Zoe.” She slowly stood up, pinching her bloody face with her bloodied hand, her expression very earnest and sincere. “But I can convey Zoe’s thoughts to you.”
Zoe’s mind says that her sister is dead, she wants revenge, she needs revenge, she wants to kill you.
After speaking, she suddenly burst into laughter, revealing her pearly white teeth on her blood-stained face, like a … naively blooming flower.
“But I don’t seem to have any grievances with you.”
“So, I decided to give you one second, the time to escape.”
Dungeon, junkyard.
The desolate waste dump was rarely visited, but in an afternoon, a group of people dragged the greasy floor of the open platform at the transfer station clean. Soon, the white porcelain tiles reflected the dim sky, the neat formation, and several corporate executives anxiously pacing back and forth.
At six in the morning, a light business drone soared above the landfill, slicing through the yellow clouds and leaving a clear trail. The aircraft then retracted its wings and quickly descended towards the platform, bringing with it a vortex of wind that whipped the people and clothes on the platform into disarray.
But no one dared to move.
Corporate executives stepped forward instead.
This official drone comes from the Sky City, and the figures within are extraordinary. It is said that it is the order official who maintains the operation of the upper city, whose identity is extremely noble and is an existence that most ordinary people can never meet in their lifetime.
So the cabin door slowly opened, and the executives from the transit station couldn’t help but sneak a few glances inside.
Then, they saw a white mid-calf military boot slowly stepping out of the hatch.
The military boots have fine grain on high-grade leather, golden stitching is exquisitely made, and the surface is spotless. And the owner of the boots… This person is wearing a flawlessly ironed military uniform, with a white military cloak draped behind, the fur lining against the skin revealing a strikingly handsome face.
He had not undergone any human body modification, his demeanor frosty as ice, his visage as fair as jade, exuding an air of nobility, like the moon in the vast expanse of the starry sky.
This is the only Celestial City official to visit the dungeon in the past five years.
“Mr. Fitzgerald.” Beside him, carefully escorted by a middle-aged man, who was also dressed in luxurious clothes, but in front of this magistrate, he looked like a humble mongrel wagging its tail. He followed Mr. Fitzgerald and explained, “This is the landfill, the place where my men were attacked last time.”
The magistrate responded indifferently, not looking at him, but gazing out over the continuous hills of the garbage dump.
“It was a rat, a huge rat.” The Judge’s response greatly encouraged the middle-aged man, who quickly continued, “The rat killed over a hundred of my transformed subordinates. It’s extremely sinister, carrying no less than a hundred weapons. Any machine that gets close to it gets hacked, and it can even predict the position of remote attacks. This must be Sariel’s spare parts; only Sariel could reach this level of military use, right?”
He tentatively asked, glancing cautiously at the Magistrate’s expression. Seeing the Magistrate slightly frown, a look of disgust on his face.
“Sariel is an angel, and angels cannot turn into mice.”
“That, that, that it is…”
Just a product in the black market with no ranking.
The magistrate slowly withdrew her gaze, her long eyelashes casting a fan-shaped shadow under her eyelids: “And, the rat is no longer here.”
The middle-aged man’s expression immediately turned sour. He had brought the World Tree’s Magistrate to the landfill today, thinking he could personally dispose of this mouse that had cost him dearly, but to his surprise, he ended up making a fool of himself in front of the other person.
The magistrates possess the highest combat power in Celestial City, capable of effortlessly annihilating any single regiment from any of the five major cities. It’s impossible for them to go to the trouble of investigating a single rat just for him.
The middle-aged man wiped his cold sweat and quickly bowed, saying, “Mr. Fitzgerald, please forgive my ignorance, I thought…”
He tried to explain his mistake, but the magistrate raised his hand, cutting off his apology.
“ Sariel is the product of the Abyssal Matrix, the supreme guardian weapon of the World Tower. Anyone from the Underground City who dares to covet it will die. Chagush, including you.”
His hands were adorned with pristine white gloves, his fingers slender and elegant. Kavos paused for a moment, then quickly nodded in agreement, bowing his head repeatedly.
“As for the rat with no number…” The order master turned and left the junkyard. His words fell steadily in the air, like cold snow in the bitter winter.
“If you help me reclaim Sariel this time, I’ll clean it up for you as a reward for doing me a favor.”
- Writer
