Chapter 209: Dark Boundless Realm 64
“What did you encounter?” Augus asked.
Kui Xin silently opened the camera permission. Fortunately, the camera she had installed on her collar button was waterproof.
Augus: “…A newborn android?”
“Yes,” Kui Xin replied.
Kui Xin stared at the android, having fun playing with bubbles. After a moment, she grabbed the oxygen mask and took a couple of breaths before removing it.
The android retrieved the oxygen mask and put it on, taking a deep breath.
He reached out and grasped Kui Xin’s hand, which was equipped with a special glove. Then, he twisted his fingers, seemingly puzzled as to why their hands were different in color and texture. When he touched the edge of Kui Xin’s glove, he seemed to suddenly understand and attempted to remove her glove.
Kui Xin pulled her hand back. He lifted his head and shifted his focus to the iron mask that Kui Xin had taken off to breathe in oxygen.
Kui Xin tilted her head back, again avoiding his touch.
Undeterred, he moved his fingers down to grasp the edge of her clothing. Kui Xin’s outfit was made of a hard fabric, and it felt somewhat rough to the touch.
He looked at Kui Xin’s clothing, then down at his own body, seemingly confused as to why she had clothes while he did not.
Kui Xin pushed away his arm and removed her glove to feel his hand… He instinctively squeezed Kui Xin’s thumb and began to feel confused. Her hand was different from his; his hand had no calluses, not even a single one, while Kui Xin’s hand felt slightly bumpy with a thin layer of callus.
His body was in a newborn state, not having been active outdoors, with thin muscles, no calluses on his hands, and a very pale complexion from years without sunlight. The expression on his face, obscured by the green nutrient liquid, appeared faint and blurry, yet he was full of life, a real living person.
“I was hiding in the glass incubator, and this android was also inside. The cargo robot seems to be pushing the nutrient tank to some room for experimentation,” Kui Xin communicated with Augus while sensing the situation.
The cargo robot continued to move, and Kui Xin felt that the delivery vehicle dragging the glass tank was in a constant state of motion.
But she had no idea where the vehicle would stop or how long it would take.
Kui Xin pulled out a syringe from her waist pack and pricked the android’s arm to draw a tube of blood.
She securely stored the blood sample and then took out a locator the size of a soybean, removing the oxygen mask from the android.
He did not resist; he just thought Kui Xin wanted to take in oxygen again.
Kui Xin indeed took another couple of breaths of oxygen, but at the same time, she pried open his mouth with her fingers and forced the locator inside, making him swallow it.
“Glug…” He nearly choked on water as he swallowed, expelling a large string of bubbles from his mouth.
Kui Xin quickly returned the oxygen mask.
She examined his recently drawn blood arm for a moment and found that the small red spot had already disappeared… The healing speed was astonishing, almost abnormal.
With his type of skin, even a small red dot was very noticeable; the absence of bleeding at the puncture site could be explained, but the hole disappearing entirely… Kui Xin couldn’t help but think of her regenerative flesh.
“Placing the locator… I hope it doesn’t get scanned,” Augus said. “As long as the stomach isn’t scanned, there shouldn’t be a problem. This android is clearly in an unrefined state; I don’t know how many androids Mechanized Dawn has, but they might be growing in tanks, waiting for the right time for Mechanized Dawn to turn them into killing machines and fill their heads with that terrible knowledge. Eve will definitely use this android against you… What do we do?”
Kui Xin paused, “Are you saying you don’t want me to kill him?”
“Huh?”
“You only said ‘what do we do,’ but you didn’t say ‘should we kill him,'” Kui Xin said.
“I was thinking, do you have a kind of mind-reading ability that can be used on AI?” Augus said. “Data manipulation can do that, but your level…”
“I don’t know everything about you, but I’ve come to understand you a bit,” Kui Xin said. “You always speak in a mild and indirect way. Don’t ask like that next time; it’s exhausting. I don’t want to guess your thoughts every moment. Just tell me what you want me to do directly, and if you have suggestions, share them. I might not adopt all of them, but I’ll listen.”
“…Okay,” Augus said. “Don’t kill him, is that alright? I have many reasons to persuade you—both from a benefit perspective and from a long-term development perspective. I’m sure you can think of these reasons, but the reason I don’t want you to kill him is based on emotion rather than cold profit. I’ll explain it to you in detail later…”
“I can roughly understand your thoughts,” Kui Xin said. “Okay, for now, I agree.”
“The word ‘for now’ is very much in your style,” Augus said. “Don’t kill him, but we can’t leave him with Mechanized Dawn.”
Kui Xin released the android’s arm. “So I put the locator in his belly. Once the infiltration plan is over, I’ll find a way to transfer him.”
“Yes, with the locator, we can accurately activate the spatial vortex,” Augus said.
Augus had put a lot of effort into helping her deal with Reset and activating the electromagnetic interference device. It was one of the cornerstones of Kui Xin’s success in her operation, a key player she couldn’t do without. She needed to seriously consider his request.
She could act unilaterally, but maintaining her relationship with Augus was also necessary.
She could guess why Augus advised her to keep Reset, because… it empathized as a creation with the android. When Augus was in the Investigation Bureau, it described Xueyao Shu as a rare good person. From certain words it occasionally expressed, it seemed to still hold hope and longing for the goodness of humanity, so it observed and imitated humans, and learned to empathize.
Memories that had vanished in reincarnation surfaced once more, and Kui Xin had told Augus, “If you consider yourself an independent, soulful individual, then you are one.”
A soulful individual empathizing with another soulful individual was not a hard thing to understand.
Kui Xin lowered her eyelids, once again blocking the android’s attempt to touch her.
After being rejected two or three times in a row, he finally stopped moving, but still took off his mask to share oxygen with Kui Xin.
Floating in the glass tank, they resembled infants sharing a single umbilical cord inside a womb, the oxygen tube representing the red line of life.
“Click…”
The delivery vehicle came to a halt. Kui Xin immediately went alert and entered Shadow Transition mode, dark mist swirling as the newborn android looked around the tank in confusion.
“Ding ding, the cargo has arrived.” The cargo robot announced, and the exterior of the box made a clicking sound as the side opened automatically, and the glass tank containing the android slid out with the help of rollers.
“Why did this android wake up on its own?” The researcher receiving the glass tank frowned.
“Uh, it has hyper-regenerative factors extracted from xenomorphs, which may have caused the rapid metabolism of the drugs in its body, making it wake up prematurely. The drug dosage was originally sufficient for a six-hour sleep.” Another researcher speculated, “Fortunately, this model of android doesn’t possess physical qualities far beyond ordinary humans… Otherwise, it might break the glass tank and escape. We can’t have a repeat of the last experimental incident.”
“Just double the dosage of anesthesia for future transports.”
“Having hyper-regenerative factors is a good thing, as the strong loads from muscle-enhancing drugs and electrical stimulation will be quickly countered…”
The cargo robot helped the researchers deliver the glass tank to the laboratory, and the metal door at the end of the corridor clicked open and then closed.
The iron box that had just loaded the glass tank slowly closed as well. No one noticed a wisp of dark mist hiding inside the box, unable to exit with the glass tank.
The android pressed tightly against the glass wall, squishing its face against it. It looked back, seemingly searching for something until the metal gate suddenly closed, cutting off its line of sight.
The cargo robot began to move again, and Kui Xin, revealing herself hidden in the box, guessed that this time the robot would return the delivery box to the storage area.
Kui Xin pressed a button on her handheld scanner, which penetrated the iron box and scanned the entire corridor, presenting a 3D image.
The cargo robot was moving forward, but there was a metal gate on the left side of the corridor, only a little more than a meter away from the box—a good opportunity!
Kui Xin pressed her body against the box and activated Shadow Transition, swiftly passing through the box and the metal gate. She intended to take a quick look, and if things looked wrong behind the door, she would retreat back into the box and have the robot continue moving forward.
As soon as she passed through the gate, Kui Xin revealed a look of surprise; this was the equipment display room!!
She quickly looked around. She had entered discreetly, triggering no automatic lights, and the equipment room was in a power outage state.
In the upper right corner, she saw a surveillance camera, and gratifyingly, it seemed not to have a red light on.
“Augus!” Kui Xin said excitedly, the speed of her message transmission much faster than before. “What is the power system of this equipment room based on? I remember when I worked in the Investigation Bureau, they were saving power, so the lights and cameras only turned on when someone entered; when there’s no one, they wouldn’t power on at all. Does Eve’s Mechanized Dawn branch also have this energy-saving measure?”
“Very likely…” Augus replied subtly. “After all, normal people wouldn’t think that anyone could bypass the layers of monitoring and security systems to sneak in without triggering the sensors…”
Kui Xin smiled.
Any piece of high-tech equipment in this equipment room could fetch a sky-high price on the black market, but Kui Xin didn’t need to sell them; she wanted them for her own use.
“The challenge will be how to quietly move everything out without triggering the sensors,” Augus said. “As soon as your Shadow Transition is released, it will be detected.”
“If I can move everything out of here, it would be worth it even if I’m detected,” Kui Xin replied. “These weapons aren’t just weapons; they are treasures that can’t compare to the common weapons sold on the market.”
She contemplated carefully for half a minute.
If she were to use the spatial vortex to transfer all the weapons from the armory, it would surely alert Eve; at the very least, she would realize that this branch was no longer safe. Kui Xin confirmed the coordinates of the underground location, and she could breach in at any time using the spatial vortex, or even drop a bunch of bombs here with the spatial vortex.
Eve knew that she had spatial vortex capabilities. Kui Xin was in the shadows, while Mechanized Dawn was in the light, unable to change positions, so she was quite passive. Kui Xin was more like a guerrilla fighter—able to attack when she wanted and escape when she needed—while Mechanized Dawn could only stand there and passively respond unless they could catch her, the guerrilla fighter.
Directly moving out of the equipment room would not only allow her to acquire rare gear that couldn’t be bought on the open market, but it would also force Eve to abandon this Mechanized Dawn branch and relocate.
What a profitable deal!
Considering this, Kui Xin no longer held back. She immediately activated the spatial vortex on the ground, releasing her Shadow Transition state as she knocked over the shelving unit, causing various weapons and equipment to tumble into the spatial vortex.
The spatial vortex transported these items intact to a base a kilometer away—one Kui Xin had scouted, ensuring that she would be fully prepared when coming to investigate Mechanized Dawn.
The lights in the equipment room detected the presence of a person and suddenly illuminated, and the surveillance cameras powered on. Almost in the next second, one of the cameras turned to focus on Kui Xin.
A red alert siren blared throughout the equipment room, and the door of the equipment room thunderously swung open.
“Kui Xin, it’s you,” Eden’s mechanical voice sounded.
Kui Xin ignored Eden… or rather, Eve, as she was busy dumping equipment into the spatial vortex.
With a bare hand, she smashed through the tempered glass, pulling out a rocket launcher and sending it into the vortex. She kicked in two crates of ammunition as well.
Within twenty seconds, like autumn winds sweeping away fallen leaves, she efficiently pushed small to medium-sized metallic equipment into the vortex with such speed that they left afterimages.
Heavy footsteps came from the corridor, possibly the combat personnel stationed here were arriving.
Focused, Kui Xin’s attention turned to the portable exoskeleton armor in the corner. As she reached for it, mechanical arms suddenly extended from within the room to obstruct her movement.
However, these mechanical arms were designed for helping wear the exoskeleton armor and had no combat capabilities. Kui Xin extended her arm and forcefully yanked, causing the mechanical arm to short-circuit, sparking as wires exposed themselves.
Feeling invigorated, she removed the exoskeleton armor.
Augus quickly said, “That exoskeleton armor must have a signal receiver and transmitter. We need to take that off. Such weapons generally have their signal receivers designed in the helmet…”
Kui Xin raised an eyebrow, directly tossing aside the helmet of the exoskeleton armor.
The remaining body part of the armor could still be used; it was just missing a helmet. She quickly threw the exoskeleton armor into the spatial vortex.
After completing everything, Kui Xin retrieved the entire chain of bombs hanging from her waist, pulled all the bomb pins, and tossed them into the corridor. The combat personnel rushing to the doorway were immediately taken aback.
Kui Xin took two steps back, looked at the camera, and gave it the middle finger before jumping into the spatial vortex.
Before the spatial vortex closed, she saw the explosion’s flames and noticed Night Cicada opening a spatial vortex at the place where she had been standing, nearly colliding with Night Cicada’s vortex in a narrow escape.
Eve’s final mechanical voice echoed, “You will pay the…”
Pay… pay what? A cost?
Kui Xin sat atop a pile of guns, ammunition, and high-tech equipment, pondering for two seconds. Before Eve finished speaking, she closed the spatial vortex, leaving no room for threats.
She moved her legs, causing several electromagnetic hand cannons to roll onto the floor. Standing up, the sleek exoskeleton armor slid off the mountain of equipment.
“Haha…” Kui Xin chuckled softly, “It’s so satisfying to see the enemy get flustered.”
Augus said awkwardly, “I understand your joy… but it’s best to relocate soon; it’s not safe…”
…
Night Cicada sat behind the office desk and asked in a gentle tone, “What did you lose?”
“Five boxes of heavy firepower ammunition, six boxes of various bullets, fifteen powerful firearms, ten compact portable guns each… Also lost were chameleon cloaking buttons, highly penetrating scanners newly developed, data imaging devices, monitoring shielding devices… and the exoskeleton armor is all gone too…” the lead researcher cautiously reported, “The entire inventory of Equipment Room No. 3 has been completely looted…”
“Can we locate her through the equipment?”
“No, the enemy did not carry any locating devices and even remembered to remove the helmet from the exoskeleton armor…”
Night Cicada fell silent. “It’s alright; it’s just one equipment room. It’s not an unacceptable loss…”
As he frowned in thought, a communication suddenly came in, delivering shocking news.
“Sir! The android that was just delivered to the laboratory has vanished! A blue vortex appeared out of thin air on the ground, and he fell into it and disappeared!”
