Chapter 687: Penetration
Inside a luxurious hotel suite in Froz, Doro, dressed in a loose cotton nightgown, was sitting on the sofa behind a coffee table, using her “Navigation of the Literary Sea” to communicate with Beverly. After Doro shared some of her speculations about the mechanical intelligence instrument, Beverly paused slightly and then quickly responded in writing.
“Your idea does indeed have a certain feasibility. According to the battlefield adaptation function of the mechanical intelligence instrument, it can optimize and eliminate useless extraordinary mechanisms to free up resources for others. If the mechanical intelligence determines that the user’s current stealth mechanism is useless, then it will indeed stop positioning stealth to avoid wasting resources.
“However, if you want to use this to counter Federico’s own invisibility, you must prove to the mechanical intelligence that you have complete knowledge of it, that the stealth mechanism is completely useless for you. But if you can truly achieve this, why go through the trouble of deceiving the mechanical intelligence?”
Beverly wrote this to Doro, who quickly responded after reading it.
“I have my methods for that. Right now, I just need to confirm that the mechanical intelligence has such optimization capability with you.”
“Alright, since you say so, I won’t press further. But I must remind you, even if you successfully deceive the mechanical intelligence and eliminate its stealth capability, if you make any reconnaissance actions against Federico, like pulling out a ‘lamp’ or anything, it will immediately notice something’s off and rapidly restart the stealth mechanism. After all, you already have complete knowledge of it, and any extra detection action would be unnecessary.
“Thus, even if you trick the mechanical intelligence into optimizing Federico’s stealth mechanism, taking the opportunity to perform extraordinary reconnaissance on Federico will be extremely difficult. Just a slight movement for detection, using even a bit of the ‘lamp,’ and the mechanical intelligence will quickly react and readjust. The reaction speed of the mechanical intelligence is indeed faster than that of most extraordinary beings in the red tier.”
Beverly’s printed words on the pages of “Navigation of the Literary Sea” warned Doro, who nodded seriously before responding in writing.
“Mm… I understand. I’ll be cautious regarding this issue. Now that my plan is set, it will formally start in about a week. Before that, I would like to borrow a mechanical intelligence instrument from you for verification tests; may I?” Doro wrote in inquiry, and soon Beverly replied.
“That would indeed be no problem. Your target is the Dark Gold Society’s upper echelons, and they are considered our enemies, so helping you is completely reasonable. Given that we’ve collaborated for so long, this time, I won’t charge you rental fees.
“Making a direct move against other societies in the red tier is not a decision we can make in the short term. You are my informant regarding Federico, and I don’t intend to share the details of your situation with others. Therefore, we won’t directly assist you in this operation against Federico, but if you really succeed in eliminating that guy, I’m willing to help you obtain a big gift as thanks.”
Beverly’s words appeared on the pages before Doro, and after seeing them, she nodded slightly and then wrote back.
“Then… await my good news.”
…
Returning to the present, in a wild area somewhere in Faraluo, Doro, cloaked, hovered in the dawn light, coldly staring at the massive gold stone monster that had just burst forth from the mountain. The replica golden base, suspended at her fingertips, was already fully prepared.
With a sharp buzzing sound, Doro activated her spirituality, directly triggering the accelerated magnetic field in the formless air. In an instant, the suspended golden replica shot forward rapidly, accelerated by the invisible magnetic field in the air, tearing through the atmosphere and transforming into a dazzling, bright orange beam rushing ahead.
In just a moment, the high-speed projectile formed from the golden replica flew several hundred meters, passing above the thief and directly striking the lower part of the right chest of the towering gold stone monster. With a tremendous impact, Federico’s massive body was pushed back, the struck area crumbling and cracking. Having not sustained a single scratch in battle until now, Federico’s invincible defense was finally shattered at that moment! His emotionless eyes widened in surprise.
Similar to her first encounter with the stone demon, when facing the Gold Stone Demon, Doro chose to unleash her strongest penetrating attack, the electromagnetic cannon.
During her previous encounters, Doro’s electromagnetic cannon had the power to pierce through the defense of the stone demon. Now that she was in the red tier, the electromagnetic cannon using her red-tier power could naturally penetrate the body of the Gold Stone Demon. However, it took a significant amount of time for Doro to use her first electromagnetic cannon in battle due to several concerns.
The first concern was the ammunition for the electromagnetic cannon. While Doro currently possessed a strongly powered electromagnetic cannon at the red tier level, she lacked suitable ammunition. If the ammunition wasn’t proper, it could melt during flight due to the high temperatures generated before reaching its target.
To address this concern, Doro had enlisted Beverly’s help to create the necessary item. To ensure its authenticity, the Artisan Guild meticulously reproduced the golden base, including its strength. To simulate this degree of quality, the Artisan Guild utilized an extremely high-strength exotic metal in crafting the replica, which Doro was now using as ammunition for the electromagnetic cannon.
The second concern was the location of Federico’s “treasure vault,” which was his vital spot.
According to the intelligence provided by Beverly, the Gold Stone Demon contained a vital organ known as the “treasure vault,” which must be destroyed to defeat it. However, the location of this organ within the Gold Stone Demon’s body was not fixed; only Federico himself knew where to place it.
Thus, locating his vital spot without drawing Federico’s attention became crucial in the series of actions that followed. The source helping Doro determine Federico’s weak point was not any active detection method, but rather the ultimate goal of her mission: the Light of Maria crystal.
The Light of Maria crystal and the golden base were originally one unit, a legal artifact from the First Dynasty. Although they showed no extraordinary traces before activation, their location information was sensed and recorded by the Grand Library. Doro could use the positioning information of the golden base to ascertain where it was located inside Federico’s body.
According to Beverly, the so-called vital “treasure vault” within the Gold Stone Demon served as a space for hoarding and digesting treasures ingested into its body, located within the demon itself in a compressed space. The moment Federico felt the crystal was threatened, he swallowed it, making the crystal’s location the same as the position of the Gold Stone Demon’s “treasure vault.” Doro just needed to confirm the crystal’s positioning coordinates using the golden base to calculate Federico’s vital spot.
However, the whereabouts of this crystal’s position wasn’t easy to obtain. The Grand Library needed to sense the crystal to record its location information, but once the crystal fell into a certain stealth protection environment, it could no longer continue recording data. This resembled a previous incident when the Dark Gold Society, aware of the Light of Maria crystal’s value, protected it in a concealed environment, making it impossible for Doro to use the golden base to locate the crystal.
Coincidentally, inside the Gold Stone Demon’s body lay such a stealth environment capable of blocking the Grand Library’s perception of the crystal. If Doro wanted to effectively locate the vital point of the Gold Stone Demon, she needed to eliminate the effects of the stealth environment. This could either be done using numerous “lamps” for strong detection or by persuading Federico himself to disable his stealth mechanism.
Doro opted for the latter. With the intelligence support provided by Beverly, Doro enlisted Adele to join the battle, allowing her to use her repeatedly enhanced temptation ability to influence Federico, making him aware that he was in a trap of mental interference, prompting him to activate the mechanical intelligence to counter it.
When the mechanical intelligence officially governed Federico’s actions, it immediately triggered a mountain collapse, attempting to bury everything. Neve, masquerading as Thief K, transformed into a dream realm being and escaped through the debris with the support of Doro’s Illusion Scales Incense.
During this process, Neve attracted Federico’s unceasing attacks while he was in a wall-rolling state, executing perfect evasion moves within the opponent’s absolute home ground. Such dodging might work once or twice, but over time and with successive rounds, it began to make Federico’s mechanical intelligence doubt itself, concluding that its invisibility mechanism was irrelevant against the enemy and would be better optimized to allocate resources elsewhere.
The final outcome of the previous battle within the mountain was that Federico’s mechanical intelligence indeed validated Doro’s judgment. After countless empty attacks on Neve within its home turf, it opted to optimize what appeared to be its useless stealth mechanism, enabling the Grand Library to once again perceive the state of the crystal.
To achieve this effect, Doro had to employ a non-“lamp” method to effectively understand Federico’s real-time condition within the mountain. The secret of this method lay within the earth and stone inside the mountain, concealed in the extremely fine iron sands.
In simple terms, Doro realized Federico’s state through perceiving the ubiquitous fine iron sands in the mountain’s earth and stones. In Doro’s senses, these naturally occurring fine iron sands were widely distributed in the soil, easily detectable. However, if an anomaly occurred in a certain spot of iron sand, it indicated that Federico had moved there, affecting the materials in that area.
For instance, when the invisible Federico overlapped with iron sand at a location, Doro would no longer be able to sense that section while still perceiving the surrounding areas. This knowledge provided indirect insight into Federico’s movements within the mountain.
Not only did Neve receive continuous updates from Doro, but Doro also specifically crafted a dream realm clone to interfere with Federico within the mountain. Thus, Neve remained alive within the enemy’s advantageous territory and successfully escaped the mountain, while the pursuing Federico was met with a blast from Doro’s long-prepared electromagnetic cannon.
The intense orange glow struck Federico’s body, and in a flicker of lightning, a large hole exploded in the lower right chest of the massive gold stone monster, countless cracks spreading across its form. Carrying immense kinetic energy, the high-temperature replica projectile breached Federico’s tough exterior, piercing directly into the crucial “treasure vault” behind it. Federico’s mouth involuntarily opened in shock.
Just as the replica projectile was about to punch through the “treasure vault” and Federico himself, an unexpected occurrence transpired. Upon striking the “treasure vault,” a charm nested outside the vault activated, causing the projectile to undergo a material transformation upon impact with the charm.
The replica projectile melted from its outer high temperature, and the solid metallic form within suddenly converted into a mass of fine sand. The once solid metal projectile reformed into loose, delicate grains, significantly reducing its power and rendering it incapable of penetrating Federico any further. This mysterious charm was evidently a life-saving item for Federico!
Despite the charm’s ability to alter the material’s form, transforming the projectile’s metal into sand, it could not eliminate the enormous kinetic energy the projectile carried. The grains of sand retained the projectile’s kinetic energy, continuing to surge into Federico’s interior. Though it couldn’t inflict fatal damage, it shattered the charm and breached the outer wall of the “treasure vault,” causing the compressed space within the vault to become unstable and produce twisting black gaps.
Struck hard, even in his mechanical intelligence form, Federico let out a high-pitched roar. With this damage, the escape command of the mechanical intelligence was directly triggered, and Federico prepared to turn and burrow into the mountain.
Witnessing this, Neve, the Thief K, frowned and quickly soared toward Federico, targeting the large gap in his body—the already opened “treasure vault.” Since she was already close to Federico, she took advantage of his moment of instability to rush directly into the massive opening created by the projectile, heading for the exposed “treasure vault.”
Realizing the situation, Federico instinctively reacted, reaching out to cover the gaping hole in his body, trapping the Thief inside himself. Just as Federico summoned elemental energy to initiate high-temperature sterilization within his body to eliminate the Thief, several dozen meters behind him, in mid-air, a distortion flashed, and the Thief reappeared.
Using her last escape magic, Thief K successfully fled from inside Federico, and this time she not only stole some items but also kindly left some compensation inside. For example, her hat—she had been wearing it when she went inside, but now it was absent.
Hovering in the distance, Doro, upon seeing Neve successfully escape from the massive gold stone monster, began her next action. At this moment, she pulled out a golden coin from her clothing, gently tossing it into the air and preparing to sh**t, aiming at the distant target.
This time, Doro was not targeting the Gold Stone Demon far away, but a nearby black top hat floating in mid-air, the opening turned toward her.
“Well… it’s time to end this…”
In a murmured whisper, Doro launched the coin from her hand, which shot forth with a blazing glow propelled by the powerful magnetic field, directly striking the distant floating hat. The orange beam penetrated the darkness at the hat’s opening and then disappeared.
