Chapter 451 - 439: Spear and Shield
Chapter 451: Chapter 439: Spear and Shield
Allen looked at No. 18 before him, a veritable work of art, and a sense of a creator’s satisfaction washed over him.
But the value of this "work of art" could only be truly proven through the harshest of violence.
"Follow me." He wasted no words, turning to walk out of the laboratory. "Your first mission is a combat test."
"Yes, Commander." No. 18’s voice was devoid of inflection as she strode forward on her long legs, keeping pace with light steps.
...
A flash of light, and the metal world before them was instantly replaced by an endless expanse of blue sea and sky.
Beneath their feet were hard, black reefs, and the sea breeze carried the salty tang of the ocean.
This was an uninhabited reef island in the Western Sea Region of the Aiselan Kingdom, over a hundred kilometers from the nearest coastline—a perfect location for destructive testing.
"Commander, test environment confirmed." No. 18’s ice-blue eyes scanned the surroundings, her voice as calm as still water.
"Good." Allen nodded and issued his second command. "Jarvis, teleport ’Cyclops’ Unit 1 to the designated coordinates."
The moment he finished speaking, the sky a hundred meters behind him was brutally torn apart by a savage force.
A massive, dark-red silhouette slowly stepped out of the distorted Space Gate.
BOOM!
The 54,000-ton Steel Giant landed on the reef island, causing the entire island to tremble violently, as if letting out a mournful cry.
The forty-eight-meter-tall Cyclops stood silently, like a demonic mountain peak risen from the depths of Hell.
Its massive, single eye on its forehead stared indifferently at the tiny, almost negligible blonde Puppet below.
No. 18 stood by the Cyclops’s foot, not even reaching the top of its heavily armored instep.
The size difference was too immense.
The scene looked like a lost girl who had wandered into the shadow of a steel mountain.
Allen flickered a short distance, reappearing seated in a high-backed chair he had manifested out of thin air, holding a glass of iced soda.
"Jarvis, begin real-time data recording." Allen took a sip of his iced drink.
"No. 18, target is Cyclops. Combat test. Maximum output authorized, no restrictions."
"Command confirmed."
No. 18 gave a slight nod, a stream of data flashing through her ice-blue pupils.
The instant her voice faded.
BANG! The rock beneath her feet instantly shattered into dust.
A visible white sonic boom cloud erupted from where she stood. No. 18 transformed into a nearly imperceptible streak of light, instantly crossing the hundred-meter distance to charge the dark-red steel mountain!
Allen’s eyebrow twitched slightly.
’So fast!’
The combination of the Storm Airflow acceleration Rune Array and Anti-Gravity technology allowed her to break the sound barrier the moment she launched.
The Cyclops’s enormous single eye, powered by the Soul Core of a Flame Demon Lord, flashed wildly with orange-red light. It tried to lock onto the target but could only capture a series of blurry, intermittent afterimages created by her extreme speed.
Its targeting system couldn’t keep up!
DOOM—!!!
A tremendous sound, like a battering ram striking a city wall, exploded across the island.
A shower of blinding sparks erupted from the knee of the Cyclops’s left leg, which was as thick as a stone pillar holding up the sky.
A small fist print had actually appeared on the surface of its indestructible "Earth Vein Tempered Steel" armor!
And No. 18’s figure had already reappeared on the other side of its calf.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
The dense, roaring impacts blended into one continuous thunder, like a torrential downpour!
No. 18’s speed surpassed the limits of dynamic vision. Using the Cyclops’s massive leg as her battlefield, she transformed into a golden bolt of lightning, ricocheting and zigzagging across the dark-red armor.
Every point of impact was accompanied by a deafening boom and a burst of brilliant sparks.
In just three short seconds, the armor on the Cyclops’s legs was already covered in dozens of fist prints of varying depths!
Before Allen’s eyes, the data stream summoned by Jarvis was refreshing at a frantic pace.
[Cyclops chassis sustaining continuous high-frequency physical impacts...]
[Impact point kinetic energy assessment: Peak 6480... 6510... 6495...]
[Earth Vein Tempered Steel outer armor showing 0.3m depressions... 0.5m... 0.6m...]
"Her physical output is stable at the level of a Level 2 Bloodline Wizard, and it’s continuous, with no cooldown..." Allen watched the data, a slight smile playing on his lips. "Not bad."
The Cyclops finally reacted. The dark-red Steel Giant lifted its foot and stomped down violently.
[Gravity control, ten-fold amplification!]
With the Cyclops at its center, the gravitational field in a five-hundred-meter radius changed in an instant. The ground sank abruptly, and sand and stone were crushed by the immense gravity, flattened against the surface.
But No. 18 was completely unaffected.
The combat instincts of a battlefield valkyrie erupted at this moment.
A tenth of a second before the gravity shifted, she cut power to the Anti-Gravity Runes in her legs. Following the trend of the collapsing gravitational field, she slid along the ground, instantly moving into the Cyclops’s blind spot.
BOOM!
The Cyclops swung its massive iron fist, smashing the spot where No. 18 had just been. A crater thirty meters in diameter was blasted into the beach, sending sand and dust soaring into the sky.
It missed.
It was like using a cannon to shoot a mosquito.
It lifted its colossal foot, trying to stomp on the annoying "fly," but every time it came down, it only left a terrifyingly deep pit in the hard reef, unable to even touch No. 18’s afterimage.
’So this is the combination of ultimate speed and power...’
Allen’s eyes glinted with excitement as he looked at the data fed back on the light screen. "Her pure kinetic output is already close to the full-power strike of that Level 2 Bloodline Wizard from the Frost Wind Plane."
On the battlefield, No. 18 also seemed to realize that attacks of this level were nothing more than an itch to the Cyclops.
She stomped hard on the Cyclops’s ankle, and the "Storm Airflow" Rune Array within her leg frame suddenly lit up!
Her entire body shot up like a rocket, ascending vertically along the Cyclops’s massive frame and leaving a long white vapor trail against the dark-red armor.
Her target was its giant, single eye!
"Warning, target approaching observation module at high speed!" The Cyclops’s alarms blared.
No. 18 made an unbelievable turn in mid-air, her petite body shooting like a cannonball straight for the Cyclops’s face!
She brought her palms together, aiming them at the burning Crystal Stone.
"Magic Compression Cannon."
A highly compressed blue Magic Ball, radiating a destructive aura, instantly formed between her palms and then shot out with a roar!
BOOM!
The Magic Ball struck the One-Eyed Crystal Stone squarely, exploding in a brilliant flash of blue light.
However, when the light faded, the Crystal Stone forged from the soul of a Flame Demon Lord had only dimmed for an instant before returning to normal.
The attack was ineffective!
There was no sign of discouragement in No. 18’s ice-blue eyes.
She instantly closed the distance, her slender fingers clenching into a fist, and swung at the exact same spot that had just been hit by the Energy Cannon.
There were no fancy moves, only ultimate speed and power.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The dense metallic clangs merged into a single roar, as if a thousand hammers were striking an anvil at once.
No. 18’s arms became a blur of afterimages; in a single second, she threw over a hundred punches.
The kinetic energy of each punch was enough to smash a Level 1 Magical Beast into a pulp.
Visible ripples formed in the air around her fists.
The immense impact force even caused the Cyclops’s fifty-thousand-plus-ton body to tilt slightly backward.
The Cyclops shook its massive head, its arms swinging wildly in an attempt to swat away the "fly" on its face. But No. 18’s body seemed to completely ignore inertia; no matter how it moved, she remained firmly attached to its face, the barrage from her fists never ceasing.
Finally.
CRACK—
An extremely faint, yet unmistakably clear, cracking sound was heard amidst the violent barrage.
On the surface of the Cyclops’s One-Eyed Crystal Stone, a spiderweb-like crack slowly began to spread.
"Warning, observation module structural integrity compromised by 1.7%... 2.3%..."
The alarms in the Cyclops’s logic core grew more and more urgent.
Allen’s eyebrows rose slightly.
’This is a high-strength Magic Energy Crystal, even harder than Earth Vein Tempered Steel, and she shattered it with her bare hands!’
Just as No. 18 was about to launch an even more ferocious attack to completely destroy this weak point—
The Cyclops’s base-level defense logic was fully triggered.
[Core component damaged. Activating highest-level defense protocol.]
VMMM—
A pale-gold, almost solid, hemispherical energy shield erupted outwards with the Cyclops at its center!
Super AT Force Field!
No. 18, who was about to throw her next punch, was hit head-on by this sudden burst of repulsive Force Field.
BANG!
Her tall figure, as if struck by an invisible sledgehammer, was sent flying backward even faster than she had arrived. She traced a parabola several hundred meters through the air before crashing heavily onto the distant beach, carving a fifty-meter-long trench in the sand.
No. 18 instantly got up and charged again.
BOOM!
She slammed a fist into the AT Field.
Violent ripples spread across the Force Field’s surface, which proved incredibly resilient.
The reactive force shot back up her arms.
RIIIP—
The bionic skin on No. 18’s arms couldn’t withstand the high-intensity recoil and friction and tore apart. She was sent flying back again in a sorry state.
She hovered in mid-air, her ice-blue eyes locked on the shield before her. A stream of data flickered frantically in the depths of her pupils as she calculated a way to break through.
But the calculations told her she could not break this Force Field before its energy was depleted.
No. 18 ceased her attack.
Allen’s gaze shifted to her hands.
After the high-intensity impacts, her small, fair hands were a wreck.
The surface layer of bionic skin was completely torn, revealing the metal skeleton forged from Starfall Iron underneath, along with the dense neural pathways of Void Star Gold.
At this moment, the damaged bionic skin began to slowly writhe and heal at a visible rate.
"Test complete."
Allen’s voice transmitted clearly into No. 18’s mind via internal comms.
"Return."
Without hesitation, No. 18 flickered and reappeared by Allen’s side in an instant. Her bare feet landed silently on the reef, as if the earth-shattering battle that had just taken place had nothing to do with her.
The Cyclops retracted its Force Field. The orange-red light in its single eye dimmed as it re-entered standby mode.
"Commander, target’s defenses exceed breach threshold. Mission failed." No. 18 reported with her head lowered, her voice still cold.
Allen set down his glass, his gaze falling upon No. 18.
The high-intensity, supersonic battle, though brief, had been devastating to her clothing.
Ordinary fabric simply couldn’t withstand the tearing force of the sonic booms and the friction from the high temperatures.
Right now, the light-blue jacket No. 18 wore was shredded into a few strips of cloth, hanging loosely from her shoulders.
Her black, form-fitting under-armor was torn in multiple places, exposing large patches of cool, white skin. Her slim-fit tactical pants were ripped at the thigh, revealing her long, straight legs.
Paired with her expressionless, cold beauty and the slowly healing battle damage on her arms...
It created a strong contrast, full of allure and violence.
In short, she was a sight to behold.
But Allen’s gaze remained calm, like someone inspecting a product. After all, she was a Puppet he had crafted with his own hands; he was long used to the sight.
"Chassis performance is within expectations. Her physical destructive power and mobility are nearly perfect, but when facing true top-tier defenses, she still lacks a decisive, armor-piercing blow..."
’I can’t ask for too much. If she could easily break the Cyclops’s defense, she’d be a Level 4 Golem.’
He made his final summary of the battle.
’This outfit’s material is still too cheap. It’s no different from paper in high-intensity combat... I’ll have to remake a set for her out of dragon hide later. Same style.’
"Let’s go. Come back with me for some adjustments."
Allen turned and walked toward the open Space Gate.
No. 18 followed silently behind him, her steps as precise as if measured with a ruler.
The sea breeze blew past, leaving only the deep craters on the island as a record of the brief yet savage battle.