Chapter 368
Chapter 368 Give Up the Struggle
After the battle here was resolved, the two didn’t linger much. Considering the dangers they might encounter later, Ling Mo still didn’t let Xia Xinyan out of the mecha, choosing instead to continue deep into the valley in this state.
Soon, they encountered a group of captured individuals.
These guys probably never thought anyone would break into this place, so they didn’t set up much external defense. Even the captured people were all locked in a few large cages placed below the cliff.
Ling Mo looked around and, judging by their clothing, noted that the first few cages mainly held villagers from the village. Some were even brought in wearing nothing but shorts, likely ambushed while they were asleep—thankfully it was midsummer, so while the temperature in the valley was a bit low, it wasn’t too cold.
However, it’s certainly not good to delay for too long.
Further in were the unlucky members of the Ability Bureau who had been captured, along with the Chicks, all gathered here.
Their confinement measures were stricter than for ordinary residents—not only were they trapped in cages, but everyone was also tied to a special stake. Some members of the Ability Bureau were already covered in blood, clearly in poor condition, and all of them were unconscious.
Besides that, there were no other people in sight.
Ling Mo immediately piloted the mecha toward them: “Let’s save them.”
However, before they had walked two steps, a momentary blur appeared ahead, and then a large group of villagers, Ability Bureau members, and Chicks clones suddenly appeared before them, all staring blankly at the giant mecha and in unison asking, “Do I look like a person to you?”
Ling Mo stepped on one of them: “I think you look like snake skin!”
At the same time, he unsheathed the光刃 (light blade), and the mecha’s shoulder armor opened to reveal numerous small tracking missiles, all of which were launched at the clones below in the valley, causing a series of loud explosions.
These missiles weren’t very powerful—hitting the mecha wouldn’t cause any damage. They served as a means of inflicting casualties on individual enemies, which was quite practical in the current situation.
Many villagers had already woken up, but most were ordinary people without abilities, finding themselves helpless against the cages. Now, seeing this sci-fi mecha—most importantly, possibly their savior—all of them erupted in excited shouts.
“Come save us!”
“Save me! I don’t want to die!”
“Get us out! Hurry!”
…
The silence of the valley was completely shattered in that moment.
Still nestled in Ling Mo’s embrace, Xia Xinyan didn’t pay attention to the captured individuals; instead, she focused intently on the depths of the valley: “Be careful, something is coming out.”
Ling Mo quickly positioned the光刃 across his chest to take a defensive stance.
Then, they saw a group of people slowly walking out from the depths of the valley.
—Now these were normal people, including that flashy guy among them, but leading them was a bald, muscular man in a suit, wearing sunglasses and with a face full of meat. In this dim setting, he looked more like a blind man than someone trying to show off.
Nonetheless, overall he did have a bit of that suit-wearing thug vibe.
“So, this guy is the boss?” Ling Mo raised an eyebrow, pointing the光刃 at them and calling out, “This is your last chance. Give up all resistance and surrender, and we can choose to handle this lightly.”
Upon hearing this, the suited thug suddenly laughed eerily: “Surrender? What a nice joke… You want to be the heroes saving the world? A little brat with no hair on your chest dares to teach me how to do things?”
After a brief pause, he clapped twice and continued, “Ling Mo, Xia Xinyan… I’ve remembered your names. Taking down a few capable subordinates I just trained really shows some skill.”
“Don’t worry, we have even greater skills,” Ling Mo opened the launching array on the mecha’s shoulders again, locking onto all of them. “Want to see?”
“Don’t speak too soon,” the suited thug slowly put his hands together and whispered, “No one can stop me from completing my grand project of leading humanity to evolution… and you, can’t either.”
Saying this, he raised his hand slowly: “But, you will have the chance to experience the glorious evolution ahead of time—my Lord will not blame you for your recklessness and offense because you are just ignorant. You don’t understand what a great endeavor is, so I’ll allow you to accept the baptism of the Holy Coffin, letting you personally experience the beauty of evolution, and you won’t say anything so foolish again.”
After finishing, he suddenly clapped his hands and ordered, “Grab them!”
As soon as his words fell, a dozen more grotesque monsters, appearing far more agile, suddenly charged out from behind them, followed by a group of people at the suited thug’s side.
The scene instantly turned chaotic. Considering the risk of hurting the innocent crowds trapped on either side, Ling Mo ultimately refrained from using long-range attacks, instead manifesting another光刃 and switched the mecha to dual-wield mode.
Steel naturally oppresses flesh. No matter how strong those “Children of Freedom” became after their so-called evolution, when going head-to-head with the mecha they’d find no benefits, instead becoming targets for Ling Mo’s slaughter.
He was practically going berserk.
Xia Xinyan had been closely observing that suited man.
She was concerned by what he had just said.
Evolution or whatever was certainly nonsense, that was clear, but the mention of the “Holy Coffin” piqued her interest—being baptized by the Holy Coffin to gain evolution… could it be the power of demons?
Were these children of freedom now endowed with abilities after the Holy Coffin baptism?
But why did they listen to that suited man so well?
And what about those monsters? She hadn’t seen any of those creatures yet.
Were they hiding?
Before she could figure it out, the mecha suddenly trembled violently, causing her to slam into Ling Mo unexpectedly. Ling Mo instinctively caught her and quickly shouted, “Self-exploding with EMP attacks—these guys’ abilities are really something!”
He initially thought this battle was also chaotic slaughter.
Because he discovered these guys’ abilities didn’t cause any significant damage to the mecha, he felt emboldened.
Then he smashed one over-inflated fat guy—whose ability was even an electric shock. If it weren’t for his big crooked teeth, Ling Mo would have almost thought he was some fat guy… evolved by the sun. But no matter how strong the electric shock, it was like tickling for a specialized mecha. The problem was, the impact created when this thing was sliced apart by the光刃 even generated an extreme penetrating magnetic storm that directly paralyzed the mecha’s systems.
“Xinyan, get ready! I’m about to bail out!” Being inside a paralyzed mecha was tantamount to waiting for death. Ling Mo didn’t hesitate, directly pulled down the escape lever on his right side, and the cockpit promptly ejected the two backward—
And before Xia Xinyan could even recover, that immense force of the ejection pushed her straight into Ling Mo’s arms again.
She had given up struggling.
