Chapter 523 - 494 Electromagnetic Frenzy (Part 7)

The battle climaxed, and Lille’s heart had been filled with questions, such as why Munemasa wasn’t attacked by the Black Wall.

But now, Munemasa had questions of its own, wondering why it hadn’t noticed the ambush by the Vortex Gang?

The miniaturized signaling device it used was designed by its own hand, and it was a top-notch military standard multipurpose device that could cover almost all signal frequencies as long as there was enough electricity.

Moreover, these devices could do more than just send and receive signals, they could interfere with the human brain when programmed with specific frequencies, and also send and receive electric currents—

Indeed, the most frightening aspect of these mini devices was their terrifyingly high efficiency in wireless electric current transmission. The only side effect was also its intended purpose: these high-amplitude, high-power electromagnetic waves could have unpredictable effects on the human brain in the network.

Of course, these effects had already been controlled by its partner. Now, it could use such devices to turn people into cyberpsychotics...

But to be honest, it didn’t understand what cyberpsychosis was.

If anything, those with cyberpsychosis seemed to have a better compatibility with various prosthetics and equipment—

But conversely, their intelligence was ridiculously low.

Like the bizarre soldier now perched on its shoulder...

Superconducting materials are not stable elements like copper, iron, or steel. Most of them only exhibit superconducting phases under extremely high pressure and extremely low temperature conditions and rarely make it out of the lab into practical use.

After numerous engineering tests and iterations, Rheinmetall successfully found a "less delicate" superconducting material, a specially structured hydride, H3S.

H3S would exhibit stable superconducting effects for a not-so-long duration when subjected to a pressure of 12 GPa and brought down to minus 30 degrees Celsius by liquid nitrogen. This time window was the firing period for the EMG-85—

However, during charging, Brick blew up the pressure chamber!

Brick was wearing a set of extremely crude power armor; its fist plate used a straightforward explosive propulsion scheme. His foot locked onto the mechanical protrusions of the electromagnetic gun’s massive shoulder mount when he stepped on it, fixing himself there by a primitive method.

The ammunition contained within the power armor exploded outward, the fist smashed through the casing of the electromagnetic gun barrel and plunged deep into the electromagnetic coils!

The high pressure leaked from the breach, and as the high-pressure chamber burst, fragments flew swiftly. Simultaneously, the coils rapidly exited the superconductive state as the pressure dropped, and the abrupt increase in resistance led to the rapid ignition of materials, and the exaggerated temperature instantly melted the gun barrel!

Apart from that, the sudden increase in resistance caused the high-voltage electricity to spiral completely out of control, with massive electrical arcs leaping like lightning over Brick and Munemasa!

Brick’s face went from ferocious to panicked in an instant—

Fragments, shockwaves, flames, and electrical arcs overwhelmed him all at once!

Boom!

The explosion occurred on the streets of the Watson North District, with the dim streetlights turning the fireball crimson!

A fireball wreathed in electrical arcs rose from Munemasa’s shoulder; from Company Square, City Hall, Westbrook... as long as one had a clear line of sight in this direction, the explosion was visible!

Munemasa’s newly assembled arm melted from the heat, and half of its limb slipped slowly downward—

But this wasn’t the end!

Lille fully integrated the last piece of cable, even foregoing the mounting of the fixed base, instead thrusting it forward with the Octopus Arm...

[Self-check bypassed.]

[Union coil charging, electric current consistency verified, error margin acceptable.]

[Main cannon ready, warhead: Polycarbonate armor-piercing bullet]

The massive robot became stupefied by the transient disappearance of the superconductive effect’s current disarray, with sensors being the first to recover.

Within the legendary Mackinaw, that battered electromagnetic cannon lit up with a flash, the massive recoil acted entirely on the Octopus Arms, these joints compressed instantaneously, squeezing out all the air between the gaps; the vehicle lost control under the enormous force!

The charged bullet sped across the night sky, leaving behind a faint blue trail of ionized air.

The electromagnetic bullet pierced directly through Munemasa’s left shoulder joint!

The force-exposed joint burst, and the high heat further accelerated the slide of the already melting robot body, enveloping the entire machine in flames!

The giant bathed in flames!

At the same time, the surrounding area became silent from all those chaotic electromagnetic waves, which suddenly emitted a human-mode electromagnetic pulse!

Electric arcs flashed over all metal surfaces, the air was ionized, and the fine electrical discharges nearby seemed to show little effect, but in the distance, the entire spherical area momentarily lit up.

The mercenaries fallen into cyberpsychosis stood stiff as zombies, with clear-headed consciousness and thought processes, but their logic was incoherent, and their bodies completely out of control.

The more they were modified, the less likely it was for them to return to normal.

Vehicles lost control in moments, motorcycles fell, and mercenaries tumbled off their mounts scraping across the ground, sparks flying and explosions following.

The Tiger Claw Gang and the Vortex Gang both ceased their activities...

Is it over?

...

The vehicle trembled violently the moment the electromagnetic gun was fired, with the huge recoil sending the vehicle out of control—

Da Mai did his utmost using the mechanical control devices to stabilize the car, but the entire vehicle’s control system was in bad shape. Although it was an AI, it was no more than a human with a few dozen extra levers.

Regaining complete control over the vehicle as in the beginning was impossible—fortunately, Da Mai’s driving skills were indeed impressive, and after slipping a bit, the car came to a stop on the side of the road.

In the midst of the black smoke, V suddenly pulled Lille out—

The shooting had directly burned out the already damaged electronic control board of Mackinaw!

Lille’s condition didn’t look much better than Munemasa’s; Munemasa was engulfed in flames, but Lille was surrounded by black smoke, and it seemed both were nearly choked to death.

"You alright?" V took a small bottle of organic cleaner from Jack, smeared it on, and wiped Lille’s face—

This face was scaldingly hot.

Little Octopus immediately jumped out, its tendrils slap-slap sticking points on Lille:

"Mom! Change the heat sink!"

"Jack! The heat sink!"

Jack pulled out a sliding storage box from the rear of the Mackinaw cargo hold and handed V a set of cooling fins.

The large hand of the power armor directly supported the high temperature and removed the cooling fins on Lille’s back. Under the command of Little Octopus, V replaced the fins, and as soon as they were installed, the live heat pump sent all the temperature into the fins; a large amount of coolant vaporized again, and steam instantly engulfed the surroundings.

But this meant Lille’s body no longer needed to regenerate repeatedly in extreme high heat—

He certainly wouldn’t lose consciousness due to the pain caused by the heating of the prosthetics, but if his body burned due to the high temperature, consciousness would be meaningless.

"Cough cough..." Lille felt his throat was unbearably dry, his voice sounding like metal scraping. V quickly gave him an injection of nutrients, and soon Lille’s throat regenerated.

"This thing packs a punch..." V remarked, then glanced at Lille, "but it’s kind of brutal on people, you..."

"It’s not over yet."

Lille took a bottle of organic cleaning agent from Jack, wiped off the dirt on his face, and stared at the huge robot.

The robot wasn’t human, and the AI was even less so. Even if the Centaur Mecha were blown up, the incident with Munemasa wouldn’t be over.

And... was the robot really blown up?

Lille looked at the liquid storage barrels smashed by the roadside factory, where Brick, the iron lump, was getting up from a pile of metal waste with the help of his capable little buddy Carter.

There weren’t many from the Vortex Gang left, but each had undergone Lille’s full-body prosthetics transformation. Essentially, they were using the same system as the Tiger Claw Gang but had removed all functional modules, leaving them with the most interfaces.

In the darkness, these metal lumps looked rather intimidating as they encircled the buildings.

The most intimidating was Brick, wearing his homemade power armor; the guy was huge—

But Jostar looked even more conspicuous: behind him seemed to carry an iron coffin.

That was the key element for the success of this raid: Jostar’s mother had regained some sanity and retained a lot of data from the Brain Demon Gang, which she could use to trace the micro transmitters Munemasa had placed in Watson District—

The successful raid meant that the Brain Demon Gang’s data could indeed be used to track Munemasa’s hardware left behind on the network; the Vortex Gang had been physically tracking those signals from the start of the battle, excavated, and tampered with them.

Now, Munemasa’s little helpers were gone, the electromagnetic pulse had completely paralyzed the network infrastructure in the area, severing Munemasa’s wireless network, leaving only a giant robot burning in the flames...

Munemasa was already locked inside that Centaur Mecha—even if not entirely, it would be a very meaningful subset.

Jostar gave Lille a thumbs-up, indicating that his own mother was all right and that the plan was going accordingly.

Capture...

"So, it’s settled?" V asked with her arms crossed, watching the Centaur Mecha.

"Just one last step to go."

Lille straightened his clothes, stood up, and prepared to complete the final capture process: to insert the net monitor-registered wireless device into the Centaur Mecha.

There was an appropriate tool for this: Little Flat Head from military technology, which had been reprogrammed.

However, before the net monitor got involved, Lille might first conduct some other experiments.

"Not bad at all..." Jack savored the battle, swinging his fist, "It just feels like something is missing without ending at the finish line..."

Lille quickly kicked Jack—don’t jinx it...

"Someone’s here!" Jostar suddenly shouted, his metallic voice sounding like it was fried, but urgent enough to express his eagerness—

The flames and black smoke rising from the Centaur Mecha showed an extremely, extremely slight fluctuation...

It was as if the summer heat wave had twisted the air...

"Someone’s here!!!!"

The next second, all observation devices witnessed a horrifying scene—

The giant Centaur Mecha suddenly seemed to have a piece missing, obscured by some black and red blurry data block, with unreal black and red electric arcs wildly flickering...

The overload of flashes, distorted black and red mosaics, distorted echoes, roaring noise, tingling and numbness filled all those with insufficient protection!

And...

So bitter and sour.