Chapter 639: Training the CPU

First Defense Zone Outer City.

Dalton was modifying his arm at his workbench; his left arm had been sheared off by debris kicked up by an explosion during a recent escape.

If not for others helping him escape at the time, he might have already been dismembered by those guys.

Just as Dalton finished modifying his left arm, a piercing alarm sounded.

"Buzz—"

The alarm emitted a piercing shriek, and red light flickered across the workshop, which was piled high with electronic waste.

Hearing the piercing alarm outside, Dalton couldn't help but clench his newly modified left arm into a fist, and a jet of steam sprayed from the cooling vents around his forearm.

"Those Cyberks are here again! What are they planning to do this time?"

Dalton checked the map hanging on the wall and began to think about where his group should escape to next.

The group he was currently with consisted of about 500 to 600 people, and for the past six months, there had been no instances of people being snatched away by Cyberks, which led Dalton to believe that as long as they were careful and cautious, they could avoid being captured by the Cyberks.

Outside the door came the clatter of mechanical prosthetic limbs striking steel plates.

Anna's bionic eye glowed with a ghostly blue light outside the door crack.

"Dalton, those scavengers are scanning for heat sources; we have seven minutes left."

Dalton shoved the last Battle Chip into his cervical spine interface, and a tingling sensation from the data stream washing over him spread beneath his skin.

Afterward, he moved his body and said to Anna.

"Anna, how are the others preparing?"

Anna's bionic pupils rotated, and she spoke.

"They are ready. Have you decided which stronghold to go to?"

"Of course, let's go."

Dalton walked out of the studio and found that quite a few people were already waiting for him; their bodies had all undergone some degree of mechanical prosthetic modification, with only a few people still having sound bodies, and one boy's left leg was even a support frame modified from a hydraulic crane.

"Dalton, let's set off! Which stronghold are we going to?"

Sherlock parted his lips slightly, and a hoarse voice emerged; his burned half-face shimmered with water in the rainy weather.

"Follow me, no problem!"

Just like that, amidst mountains piled high with all sorts of trash, this group of several hundred people quickly hurried toward the next stronghold.

Every distance Dalton walked, he would place an Interferer in the trash heap beside him to block the tracks of the Cyberks' pursuit.

Just as Dalton placed an Interferer on a trash heap, some scattered trash suddenly rolled down from the trash mountain on one side.

This caused the alarm bells in Dalton's heart to ring loudly; he looked up at the peak of the trash mountain and saw three silver-white figures sliding down from the thirty-meter-high waste pile.

Their uniforms shimmered with a mercury-like luster in the rain, and High-Frequency Vibration Blades popped out from their right hands—this was the standard configuration for the Sage's direct-subordinate cleanup squad.

"Currently recovering Degenerate CPU."

The lead cleaner's eye sockets emitted a fan-shaped red light, and as the beam swept across the crowd, it left pink afterimages in the damp air.

"According to 'Purification Protocol' number..."

Before this Cyberk could finish speaking, several humans threw Smoke Bombs at them, and under Sherlock's command, these survivors began to disperse and evacuate.

As Dalton fled with Anna and a dozen survivors, he couldn't help but look back and found that those three Cyberks were not taking action, but were just watching them flee from where they stood.

However, Dalton didn't think too much about it; his mind was currently filled only with the thought of escaping quickly.

Watching the hundreds of survivors disappear before his eyes in less than a minute, the Cyberk soldier "E254T" standing in the middle had his pupils shrink slightly, and he said in a flat tone.

"This batch of humans evacuated 2.5 seconds faster; to think they could actually break the record set previously."

Another Cyberk soldier, "EG562," retracted the High-Frequency Oscillation Blade that had popped out of his right hand and replied.

"It doesn't matter; our task is to create a sense of crisis for them at fixed times and locations, keeping their CPUs in an active state."

After E254T retracted his High-Frequency Oscillation Blade, he said slowly.

"Task complete; let's give them another period of recuperation."

When Daoer arrived at the stronghold with Anna and the others, he found that some survivors had already arrived there first.

Dalton pushed open the stronghold's rusted Iron Gate, and a damp, musty smell rushed toward him; Dalton acted as if he hadn't smelled this musty odor and walked straight into the stronghold, with Sherlock following behind Dalton, saying in a hoarse voice.

"Same old rules: A Zone for the elderly and children."

Upon hearing Sherlock's arrangement, the boy with the hydraulic leg helped an old woman with one eye walk toward the depths of the stronghold.

Anna's bionic eye glowed blue as it scanned the ceiling, and she spoke.

"The ventilation system has been corroded by acid rain; it needs..."

Anna's voice suddenly jammed halfway through her sentence, and her pupils displayed eerie snowflake patterns.

"Malfunction again?"

Seeing the situation Anna was in, Dalton familiarly placed his mechanical arm over the position of Anna's bionic eye; a fine sound of electric current came from beneath the metal skin, and ten seconds later, the blue light in Anna's eyes stabilized again.

"Thank you."

Anna's eyes returned to normal; she nodded to thank Dalton, then touched her own bionic prosthetic eye with her right hand and said in a heavy tone.

"This eye has been having this situation a lot lately; could it be a rejection reaction?"

Dalton retracted his left hand, looked at the restored bionic eye, and after thinking for a few seconds, said to Anna.

"After everyone is settled in a while, let me check your eye."

Just then, a rough voice suddenly came from inside the stronghold.

"Dalton! Sherlock! Two boxes of synthetic meat are missing from the cold storage!"

A bearded man with a face full of grease and dirt pushed through the crowd, his hydraulic joints emitting an unbearable creaking sound.

The bearded man came before Sherlock and said in a hurried tone.

"The synthetic meat in the cold storage was already scarce, and now two boxes are missing—that's nearly two days' worth of rations gone!"

After hearing the bearded man's words, Sherlock also realized the severity of this matter, and subsequently went to the cold storage inside the stronghold, discovering a rustling sound coming from a corner near the cold storage.

Following Sherlock, Dalton's mechanical finger flicked open the hidden compartment on his wrist, the High-Voltage Stunner crackling, and he walked slowly into the shadows of the corner, discovering that it was three middle-aged men who had taken the two crates of synthetic meat.

It looked like they had already been staying at this stronghold for a few days.

Sherlock walked up to the three men, saw that the synthetic meat had been eaten until only one crate remained, looked at the three middle-aged men with an icy gaze, and said curtly.

"Hand it over."

The bald man in the lead spat out a bloody glob of phlegm, his mouth stretching to his ears, and said provocatively.

"Isn't it just some dog food handed out by the Cyberk people? Once I find..."