Chapter 743: A Glimmer of Hope for the Survivors of the First Defense Zone (1)

First Defense Zone Outer City.

Sherlock slowly took off the crude communication headset, raised his head, and his gaze swept over the four faces gathered around him.

"How is it? Sherlock?"

Anna spoke first, her optical prosthetic eye focusing on Sherlock's face, waiting for Sherlock's reply.

Sherlock took a deep breath, struggling to calm the excitement from the communication, trying his best to make his voice sound steady.

"Contact made. It's people from the Ninth Defense Zone, a unit capable of taking down a Cyberk Fortress head-on!"

"Ninth Defense Zone? That far?"

Dalton frowned slightly, looking at Sherlock and saying suspiciously.

"Did they... believe it?"

"Not entirely."

Sherlock gave a bitter smile and pointed to the Data Transmitter Dalton had cobbled together, which still displayed the factory coordinate fragments and thumbnails of the blurry images just sent.

"They are very vigilant, suspecting it's a trap. I sent over everything we captured, the coordinate fragments, and the defense scan data."

"Then they..."

Lao Jierui's voice was a bit tight, his calloused hands clenched.

"They believe the data is authentic."

A glimmer of light reignited in Sherlock's eyes.

"But mobilizing troops deep into the core of the First Defense Zone is not something their frontline Commander can decide. They have already reported our intelligence, along with their preliminary assessment, directly to their supreme commander!"

"A leader known as 'Father'. Now, all we need to do is wait!"

"Wait?"

Nicha opened his eyes abruptly, his voice hoarse as he spoke.

"Wait in this hellhole? The Cyberk Patrol Squad could sniff us out at any moment!"

"Yes, wait."

Sherlock said decisively, his gaze sweeping over everyone.

"This is our only chance. The people from the Ninth Defense Zone have the ability to destroy that Giant Weapon Factory! How many people can this save? It can bring a glimmer of hope to us, to everyone still alive in the First Defense Zone! We must survive and wait for their orders!"

He paused and looked at Dalton.

"Dalton, you said before that you could still come up with some 'surprises'?"

Dalton's eyes narrowed, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he patted an open toolbox beside him filled with various Cyberk soldier wreckage parts and discarded Energy Batteries.

"Materials are enough! Those 'trash' items discarded by the Cyberk are treasures. Give me some time, and I can cobble together a few more Trip Mines that can blow their knees off, or... an Interferer to make their sensors temporarily blind."

Dalton's mechanical fingers nimbly picked up an Energy Core Fragment emitting an unstable blue light.

"Modify this thing a little, and it's a large-sized 'Flashbang', enough to give those Cyberk people a hard time."

"Very good!"

Sherlock nodded and looked at Anna again.

"Anna, strengthen the deployment of the Passive Alarms on the perimeter, extend the range as much as possible; we need early warning time."

"Lao Jierui, Nicha, check your weapons. We don't know how long we have to wait. Conserve your energy, take turns on watch, but be ready to move or fight at any time!"

"Understood!"

A short, powerful response.

Dalton's mechanical fingers flew among the discarded parts, humming an off-key tune; these deadly "little gadgets" before him were his proudest works.

Sherlock leaned against the cold metal wall and closed his eyes.

The composure he had forced himself to maintain during the communication faded slightly, and exhaustion surged in like a tide.

But he knew he couldn't let his guard down.

The response from the Ninth Defense Zone was a straw to clutch at, but they themselves had to be the ones capable of holding onto that straw firmly.

After about half an hour, the alarms Anna had set up on the perimeter suddenly began to emit a piercing sound.

Lao Jierui and Nicha, who were on watch, instantly tensed their muscles, and the mechanical prosthetics on their bodies moved accordingly.

Sherlock opened his eyes, looked at Dalton who was starting to pack up the discarded parts, and said immediately.

"Dalton, do you still have those Interferers? Leave two here. We are preparing to evacuate. Take the Data Transmitter and the Communication Device; those absolutely cannot be lost!"

"Don't worry!"

Dalton put both the Data Transmitter and the Communication Device into his toolbox, and his mechanical arm easily hoisted the toolbox onto his shoulder.

"Retreat!"

As soon as Sherlock's order fell, Dalton had already slammed two fist-sized, rough-cased metal canisters onto the rusted pipes on both sides of the entrance.

The exposed wires on the surface of the canisters flickered with unstable blue light.

Sherlock and his group quickly ducked into a narrow, foul-smelling maintenance pipe behind the pile of trash.

Dalton carried the toolbox, his heavy footsteps echoing in the pipe.

Anna quickly cleared the traces on the ground where they had just been hiding.

Just as they had crawled out more than ten meters, in the direction of the abandoned repair room behind them.

Zzzzt—Buzz!!!

A blinding blue electric arc erupted violently.

It instantly filled the entire entrance area!

The air was filled with a strong smell of ozone and the stench of scorched circuits!

Followed immediately by two dull explosions!

"Bang! Bang!"

The explosion's power was not great, but it was accompanied by an intense Electromagnetic Pulse and countless high-speed flying metal fragments!

The two Cyberk soldiers who had just stepped into the machine repair room were hit directly by these attacks.

"Sensors failing! System interference! Executing... basic... threat... elimination... protocol..."

The cold, synthesized voice sounded intermittently, filled with static.

The two Cyberk soldiers held their Pulse Rifles pointing at their surroundings, having temporarily lost their tracking and rapid reaction capabilities.

"Quick! They are being interfered with! But it won't last long!"

Dalton lowered his head in the team.

Sherlock did not look back, only quickening his speed as he crawled through the dark pipe.

He could hear the mechanical humming of the Cyberk soldiers restarting their systems and regaining stability far behind him, as well as the sound waves of the detectors they had begun to use for scanning and searching.

"Turn left ahead! The exit is almost here!"

Nicha led the way at the front, his optical prosthetic eye providing a clear path in the darkness.

They crawled out of the pipe and entered a more expansive, yet equally dilapidated area.

"This way! Stick to the shadows!"

Sherlock commanded, and the squad members moved rapidly through the ruins, relying on their modified bodies and familiarity with the terrain.

However, before they had even run a few hundred meters, a faint metallic scraping sound came from behind a pile of giant discarded trash to their front left!

Immediately following were several faint but clearly human-controlled laser aiming red dots, which instantly locked onto the chests of Sherlock and Dalton!

"Stop! Raise your hands! Walk out slowly!"

A hoarse male voice rang out, carrying an unquestionable tone of command.

Sherlock's squad froze instantly and immediately sought cover!

Lao Jierui and Nicha's weapons were raised instantly, pointing in the direction of the red dots' source.

Dalton subconsciously wanted to hold his toolbox in front of him.