Chapter 1004: Drawing Fire to the East

"Lockdown?!"

Upon clearly seeing the mechanical warrior stepping out from the spaceship, the expression on Onslaught's face changed abruptly.

"Long time no see, Onslaught!"

Lockdown stood with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at him coldly. While it seemed like a greeting, the words he spoke were exceptionally mocking: "You have lived even more wretchedly than I imagined!"

Onslaught was instantly enraged upon hearing this, his iron fists clenching with a crackling sound: "Do you want to fight?"

"You?"

Lockdown looked him up and down with a sneer and let out a disdainful huff.

Onslaught, who was equally arrogant and conceited, felt even more furious in his heart.

However, as a veteran Decepticon who was also born during the era of the Cybertronian Elder Council and joined the Decepticon Legion at the same time as Lockdown, Onslaught had dealt with Lockdown in the past.

He was still very wary of this ruthless madman.

The Combaticons had once participated in a battle alongside Lockdown, and Onslaught still remembered that to kill a valuable Autobot Commander on the battlefield, that guy had cruelly sacrificed losses more than ten times greater than the opponent's.

This guy not only didn't value the lives of others, he didn't even care about his own life.

During a certain encirclement by the Autobots, Lockdown used himself as bait and ordered the Decepticon Legion to mobilize a large number of troops for a brutal ambush, slaughtering countless Autobots.

Facing a madman who was so cruel that he didn't even care about his own life, even Onslaught would find it very troublesome.

"We don't seem to be that close. Are you here looking for Swindle?"

Not being a fool after all, Onslaught quickly guessed the reason why Lockdown had suddenly appeared on Earth and set his sights on him.

Lockdown glanced at him, "Not stupid to the core yet. Call Swindle out!"

This condescending arrogance truly made the Spark within the chest of the equally arrogant and conceited Onslaught erupt with energy that became somewhat manic.

Clenching his iron fists until they crackled, Onslaught kept a vigilant, death-stare fixed on Lockdown.

Lockdown was not intimidated in the slightest, and the two former Decepticon titans remained deadlocked right there.

It wasn't until the arrival of several members of the Combaticons that the awkward atmosphere was broken.

"Hey, boss... what did you find..."

"Attention, there seems to be an intruder!"

As the voices arrived, Onslaught finally breathed a sigh of relief.

From the moment they first met, he had already realized that Lockdown's current strength was still above his own.

He guessed that this cold-blooded Bounty Hunter had likely already broken through to become a powerful Leader-class Warrior.

The kind of pressure emanating from Lockdown was something Onslaught had only felt from Megatron and Shockwave in the past.

That kind of suppression, which seemed to come from the soul, was one of the reasons why he had never dared to stand up and openly oppose Megatron in the past.

Although Onslaught had also come into contact with the 【AllSpark】 more than two years ago, had he not been startled by the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons on the Moon and quietly hidden to hibernate under Starscream's nose, he would have also become a true Leader-class Warrior after waking up.

Unfortunately, there are no "ifs" in everything.

Because the process of his advancement was interrupted, Onslaught was still one final step away that he needed to cross himself.

Having given up on choosing another place to pass the time through hibernation, it would take him roughly several times longer while awake; a conservative estimate was that it would take at least another year or two to completely finish the process.

Facing Lockdown now, the gap in strength between Onslaught and him was obvious.

This was also one of the reasons why he had just held back and not made a move; he never fought battles he wasn't sure of, especially since Lockdown was a madman.

But now, with the arrival of the Combaticons led by him, he had regained his confidence.

Although Bruticus was a giant Gestalt created by Starscream, Onslaught had also offered many suggestions during the modification process.

Once they combined into a giant transformer, even if Megatron came in person, Onslaught was confident he could repel him.

Lockdown still stood there quietly with his arms crossed.

He knew what Onslaught's trump card was, not to mention that Starscream would never hide anything from a potential rival.

Lockdown himself had also been on Earth for some time; just monitoring Onslaught and his team had already lasted for more than half a month.

During this period, Onslaught and his team had also transformed into Bruticus and trained once.

Relying on his excellent surveillance capabilities, Lockdown had mastered quite a bit of combat data regarding Bruticus.

Naturally, he wouldn't be stupid enough to challenge Bruticus one-on-one, but if Onslaught really thought he could win against him just by relying on Bruticus, that would be incredibly stupid as well.

Although Lockdown quite enjoyed the look of being hated by others while they could do nothing about him.

Today was clearly not a good time to pick a fight; at the very least, he was still somewhat wary of the giant transformer formed by the Combaticons—Bruticus.

Thus, his gaze quickly locked onto Swindle. Lockdown's scarlet eyes scanned him repeatedly for a while, making him feel somewhat creeped out.

"Long time no see, Swindle!"

Swindle of the Combaticons was just like the "old friend" in Lockdown's memory: cowardly and weak, even moving his gaze away quickly when meeting his eyes now.

Come to think of it!

Although this guy had enough seniority and had been born during the era of the Cybertronian Elder Council.

But before joining the Decepticon Legion to become a Decepticon, he was just one of the many unremarkable thugs hanging around the Black Market in Iacon.

Before preparing to defect from the Decepticon Legion, Lockdown had invited this "old friend" to leave together, only to receive a very firm refusal.

All his subsequent encounters also made Lockdown realize just how unreliable this guy was.

At least in Lockdown's view, other than Swindle being relatively knowledgeable about arms and indeed capable of producing some weapons with decent power, it was hard to find more merits in him.

Yet, how could such a Swindle, who used to be like a mouse seeing a cat when he saw him, both greedy and cowardly, dare to take the initiative to invite him to Earth?

Lockdown was very interested in this!

Swindle was made to feel somewhat creeped out by his gaze; he had had some memories awakened by Onslaught and remembered this former old friend.

But regarding what a past copy of himself had done on Earth, he truly had no impression at all.

Seeing Lockdown take the initiative to greet him, although he was very fearful of Lockdown in his heart, he still responded: "Long time no see, Lockdown. Why have you come here?"

Being asked this in return, the scarlet in Lockdown's eyes grew deeper.

He had actually already guessed certain things, but to verify them, he still asked in return: "Why do you ask that? Wasn't it you who wanted me to send out the invitation and summoned me to Earth?"

As soon as these words were spoken, Swindle was instantly stunned.

On the contrary, Onslaught, who had been very wary of Lockdown, suddenly revealed a thoughtful expression.

When he had previously obtained Swindle's Memory Chip from Starscream to rebuild the Combaticons, he had already heard from Starscream that a duplicate Warrior, cultivated using Swindle as a matrix, had once betrayed him and gotten together with Frenzy.

Thinking of that direct confrontation with Frenzy and the heavy losses his side had suffered, Onslaught immediately had the idea of shifting the blame.

He looked at Lockdown right away and, before Swindle could speak, suddenly interrupted: "The one who invited you to Earth shouldn't be this Swindle. He was once used by Starscream as a matrix to cultivate quite a few duplicate Warriors. I remember that one of Swindle's clones is currently in the South American region on Earth, together with the traitor of the Decepticon Legion—Frenzy."