Chapter 324: Matters Concluded

Ruthless words emerged from the mouth of Hanwei, unhurried and steady; the cold, mechanical tone was flat, yet it sounded like the voice of death from hell, making Lin Ping feel nothing but a chill to the bone.

However, the other few Asian agents beside him were clearly unaware of the terror of this metallic monster, whose size was not particularly massive, standing before them.

Two Asian agents standing very close together exchanged a subtle glance, then, with tacit understanding, suddenly slid toward the corner of the wall; once half their bodies were shielded, they immediately raised their weapons, aimed at Hanwei, and pulled the triggers.

Meanwhile, another Asian agent leaped toward a sofa in the center of the living room, crouched down, and yanked open a drawer beneath the sofa that had clearly been modified; he pulled out several high-powered assault rifles, grabbed one, and using that sofa as cover, actually began to fire wildly at its head.

The sound of gunfire was like a signal for an all-out attack; the next moment, every agent on the first floor, except for Lin Ping, raised their weapons at Hanwei and began firing frantically.

"It's over!"

Lin Ping's heart sank; aided by the bright lights in the room, he finally saw clearly the scene that had just occurred upstairs.

He saw that the bullets continuously fired from the muzzles of the agents' weapons, upon striking the monster before them, could only splash sparks across it, unable to leave even a single dent.

What made him even more desperate was that, under the barrage of fire from three SCAR assault rifles and an AKM, the expression on the monster's face grew increasingly ferocious.

Soon, as if it had completely run out of patience, its previously held-high head lowered slightly, while its body, forged from unknown metal, tensed up; it had clearly entered combat mode.

"No!"

Lin Ping, eyes splitting with rage, only had time to let out a roar; the next second, his vision caught several silver-gray rays flashing faintly.

Then the gunfire stopped abruptly, followed by a continuous series of *pat-pat* sounds; those agents in the living room collapsed to the ground one after another, showing no more signs of life.

"Humans, truly a fragile species!"

The cold, mechanical voice sounded once again, making Lin Ping feel his body stiffen first, followed by a wave of weakness that left him trembling, nearly collapsing to the floor.

The reason was simple: the voice had sounded right beside his ear.

Lin Ping did not even need to turn around to look; even on this hot summer night, his skin could feel a bone-chilling cold that made his hair stand on end.

It turned out that in the instant it had finished off the other agents, Hanwei had leaped onto the back of the sofa next to Lin Ping; now, its head was pressed against one of his cheeks, speaking slowly into his ear.

Being a CIA agent who had long hovered on the edge of death, Lin Ping's sound mental fortitude still allowed his body to maintain basic functionality even in a crisis.

As his chest heaved rapidly, Lin Ping took a few deep breaths, finally managing to suppress the fear in his heart.

Since the other party had not killed him, it clearly had designs on him.

Recalling that the other party had been speaking Chinese the whole time, he hesitated for a moment before asking in his slightly hoarse and unpolished Chinese: "Who exactly are you people? Why attack our CIA?"

Clearly, Lin Ping did not believe this mechanical monster attacking them possessed high intelligence, so he surmised that there must be someone behind the monster controlling it manually.

It was not strange for him to suspect this, as the world's strongest nation in military technology today was the United States.

As a subordinate employee of the American intelligence agency, the CIA, Lin Ping naturally had to deal with military intelligence, and he therefore knew that the U. S. military's research into Combat Robots was still in a very primitive stage; robots like the 'Big Dog' were merely smoke screens released to the public, and the U. S. military's actual development progress was not much more advanced than the problem-ridden 'Big Dog'.

"CIA?"

A mocking smile appeared on Hanwei's ferocious beast-like face; its gaze fell upon Lin Ping, blue light flickering incessantly in its eyes.

Its database contained information on all national powers on Earth, and it was not difficult for a Mechanical Life to access the internet created by humans, so it naturally knew what the term CIA meant!

It immediately sent a communication to Sun Cheng, who was dozens of kilometers away, briefly reporting the situation.

This momentary pause clearly led Lin Ping to believe that the other party was wary of them.

While letting out a long breath, he could not help but feel a chill down his back.

The CIA was one of the most professional military intelligence agencies in the world and naturally possessed discipline as cold as iron.

For instance, one of the rules repeatedly taught to CIA agents during their training phase by instructors was: 'In a Task, you may reveal your identity as an American, but even in death, you must never expose that you are from the CIA.'

After all, most countries in the world, perhaps cowed by America's powerful national strength, would mostly choose to repatriate captured American spies or exchange them for their own captured personnel with the U. S. government.

But few countries could resist the temptation of capturing American agents; it did not just mean they were highly likely to dig a lot of information out of the captured agents' mouths.

For example, America's overseas intelligence networks and turned personnel, etc.; they could even use this as a bargaining chip to force the guilty U. S. government to accept some of their own national interests in international politics.

However, even ants cling to life; how could a human not cherish their own life?

Lin Ping could no longer care about hiding his identity at this moment; as if he had grasped a glimmer of hope, he spoke urgently to it: "Regardless of whether you are the Chinese government or the military, our CIA sent people to China this time with no other purpose; we were only searching for one of our agents who suddenly went missing while vacationing in China at the beginning of the month..."

This was naturally a pack of lies, but it was not without a shred of usable information.

Having worked for the CIA for many years, Lin Ping naturally understood the way of self-preservation; if he wanted to save his life, he had to spill something that would interest the other party, but he could only do it like squeezing toothpaste—slowly, bit by bit.

Unfortunately, Hanwei only looked at him with a cold sneer; the ferocious beast-face inches away and those two cold gazes made cold sweat pour down Lin Ping's back.

Suddenly, he clearly saw a striking change in expression appear on the creature's ferocious face.

Soon, it slowly jumped down from the sofa and sat crouched two meters in front of Lin Ping, saying, "My master wants to have a word with you, so stay there honestly..."

Just as the words fell, two beams of azure light projected from its eyes, generating a transparent wall of light directly in front of Lin Ping.

The next moment, the face of a young Asian man appeared on the wall of light.