Chapter 44: Heading to Black Canyon (Begging for recommendations, follows, and tips)

After all, it is a sewer, a place that hides filth and corruption.

Although the Decepticon body lacks a human respiratory system and cannot feel the potentially pungent odor.

Sun Cheng does not think a sewer where rats and cockroaches scurry about is a good place, especially after a cockroach accidentally flew and landed on his face.

But escaping with his life is the priority now; he immediately switched back to his beast form and ran quickly toward the city center.

The reason he fled toward the city center instead of the suburbs is that, although he is currently closer to the suburbs, after such a commotion and a chase, Sun Cheng has no doubt that he has already drawn the entire Tucson alert force to the suburbs.

With a normal person's logic, they would certainly assume that after sneaking into the sewer, he would continue to flee toward the suburbs.

Therefore, at this moment, if he suddenly flees in the opposite direction, the possibility of escaping is actually greater.

As for the kind of detection devices in the hands of the Americans, he is not very worried; although the Tucson sewers are well-built, they are not luxurious enough to allow humans to chase him on motorcycles.

Therefore, even if they have detection devices and eventually discover his escape route, it will be difficult for them to catch up to him.

Sure enough, more than forty minutes later, when Sun Cheng jumped out of a sewer pipe in the suburbs from another direction, he did not encounter anyone blocking his path again.

The thrilling trip to Tucson almost scared him to death.

Fortunately, Sun Cheng is clever enough; after successfully escaping, he headed north, pushed his speed to the limit, and arrived in the territory of Flagstaff, a city in northern Arizona, a few hours later.

The Barringer Crater he is currently investigating is located in Flagstaff; although many years have passed and even he does not think any clues could remain here, acting on the lucky mentality of "better to check than to miss," Sun Cheng still made the trip.

The Barringer Crater is located on the desert plateau southeast of Flagstaff; just like most of Arizona, the climate here is dry, desolate, and remote.

With the previous encounter in Tucson, Sun Cheng's personality is undoubtedly more cautious; before arriving at the Barringer Crater, he first released two sets of Insect Scouts to conduct a reconnaissance of the vicinity, and only after confirming there were no ambushes or other humans did he quickly approach this crater.

One has to admit, when viewing the Barringer Crater up close, Sun Cheng was also taken aback for a moment.

"1.2 kilometers in diameter, 150 meters deep... calculated by the impact force, this must be a huge meteorite at least thirty or forty meters in diameter..."

However, shock at the power of the meteorite aside, after close-range observation and quickly calculating some data, Sun Cheng could not help but have a thought.

A huge meteorite that fell from the sky ten thousand years ago, even if it shattered and weathered upon falling, its size probably could not have been small; with the American engineering machinery capabilities of over ninety years ago, it would have been difficult to transport it to a further place, unless it was by water transport.

As far as he knows, the two Black Canyon towns in Wyoming and Colorado, one located on a plateau and the other at the foot of a mountain, both share a common point: they are very far from here.

In comparison, the Black Canyon located at the border of Nevada and Arizona is much closer to here.

Besides that, there is an almost unobstructed river channel from Flagstaff to that Black Canyon available for water transport.

If it were up to Sun Cheng to choose, ninety-some years ago he would definitely have chosen to transport the meteorite there.

The premise is that the meteorite must be the AllSpark; otherwise, he cannot imagine why the Americans would spend such great financial resources to transport a big rock from a place that was already not easy to expose to another place that was even harder to expose, even if it were a meteorite.

After circling the crater for a while, Sun Cheng even went down into the crater to search carefully for a while; as expected, he failed to find any useful clues. He did not feel disappointed, as it had been over ninety years since the meteorite was moved, and time had long since smoothed over all potentially remaining clues.

Flagstaff is not far from the base located at Daxia; the mere three or four hundred kilometers is only a matter of two or three hours for Sun Cheng, who has lifted the danger alert and slowed down.

A few hours later, familiar with the route, he arrived at Daxia and returned to the base of Onslaught.

"Lord Onslaught, I have come to disturb you!"

On the platform outside the base, he first sent a communication to Onslaught inside the cave as a courtesy. Sun Cheng also knew that Onslaught had placed surveillance equipment on the platform; although the placement was very hidden, it could not deceive him, as he was equipped with the Spy Template.

After reminding the other party, he was just about to enter when he suddenly received a communication from him, "Found clues about the AllSpark?"

"No, I am still investigating! I came here this time because I discovered some shortcomings in my body these past few days and would like to ask Lord Onslaught to help me deal with them."

Because he had not yet confirmed whether the meteorite in the Barringer Crater was the AllSpark, Sun Cheng did not mention it.

He did not expect that, just after he sent the communication, he would quickly receive a reply from the other party.

"Didn't find it? If you didn't find it, don't come bother me? Get lost..."

A cold reply from Onslaught made Sun Cheng, who had just stepped a few steps into the cave, stop and freeze there; in an instant, it was as if he had fallen into an ice cellar, cold from the inside out.

Although he had guessed before that Onslaught would help him modify his body, the purpose was no different from Starscream's: to utilize his intelligence-gathering specialty to do things for himself.

But compared to Barricade, Starscream, Soundwave, Reflector, and others, since crossing into this world, the Decepticon Sun Cheng has had the longest contact with is Onslaught.

Seeing that he was quite easy to talk to most of the time before, Sun Cheng selectively ignored that he, like Barricade, Starscream, and Soundwave, is a Decepticon—a Mechanical Life whose head is filled with nothing but conspiracies, calculations, and destruction, aside from improving strength; they have values and life attitudes that are completely different from humans.

The faint feeling of closeness toward Onslaught in his heart also vanished completely in this cold reply.

"Is it that I thought too much? In this world, I really can only rely on myself!"

Sun Cheng stayed quietly at the cave entrance for a long while before barely adjusting his mood, then turned around and walked back without a word. He leaped and flew off the platform, sprinting with all his might through the Canyon toward the "Black Canyon" at the border of Nevada and Arizona.

PS:

1. Although the author has always believed that even the protagonist cannot be invincible right from the start, and that a gradually maturing mindset makes one stronger, in response to some readers who have recently been reacting that the protagonist's strength is too weak and that it lacks the straightforward thrill of a Transformers battle, the author has decided to speed up the process of buffing the protagonist.

2. Thanks to the reader 'Purple Rice Sunflower' for the tip.