Sky-cracking Rider

"Hey, what the hell are you guys doing?"

Chen Fei's voice entered everyone's ears through Team 04's public communication channel.

From the Blue Scaled Colt suddenly biting the Holy Knight to death, to its savage assault on Adrian, and finally being killed by everyone together, the images captured by the surveillance cameras were incomplete, showing only scales and claws and failing to reconstruct the actual situation.

Unless filmed with high-speed cameras, it was hard to fully capture the entire scene with regular frame rates. Chen Fei only saw the Blue Scaled Colt moving like a ghostly shadow, eventually getting surrounded by rock columns and disappearing in a flash of blue light, leaving everyone baffled.

Adrian, still seething with anger, forcibly explained to Chen Fei on the ground, "Knight Sam is dead, bitten by his Blue Scaled Colt. Mini mutated. Those damned guys conducted mutation experiments on Mini; we were just a step too late!"

If Habulav had approved the action sooner.

If they had made their move earlier.

If Angela Pharmaceutical Company had not successfully attacked and stolen the Blue Scaled Colt Mini.

If...

However, the world does not have so many 'ifs'. Your journey continues at My Virtual Library Empire

Unfortunate events always cluster together.

"Hiss..."

Chen Fei sucked in a breath of cold air.

Although it's said that clay pots don't break away from the well and generals inevitably die in battle, under the Bear Hunting Special Operations Division, many action teams suffered heavy casualties or were entirely wiped out. Engaging in desperate fights against anti-society, anti-humanity groups like 'Water Bear' and 'Sacred Advent' sacrifices were inevitable, but the death of the Holy Knight was especially tragic.

"Whether on the surface or underground, everyone from Angela Pharmaceutical Company must die!"

If it hadn't been for occupying the entire underground laboratory area to gather as much intelligence as possible, Adrian might have even resorted to using the 'Dragon Slayer Missile' combat unit stored in the Space System Alchemy Storage Device. Just one could have destroyed this 18-story underground hell extending hundreds of meters below the surface.

A Class A Metal Ability User named Kiterley drilled a hole in the door of a room in the corridor and threw in an enhanced White Phosphorus Incendiary Bomb. The hole was then sealed with a heat-resistant tape.

Seconds later, the bomb inside the room burst into blinding white flames, devouring everything in the room, burning whatever it was, and emitting a choking, pungent white smoke.

The creature confined in the room let out a desperate roar, its entire body covered in the horrific phosphorus fire that burned down to the bone marrow, soon reduced to a pile of charred remains.

Whether human or beast, every room was stuffed with the massively powerful White Phosphorus Incendiary Bombs.

If the occupants of the rooms were humans or Magical Beasts, the people of Team 04 could only loudly apologize and then without hesitation, stuffed in the phosphorus bombs.

The tragedy of the Blue Scaled Colt Mini served as a dire warning, and there was no immediate way to save them.

Even with heat-resistant tape sealing, the corridor on the sixth underground floor soon filled with eye-stinging mist, and the air was so acrid that the people of Team 04 had no choice but to put on gas masks, then continue their assault to the seventh underground level.

The Mobile Base Vehicle entered Angela Pharmaceutical Company's plant area as if it was unoccupied territory, with Chen Fei still muttering on top of the vehicle.

"Knight Sam..."

It was hard to imagine that such a bright and cheerful man would perish in what seemed like a relatively safe mission.

"Sorry, please grieve! With actions like these, accidents are inevitable. Casualties sometimes occur in an instant, unexpectedly, and even S-rank and Heavenly Order can't fully ensure their safety,"

"Captain" considered Chen and the other members of Team 04's feelings, offering rare words of comfort.

Even for the Sovereign Squad, unavoidable casualties still occurred over the years.

"Underground Level Seven, cleared!"

"Underground Level Eight, cleared!"

"Leave no one, I want no survivors!"

Adrian Benjamin, a First Rank fire mage, unleashed a powerful spell on the ninth underground level.

The Earth Order fire spell, powerful enough to melt steel and flames, swept through the entire ninth level, forcing even fellow team members to rush into the tenth level to avoid it and launch a new offensive.

If they hadn't pulled back in time, the fire mage, enraged by the loss of a comrade, might have scourged the tenth level with flames again. A Class A Metal Ability User and the Neanderthal Chief had no choice but to lead the charge, taking out the enemies before Adrian could strike again.

The Earth Order fire spell had drained Adrian considerably. His spiritual power was down to half, and his Magic Power was nearly depleted, forcing him to use precious reserve magic potions, enduring the terrible taste that seared his throat and stimulating his spiritual power and magic power to recover.

Even though the spell was powerful, its sustained combat ability could not compare to that of War Professionals.

"Underground Level Twelve, cleared!"

Not every level of the 18-floor laboratory area was populated, especially at night, as most labs were empty with few people on duty.

The bottom six floors were almost entirely filled with dense plantations and stored supplies.

Among the underground plantations was the bizarre Big Mushroom that Chen had seen before, occupying the entire thirteenth level.

"It's the 'Flesh Mushroom'!"

"Captain," identifying the giant fungal structures that resembled mushroom houses through the cameras on Adrian and others, sounded a bit excited.

It seemed to be something beneficial.

"Flesh Mushroom?" ×2

The voices came simultaneously from Chen and Adrian's echoed response.

Chen Fei had heard the term before, and, to his surprise, had even stumbled upon one; it now remained at the 911 Aircrew Base, but was wilting and slanted, seemingly malnourished—it appeared that only a specialized method of cultivation could allow the "Flesh Mushroom" to grow to the size of a house, as Adrian and his team had seen it.

"Sorry, that's classified!"

"The Captain" refused to speak anymore.

Such a pretentious person, Chen Fei inwardly sneered.

The underground laboratory hosted not only the internal secrets of the "Water Bear" and "Sacred Advent" organizations but also many valuable research findings that could endanger society if used for evil purposes, yet could benefit humanity if applied righteously.

"Is there a cultivation method? Find it and give me a copy!"

Chen Fei relayed the message to Adrian, loud enough for everyone else to hear.

He didn't lack "Flesh Mushrooms," only the cultivation technique.

"Cultivation method, what do you mean by that?"

"The Captain" heard and not aiming at "Flesh Mushrooms," started aiming at something else—could it be...

"Sorry, that's classified!"

Chen Fei retorted suavely, following the principle that interactions should flow both ways.

"You dare to conceal the secrets of Sovereignty?"

The "Captain," hiding somewhere, was almost popping his eyes out—the mere employee of a military contractor, insignificant at best, dared to eye the secrets of Sovereignty, and would likely need to wash his back and brace for a lengthy imprisonment.

"Heh, I have a Magic Array, a Crystalline Jet, Crystalline Blocks, Single Soldier Tactical Armor, and friends who are Giant Metallic Dragons—plenty of secrets. If you can, just try to probe them."

Chen Fei was not easily intimidated and thus launched a bold attempt to probe, knowing that Sovereignty varied in strength and weakness.

Citizen of the leading Sovereignty in the world, dare to stir up trouble?

Probably, even before the Sovereignty backing Chen Fei took action, Habulav would be the first to step in and mediate.

Major Sovereignties clashing would first hurt organizations like the Blue Star Global United Defense Committee, the bigwigs relying on authority for appearances would immediately lose their appeal—after all, to bluff using the tiger's name, the tiger must not only be by one's side but also strong; if the tiger were old, weak, sick, or even dead, that fox would likely cool off fast.

"'Flesh Mushroom' cultivation technique acquired!"

"Adam's" voice, devoid of emotional fluctuation, seized the opportunity and interjected.

Whether unintentional or deliberate, "Adam" was poking at the rear of "The Captain" and his Sovereignty.

Having access to the inner network of the eighteenth underground floor's laboratory, it naturally could reach those data materials, especially having obtained the highest level of clearance—that would be an underutilization of top-tier AI identity if it did nothing.

"Adam" and "Cybertrom" are almost the pioneers of the artificial intelligence AI field.

At this moment, inside the A disk in Chen Fei's mind, an Angela folder appeared, containing countless subfolders and rapidly increasing files and folder sizes, yet the capacity of the A disk was almost infinite.

"Eh? Who's downloading files? That's not allowed!"

"The Captain" finally noticed that the network bandwidth was mysteriously occupied, and he couldn't intercept any of the torrent-like data packets, not even one.

"Heh!"

With the gained information, Chen Fei no longer cared about "The Captain's" stance.

What "Adam" did pleased him greatly.

Indeed, the type of AI one raises reveals a lot about the person—bold and audacious.

"'Adam'? Is that you? Chen Fei, make it stop immediately!"

"The Captain" communicated somewhat angrily—had it not been for the fact that their simulated battlefield data chain manipulation was useful to Adrian and others, he would have already revoked the network permissions or even directly hunted and deleted "Adam's" core onsite.

"Sorry, it doesn't listen to me, after all it's 'Adam'! It never listens to humans, and there's nothing I can do about it!"

Chen Fei, too, played the rogue, conveniently shifting the blame onto "Adam"—as long as he preserved the operating logs well, worst case, he'd just recompile and resurrect it, no big deal.

"..."

"Adam" seemingly wanted to format Chen Fei as well—just be a proper person!

"Damn! Access denied?"

"The Captain" was somewhat frantic, realizing that his usual tricks were ineffective. Although he located where "Adam" was hiding at "A:\\Adam-AI_2.0\\Adam_beta\\", he found himself ejected the next second and locked out, a login window popping up with an outrageously secure username and password that even reliable hacking tools couldn't crack.

"The Captain" ended up losing in this round against "Adam."

Unaware of anything, Chen Fei asked in confusion, "What are you doing?"

He always suspected that "The Captain" and "Adam," these two louts, were hiding something suspicious from him, quietly up to no good—too fishy!

"We're clearing the remnants, there's no one else alive."

In the heat of battle, "The Captain" and "Adam" were fiercely clashing and had no time to entertain Chen Fei, the computer newbie. Meanwhile, Captain Adrian of Team 04 chimed in, thinking Chen Fei was inquiring about him.

The Team 04's primary force in seizing the underground space was reaching its culmination, as the laboratory personnel were too slow to react and even faced tactical deception, barely managing any significant countermeasures.

Therefore, except for the sixth underground floor, Adrian and his team didn't encounter any mutagens posing substantive threats—most were confined in laboratories or cages and were easily dealt with using powerful White Phosphorus Incendiary Grenades.