Chapter 62: Metallic Monstrosity

Moyu’s current infiltration—no, his door-smashing operation—was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Previously, he had acquired a keycard from a metallic monstrosity, but this time, he had brought two demolition machines along with him.

Elise could tear doors open with sheer brute force.
Alpha could melt door locks using lasers.
Whichever method they chose, the door came down.

The two of them and the dog pressed forward like a knife cutting through bamboo, bursting all the way into the warehouse.

The warehouse shelves were fully packed with various boxes and cargo. Finding a specific potion in such a cluttered environment would normally consume a tremendous amount of time.

Looking troubled, Elise asked, "Where on earth do we start looking?"
Moyu replied, "Simple. I have magic that helps me find things."
Elise gave him a look that clearly meant: *You're trying to trick me again!*
"Don't believe me? Try it yourself."
"No way!" Elise refused resolutely.

Moyu wanted to tease her a bit more, but reality gave him no time. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted red warning text flashing at the end of the corridor.

[This is a metallic monstrosity, extremely dangerous! It is recommended to evacuate immediately!]

The description was different from the previous one.
This was identical to Elise’s tier of description, indicating a tertiary evolutionary form whose combat capability was equal to, if not greater than, Elise's.

Although the red text was present in the corridor, no monster was visible.
The crimson letters clung to the ceiling, rapidly approaching.

Elise and Alpha became alert simultaneously.
Elise: "Something is coming."
Alpha: "Danger source detected."

Moyu shouted, "It's on the ceiling! Elise, smash it! Alpha, block the door, I'll go find the solvent."
With that shout, he charged into the warehouse.

Highly vigilant and unsure of the opponent's strength, Elise decided to strike with full force. Crimson thorns erupted from beneath her feet, instantly filling the entire corridor and piercing into the metal walls.

A large mass of silvery-white liquid emerged, seeping out from the ceiling like leaking water and dropping onto the floor. The liquid metal rapidly deformed, transforming into a two-meter-tall canine beast. Its entire body was composed of metallic muscle contours containing terrifying power, and its surface was covered in numerous sharp spikes and barbs.

Elise drove the blood thorns forward, attempting to entangle the metallic beast.
The metallic monstrosity stood up on its hind legs, brandishing claws over a meter long that effortlessly shattered the blood thorns. Pushing against Elise's attacks, it advanced step by step.

Elise immediately called out:
"I can't beat it! Hurry up!"
"Hang in there, and watch out for its sub-entities—they can split up to attack."
Moyu offered a reminder while casually grabbing a metal canister from the shelf and hurling it violently toward the wall.

Before the metal canister hit the wall, a blob of liquid metal poked out from the surface, only to be blasted apart by the supersonic metal canister, scattering splatters everywhere.
Moyu continued rummaging through the warehouse.

Elise and the metallic monstrosity were already engaged in close-quarters combat.
Both combatants excelled at melee combat. In a head-on collision, Elise found herself at a disadvantage because she had to guard the doorway, preventing her from utilizing her speed advantage and forcing her to match the opponent's strength directly.

She stimulated her blood weapons to launch counterattacks.
The weapons had no fixed form; blades, swords, axes, spears, and scythes appeared interchangeably depending on the situation. Her fighting style was extremely flexible. The strikes landed on the metallic monstrosity caused considerable damage, but not fatal injuries, as the opponent rapidly regenerated—its recovery ability was on par with a vampire's.

Elise used a blood shield to deflect most of the damage, and whenever she sustained occasional injuries, she recovered swiftly as well.

While attacking, the metallic monstrosity released a swarm of basketball-sized clones that crept along the walls to launch flanking attacks.
Alpha took primary responsibility for eliminating these threats, using its lasers to easily obliterate the metal spheres, thereby covering Moyu while assisting Elise.

After several seconds of frantic searching to buy time, Moyu found the RX-2 solvent in a corner, matching the sketch provided by Alice down to the last detail.

The metallic monstrosity pushed forward against the blood thorns, advancing upstream until it shattered the final cluster of thorns and stood face-to-face with Elise.

Elise glanced back at the warehouse, gritting her teeth as she prepared to endure the onslaught. If she wanted to leave, she could escape at any moment; under her blood-manipulation abilities, she could convert her own body into a liquid state, making it impossible for this creature to stop her.

With a furious roar, the metallic monstrosity swiped a claw toward Elise's head.
Elise condensed a blood shield, bracing herself for the impact.

Suddenly, a glass bottle flew through the air, shattering upon contact with the monster's sharp claws and bursting into a cloud of water mist.

The metallic monstrosity let out a piercing screech, stumbling backward. The front paw wrapped in the mist sizzled with white smoke as if doused in concentrated acid, dissolving rapidly and melting into a puddle of liquid on the floor.

Elise breathed a sigh of relief and looked back.
Moyu was holding two glass bottles.
Alpha used a mechanical claw to flip open a metal chest, revealing rows of neatly arranged vials.

"Smash it with this." Moyu tossed a vial to Elise.

From that point onward, the battle held no suspense.
Armed with the vials, Elise chased the metallic monstrosity around, encasing the potions in blood and pressurizing them to squirt the liquid out like a water gun fight.
Alpha also activated its water-gun mode, squirting liquid with its mechanical claw.

The metallic monstrosity wanted to escape, but it could not. As the guardian of this place, it was bound to the area—a restriction written into its programming by Alice.

The final outcome was simple.
Moyu held a bottle of RX-2 solvent and poured it over the remaining puddle of liquid metal.
The crimson text vanished entirely.
The monster compendium updated with a kill count, scheduled to settle in 12 hours.

The guard was dead.
Next came the easy part.

They descended the stairs a hundred meters down to reach the second major level.
The area was already under lockdown, populated by numerous rabbit-beast chimeras. They served as workers here and possessed a certain degree of combat capability, but before Elise, they were not worth mentioning.

"Subdue them and gather them together."
Though puzzled by Moyu's order, Elise executed it nonetheless. She unleashed a massive surge of blood thorns that flooded the corridor, binding every rabbit-beast chimera they touched and pulling them together.

A moment later, inside a spacious hall, over a hundred rabbit-beast chimeras were clustered together, entangled by blood thorns and rendered immobile. At their head was a visibly taller and stronger rabbit-beast chimera.

Dragged before the pair, it spoke in human tongue with a strange, duck-like quacking voice: "Humans, how dare you trespass here! Do you know where this is? Your lives are finished; prepare yourselves for endless pursuit by our master!"

Moyu replied, "The magic-enhancer extraction base of Love-Obsessed, one of the Eight Sages."
The rabbit-beast chimera leader was shocked: "How do you know that? Just what kind of people are you?"
"Think of me as a passerby," Moyu answered.

Squeaking and screeching wildly, the rabbit-beast chimera leader yelled, "Arrogant humans! Knowing this is the stronghold of the great Sage, yet you still dare to run wild here—are you not afraid of our master's wrath?"

Moyu retorted, "Afraid? Why should I be? Your master has long since become my plush ball. I drench her in my presence every day; she has already taken on my shape and scent."

Elise: !?

The rabbit-beast chimeras erupted in a furious commotion, squeaking and shrieking, "You dare insult our master, you deserve to die!" "Humans, die, die, die!" "Kill him!"...

Moyu sighed, "A truly loyal bunch of servants. Now, who's going to tell me where the magic-enhancer is stored?"
The rabbit-beast chimeras fell collectively silent.

"If you won't say it, fine. It'll just take me a little more time."
Moyu drew a short blade, preparing to harvest the rabbit-beast chimeras to unlock a trophy. Suddenly, a voice came through the loudspeaker, clearly altered by a voice-changer into a duck-like squeak.

"Who are you? And how did you find this place?"