The powerful crab wall that Zachary had boasted about indeed failed to stop them, just as Lin Zhen had predicted.
But the price was steep.
Of the eight, three died breaking through the crab wall, and the remaining five were in terrible shape.
Almost everyone was wounded, bodies drenched in blood!
The masked, white-haired girl’s full-body symbiote armor had shattered, leaving only broken pieces hanging on her.
The Starforce Battlesuit underneath was also tattered.
Her fair skin bore at least a dozen vicious wounds, blood dripping steadily.
The star energy user who had transformed into a giant bird earlier had lost his entire left arm; the jagged stump was covered in a layer of frost, forcibly stopping the bleeding.
The other three needed no further description.
If the white-haired girl was the benchmark, only one had lighter injuries than her.
“Such white wounds.”
“Wrong, such heavy body.”
“Battle-damaged white-haired loli is the best!”
The man named Luotuo sensed the movement, looked up, and saw the Saint hand combatants descending from the sky.
Though surprised they had broken through the crab wall, he smiled proudly at their injuries.
“Told you, with the crab wall, they can’t turn the tide.”
“They’re interfering with Zachary’s search.”
“But they’re already inside,” Lin Zhen said gravely. “We can’t let them finish them off quickly.”
“The crab wall needs to contain the pollution. These heavily wounded stragglers aren’t enough to make the wall divert more energy.”
“Didn’t you say the crab wall had internal attack methods? Why aren’t they being used?”
Luotuo looked up at their direction of descent, squinted, and suddenly said:
“Normally, the Guard Army would handle them, but since their destination is Small Luoding City, we can’t let them succeed!”
He twisted his neck, joints cracking.
“Need our help?” Lin Zhen asked.
“Stay put.”
Luotuo sneered and raised his right hand.
The carapace armguard on his arm shifted and deformed instantly, forming a two-meter-long arm cannon.
“I’ll—”
He aimed the cannon at the five rapidly descending figures.
“—be done in a moment!”
The moment the two words left his mouth, the cannon fired. The massive recoil jolted Luotuo’s entire body.
A conical bullet tore through the air, leaving a trail of scorched smell.
After firing, he lowered his right hand.
Luotuo seemed confident in his attack.
But how could one bullet deal with five people?
Just as Lin Zhen wondered—
The conical bullet, high in the air, instantly split into countless small cone-shaped projectiles, shooting toward the five in the sky.
These projectiles had incredible penetrating power and seemed capable of tracking enemies.
One used their supernatural power to dodge in midair, trying to evade Luotuo’s attack.
But the projectiles made a wide arc and chased after him, hitting directly.
His body was riddled with holes, blood spraying as he screamed and fell from the sky.
“Another one down.”
The heavily injured white-haired girl froze herself in ice, barely blocking all the attacks.
Hearing her teammate’s screams, a hint of despair flashed in her eyes.
She instinctively looked toward the direction the projectiles had come from.
It wasn’t that she wanted to avenge her teammate—she just wanted to get farther away.
Because if she could just find—
‘Huh?’
Shi Linglin’s pupils contracted. Hope kindled in her eyes.
If she wasn’t mistaken…
Those nine people were…
In the twisted, broken jungle, under the gray-white canopy, three men and two women were looking up at them.
Ignoring the carapace-race man in full armor—
The remaining four…
Weren’t they exactly the five from Target Two?
No mistake!
Although their appearances differed from the intel—Lin Zhen and his team had disguised themselves before entering Shell Star to avoid the Saint hand tracking their movements—the blonde girl was definitely Aili, the girl she had met in the cake shop!
“Hahahahahaha!”
Shi Linglin pressed her hand to her mask and suddenly laughed maniacally.
Crack!
The ice shattered.
She changed direction, gliding away from Small Luoding City.
“Confirmed Lin Zhen’s location. Requesting weapon 【Dark Dust】!”
Hearing the voice in their earpieces, the three other heavily wounded Nightingale Team members burst into joy.
“We’re saved! We’re saved!”
“Confirming… Confirmation successful. 【Dark Dust】 will arrive at the battlefield in thirty seconds. Evacuate immediately.”
As long as she was deployed,
their only task now was to survive and get out of the battle center!
Because no matter how powerful the enemy or difficult the mission, in her presence, they were nothing!
This was the consensus born from Nightingale Team’s numerous missions alongside 【Dark Dust】!
“【Dark Dust】 sounds pretty powerful.”
“Is that Xiao Xi’s new name?”
“It’s a weapon, so it can’t be Xiao Xi. Probably some kind of artificial weapon, like a cyborg.”
The barrage scrolled across the screen.
The camera lens instantly switched to the boundless expanse of space.
A huge azure planet occupied most of the screen.
A flash of lightning.
In orbit above it, an all-black destroyer disengaged its stealth mode and opened the hatch at the bottom of the spaceship.
Through the bottom hatch, the lens angled upward, looking into the interior.
In the darkness, two crimson lights suddenly flared.
A pitch-black steel battle armor stepped out of the darkness.
The armor’s shell reflected the star’s light in a matte sheen. Two small characters flickered on and off above the chestplate.
【Dark Dust】
“So cool mech, holy crap!”
“Is it a cyborg?”
“Mecha is a man’s romance!”
Dark Dust walked step by step to the bottom hatch.
Suddenly, the crimson lights blazed brighter.
The head’s mechanical components turned; the red light in its eyes pulsed, as if it could see through the atmosphere to the surface below.
Then the camera lens switched to 【Dark Dust】’s perspective.
What appeared was Lin Zhen’s group of five on the ground.
In an instant—
No vibration, no sound of wind, no windup.
Dark Dust vanished from the ship’s bottom hatch.
When it reappeared, it was already in the atmosphere, diving toward the ground like a meteorite.
The armor friction with the atmosphere turned it red.
The red grew more intense, the temperature higher.
Finally, the entire thing became a massive fireball.
But this heat—enough to incinerate steel—seemed to have no effect on Dark Dust.
She was still accelerating, diving faster and faster toward that fixed direction.
At some point, a tremendous roar filled the sky.
“What is she laughing at?”
Seeing the white-haired girl suddenly burst into manic laughter, Lin Zhen felt a twinge of unease.
Goosebumps rose on his back.
His sixth sense seemed to tell him…
Something was wrong.