Chapter 106
Chapter 106
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 106
Chapter Title: Chapter 7 Masquerade Ball (22)
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***
A cubic cavity carved entirely from natural bedrock formations, with a towering structure of countless mechanical components standing tall in its center.
From the entrance where the Professor stood, he had to crane his neck way back just to glimpse the top, perched atop innumerable stairs. Unlike its essence as a conglomeration of cutting-edge ancient technology, the tower exuded a temple-like grandeur.
In this era where architectural beauty had been reduced to mere functionalism, it was a rare sight of true elegance.
In an age where people pulled the trigger without hesitation on a single potato or a scrap of iron, this massive facility—nearly a work of art, built without even proper construction equipment—perfectly illustrated how deeply the Dome's inhabitants revered this central power plant.
‘It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say one central power plant sustains the life of the entire city. In a way, you could even call it a god.’
The Professor felt his kneeling knee growing damp and grimaced faintly.
‘Blood. It’s flowing down the stairs.’
[They must’ve been slaughtering each other up there big time.]
Crunch!
Scraaaape!
From his position at the base of the stairs, the Professor couldn’t make out the battle clearly, but he could at least spot the silver arm of an exosuit swinging wildly, along with the weapon clutched in its grip.
[Shield and... a hammer?]
‘From the scraping mixed with that engine-like whine, looks like someone’s wielding a chainsaw too.’
[Why fight with crap like that when they’ve got perfectly good weapons? Some kinda... ritual?]
‘It’s not that they won’t use them—they can’t, not here. The exosuit’s main weapon, the pulse rifle, or large-caliber rounds that could pierce shields... If even one shot hit the central power plant tower by mistake, it wouldn’t just wipe out everyone here—it’d take the whole city with it in the explosion.’
As a flash from the tower streaked by, the Professor confirmed the weapons on the exosuit that Hyd had detected and scowled. Booster hammer. A weapon powerful enough not just to smash combat vehicles but to send them flying. The shield was an energy shield. In a situation where firearms were off-limits, it was top-tier for both offense and defense. And this was the Dome’s most critical facility. Even the enforcers couldn’t have installed shield absorbers here without major construction, so the exosuit should’ve been able to crush them under its shield’s protection without interference.
Scraaaape!
‘Why are they getting pushed back?’
Even from the fleeting images of sparks flying where weapons clashed and the tower’s flashes illuminated the scene, it was clear the exosuit was sorely outmatched.
Thud!
Suddenly, something heavy came flying from above and crashed beside the Professor.
An arm. From an exosuit.
‘I’m intervening.’
He hadn’t identified the enemy or their armament, but with the two exosuits upstairs already on the brink of combat incapacity, retaking the central power plant would be all but impossible.
Splash! Splash! Splash!
The Professor bounded up the blood-soaked stairs.
His thoughts had raced on for a while, but he’d only stood frozen for about 8 or 9 seconds. The situation was too dire to weigh every factor before moving.
Which meant, even as he charged toward the enemy, the Professor had to keep thinking nonstop.
‘Whatever they’re using against the exosuit, it’s not heavy machinery, at least.’
There’d been no traces of anything besides exosuits on his way here.
They couldn’t drive tanks this deep underground, so if the enemy had gear, it’d be exosuits or weapons a person could carry.
The only drive noises he heard were from those two exosuits, leading him to assume they were facing the enforcers with specialized weapons.
‘I figured sniping from a distance would have a solid chance...’
Crunch!
Boom!
It was a specialized weapon, alright.
Eyes bloodshot, they swung massive chainsaws where their right arms should be.
One hand wreathed in a bluish shield, the other a fist like a hydraulic piston—they parried the exosuit’s hammer swings, matching its output with human bodies.
There were about five such half-machine humans.
[One gun ain’t gonna dent those guys?]
‘We’ll see about that! They’ve got way more exposed flesh than a full-shielded exosuit! Plenty of corpses on the ground too!’
Bang!
Before the enemies even noticed him, it was the perfect setup for a sniper shot. The Professor, prone at the edge of the stairs, targeted the most imposing of the five machine-humans—a man wielding a greatsword with laser blades flickering on both edges...
Clang!
“Uh...”
[Sometimes you gotta learn without testing it first, idiot! Now they know where you are!]
The sword, mid-swing toward the exosuit, whipped back in an instant, precisely intercepting the bullet aimed at the man’s skull. More like a massive oar than a sword—something clearly meant for giant exosuit-scale gear—he’d swung it like a light twig. The moment the muzzle flash bloomed, he’d spotted the Professor and raised his blade like lightning to block.
‘Even with laser blades instead of steel on the edges, that thing’s gotta weigh over 10kg, swung at that speed? And with that precision?’
[What the hell! Why’s something like that here!]
‘I don’t know, damn it! First time I’ve seen it too!’
The man glanced down at the smoke rising where the bullet had embedded, then broke from the exosuit formation and turned toward the Professor.
Red lenses in place of eyes locked straight onto him.
***
“Reinforcements, huh.”
That’s all the man who’d spotted the Professor said. The moment the Professor swung his rifle barrel toward the fist-swinging brute, a laser blade came rushing in, slicing clean through the rifle stock that the startled Professor desperately swung.
The blackened cross-section gleamed like polished marble—the blade’s output was no joke.
[Dodge! It’s fast, but you can still see it! Just insanely quick!]
‘Seeing it doesn’t help when my body can’t keep up!’
[You’re good with words! Beg him to spare you!]
Swoosh!
Shing-!
“Argh! This bastard doesn’t wanna talk!”
He’d hurled himself down the steep stairs to evade the greatsword cleaving vertically for his head, but the rifle he’d thrust out to block got bisected. A 2040s-era gunmetal alloy rifle, sliced like tofu!
[Shell! Personal opinion, but we’ve taken down tons of monster freaks so far—this one’s on another level!]
‘Damn it! The only ones who should be here are enforcers—where the hell did these T-3000 wannabes crawl out from!’
Bang!
No choice now—it was all or nothing.
The Professor chucked the useless rifle and whipped out his pistol, firing at the guy. Not expecting a hit. He’d block it. He had to!
Pew!
‘Knew it!’
A smirk crept across the man’s face as he parried the shot that had grazed his head. Like such shots would never land in a million years.
Of course, the Professor knew that too.
“Hey! I believe in you! If you don’t block every~ single one! We all die!”
Click!
The Professor slowly raised both pistols he’d let hang at his sides. Past the machine-human’s feet, knees, waist, chest, head—and beyond. Toward the central power plant tower, where massive stored energy writhed.
The machine-human’s smug face twisted in an instant.
Bang! Bang!
He blocked shots fired well away from his body.
“You filthy little shit!!!”
“Oh! Ditching the cool guy image? If I were a normie, I wouldn’t pull this suicide stunt, but your skills are just too damn good, mister! Got faith in ya? You gotta block ‘em! No choice!”
Crunch!
The Professor cackled as the machine-human ground his teeth viciously yet hesitated to close in.
“Strategy’s all about going the way your opponent hates most.”
[Hey, what if he calls your bluff and doesn’t block?]
‘It’s fine, it’s fine. They wouldn’t make the city’s heart that vulnerable. That generator’s tough. As long as you don’t hit weak spots dead-on, it won’t just blow.’
He aimed at the periodically glowing parts—not the transparent sections, but the dark ones. Even if the guy snapped and didn’t block, the odds of a massive catastrophe like he imagined were low.
[Low odds?]
‘Can’t rule it out entirely. What if the dark parts are the weak ones—’
[Hey!]
‘No such thing as zero risk!’
Bang! Bang!
The Professor kept firing at the tower to hold off the guy, who looked ready to pounce any second.
***
He’d at least succeeded in pinning the enemy down with the attack. The guy gnashed his teeth but relentlessly tracked the sightlines of both gun barrels—clearly desperate not to die.
‘Problem is, I’m pinned too.’
As long as the Professor aimed at the tower, the enemy couldn’t attack. But the moment he slipped—a jam, a miss firing both, or running dry—the advantage would flip back. Meaning, unless he risked it all to take the guy down, getting bisected by that laser blade was just a matter of time.
So,
“Time for a gamble!”
Bang!
Aiming for the upper left, the Professor poured on the speed and dove into the machine-human’s guard the instant the greatsword swung wide to block.
***
Shing-!
With ammo left, the Professor could dictate the flow. He’d baited the move, but the blade chased faster than he could react.
Bang!
The greatsword, flowing smoothly from upper left toward his head, tracked the bullet from his right hand and swatted it aside.
‘Faster than I thought.’
His right pistol barked, but before his left index could pull the trigger, the greatsword was already plunging down.
‘Thought a big melee weapon would struggle up close...!’
Just a comma-second to flick his wrist—no arm movement needed—turning the tower-aimed barrel toward the enemy and firing.
Screeech!
The instant his guard opened, the enemy’s knee rocketed toward his face, slicing the air. Without Hyd’s shared senses, he couldn’t have tracked it. Dodge the knee, and the greatsword follows. Then the barrel swings outward again—
Bang!
‘Damn it! No openings!’
Desperate shots to survive.
Bangbangbangbangbang!
All this in the time between shots, as the pistol slide reciprocated.
Exchanges multiplied with every wild bullet, and blood trickled from the Professor’s nose.
He kept pace with machine-computed speeds via Hyd’s senses, but his head throbbed like it’d split.
‘7, 8...’
Bang—
Click!
[Ammo’s out!]
‘9!’
Fresh mag loaded before diving in. No time to reload amid the relentless flurry. Seconds after closing in, the left pistol in his grip wailed emptily.
Pushed to his limits, his consciousness caught the machine-human’s predatory grin.
No more chances—he’d never give one. The massive laser blade arced down toward the empty-gun left arm.
[Come on! Please! It’s my body too!]
‘Snap out of it, Hyd! Not over yet!’
Facing the descending greatsword, the Professor grinned back at the machine-human.
“Gotcha—!”
Crack!
Just before it split his left arm vertically, a sharp fleshy tear gave way to the distinctive rebound of a shield.
“Even a cheap personal shield can deflect once!”
Bolt rifle and portable personal shield, hyped to hell from the enforcer armory.
He’d activated the pre-gripped shield to glance the greatsword, then aimed his right pistol—the last round chambered—square at the enemy’s head.
“Blame wielding a cold weapon against a gunman! Half-assed Terminator bitch!”
Bang!
Thud!
The final shot, poured everything into, nailed the machine-human’s head dead-on.
The bullet punched through an eye. Red lens shards sprayed with blood as the head snapped back.
Success. The improvised plan meshed like gears, ending exactly as designed.
Except,
Screech, screeeeech!
“You should’ve known... Terminators... don’t die... from a puny bullet like that!”
He hadn’t anticipated an enemy tough enough to survive a headshot.
Click! Click!
Empty triggers clicked over the air-scorching hiss of the laser blade descending.
***
Thud!
He had to live. He’d sworn to, so somehow...
In accelerated awareness, he instinctively raised his arm. He saw the guillotine-like green blade plunging down.
‘Couldn’t activate the generator... Vex, Ian...’
The machine-human’s gleaming red eyes. Lips curled in victor’s smirk. The Professor closed his eyes. Heat grazed his arm. Like fire, searing pain engulfing the whole limb, heavy...
‘...? That’s not right.’
In GG, he’d lost or broken arms enough times—triple digits. No one knew the sensation better. Heavy impact, red-hot iron sear? Sure, but not this overall burning?
Thud!
More than that, the blade wasn’t driving into flesh—it halted at his arm, her body slamming into the ground from the enemy’s horrific power.
[I-it worked! It worked!]
‘H-Hyd?’
Head-splitting agony, arm still burning like fire, but not severed. A body-bisecting blade wouldn’t have transmitted the full shock like this.
‘What the hell...’
The Professor cautiously opened his tightly shut eyes.
First in view: the terrifying green glow of the laser blade halted inches from his face. Behind it, the cyborg’s shocked visage.
And...
From fingertips to shoulder, his left arm bristled with black scales like a monster’s limb. The laser blade was gripped in that left hand.
Reading Hyd’s consciousness, the Professor instantly grasped what it had done.
“You... what the hell did you do to my bodyyy!!”
[What else! It’s my body too! I manifested the true form I’d been yearning for from the inside out!]
Crunch!
Hyd whooped, crushing the gripped laser blade to bits.
The host consciousness absent.
A living, functioning body.
And Hyd’s vivid memories lingering in the Professor’s vacated left arm!
[Told ya! I know bodies a hundred times better than you! Knew the mechanism, figured it’d work!]
“This is insane...!”
Type-3 mutation. The variant virus, free of the Professor’s control, saw the ‘left arm’ as dead flesh. Following Hyd’s residual memories, it mutated into the form he’d most desired: a Type-3 variant arm.
***
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