"What kind of equipment is this…"
The Sixth Herrscher frowned, dodging Kevin's attack and scrutinizing the device on his body that allowed him to fly in the air just like her. She pondered in her mind.
It looked like an anti-gravity flying device, but in Seele's memory, only Lin had ever used such a miniaturized flying device. No one else had the physical conditioning or reaction speed to meet the wearing requirements, let alone the neural connection that caused nerve damage with every use.
Kevin's speed was increasing. With the Sixth Herrscher currently holding Lin with one hand while dealing with him, she couldn't use most of her abilities.
"Hmph…"
The Sixth Herrscher let out a cold snort. Without needing any consideration, she threw Lin away. Since both of her reasons for keeping Lin had failed, she would let him fall to the ground and smash to pieces.
"Voom!"
But what surprised her was that half a second after she dropped Lin, Kevin's attacking motion stalled, which made her stop the move she had planned to instantly engulf him with black mist.
A beam of light sliced through the sky. A Titan, flying at a speed far exceeding the others, shot toward her from below, opening its cockpit to catch Lin.
And the previously unconscious Lin suddenly opened his eyes with a cold glare. His sole remaining right hand pulled the scythe out of his abdomen. Only a tiny, inconspicuous cluster of fluorescent green remained in his pupil.
"Humans…" The Sixth Herrscher muttered with a cold chuckle after a second of pause.
Lin plunged into the cockpit, sitting on Prometheus I's body. The machine girl placed the pre-prepared helmet onto his head. This time, not only Prometheus I, but also Prometheus III joined the neural connection. The resulting power increased exponentially, instantly restoring his consciousness to its peak state.
Prometheus I's eyes burst with an astonishing data-green light. She poured all her computing power into assisting Lin's brain capacity: "Verification successful. Skipping detection phase. System maintaining last operational state."
"Entering combat state. Full armament deployment."
Lin only had one hand now, but Prometheus I could act as his left hand, operating that side for him. They needed no communication. A deeply conscious understanding flowed between them, allowing them to cooperate tacitly and bring the Titan into operation.
The remote weaponry (Floating Cannons) of the Titan piloted by Lin, along with the two remote cannons awkwardly controlled by Kevin, shot toward the Sixth Herrscher simultaneously.
Since Kevin couldn't perform a neural connection, his spatial computation and control over the remote cannons were significantly lower than Lin's, but he wasn't relying on them for attack, merely using them as a means of cover.
"Boom!"
The cannons fired a barrage surrounding the Sixth Herrscher. The moment he attacked, Lin utilized Prometheus I's system to intervene in Prometheus II's system. He did not let the other Titans attack immediately, but only issued the command to attack in a different direction two seconds after this initial volley.
The Sixth Herrscher, who had jumped to another location using the Phase Transfer device, had just returned to reality when the attack surged toward her in her narrowed pupils.
"Bang!"
The attack was effective.
The Sixth Herrscher emerged from the smoke of the explosion, her gaze icy cold. The Herrscher's shield protected her, but this attack had genuinely struck her.
Had she been seen through?
The Phase Transfer device's entry and exit times were always different, influenced by the user's willpower. But the Sixth Herrscher had no such concerns. Lin had been calculating the interval and her habitual direction of movement for every use, and she hadn't noticed it at all.
"Lin, the Titan is loaded with the latest micro-missiles, which can destroy the Herrscher's shield." As Prometheus I's words ended, the screen in the cockpit displayed all the weapon information carried by the Titan. This massive amount of information was something Lin hadn't dealt with for a long time, but in the neural connection state, he could process it all just as before without needing to adapt.
"Cough—"
Coughing up a mouthful of blood, Lin, whose pain was anesthetized, made his sole hand dance across the keyboard, calling up the needed weapon.
The stronger the effect of the neural connection, the greater the side effect. He was currently simultaneously connected to Prometheus I, Prometheus III, and the Titan. Furthermore, he was splitting his focus to command Prometheus II's Titan. Within this brief minute, he was already showing signs of brain death.
"A pile of scrap metal… Is this your confidence?"
The Sixth Herrscher scanned the remote cannons and Titans continuously attacking her shield with a cold glare.
The alarm bells rang loudly in Kevin's mind. Noticing the Sixth Herrscher's expression, he rapidly retreated. In the very next instant after he started his withdrawal, an overwhelming black mist surged out of the Sixth Herrscher's body like a tidal wave.
Ten meters… fifty meters…
The black mist, which had only been around the Sixth Herrscher, expanded its radius to seventy meters. Two Titans, unable to dodge in time, were engulfed within it. In less than ten seconds, two unrecognizable wrecks of scrap metal plummeted down.
"Erodes matter?" Kevin's expression was grim. He had heard that the Sixth Herrscher's Authority could cause cellular decay, which manifested as an ability to erode contacted matter.
But judging from the state of the two Titans, the Sixth Herrscher's speed and effectiveness in eroding non-biological matter were poorer.
"Kevin, particle beam."
After a long time, hearing Lin's voice again, Kevin's expression remained unchanged. He replied coldly: "Understood."
…
Su dared not breathe as he watched the tree root pierce the person in front of him and absorb him in the blink of an eye. His entire body felt paralyzed, unable to move.
"Hurry, go!"
Ragna and Faal grabbed Su's hands together, dragging him out of the shelter. Countless terrifying, tentacle-like tree roots drilled into the shelter. In just a few seconds, most of the people inside the shelter had been reduced to desiccated husks.
There were over ten thousand people in this shelter.
But when Ragna and Faal dragged Su out—who wanted to save the people—and shoved him into a car, he stared blankly at the "feeding" demonic roots. No more people managed to escape from there.
The engine started. Faal pressed the accelerator to the floor. The car sped away, and some roots seemed to notice these fleeing figures, relentlessly chasing them.
"Doctor Ragna…"
"Don't look, Su. There's nothing we can do against those things…" Ragna's face was solemn and ugly. She looked into the rear-view mirror. "It seems the Fifth Branch failed to withstand the major Honkai outbreak…"
"What about the patients? What about the patients?"
When they sought shelter, the Honkai Virus patients had been sent to a different shelter to prevent the emitted Honkai Energy from eroding others. Su remembered there was a little girl inside, no older than four!
"…Director Faal." Ragna didn't blame Su for anything. She just looked calmly at Faal, who was driving.
"We are doctors." Faal sharply turned the steering wheel, throwing off the pursuing roots in a sharp turn. "We couldn't save those people just now, but we must save those we can save. It is our duty to heal the injured and rescue the dying."
"Go to the shelter that hasn't been attacked yet. Get them out, and then perform emergency aid on the critically ill patients."