Bang!
The red light flickered violently.
Yang Ming was sent flying by the light shield, soaring over the heads of several soldiers before crashing heavily between two mechs.
"Captain Hanton!"
"Fire! Fire!"
Laser light bullets erupted densely, causing overlapping ripples around the Valkyrie's red light sphere, momentarily stopping its momentum.
But the mysterious light red protective shield remained solid.
Her gaze slowly withdrew from Yang Ming and emotionlessly settled on the soldiers ahead. She slowly raised her left hand, and two soldiers screamed as they began to rise slowly into the air.
The next second, dense blood burst from inside their helmets.
Screams came from a corner; the soldiers witnessing this turned pale and let out a string of expletives.
Two old-fashioned mechs, with their chest vortex turbines lit, simultaneously raised their fire control arms. The barrels had been charging for three seconds, and the soldiers inside the control rooms no longer waited for commands from above. They locked onto the Valkyrie and pulled the trigger.
Buzz, buzz!
Two purple light spheres shot out, hitting the protective shield around the Valkyrie.
The Valkyrie was sent flying.
Both mechs took half a step back to stabilize their centers, and the barrels began recharging.
"Break her shield! Requesting backup! Tail cabin requesting backup!"
The shouting of the commanding officer on the scene boosted morale, and the soldiers continued firing their laser guns. The protective wall around the Valkyrie showed irregular, tiny cracks.
A few soldiers behind "Hanton" staggered to their feet.
Yang Ming glared at the Valkyrie and continued running towards the pair of closed hatch doors.
Outside the transparent hatch was the external hangar that hadn't yet closed. Yang Ming could clearly see—a small spaceship, flat like a wooden box, gliding into the deep starry sky, rapidly moving away from the research ship under the propulsion of a light blue halo, with several human-shaped ice sculptures floating nearby and gradually drifting away.
Yang Ming flipped a middle finger toward the lifeboat outside, while the men and women beside him who had failed to board were nearly in despair.
"Damn it! Doesn't that monster's shield consume energy?"
Cries of agony were heard both behind him and through his earpiece.
Yang Ming turned just in time to see seven or eight Empire soldiers floating up; they struggled in mid-air, and a few seconds later, their brains burst.
Screams rose and fell in succession.
This scene was enough to make the soldiers lose their will to fight.
Yang Ming's Adam's apple shook uncontrollably, and his breathing grew rapid.
The Valkyrie seemed to have decided that Yang Ming couldn't escape, or perhaps she felt threatened after being hit by the mecha cannons. She temporarily turned her attention to the Empire soldiers on site.
It was a unilateral massacre.
As she continued to raise her left hand, soldiers lost control in succession, unable to be held down by the simulated gravity field, their helmets becoming containers for their grey matter.
He couldn't stop here!
Yang Ming clenched his fists.
The fate awaiting him if captured by the Valkyrie would be far worse than what these soldiers were suffering!
Cursing Kigrov's ancestors in his mind, Yang Ming struggled to regulate his breathing. He took out a small bag of capsules from his pocket, popped two, and swallowed them.
That's right, the landing craft. Now, only the advance landing craft and carrier-based mechs could leave the research ship!
Yang Ming's eyes darted around, quickly locating the landing craft's access tube.
The tube's indicator lights were pale green.
Yes, that's it!
Yang Ming was about to rush over, but as he took a step, an invisible pressure came crashing down on him.
His muscles uncontrollably locked, leaving Yang Ming lying flat on the ground.
Using his peripheral vision, Yang Ming saw the Valkyrie's right hand pointing at him, slowly pressing down.
What was this?
Telekinesis? Or was it disrupting the nervous system of living beings?
Did the Ancient God Life Form evolve for billions of years just to develop such bizarre skills?
Yang Ming sharply inhaled. Pressing his hands against the floor, his muscles began to swell, veins in his forehead, neck, and arms bulging. The upper half of his body struggled to lift off the ground before he crashed back down again with a thud.
A human-shaped dent appeared in the hard metal floor.
The tactical backpack hanging on his chest clanked, but fortunately, the safety ratings of those throwing weapons were quite good.
Another try!
"Hanton, Hanton!"
A familiar voice came from ahead. Struggling to rise, Yang Ming looked up and spotted Doctor Lina crouching behind a parts box.
Blonde-haired Lina.
Not far away were lasers flying wildly and mechanical ion cannons firing, as well as the Valkyrie who had just effortlessly killed more than a dozen soldiers.
The slender doctor's legs were trembling, but she still rushed to Yang Ming's side; she tried to pull him up but felt as if he were glued to the floor.
Doctor Lina's face was pale: "How can I help you, Hanton? Are you okay, Hanton?"
Yang Ming adjusted his breathing and spoke quickly, "The landing ship... can you pilot a landing craft? That craft, I remember it can hold three or four people..."
"I-I've piloted a medical ship, if their operating systems are similar."
"The control panel is the same!"
Yang Ming affirmed with certainty about something he didn't actually understand.
Looking at the Valkyrie who was nearing the two mechs, he whispered, "Go start the landing craft, I'll draw the Valkyrie away... Make sure to save a spot for me, okay? Lina."
"Okay, okay," Doctor Lina immediately nodded, her panic almost bringing her to tears, "I'll definitely wait for you to come, Hanton."
Yang Ming roared, "Go now! Don't attract the attention of the Valkyrie."
Doctor Lina took a breath, bent low, and ran towards the landing cabin.
Yang Ming took another deep breath as if performing a difficult sit-up. He tried three times but only succeeded in deepening the human-shaped dent in the floor.
The group of Empire soldiers kept dwindling.
Through his earpiece, he heard the captain leading the last remaining soldiers on the ship to provide reinforcements.
The Valkyrie had raised her left hand, targeting the two old mechs that had threatened her.
The lifeboat in the stern cabin was accelerating its escape.
In the soldiers' eyes, only despair remained...
Despair, like the base color of the universe, wrapped around Yang Ming, causing the fire in his eyes to slowly fade.
No.
He couldn't give up like this.
He hadn't been blown to death when Earth exploded; what reason did he have to give up now?
There had to be a way!
"Child, try to use your brain to control your body, instead of letting your nervous system carry out some monotonous conditioned reflex."
Yang Ming's mind suddenly flashed back to when he'd first gone through "Abyss" vocational guidance mission—the swordsmanship master who served countless players had been giving perfunctory introductory advice.
"Concentrate your attention; it's the foundation of everything."
"Try to summon your body, feel your body, and release the latent power within it. Nature has taken a whole billion years to lay the groundwork for the birth of consciousness, don't underestimate it."
Consciousness, yes! Consciousness!
Consciousness wasn't just the firing of neurons;
It wasn't just the constantly changing brainwaves under the detectors.
Yang Ming didn't know if he was going mad, but at this moment, he was relentlessly searching for that feeling, quickly sweeping away the distractions in his heart, his hands propped against the floor, focusing on just one thing—to stand up; he had to stand up!
Then, bit by bit, inch by inch, he lifted his back off the ground.
Yang Ming's face was fierce.
Large patches of red appeared on his skin, a sign of bursting capillaries.
Suddenly!
Yang Ming sprang to his feet, but couldn't stop his momentum and rolled forward several times.
The Valkyrie's raised right hand seemed to have been forced open.
She frowned and looked at Yang Ming, reaching out with her right hand again and pressing down with force!
A thin, pale red glow appeared around Yang Ming, yet he stood steadfast.
A hint of confusion entered the Valkyrie's eyes.
Yang Ming, expressionless, cradled the laser gun across his front, lighting up the barrel with his thumb and pulling the trigger with his index finger.
With a soft whoosh!
A new point of fire joined the fray!
The Valkyrie was about to pounce on Yang Ming when the glow of a mecha cannon's ion discharge flared up again beside her.
The third and fourth mechas lurking in the corners had been activated. The ion cannon, capable of piercing the armor of small spacecraft, blew the Valkyrie away again.
Yang Ming took the opportunity to run, firing pinpoint shots from his laser gun at the fissures in the Valkyrie's protective shield, pulling two grenades from the tactical backpack in front of him and throwing them directly at the Valkyrie.
His shots were incredibly precise.
When Yang Ming's attention was highly concentrated, it was as if he had an eightfold scope in sight, magnifying the outer gaps in the Valkyrie's protective shield several-fold.
Yang Ming targeted the weakest part of the protective shield.
During the intense fight, more than a dozen figures rushed out from the corridors on either side—the captain and the first officer leading the remaining soldiers came to support, wildly firing their laser guns at the Valkyrie.
Yang Ming kept an eye on the indicator lights at the entrance to the landing craft. The icon of the little green airplane that represented the successful activation of the ship's systems had still not lit up.
Move faster, Lina!
The captain's voice came through the headset:
"Get all the mechas up and running! The Valkyrie is evolving rapidly. If she escapes, the Empire will face an unprecedented threat!"
Damn it, what took them so long!
Yang Ming cursed in his heart and immediately ran to the next cover point, always staying near the entrance to the landing craft.
Suddenly.
"Enough!"
This hoarse, angry female voice made everyone pause as if it contained some mysterious power.
The captain asked, "What did the Valkyrie say?"
"She said enough," a soldier responded quietly.
"Fire!" the captain roared, "Break through her protective shield!"
Yang Ming already sensed something was wrong. He turned and dove toward the nearest parts bin, shouting at the top of his voice, "Find cover!"
The soldiers' reactions were ultimately too slow.
The Valkyrie's protective shield, full of cracks, suddenly shattered. A wave-like red mark burst from her forehead, sweeping in all directions.
This time, the soldiers' minds were not attacked, but their bodies were thrown into the air, the supposedly safe power packs in their laser guns exploding one after another. Two newly activated mechas toppled over, unable to stabilize.
The captain fell in a pool of blood.
Only a few of the soldiers were still able to move.
Yang Ming glanced at the corridor where the lander was located, slightly regretting having given such a 'daunting' task of starting the ship to a doctor.
The Valkyrie, who had actively blown up her shield, now held a 'flashlight' in her hand.
With a humming sound, a pale red light sword illuminated her youthful face, and her gaze, fixated on Yang Ming, revealed a twisted smile.
Reclaim.
Devour.
Merge into one.
Yang Ming took a deep breath, raised the still functional laser gun, aimed directly at the Valkyrie's neck, and pulled the trigger hard.
The purple beam flashed, but the Valkyrie's skin was unscathed, with a layer of transparent film flowing on the outside.
If that's how it was going to be!
Damn it! If it had to be this way!
Yang Ming tossed the laser gun aside and reached into the tactical backpack with his right hand, pulling out… a pair of goggles commonly used for welding.
Putting them on, he indeed saw minor distortions in his peripheral vision.
Just like the streamlined interface of "Abyss" game!
Yes, this wasn't a game, he had no infinite chances for revival, the tolerance for error in the upcoming battle was virtually zero, and there were no teammates to form combat synergies with…
But here, at this moment!
A blue-white glow reflected off the side of Yang Ming's face as he grasped the hilt of the Light Sword, his hands no longer trembling.
All he wanted was a way to survive.
He braced himself!