“Lao Bai!” Everyone cried, leaping off the ground in unison to fly towards Lao Bai.
“Sh*t!” I immediately pounced at the spirit. Seeing me, the spirit fell back into Lao Bai"s robot but didn"t leave.
“Lao Bai!”
“Lao Bai!” Everyone hovered in the air and shouted.
I stood at the foot of the huge robot but the robot didn"t respond. Sh*t, does it need me to charge it?
“Lao Bai, what"s wrong with you?” Everyone found it strange.
Theoretically, the robot should at worst be drained of battery by the spirit"s attack. Why would they ask Lai Bai if something was wrong? They seemed to be anxious too, as though something had really gone wrong with Lao Bai.
Suddenly, the robot in front of me lifted its leg.
“Lao Bai, what are you doing?” Everyone pounced at the robot at once. They seized hold of Lao Bai.
The huge robot leg lifted high before me, before kicking in my direction.
“Lil Bing!” Harry moved his hand and scooped me up.
“Lao Bai is being controlled by the spirit,” Xing Chuan unexpectedly said. “The spirit is in the robot"s head.”
What? It was already unbelievable that the spirit could control a robot. The spirit could even control Lao Bai? But now wasn"t the time for thinking. I had to first get rid of the spirit so that Lao Bai could shake off the spirit"s control!
Right away I leaped and climbed up the huge robot"s body. When I arrived at its head, I heard Xing Chuan say in my ear, “There is a b.u.t.ton at the robot"s ear. You have the authority to open it.”
The robot began to struggle. I patted its ear, next to its mask. The mask immediately opened, revealing the spirit"s face.
The sight scared me stiff, because its shape had morphed into something completely different from before. Now it looked like a pile of octopus tentacles glowing blue, entangling with the nerve-like blue circuits of the robot.
“This is so disgusting.” Revulsion filled me as I grabbed the spirit. It felt like I was grabbing a mutated octopus. I hated things with tentacles.
“Psst!” He hissed in agony. I knitted my eyebrows. You look so disgusting that you strengthened my resolve to turn you into ashes. The circuits on the robot"s face returned to normal, twinkling with brilliant lights once again.
*Swoos.h.!.+* I closed the mask and stood on Harry"s palm.
“Lao Bai, are you okay?” asked He Lei and the other members.
The robot was quiet for a while. Then, it lifted its hand to scratch its head. “What happened earlier?”
“You frightened us.” Tom patted Lao Bai.
Lao Bai looked fine but I was confused. How did Lao Bei get taken over by the spirit? What is the robot"s structure like? Why did it let the spirit control Lao Bai?
Does Xing Chuan know that the robot has such a defect?
He might not have known, since he did mention that this was their latest developed robot. We all knew that technological devices would run into many unexpected problems throughout the process from initial research to practical usage.
I immediately looked at everyone. “Be careful because the spirits have the ability to control us through the robots.”
Everyone tensed up and didn"t dare to stray too far away from me.
“He Lei, you have the fastest speed. I"ll go with you.” I glanced at He Lei and He Lei nodded. He extended his hand to Harry, and I jumped from Harry"s hand to his hand.
We began to move forward cautiously.
Harry and Jason were at the front. Joseph took the left flank while Yu Wen took the right. He Lei and I were right in the middle. Lao Bai and Joseph brought up the rear. Everyone was looking in different directions.
Suddenly, a large troop of spirits appeared above us.
“Spirits! They"re coming from above!”
He Lei immediately jumped with me on his palm, while I extended my hand. Taking advantage of He Lei"s lightning speed, I swept my hand out at the spirits, instantly turning them into ashes that fell through the air.
“Keep advancing!”
Everyone continued forward.
“Spirits at twelve o"clock!”
We advanced once again. We were working better together and gradually losing our initial fear.
“We are reaching the central control room.” Xing Chuan appeared in front of us again. “Your body size is too big to fit into the route to the control room. You can change the shape of your robots now.”
“Alright, understood.” He Lei looked around at everyone, then pressed his hand on his chest. The outer sh.e.l.l of the robot instantly opened, like he was taking off a huge suit of armor. Inside was a ten-meter tall robot like the ones I"d often seen before.
Once He Lei took it off, the armor transformed into a miniature aircraft and hovered in the air.
According to the map that Xing Chuan had provided, there was a flight tunnel here.
Harry found the opening of the tunnel. When it opened, the ceiling above receded, revealing rings of light that lit up, forming a long light tunnel. One after another, the transformed miniature aircrafts flew out through the tunnel.
“Wow. Not too shabby.” Everyone admired their new bodies in excitement.
“Continue forward,” Harry commanded. Everyone immediately went forward once again, following each other closely.
As doors opened one after another, the entire base gradually revealed itself to our eyes.
Weapons rooms, armories, biochemistry labs, experimental labs, training rooms, medical rooms - they had everything. It was an extremely huge base.
We even found the ecological zone. It was already overrun with blue and purple tree vines, with spirit flowers blooming all around. However, the soil beneath could be used for planting after the radiation was cleansed.
The soil in historical sites was precious because it was only radiated, not polluted with other chemicals that I wouldn"t be able to purify. With the current lack of resources, it would require a lot of materials to purify chemical compounds.
As we advanced, less and less spirits appeared. Many of them would run away once they saw us. The army that had been so imposing earlier, had already scattered.
I remembered my dad once saying that a person who acted barbarically might not necessarily be a brave fighter. Rather, the more tyrannical he seemed, the higher the likelihood that he was only hiding his fear behind an imposing front, and was in fact even more fearful of death than an ordinary person.
Hence, the bad guys would be more fearful of death. Because they were afraid to die, there was nothing they wouldn"t do to stay alive.
We finally arrived at the control center. Quickly we closed the door behind us. Inside felt more like a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p control center. A round console covered with various equipment stood in a clean patch of s.p.a.ce, with no tree vines around.
“Let me take care of it from here.” Xing Chuan"s imaging device flew to the console. Then, it transformed into an extremely small robot. It put its tiny arm into a hole on the console and the entire console lit up.
“Wow!” Lao Bai and the others exclaimed in surprise.
*Vroom.* The entire base whirled and shook. It felt like it was about to take off.
I glanced at the floor under my feet in surprise. This base wouldn"t start flying, would it?
Just as expected, we felt it taking off. The entire base had flown up.