268: Autobots transform

As Shen Mingyuan's voice fell, his hands swept past his waist, and the modified "twin stars" pistols with dark red biological veins on their barrels were instantly in his grip.

Turning his head, he spoke quickly to the man and the pink Axolotl behind him:

"And this gentleman, as well as..."

The light of his red visor seemed to linger on that small pink figure for half a second, his voice devoid of emotion. "This little Axolotl, step back further; the fight is about to begin. However—don't run too far, lest you get picked off by something else."

"Oh, oh! Okay!" The man nodded hurriedly, shielding Little Pink as they retreated another dozen meters. Hiding behind a large trash can, he peered out nervously, whispering, "Are... are you from the government?"

"In a way," Shen Mingyuan replied simply, his attention returning fully to the front.

In the gap of this conversation, the Hermit Crab seized the opportunity, one giant claw whistling as it swept over once more! Without looking back, Shen Mingyuan sensed the position by the wind, raised his twin pistols backward, and instantly fired several shots!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The black-red plasma trajectories accurately hit the joint connections and the thinner sides of the giant claw's carapace. Although they failed to penetrate the thick biological armor, the explosive impact and high-temperature searing still made the giant claw retract in pain. The attack's trajectory skewed, grazing Shen Mingyuan's back and smashing into empty space, splashing rubble.

"Little Pink, let's go!" Seeing this, the man knew this was no place to linger. While Shen Mingyuan kept the enemy occupied, he quickly picked up Little Pink and fled rapidly down the other end of the alley.

Now, only shadow and the giant crab remained in the alley, facing off.

"Creeeeak—!"

The Hermit Crab let out an angry sound of grinding carapace; being hit repeatedly had clearly enraged it.

Its massive body suddenly crawled completely out of the car wreckage, its eight appendages rapidly scuttling across the ground—surprisingly, it didn't move sideways but charged straight at Shen Mingyuan like an armored combat vehicle! Its speed was remarkably fast!

Simultaneously, two giant crab claws, one left and one right, like two massive iron shears, carried a fierce wind pressure as they crossed to slaughter Shen Mingyuan, blocking his space to dodge left or right.

Shen Mingyuan's figure was as agile as a black cat, shifting and dodging within a hair's breadth of the deathly crossing of the twin claws.

He ducked under the claws and leaped lightly backward to avoid a sweep, his every move precisely calculating the gaps in the opponent's attacks.

Meanwhile, the twin guns in his hands never stopped roaring, a black-red barrage of bullets continuously pouring toward the Hermit Crab's most vulnerable parts—the pair of high-standing, constantly rotating eyestalks.

However, the Hermit Crab's reaction speed was startlingly fast. Whenever the muzzle flash from Shen Mingyuan's guns appeared, its eyestalks would "whoosh" back into their hard sockets with incredible speed, or sway rapidly left and right, making the slender eyestalks difficult to hit.

Even when stray bullets occasionally grazed the carapace, they only left charred burn marks and fine cracks, unable to cause substantial penetrating damage.

Without combining the twin guns into a sniper form for high-energy charging, the power of a single bullet was indeed difficult to shake this thick biological armor.

"Gurgle... Weak! Your attacks are like tickling!" The Hermit Crab mocked in a muffled voice while attacking frantically, its eyestalks extending again to lock onto Shen Mingyuan coldly. "Once I pin you down, you'll be like those shells—snap—turned into two halves!"

Shen Mingyuan once again avoided a heavy smash with a graceful backflip. Upon landing, his twin guns hung at his sides. His red visor "looked" at the flailing giant crab, and he suddenly spoke in a slightly playful tone, as if stating an interesting fact:

"Oh? I just remembered a fun fact. I heard that when creatures like crabs are put into a steamer, because they feel uncomfortable, they sometimes nibble on the ginger slices next to them... They don't seem to understand they're being steamed alive and are about to die; they just think, 'I feel a bit uncomfortable, maybe eating something will help.' Tell me..."

He tilted his head slightly, the mockery in his tone undisguised.

"Have you also inherited this... well, not-so-bright 'tradition'?"

"Creeee—ak!!!"

The Hermit Crab's carapace suddenly emitted a piercing, grinding roar, as if its internal muscles had tightened to the limit in an instant! Its eyestalks trembled violently due to extreme rage, even staining with a hint of blood-red.

"You... you damned land monkey!!! I'm going to crush you into pieces!!!"

Total rage overwhelmed reason. The Hermit Crab abandoned some of its defense and tactics, acting like a heavy tank at full speed. With an even more frantic and reckless Aura, it brandished its two giant claws and charged violently at Shen Mingyuan!

The alley walls shed dust under its brute-force collision, determined to completely shred the detestable black figure before it!

Facing the Hermit Crab charging in a frenzy, Shen Mingyuan (shadow) pushed his mobility to the limit. He no longer sought direct kills but, like a bullfighter, guided the charging path of this "steel giant crab."

His figure was ethereal, weaving perilously between the wild dance of the twin claws and the trampling of the appendages. Each dodge precisely guided the opponent to charge a bit further, gradually leading it toward a wall on one side of the alley that looked quite old with loose masonry. At the same time, the twin guns in his hands fired continuously. The black-red trajectories weren't all aimed at the crab; a significant portion "happened" to graze the edges of its thick carapace or "missed," accurately striking the wall behind and to the side of it!

"Bang! Bang! Crack! Thud!"

Bullets exploded among the bricks and stones, leaving pits of varying depths and radial cracks, especially at several load-bearing structures and brick joints, which received focused "attention." Brick dust fell in showers, and the internal structure of that wall unknowingly became fragile.

The Hermit Crab was completely unaware. Its attention was entirely captured by the slippery black figure before it that kept provoking it with "tickling" attacks; it only wanted to crush him.

The opportunity had come!

After a full-force sweep of a crab claw missed, Shen Mingyuan tapped his toes, and his figure suddenly rose, gliding directly over the crab in a light arc and landing steadily in front of the pre-"treated" wall, his back to it. At this moment, between him and the wall stood the even more enraged Hermit Crab that had just turned around.

"Die!" The Hermit Crab let out a muffled roar, pouring all its strength into its eight appendages. Like an out-of-control truck, it charged at Shen Mingyuan again! It calculated that this time, with a wall behind the opponent, there was nowhere to hide!

Shen Mingyuan's red visor flickered slightly. Just as the crab claws were about to reach him, he didn't dodge left or right—that was still within the attack range. He jumped toward the side and back, but instead of jumping far, he kicked off the wall almost vertically, using the force to spring upward!

"Boom—!!!"

The Hermit Crab, in its full-force charge, crashed heavily into the wall behind where Shen Mingyuan had just been standing—the wall that had long been weakened by bullets!

The massive impact became the last straw that broke the camel's back. The wall, already covered in cracks and with a loose internal structure, let out a groan of being overburdened. Then, under the Hermit Crab's startled "gaze," it collapsed inward with a roar!

Shattered bricks and concrete blocks, along with the twisted, aged rebar inside, came crashing down, instantly burying and trapping more than half of the crab's body! Especially several bent pieces of rebar, which happened to pierce through the joint gaps of its appendages, locking it firmly into the ruins!

"Creeeeak—!!!" The Hermit Crab let out a painful and angry hiss, struggling frantically. Its carapace ground against the bricks, producing a piercing sound as rubble continued to fall, but for a moment, it was unable to break free from this sudden "live burial."

Shen Mingyuan landed lightly without the slightest pause. He brought his hands together, and through the smooth collaboration of machinery and biological tissue, the "twin stars" pistols instantly transformed, combined, and extended, turning into the sleekly shaped sniper rifle form.

He knelt on one knee, the buttstock against his shoulder. His red visor aligned with the sniper scope's crosshairs, and the front of the muzzle began to condense a heart-palpitating, increasingly dense black-red energy light, emitting a low hum of energy convergence.

A lethal sense of threat washed over like ice water, causing the frantically struggling Hermit Crab to freeze for an instant. It felt it! That accumulated energy could definitely threaten its core!

"Roar!!!"

Survival instinct overrode everything. It burst forth with unprecedented strength, ignoring the pain of carapace scraping and rebar tearing, forcibly retracting its most vulnerable parts inward. At the same time, it desperately pulled back its scarred but still hard giant claws, crossing them in front of its body to form a final shield.

Just as it completed its curled-up defense—

Shen Mingyuan pulled the trigger.

"Shoom—Boom!!!"

A beam of black-red energy, condensed to the extreme, tore through the air, accurately shooting toward the center of the Hermit Crab's curled body!

"Bang!!!"

A deafening explosion accompanied the loud crash of the carapace completely shattering! The Hermit Crab let out a shrill, agonizing scream!

The energy beam failed to completely penetrate its multi-layered protective body, but the right claw it had relied on to block was directly melted through and torn apart at the center, leaving a terrifying void the size of a washbasin with charred edges and light passing through! Broken carapace and internal tissues scattered everywhere。

The intense pain and energy shock from this heavy blow finally crushed the Hermit Crab's will to fight. Its remaining limbs twitched violently, no longer able to maintain its expanded combat form.

Its body rapidly shrank and transformed in a way that defied the laws of physics. The carapace softened and rearranged, and within seconds, it "shrank" back into the shell of that dilapidated car!

Only now, the car had a hideous large hole on the driver's side door and part of the roof, with green smoke still rising from the edges.

Even more surprising was that from under the hood of this "scrap car" came the chugging, extremely unsmooth but definitely running sound of an engine! Black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe, and the tires screeched against the ground.

It could... still drive?!

Under Shen Mingyuan's slightly surprised gaze, this heavily injured, eerily shaped "Hermit Crab car" lurched forward crookedly, smashed through a small amount of debris piled at the alley entrance, and, accompanied by the engine's roar and the noise of metal scraping, scrambled onto the road outside. It merged into the traffic and, after a few perilous lane changes, quickly disappeared at the end of his vision.

"...Heh," Shen Mingyuan deactivated the sniper form, disassembled and retracted the twin guns, and looked in the direction the car had disappeared, muttering to himself, "That shell wasn't just a decoration; it's an Autobot."

Shaking his head, he pulled out his phone and quickly sent the details of what had just happened—the Hermit Crab's morphological characteristics and the direction it fled in its damaged car disguise—to the GUPA contact channel.

Having done this, he turned around, looked toward the other end of the alley where the man and the Axolotl had fled, and started walking over.

"Now then... time to find our mysterious 'pink little friend' and its protector."