141: Final Charge

"Forget about those lumps of meat! Hit their joints!" Reno's roar echoed through the narrow maintenance tunnel, mingling with the shrill screech of tearing metal and the inhuman screams of monsters.

He pushed his only remaining comrade away with all his might, then turned his body to tank a blow from the stitched-together monstrosity. Alloy claws scraped across his power arm, sending sparks flying as the massive impact slammed him against a slime-covered wall.

"Boss! We can't hold them back!" another soldier's shout carried a desperate tremor.

These creations, pieced together from twisted flesh and hideous machinery, were fearless and possessed terrifying strength. They completely blocked the path ahead, while behind them lay the collapsed retreat route that Black Mountain had bought with his life.

"Eve!" Chen Feng grabbed Eve, who was curled up in a corner shivering, and forced her to look at the battlefield. "Look at them! Tell me where their weakness is!"

"I... I don't know..." Eve's teeth chattered, her face devoid of color.

"You must know!" Chen Feng's voice was as cold as iron, without a trace of warmth. "If you know that madman, you can definitely understand his 'works'! Tell me, the weakness!"

His questioning was like a needle, piercing through Eve's barrier of fear. Overawed by that unquestionable will, her gaze drifted uncontrollably toward the monster currently tearing apart a metal pipe.

In the chaotic flood of her memories, a single image flashed.

"The interfaces..." she murmured, her voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz. "Where the flesh and machine... join... the energy cycles of several cybernetic interfaces are... uncoordinated..."

"Where?" Reno shouted the follow-up question as he rolled to dodge another fierce attack from the monster.

"Below the third rib on the left side! That red-glowing heat vent!" Eve screamed as she pointed it out.

"Copy that!"

Reno looked like a prisoner hearing a pardon, a terrifying light erupting in his eyes. He growled at his last two subordinates through the comms: "Concentrate fire on that point! Blow it up!"

Three energy beams converged precisely on that inconspicuous red dot on the monster's body.

"Roar—!"

The monster let out a shrill howl mixed with the crackling of electricity. Its massive body convulsed violently before crashing to the ground, the red light completely extinguished.

"Go!"

With no time to celebrate, Chen Feng pulled Eve up while Reno supported his wounded comrade. The group ducked into a foul-smelling ventilation duct nearby.

When they crawled out of a high-altitude vent and looked down at the D-7 Port Area, the last spark of hope that had just been lit was frozen into ice by the sight before them.

The entire port area was like an activated war fortress.

Countless Agents in Omni-Dimensional Trade Alliance standard-issue combat uniforms were stationed at key positions, their dark muzzles pointed at every possible entrance and exit. Automated turrets rose from hidden hangars, their cold scanning beams sweeping back and forth like the gaze of the Grim Reaper. Several massive energy barriers completely sealed off the only path to the landing pad.

Their designated extraction point—the safe corner promised by "quick hand" Fili—was now the core of the ambush zone, where the firepower was densest.

"Were we... sold out?" a soldier's voice was dry and trembling.

No one answered.

Everyone's heart sank into a bottomless abyss.

Just then, Chen Feng's communication terminal gave a faint, encrypted vibration. It was Su Li.

"J is conducting full-spectrum information suppression; this is the last message I can send out." Su Li's voice was frighteningly calm but extremely fast. "A schematic of the D-7 Port Area's external power regulator. Good luck... to you all."

A 3D map marked with dense wiring and weaknesses flashed before Chen Feng's eyes, and then, the communication channel fell into a dead silence.

The signal was cut.

The final connection was gone.

"No... no..."

Eve's pupils constricted violently at the sight of the familiar Alliance uniforms below. Her forcibly suppressed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) surged like a bursting dam, instantly shattering her sanity. She curled into a ball, clutching her head and shaking violently as unconscious whimpers escaped her lips, completely losing the ability to move.

When it rains, it pours.

Another personal communicator on Chen Feng's wrist, used for a single-line contact, vibrated violently at that moment.

It was the escape pilot, "quick hand" Fili.

Chen Feng picked up.

"Madmen! You're all madmen!" Fili's voice was filled with irrepressible panic and rage. "It's a battlefield down there! You called this a 'minor problem'? The deal is off! I'm leaving right fucking now! Figure it out yourselves!"

From the other end of the line came the low roar of the ship's engines beginning to preheat.

Their only way out, the ship they had hired at an astronomical price, was also about to vanish.

Attacked from within and without. Surrounded on all sides.

Chen Feng's brain whirred at an unprecedented speed, analyzing every variable and calculating every possibility.

There was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Facing an absolute disparity in numbers, an escape window that was about to close, a mentally broken core target, and only three remaining combatants... for the first time, he found that all his calculations and schemes had become a joke.

A drop of cold sweat seeped from his temple and slid down his cheek.

Reno noticed.

He noticed the fleeting look of bewilderment and despair on Chen Feng's face—an expression that had never appeared before.

He silently glanced at Eve, who was shivering in the corner like a frightened little animal.

Then he looked down at the airtight encirclement below, which resembled a forest of steel.

Finally, he looked at the last two soldiers beside him, whose faces were equally ashen.

The fury, resentment, and struggle in his eyes faded away in that moment, replaced by a heart-wrenching calm.

He silently turned and took the last pack of high-energy explosives from the cold backpack of a fallen comrade.

"Boss."

Reno's voice was exceptionally steady as he heavily pressed the data pad containing the schematic Su Li had sent into Chen Feng's hand.

His gaze brooked no argument.

"Take her, find a way to blow up that power node from the outside, and then get on the ship."

Chen Feng looked up at Reno in shock.

Reno grinned, revealing teeth stained red with blood. That smile was exactly the same as when they had fought their way out of Ashen Earth Star.

"We will... clear the way for you."

Before Chen Feng could utter a single word, Reno had already led the last two soldiers to leap resolutely from their high hiding spot, like three pebbles thrown into a raging sea.

They didn't choose any cover, nor did they use any tactical evasion.

Just like that, they launched a final, desperate charge toward the port gate—where the enemy's fire was densest and the defenses most heavily guarded—with no hope of survival.

"FOR THE Vast Sea!!!"

Reno's roar was instantly swallowed by the eruption of concentrated gunfire.