254: Chapter 254 Every punch lands in dust

Pure black heavy Robots stepped out from the depths of the base.

Their bodies were extremely heavy, with shoulder armor as wide as armored shields, and dark red energy glows emanating from their joints, while the United States flag was embedded prominently on their chests.

No explanation was needed.

One look was enough to know that this was the latest weapon the United States had been keeping in reserve.

Lin Qinglan's expression darkened instantly.

"This thing... is not an ordinary mechanical soldier."

The shoulder armor of her Battle Armor slowly opened, and several micro-missiles were already in standby mode.

Lu Li hovered beside her, the red and gold luster on the surface of his mark 45 armor appearing exceptionally sharp under the cold light of the underground base.

He glanced at the energy reactions in the chests of those heavy Robots, then looked at the micro-propulsion structures on their backs that barely adhered to Blue Star industrial logic, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly instead.

"Of course not."

"The underlying technology of this thing has traces of an alien spaceship."

Lin Qinglan's heart sank.

"Are you saying that the United States has already partially mastered the technology of that spaceship?"

"Mastered is a stretch."

Lu Li's tone was flat, as if he were grading a barely passing assignment.

"At most, they've just copied a bit of the surface-level knowledge."

As soon as he finished speaking, the heavy Robot at the very front raised its right arm.

Dark red energy condensed frantically at the muzzle, and a teeth-gritting hum instantly rang out in the air.

The next second, a thick beam of energy tore through the darkness and headed straight for the two of them.

Lin Qinglan almost instinctively wanted to dodge.

But Lu Li had already moved a step ahead.

The mark 45 armor streaked across the air, leaving an afterimage as his palm cannon erupted, the gold-red beam colliding head-on with the dark red energy.

The entire corridor shook violently.

The metal plates on the walls were dented in large patches by the shock, the overhead lights shattered one after another, and sparks fell like rain with a crackling sound.

Yet Lu Li did not retreat even half a step.

"Follow me."

He dropped only those three words, and his entire body transformed into a streak of crimson-gold light, charging directly into the array of Robots.

Lin Qinglan's eyes narrowed, and she immediately suppressed the shock in her heart, maneuvering her Battle Armor to cut in from the flank.

The two sets of Battle Armor moved one after the other, coordinating with extreme tacit understanding.

Lu Li was responsible for tearing open the defense line from the front.

Lin Qinglan used her speed advantage to sever the energy transmission nodes of those heavy Robots from the side.

As the first Robot just raised its arm, Lu Li had already slammed a fist into its chest.

Boom!

The black armor collapsed on the spot.

The United States flag emblem was crushed directly by his fist, twisting and deforming like a piece of rag.

Immediately following that, the mark 45 shoulder armor popped open, and several laser beams cut in simultaneously, instantly burning through the Robot's dual shoulder weapon systems.

Lin Qinglan swept past from the side, her Battle Armor's arm blade popped out, and she precisely severed the main control circuit at the back of its neck.

The massive black machine body froze in place.

The next second, it collapsed heavily.

The Robots behind immediately adjusted their formation, attempting to use crossfire to block the movement space of the two.

Unfortunately, they were not facing ordinary intruders.

Nor were they any kind of enemy that the United States had anticipated.

The mark 45 armor on Lu Li came from a technical template on the level of science fiction movies.

Even if the United States had reverse-engineered some weapon modules from alien wreckage, in Lu Li's eyes, they were just rough, clumsy, and flawed semi-finished products.

"Energy efficiency is too low."

Lu Li dodged an energy cannon shot, and with a backhand, fired a palm cannon blast that shattered the joint of the opponent's left leg.

"Reaction latency is too high."

He kicked away a Robot attempting to get close, and seized the opportunity to grab its arm, forcibly tearing the mechanical limb off.

"The weapon integration logic is also stupid."

He threw the torn-off mechanical arm backward, and it happened to smash into the head sensor of another Robot.

"Do they dare call this thing the latest weapon?"

Listening to him provide commentary while fighting, Lin Qinglan's mood became incredibly complicated for a moment.

This was, after all, the heavy Robot that the United States had hidden in a top-secret base.

If any other country's elite squad had broken in, they would likely have paid a heavy price.

But with Lu Li, it was as if a teacher were grading a messy assignment written by an elementary school student.

Ten minutes later, the corridor became completely quiet.

More than a dozen pure black heavy Robots lay scattered on the ground, and the United States flag emblems on their chests were either smashed or burned to a crisp.

Lu Li landed on the ground, and his Battle Armor mask slowly opened.

His expression remained calm.

It was as if the battle just now had merely been clearing some road obstacles.

Lin Qinglan also landed, her breathing noticeably more rapid than his.

Looking at the wreckage all over the floor, she couldn't help but ask:

"Should we take some of these things back?"

"Of course."

Lu Li walked over to one of the Robots and directly dismantled the energy core deep within its chest.

"Although this thing is rough, it can prove that the United States has indeed come into contact with alien technology."

After speaking, he turned and walked toward the main cabin area where the wreckage of The Alien spaceship was located.

The traces of destruction there were even more severe.

The main body of the spaceship had been cut and dismantled countless times by the United States, with a large amount of original structure crudely stripped away, leaving only the silver-gray wreckage that looked like a skeleton.

But even so, those materials still exuded a cold texture that did not belong to the Blue Star industrial system.

Lu Li crouched down and gently ran his fingertips over a piece of broken cabin wall.

"What they obtained back then was even more than I imagined."

Lin Qinglan followed beside him, her tone heavy.

"If these technologies continue to be digested by them, the consequences will be very troublesome."

"The trouble isn't them digesting the technology."

Lu Li stood up, his gaze falling on a crystal module deep within the spaceship console that had not been completely damaged.

"The trouble is that the original owner of this ship might still be alive."

Lin Qinglan's expression changed abruptly.

"Alive?"

Lu Li did not answer, but instead directly connected his Battle Armor's data cable to that crystal module.

The system interface of the mark 45 flashed rapidly.

A large number of strange symbols, fragmented logs, and damage records were constantly being parsed.

A few seconds later, a line of translated text appeared before the two of them.

[Ship body severely damaged.]

[Encountered impact from a small meteorite cluster.]

[Main engine flamed out.]

[Navigation system failure.]

[Pilot's vital signs declining.]

[Emergency landing target: nearby habitable planet.]

Lin Qinglan's pupils shrank slightly.

Lu Li continued to scroll down.

Soon, another more critical piece of information popped up.

[Pilot is in a state of critical injury and coma.]

[Personal armament not activated.]

[Emergency distress beacon failed to send.]

[Warning: Unknown civilization approaching.]

The entire main cabin instantly became terrifyingly quiet.

Looking at those lines, Lin Qinglan felt her throat tighten.

"So, The Alien didn't land on Blue Star voluntarily back then."

"He had an accident."

Lu Li nodded slowly.

"He ran into a meteorite cluster, the spaceship was severely damaged, and he had no choice but to find a nearby habitable planet for an emergency landing."

"And after landing, he was already critically injured and unconscious."

Lin Qinglan understood immediately.

"No wonder he was captured."

If the opponent had remained conscious, given the technological level displayed by this spaceship, it would have been impossible for the United States to easily control him back then.

But against a critically injured and unconscious alien life form, no matter how powerful the weapons were, there was no time to use them.

What the United States picked up was never a complete trophy.

But rather the wreckage from an accidental crash.

And an alien who had lost the ability to resist.