The answer was: not a single step!
Just as Feng Xue was about to test his limits, a piercing alarm had already begun to blare—not because he had made some mistake in his positioning, but because he had taken a deep breath.
“They’re actually monitoring carbon dioxide levels? That’s way too sinister!”
Feng Xue complained inwardly, but at this point, there was no way back!
The shrill electronic sound pierced through the factory building. The surrounding robots instantly swiveled their surveillance units, and even the entire workshop lit up in an unsettling red.
There was no time to hesitate. Feng Xue directly activated the Great Strength skill in his legs, and his entire body suddenly leaped forward. A sharp flash of sword light swept past, and two defense robots that looked like trash cans instantly collapsed to the ground—but immediately afterward, they propped themselves up with their mechanical arms and climbed back to their feet!
“Tch!”
Looking at the deep sword marks on the robots’ bodies, he could not help feeling somewhat helpless. Non-humanoid robots not only avoided the false judgments produced by pattern detection, they also provided thicker armor. Although the Demon Sword’s Hell Sword was forged from Dam alloy, it was ultimately just an ordinary sword—no high heat, no ultrasonic frequency. Its ability to cut through rigid armor was truly mediocre.
Of course, if he infused his sword intent into it, the effect would certainly be much better. Unfortunately, the Demon Sword was not equipped with Flesh Maitreya, and relying solely on Feng Xue’s own half-baked sword intent, both its quality and quantity were insufficient to contend against so many robot guards.
Strings of bullets connected into lines, weaving into a net as they tried to seal off Feng Xue’s retreat. However, what Feng Xue was using now was not the previous cannon fodder, but the Demon Sword equipped with the Cinan Arm!
“Hell Sword: Solar Eclipse!”
Feng Xue gripped the sword with one hand. It looked as though he had only swung once, yet countless streaks of sword light seemed to burst forth. That immense hail of bullets was unable to pass through the sword net, dense as light itself, and could only turn into fragments scattered across the floor.
But Feng Xue knew very well that these “trash cans” were nothing more than appetizers. If he wasted too much time here, he would likely be forced into a fight with the main force!
Taking advantage of the fact that Great Strength had yet to end, Feng Xue suddenly charged forward, leaping past these troublesome trash cans as he headed for the main control room!
However, as the front-line robots failed to effectively obstruct him, two heavy guard units had already raised their left arms. Their triple-barreled rotary autocannons began spinning up to preheat, but for some reason, the cannons did not fire immediately!
At this moment, Feng Xue obviously could not let such an opportunity slip by. He could think about the reason later. Right now, the only thought in his mind was that he had to be faster than these machines!
The sword in Feng Xue’s hand vanished in an instant, and he was already beside a heavy unit. He spread the five fingers of his right hand, and five streaks of cold light erupted from his fingertips. His right elbow let out an explosive boom, and the speed of his entire arm increased by another margin!
“Hell Sword: Man and Sword as One: Waning Moon Sword Form!”
The precise finger blades sliced the autocannon to pieces, while a forward thrust from his left arm directly pierced into the main surveillance unit. It was also at this very instant that an abrupt notification suddenly interrupted Feng Xue’s Tianwu Killing Path, which was on the verge of erupting—
[Unrecorded entry detected. Record it? Note: recording an entry will cause irreversible damage to the entry carrier. You may also obtain this entry by installing the prosthetic body.]
“What the fuck?!”
Feng Xue’s shock at this moment could be said to be beyond words, but that did not stop him from issuing the command. The heavy unit instantly decomposed, but in the next moment, countless small robots swarmed in to block him. Strangely enough, however, none of them opened fire!
Having once been pinned down by suppressive fire to the point where even standing up was difficult, Feng Xue naturally knew this was not because they had run out of ammunition. Sweeping his gaze left and right, he immediately realized the crux of the problem—
“Is it these devices?”
Compared to the previous assembly line, Feng Xue had now arrived at a chip platform. Without a doubt, the equipment here was far more expensive than the mechanical arms that had been piecing together outer shells earlier.
Realizing this, Feng Xue immediately gave up on charging around recklessly and instead specifically circled around those expensive devices. To prevent hacker intrusion, the entire factory was physically disconnected from the network. Even if the company it belonged to had received notice that the factory had been breached, it would be impossible for them to alter the guards’ behavioral logic through remote commands.
And this was Feng Xue’s chance!
Although they had given up on blanket fire, the defense robots did not give up on stopping his movements. “Trash cans” large and small surrounded him, trying to restrict Feng Xue’s movements with their mechanical arms.
The Hell Sword was truly somewhat at a loss against this sort of attack. Continuous chopping even left Feng Xue’s arms somewhat numb.
“Damn it, entries can only be recorded once. Otherwise, I’d decompose every last one of you!”
After decomposing two more robots of different models, Feng Xue’s face took on a ferocious expression. He had to admit, the Demon Sword really was starting to fall behind his rhythm. Especially without Flesh Maitreya, his flesh-source energy was nothing more than a stamina cheat, not even the slightest bit—
Wait!
A flash of inspiration struck Feng Xue’s mind. Flesh-source energy was useless in actual combat because his enemies were human, and source energy could clash against source energy. But now, his enemies were robots!
A sharp light burst from the Demon Sword’s eyes. His right hand reached out and grabbed a mechanical arm sweeping toward him. A large crimson button surfaced in his mind, and in the next instant, that metal arm, which would have taken the Hell Sword three slashes to fully sever, actually transformed into a mass of flesh and blood!
“Splat!”
Blood sprayed out, and Feng Xue suddenly burst into wild laughter. All the metal arms in contact with him snapped apart at once. He did not expand the range of influence; he only needed to complete the corrosion at the single point of contact, and these metal lumps would fall apart on their own!
With such an anti-machine method in hand, Feng Xue’s movements became even more unrestrained. His high-quality source energy, capable of completing an entire human-body conversion within minutes, could almost be said to bear no burden at all in a situation where only a few cubic millimeters were needed to achieve results!
However, Feng Xue did not indulge in his destructive urges. He always remembered exactly what his objective was!
In the blink of an eye, he was only thirty-some meters from the main control room. The only problem was that between them, there were no high-value devices—there was not even a single conveyor belt!
“I’m going all in!”
Feng Xue gritted his teeth and directly activated his Spinosaurus form. Compared to the Rocket Headbutt, which had a longer cooldown and was even less flexible, mobility was the key right now!
The Demon Sword, transformed into monster form, was as agile as a ghost. With several twists and turns, he actually dodged all the bullets. The Hell Sword easily broke through the door lock, and Feng Xue immediately slipped inside.
The server room.
He was finally here.
Feng Xue had no time to look at the mainframes inside the room. Instead, he immediately looked vigilantly toward the door. But at this moment, the robots that had been ready to fight just before seemed to have already forgotten Feng Xue’s existence and began returning to their original positions.
“Phew… Looks like robots aren’t allowed to come into contact with the server room… Probably to prevent someone from controlling robots from the outside and sending them in.”
Feng Xue breathed a sigh of relief and immediately canceled his transformation. Now that he did not know when the enemy would arrive, any earlier cooldown was a good thing!
After returning to his normal body size, the Demon Sword finally began sizing up this area he had entered for the first time. The room was not large; even counting the space occupied by the rows of server racks, it would not exceed two hundred square meters. Looking at the indicator lights flashing like stars, Feng Xue did not think too much. He quickly came to the central control console and, without caring whether there were viruses or not, grabbed a data cable, intending to—
“Holy shit, the Demon Sword doesn’t have a brain-machine interface!”