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Chapter 267 - 266: Victorious Return

The retreat could be said to be the most uncertain part of the entire plan. Attempting to take everyone away with one daily summon is far from enough.

The only way is to set up the shop inside the building!

Chen Xuan immediately opened the rolling shutter door to restore the shop to business status. After that, there wasn’t much more he could do. When the shop could meet the needs of returning customers, and where the shop door would open, were all unknowns.

Lin Qing did not immediately leave the core server room after receiving the gathering notification.

"Besides repairs, you should be able to create, right?"

She asked the large screen.

She was now increasingly convinced that the peculiar object used by that repair shop in Second New Paris City was N959.

The shop definitely didn’t have prosthetic parts that matched her own components exactly.

However, her arm was still repaired, with further enhancements to the realistic components, which was entirely its independent creation.

"No, I can’t." But N959 replied, "My mission is to repair. Without a template or not understanding the original function of an object, I can only return it as is."

"Alright then." Lin Qing decided to change her approach, "There must be storage devices in this building."

In the future, any digitalized building will have a UPS-like device to ensure stable power supply at all times.

"Can you combine them to form a gigantic energy storage unit?"

"I can." N959 responded indeed, "Enhancing performance is also a form of repair."

"Great, combine them into the ammo storage and install an overload switch. As for the template... rebuild it as an electro-explosive giant bomb."

The building must also have a whole set of weapon and ammunition storage, transporting them through the building’s transit system to various defensive turrets and armed robots.

"Protest, such a thing would threaten my existence!" N959 shouted, "Even N21 and N5 wouldn’t push me to this extent!"

"Wouldn’t really?" Lin Qing retorted.

"Uh..." Its momentum dropped immediately, "Should... maybe..."

"Alright, I won’t leave you here. This isn’t your home either," she stated bluntly, "As for your body... there will be better ones in the future. But if you don’t follow my plan, after our evacuation, do you think those demons won’t pull you out of the building?"

N959 immediately changed its tone, "I didn’t say it was entirely impossible, you can’t deceive a peculiar object!"

Admittedly, sometimes they are easier to communicate with than people.

Lin Qing then left the core server room and returned to the first-floor lobby the way she came.

Liu Shuyue, Ji Yun, and Liuli had already arrived.

Through the damaged door, they saw that the outside was surrounded by various police vehicles, a cordon was set up in the open space, and many armed police officers were hiding behind the vehicles, armed and awaiting.

"Why aren’t they breaking in?" Fu Jiaolu asked a little disappointedly.

In the exercise, the Hunting Team was charged with the task of the first round of blocking action. As long as Chen Xuan hadn’t announced a retreat, they had to guard the entrance on the first floor and not let anyone intrude into the building. This time they were armed not with rifles, but with two rocket launchers apiece. As the Immortal Master put it, they did not have a weapon advantage in this battle, so they had to rely on caliber suppression.

This new weapon was more powerful, capable of blowing a house to pieces with one shot, and it was Fu Jiaolu’s favorite. Originally thought he could showcase it well this time, yet the opponent did not come in at all.

"They are waiting for a more professional anti-riot squad to arrive." Lin Qing was not as optimistic as he was. These people already knew the attackers were not ordinary thugs. Regular police were powerless to resolve the intensity of this conflict, and things would only escalate from here, from anti-riot teams to rapid response forces, and eventually to the regular army...

If the opponents were willing to flatten the building to capture them, it would be hard for even Liu Shuyue and Ji Yun to protect everyone.

"Since everyone is here, let’s move upstairs." She arranged, and she had Lv redirect all the armed robots to the lobby to delay the opponent’s assault speed.

The first floor’s lobby was definitely going to be abandoned.

If heavy firepower got involved, utilizing the building’s structure and engaging in prolonged combat would be the best strategy. The headquarters building still had many turrets and mechanical traps, might as well use them.

Liuli threw a burlap sack to the Hunting Team members and stood with a knife at the back of the group.

Just as everyone was scrambling up the evacuation stairwell, two large holes exploded in the outer wall of the lobby, and two drones squeezed through the holes, bursting open directly above the lobby!

In an instant, electric sparks flew everywhere, the lights in the lobby went out instantly, and a large number of the newly arrived robots fell down in a heap.

N959 screamed, "My eyes!"

"What happened?" Liu Shuyue asked, puzzled.

"Don’t worry about it, just keep going!" Lin Qing realized the enemy had launched a round of EMP attacks. The ability to miniaturize the EMP bomb so that it could be carried by portable drones showed some decent level of technological capability in this world. Fortunately, her entire body was a military prosthesis, and she had extremely high protection levels against electromagnetic pulses, so she was hardly affected.

But the enemy’s intention in launching an EMP in the first-floor lobby was clearly not to annihilate the intruders. An electromagnetic pulse of this extent could cover only one or two floors, it merely served as a prelude to their attack.

Sure enough, with a muffled bang, a tracked vehicle smashed through the wall and charged into the lobby with rolling clouds of dust. Following closely, more than a dozen fully armed armored soldiers filed in along the path cleared by the vehicle. They were enveloped in powered armor, each standing three meters tall, and the barrels of their guns were thick and long, hinting at their formidable power just by appearance.

Those robots not destroyed by the EMP unhesitatingly opened fire on the armored soldiers, and the two sides were entangled in a fierce battle immediately.

Witnessing the newly deployed riot control forces from the police, Lin Qing felt relieved instead.

After taking a hard hit, the Paris police, while swiftly raising their response level, hadn’t realized who exactly they were fighting against. The performance of this powered armor in both attack and defense was decent, but only against regular rioters.

"It’s all yours." Lin Qing patted Liuli on the shoulder and retreated into the stairwell.

Liuli nodded and headed back to the lobby.

She gripped the sword hilt with one hand, crouched her body slightly, and then unleashed a long-awaited slash; the feeling of this swing was better than any in the past, as if entering a new realm: not swinging for stability, nor fulfilling duty, but because she desired to land this blow, wanted praise from someone.

For a swordsman, it’s a pity if no one appreciates the exquisite skills.

White threads wove into a densely layered net.

In the next instant, countless sword lights flashed across the lobby, cutting apart not only both the warring parties but also the ceiling, columns, beams, and walls... accompanied by the deafening noise of tearing concrete and rebar, the grand entrance lobby collapsed with a crash! The ten-meter-high ceiling fell heavily onto the cut ground, causing the first floor to crumble further under its weight, burying everything that could move underground!

This way, the others must clear the building debris before they can enter the building.

Liuli contentedly sheathed her sword and turned away.

On the other side, Chen Xuan suddenly noticed the sidewalk outside the shop door had turned into a corridor shrouded in darkness, with emergency evacuation signs emitting a faint green glow.

It’s connected!

As to which customer’s return request the shop was responding to, it didn’t matter at all.

But why did the power suddenly go out over there?

He didn’t have time to think more about it and quickly went outside the shop, contacting Lin Qing with the intercom while confirming which floor the shop had opened to.

"Hey, can you hear me!?"

"We can hear you, we’re all together!" It wasn’t Lin Qing who answered him, but Liu Shuyue, "Jiu has sensed you, you’re not far, about thirty meters in height difference. Hold on, we’ll be there soon!"

Oh right... Ji Yun’s Celestial Mist Skill could cover the entire building, saving him the trouble of locating.

Vertical thirty meters, about eight or nine floors of height, was only a matter of a minute for the villagers who moved with Swift Foot. Before long, the Hunting Team and others retreated into the shop one after another, followed by Liu Shuyue and others securing the rear. Meanwhile, muffled explosions occasionally echoed through the building, indicating that the riot control forces were opening more entry points, launching strong attacks from multiple floors.

But clearly, they couldn’t catch up to Chen Xuan.

Once Liuli had also retreated into the shop, Lin Qing smashed a nearby emergency evacuation sign cover, took out N959 from it, and immediately issued the command for the overload power storage unit.

Underground, where everyone couldn’t see, a brilliantly dazzling ball of light broke out of the container shell, enveloping the tightly packed ammo boxes around it in a wave of high-temperature plasma.

From then on, whatever happened was no longer their concern.

Chen Xuan pulled down the rolling shutter door, cutting off all the chaos from outside.