Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 645 - 644: Truly Frightening

In the gradual relaxation, Old Qiao felt that some new sparks seemed to be jumping between his logic chips—loose and pleasant nerve impulses spread within his body, the drowsy whispers like warmth coming from the border between sleep and awakening, giving him some new inspiration and ideas, some new… processing plans and processing objectives.

It seemed as though he had already forgotten the damages sustained by this shell, forgotten the need to repair his body.

Old Qiao's vigilance was being worn down bit by bit by this 'comfort' that seemed to be lulling him into slumber, and then after a moment, he suddenly heard some sounds in his half-dreaming state.

There was a rustling sound coming from the opposite side, a silhouette swayed in front of his eyes.

Old Qiao tried hard to open his eyelids—somehow, sometime, his living metal face had become covered with vein-like protrusions, and a membrane similar to skin had covered the surface of his eyes' monitors, causing his vision to blur.

A figure with flowing blonde hair and wearing a white long dress walked slowly between the display cases and the biomass tanks, the spine specimens hanging from the ceiling clinked against each other like wind chimes swayed by the wind, swaying behind her.

She turned and looked at Old Qiao, and there seemed to be mottled bloodstains left from the last surgery on her long dress.

"Luo..."

A hoarse syllable squeezed out from Old Qiao's throat, he was half lying, half sitting on the sofa, his chest heaving rapidly, a hissing sound of airflow came from his trachea.

"Old Qiao, long time no see," the figure in the blonde hair and white dress spoke, but her voice was directly drilled into his mind, "your taste is still as bad as ever..."

"The biggest mistake I've ever made was letting you walk out of the laboratory alive..." Old Qiao mumbled as if sleep-talking, he felt he should stand up, but this body felt as if it had drunk fake alcohol, unable to muster any strength, the whole room in his view seemed to be soaked in a layer of blood color, and the liquid in those containers began to slowly wriggle under the red filter, with the contents inside coming back to life one after another, "I should have corrected it earlier... cough, cough, cough..."

He started to cough violently, the trachea and lungs forcibly generated inside the steel body were forming some kind of bizarre coexistence structure with the surrounding machinery, he vaguely felt that something was not right with his body's condition, but for a moment, couldn't pinpoint what was wrong—he blinked several times, looking at the woman in the white dress in front of him, then frowned and muttered: "Wait, no, why are you here?"

"I've been searching for this base all these years," "Luo" seemed not to have heard his words but instead looked around, "you crammed me into a tank, sent it as a gift to Ursula's lab, but until her dying breath, Ursula refused to divulge where the 'shipping destination' was... you've hidden yourself too well, even the most adept hiding mouse I've seen can't hide as you do."

Old Qiao shook his head vigorously, seeming to want to dispel the sluggish feeling in his mind, he tried hard to think with the remaining rationality, trying to find the oddities in his body's state and the surrounding environment—as for why Luo was here, he had no time to think about that now.

"Traitors, traitors, all of you are traitors... none of you can be trusted, those with flesh, those without flesh, those who can breathe, those who can't..."

He wobbled as he stood up from the sofa, but felt as if the floor was sinking downward like soft fat, almost falling as he stepped into the void, he saw "Luo" walking toward him, but midway, she suddenly changed into another face, one that had been a "material" that died in his lab a long time ago, whose name he even forgot—

"Are you leaving? Where are you going? Don't leave me on the operating table... I can still be of use..."

In the next second, that figure changed again into a new form, this time completely devoid of human shape, but became a mass lump of sprawling, confused limbs and bones, crawling on the ground, faces flipping out from within it, wailing and begging for mercy from him, crying and howling:

"Have mercy, please! Let us go back, we beg you—"

Old Qiao forcefully waved his hand, and the shadow in front of his eyes dissipated from his vision, at this moment reason briefly broke through the blockade, he suddenly reacted: "No, this is an illusion... this and all of these, are of no use, are long dead..."

He suddenly lifted his head, his internal logic chips bursting with small currents, the brief return of rationality made him aware of something, the next second, he quickly raised his hand to grab his face.

With a tearing sound, Old Qiao forcibly tore off a blood-drenched skin from his living metal face, the unfamiliar pain further sobered him up, in the blood-red sight blocking his eyes, he saw the scene in the room changing continuously—

The silver-white metal walls growing twitching blood vessels and nerves, returning to normal in the blink of an eye; organ specimens in the tanks restored their blood color, each cleaved heart started to throb as if resurrected; the limbs in the display cases were twitching, madly banging against the surroundings as if coming back to life.

Sometimes deceitful and terrifying, sometimes returning to normal, like an inverted chaos, a nightmare spreading continuously on the edge of reason.

"No, it's contamination... I've been contaminated by something..." Old Qiao struggled to get up, muttering to himself, oil mixed with blood foam seeped from the corner of his mouth, "Spiritual Ability User, I need a Spiritual Ability User..."

There was an odd noise from inside the steel body, he seized the moment of consciousness to send a signal to the Spiritual Ability Users left behind in the base, but only an empty echo responded to him, the surroundings continued to switch between nightmare and reality, with no one rushing in to aid their master.

Old Qiao seemed to sense something, hurriedly reaching for his chest.

With a terrifying breaking sound, he directly snapped off a piece of the steel plate on his chest with his fingers, pulling out a bunch of "cables" from inside.

There originally was an encrypted communication module there, specifically used for communication with the base's internal circuitry.

However, now those cables had turned into blood vessels and nerves, amid the haphazardly growing flesh, there was an eye rolling around in fear.

Deep within the chest cavity, a heart composed of flesh, bolts, cables, and metal tubes was pounding.

"Blood! I'm bleeding!"

The mighty Steel Giant let out a tiny scream from its throat, a "fear" that hadn't surfaced in centuries finally rushed into his mind, the fragility of flesh tightly wrapped around his sanity like a suffocating net. He staggered back two steps, not daring to look at the pulsing heart in his chest, but instead frantically searching his body for something.

An emergency beacon, a backup repair kit, a container of Living Metal, anything would do, as long as it could fix this body, or get those idiots outside to come in and save him, anything would do!

Suddenly, Old Qiao froze.

A peculiar object fell to the ground from a hidden compartment on his body—

It was a palm-sized card, smeared with a triangular emblem in dubious red "paint," surrounded by runes that seemed to have no meaning.

What is this? Why is it on me?

The fire of reason wavered, and Old Qiao felt his head grow heavy again. He recalled all the details, vaguely realizing that the only possible "window" for this thing to end up on him was during the chaos when that "Giant" forced him out of the walker.

Instantly, he was on high alert, this thing was off, it must not be touched!

His body slowly bent down, carefully picking up the card as if it were a sacred relic.

Stay away from it! Throw it far away!

He held the card aloft, a hint of obsession and reverence on his semi-biological, semi-mechanical face.

Tear it apart! Tear it to shreds! Tear it—

A life-giving warmth surged through his arm. The red emblem on the card glowed subtly, countless tiny red lines emerged like blood vessels from the edges of the card, rapidly growing in the air and tracing out the shape of a door.

The heart, mixed with metal and flesh, jumped out of Old Qiao's chest, bouncing excitedly on the ground, emitting tiny screams of joy in front of the door until it stopped moving.

Old Qiao slowly retreated half a step, his heavy body falling onto the sofa. He looked up at the door, a strange smile gradually appearing on his face.

"Ah, beautiful..."

Then the door opened.

A small black figure shot out from the door like a cannonball, feet together, firmly kicking the faceplate of the steel shell, causing his head to snap back ninety degrees on the spot.

Then Erin landed on the ground, patted her skirt and looked up politely, "Thank you for the compliment."

Following closely, Hu Li also stepped out, then Luna and Yu Sheng.

Finally, dressed in a silver-white gown with golden hair draped over her shoulders, came Luo.

"Tie him up, tie him up quickly, don't let him spring back to life," Yu Sheng instructed as soon as they entered the room, "Luna, guard the door and scan the surroundings with the radar, Hu Li, give Erin a hand..."

Hu Li acknowledged and stepped forward to hold down the slightly twitching steel shell, while Erin quickly summoned black threads, wildly weaving them until Old Qiao was securely bound. Luna was already guarding the door, and Luo was the last to walk through, still appearing somewhat dazed—she stood in the center of the room, scanning her surroundings, a dazed look in her eyes.

It wasn't until the voice of her new boss beside her pulled her out of her daze.

"Oh man, what a hassle this was, luckily the second half of the plan went smoothly, we managed to drive him back to his lair..."

Yu Sheng sighed beside Luo, watching Erin tie up the "metal lump," and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief, glancing around.

Containers on shelves, locks in cabinets, hanging from the ceiling—richly diverse, a dazzling array.

"...Whoa!" Yu Sheng gasped and took a half-step back, "Quite terrifying!"