A piercing, ear-splitting crash, utterly unlike the sound of flesh and metal colliding, erupted within the gas station!
Dorio's forearm muscles, enhanced to their peak, and her steel-hard bones, directly met the high-frequency vibrating Mantis Blades' edges!
A small cluster of dazzling sparks even burst from the point of impact!
The 'Switchblade' soldier's optical implants instantly widened; clearly, her combat database had never recorded anyone being able to directly parry his Mantis Blades with their bare flesh!
The immense recoil caused her beyond-human cybernetic joints to emit a slight groan, her high-speed movement was forcibly halted, and her optical camouflage completely failed due to system overload, fully revealing her heavily cybernetically modified body.
Dorio gave her no time to adjust or be shocked.
Seizing this fleeting opening, she twisted her waist and unleashed her left fist, clenched tight, like a heavy cannonball leaving its barrel, striking squarely and solidly in the center of the opponent's unprotected chest!
"Thump!"
A dull, heart-stopping thud echoed.
The modified soldier felt as if she had been hit head-on by an armored personnel carrier at full speed; her entire body uncontrollably left the ground, flying backward like a discarded sack, slamming hard against a weathered concrete load-bearing wall several meters away!
The wall emitted a muffled groan under the unbearable weight, and spiderweb-like cracks rapidly spread from the point of impact.
She slumped to the ground, a clear fist-shaped indentation in the thick composite armor plate on her chest, its edges twisted and deformed, and the internal mechanical structures emitted a crackling short-circuit sound. She struggled to get up, but Dorio's punch was too lethal. She could only twitch a few times in vain before falling completely still.
Dorio, meanwhile, slowly retracted her fist, casually shaking her slightly numb right arm.
The outer side of her right forearm had been cut by the tip of the Mantis Blades, leaving a gash about ten centimeters long, but the wound was shallow, only breaking the epidermis and some dermal tissue. The seeping blood beads quickly coagulated on her bronze skin.
Through the shallow wound, one could seemingly see the densely packed, reinforced muscle fibers beneath, subtly wriggling as if possessing independent life.
Through the last shaky and chaotic footage transmitted from the modified soldier's helmet camera, those in the virtual command center clearly saw how Dorio, with pure physical strength, had forcibly intercepted and single-handedly defeated a 'Switchblade' soldier equipped with a Sandevistan and top-tier Mantis Blades.
The footage ultimately froze at the moment the soldier slumped to the ground, her chest armor dented, and then the signal completely cut out.
"This is impossible!" The Biotechnica observer cried out in shock for the first time, leaning forward, staring intently at the now-white screen. "Her physiological scan shows no detection of any large combat cybernetic implants!
This—could this be pure biological enhancement? How could the crude techniques of the Animals, relying on steroids and hormones, achieve this level?!"
Her voice was filled with disbelief and a sense of cognitive disruption.
The Action Supervisor's face was as black as a pot, and his fists cracked as he clenched them.
Losing two expensive 'Manticore' AVs was already a major blunder, and now even a valuable, incredibly costly experimental 'Switchblade' soldier had been instantly killed by the opponent in such a primitive and brutal manner.
The strength displayed by Maine's crew repeatedly shattered his previous estimations and confidence like a sledgehammer.
"Increase the deployment! Throw every unit we can use at them! Infantry, robots, drones, everything! I don't want to see any more test data; I want results! There can be no more screw-ups!" He practically roared the order, his virtual image slightly distorted by his emotional agitation.
More Militech soldiers, cold combat robots, and whirring drones surged towards the small gas station ruins like a tide of steel.
The density of the firepower instantly ramped up a level; the barrage almost wove into a net of death, suppressing Maine's crew to the point where even raising their heads became extremely difficult.
Maine's crew members, with their backs against the crumbling walls, were putting up a nearly desperate resistance. Rebecca's plasma pistol, each time it finished charging, would fire a deadly blue light, melting through approaching robots or forcing soldiers to seek cover.
Pilar's smart weapon locked onto several enemies attempting to flank, and bullets arced eerily through the air to strike.
Falco and Maine, meanwhile, used their precise burst fire to pick off targets exposed in their line of sight one by one.
Dorio stood like an insurmountable bulwark at the most crucial breach, any enemy attempting to force their way in would be instantly sent flying or smashed by her terrifying strength.
But the enemy's numerical advantage was overwhelming, ammunition was rapidly depleting, everyone's stamina was plummeting, their operational space was being compressed step by step, and the encirclement was visibly shrinking.
Maine dodged a burst of gunfire, leaning his back against the scorching concrete wall, breathing heavily.
He knew he couldn't hesitate any longer.
He quickly switched to a private encrypted channel with Kiwi, his voice hoarse with tension and exhaustion: "Kiwi! Listen! Things are out of control! Call the boss immediately! Send him the real-time data from here and our coordinates! Quickly!"
On the other end of the channel, Kiwi, far away in the city, her fingers moved so fast on the virtual interface they were a blur.
"Understood! Attempting to establish a connection, bypassing corporate interference—activating backup encrypted node—" Her voice was equally strained, but her operations remained precise.
A few seconds later, she urgently responded: "Link established! Channel stable! Ready to talk!"
Maine took a deep breath, as if to suppress all his anxiety and unease, then, through this multi-layered encrypted communication line, using Kiwi as a relay, he sent a distress signal to the entity deep within the desert workshop: "Boss! We're cornered by corporate forces at the Route 66 gas station! Their numbers are too great, their equipment is superior, we can't hold on much longer! Requesting backup!"
He knew that interrupting the boss' research was by no means a wise move, but they were in a desperate situation, and this was their only way out.
Inside the abandoned town's workshop, Osiris was focused on analyzing a new set of resonance data for the dimensional transfer device when Maine's distress signal, like an discordant noise, interrupted his thoughts.
A flicker of displeasure crossed his logic core.
He disliked unplanned interruptions, especially when he was immersed in research.
His subordinates' inability to solve problems independently, instead requiring his personal intervention, itself indicated the weakness of his currently available forces.
However, this displeasure was quickly overshadowed by another emotion—the annoyance of being attacked directly.
Maine Team was nominally his people now; attacking them was tantamount to challenging his authority, even if this 'authority' currently only existed in this desert wasteland.
More importantly, he was almost certain that the company's target was not Maine Team itself, but rather the technology they represented, which was the technology he himself possessed.
"Foolish," he murmured, a low appraisal, unsure if he was referring to the company's actions or Maine's Team carelessness in falling into a trap.
He didn't hesitate, directly connecting to Kiwi's open network port via the encrypted link.
"Open your data channel," Osiris' cold, synthesized voice resonated in Kiwi's neural interface, devoid of any emotion.
Kiwi didn't even have time to respond before she felt a vast, cold, irresistible data stream instantly flood her system. She felt like a small boat in a raging sea, completely losing control over her own implants, only able to passively become a relay.
The next moment, Osiris' consciousness, using Kiwi as a relay, spread through the neural interfaces of Maine Team members like an invisible virus!