From afar, the tunnel echoed with a loud whistling sound.
Qin Xin’s expression turned stern: "There’s no time left, the first group must evacuate quickly. There’s a car waiting outside, take him directly to the Imperial Central Laboratory Operating Room."
She divided the engineers into three groups, with the first group escorting Hu Yi out, while the other two groups swiftly broke open the other two metal boxes.
The already unconscious Huo Zhen and the blood-soaked Ao Xinghao were also rescued.
Ao Xinghao was the most severely injured, with the skin peeled from the soles of his feet up to his calves; there was not a single patch of intact skin below his lower legs.
Even in this state, upon seeing Qin Xin, his eyes immediately flickered with a hint of a smile, and he spoke lightly, "Xin, I’m too ugly, don’t look..."
Qin Xin felt as if knives were twisting in her heart, unable to hide the sting in her eyes.
Knowing that the three youngsters suffered in order to protect her identity, her palms clenched into fists, her voice cold, "I will make them pay."
The three packs of engineers carefully carried the three mythical beasts out of the passage.
Qin Xin stayed at the back, protecting them as they retreated, opposite to when they entered.
Upon returning to the tunnel warehouse, she discovered more: behind the steel plates were coffin-like freezer boxes, hiding scattered human bones and joints, fused with mechanical prosthetics.
Connecting the dots with those who kidnapped Ao Xinghao, looking for Queen’s whereabouts—could it be these people wanted BMP-16’s research to repair these deficient joints, connect the robot limbs, and create half-human, half-machine monsters?
Using her technology for such a grotesque purpose, she would never agree!
Qin Xin’s face turned even colder, and upon leaving, she threw a timed explosive device into the warehouse.
Everyone hurried to retreat to the surface.
However, the passage was narrow, and ultimately limited their speed.
Just when they were about to reach the exit.
Suddenly!
A collapse ahead, with the exit abruptly clogged by massive rubble, thoroughly blocking their path.
Some stones tumbled down, hitting the engineers’ heads and feet, triggering a series of cries.
Qin Xin furrowed her brows slightly.
Too late?
If the exit is blocked, they’re sealed underground, their natural coffins?
In the next second, the whistling sound from far away grew closer and closer, that familiar noise Qin Xin knew too well—it was the sharp and formidable mini excavation robots, traversing the tunnel to track them down.
The issue was, she had already disrupted all the machines’ intelligent systems and blocked all wireless frequency signals—how could there still be exceptions?
Unless...
This robot wasn’t integrated with an intelligent system but was independently controlled.
Or, it was the #0 Controller.
Other machines followed its orders.
Qin Xin’s expression turned serious, immediately on guard.
"Forty-five degrees to the left front, head towards the fork, and dig upwards with tools, dig two meters deep, and you’ll reach the surface." Qin Xin was very familiar with the tunnel’s structure; the place she directed them to was one of the closest to the surface.
Once they dig open the tunnel back to the surface, there’ll be people waiting to assist.
The engineers sprang into action, but unfortunately, they had three injured patients unable to walk to take care of, slowing down their digging.
Meanwhile, the #0 Controller had already reached a spot visible to them, emitting a series of cold laughs: "Very clever humans, you blocked the machine signals, destroyed intelligent systems, quite impressive. But, you wouldn’t think that’s the only intelligent system setup, would you?"
With an eerie laugh, it finally addressed Qin Xin: "Are you Queen?"