Lu Zhaoming stood in front of the energy core, the system interface flashing warnings: "The risk of mental energy overdraft has reached the critical value." He took a deep breath, placed his hand on the core control panel, and tried to crack the complex combination lock.
Cold sweat trickled down his forehead, a piercing alarm sounded in his ears, and what came into view was a blinding red light and a huge energy core shimmering with a ghostly blue glow.
The air in the entire experimental field seemed to freeze at that moment, filled with tension and crisis.
"Brother Lu, be careful! There seems to be some movement over there!" Xiao Mei nervously observed her surroundings, ready to sound the alarm at any moment.
Her small hands gripped a tiny dagger tightly, her eyes scanning every corner warily, as if ready to deal with any possible threat at any moment.
Just then, a dark figure suddenly rushed out from the shadows. The old fox's wrinkled face was filled with a ferocious smile. With a flick of his arms, a concentrated wave of foul energy instantly swept out, filling the air with a suffocating stench.
The old fox, like a wolf poised to pounce, charged straight at Lu Zhaoming with cunning glint in its eyes.
"Hmph, you want to shut down the self-destruct program? Not so easy!" The old fox's low growl was like the roar of a wild beast, and the energy fluctuations in his hand attacked Lu Zhaoming like venomous snakes.
Lu Zhaoming frowned, a sense of foreboding creeping into his heart, but he couldn't afford to be distracted at the moment and could only focus all his energy on cracking the combination lock.
"Little Tiger!" Lu Zhaoming roared, his voice firm and confident.
As if he had heard a summons, Little Tiger moved swiftly and instantly stood in front of Lu Zhaoming, engaging in a fierce battle with the old fox.
Xiao Hu's eyes gleamed with an eerie light, his muscles were as sharp as blades, and every strike carried an overwhelming force.
Although the old fox was cunning and resourceful, he was powerless against the little tiger and was forced to retreat step by step.
Although Xiao Hu's condition was unstable, his strength was enough to make it difficult for Lao Hu to break through the defense.
Lu Zhaoming seized this precious opportunity, his fingers flying across the console, his mind constantly calculating the correctness of each line of code.
Time seemed to slow down at this moment, each second feeling like an eternity.
"Only one set of code left!" Lu Zhaoming muttered to himself, his eyes sharp as knives, filled with a ruthless determination to go all out.
He gritted his teeth and his fingers fell on the keyboard one last time. The system interface froze instantly, followed by a soft "click" sound, and the self-destruct program was finally paused.
Just as the crisis was averted, a new notification popped up on the system interface: "Hidden module activated, suspected to be a backdoor program left by the white-robed man." Lu Zhaoming frowned, a sense of foreboding rising in his heart.
He quickly scanned the core area and discovered a hidden data interface that stored the white-robed man's latest experimental records.
"System, download the data!" Lu Zhaoming quickly issued the order, and the data began to be transmitted to the system at high speed.
However, at that very moment, Xiao Hu's condition deteriorated rapidly; his eyes turned blood red, and his body began to rage uncontrollably.
He let out a low growl, as if possessed by a demon, and frantically attacked everything around him.
"Xiao Hu! Calm down!" Lu Zhaoming shouted hoarsely, quickly using his Judgment Eye to lock onto Xiao Hu's weakness, his eyes flashing with a calm light.
He threw a powerful punch, striking Xiao Hu precisely in the chest and instantly subduing him.
After Xiaohu collapsed to the ground, he weakly said, "He...he put something in my head..."
Lu Zhaoming's heart sank. He quickly knelt down, gently lifting Xiaohu's head with both hands. He whispered, "Don't be afraid, I'll save you..."
Before he finished speaking, a glint flashed in Lu Zhaoming's eyes. He cursed inwardly, "Damn it, that old bastard in the white robe, his methods are really dirty!" "Eye of Judgment, open!" he shouted. Data seemed to flow like a waterfall in his deep eyes, and a light blue screen instantly spread across his retina, like a high-precision CT scanner, beginning to meticulously examine every inch of Xiaohu's skull.
Xiao Hu's scalp was warm to the touch, sticky with sweat, but Lu Zhaoming could clearly "see" that between the skin and the skull, there seemed to be some foreign object emitting a faint but unusually cold energy fluctuation.
On the system interface, the three-dimensional structure of Xiaohu's head is rapidly constructed, rotated, and magnified, with every neuron and every blood vessel clearly visible.
Soon, a metal sheet the size of a fingernail and as thin as a cicada's wing, like a sinister digital parasite, was embedded near his brainstem nerve bundle, its surface flashing with intermittent, eerie blue signal light.
"Beep! Unknown implanted device detected," the cold, emotionless system notification rang in his mind. "Material: Shape memory alloy, biocompatible nano-coating. Warning: This device has an encrypted link with an external high-dimensional signal source. Preliminary assessment indicates it is connected to the White Robe's main control system and possesses the ability to remotely interfere with mental processes, alter memories, and deeply manipulate physiological functions!"
"Remote mind control?! Memory manipulation?!" Lu Zhaoming gasped, feeling a chill run down his spine.
This thing is practically an implanted headband plus a super backdoor. No, it's a million times more insidious than those things. It's treating living, breathing, emotional people like programmable robot puppets!
That old pervert in the white robe, his heart is as black as if he came back from mining coal without washing his hands.
He instantly realized that this was not just a simple core threat to the experimental field; this was a deadly trump card in the white-robed man's earth-shattering bullshit plan!
"Damn, they're playing this big game, they're really inhuman!" Lu Zhaoming gritted his teeth, his eyes becoming incredibly sharp, as if they could pierce through layers of fog and lock onto the old fox hiding in the shadows manipulating everything. "It seems that this matter will never be over until we wipe out his den of thieves." He carefully picked up Xiao Hu, who had completely fainted due to the intense pain and energy conflict, and carried him horizontally. The boy's body was burning hot and his breathing was rapid.
Lu Zhaoming turned his head and looked at Xiao Mei, who was already pale with fright but still gripping the dagger tightly on guard. He said in a deep voice that left no room for doubt, "Xiao Mei, hold on tight to me. We need to find another place immediately and give Xiao Hu a good 'repair' of this 'surprise' in his head."
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