Nikke, something’s seriously wrong with this evacuation point! Chapter 126 126: Sequence Break Successful

The tiny shoe lockers swung open. Even though each compartnt was only about the size of a human head, countless "mummies" twisted and squeezed themselves out from inside like insects pouring out of a hive.

But the most shocking thing wasn't the monsters themselves.

It was that every single one of them was ard.

Submachine guns, pistols, assault rifles, shotguns… they had everything. The weapons all looked heavily corroded, like they could fall apart at any second, but there was a saying about guns like that:

If a gun looks like it's about to break, you can assu it'll jam.

And if it's in your hands, maybe the jam chance is 90%.

But if it's in the hands of AI enemies?

The jam chance is 0%.

Faced with this scene, Charon ignored all the surrounding distortions and anomalies. He was no longer the lightweight knife-runner he used to be.

Now he was a fully geared walking fortress that killed everything in his path.

Flas erupted from the machine gun's barrel once more. Just like in the subway station, overwhelming firepower turned the monster horde into nothing more than moving targets. Especially in the narrow corridor, a single M993 round could kill over ten monsters before losing montum.

BRRRRRRTTTT—

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD—

KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK—

「This really is a pleasing sight to behold. I'm actually starting to look forward to the next monster attack.」

The monster swarm that was supposed to create danger got utterly crushed under Charon's absurd level of firepower. The fight ended before the barrel even had ti to overheat.

"Not bad," Charon said, "but we need to move faster."

Even though the monsters were dead, the environnt around them was still changing irreversibly every second.

It was like an oil painting being violently sared apart. The corruption spread at an unbelievable speed. Charon had no choice but to accelerate further, otherwise even the staircase itself might disappear.

He sprinted toward the stairwell, taking multiple steps at a ti. The unstable structure beneath his feet only confird his suspicion. Without hesitating for even a mont, he charged upward and smashed straight through the barricade of decayed desks and chairs with a full-force shoulder rush, scattering them everywhere.

The second floor.

He finally made it.

But when he pulled himself up from the ground, what appeared before him wasn't the second floor of a building.

It was a desert.

A vast wasteland stained rust-red like dried blood.

Behind him, the "entrance" still showed the stairwell rotting away and falling into the void. Across the desert lay countless half-buried ruins, clearly once academy buildings, but now stripped of all function.

Ruins were just ruins.

Shadowy figures wandered through the sands in the distance – likely the monsters of this layer.

「The inner world… I suppose that's the best na for it. Surprisingly, compared to the surface world that looked calm but was full of chaotic data, this place – despite looking completely ruined – has far more orderly data structures.」

Rose's voice rang out at the perfect mont.

「Be happy. Because I'm here, you'll be skipping ninety percent of the navigation ti.」

"That's amazing, DoraRose!"

「Please stop adding the blue-fat-cat nickna. Even if you don't call that, I'll still help you. Saving you is also saving myself.」

Rose gave a small snort.

「Now listen carefully. Because the weapon in your hands is absurdly overpowered, I won't bother routing around enemies anymore. Just charge straight through them.」

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am!"

Charon gave an exaggerated salute and stepped forward with his gun raised.

The environnt of the inner world was extrely harsh. No sandstorm blew through the desert, yet the air was constantly filled with a thick tallic rust sll, perhaps even mixed with blood.

Maybe it was just an illusion, but Charon felt like he could hear endless rustling pages turning sowhere nearby.

When he asked Rose about it, she admitted she could hear it too. Apparently it wasn't hallucinations targeting him, but rather so environntal chanism of this layer.

The surrounding ruins looked like they'd co straight out of a horror ga made by so smiling bespectacled fat guy – the kind where mummified monsters could jump out at any mont to scare the player.

Unfortunately for them, Charon's firepower reduced them all to sand.

So bullets did manage to hit him, but the Level-6 armor was simply too ridiculous. They couldn't penetrate his defenses at all.

The monsters themselves were strange. Even though they looked like mummies, they still wore female high school uniforms. Above their heads floated faintly visible shattered halos, dim and colorless.

Whenever Charon blew one apart, those broken halos would scatter as well.

From Rose's perspective, the data fragnts all gathered together and drifted upward toward the higher floors.

No idea who was collecting them.

Along the way there were many half-destroyed buildings that looked worth exploring. So even had rule sheets posted outside, similar to the ones they'd seen earlier, clearly ant for whatever was inside.

But every single ti, Rose rely scoffed lightly and told Charon to ignore them and move on.

Just as she said – she had no need to gather clues.

From the mont they entered this layer, she already knew how to clear it.

Under her guidance, Charon massacred enemies all the way to the end of the stage with ridiculous ease.

About three hundred ters ahead stood a pair of sliding double doors placed bizarrely in the middle of the desert. A paper sign had been pasted above them with handwritten words:

"Abydos Foreclosure Task Force."

「Looks like this is it. The Task Force ntioned in the earlier docunt.」

"Theoretically, if we walk through that door, we'll clear this layer, right?"

「Affirmative. At least from a data-analysis perspective.」

But then Rose changed her tone.

「However, there's obviously no way they'll let you walk in that easily.」

"Oh?"

Charon stopped walking.

Because the sand directly in front of the doors suddenly began rippling like ocean waves.

Countless rotten robots crawled out from beneath the sand.

At first glance they were clearly humanoid drone bodies, standing crookedly and awkwardly, but upon closer inspection, they had actually ford an organized military formation.

A rough estimate placed their number at over a thousand units.

Behind the robotic army stood a slightly larger and bulkier robot commander, calmly positioned atop a tank as if inspecting its troops.

And that tank looked extrely dangerous.

「Looks like that's both their commander… and the BOSS of this floor.」

"A double aning, huh? Nice."

Charon casually mocked the situation while standing atop the dune, looking down over the robot army.

「Your firepower should be enough to wipe them all out easily, right?」

"No. Too much trouble."

Charon's expression darkened slightly.

"I don't want to waste bullets this expensive on trash mobs."

「Then could it be…」

"Yes."

In the next mont, Charon switched to his secondary weapon.

A massive sniper rifle.

Its high-powered scope could even clearly show the patterns on the enemy's face.

BOOM.

The deafening gunshot echoed through the entire desert.

At a distance of only three hundred ters, a .338 AP round crossed the space almost instantly.

The robot boss's head exploded on the spot, turning into scrap tal.

And just as Charon expected, the mont the boss died, all the smaller robots – even the tank – instantly froze as if their power had been cut.

Then, one after another, they slowly sank back beneath the sand.

"Done."

"We should get moving."