Chapter 757: Chapter 716: Self-Destruction
"Crack, crack, crack..."
The lever Da Vinci had pulled earlier began to emit strange metallic friction sounds, and blue smoke started to spray around the slowly rising platform.
For some reason, this fluorescent blue mist gradually formed the image of an eagle spreading its wings in the sky, visible to everyone who looked up in the entire city.
But at that moment, a violent explosion came from below, and Leo immediately ran to the edge of the platform, looking down.
"Well, use this to summon all the Immortals in Immortal City. They will stand before the High Council and the Sacred Relic. We should walk through that door and return; I have things to say to them."
"Wait, there’s an explosion down there." Leo pointed down, leaning over the platform edge and shouting.
Da Vinci showed no panic, stroking his big beard: "As the prophecy said, upon arrival, there will be an explosion—it seems your father is indeed unhappy returning to the Holy Shield."
"Oh, Dad..."
Below them, Tesla was chasing Howard and Nathaniel, making a mess.
The electric power on him seemed endless; not only did it enhance his movement speed, it also allowed him to attack in astonishing forms.
Lightning whips, lightning arrows, spherical lightning, electromagnetic pulse, ion energy cannon, etc.
Several wires were connected to his spine and brain, utilizing highly advanced neural conduction technology in his battle armor.
In an era without computers and artificial intelligence, he directly used his brain to enhance the bioelectric conduction in his nerves, allowing the armor to follow his commands like an extension of himself.
With his relentless attacks, explosions continuously occurred, and Howard and Nathaniel were forced to retreat step by step.
"Biubiubiu..."
Although the two tried their best to counterattack with their weapons, the sound from the small handgun felt weak.
The energy beams emitted were all deflected by electromagnetic effects, flying randomly and failing to even touch Tesla’s edges.
This was a battle between three scientists, where falling behind technologically meant suffering.
"Huff, puff... One day, I will develop a set of battle armor that can fly and is indestructible, filled with all kinds of weapons from Stark Industries."
Howard, hiding behind a large fallen ceiling piece, panted heavily, complaining to Nathaniel beside him.
Although they avoided direct hits from Tesla due to their high-speed movement capabilities, even just brushing past the electric light left them in a sorry state.
Not only was their hair turned into explosive styles, their beards were messy, and their faces, darkened like Africa chickens.
Nathaniel threw the guns in his hands to Stark. The weapons were his research invention, called transformable modular design.
Originally, each had an energy handgun, but if connected end to end, and twisted a bit, they could transform into a combined energy rifle.
"I’ll distract him; you take a stealthy shot," Nathaniel said, then dashed out, utilizing special shoes to run along the wall toward the ceiling.
Howard immediately stood up, lifting his gun.
Then he noticed Tesla extending his hands towards him, ignoring the spinning and jumping Nathaniel on the wall, his lips pressed together, quietly standing there watching Howard.
"Uh... why aren’t you watching him?" Howard asked awkwardly, seeing Tesla begin to charge his hands.
Tesla glanced at him like looking at an idiot: "Because... I heard your tactical discussion?"
"Oh... sizzle!!"
Howard sighed and immediately pulled the trigger; the energy gun emitted a saw-like noise, shooting a thick energy beam.
This attack was exceedingly powerful, even leaving a deep groove on the ground under its influence, with numerous fragments floating anti-gravity-like, spinning around the beam.
Yet it was futile; Tesla crossed his hands and effortlessly caught the attack.
The red currents that originally surrounded him gradually turned blue-white, matching the beam’s color. It was evident the arcs were denser and more robust.
Tesla squeezed and rounded the energy between his palms like dough, even creating a few holes in it like a bowling ball, inserting his fingers to maintain its stability.
"Because of you, I died—now it’s time to repay you..."
He said, throwing the spherical energy ball towards Howard and Nathaniel with a standard bowling motion.
Seeing the dense energy within the ball, along with the terrifying electric light entwining it, Howard knew it was no joke; although the attack seemed akin to a sports exercise, getting hit by it would leave nothing behind—not even ashes.
"Run!"
Howard and Nathaniel turned to flee, but even with super runner shoes, their speed couldn’t surpass the explosive light energy.
With a terrifying roar, they were directly blown dozens of meters away by the shock wave, suffering severe injuries.
Thankfully, Howard quickly calculated the building structure and the airflow and electric current directions post-explosion, allowing them to dive along magnetic field lines—otherwise, they’d be dead.
They hurriedly climbed up, hiding behind debris to cover themselves.
As Tesla slowly walked down the corridor, his figure in the dust looked like a devil.
"Did we charge him up?" Nathaniel spat out the dust in his mouth, leaning against the cover, gasping for breath.
Earlier, Howard’s energy rifle had dropped, so Nathaniel could only pull out a Wilson 17 handgun from his coat for protection. It was his spare weapon, but ordinary bullets probably posed no threat to the battle armor.
Howard was panting heavily, as he didn’t even have a spare weapon: "He might have improved the mechanical system."
Nathaniel peered out from behind the cover and immediately shrank back: "I don’t think his energy supply comes from that suit."
Tesla kept a distance from them; the weakness of his battle suit was close combat, with so many neural connections on his body that pulling a single one would be troublesome.
So he wouldn’t give them a chance to launch a sneak attack from the ruins, but instead, he started talking trash.
"This underground space shouldn’t exist at all! Come out! Let’s end it here and now!"
Tesla’s taunts made the two of them shrink back their necks; the corridor was full of electric light, going out there could really bring an end.
Sweat poured off Howard, but after hesitating for a moment, he gritted his teeth and pulled a metal cylinder from behind his waist.
How he operated it was unknown, but many small components flew out of the cylinder, and it itself started to elongate rapidly, soon forming a scepter resembling a long-handled drumstick.
"Howard, what is that thing...?"
"A space partition device, we have no other choice."
Their location in Immortal City was actually in a pocket space, a special plane attached to the Main World, somewhat similar to a plane like Hell, but smaller in area and with incomplete rules.
But the essential difference wasn’t much, and what Howard held was actually a beacon that could briefly open a connection between the pocket space and the Main World on a plane.
As long as it was set to form a circular shock wave, it could slice Tesla in half.
Dense footsteps echoed from the other end of the corridor as more guards rushed in.
"They can’t help, ensure they get out of the way, I’ll deal with the Midnight Machine."
With that, Howard dashed out from behind cover, while Nathaniel turned to face the approaching guards.
"Everyone, get down!"
Howard immediately knelt on one knee and thrust the scepter into the ground, triggering the switch below.
The hammerhead of the scepter opened, revealing a complex internal structure, resembling a flower forged from metal, with a core that was a white light ball, constantly absorbing energy ions from the surrounding air.
"Buzz...buzz...buzz..."
It emitted a brief buzzing sound, then instantly, a blue disk spread out from its center. Wherever the disk touched, whether wall or ruins, or hidden metal conduits within, were instantly erased.
The spatial dislocation made them disappear, just like that.
As the light wave spread, it instantly passed through Tesla’s waist.
This ring almost bisected the building, blooming terrifying light rings in the night, and when the blue light faded, a section of the roof crashed down.
Tesla’s armor was damaged, many pipelines were cut off, but except for his organic head, the rest of his body was metal and mechanical.
At this time, on his body, in the area pierced by the space rift, a damaged energy core began to emit a strong light.
Howard immediately abandoned the still-smoking scepter, which was a one-time thing, and he drew out an energy meter, an instrument for detecting radiation and similar values.
Tesla looked at his own abdomen, now surrounded by electric light: "Hehehe..."
Even if Nathaniel was slow, he knew that Tesla laughing wasn’t a good sign.
"Howard, could you please explain this situation in detail?"
Sweat poured down Howard’s head in streams; the instrument’s readings spelled big trouble: "His creation is nearing ’critical mass,’ in other words, it’s going to result in matter annihilation."
"Heh, you’ve killed us all." Tesla’s eyes flashed with electric light, his face full of a smile: "I’ve won."
Plop.
That was the sound of both the sweat from Nathaniel’s head and the weapon in his hand hitting the ground.
Mass annihilation, the spin-off of Tesla’s ongoing study on black hole phenomena; at this moment, he had turned himself into a black hole bomb. Once it exploded, no one could escape.
"No, I can stop him, I’ll replace his energy core." Nathaniel dashed forward, attempting to manually pull the glowing reactor out of Tesla’s abdomen.
"Nathaniel!"
Howard stretched out a hand, but it was too late; the moment Nathaniel touched the energy core, the light brightened immensely, and a strong light shot skyward.
And the light disappeared immediately, as if it too was devoured.
After this explosion, the building was as if a spherical section had been dug out with an ice-cream scoop, a large chunk of structure vanished completely, just like when the house was built, these layers of rooms only had half remaining.
