System Crash

Although Richard had no idea what abilities the three Sentinel Robots before him possessed, he was not particularly surprised to see them.

After digesting the original owner's memories, he had learned that the Department of Mutant Affairs had successfully developed Sentinel Robots.

Not only that, but the original owner also knew that the Sentinel Robots possessed considerable combat capability.

According to the original owner's memories, the Department of Mutant Affairs had deployed Sentinel Robots on quite a few missions.

Among all those capture and assassination missions, only one had failed: the mission to capture Magneto.

As for the others, they had all been completed with astonishing efficiency.

Though Richard did not know how Magneto had done it, rumors said that Magneto had faced five Sentinel Robots alone and destroyed all five by himself, emerging completely unscathed.

After giving the Sentinel Robots a glance, Richard did not attack them with an X-Gene Superpower. Instead, he raised his right hand and used Sephiroth's skill, Great Lightning.

As his right hand rose, a low rumble of thunder immediately echoed through the air.

At the same time, silver-white lightning slithered through the night sky like living thunder serpents.

The anomaly in the night sky immediately drew Benjamin and the other staff members' attention.

A lightning-manipulating superpower? The moment Benjamin saw this, he recalled the investigation report he had read that afternoon.

According to the Intelligence Department investigators' findings, three members of Aiden's group had been killed by powerful lightning.

Though the report did not describe in detail how they had died, it was obvious that Richard had been responsible.

Neither Sabretooth nor Clarice possessed the ability to control and unleash lightning.

Compared to Ordinary People, the Department of Mutant Affairs' agents were indeed powerful.

However, most Mutant Agents were still ordinary flesh and blood.

Let alone lightning with the might of heaven, even a 9mm pistol bullet could take their lives.

As the silver-white lightning roamed the night sky like thunder serpents, Richard did not hesitate. He lightly swept his right hand downward.

With the descent of his hand, the silver-white lightning roaming the night sky immediately struck at the Sentinel Robots in the square.

Rumble! Amid the deafening thunder, the silver-white lightning instantly hit the Sentinel Robots in the square, terrifying currents surging wildly over their bodies.

If they had been ordinary robots, even if the silver-white lightning had not destroyed them on the spot, their internal chips and circuit boards would have been burned out by the high-voltage current.

But clearly, the Sentinel Robots were no ordinary robots.

If lightning attacks could destroy Sentinel Robots so easily, they could never have become the "natural enemy of mutants."

The silver-white lightning, powerful enough to turn an Ordinary Person into charred remains, did not destroy the Sentinel Robots. It merely pierced the outer armor where it struck, exposing a little of the internal structure beneath.

Although he had failed to destroy the three Sentinel Robots, Richard was not particularly surprised.

The Sentinel Robots were the Department of Mutant Affairs' prized Hole Cards.

Under the watchful eyes of Richard, Benjamin, and the others, the scale-like armor on the Sentinel Robots began to undergo a bizarre Shapeshifting.

Soon, the lightning snakes crawling over their bodies vanished completely, as though they had been absorbed.

Just as Benjamin and the other staff members thought the Sentinel Robots would use the same method to attack Richard, the machines instead froze in place without making any move.

What's going on? Benjamin stared at the motionless Sentinel Robots in surprise.

If not for the lights still shining from their chests and eyes, he would have thought that the three Sentinel Robots had crashed.

Benjamin had no idea what had happened to the three Sentinel Robots, and the remote monitoring personnel on the Third Underground Floor were equally baffled.

The Sentinel Robots did not require manual operation.

However, after several rounds of upgrades, the current Sentinel Robots could now collect data in real time and transmit it back.

Moreover, the staff in the Monitoring Room could check the Sentinel Robots' status at any time or use them to observe the situation on-site.

At that moment, strings of gibberish that the staff had never seen before appeared on the large screen in the Surveillance Room.

What is this? Is there a system malfunction?

The Monitoring Room staff all wore bewildered expressions as they looked at the gibberish on the large screen.

The data on the screen showed that the Sentinel Robots had not suffered severe damage, only localized armor damage.

Yet the Sentinel Robots in the square stood perfectly still, as though their energy had been depleted.

Neither Benjamin nor the staff in the Surveillance Room realized that Richard's lightning attack was not an X-Gene Superpower, but a skill cast with magic power.

Unlike Benjamin and the others, who had no idea what was happening, Richard quickly guessed the reason when he saw the Sentinel Robots standing motionless.

System Crash!

The internal systems of these Sentinel Robots had crashed! The Sentinel Robots did not possess genuine consciousness and could only act according to their programmed instructions.

After being struck by lightning, they had followed their programming and prepared to copy Richard's "superpower" to deal with him.

If Richard had been using an X-Gene Superpower, the Sentinel Robots would have had no problem copying it.

Not only that, they could have used the superpowers they had copied beforehand against Richard.

But Richard, who had known from the start that they could copy mutant superpowers, had not used an X-Gene Superpower. Instead, he had used one of Sephiroth's skills.

Though both were supernatural powers, the skills Richard cast with magic power and mutant superpowers belonged to two entirely different domains.

Other than the fact that neither of them obeyed the laws of physics very well, the two had nothing in common.

Using a method meant to copy mutant superpowers to copy the skills Richard used was as absurd as using an imperial sword from the Ming Dynasty to execute an official from the Qing Dynasty.

Not to mention that these Sentinel Robots could not do it—even if Ancient One and Doctor Strange were here, they would have no way of copying the skills Richard cast with mana.

After all, these skills were products of another world.

Even "mana" was something the system had devised to help Richard understand the energy required to unleash his skills.

To put it simply, Richard's mana and the mana possessed by other mages were two completely different things.

Richard had originally only wanted to test the Sentinel Robots' defenses with Great Lightning's lightning attack.

He had not expected the Sentinel Robots to suffer a System Crash from attempting to copy Great Lightning.

Although this was not something he had anticipated, he did not waste the unexpected opportunity after seeing it happen.

Flash!

Without hesitation, he immediately used Flash to appear before one of the Sentinel Robots.

Octaslash! Eight smooth, flowing slashes flashed out like lightning, the sharp Masamune repeatedly cutting across the Sentinel Robot's body.

Under Benjamin and the others' watchful eyes, the Sentinel Robot in front of Richard was instantly chopped into fragments of all sizes, completely destroyed before it could do anything at all.

The most troublesome thing about the Sentinel Robots was their ability to copy mutant superpowers and use those mutant powers against mutants.

If they could not copy or use mutant superpowers, the Sentinel Robots' combat ability would plummet.

After seeing Richard destroy a Sentinel Robot in an instant, Benjamin charged wildly toward him without any hesitation.

Though he had already burst out at his maximum speed, he still failed to stop Richard from continuing to destroy the Sentinel Robots.

Octaslash! Richard unleashed Octaslash once again, destroying the second Sentinel Robot.

Just as he was about to press his advantage and destroy the third Sentinel Robot in one go, Benjamin finally reached him and rammed toward him like a crazed bull.

Flash!

Before Benjamin could hit him, Richard used Flash and left.

Although he failed to hit Richard, Benjamin succeeded in stopping him from destroying the third Sentinel Robot.

Or rather, he had only temporarily stopped him from destroying the third Sentinel Robot.

Richard, who had flashed more than twenty meters away, ignored Benjamin and fixed his gaze on the last Sentinel Robot.

Though the Sentinel Robot stood motionless due to the System Crash and posed no threat to him whatsoever, he still would not give this Sentinel Robot the chance to be sent back to the factory for repairs.

After locking his gaze on the Sentinel Robot, he casually swung the Masamune in his hand.

Dimension Slash!