Apart from when he returned to the base, Ulanov wore his full-coverage helmet under all circumstances. It was practically his trademark look. However, the helmet wasn't for style or intimidation, nor was it entirely meant to enhance his defenses. Its true purpose was to keep a veteran alive—and conceal his horrifying appearance.
Hao Ren saw a terrifying-looking man sitting behind a table, fiddling with some sort of device. His face could barely be called human. Large sections of his skin had disappeared, and the exposed muscles and bones gleamed with a metallic silver sheen. One eyeball was held in place by electronic wiring, keeping it from falling out. Where his nose had once been, there was only a metal tube with a valve, and a hose extending from it was connected to a gas cylinder beside the table. As for his teeth—there was only a neat row of metal.
Ulanov's true face, hidden beneath his helmet, looked like a skull forged from a mixture of flesh and steel. It was eerie and terrifying. Even Hao Ren, who had seen all kinds of bizarre and inexplicable things, couldn't help being startled by the sight.
"You're..." He couldn't hide his surprise, so he simply asked, "How did this happen?"
"Sixty-five years ago, I was working near the Sea of Nanites, studying whether those nanite swarms could be used to develop space colonies." The muscles remaining on Ulanov's face twitched together with flexible metal, as if he were trying to smile at Hao Ren, but the result looked even more terrifying than Izax's smile. "'Overlord' went down, and I couldn't get out in time. So I was melted—roughly one-third of me."
As Ulanov spoke, he lifted his shirt slightly. Hao Ren was stunned to see a transparent chest plate beneath it. Deformed internal