Act.20 · Go Go Power Rangers · Superpowered Task Force

Foreword:

[Strike the gong to signal the start!]

[ --Jason Megan]

[Part 1 - Stand up]

Maddes Bruno remained motionless.

Not a single bone in his body was intact; after being attacked by the Ice Man's rays, he was almost reduced to a pile of minced meat.

The fine ice blades slashed his wounded and mutilated body, leaving it riddled with holes. Fortunately, the Ice Man's possessions were not interested in the dead.

The abandoned cattle ranch fell silent once more, and Maddes gained a moment of peace.

He lay slumped in the cold, damp, dilapidated warehouse, his mind just beginning to regenerate.

He recalled how, many years ago, he had fallen from the crater of a volcano into the council chamber in Reykjavik, and died in a similarly wretched manner.

At that time, he didn't want to become the sun; every cell in his body was screaming at him to live.

Someone answered him; it was his waiter.

He was pulled back from the gates of the land of the dead by Universal Elixir.

In the words of the King of Cinder, she was a simple and naive village girl who didn't know anything about dressing up, acted rudely and barbarically, and used foul language in social situations.

This woman had almost nothing in common with the wealthy young man from Naples. Once she got her hands on the Summoning Bell, she melted it down and recast it into a silver flute to express his musical sentiments.

However, Maddes's current success is entirely due to that Universal Elixir.

At first, it was an incomparably precious and miraculous medicine.

Later, it became a commonplace supply.

In the end, they obtained the Immortal Lune from the Ancestral Palace.

The King of Cinder no longer needed such external objects to repair his physical body. He always believed that this was a ritual to bid farewell to the past, a process of transcending and surpassing Homo sapiens, a process of overcoming oneself, and the difference between humans and gods.

He always seemed to be trying to prove something.

For example, he used to be so weak and frail that he would break at the slightest touch, but now he no longer needs a servant to bring him medicine.

After becoming the King of Cinder, his family, relatives, or loved ones passed away one after another.

Maddes has less and less contact with the mortal world, and he has no friendship with the people of the Madness Butterfly Sect. They are mostly bound together by blood and flesh business to form a community of interests. When they have a farewell dinner, the names of their business partners are often written on the menu.

Where does this road lead?

He didn't know--

--Perhaps it's an even stronger calamity beast, a more powerful carnivore, even less human than him, with a soul force stronger than the [Holy Statue]?

After going through all that trouble, he never expected that the person who defeated him was a VIP in the Abyssal Railway, a woman who looked no more than thirty years old.

"What has kept me going all this way is [love]?"

Maddes pondered those words; they were Su Ling's declaration of war.

The primal essence gained on the journey, the people killed. Countless spirits weep and wail in my heart. To become the Lord of Cinder, one must possess immense spiritual power to fight against these things.

But when Maddes thought of the waiter, it was as if none of this mattered; the deal seemed perfectly fair, and the noise in his head could be drowned out by the sound of the flute.

At this moment, he was only one last ritual remaining before reaching the finish line.

Like the rituals of harvest season, the Lords of Cinder had little idea how long their elemental reserves could last in the intense nuclear reaction, so they ate and ate and ate—fearing they wouldn't have enough fuel in their bodies.

Maddes is only a beam of light away from the sun.

To be precise, there are many nuclear power facilities in the Underworld. The Lord of Cinder came to Red Star Hill to find the Death Giant in order to find the abandoned Soviet nuclear facilities. If he could take the Primal Essence and Runes from the Giant and create more [Outlaw] as fuel or reserves for the Fire-Adding Ritual, that would be the ideal situation.

If the nuclear power facilities here are abandoned and can no longer be started, the children of the Fire Man will guide him to their father, so that the mythical Surter can draw his radiant sword and ignite Maddes.

But these passengers—

--This small group of people beat the warriors of the Heaven's Ladder to a pulp, disrupting all their plans.

Judging from the passenger flow, even

They weren't even after the Heaven's Ladder; they never considered these members of the Madness Butterfly Sect as their primary target.

Their target was the Death Giant, and the gray, misty sea.

In the short time that Maddes was lamenting the impermanence of life—

--His good advisor Cliff Guderian secretly pushed open the warehouse door, and seeing that no one was around, and that the Lord of Cinder was also in a daze.

Cliff immediately ran to the Lord of Cinder, picked up the mangled flesh, and was about to put it in his mouth.

"What are you doing!" Maddes cursed. "You beast! You dare to eat your master! You're writing my scriptures with your own hands! I'm the god in your scriptures!"

"Whoa!" Cliff, thinking the Lord of Cinder had lost consciousness, hurriedly stuffed the piece of meat back into his master's body. "I... I... I was attacked by the [Icon], Your Majesty!"

"Stop calling me Your Majesty!" Maddes roared at the disobedient lackey.

"Your Excellency... Your Excellency, Lord Cinder!" Cliff immediately changed his address and knelt before the Lord Cinder.

He looked extremely disheveled; his once-glorious military uniform was now tattered, as if he had been thoroughly thrashed by the ghost of the Puff- loving girl and then humiliated by a succession of wandering spirits coming to collect debts. His face was covered in bruises, but no redness could be seen.

His hair had been plucked out, and his scalp was covered with various insulting words written in black coal ash, mostly phrases like "lowly dog" or "a vile bastard who is worse than piss."

"I can't move." Maddes reached out and grabbed Cliff's arm. "It will take a very long time to recover. Take me to find some human flesh, and I can continue fighting."

"It's freezing cold! Where would we get human flesh?!" Cliff, his eyes bloodshot with hunger, grabbed a handful of plump sorghum ears from the field and swallowed them, husks and all. "How about you make do with this? It's all good food from the greenhouse!"

Maddes yelled, "Are you fucking kidding me? When did you become a vegetarian?"

Cliff chuckled and said, "Although it won't fill our stomachs and we can't digest this stuff, it'll at least fill our bellies! Lord Cinder, we won't starve. As long as we can support each other through the torment of hunger without harming one another, we'll return to Albert Research Station, where countless human flesh awaits us!"

"You want me to escape?!" Maddes immediately summoned the holy image, blasting Cliff's soul out of his body.

The weakened Soul Might was listless, and its dark rays were not as swift and sharp as in its prime, but it was enough to deal with just one person.

Cliff's spirit left his body in an instant and floated in the air.

"No, no, no! Your Majesty, Lord Cinder! No! I added fuel to the fire for you! I brought so many human flesh for you! Your arrival here! Your current fortune is all thanks to me!"

"Is becoming one with me something you find very embarrassing?" Maddes couldn't move, and looking at Cliff's stiff body, his index finger twitched. "Could it be that you don't believe in the Madness Butterfly at all?"

"Who will write your scriptures after I die?!" As a fanatical follower of the Lord of Cinder, Cliff still had a historical mission to complete. "Your Lord of Cinder! Are you a beast? Can't you tell the difference between a full meal and a regular meal?"

"That's a good question." Maddes hesitated for a moment. "You seem to like treating me like poultry. Perhaps I'm just a sunflower in your backyard, where you're responsible for watering and fertilizing, and I'm responsible for flowering and bearing fruit."

"Sir, let's be realistic." Cliff's spirit struggled to climb back into his body. "You've been beaten beyond recognition, and you're still thinking about going back for revenge?"

Maddes: "I'm just not convinced."

When Cliff returned to his physical body, he was still kneeling. "What are you complaining about? I can't find any human flesh for you to eat right now! Judging from your mental state, your Soul Might is at most only one-fifth of its original strength—do you really understand how powerful these passengers are?"

The staff officer waved his hands, his body language becoming extremely exaggerated.

"They swiftly struck, and our sentries were all dead before they even saw who they were!"

Her expression turned fierce and resolute, then she immediately began to cry.

"Their language has Magic Power! A few words and a kiss are enough to turn my most powerful giant hybrid warrior against his will!"

Finally, it nestled on the Lord of Cinder's lap like a good little baby.

"Your Excellency Lord Cinder, your Soul Might is an indiscriminate attack, but when I observed these enemies just now, they didn't seem to have suffered any casualties; in fact, they were full of fighting spirit and singing triumphant songs! This means that these guys can not only deal with you, but also protect their companions under your Soul Might attacks!"

"My lord, think about this carefully. They weren't even after us. We can plan this carefully. Our lifespan is in the thousands of years. If this place doesn't work, we can find another one! Those Death Giant outside are so strong. Let them seek death if they want! In a few years, no, in a few more months, probably ten days or so, we'll be two heroes again! Don't you understand?"

"I don't understand." Maddes still had some pride. "I couldn't understand what that VIP was saying. She seemed to be able to read my mind—before I even gave her my name, she already knew my name and understood my thoughts. She even clearly stated why I came here in just one sentence. If I run away now, she will become my inner demon."

"Don't fucking have inner demons!" Cliff dragged the mangled body of the Lord of Cinder as he ran out, trying to escape this hellhole. "I don't even have inner demons! How come you have inner demons?"

Xin Wang was dragged along towards the entrance post of Red Star Hill.

"Cliff!"

"Let go of me, Cliff! Go that way! To the central square!"

"Cliff!"

"Sun! Sun! You haven't risen yet! How can I just watch you go to your death?!" Cliff carried the Lord of Cinder on his back, but began to weep. "Why are you going against me? I really don't understand His Highness's thinking. I'm going east, and you have to go west! Isn't it obvious? I'm right now, and I'm in charge!"

Lord Cinder insisted, "Cliff, put me down, or send me to that place. You, this insect, can live for a very long time. To you, I'm nothing but a clay sculpture. You can find a new master. But even if I have to crawl, I want to crawl to that VIP. I want to ask him clearly. This is my only way. What has sustained me to this day? The answer is very important."

Cliff shouted, "It's just about a woman! What kind of queen do you want? I'll find her! I'll find her for you! Do you remember what she looks like? Do you remember her voice? I'll find the exact same one! Plastic surgery is so advanced, what can't money buy in this world?"

Lord Cinder gripped Cliff's arm so tightly that he nearly cracked the staff officer's wrist.

"That's not the person I'm looking for, Cliff!"

"Ouch! Ouch!" Cliff screamed in pain. "But... but Your Majesty, Lord of Cinder! You once said you wanted to become the sun, to possess the power of the collective karma of all beings! You wanted to use this pure and powerful energy to reshape the Queen's body—but how can you be sure! That's your Queen?!"

The King of Salvation was suddenly lost in thought.

Cliff's questions came one after another.

Do you remember what she looked like?

"It's so blurry, so very blurry. Too much time has passed. They've swallowed so much human flesh! These undead loved so many people! Their shadows are practically overlapping!"

Do you remember her voice?

"I don't know, I'm not sure, I can't be sure."

"May I ask if I may? Do you remember her name?!"

"In my ancestor's palace, the terrifying spiritual pressure almost crushed and rebuilt my personality. If I could return to the station, perhaps I could find her file in the database."

"That's settled then!" Cliff was practically going crazy. The little devil's face, which had been flushed red, was now steaming with rage. "Are you trying to create a Chimera, Lord Lord Cinder?!"

"But that VIP knows my name!" Maddes stubbornly, like a bull. "Maybe she knows! Maybe."

Cliff dragged the Lord of Cinder onto the ballast road, kindly advising, "Come on! Now that you dare to appear within her detection range, believe me, she'll immediately treat you to a spicy hot pot with two rockets, the main ingredient being your own flesh."

Maddes roared, "I'm not convinced! I'm not convinced!"

The piercing roar carried far and wide, shattering even the ghostly figures and phantoms beside the lampposts with the Lord of Cinder's howl.

Right now, at this very moment.

In front of the south building of the arsenal, the enormous steel arm unleashed an even more terrifying roar.

The armor was riddled with sixteen dark holes, from which a dense barrage of rockets rained down.

Upon hearing this noise, Cliff's ingrained fear kicked in—

--That was the whistling sound of a BM-13 Katusha rocket launcher flying low overhead.

He'll never forget it!

A barrage of cannonballs, trailing golden flames, slammed into the Ice Man in the shallow sea, who was shielding his face with one hand in a defensive stance. Amidst the billowing dust, the Death Giant roared in fury.

Three enormous knuckles, along with half a palm, slowly fell, spurting out charred pus and blood from the wounds, crashing into the sea and creating a mud splash several meters high.

Cliff: "Are you convinced now?"

"Let's go." Maddes' tone suddenly softened.

[Part ② - Swinging a Fist]

On the other side, Jason Megan throws the last Lapis Lazuli into the [S2] mechanism.

He was engulfed in flames, in superb condition, and the soul of the ancient giant was almost fused with him.

His eyes were pitch black, like the hollow dome seen by the skull of a giant trapped in a cave, resonating with materialism and sharing its feelings and knowledge.

Jason was unsettled by the energy beam that Ice Man had just spat out at Maddes Bruno. With a slight exertion of force in his right arm, Materialist Iron Fist launched a defensive counterattack against the enemy.

"I can't see anything, Wendy! My brain and the Fireman's nervous system share the same pair of eyes! What do I do now?!"

"What can you see?" Wendy asked, leading her employer toward the end of the spinal mechanism, to the interface between the cerebellum and the spine that connects the motor nerves.

Jason immediately exclaimed, "It's so dark! There are rocks everywhere!"

Wendy: "Can you move your body?"

Jason's mind raced, and flames erupted from all four of his limbs.

From the far reaches of the underground cave, inexplicable earthquakes and flashes of light from exploding weapons and ammunition emanated from all directions.

"No! My limbs are all far away! Several kilometers away! Even turning over is a problem!"

"Then wait!" Wendy Mills shoved Jason into the [S1] mechanism, the last hub node.

Jason felt the environment getting hotter and hotter, as if he had moved from a relatively spacious spinal joint cavity into a cramped and narrow iron ball.

He took a step forward and heard the iron ball rolling forward like a rotor. Even if he ran, he could only stop in this quiet room.

Jason: "Are we just going to wait like this?"

Wendy: "Yes, let's wait for the starting gong!"

At the same time--

The sudden whistling of the rocket just now woke the old engineer.

In the power workshop, Jiang Xueming had just finished tidying up the truck and sent up all the armor of materialism.

"What happened?"

The Master of Ceremonies said, "It's awake! It's awake! It's awake! Quick, quick, quick! Come on, come on! It's still lying down! It hasn't stood up yet!"

"Still not standing up?" Jiang Xueming didn't understand the meaning of this sentence. What was this "it" that the Master of Ceremonies was talking about?

The two jumped onto the truck, Master of Ceremonies pointed to the huge iron arm in the direction of the arsenal from the passenger seat.

"It's materialism! It hasn't even stood up yet! The Ice Man is already looking over! We'd better hurry!"

"It's a robot?" Jiang Xueming finally understood the meaning of "[materialism]". He turned the car around and prepared to head towards the central square.

"Yes! Huge! Very, very big! A giant fireman!" The Grandfather immediately shoved the steering wheel, the truck nearly tipping over, and veered off onto another road, hurtling towards the arm of materialism. "This way! This way! It's faster this way!"

The truck was carrying two bipedal walking mechs. Xue Ming had originally intended to deliver new toys to his friends; these big guys would be perfect for fighting the giants' minions. However, judging from the Grandfather's anxious expression, it seemed they had another purpose.

Xue Ming didn't ask any more questions. After all, in this land, only the old engineers knew how to awaken materialism.

The coastline was pitch black, and the towering shadow stepped forward again, its momentum earth-shattering.

The Ice Man bent over, as if he could hear the steely heartbeat of his compatriots, and groped his way through the mud, stirring up the tides. In no time, he pulled out a hand axe that was over seventy meters long.

"No, no, no, no! Not yet! Not yet!" The old engineer's eyes were practically popping out of their sockets. "Faster! Faster! Jiang Xueming! Faster!"

The Ice Man stretched his waist, aimed at the giant arm in front of the South Pavilion, and hurled the hand axe fiercely!

The axe blade broke the sound barrier the instant it left the hand, and the shockwave from the sonic boom made the Master of Ceremonies and Xue Ming's ears bleed.

It crashed into the towering arm, slicing into the steel bones of the iron arm. The immense energy melted the steel, and molten gold flowed from the wound.

His arm was askew and he collapsed in front of the truck.

The speeding delivery truck crashed into the fingertips of materialism without warning.

At that moment, Xue Ming felt like she was going to die.

--Very sudden, without any prior warning.

The front of the car was subjected to tremendous pressure, rapidly absorbing energy and deforming, causing the entire steering wheel to lunge towards his face.

In that instant, his will to survive unleashed astonishing energy. His spirit body nearly shattered half of the front of the car, followed by a barrage of steel fists, along with Materialist's fingers, opening up a tunnel just wide enough for one person to pass through.

A dizzying sensation followed as he crashed into a series of steel cables. These tough industrial products, the muscles of materialism, were now tearing dozens of horrific, bone-revealing wounds into Xue Ming's body in the violent impact.

Enduring excruciating pain, Xue Ming crawled out of the iron-cast purgatory, his body almost falling apart. He then injected himself with medicine to restore his health.

He climbed back to the pit entrance and saw the old engineer, barely alive, in the deformed passenger seat of the dump truck, reaching out his hand and handing him a steel hammer.

"Beat the gong! Beat the gong! The launch procedure begins!"

Before he could finish his last sentence, the Master of Ceremonies died in the cracks between the steel beams, before he could even reveal his real name.

Xue Ming immediately checked the Grandfather's vital signs, then used his spirit to clear a path and break down the door, removing the corpse from the deformed steel skeleton. Even injecting the Universal Elixir was futile; there was no hope of recovery.

His spirit could only do these things, and could only save his own life in such calamities that resembled terrifying natural disasters.

There's no time to mourn the dead.

There's no time to look back.

Xue Ming climbed out of the tattered vehicle frame and saw two infantry fighting mechs lying in a pool of blood, in the bright red diesel fuel of the truck, burning along with the "hot blood" flowing from Materialism's wounds.

Xue Ming didn't know if banging the gong would still be effective at this moment, or if their electronic devices could still detect the power-on prompt.

But he had to complete this ritual. According to the Grandfather, only a materialist who stood up could defeat these giants. If he couldn't, he and his companions would die here.

Xue Ming found the steel gong in the cargo container and struck it with all his might to signal the start of the journey.

The sound waves echoed through the silent city, carrying far and wide, brighter than the sound of gunfire.

The Ice Man followed the deep gong sound, and his twisted, distorted spout immediately emitted a loud whistle—

--The hand axe flew away from the iron arm of materialism. Responding to its master's call, it left a new wound as it left the steel bone. The explosion when it broke the sound barrier almost shattered Xue Ming's mental world once again.

But before the axe could fly ten meters or so...

The iron fist of materialism has been unleashed!

It gripped the Ice Man's hand axe tightly, as if trying to use the force to pull its upper arm out of the mud!

Unfortunately, it ultimately failed; the steel knuckles creaked and tore as they deformed.

"I can see now!"

The radios of the two infantry fighting mechs have received new communication signals.

"I can hear you!"

The enormous steel hand took the materialistic sub-mecha into its grasp, much like a complex mechanism inserting a core component.

Jason Megan had more images in her eyes--

--The South Gate Street was like hell, and there stood Jiang Xueming, pale and bleeding from both ears.

"You've sounded the gong to begin your journey, Jiang Xueming!"

These two dilapidated mechs were fed into a conveyor belt resembling blood vessels by the iron arms of materialism. Flames, hammers, and countless mechanical arms repaired them to their original state and sent to the wounds of their severed arms, where more important things awaited them.

The Ice Man continued throwing his axe, determined to kill his brother, who was about to awaken, in his sleep.

Xue Ming suffered an extremely powerful impact, and even his spiritual form was difficult to maintain. Then, the familiar sonic boom rang out again.

The broad, steel-like hand suddenly slammed down—

In that instant, Xue Ming felt as if a building was collapsing towards him.

The building's metal sheeting had a window, which roughly and savagely pulled him into the room. Immediately afterward, his body lost control, tumbling through the complex conveyor belt and spinning wildly in the scorching steel shafts, being sent to an even farther place.

"He's safe!" Wendy Mills said to Jason. "Focus on Ice Man! Your right arm has plenty of energy reserves!"

Jason roared, his burning emotions threatening to tear his chest apart.

"Will tomorrow bring dawn or darkness?!"

The Blue Stone People constantly longed for his limbs and for his companions.

The nuclear power engine and diesel engine form the tendons and bones of the powertrain. When the power is fully turned on, the powerful electric field generated by this iron arm almost tears a huge gap in the thick fog, blowing away all the dust.

The flying axe was shattered into four pieces by the steel fist of materialism. Even if only the mechanical unit of the forearm was doing work, the force output of this body far exceeded that of a mythical unit.

The scattered axe blade fragments pierced through the Ice Man's abdomen—and the Laughing Man further away was also injured, his thigh broken.

"Let's decide with these two iron fists!"