Alien Rune

"Give it a try. If it doesn't work, ditch the bracelet and retreat."

Since they were already here, there was no reason to give up at the first sign of trouble. After a quick discussion, they decided to try shutting down the electromagnetic field.

A single shot destroyed the controller, and the electromagnetic field began to fail. In that instant, the bracelet suddenly erupted with blue light.

"Xiao Zhen!"

"Coming, Nightmare!"

Xiao Zhen abruptly withdrew all her power and poured everything into condensing a massive ghost. It bit down on the bracelet, trying to swallow it and suppress it within its body.

To everyone's surprise, the bracelet's blue light actually dissolved the mysterious ability. It forcibly broke through Xiao Zhen's seal and fled toward the door.

Fortunately, the bracelet flew straight toward Ying Xiaoxiao.

Without a word, the violent female team leader raised her spear and brought it down like a club.

"Where do you think you're going?!"

Bang!

Ying Xiaoxiao swung her spear down with all her strength, forcibly pinning the bracelet to the ground.

The tremendous impact cracked the floor like a spiderweb, yet the bracelet remained completely intact. Its blue light kept flashing as it struggled desperately, making Ying Xiaoxiao's anger flare.

"Settle down already!!" She raised and lowered her spear again, whipping the bracelet as though disciplining a disobedient child.

"Team Leader, try your dark lightning power." The experienced Sha Tu immediately identified the key to the problem.

The Black Tiger Gang had considerable influence, yet they still maintained the electromagnetic field's suppression. This thing must have been restrained by electricity.

At his words, purple light flickered in Ying Xiaoxiao's eyes. Powerful currents poured from her spear with crackling sparks, extinguishing most of the bracelet's blue glow.

"It worked! Team Leader, you suppressed it!" Baozi jumped up happily.

But before he could keep babbling, Sha Tu yanked him back. "What are you standing around for?! Block the entrance! Prepare to retreat!"

Ying Xiaoxiao suppressing the bracelet was only the beginning of their troubles.

The commotion triggered alarms throughout the entire base. Red lights flashed wildly, while gang members outside the laboratory rushed in carrying submachine guns.

"Who are you people?! Drop your weapons and surren—"

Sha Tu fired out a grappling hook, instantly killing the man calling out. Using the hook's pull, he darted through the battlefield, his razor-sharp shoe tips harvesting several lives in an instant.

Baozi hurriedly entered combat mode. A burst of air exploded around him, lifting his body slightly off the ground as his golden hair floated upward. He looked just like...

A Super Saiyan?

Baozi stood at the entrance, facing the bullets without dodging. He thrust both hands forward and condensed a wall of air before himself. The bullets struck it as though hitting steel, clanging as every one of them was blocked.

He turned to the others and said, "Team Leader, I'll hold them here. Hurry up and deal with that bracelet."

Everyone understood that their greatest problem right now was their inability to suppress the bracelet.

Ying Xiaoxiao was the strongest fighter in Team 17. If she could not free up her hands to fight, the rest of them alone had no way of breaking out.

As more and more enemies appeared, two experts even tied up Sha Tu. Grenades and incendiary rounds from heavy weapons were already in place. If they did not leave now, they would all be stuck here.

Gritting her teeth, Ying Xiaoxiao decided to give up.

"Prepare to retreat. We're abandoning the bracelet!" Money could be earned again, but she could not afford to lose a single team member.

After speaking, Ying Xiaoxiao abandoned her previous suppressive stance and gripped the spear in reverse, aiming its tip at the bracelet. A fierce gleam filled her eyes.

Xu Jiang, standing nearby, hurriedly stopped her. "Team Leader, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to destroy it. Neither the Public Security Bureau nor the Black Tiger Gang is any good. No one gets this thing."

Women really held grudges.

After being played, she would rather smash everything to pieces than let anyone come out ahead. How violent.

Just then, Qianji spoke.

"General, are you going to destroy this object? If it is no longer needed, may I extract its computational system?"

"Computational system? This bracelet has a computational system too?" Xu Jiang was startled. The bracelet looked like a magical artifact—did it have an intelligent system as well?

"Yes, General. This is an Alien Rune. It differs from humanity's computer systems. They use runes to construct systems, and its current self-protection is a manifestation of self-computation."

Xu Jiang understood what Qianji meant. There were probably many different kinds of computational systems.

Humans regarded computer programming as a system, while alien races regarded rune construction as one. Their concepts differed, but their essence was the same.

"But if you extract these runes as a computational system, won't there be drawbacks?"

"No, General. After I advanced using the Spirit Seed, it will become mine."

"The differences between systems merely manifest as different traits after advancement. Even if General assigned me an XP system, I could still operate."

"Huh? You can even use an XP system? What trait would it have?"

"Prone to blue screens."

"..."

After all, it was alien technology. Judging from the bracelet's behavior, it should have been fairly powerful.

Seeing the bracelet was about to be destroyed, Xu Jiang reached out and stopped Ying Xiaoxiao.

"Team Leader, if you're sure you want to destroy it, leave it to me. I'll erase it."

"You?" Ying Xiaoxiao looked at Xu Jiang skeptically.

Even Xiao Zhen, a level-40 mysterious ability user, could not suppress this thing. Xu Jiang was merely a level-4 Mech Warrior—could he handle the bracelet?

"I can. It'll be quick." As Xu Jiang spoke, he crouched down and slowly reached his right hand toward the bracelet.

It was a dangerous move. One slip, and the blue light could sever Xu Jiang's right hand directly.

But Qianji's power was even more unreasonable than the bracelet's.

The moment he approached, before the bracelet could act, Qianji had already used the power of the rules to forcibly extract its system.

Congratulations. A suppressed treasure has been detected. It contains a usable rune system. Extract it?

"Yes!"

At his command, blue light flashed, and the rune system flowed into Qianji's body.

As for the bracelet, it now lay quietly on the ground, stripped of its former ferocity. Ying Xiaoxiao poked it with her spear tip, but it did not react at all.

Ying Xiaoxiao looked at Xu Jiang in surprise and asked, "How did you do that? You killed it in one move?"

"That's right. I did kill it."

Though that sounded strange, the bracelet had indeed lost its consciousness. Even the patterns on its surface had lost their luster. It felt as though only a shell remained, its soul having been extracted.

"Dead is fine too." Ying Xiaoxiao's eyes lit up. She picked up the bracelet and blew the dust off its surface. "We can still claim the bounty with this corpse."

With the bracelet dealt with, the rest of their operation became much simpler.

Ying Xiaoxiao had become a team leader at such a young age, and Xu Jiang had always doubted her abilities.

But the next second, he knew he had been wrong. Ying Xiaoxiao's spear technique was genuinely terrifying—not the refined skill born from experience, but brute force born of talent.

"Wild Lightning!" Ying Xiaoxiao roared, raising her spear behind her with her right hand before hurling it at the wall like a javelin.

Violent purple lightning surged around the spear, making it resemble an immensely powerful Railgun as it shattered everything before it with terrifying force.

Rumble!

The building shook violently. The laboratory's sturdy walls were blasted through three layers at once, leaving a three-meter-wide hole that connected directly to the outside.

Ying Xiaoxiao hurriedly called for everyone to retreat. "Quick, I found an exit! Let's go!"

You call that finding an exit? Xu Jiang really wanted to complain, but there was no time.

The enemy's main force had already arrived. Failing to retreat would be extremely dangerous.

Even more troubling, another prompt sounded in Xu Jiang's mind.

Congratulations. A mechanical unit eligible for appointment has been discovered.