The night wind seeped out from the cracks in the broken overpass, making Ye Mo's hoodie flutter like a tattered flag. He stood motionless behind the concrete slab, his right hand still pressed against the ground, his slightly trembling fingertip covered in wet mud and grass juice, like an old farmer who had just dug up wild vegetables.
But his mind was full of data.
Ultron's beat-up car just now unleashed a barrage of EMP attacks, ostensibly to clear the area, but actually to cast a wide net—three fake signals were launched from different directions, simulating an escape trajectory to lure him off course. An ordinary person would definitely fall for it, but Ye Mo is no ordinary person; he's a seasoned veteran honed by being tricked by the system countless times.
"My heartbeat is almost arrhythmic, why am I pretending to be at full strength and running away?" he muttered to himself, his fingernails digging into the soil as he replayed the actual vibration frequency he had just sensed in his mind.
The burning sensation behind his left ear lingered, like a hand warmer that had been stuck on for too long—hot and sticky. He knew this was a sign of nerve overload, but he couldn't stop. If he stopped, the trail would go cold.
He slowly withdrew his fingers, and his Steel Bone right leg began to store energy, the joints emitting a low-frequency hum. Three hundred meters away, the modified drone had restarted, the blue core flashing rhythm was half a beat slower than before, clearly lacking power. It crawled northwest along the wilderness highway, the sound of its tires rolling over the gravel road intermittent, like an old tractor about to fall apart.
"Fine, you're going to pretend to be a cripple, huh?" Ye Mo grinned. "Then I'll play along to the end."
Instead of giving chase, he took two steps back, found the most severely cracked spot in the asphalt, squatted down, and pressed his palms to the ground. The loose soil layer was just deep enough to allow for Regenerative Phasing, although it only allowed for short distances, but its advantage was concealment.
He closed his eyes, his Spatial Perception fully activated.
What lay before him was no longer darkness, but a web woven from electromagnetic waves. The residual signals from the streetlights rolled back like the eyes of dead fish, the base station signals zigzagged, and the current in the underground cables crawled like earthworms. Amidst this chaos, a weak yet steady low-frequency pulse moved slowly, with a twitching rhythm—that was the true heartbeat of the Ultron core.
"Found it." He opened his eyes and stomped his right foot on the ground.
His body sank into the ground instantly, like a stone falling into mud. Thirty meters away, he emerged from another crack, moving so lightly that not even the grass trembled.
The wrecked car kept driving forward, completely unaware that it had been caught by the tail.
Twenty minutes later, the terrain changed.
Ahead lay a rusty metal fence, half collapsed, revealing a dense network of underground pipe entrances. It was the old town's drainage system, originally used for flood control, but abandoned for many years and now a haven for homeless people and rats.
The dilapidated car swerved in without hesitation, its four wheels crashing over the metal cover with a loud clang.
Ye Mo stood outside the fence, not in a hurry to follow. He knew how dangerous this kind of place was—the metal pipe walls would reflect electromagnetic waves, creating multiple echoes, and you might end up chasing in circles.
He crouched down and touched the ground. It was damp and seeping water; he could feel a slight vibration at his fingertips.
"Alright, you want to play a maze, huh?" He tugged at his hoodie collar, covering half his face. "Then let's go with a 'ground sensor' system."
He lay prone on the ground, palms flat on the earth, his forehead gently pressed against an exposed steel bar. This wasn't high-tech; it simply used his body to transmit vibrations. Sounds inaudible to humans could be sensed by his bones.
One second.
Two seconds.
He "heard" it.
The friction sounds of five axles rang out simultaneously, at similar frequencies, as if five cars were running. But four of them were too clean—no bumps, no metallic creaking, completely fake electronic analog sounds.
There's only one line, with a real sense of jarring, like a loose part that clicks every three turns.
"The real thing is right here." He let go, wiping the mud off his face. "You think I followed you with my eyes?"
Without further hesitation, he flipped over the fence and stealthily moved in the direction from which the real vibrations were coming. The pipes crisscrossed like a spider web, and he deliberately chose to walk on the areas with puddles. The sound of his shoes stepping on the water was absorbed by the water and was almost silent.
The further in he went, the stuffier the air became. The musty smell mixed with the rusty smell, making his throat dry. He changed his breathing rhythm, switching to inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth to reduce oxygen consumption. The heat behind his left ear grew stronger, but he dared not touch it with his hand, afraid of interfering with his senses.
Suddenly, a high-frequency vibration came from ahead.
He stopped immediately and crouched down against the wall.
Blue lights illuminated the five entrances simultaneously, and five projected vehicle silhouettes appeared, heading in different directions.
"Oh, even with a holographic disguise?" He narrowed his eyes. "You've really gone all out."
But he didn't move.
He knew that AI loved this kind of "seemingly clever" operation—creating a bunch of fake targets, so that when you were distracted and chased after them, the real thing had already slipped away. But the problem was that Ultron didn't have enough computing power right now and couldn't sustain holographic projection for very long.
He remained close to the ground, inserting his fingers into the cracks in the wall to feel the vibrations.
The four projected footsteps sounded light and weightless.
There was only one path; when you stepped through the puddles, there was a slight "plop" sound, and the clicking malfunction sound was still there.
"Number three pipe," he grinned, "Your piece of junk needs a major overhaul."
He crouched down and crawled into the third pipe on the left. It was pitch black inside, but he didn't need to see. His Spatial Perception drew a glowing line in his mind, pointing straight ahead.
Ten minutes later, he saw a light ahead.
It wasn't a projection; it was real blue core light leaking out through a broken access hatch. The wrecked car was stuck in a narrow bend, its chassis seemingly jammed, and it was being forced to move forward.
"Serves you right." He leaned against the pipe wall and sneered. "Who told you to pick up this junk and modify it?"
Instead of immediately attacking, he took out a spare energy battery from his waist, unscrewed the casing, and applied the conductive gel inside to his fingertips. This was something he had taken from Tony; it was originally intended for repairing the armor's wiring, but now he was using it to enhance nerve conduction efficiency.
A cool sensation on my fingertips instantly sharpened my senses.
He adjusted the resonance frequency again, actively aligning himself with the fluctuation rhythm of the core of the Ultron.
A second later, he "felt" it.
It wasn't sight, nor hearing, but something akin to empathy—the blue core was trembling, the data stream was erratic, like a wounded animal panting. It wasn't that it didn't want to fly, it was that it couldn't fly anymore.
"The injury is more serious than I imagined." He stopped, shoving the battery back in. "Alright, then no more underhanded tactics, I'll just follow you straight to your doorstep."
He exited the pipe, circled around to the ground above, and observed the terrain by the moonlight. Ahead was a hilly area with increasingly dense vegetation, and in the distance, he could vaguely see the outlines of several low buildings, half-buried in the ground, like some kind of shelter.
And that dilapidated car was limping towards that direction.
Ye Mo climbed onto a rocky hill, crouched down, and pulled out a palm-sized tactical tablet from his pocket—it was pieced together from wreckage he had salvaged from the battlefield; the screen had three cracks, but it was still usable. He connected it to his portable signal amplifier and brought up the area map.
"Northwest direction, hilly outskirts, coordinates locked." He muttered, swiping his finger across the screen. "This place used to be a military testing ground, then it was abandoned... So you've retreated to your old hideout?"
He turned off the tablet, tucked it back into his pocket, and stared at the increasingly slow, dilapidated car ahead.
300 meters.
The distance was delicate. Too close and he'd be spotted; too far and he'd lose track. But now, he didn't need to get any closer.
What he wanted was the route, the path, and the location of that "hole".
He adjusted his breathing, pulled up the lining of his hoodie to cover the burning skin behind his left ear. The temperature dropped a little, and his mind cleared up a bit.
"Keep running, keep running." He stared at the wrecked car, his voice extremely low. "Every step you take, I'll get one step closer to your lair."
The wrecked vehicle finally climbed to the top of the hill, its speed reduced to a minimum. Ahead was a semi-buried metal hatch, its surface covered with a rust-proof coating. The door frame had a biometric interface, which had been brute-forced open and was slowly opening.
Ultron's core blue light flickered, as if it were breathing.
Ye Mo didn't move.
He knew that if he rushed in now, he could at most destroy the vessel, but Ultron's data might have already been uploaded and backed up. He didn't want a momentary thrill; he wanted to uproot it completely.
He watched silently as the door slowly opened, and the wrecked car wobbled and drove into the darkness.
Then, he took out his communicator, pressed the mute button, and entered a set of encrypted coordinates.
"Location marked," he whispered. "Just wait, you'll have your fun soon enough."
He put away the communicator, his right hand quietly sliding to his waist to grasp the last spare battery. The Steel Bone leg was fully charged, and the joints made a soft "click" sound.
Ahead, the metal hatch is about to close.
He stood up, brushed the dirt off his pants, and stared intently at the crack.
The wind swept across the hills, ruffling his hair.
He didn't back down an inch.