In Dragon Ball: A brutal beating of Frieza at the start

Page 45

Her words abruptly stopped, her body stiffened abruptly, and her eyes instantly turned a pure electronic blue. Countless streams of data raced through her pupils, and the circuitry beneath her skin bulged like veins.

Damn it! Lin Ye slammed his fist on the control panel. "Listen up, everyone! Kevlar is risking her life to buy us time! Trunks, you take the younger version of yourself to find the escape pod; the rest of you, come with me—"

His words were interrupted by a sudden commotion. The control room door was flung open, and more than a dozen fully armed agents rushed in, guns pointed directly at the crowd.

"Get down!" Old Trunks yelled, throwing a smoke grenade at the same time.

But the expected gunshots did not ring out. Instead, the lead agent suddenly removed his mask, revealing a scarred face.

"Captain Lin Ye?" His voice was hoarse. "I'm Gray, the captain of the Seventh Squad. We...we've regained our memories!"

Lin Ye remained vigilant and did not lower his weapon: Prove it to me.

Without hesitation, Gray ripped open his uniform collar, revealing a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his collarbone: "In New Calendar 37, you took a bullet to save me, right here."

The control room shook violently again, this time much more intensely. A piece of ceiling material crashed down and shattered at Gray's feet.

"The memory suppression system has failed!" a female agent exclaimed, and all the agents in the White Tower began to awaken!

Lin Ye quickly made a decision: Gray, take your men to evacuate all the agents who can be saved. Tell them that Mirror Lin Ye has activated the purification protocol, and the White Tower is about to—

A deafening explosion interrupted his words. The entire wall suddenly collapsed inward, revealing the dark red core reaction chamber behind it. Mirror image of Lin Ye hovered in the center, surrounded by distorted data streams.

It was a truly touching reunion. His voice was no longer mechanically calm, but filled with a twisted fervor, but the rebels had to be purified.

Kevlar's body suddenly convulsed violently, and blinding sparks flew from the interface. He...he was rewriting the protocol code...she said with difficulty, her voice broken and intermittent, no longer...a simple system reboot...but...utter annihilation...

Hold on! Lin Ye rushed towards Kefla, but was repelled by an invisible force field.

Lin Ye slowly raised his hand: "Observer Kefla, you have betrayed your mission. Now, accept your punishment."

A blinding white light shot from his palm, striking Kevlar directly in the chest. At the critical moment, the older Trunks shoved aside his younger self and lunged at Kevlar.

"No!" Lin Ye and young Trunks shouted at the same time.

A white light engulfed the figure of elderly Trunks. Creepy, his body didn't bleed; instead, it began to disintegrate like data fragments.

Spacetime...paradox...Older Trunks turned his head with difficulty to look at his younger self, a relieved smile on his lips. A single spacetime cannot exist...two identical consciousnesses...remember...find...the source code...

Before he could finish speaking, he vanished into thin air like a shattered sand painting. Young Trunks knelt on the ground, futilely trying to grasp the scattered specks of light.

"Damn it!" Lin Ye roared and fired several shots at the mirror image of Lin Ye, but the bullets all turned into molten iron a few centimeters away from the target.

Kevlar suddenly let out a heart-wrenching scream. The circuitry on her body glowed a blinding blue light, and data cracks began to appear on her skin. "I...I can't hold on any longer!" she cried out with difficulty. "The system is about to crash! Everyone...run!"

For the first time, Lin Ye's expression shifted: What are you doing? Stop!

It's too late... Kefla gave a poignant smile, turned to Lin Ye, and said, "Remember... what you promised me..."

She abruptly ripped the data cable from behind her neck and plunged her hands into the control panel. A blinding blue-white arc of electricity instantly enveloped her entire body, like an electronic storm. All the screens in the control room simultaneously erupted with blinding white light, and Mirror Lin Ye let out a grotesque howl as her figure began to distort.

"Now!" Gray shouted. "We have a chance to take him down while the system crashes!"

A dozen agents opened fire simultaneously, bullets piercing through Lin Ye's gradually blurring body in the mirror image. The White Tower began to shake violently, its metal walls twisting and tearing like paper.

Lin Ye rushed towards the rickety control panel and grabbed Kevlar's hand at the last moment. Her body had become semi-transparent, and what flowed beneath her skin was no longer blood, but pure data.

"I could have saved you..." Lin Ye's voice was hoarse.

Kevlar gently shook her head, using her last strength to place a microchip into Lin Ye's palm: Find... the real... Lin Ye...

Her body dissipated from Lin Ye's fingers like grains of sand, transforming into countless blue specks of light that rose towards the collapsing ceiling. At the same time, a deafening alarm sounded throughout the entire white tower:

[WARNING: Core system crash]

[Purification Protocol Invalid]

【自毁程序启动：00:30...00:29...00:28...】

"Everyone evacuate!" Lin Ye gripped the chip tightly in his hand, turned around and shouted to the agents, "Take the emergency exit!"

Young Trunks remained kneeling, staring at the spot where his older self had disappeared. "He... saved me..." he murmured.

Lin Ye pulled him up: Don't let him die in vain! We have to get out of here alive, find the source code, and end all this!

As they rushed out of the control room, the corridor behind them began to collapse. Mirror Lin Ye's afterimage flickered in and out of existence in the distorted air, emitting inhuman shrieks. The White Tower was crumbling from the inside, spiderweb-like cracks crawling across the walls, the sirens and the tearing of metal weaving together into a symphony of apocalypse.

Lin Ye led the group through the crumbling passage, each step accompanied by the painful groans of the building. He gripped the chip in his hand, Kevlar's last words echoing in his mind.

Find the real Lin Ye...

Beyond the White Tower, the night sky was stained crimson by flames soaring into the heavens. This building, a symbol of absolute control, had finally met its end. And within the ruins, the sparks of rebellion had been ignited.

Chapter 113: Deus Ex

The sound of metal tearing echoed through the core of the furnace, like thousands of steel knives scraping against glass. Mirror Lin Ye's mechanical body was undergoing a terrifying transformation; every armor plate was twisting and deforming, emitting a sickening metallic groan.

This is impossible… Lin Ye took a half step back, the energy blade in his hand humming uneasily. He watched as his opponent's spine rose higher and higher, the mechanical joints bent in the opposite direction, and three pairs of metal wings unfolded from his back—they weren't decorations, but genuine plasma cannon arrays. Dark red energy patterns flowed across the surface of those cannon barrels, as if lava, rather than coolant, was flowing through his veins.

Number 18's tactical visor flashed frantically, warning: Energy readings have exceeded the threshold! He's absorbing the entire furnace's energy! Her voice held a rare hint of panic: "Lin Ye, we have to evacuate immediately. This energy level is beyond our control!"

Mirror Lin Ye's head suddenly twisted 180 degrees, his jaw splitting into four pieces to reveal a rotating energy core. That core, like a miniature star, emitted a dazzling blue-white light. His voice transformed into a synthesized tone from hundreds of channels, each syllable carrying a metallic resonance: Limitations of cognition... human form... merely shackles... evolution... inevitable.

"Get out of the way!" Lin Ye lunged at Number 18. A plasma beam two meters in diameter grazed past their heads, vaporizing the thirty-meter-thick alloy wall behind them into a crimson molten flow. The shockwave from the explosion sent the two flying more than ten meters away. Lin Ye's back slammed heavily into a discarded mechanical arm, and he felt that at least two of his ribs were broken.

The mechanical body was expanding at a visible rate. Its chest cavity split into twelve armor plates like a bomb, revealing layers of weapon modules inside—quantum missile silos, antimatter accumulators, gravitational wave distortion devices—all of which were starship-level weaponry. The leg joints recombined into anti-joint structures, and the feet fused into jet nozzles resembling warship propellers, with blue plasma flames flickering at the nozzles.

Warning: Quantum entanglement signal detected. Number 18 rapidly analyzed the data stream; her mechanical pupils contracted to pinpoints. This wasn't simple mechanical modification... he was performing topological reconstruction! The entire furnace was his nourishment!

Lin Ye wiped the blood from his forehead, then suddenly widened his eyes: Wait, the core's fluctuation frequency... His energy perception ability detected a familiar signal deep within the mechanical body. It was a unique energy vibration pattern, as unique as a person's fingerprint—Trunks' energy signature! He's still alive!

The transformation of the mechanical body was completed in that instant. The fifteen-meter-tall war machine hovered in mid-air, its upper body still retaining a vague humanoid outline, but its lower body had completely transformed into a warship. Six main cannons simultaneously locked onto the two figures, the hum of charging causing the entire space to tremble, and tiny metal parts fell from the ceiling like a rain of steel.

Welcome to witness... the machine of the gods. Hundreds of cannons lit up simultaneously, like a star field suddenly ignited. The sound was no longer human, but a hollow echo from the depths of the universe.

Lin Ye plunged the energy blade into the ground, crossing his arms in front of his chest: "Number 18, buy me ten seconds!" Golden energy surged from his body, forming a dragon-shaped phantom above his head. He needed to break through to the fourth tier to fight this monster. Energy coursed through his meridians, each blood vessel feeling as if it were filled with molten gold; the intense pain made him bite his lip until it bled.

Number 18 suddenly laughed, a laugh tinged with madness: "Perfect, let's try this." She tore open the artificial skin on her right arm, revealing the intricate mechanical structure beneath. A miniature launcher sprang forth, firing a string of nanobots almost invisible to the naked eye. "These are materials I stole from three labs to gather."

These mechanical units, smaller than blood cells, silently attached themselves to the gaps in the armor of the God Machine, following the turbulent energy flow. Number 18 pressed a switch in her palm, a cruel smile curving her lips: "Taste my nano plague."

The divine machine suddenly froze. Its right arm, the cannon barrel, twisted and deformed uncontrollably, and the armor plates on its chest vibrated rapidly as if suffering from Parkinson's disease. The holographic projection showed that its system synchronization rate plummeted from 99% to 67%, and the nanobots were frantically replicating themselves, eroding the machine's control system like a virus.

Well done! Lin Ye's energy burst reached its critical point, and the golden light materialized, forming an energy armor around him. But he suddenly stopped his attack—in the brief moment when the mechanical body went out of control, he clearly sensed the struggle of Trunks' consciousness at its core, a silent cry from a imprisoned soul.

"He's alive!" Lin Ye roared through the communication channel, his voice hoarse with excitement. Trunks' consciousness was imprisoned inside that metal lump! This isn't a mirror image; it's... some kind of fusion product!

The head of the God Machine rotated 360 degrees, and for the first time, emotional fluctuations appeared in its synthesized voice—an electronic noise mixed with anger and confusion: Error... Redundant consciousness... Imminent formatting... Clear interference... Its right arm suddenly disintegrated automatically and then quickly reassembled, clearly in some way clearing the nanobot infection.

Number 18 was loading the second nanobomb, her mechanical fingers deftly adjusting the launch parameters: whatever consciousness it was, just blast it into scrap metal first! Suddenly, blue oil seeped from her left eye—the overloaded processor was starting to overheat, and a series of warning messages popped up on the holographic display.

Lin Ye changed tactics. He sheathed his energy blade and focused his hands on pure mental energy ripples: No, we must rescue him. Golden ripples surged towards the mechanical body like a tide; it was pure mental energy, capable of penetrating any physical barrier. Trunks! If you can hear me—respond to me!

The mech's main cannon suddenly changed direction and fired a shot into its own chest. Amidst the thick smoke of the explosion, a hoarse electronic voice broke through the air: "Run...the control protocol...is about to activate...they...are watching..." Although the voice was synthesized, Trank's distinctive intonation was still discernible.

The entire furnace suddenly shook violently, as if some slumbering behemoth was awakening. Countless cracks appeared in the ceiling, revealing a dense array of mechanical tentacles behind them. They lunged at the two like sharks that had smelled blood, the tip of each tentacle gleaming with a dangerous red light.

Number 18 grabbed Lin Ye by the back of her collar: "Sentimental time over, rookie!" Her back thrusters activated, carrying the two of them as they crashed through three layers of alloy walls. Behind them came the painful roar of the divine machine: "Clear...all...organisms...execute...purification protocol..." The voice was gradually drowned out by the hissing of mechanical tentacles.

Amidst the chaos of plummeting to the next platform, Lin Ye stared intently at the figure gradually being swallowed by the mechanical tentacles. Trunks' last vestiges of consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind, yet stubbornly shone through. In the final moment before his vision was blocked by the wall, Lin Ye saw the God Machine's right eye suddenly revert to a human eye—Trunks' icy blue pupil, filled with a silent cry for help.

We have to go back! Lin Ye struggled to turn around, but the mechanical arm of No. 18 held him firmly in place like an iron clamp.

"Don't be foolish!" Number 18 shouted sharply, her voice broken due to the high-speed movement. That thing was now a mobile war fortress! We need reinforcements, we need better equipment!

They crashed through the last wall and landed in an abandoned energy capsule. Number 18 quickly activated the emergency containment procedure; a heavy gate slammed down behind them, temporarily halting the pursuit. Lin Ye knelt on the ground, slamming his fist into the metal floor, leaving a dented fist mark.

That's not a mirror image... Lin Ye's voice was terrifyingly low. They were experimenting on living people... forcibly implanting human consciousness into war machines...

Number 18, inspecting her own damage without looking up, said, "So what? Something even more disgusting happens every day in the galaxy." She tore off a piece of deformed armor plating, revealing damaged circuitry underneath. "What we need now is to get out of this hellhole and find a warship to blast it to smithereens."

Lin Ye raised his head, the golden energy in his eyes not yet completely fading: No, we have to rescue him. Trunks is still alive, I can feel it.

Number 18 finally stopped what she was doing and looked directly into Lin Ye's eyes: "Listen, rookie. That thing almost turned us into cosmic dust. Even if there really was Trunks' consciousness inside, it would have already merged with that killing machine." She pointed to her temple; mechanical fusion irreversibly alters thought patterns—that's common sense.

The power compartment suddenly shook violently, and the ceiling lights shattered one after another. Deep, muffled impacts echoed in the distance, each one closer than the last.

It's here. Number 18 quickly stood up, all the weapon systems on his arm activated. "Make a decision, Captain. To escape or to die?"

Lin Ye slowly stood up, energy flowing around him once more. He looked at Number 18, a resolute smile playing on his lips: I choose the third path—

A massive explosion interrupted his words. The blockade gate was torn open by some enormous force, and a giant mechanical hand reached in through the gap, its fingers still dripping with molten metal.

—We'll tear it down and rescue Trunks.

Chapter 114: The Cage of the Heart

Seven firewall layers remaining! Bulma's fingers danced across the holographic keyboard, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Red warning boxes kept popping up on the quantum terminal in front of her, only to be shut down even faster. Vegeta, give me three more minutes!

Too slow. Vegeta scoffed, a blinding ball of energy coalescing in his palm. He hovered in the center of the control room, surrounded by the wreckage of hundreds of mechanical guards. Couldn't he just blast it open?

"Do you want to blow up Trunks' consciousness too?" Bulma roared without looking up, while using her toe to hook another energy cell to her side. "Is Lin Ye ready?"

I leaned against the consciousness link pod, adjusting the neural connector on my temple. Always ready. The rock spear was slightly warm in my hand, its surface shimmering with the fluorescent codes I'd gleaned from the data deluge. But I wasn't sure how long it would last—my right eye still occasionally displayed system logs after the last connection.

Vegeta suddenly appeared in front of the link pod, grabbing my collar: "Listen, rookie. If you mess this up..." His crimson pupils contracted to pinpoints, "I'll show you something even more thrilling than a martial arts tournament."

Vegeta! Bulma threw a wrench at him, hitting him squarely on the back of the head. Either help him or go tear down the wall!

The Saiyan prince released his grip, and as he turned, his tail lashed out at my shin. The sharp pain nearly made me collapse to my knees, but I felt a strange sense of relief—it seems this couple's way of getting along is universal.

The connection is activated! The moment Bulma pressed the final button, my vision was flooded with data streams.

Unlike the jarring feeling of being forcibly connected last time, this time it felt like sinking into a warm ocean. Rock Spear transformed into a golden carp, leading the way through layers of firewalls. The encrypted programs automatically retreated, forming a passage when they touched the carp's scales.

Emotional resonance verification. A mechanical female voice echoes from the void: Please present the strongest emotional memory.

Suddenly, countless holographic images appeared around them: the scene of Xiaoyu being entangled by the data chain, the tampered memories in the observer's main brain, the clones floating in the underground laboratory's incubation chamber... Each image brought a real sense of pain.

The carp thrashed violently, its scales beginning to peel away. I realized the validation mechanism was consuming emotional energy, and immediately grabbed it, stuffing it into my chest. In the excruciating pain, those memories suddenly turned golden—not deleted, but overwritten. I rewrote them in my own way:

The smile on Xiaoyu's face when she was finally rescued, the feeling of perfectly wielding the Rock Spear for the first time, and even Vegeta's awkward threat all transformed into power. Golden light burst forth from his heart, condensing into a key shape in the void.

Verification successful. Welcome to the Cage of the Heart.

As the darkness faded, I stood above an infinitely extending world of mirrors. Below me was a honeycomb structure composed of countless hexagonal mirrors, each containing a figure—all of them Trunks.

This is fucking... I almost bit my tongue. The Trunks in the mirrors were in various states: some were fighting frantically, some were crying with their knees drawn up, and most were expressionlessly repeating their daily routines. The deepest mirror was particularly large, and the Trunks inside was hacking at the mirror wall with his sword.

A golden carp leaped from my chest and charged straight at the mirror. The instant it touched the surface, all the mirrors suddenly turned, and the reflected light focused into a scorching beam.

A rock barrier! The crystalline barrier summoned instinctively shattered after only half a second. At the critical moment, a purple energy wave swept across space, shattering the beam of light.

"You're the newbie Bulma was talking about?" Trunks, reflected in the mirror, sheathed his sword and scrutinized me through the barrier. His eyepatch was shattered, revealing a mechanical prosthetic eye, a reminder that injuries sustained here would result in death in the real world.