The Mech Touch

The next floor already turned into a warzone by the time that Ves and his team passed through the portal.

Different from the last floor, the conservatives and radicals stationed a lot more soldiers here. Whereas the fourth floor was more of a sideshow to them, they correctly recognized that the third floor was the most critical one!

"All of the special projects in this pinnacle lab should be situated in the center of this floor." Ves predicted after reading through the scattered intelligence that Dr. Perris managed to retrieve from a number of broken devices.

Dr. Perris already started to step forward, but Ves quickly held her armored body back. "Wait! Don't go forward yet. The fighting hasn't abated yet. My long-range sensors still detect signs of fighting in the distance."

The third floor was apparently a lot bigger than the other floors. While not every research project housed here was critical, they all required a lot of space. This was where the Supreme Sage largely worked on wonders that were even bigger in scale than Project Cyclops.

Speaking of those huge monsters, his sensors could clearly pick out the sounds of human soldiers fighting back against the inhuman giants!

From the intensity of combat his sensors managed to pick up, Ves quickly figured out that the cyclopes had a much harder time getting through the human lines this time!

He even managed to pick up a lot more painful roars that couldn't have originated from anything else but the giant humanoid monsters.

"Damn, are the cyclopes losing?"

Ves never thought he would be cheering on the side of biological monstrosities trying to kill every human in their way, but right now he really wanted the latter to die. As long as at least one human managed to go back and tell their bosses about the presence of the Larkinsons in the forbidden lab, then he and his entire clan would become doomed!

After he continued to listen for another minute, he couldn't hold back his curiosity any longer. He ordered his honor guard to release some spy drones in order to check the situation up ahead.

The tiny drones quietly flew forward and crossed a lot of distance before they managed to reach a fortified lab room occupied by a much larger infantry troop.

Unlike the soldiers from before, these ones were able to put up a much greater resistance!

"Those are elites!"

Unlike the regular soldiers on the fourth floor, the infantry soldiers assigned to the third floor were clearly the best of what the factions had to offer. They were not only considerably better armed and armored, but the elite troopers also exhibited more grit and discipline in the face of the giant monsters!

"It also helps that they were able to detect the advance of the cyclopes at least a minute in advance."

The position occupied by the soldiers was close to a large straight corridor which the powerful humanoids had to pass through. This not only gave the humans plenty of time to man their defenses, but also allowed them to fire all of their weapons at the advancing bioproducts!

In fact, numerous bodies already littered the deck as the elite soldiers coordinated their fire and specifically concentrated on disabling the legs of the advancing monsters!

Plenty still made it to the other side. Once the cyclopes reached the defensive lines, they charged into the bone metal fortifications, only to crash into a large energy shield. Though the large monsters quickly overloaded the shield by pounding on it with their fists, the defenders brought out the heavy weapons that they had long put into storage.

Grenades, rockets and more exotic weapons began to deal heavy damage to the rampaging giants. Some weapons even drenched the cyclopes with corroding acids that happened to work particularly well on the creatures!

Yet despite all of this resistance, the might of these big humanoids was still very formidable!

No barrier stopped them for long. The physical might of the giants was too great. They broke every energy shield and climbed over every solid barrier in order to reach the defending humans.

Elites or not, every soldier that failed to fall back quickly turned into cyclops food!

The same spectacle was taking place in another location. The soldiers of the opposition faction were not as well-equipped as their conservative counterparts, but they had the edge in numbers.

It was a pity that they still fell short against their current threat. Most small arms fire did nothing against the giant humanoids, so much of the firepower went to waste.

Trying to fight the cyclopes was no different from fighting a mech! It simply wasn't feasible due to the enormous scale disparity!

No matter how many clever tactics the resisting soldiers pulled off, the simpler and less coordinated cyclopes simply relied on their raw might in order to overcome all resistance.

Soon, more and more bodies entered the stomachs of the giant humanoids. Though most of the elite soldiers bravely managed to fight to the end, their valor did not avail them anything as they simply died without giving their opponents any significant trouble.

The cyclopes were slowly regenerating the damage they incurred from their assaults. Ves and Dr. Perris was quite impressed at the speed at which they healed their wounds, though hardly any of it had anything to do with consuming human flesh.

"The biomass they are ingesting can hardly supply the nutrients required to restore this much damage. They need to access a better source in order to sustain their restoration process.

Strangely enough, that was exactly what the cyclopes were doing. While some of the big monsters split off from the main group in order to hunt down the stragglers, others were moving to a specific storage room that contained a lot of feeder stock and other nutrients.

The giants quickly feasted on the high-quality supplies. Their ability to digest all manner of materials came very handy at the moment. Soon, cut and blackened flesh regenerated into pink and sensitive tissue. The healed portions obviously weren't up to par yet, but that would change in time.

Once the cyclopes finished all of these chores, they moved out and picked up their dead comrades. Once two of the creatures grabbed onto a single dead companion, they slowly brought the dead cyclopes to the entrance of the core section of the pinnacle lab.

There, they waited. Both the surviving and fallen cyclopes were parked before the enormous gates that were large enough to fit in several mechs with room to spare!

Once Ves confirmed that advancing forward was safe, Ves cautiously led his men forward. They looked at the remains of the hard-fought enemy soldiers and imagined how it would have been if they were the ones who had to resist the cyclopes.

"Sorry fellows, but you're in the way."

Ves didn't bother to stop to examine the remains of the dead this time. Though Dr. Perris tried to salvage some data from a broken biocomm as she walked, the information she learned was not very comprehensive.

"You're right, sir. This is indeed the main floor that the two opposing sides have been focusing upon." She said. "The conservatives and the opposition have been fighting against each other for several weeks while trying to force their way into the core area."

"Did they succeed?"

"No. The defenses of the core area are on a whole other level. The labs we have visited so far are mostly side projects. While I can't say that they are irrelevant, the Supreme Sage won't feel very upset if something happens to them. The special projects housed behind these massive gates are different. The defenses surrounding this core area are practically like a citadel. The degree of firepower the invaders have to leverage in order to breach the main gates is so much that there is a substantial risk the entire floor will break. This is why the two sides gave up on trying to breach the core area by force."

As Ves and his team arrived at the front of the gates, they clearly perceived its formidable nature. It was taller than several biomechs and just as thick as one! So much hard bone metal material had been piled onto the gate structure that Ves wasn't even sure his own mechs could breach this obstacle!

"How do we get past?"

The cyclopes apparently didn't possess the right key. They were standing close to the gates, obviously wanting to go deeper, but lacked the access to go any further.

Ves pulled out his Supreme Comprehension gem and shook it a few times.

"Hey, can you unlock these gates? They're kind of in the way."

The gem shook a bit but did not tug him in any direction. It acted as if it had no clue what to do in this situation.

"You can't bring us in? Why not? I thought this was supposed to be your lab!"

The living gem grew angry all of the sudden and shook with rage.

After a minute of attempting to communicate, Ves realized why the gem acted in this fashion.

The spiritual remnant locked inside the gem may have come from the Supreme Sage, but it lacked a lot of pieces of the great researcher!

One of them was the method of opening the enormous gates. Ves pressed the gem against the surface of the barrier, but it didn't work this time.

"Damn. How will we get through this time?"

The gates stumped the factions for a long time. Ves didn't think he'd be able to decipher the right method by himself.

Ves suddenly turned to look at his shoulder. Throughout all of this time, Lucky had been lounging on the shoulder of his combat armor like it was his personal chariot.

Lucky lazily yawned as he completely disregarded the difficulties that Ves was facing at the moment.

"Lucky?"

"Meeeooow?"

"Your sick days have expired. It's time to get to work!"

"Meeoow!"

Suffice to say, it took quite a bit 'convincing' in order to gain Lucky's cooperation. The cat reacted very grumpily at Ves, but he had already recovered enough by now to phase his body for a brief moment of time.

Ves handed the living gem over to Lucky. "Bring it to the other side and work together to find some kind of override. I bet it's a lot less troublesome to open the gates from within this citadel.

Lucky held the gem between his teeth with a resentful expression before he turned intangible and phased through the giant gates.

More than ten minutes passed before the gates suddenly shook.

"Back off! I think it's opening!"

Ves and his team hastily moved back as the gates slowly slid open. The entire hall seemed to shake a bit as a lot of force was being channeled to make an opening.

The cyclopes that had been waiting around finally moved again. They picked up their fallen comrades and silently passed through the entrance to the core area.

Ves and his men had to stand aside in order to avoid getting stepped on by the giant humanoids.

Once the cyclopes moved past, Ves moved forward as well.

The interior of the core area had a very different atmosphere. The lighting was dimmer but the scale of the entire area was larger. The ceiling almost wasn't visible to naked eye anymore because it reached an incredible height. The corridor he had just entered was so wide that it could easily fit a multitude of mechs standing side by side.

"What a big area." Dr. Perris gasped.

Ves tried to seek out his pet. "Ah, there you are, Lucky!"

The gem cat had practically emptied his entire reserves of the day from the way he collapsed on the deck. Ves carefully picked his body up and placed his pet back on his previous perch.

"You've done your job. You deserve a very welcome rest."

"Meoooow…."

The living gem on the other hand became more energetic than ever. It eagerly bopped up and down as it led Ves deeper into the core area.

Eventually, he reached the end of the corridor. Two enormous entrances were situated on the left and right sides.

The cyclopes were patiently standing in front of the left entrance. Clearly they were waiting for someone to open the way so they could get inside.

Ves carefully looked in this direction before shaking his head. He turned around and approached the enormous entrance situated on the right side of the corridor.

"This should be the lab section where Special Project 'V' is housed."

"What makes you think that, sir?" Dr. Perris asked.

"Those cyclopes over there are associated with Special Project 'U'. They have no relations with life-prolonging treatment serum. Besides, I can already tell that what I'm looking for is behind these gates."

"How?"

"I can sense it." He grinned.