Above the Blood Moon

But less than two minutes into the sensation, all the colors and shapes in the scene before him came together, as if the world were spinning.

He lay on the back of the motorcycle, his stomach churning, a surge of acid rising in his throat, which he forced back down.

Cold sweat trickled down my forehead and down my temples. It felt like I'd been pulling three all-nighters in a row and then someone had hit me on the back of the head with a blunt object.

It turns out that maintaining that state requires so much energy.

He just took his first steps like a baby learning to walk, wobbling and then collapsing to the ground.

"Master, your blood sugar is dropping rapidly."

Big Yellow's voice echoed in my mind.

"Heart rate 132, blood pressure 90/60, adrenaline levels are dropping. I suggest you replenish your energy immediately, otherwise you may experience hypoglycemic coma within three minutes."

Jockley wanted to speak, but his tongue was pressed heavily against the bottom of his mouth, and he couldn't make a sound.

Then he felt something touch his lips, the feel of aluminum foil packaging.

It was Dahuang, which controlled the exoskeleton's robotic arm to pull a new tube of nutritional paste from his trench coat pocket, tear open the packaging, squeeze out a bit, and gently press it to his lips.

Jockley opened his mouth and bit down.

The taste of the nutritional paste was still disgusting, but he didn't have the energy to complain about it now.

He ate like a wolf that hadn't eaten for three days, wolfing it down. The sticky paste slid down his throat and into his stomach, bringing warmth.

He ate half a tube, then stopped to catch his breath.

The world finally stopped spinning, but the feeling of exhaustion lingered, as if my body had been hollowed out, leaving only an empty shell.

"Two minutes," he said softly, his voice hoarse. "I can only last two minutes."

"It's always like this the first time."

The priest's voice came from the front, still calm.

"This alien energy doesn't come out of thin air; it consumes your biological energy. Your body hasn't adapted yet, but as you use it more, the duration of its effects will gradually increase."

Jockley nodded, stuffed the remaining half tube of nutritional paste back into his pocket, and looked up ahead.

The motorcycle was still traveling across the wilderness. The red moon had shifted westward from the center of the sky, its dark red light shining obliquely down. About two hours had passed.

For most of those two hours, Jockley closed his eyes and tried to recover his strength.

Just as Jockley was about to close his eyes and take a nap, the motorcycle in front of him stopped.

The motorcycle in front of Ate suddenly braked fifty meters ahead, its wheels leaving two long tracks on the gravel and kicking up a cloud of dust.

The priest also slowed down gradually, and the motorcycle came to a steady stop next to the other motorcycle.

The roar of the engine stopped abruptly, and the world suddenly fell silent, with only the sound of the wind remaining.

"arrive."

Jockley climbed off the motorcycle, his legs weak and he almost knelt on the ground. He braced himself against the back of the motorcycle and took a deep breath.

At and Dekiri had gotten out of the car and were working together to push the motorcycle behind a pile of electronic waste.

The priest also pushed the motorcycle over, and the two motorcycles were hidden side by side behind the pile of waste, almost indistinguishable from each other from a distance.

Then At made a gesture, and the group began to crawl forward across the wilderness.

The ground was rough, and gravel and metal fragments rubbed against his knees and palms, quickly wearing through his pants and leaving several small cuts on his palms.

But he couldn't care less about any of that.

After climbing about a hundred meters, Ate stopped behind a small earthen mound.

He peeked out, then quickly pulled back in, took a pair of binoculars from his pocket, looked at them for about ten seconds, and then handed the binoculars to the priest.

The priest glanced at it and handed it to Daikiri, who glanced at it and handed it to Jockley.

Jockley took the binoculars; the cold metallic touch sobered him up a bit. He raised the binoculars and brought his eyes close to the eyepiece.

The image became clearer.

The first thing that catches the eye is a large hole.

It was a huge crater at least fifty meters in diameter, with irregular edges and a very deep bottom.

The telescope had a limited focal length, so it could only see some faint points of light moving at the bottom, which were probably miners' lamps. There were two simple shacks scattered around the pit, crooked and looking like they could be blown over by a gust of wind.

But on the other side of the pit, in stark contrast to those shacks, stood a small villa.

With white walls and red tiles, exquisite design, and even a small garden, the villa's windows are lit with warm yellow light that spills out through the gaps in the curtains.

The villa is surrounded by a wall, which is not high, about two meters high, but it is covered with barbed wire and surveillance cameras.

There were two guards at the entrance of the wall, wearing matching gray uniforms and carrying rifles, patrolling back and forth.

"You saw it?" Art asked in a low voice.

Jockley nodded and put down his binoculars.

"According to the information I found, this mine owner is called Walker, and he is an illegal mine owner."

"Although this wasteland is not large, he has more than a hundred black mining slaves who work in shifts around the clock to mine data left by the old civilization, as well as some rare metals that can still be used."

He pointed to the large hole.

"That villa is where he lives. He hired a 20-person guard team, all of whom are retired mercenaries or corporate security guards. They are well-equipped and experienced."

Jockley raised the binoculars again and looked more closely.

The guards around the villa were indeed very professional, patrolling in pairs, with each person moving back and forth within their own designated area.

"The plan is simple: sneak into the villa, go up to the third floor, subdue Walker, and take the hard drive he's carrying without alerting the guards."

"The employer said that the hard drive doesn't have an electronic backup, so I can only get a physical copy."

Jockley put down his binoculars and looked at At.

"What about the distance? Approximately how far as the crow flies from here to the villa?"

"About 120 meters," Art said.

"There are walls, surveillance cameras, and patrol teams in the middle. We need to find a loophole."

Jockley was silent for a few seconds, then he spoke again.

"I am a Level 1 Support-type Ability User. My ability is to sense biological heat sources within a radius of approximately one hundred meters."

Ate's eyes lit up.

"Can you sense what's happening inside the walls?"

"We can give it a try," Jockley said, "but I'm not sure if there are jamming devices installed in the villa."

"Probably not. Ability shielding devices require a huge amount of money, which Walker, a small mine owner, can't afford. At most, he installed thermal imaging shielding, but that kind of thing is useless against ability sensing."

Jockley nodded and closed his eyes.

Take a deep breath and clear your mind.

That feeling returned; pale golden energy flowed through my body, spreading along unseen paths, eventually forming a thin halo under my skin.

The outline of the villa transformed into a blurry white halo in his perception, and then he sensed people.

Around the villa, there were ten clusters of orange-red heat sources; those were the guards, and they were moving.

Inside the villa, there are several smaller heat sources on the second and third floors, which are probably servants or butlers.

Then Jockley turned his perception toward the large hole.

He gasped, noticing at least a hundred faint heat sources densely packed at the bottom of the cave.

The heat sources were dim, almost extinguished, like candles flickering in the wind. They huddled together at the bottom of the dark cave, emitting a faint light; those were probably miners.

Jockley opened his eyes, his energy vision faded, and the world returned to the blood-red wilderness under the red moon. His face was somewhat pale.

"How is it?" Art asked.

"The guard team consists of ten people, all around the villa. There are also a few people inside the villa. The one furthest inside on the third floor should be Walker. There are at least a hundred miners in the pit."

Ada nodded, her face expressionless.

"Okay," he said. "Let's adjust the plan. The priest and I will sneak in first, using a heat shield and a shuttle to enter directly from the rooftop."

"Chocolate, Iron Man, and Daikiri, the three of you are responsible for keeping watch on the first floor to prevent anyone from coming up from below. Once you have the hard drive, leave immediately and don't linger."

He glanced at Jockley.

"How long can your superpower last?"

"It takes a maximum of two minutes, but it can be turned on multiple times, each time requiring a few seconds of preparation time."

"That's enough. After we go inside, activate your ability every now and then to monitor the surrounding area. Notify us immediately if there's anything unusual."

Jockley nodded.

"Since everyone is okay with it, let's get started!"

Art took a heat shield from his backpack, turned it on, and the device emitted a faint hum. Then, a pale blue halo spread out from him, enveloping him and the priest.

From an energy perspective, their heat source disappeared, turning into two almost invisible shadows.

"Let's go," Art said in a low voice.

Like ghosts, the two silently slid down the slope, moving close to the ground towards the wall.

Jockley watched them through binoculars. Art found a gap in the wall, and he and the priest crawled through it one after the other, then quickly pressed themselves against the villa wall.

Then Art and the priest simultaneously raised their arms, and a shuttle popped out from their wrists. The device emitted pale blue flames and generated recoil force.

As if pulled by invisible threads, the two rose vertically along the wall, reaching the rooftop in a few seconds. They then flipped over the railing and disappeared into the shadows of the rooftop.

The entire process took no more than fifteen seconds, and was clean and efficient.

Jockley lowered his binoculars and looked at Dekiri, who grinned.

"It's our turn."

The two began to move.

Unlike At and the priest, they didn't have heat shields, so they could only wait for the patrol shifts to change. Jockley activated his powers again, and in his energy vision, the ten orange-red heat sources were moving along a fixed trajectory.

He calculated the time and found a small opening.

"Now," he said softly.

The two then rushed out from behind the earthen slope, lowered their bodies, and sprinted toward the wall at top speed.

One hundred and twenty meters.

Jockley felt like his lungs were about to explode, but the auxiliary power system of the exoskeleton on his back came into play at the crucial moment, allowing him to take bigger strides and run faster.

Thirty seconds.

They rushed to the wall, pressed themselves against it, and hid in the blind spot of the surveillance cameras.

Dekiri pulled a laser cutter from his waist, pointed the muzzle at the wall, and pressed the switch.

laugh--

With a soft cutting sound, the wall was sliced ​​open like butter, revealing the steel bars and wires inside. Daikiri drew a circle with a diameter of half a meter along the wall, and then gently pushed it.

The circular wall collapsed inwards, landing on the carpet with a dull thud.

The two of them went inside, one after the other.

The villa was dark inside, with only a few wall lamps casting a dim yellow light. They were in the first-floor corridor, which was covered with a thick carpet that was soft and almost silent underfoot.

There were closed doors on both sides, with brass nameplates hanging on them that read "Storage Room" or something similar.

Daikiri pointed to the left, then to the right, and the two separated to guard one end of the corridor, their backs against the wall, watching the stairs and the door at the end of the corridor warily.

Time passed second by second.

The villa was quiet, with only the faint hum of some kind of machinery in operation in the distance. Every minute, Jockley would activate his superpower, using his energy vision to scan the entire villa.

The source of heat for Art and the priest is on the third floor and is moving slowly, likely approaching Walker's room.

The guards' heat source was outside the wall, and they patrolled along a fixed route without any abnormalities.

Everything is going smooth.

Dekiri leaned against the wall and mouthed to Jockri:

"This mission was easy."

He had that usual nonchalant smile on his face, and Jockley wanted to remind him not to jinx it.

But it was too late.

The very next second after Daikiri finished speaking, Jockley suddenly felt an unusual heat source slowly approaching from behind a door.

The door was slowly pushed open, and a mechanical dog peeked out from behind it. Jockley felt his heart skip a beat.

That thing couldn't even be called a dog. It was about a meter tall, with a streamlined, silver-gray metal shell covered with fine ventilation holes and sensors.

The four legs feature a reverse joint design with clearly visible weapon interfaces at the joints, allowing them to be easily replaced with blades, stun guns, or other weapons.

Its head is a flat triangle with three red optical sensors embedded in the front. What's most unsettling is the transparent observation window at the back of its head.

A pinkish-white object floated in the light blue nutrient solution inside the window.

That's a human brain, and it's still pulsating slightly.

Big Yellow's voice echoed in Jokli's mind, this time with genuine surprise.

"What the hell is this? (⊙ˍ⊙)"

Jockley looked at Daikiri, whose expression changed, becoming as ugly as if he had eaten shit.

He opened his mouth and mouthed two words.

"Holy shit."

Then Daikiri lowered his voice, almost squeezing it out between his teeth:

"Ares Corporation's Alpha Robotic Dogs are filled with living human brains, taken directly from death row inmates or 'voluntary donors,' and equipped with a host of weapons—laser cutters, high-voltage electric shocks, miniature missiles, and sonic oscillators. They are no less dangerous than the cybernetic madmen with a bunch of prosthetic bodies. We can't let them complete the warm-up for war mode!"

He paused, his face showing a mixture of anger and despair.

"Damn it, Att didn't mention that this thing even existed."

The mechanical dog emerged completely from behind the door, its three optical sensors scanning the corridor. The sensors adjusted their focus, emitting a faint buzzing sound, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue.

Then it opened its mouth, and a weapon module under its head opened, revealing six rotary machine guns inside, which began to spin and heat up.

[Warning! Warning! Unknown human invasion! Unknown human invasion!]

"Get ready to fight tooth and nail, and buy Atreus some time."