NIKKE, Swordmaster Ark Succubus Daily

Li Zuoyi flipped through it briefly; it wasn't research notes, just casual diary entries.

The gist of it was something like the secretary who came in today had really big breasts, and that his wife was angry again.

But when you turn to one page, the director's notes are clearly somewhat messy.

[Finally unearthed on June 7th! Now we just need to wait for the leaders' meeting to conclude and the quotas for each country to be allocated!]

What was dug out?

Distribution among countries?

Li Zuoyi continued flipping through the pages with a puzzled look. The next few pages were all complaints about how meetings between world leaders were like constipation. From this point on, the time intervals between each page also became very long.

But on December 16, the situation finally changed.

[On December 16th, the research institute was allocated a fist-sized space. Great! Now it's time to compete in research speed!]

Li Zuoyi continued reading.

[The ingredient in the product released on December 17th is nanorobots!]

[February 16th - Several months have passed, and after trying various methods, the nanobots haven't reacted at all; they're completely inactive. What's wrong?]

Li Zuo flipped through the pages and suddenly realized that it was January. Moreover, the diary didn't seem to have been torn out; it must have been a year before he remembered he still had a diary.

[On January 17th, among all animals, monkeys showed the best compatibility... Someone from above came and said that a doctor named Ivy from another country has made considerable progress... Damn it, if it weren't for you bunch of parasites embezzling funds...]

Turning the page, it seems like another year has passed.

[On December 3rd, vital signs disappeared on the 24th, but on the 13th, the animal was still conscious. This is the sixth group already. Is it really only possible for a woman? Also, it's getting bigger and bigger in the molten metal.]

Li Zuoyi's hand holding the diary trembled slightly. Could this be Niki's preliminary experiment?

[April 2nd, men are no good! Men are no good! How many times do I have to tell that idiot general before he'll believe me! He should be using that energy to recruit more women into the army!]

[A new discovery on July 4: When filtering the blood of a deceased male recipient with a special blood type, the number of nanobots recovered was incorrect; the smaller portion appears to have been dissolved by the blood.]

[A new discovery on August 2nd has confirmed that this blood type can indeed neutralize some nanorobots.]

Li Zuoyi speculated that the antidote was made of... blood?

[On December 23rd, that idiot general came again, saying that war might be about to begin and that preparations needed to be made... Moron, the concentration isn't enough! The concentration isn't enough! It would take the blood of over a hundred people to make just one antidote bullet!]

[On April 13th, with funding dwindling, I had no choice but to secretly sell it and my research findings to a company. With the money, I'm sure I can solve the mystery before Avira...]

I heard on February 2nd that Avira died.

[On February 3rd, when I moved it to the larger petri dish in the middle of the lab, I thought I heard it talking... Ha... I'm such an idiot...]

[On March 14th, it really spoke... It said that God's perfect vessel is ready...]

[On May 13th, I couldn't take it anymore. I hadn't slept well for a month. Today, I was going to shoot it dead.]

All subsequent pages are blank.

The information was a bit overwhelming... Li Zuoyi took a moment to process it.

Then he broke off the corpse's hand, took the old-fashioned pistol, removed the magazine, and glanced at it.

The magazine contains only one bullet with a transparent tip.

Li Zuoyi took out the bullet to examine it; inside the glistening bullet were tiny beads of blood the size of rice grains.

Chapter Fifty-Three: The Worst-Case Scenario

This must be the antidote Dorothy was talking about.

Judging from the diary, this stuff seems to work on Niki.

So it should also be useful for heretics who are transformed from Niki.

Li Zuoyi stuffed the diary into his pocket, removed the bullet with the deactivator, and put the magazine back into the pistol.

This diary might come in handy later...

He called over Yinhua and the others, then handed the pistol to Lapi and asked, "Can you repair this gun to a working condition?"

“Yinhua should be able to do it; she’s very knowledgeable about firearms,” Labi said. “She’s always been in charge of the squad’s weapon maintenance.”

"Let me see." Yinhua took the pistol, examined it carefully, and said:

"The item is old, but it's in pretty good condition. A little maintenance should be fine. But why bother repairing something like this? If you need a pistol, I have a better one here."

Li Zuoyi showed them the bullet and explained it, but omitted some of the contents of the diary.

"Won't the effect be diminished after so much time has passed?" Anies leaned closer to take a look and said, "What if the heretic doesn't react when we call him out?"

Indeed, that is a problem...

Li Zuoyi put away the bullets and said, "We'll only know if we try."

“This could endanger your life, please reconsider,” Anies said, expressing his concern. “Actually, that girl named Dorothy, Niki, seems to be deliberately trying to get us to leave that place…”

“No need for such subtlety.” Yin Hua pointed directly at Li Zuoyi and said, “That Niki has a problem; we can’t completely trust her.”

He just happened to appear when he was in danger, and said that he barely made it there.

But then she said that the commander's merits caused the heretic to be injured... It was as if she had seen it all from beginning to end, and finally came to the rescue at the crucial moment.

Yin Hua hadn't said anything before because she was worried that the seemingly calm commander would lose hope and break down.

She finally had a commander who was somewhat acceptable, and she didn't want him to die because of something like this.

"You mean Marian might be dead?" Li Zuo stared blankly at Yin Hua's face.

An inexplicable pressure weighed on her shoulders; Yin Hua hadn't felt tense in a long time.

She couldn't answer the questions he asked.

Meanwhile, Labi and Anis, who were standing to the side, also sensed the oppressive atmosphere and remained silent.

Nobody knows how the commander will react after it's been revealed.

"He's probably dead. In that situation, no matter how you look at it..." Li Zuo twirled the bullet in his hand, changing the subject as he spoke:

"My plan for leaving was to send Dorothy's troops to confront the heretics. If they were defeated, we could provide support. If they were defeated, we could bring the antidote back to the Ark."

Of course, he only brought the ark back; he couldn't possibly hand it over.

He had sensed something was wrong with Dorothy's words from the beginning, but he had his own ideas.

“I thought you wanted to deal with the heretics yourself,” Anies said.

"If I could, I would certainly like to," Li Zuoyi sighed.

“But we are short of supplies, and Marian may have already met with misfortune. I cannot let you be put in danger because of my personal feelings. That would be too selfish.”

He has already lost the Goddess Corps, lost Marian, and cannot afford to lose them all because of his own foolishness.

“Commander…” Anies’ voice choked, his nose twitched a few times, and he turned away to wipe away the tears that flowed involuntarily.

“…” Lapi lowered his head and clutched his chest.

She clearly doesn't have a heart anymore, but now she feels an uncontrollable heartbeat. Why?

"Third-rate."

"what?"

"...Don't die."

……

……

The colossal Lecher mech hovered in the sky, its massive size blocking out the sun, and the cross-shaped shadow it cast resembled a sign that a god was about to destroy the world.

A destructive laser beam converged at the core of the mech's chest, forming a massive beam that shot towards the ants on the ground that dared to resist.

"Noah, defense mode!" John ordered.

"Yes!"

Noah quickly moved in front of Commander John, holding up her star-shaped double shields to block the attack from the mech that rose from the ground once again.

"Thank you, Noah."

Dorothy, who was next to John, was kneeling on one knee, panting heavily.

She was in a sorry state; her once magnificent and elegant armor was mostly destroyed, with the gaps on it being extremely smooth and clean.

This shouldn't be happening, she thought, clenching her teeth.

The hunt in Indivalia went very smoothly at first, but then the heretic was pulled underground, and naturally they wouldn't give up the chance to pursue him.

But the next moment, the ground within hundreds of meters around them sank vertically by more than ten meters, and a cross-shaped Lecher mech, which they had never seen before, burst out of the ground and rose into the air.

The powerful firepower displayed by that mech was overwhelming for them.

So they chose to retreat.

But then Indivilla reappeared.

This time, Indivilla was in perfect condition. She not only severely injured Dorothy, but also thwarted their plan to rescue Isabel.

Harlan is currently locked in a fierce battle with her, and even with Isabel's air support, he is clearly at a disadvantage.

"Ah—my shield..."

Noah's star-shaped double shields are showing signs of melting, which is a very bad sign.

"Does that mech also possess the power of a heretic?" John looked up at the cross-shaped Lecher mech in the sky, his expression grave.

"Commander, be careful..."

John turned and saw Harlan, clutching the massive scythe that was about to shatter, retreating back to the group, covered in wounds.

Isabel wobbled back to the group from the air; half of her wing had been cut off, making it difficult for her to fly again.

"I'm sorry, Commander, I was hit by a missile fired from that mech, and I lost altitude. I was attacked by the Heretic..."

Just a few meters in front of Harlan stood the heretic Indivilla in perfect condition.

"A human who has modified himself?" Indeveria looked John up and down, her mechanical whip blades writhing restlessly behind her.

John's military uniform concealed a body of steel; he abandoned his flesh and blood when he left the Ark.

However, it would likely be no match for Indivilla's whip.

Isabel was captured, Dorothy was seriously injured, Noah's shield was almost unusable, Harlan was in extremely poor condition, and he himself could not possibly confront a heretic head-on.

"I'll scoop out your brain and savor it slowly, like an appetizer." Indeveria hadn't forgotten the humiliation this human had inflicted on her before, and she was going to repay him tenfold!

“If you could have recovered much earlier, why wait until now?” John asked.

She was pulled underground for only a short time, yet she fully recovered from her near-death state.

Indivilla did not answer. Why should she answer a human who was about to die?

'Clang, clang'

Indivilla wielded his mechanical whip blade, deflecting two bullets.

She glanced sideways at a huge rock a hundred meters away.

Beside the boulder, the human who had blocked her attack earlier was aiming a pistol at her.

Knowing all along that there were people there, Indivilla's expression turned crazed. Originally, she planned to deal with these guys in front of her before going to find her main course...

But this person was just sitting quietly during the main meal, and yet they dared to disturb her...

Unforgivable!

I decided to eat him first!

Seeing Indivilla charging towards him, Li Zuo gripped his pistol tightly.

When he arrived, Dorothy's troops were almost finished with the hunt, but who knew that something would happen in the next second.

The surrounding ground began to tremble and sink several meters, as the giant mech burst out from underground.

He and his team were trapped in this small basin and couldn't get out, and then they witnessed the rout of Dorothy's forces...

The worst-case scenario in my mind...

It seems we can only rely on him.