Chapter 144: Gin, Ascends to Heaven

While Frank was rampaging through the distillery and cutting down enemies, Fina conveniently pulled all three individuals holding communicators into a video channel.

Haibara Ai stared at the tiny screen in her hand, rubbing her eyes repeatedly.

Was this really the Gin she knew? The artistic style was completely off! Aside from his head and face remaining unchanged, nothing else resembled him at all!

How on earth did an assassin and hitman suddenly turn into a berserker?

"Frank, do you need our help?" Fina's voice sounded in Frank's ear.

"No need. This guy probably took some kind of drug; his body is collapsing on its own."

Relying on his high-speed movement to dodge Gin's attacks, Frank swept a glance over those inexplicably torn wounds.

"Hurry up and harvest his energy source. It feels like such a waste watching this—think of how long this could last us!"

"Working on it, keep stalling him."

Vernon replied from inside the shuttle cabin. Under his control, clusters of lush, thriving briars were drilling through the soil and breaking through the architecture, continuously advancing toward the lowest level.

The small thorns along the thickets acted like the treads of a drilling machine, pushing the dirt and shattered steel behind the excavated tunnel to accelerate the depth of penetration.

The materials on the very bottom layer were remarkably tough, likely some specially treated substance, and there were no surrounding gaps to tunnel through.

After sensing the environment, Vernon realized that a violent breakthrough was the only option. If triggering any traps or accidentally damaging the energy extractor occurred during the forced entry, they would simply have to blame bad luck.

Consequently, the thorn vines enclosing the bottom layer writhed together, spitting out dozens of yellow tubers from their tips.

The tuber sap possessed extremely strong adhesive properties, slapping directly and sticking firmly to the outer shell of the building.

A few seconds later, these yellow tubers began extending root systems into the surrounding soil, extracting nutrients from the earth.

In barely a minute, potato-like growths were tightly plastered against the exterior shell.

Once the potato mines matured, the thorn vines rapidly retracted, curling up into a ball.

Boom! ! !

A massive explosion erupted within the confined space, the violent tremor shaking the entire base.

While the explosion failed to directly rupture the materials and create a breach, it successfully disrupted the base's center of gravity.

As the upper base shifted out of alignment, a small opening appeared.

Vernon immediately manipulated the thorn vines to drill inside.

Goodness, the vast space inside was packed to the brim, entirely filled with components of the energy extraction device.

This was several times larger than the machine Hydra used to extract the energy of the Space Stone, and judging by efficiency, it seemed even inferior to Hydra's product.

Renya Karasuma had plagiarized only to produce a substandard knockoff.

With the energy room breached, cryogenic gas began spewing out wildly, and white mist instantly shrouded the entire lowest level.

However, the perception of the thorn vines was neither thermal nor optical, so the low temperature only slightly restricted their movement speed.

Storage device... storage device...

Vernon muttered as he searched. If they could find a storage device that had been running for decades, they wouldn't have to worry about their energy supply for this trip.

Even if the Black Organization's extractor was essentially a hand-cranked generator, having cranked for decades meant the accumulated charge wouldn't be an insignificant figure.

Yet, after searching for a long time, Vernon found no mechanical structures resembling a storage device. As he pondered this in confusion, he felt something was slightly off about the surrounding materials.

The weight of the upper base was immense, yet after pressing down for so long, it hadn't widened that finger-sized hole even a fraction. What kind of material was this anyway...

Could it be...

"Frank! Push him! Make him increase his energy consumption!" Vernon shouted loudly into the channel.

"Understood."

Upon receiving the command, Frank instantly slammed on the brakes and landed on an unmelted piece of architectural debris.

They had been fighting for so long that the nearby metal had melted into a colloid; finding anywhere to land was already a blessing.

[Command successfully received... Unlimited Firepower Mode engaged... Injecting serum!]

Concentrated serum flowed from the blood vessels into Frank's entire body. Influenced by the energy within the serum, his eyes turned a blazing chalk-white.

"Receive the judgment of the Holy Light!"

Roaring, Frank leaped directly into the air. The bullets spewing from his dual pistols formed a ring around him, and the dense barrage completely blanketed Gin's field of vision.

Lucent Pursuit × 3!

Under overdrive automation, the intervals between bullets shrank further, and the barrage grew even denser.

Gin raised the somewhat sticky firearm in his hand, shoved it straight into the ground beneath his feet, and flipped the switch!

A continuous stream of energy erupted from the muzzle, forming a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree protective barrier around him.

At that precise moment, aided by the sensory network of the thorn vines, Vernon detected energy rapidly surging through the walls of the extraction chamber.

"I take back my previous thought. In certain aspects, this guy is a genius."

Vernon sighed. The surrounding materials had all been efficiently compressed using energy, causing the particles within to drastically shorten their distance under the influence of world energy.

This was equivalent to a method of energy storage; one only needed to lift the restriction and let it return to normal for a massive amount of energy to be released.

Thinking about it this way, that opening probably wasn't blown open by the explosion, but rather caused by the deformation from Gin drawing upon the energy.

Although this method might incur a relatively high loss rate, it was sufficiently convenient and covert. Even if an ordinary person destroyed the base, they wouldn't pay attention to damaged structures, leaving a chance for him to reclaim it later.

Unfortunately, that opportunity was gone now!

Yet, a problem lay before Vernon: how to move so many of these things away? Release the energy one by one and store it again? Unless the nations on this planet were all blind, they would definitely notice.

Never mind... let's not consider this for now...

Vernon shook his head and transferred control of the thorn vines to Fina, as she was the one in charge of this domain.

Shortly after Fina took over, Gin—still fighting Frank—suddenly noticed the alarm on his energy gun go off.

The surrounding energy shield flickered once and vanished entirely. Before he could figure out what had happened, several holy light bullets pierced straight through his body, blasting out large holes and igniting the remainder of his flesh.

Hah... hah... Frank halted, his visor springing open as he retched a couple of times.

The side effects of Ouroboros's matured serum were far milder than those of the Black Organization's replica Hydra serum, but they still existed.

After catching his breath, the visor resealed, and Frank walked over to Gin's corpse. The corrosive effect of the serum on the body had not ceased, and pus dripped through the flames, landing on the ground.

Zealot's Flare!

The holy fire spewing from his right pistol instantly vaporized all of Gin's remaining traces, completing the last rites thoroughly.