Chapter 150: Joe—A Man Changed Beyond Recognition

When a few unremarkable flying knives whizzed through the air, the piercing alarm inside Connor's mecha blared wildly.

Ever since Connor landed on the Zombie Star, the mecha had only emitted such urgent alarm sounds when facing Lilith's final, devastating blows.

Yet these flying knives, which looked completely unremarkable, were able to trigger such a violent reaction from the mecha...

While leaving Connor in doubt, this inevitably stirred a trace of panic within him.

"What are these flying knives?"

"The powered mecha I'm wearing is the Broly family's latest generation of powerful mechas!"

"It's a model designed for space combat!"

"Even the main cannon attacks from ordinary small spacecraft cannot cause severe damage to this mecha or threaten the pilot's life!"

"How can these few flying knives make the mecha's early-warning system perceive a civilization-ending, catastrophic threat?"

"What on earth is happening to this Zombie Star?"

"A few days ago it was a mutated creature, and today it's a genuine human? How can these biological entities possibly rely on their physical bodies to fight against mechas?"

"Am I losing my mind, or has the world gone mad!"

Although Connor kept screaming inwardly, he still had immense faith in the mecha's early-warning system.

Since the mecha had already signaled that these flying knives posed a fatal threat to him, Connor had to believe it.

Thus, Connor immediately piloted the mecha to take evasive maneuvers.

However, the flying knives in Qiao's hands were controlled entirely through brainwaves.

Once the attack was initiated, the offensive was endless and ceaseless, flowing like a living stream.

It was by no means easy to dodge!

Dense showers of flying knives constantly attacked from all directions.

No matter how Connor tried to evade, one or two of them would always strike the bulky main body of the mecha.

Yet, to Connor's surprise, these flying knives that hit the mecha failed to cause any significant damage to its hard outer shell.

This left Connor feeling a tinge of doubt.

Amidst the dodging, Connor looked up and observed Qiao hovering in the upper airspace.

He noticed a bat standing on the opponent's shoulder, flapping its wings incessantly.

Then he looked at the flying knives the opponent was stepping on beneath his feet.

He couldn't help but wonder perplexedly: "Since you can pilot flying knives to fly through the air!"

"Why is that little bat on your shoulder flapping around so frantically?!"

Looking at Connor dodging left and right below, Qiao thought to himself secretly:

"For so long, I couldn't even reach the realm of 'riding flying swords' that the master spoke of..."

"And today, I'm actually showing off before others purely thanks to a bat!"

"Showing off like this... feels damn good!"

However, the vampire on Qiao's shoulder was extremely unhappy at the moment.

"Is this idiot mental?"

"If you can pilot these weird flying knives to fly in the sky, why on earth do you have to make me drag you around?!"

After enduring several attacks, Connor confirmed that these flying knives would cause almost no major damage to the mecha.

Consequently, he began to develop a shred of doubt regarding the mecha's alarm.

"Judging by their material, these flying knives are just ordinary alloys!"

"They can't break through the mecha's defense at all!"

"Could there really be something wrong with the mecha's early-warning system?"

Having reached this conclusion, Connor's mind raced as he began to brew a counterattack.

Although he appeared to be constantly dodging the incoming flying swords, his mecha's scanning apparatus remained locked onto Qiao in the sky.

The moment Qiao was distracted by a loud explosion ahead and turned his gaze toward the distance, Connor's eyes flashed fiercely.

He sank his knees slightly.

Then he erupted with force.

The mecha's thrusters instantly blasted to maximum power, charging straight toward Qiao.

Turning his head and seeing the mecha suddenly lunging at him like lightning, Qiao showed not the slightest hint of panic.

Instead, a strange smile appeared on his face.

Noticing this, Connor felt a sudden jolt in his heart.

An indescribable sense of crisis surged into his mind.

At that exact moment, without any warning, a massive amount of flesh-and-blood tentacles began to sprout from the surface of the mecha wherever it had been grazed by the flying knives.

The moment these tentacles appeared, they immediately bound the mecha's arms.

Simultaneously, a dense patch of tentacles grew from the scratches on the mecha's head, entirely wrapping around its skull.

This completely blocked Connor's naked-eye vision.

Connor was instantly alarmed.

He immediately switched to the mecha's visual system mode, utilizing the built-in holographic detectors to replace his physical eyesight.

However, he now discovered that the detectors were suffering from some sort of strong magnetic interference and had nearly lapsed into a paralyzed state.

"Damn it, what is this stuff!"

"How on earth did these flesh-and-blood tentacles grow out of the mecha?"

Just as Connor's fist was about to smash into Qiao's body, he never expected such an unexpected twist.

Although the tentacles binding the mecha's arms were quickly shaken off after Connor ramped up the energy output to his arms, that one-second lag made Connor realize he would never be able to hit an enemy adept at flight.

And the facts proved him right.

Led by the vampire renowned for its agility, Qiao merely drew a circle in mid-air and smoothly drifted around to the mecha's rear flank.

At this moment, with his vision blocked and his detectors malfunctioned due to strong magnetic interference, the mecha was essentially blind.

He could only wave his arms, constantly trying to tear away the flesh-and-blood tentacles covering the mecha's head and obstructing his view.

However, the growth rate of these tentacles was astonishing.

Often, just as Connor ripped away a large chunk and a sliver of vision was revealed, another batch of tentacles would surge forward.

Standing quietly behind the mecha, Qiao smiled and muttered to himself:

"Slayer Flying Knife, Fifth Blade... Corrosion!"

This blade had been created by Qiao using a biochemical catalyst.

The moment this particular flying knife struck Connor, it instantly dissolved into a swarm of nanobots that adsorbed onto the mecha.

Yet, under the cover of the other flying knives, Connor had not noticed that one knife was missing.

A portion of these nanobots stored the catalyst manufactured by Donald, which was designed to bond machinery and flesh.

Another portion stored the T-virus.

Through the biochemical reaction between these two substances and the machinery, these flesh-and-blood tentacles began to sprout around the mecha's waistline.

Although the quantities of both the catalyst and the virus were small, they were sufficient to inflict a terrifying corrosive wound on the mecha.

Watching Connor in the air, frantically waving his arms and struggling against the tentacles on his mecha, Qiao smiled faintly, waved one hand, and caught a falling flying knife.

Holding the flying knife, Qiao whispered softly:

"Slayer Flying Knife, Third Blade... Hemolytic Spear, Melee Form!"

As Qiao's whisper ended, the flying knife in his hand rapidly transformed into a European medieval knight's lance.

The heavy, conical spearhead was densely covered in ferocious, writhing blood vessels.

Qiao sneered coldly, and viciously thrust the knight's lance into the wound corroded by the catalyst.

Instantly, Connor felt a massive force strike the side of the mecha, sending it spinning out of control.

The next second, an even more terrifying thing happened to Connor.

As Qiao's thunderous lance pierced into the corroded breach of the mecha, it forced the opening to expand and deepen...

The heavy alloy steel plate, over twenty centimeters thick at the mecha's waist, was pierced three-quarters of the way through by this single blow.

Moreover, the T-virus left behind in the wound by the spear thrust caused the catalyst's corrosion to sink in a few layers deeper.

Eventually, the entire protective steel layer was corroded right through.

A flesh-and-blood tentacle covered in barbs drilled straight into the cockpit under Connor's terrified gaze!