The moment the Doom Rover v0.1 robot rolled inside the subterranean chamber, out of everyone inside here, Leon was the only one who was prepared.

He anticipated it.

CRKSH!

The moment the thick black chains shattered, Leon moved his limbs and nothing pulled him back.

He was free!

Instantly, he moved, rising to his feet as he stared at Lieutenant Johnmark who was just beside him.

The Lieutenant still had a dazed look on his face.

The tension and anxiety of his own execution approaching in a short time mixed with the sudden emergence of the strange robot overloaded his senses.

Just like the terrorists, he was dazed by the sudden turn of events and couldn't react, so Leon slapped him back to reality.

TWHACK!

Lieutenant Johnmark rubbed his face and stared at him.

Leon glared at him and screamed in his face. "RUN!"

The Lieutenant flinched but instantly, his senses returned. He glanced around the chamber at the terrorists who were still dealing with the effects of the robot's devastating attack combo.

He didn't know where this robot came from, but from Leon's reaction he guessed that it was their reinforcement and that was all he needed to know.

With his chains shattered, his ADE was no longer shackled.

BZZZ!

Bright orange ADE instantly erupted around his body as without looking back and without saying a word to Leon, Lieutenant Johnmark rose up and charged towards the hole on the wall that the robot burst in through.

At the same moment that Johnmark moved, Leon heaved a sigh of relief and rolled on the ground towards Lieutenant Cormier who fell the moment Lucian stopped cutting his neck.

There was a deep and nasty gash on his throat, he was bleeding heavily and his body was still spasming, struggling to stay alive.

'He's not dead yet!' Leon was overjoyed.

He grabbed the Lieutenant's head and stared into his glazed eyes. "Stay with me, wake up!" He snarled yet there was no reaction.

Leon was desperate; they were still in enemy territory.

Carrying a deadweight to escape would only slow him down, the only way to escape at this moment was for Lieutenant Cormier to come back to his senses and use his Gene Augur powers to heal himself.

The moment that Leon ordered Doom Rover v0.1 to locate him, his intentions were never to fight the terrorists in their home and defeat them.

Just like the robot already showed, Leon didn't waste his money, the Doom Rover was everything that he hoped it would be.

It was an overpowered weapon in the hands of a Mechanist but still, having taken a glimpse at Lucian's 10 Racial DNAs plus his Quantum Shaper powers, Leon knew that staying here longer than necessary was too dangerous when his Holy Champions were around.

His priority was escaping.

The terrorists were already stirring, getting back up and regrouping after the initial barrage of the robot as Davis was forced to attack with the Doom Rover again.

From the side ribs of the robot, hidden muzzles of kinetic pistols and automatic machine guns suddenly emerged as a new barrage of attacks started.

Tutututututututu!

Bullets flew like rain and the terrorists were forced to jump and evade to safety once again.

The loud sound of gunfire evoked a reaction in the dying Lieutenant. Seeing this, Leon's eyes lit up and after a moment of hesitation, he ruthlessly slapped him in the face while ignoring his injuries.

"WAKE UP!" He growled and finally, Cormier's eyes regained focus as he instantly grimaced in pain.

"You can use your ADE now!" Leon roared in his face. "You have to heal yourself! Heal yourself so I can save you!"

The Lieutenant was still clearly dazed but even if he didn't understand what Leon was saying, innately, he could feel ADE circulating within his body again and his survival instincts kicked in.

BZZZ!

Swirls of orange ADE erupted around his body, focusing on his neck as he instinctively activated an ability.

Cell Repair!

This ability was still the sole instinctive reaction of any Gene Augur when dying even at E Rank.

In his dazed state, mere moments away from dying, activating Cell Repair was Lieutenant Cormier's first instinct and instantly, the bleeding stopped.

His cells started rapidly regenerating as the flesh in his neck started squirming crazily. Flesh tendrils moved inside his neck, slowly knitting the flesh back together.

Lieutenant Cormier's brain was still dazed but seeing this, Leon became overjoyed as instantly, he picked up the huge Lieutenant and throw him on his shoulder before turning around to escape.

"Davis, protect our retreat!" He instructed.

Seeing them about to escape, the terrorists finally stirred as an infuriated Lucian roared. "Thomas, YOU BETRAYED ME!"

'F*ck you!' Leon thought as he ran without looking back.

He didn't just run though.

Knowing just how much of a threat the terrorists were and with all his weapons confiscated after he became captive, Leon didn't leave everything to his A.I as he did his own thing.

BZZZ!

His grayish white ADE erupted and instantly he activated 2 abilities.

Drone Control Matrix!

Enhance!

With Drone Control Matrix, even while running with Lieutenant Cormier, Leon gained a secondary vision through the lens of his robot.

'It worked!' He was overjoyed.

Before, it was still just speculation on his part but with this, just like he expected, he confirmed that Drone Control Matrix could also control land robots and not just UAVs.

At the same time that Leon started seeing through the lens of the robot, his grayish white ADE also wrapped around the robot, massively enhancing all its base attributes and power.

The cybernetic red eyes of the robot glowed in an even more menacing manner as its sensors fired on overdrive and through them, Leon observed and analyzed the current situation in less than a second.

Clinging to a corner of this chamber, Xena already returned to her normal form and knowing that Data Lash would be ineffective against the robot, she raised her Pulse Rifle instead, aiming at the robot.

She had the option of invading the robot's neural world but with Captain Ariande still present somewhere, she was wary of falling into an ambush.

So, she aimed with her Rifle instead and was about to shoot.

At the same time, Leon saw Ramirez who was already healing his severe burn injuries with Cell Repair and Metabolic Overdrive and who already pulled out his pair of Falchions, ready for battle.

Unlike the Gene Augur though, the torrent of flames from the robot directly incapacitated Blake, forcing the E Rank Cyber Gladiator out of the subsequent battle as he hid in a corner of the subterranean chamber, nursing his heavy injuries.

There was a chance of him dying if he stubbornly tried to fight.

As for Jake, having just received a shot to the head from the robot's QZ-07 Air Gun Rifles, he was injured but the attack didn't kill him.

He still had more than enough HP for battle and he already unsheathed his katana, about to erupt with a burst of speed.

And as for Lucian, the angriest of the terrorists, despite eating a direct laser blast from the Doom Rover's Terra Nova 71 Rifle, with his overpowered Undying Cockroach DNA, he was already mostly fully healed and was now menacingly charging at the robot and the escaping soldiers.

For the execution, he didn't bother to bring his primary weapons- the War Pick and the Sickle, and now he was forced to fight with the execution knife.

Of Lucian's 10 DNAs, one of them was a Rat DNA granting him the trait- Danger Premonition.

With it, the terrorist leader could perceive danger ahead of time.

Leon was wary of this specific trait and this was one of the reasons why he never intended to fight and kill the terrorists right here in their new hidden base.

That would have busted his escape chances because Lucian would have detected that his life was in danger.

Having marked the position of all the terrorists and their current state, Leon immediately drafted a plan of attack to keep them at bay till they escaped.

But having reacted first, they attacked first as Xena pulled the trigger, sending a violent blue pulse beam towards the robot.

In response, a shimmering blue shield appeared around the robot.

R9 energy shield!

BOOM!

The robot tanked the attack.

Almost immediately after, Leon executed his plan as the chest compartment and the crotch compartment of the robot opened at the same time.

From inside the chest compartment, the familiar muzzle of a flamethrower emerged while from the crotch compartment, a round muzzle with a spring platform emerged.

Davis instantly calculated the latitude and longitudinal distance separating the robot and the terrorists, then…

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Grenades started being launched out of the robot's crotch area!

This clearly caught the terrorists off-guard as their eyes widened.

Instinctively, Jake with his outstanding Cat reflexes reacted and sought cover but the others were not fast enough to react as from the chest area of the robot, a torrent of thick flames poured out, then…

KABOOM!

Over two dozen fragmentation, burst, incendiary, and flashbang grenades detonated at the same time!

The camera evaporated, ending the live video.

The temperature in this subterranean chamber instantly rose to over a thousand degrees centigrade!

The terrorists desperately fought for their lives even as the air warped and twisted, oxygen being rapidly sucked out of the atmosphere.

The ground of the subterranean chamber caved in while parts of the ceiling collapsed!

In that moment, Leon finally gave a mental command through the connection that was established through Drone Control Matrix as the Doom Rover robot instantly turned around and charged towards the exit on the wall.

It was escape time.

Whoosh!

The robot charged outside.

Outside the subterranean chamber, dozens of terrorists in black paramilitary armor who were previously watching the live video already emerged to stop the soldiers from escaping.

But having emerged first, Lieutenant Johnmark already took the initiative as he killed 2 terrorists with his bare fists and took their weapons.

Armed with 2 automatic machine guns, Lieutenant Johnmark didn't fear the retaliation of the terrorists at all as he unleashed hell on them.

Tututututututututu!

Terrorists fell before him like dry leaves falling in autumn.

Lieutenant Johnmark carved a hole through the terrorists, tanking their retaliatory attacks with his hardened skin as he bulldozed his way through them.

Carrying the still recovering Lieutenant Cormier on his shoulder, Leon charged after Lieutenant Johnmark towards the exit.

And behind them was the Doom Rover v0.1.

The robot didn't just run though. Knowing that Lucian would soon recover and likely follow in pursuit, as it ran, the robot kept on dropping grenades everywhere like souvenirs from Santa during Christmas.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Explosions trailed the escape of the 3 soldiers.

Within a few seconds, they arrived at the exit door and Lieutenant Johnmark simply tore it apart with a devastating punch after activating Bio-Pulse and Metabolic Overdrive to supercharge his strength.

After that, they finally emerged outside and that was when Captain Ariande materialized from mid-air beside them.

Leon spared the Captain a glance.

She looked weak and pale, clearly her ADE was almost exhausted already from hiding within data streams for so long with her D Rank Artifact.

"Go, I'll protect the rear!" She told them.

Leon didn't argue as he ran with Lieutenant Cormier and Lieutenant Johnmark. Soon, the robot also escaped outside then Captain Ariande also ran, rapidly ascending to the surface from the underground complex.

They escaped.

'Finally!' Captain Ariande thought, clearly relieved.

The moment they arrived at the surface, they saw the familiar interconnected wired fence and then they saw something else.

An Aerodyne was rapidly approaching from the distance.

'Major Roshfield!' Leon was overjoyed.

The Major's arrival meant this was the perfect opportunity to end the terrorists once and for all and yet that was when it happened…

KABOOOMMMMMM!

A multitude of continuous explosions rippled through the world, shaking the ground and vibrating the air as buildings detonated!

The soldiers were thrown to the ground from the violent eruption, only the heavy robot managed to stay on its feet.

Even the Aerodyne in the air veered out of control in the air as Major Roshfield struggled to keep it under control.

Leon was alarmed. 'What happened?'

Quickly jumping back to his feet, he noticed that the dome-shaped building behind them already exploded and was in flames, including multiple other dome-shaped buildings in the vicinity.

Leon's eyes narrowed. 'This was not done by the terrorists!'

Pushed by a sudden urge, he looked up and then he froze.

As Leon watched, high up in Leviathan Quay's air space, hundreds of red-themed military-grade transports descended into the atmosphere proudly flying flags depicting a half-body size image of an A.I Construct in a burning battlefield.

Leon recognized this flag.

His eyes widened in shock as his lips quivered. "T-the Omnicore Federation!"

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