Dan Zhu covered her mouth and asked in surprise, "Uh... this machine isn't broken, is it?"
Cang Xuan was not entirely certain either. "Let me read the instruction manual again. Give me a moment."
Only the widely experienced Hua understood what was happening.
This machine was definitely not made by Expert. It had absolutely been modified by Magician!
And given Magician's personality, there was no telling what might happen to Su.
Any machine modified by Magician was guaranteed to be riddled with problems. They had to ensure Su's safety as quickly as possible.
"Get Su out of there..."
Psssh!
The CT scanner seemed to have heard Hua's words.
The machine gave a faint hiss, and steam suddenly billowed from its seams.
The steam made Hua's eyes water. "Ngh..."
Fine. It was done pretending. It had serious problems, and it was coming clean.
The entire machine began trembling like a kettle about to boil, emitting a piercing hum as arcs of electricity flashed from it in every direction.
"It's going to explode!" Dan Zhu shrieked, dropping the spicy strip hanging from her mouth. She stumbled backward onto the floor in panic and curled up with her arms over her head.
Bang!
With a deafening blast from the machine,
all the commotion abruptly ceased, and silence returned to the CT room.
Everyone looked at one another, and for a moment, no one spoke.
Dan Zhu slowly got back to her feet. Looking at the spicy strip on the floor, she put on a sorrowful expression. "Cang Xuan, Mr. Moon didn't die, did he? Boohoo, he was such a nice person. I never thought that just now would be the last time we'd ever see him."
"Don't jinx it." Cang Xuan bit her lip as she stared at the now-silent CT scanner. The machine's control panel was occupied by a line of enormous scarlet text: [DATA DELETED]
Under the tense gazes of Cang Xuan and the others, the CT scanner's bed was slowly pushed back out by its hydraulic mechanism.
But Su, who had been lying there awaiting examination, had vanished.
Just like that, Su had disappeared right before everyone's eyes.
Dan Zhu hurriedly stuck her head inside the machine and looked around, then pulled herself back out. Faced with the other two's puzzled gazes, she exclaimed in astonishment:
"Did it just make a whole person vanish?!"
...
"Hm? Where is this?"
Su smelled a strong odor of tar.
"Obviously, this isn't the CT room." Vill-V directly voiced the thought Su had been about to express.
"Vill-V..."
"No time to explain. Get in."
Vill-V spoke briefly, grabbed Su, and threw him onto the vehicle.
"Tch, how do you weigh about as much as a young girl? I thought this would take some real effort."
Whoosh—
A streak of black light flashed past, annihilating the place where they had just been standing.
"What exaggerated destructive power." Su sighed with his eyes closed, then asked, "What do you need me to do?"
Of course Su could guess that Vill-V needed something from him. Otherwise, given her—Id's—personality, she would never have brought him somewhere this dangerous.
"Let me borrow your head."
"Ah—"
Su suddenly felt a sharp pain at the back of his head, as though something had yanked hard on it.
Yes, literally.
Vill-V had pulled out several strands of Su's hair and scattered them behind them along the way.
"I'll make you a few decoys first. Otherwise, we'll get caught too easily."
Su followed her gaze and saw vague, bizarre figures trailing them through the distant fog.
Su nodded. "All right."
Although Su did not understand what Vill-V needed his head for, he knew very well that Vill-V had no reason to take his life.
His life was not worth that much anyway.
But if it could help Vill-V save more people, then he did not particularly mind.
"We're short on time, so we'll use this."
As she spoke, Vill-V pulled something out from beneath the vehicle seat... a baseball bat identical to Kevin's.
"What is that?"
"Oh, this? A sleep aid."
"Was it deliberately made to look like a baseball bat? That shape looks somewhat familiar." Su carefully examined the bat despite keeping his eyes closed.
"What are you talking about? This is the exact bat Kevin left behind at Sapphire City Airport during the Third Honkai Eruption. I happened to pick it up and kept it as a souvenir. It clearly held tremendous sentimental value to him. After all, that was the first time in his life he ever picked up a baseball bat and fought the Honkai to protect the person he loved."
"..."
Fine. So it really was Kevin's original bat.
Su did not want to say anything. He was already used to this.
"I understand. Go ahead."
Su closed his eyes, adopting a posture that suggested he was ready to let Vill-V do whatever she wanted.
Seeing that Su barely reacted, Vill-V was the one who looked dejected instead. "What? Su, can't you at least look surprised for once? How long has it been since I've seen you change expressions? You're making this Magician feel like a complete failure."
"Joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure vary according to the heart, and the heart manifests what it knows. Before joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure arise, it is called equilibrium. When they arise and all attain due measure, it is called harmony. Before they arise, one rests in stillness." Su offered an explanation.
"Uh... that really reeks of Occultist."
"Joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure affect my mental state. I'm better this way."
"Fine. See you in a bit."
Bang!
Su's vision went black, and he lost consciousness.
"With that, the preparations are more than sufficient. Some alien Terminator thinks it can mess with me? Watch me send it flying."
After taking Su out, Vill-V wiped nonexistent cold sweat from her forehead. "Witness the power of Honkai, alien!"
Vill-V tossed her top hat into the air. The hat rapidly expanded in the wind until it was as large as a building.
Then violet fluorescence burst from within the hat as an enormous, powerful steam locomotive thundered straight out.
...
Inside the cockpit of the Cosmic Juggernaut.
Vill-V stood excitedly in the cockpit, pulling the undulating control lever.
Behind her, retro-style gauges constantly trembled with beep-beep-beep sounds, while exposed hydraulic rods strained outward as though expressing their own excitement.
Compared to its previous uses, the Second Divine Key, Cosmic Juggernaut, finally possessed a little vitality.
One had to understand that whenever Vill-V had used Cosmic Juggernaut before, it had always been in a half-dead state.
Back then, Vill-V had not fully used her own mental power. Instead, she had taken a shortcut by borrowing the Herrscher Core of Void, not only refusing to return it but squeezing every last drop from it, practically stopping just short of cracking its bones and sucking out the marrow.
Oh, if the Herrscher Core of Void were treated as a person, then what Vill-V had done really was the equivalent of cracking its bones and sucking out the marrow.
Even Cosmic Juggernaut would have called her a capitalist.
But now, Vill-V had finally stopped exploiting it.
"Hahaha! That feeling of power is back! Su, how do you feel?"
Tok, tok, tok.
At that moment, Su was wearing a strange top hat and sitting cross-legged inside the boiler.
When Su woke up, he had already found himself inside this boiler equipped with constant-temperature air conditioning.
And Kevin's baseball bat was repeatedly striking the top of his head... almost like someone tapping a wooden fish, producing a steady tok, tok, tok.
"There is no pain. My thoughts are extremely clear, and I can see everything happening around us."
The straightforward Su answered truthfully, though the sweat covering his forehead still proved that he was under considerable pressure.
"If you can't hold out, remember to tell me."
"Then let's begin. Time for the grand return!"