Xia Li's objective was clear.

  First force the unprepared Kim Soo-tae to retreat and injure him. While the opponent recovered, don't pursue—instead eliminate the other security personnel first.

  Without further ado.

  Xia Li used his Ethereal Spirit Dharma Body to generate bullets and kept firing, forcing those security personnel into cover.

  He did this to prevent them from achieving fire coverage on him.

  Seeing his goal achieved, Xia Li decisively stowed the sniper rifle. Left hand drew sword, right hand loaded shotgun!

  His Ethereal Spirit Dharma Body behind him did the same.

  Seizing this opportunity to scatter and force the opponents into cover, Xia Li charged directly toward the nearest security member, raising his right hand for a shot.

  The opponent knew to evade, of course.

  But...

  The signal sent to the body was suddenly hijacked. The opponent's head actively moved toward Xia Li's right palm.

  Bang!

  Half the opponent's head exploded, revealing the brain within, wrapped in layers of mechanical components and countless conduits.

  This was a full mechatronic modifier—besides the brain still being flesh and blood, the body was completely mechanized.

  Failing to kill with one headshot was within Xia Li's expectations.

  Therefore, the Ethereal Spirit Dharma Body behind him immediately followed up with another shot.

  This time the mechanical components and the enemy's head were completely destroyed together.

  But Xia Li didn't let the opponent go. Left hand grabbed the neck, right hand reached into the ruined mechanical head and yanked out a black chip.

  That was the integrated Heaven Chip, merged into the mechatronic brain unit and unable to be separately replaced or removed.

  Though forcible extraction caused unavoidable damage, merely analyzing and decrypting the Heaven Chip's architecture and underlying logic wasn't a problem.

  Seeing Xia Li seize the integrated Heaven Chip, those security personnel seemed to realize something. One of them immediately shouted:

  "Activate firewall! Maximum defense level!"

  "Cut wireless connections!!"

  If the integrated Heaven Chip got decrypted, everyone with the same chip installed would instantly be paralyzed!

  "Too late!"

  Xia Li crushed the Heaven Chip. In just this brief moment, he'd already generated a virus targeting this type of integrated Heaven Chip.

  Integrated Heaven Chips were cheap and performed excellently, but the downside was they could only be used for full mechatronic modification, and the similarity between same-model units was extremely high—no random differential processing.

  This meant once one was hacked and analyzed, all same-model integrated Heaven Chips lost their defenses!

  After taking a deep breath...

  Xia Li fully activated Divine Sense Intrusion, forcibly writing the virus program into these security personnel's integrated Heaven Chips!

  Instantly...

  Electric arcs flickered across all security personnel's bodies, especially at joint connections. Amid a crackling chorus, they all began convulsing before collapsing.

  Xia Li overclocked their Spirit Cores, generating excess current that fried their brain control centers, directly damaging their brains.

  In mere moments.

  These mechatronic modifiers with nothing but armament levels all perished.

  Then...

  Came the plasma grenade bombardment.

  Besides security personnel, there were over twenty transaction participants present.

  Xia Li directly used the phase ring to project grenades onto their faces and detonate.

  Some people had purchased defensive artifacts, but Xia Li simply closed in and used his prosthetic's built-in technique Star Collapse to follow up.

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  Blasting apart their defensive artifacts and bodies together!

  Xia Li followed the organization's intent, directly conducting a mass purge of all participants in this transaction.

  These participants dressed well, all suited and booted looking proper, but who knew how many despicable things they'd done behind the scenes.

  Most critically, despite being so reckless, they were unwilling to invest spirit stones in strengthening themselves—their cultivation was pitifully low.

  A portion of Upper City's people were like this.

  Only implanting basic Heaven Chips and Spirit Cores to extend life and strengthen their bodies, pouring all earned spirit stones into industry, hoping to undergo truly powerful comprehensive modification once they became wealthy enough.

  Some of them probably had assets worth tens of thousands, yet the Heaven Chip and Spirit Core they'd installed together probably didn't even cost a hundred.

  A hundred spirit stones worked properly could earn several more, but buying Heaven Chips and Spirit Cores seemed like pure loss to them—even selling secondhand was a loss.

  Only to say...

  Served them right.

  They weren't even counted as effective combat power—far less threatening than those security personnel.

  From Xia Li's intrusion until now, less than three minutes had passed. Except for Kim Soo-tae still being alive, Xia Li had completed the floor clearing.

  Finally, using the phase ring to remotely collect a mechanical case from beside a corpse, the mission's primary objective was complete.

  The mechanical case contained the transaction goods to be seized.

  "Kim Soo-tae, your turn. Still won't come out?"

  Xia Li turned to look at the debris from the collapsed ceiling. Kim Soo-tae didn't waste more time either, forcefully shoving aside the fallen ceiling and standing back up.

  But only now did Xia Li notice something wrong with Kim Soo-tae's state. Beneath the burned skin was a pitch-black steel body!

  And half his head was now burned away, revealing a mechanical iron face and electronic eye.

  The opponent was a mechatronic modifier?

  No...

  If so, the mission objective would have been to retrieve the opponent's integrated Heaven Chip.

  This meant the Kim Soo-tae before him wasn't the real person—just a remotely controlled mechatronic avatar.

  "Could I trouble you to remove the signal interference... I'm having some... connection issues..."

  "I... click-clack... beep beep..."

  His voice was electronic, intermittent and distorted.

  【Xia Li, secondary objective two has failed. The target's main body isn't here. Deliberately smashing the ceiling for cover was just to buy time】

  【Consider retreating, or restore his signal and see what tricks he still wants to play】

  Ke Xiao could monitor the battle situation on Xia Li's end, so she offered a suggestion.

  Completing the primary objective was sufficient—just obtain the transaction goods.

  【Let me see what he wants to do】

  Xia Li issued a command to Heaven Chip. The signal jammer set on the rooftop selectively restored Kim Soo-tae's signal connection.

  "Thank you. It seems you're not their people after all. I thought I was being double-crossed."

  Kim Soo-tae smiled, glancing at the transaction counterparts Xia Li had killed. Their people and their security personnel had all been eliminated by Xia Li.

  He'd only brought ten C-minus security personnel. Those thirty D-class security personnel were brought by the other side.

  But interestingly...

  Both parties' security personnel had actually used the same model of integrated Heaven Chip. If Xia Li hadn't used virus intrusion, he still wouldn't have known this.

  Looked like he'd need to investigate his transaction partner afterward.

  "What transaction were you conducting?"

  Xia Li asked—of course, he didn't expect Kim Soo-tae to answer honestly. He was just trying.

  "An illegal transaction, naturally. Just some dirt on the Democratic Government."

  At Kim Soo-tae's words, Xia Li felt his heart sink.

  Hidden Wing was essentially a semi-official force, equivalent to the Democratic Government's underground intelligence department. Handling such matters was perfectly normal.

  But...

  What had the Democratic Government done?

  Should he know?

  【Xia Li, don't ask questions you shouldn't ask】

  Ke Xiao reminded Xia Li not to be too curious. Everything had its dark side.

  "Do you know about Mech-Corpse?"

  Xia Li couldn't be bothered to investigate whatever dirt that was now. His main purpose in completing this mission was to extract some information from Kim Soo-tae's mouth.

  "Yes."

  "You..."

  Xia Li was now confused by Kim Soo-tae's attitude. He'd just been testing—Kim Soo-tae's main body wasn't here, so the target was safe.

  Therefore he couldn't interrogate the opponent, yet the opponent was being this cooperative?

  "I don't know the specifics, but I understand it's related to what I'm doing. So this attack wasn't just about the dirt—I'm being silenced?"

  Kim Soo-tae still smiled, elegant and courteous.

  【Xia Li, don't be misled】

  Ke Xiao reminded Xia Li to carefully discern information. Kim Soo-tae was clearly skilled at manipulating people's hearts and exploiting human suspicion.

  "I'll find you."

  Xia Li knew that only by finding Kim Soo-tae's main body could he learn the truth. Right now, not a single punctuation mark from Kim Soo-tae's mouth could be trusted.

  "Then I naturally welcome that. At that time..."

  "I hope you can compensate my company for the biological control hubs of the security personnel. My mine doesn't have many of those left."

  "What do you mean?"

  Xia Li frowned.

  "Do you know how many spirit stones the cheapest mech-brain costs?"

  "The answer is three spirit stones."

  "But my miners earn me spirit stones, and after their flesh is used up, I still get biological control hubs. As long as machine wreckage remains, it can be reassembled. Once a mech-brain breaks, it's truly broken."

  "From a replaceability perspective, don't you think biological control hubs are quite cost-effective?"

  Kim Soo-tae began saying some bizarre things.

  Xia Li didn't reply, only approaching Kim Soo-tae and raising his right arm.

  "Outstanding Employee No. 327—that's you, isn't it? I recognized you."

  "Your biological control hub is also my property. You've impressed me!"

  Kim Soo-tae began laughing loudly. Xia Li silently blasted his head off with one shot.

  The head contained no flesh and blood—only cold mechanical components.

  And the security forces he'd brought had real human brains inside their heads—but to Kim Soo-tae, they were just consumables cheaper than mech-brains.

  "Indeed... biological control hubs are the way to go..."

  "Machines submit as a matter of course. I just love it when you resist..."

  "That's what gives value to being installed into machinery as a control hub..."

  Even with its head gone, Kim Soo-tae's avatar had a voice generator in its throat still speaking.

  "Shut up!!"

  Xia Li swung his right arm to reload, blowing off this mechatronic avatar's neck as well. Only then did it finally fall silent.

  Turning around.

  Xia Li looked at those fallen mechatronic modifiers. Some of them he might have known—encountered at the mine.

  And now he understood what would have happened if he'd stayed at the mine.

  If conditions were right, become a Mech-Corpse.

  If conditions weren't right, become a biological control hub.