Mercer projected some previously gathered map information from the Netherworld Dog soldiers to his companions' prosthetic eyes.
According to the guidance map of the Little Beidou Facility underground, it's divided into five areas: the server room at the deepest part, with management and security rooms on the sides, the engineering department occupying the largest area, and a dedicated living area.
Their goal, Mercer and the others, was to head to either the management room or the server room—the former had been scouted by the Netherworld Dog soldiers, but the latter had no accessible path found yet.
Following the route provided by the Netherworld Dog soldiers, Mercer moved decisively through the complex underground base: "Keep up, we're heading to find the management area first."
The dim corridors were lit only by sporadically flickering blue emergency lights. This blue light provided some illumination, but its flickering made the entire base seem more eerie.
It really felt like the atmosphere of a horror movie was cranked to the max.
Rebecca unconsciously moved to Mercer's side: "Why is this place so winding and twisting...?"
"Indeed," Mercer agreed—just getting from the elevator to the management room involved navigating several corridors and taking several turns to reach the doorway. This design was far from reasonable.
They often chatted lightly, seemingly casual, but in truth, the quiet and oppressive atmosphere was rather unsettling, different from the intense life-and-death crisis feeling found in the battlefield or during missions; this felt somewhat eerie.
Mercer led the group to the doorway along the route and frowned: "It's locked."
"Can't hack it?" Rebecca turned her head to look.
"No power, automatically locked. To hack it, we need to power it on first."
After Mercer spoke, Jack felt his spine tingle and looked around warily: "Then we have to head back, go to the engineering sector on the other side?"
"Theoretically, yes, we need to go to the engineering sector to activate the backup power, or see where the problem lies to restart the power system, but..."
Mercer sneered softly: "I'll try a simpler method."
The six octopus arms on his back suddenly became agile, with metal claws gripping the edge of the door seam, then exerting force together.
The metal iron door emitted a sharp explosion, and then, representational dangerous red lights flashed in the base.
But Mercer paid no mind and continued until he tore open a crack in the thick metal door, giving the octopus arms more leverage, then forcibly pried open the whole door into a large gap.
Seeing this, Rebecca and Jack decisively stepped forward to help, their gorilla arms combined with armor reinforcements exerting full force, finally completely opening the door. The mechanical structure was probably forcefully broken, making it impossible to close even if they wanted to.
"Let's go, be careful, there are things like Hellhound Robots in here, not too dangerous, but better safe than sorry."
After speaking, Mercer took the lead through the door.
However, as soon as they stepped through, a huge shadow swooped down from the ceiling, but before Mercer needed to act, V burst forward like a phantom, her high-frequency vibrating samurai sword humming as she unhesitatingly slashed at the newcomer.
The shadow was a robot moving bipedally, with four spider-like legs aiding its movement or attack. Mercer knew its name well—it was the Hellhound Robot he had just mentioned.
Admittedly, this thing was pretty sinister, hiding above the entrance vent to ambush as Mercer opened the door.
But against a fully ready V, this level of robot was hardly a challenge.
V casually stabbed the robot's head, instantly piercing through its sensors and cameras. Before it could go berserk, Rebecca charged over, knocked it aside, and her shoulder cannon lit up, blasting the robot into a heap of scrap metal, flames bursting forth.
"Damn! Gave me a fright!" It was hard to tell if Rebecca was dealing with an enemy or just venting frustration. Mercer cautiously glanced around, then met eyes with a camera.
He unhesitatingly launched a rapid hack at the camera, but almost simultaneously, the camera's light flickered and then shut down, severing its network connection.
"Last-ditch effort," Mercer commented, slowing his pace cautiously, as a feminine voice sounded in his ear.
"Little Beidou Facility reminds you, please do not damage base property at will..."
"Alert! Alert! Unknown intrusion detected..."
V frowned: "What now? Is this haunted place about to send an alert to Military Science?"
Mercer expressionlessly replied: "Not sure, but if it is, we'll blow this place up, preventing it from becoming a problem for Military Science."
These words had just come out when the alarm repeated once and then suddenly stopped.
Mercer unhesitatingly walked towards the main server room in the management area, forcefully opening all closed doors along the way, but no more attacks came.
Upon reaching an office, Mercer stopped: "This is the main server, connected to the server room. I'll give it a try; if all goes well, we won't need to find the server room."
Rebecca watched as he took out a very retro wrist-mounted network access pod, akin to a small laptop-sized device, and connected it to the room's computer, curiously asking: "Does this antique work? I rarely see you even touch a keyboard."