Victor was working intently at his desk. He fiddled with the small model in his hands, examining its structure while comparing it to the data on the design sheets, occasionally jotting down notes and sketches.
Although his studies weren't directly related to building rockets, they were still in the engineering field, and he understood the basic theories. Furthermore, he had discovered that after becoming semi-mechanical, his thinking speed had increased. Many pieces of information would appear in his mind as soon as he thought of them, as if they were knowledge he already possessed. This greatly stimulated his curiosity, and he wanted to know the extent of his abilities.
While he was focused on his work, several surveillance images suddenly appeared before his eyes. Victor frowned, set down the model in his hand, stood up from the desk, and walked towards the door.
He saw through the surveillance cameras he controlled that several police cars were approaching Headquarters. When he reached the door, he saw the police cars had already arrived. A figure stepped out of the car, and upon seeing Victor, his pupils constricted.
A.R.G.U.S. leader Naog Sokhup spoke, "Is this the Justice League Headquarters?"
"Yes." Victor responded with caution, "We are a legal organization, what are you here for?"
He should have been more aggressive, but he knew he was the only one in the base, so he wasn't very confident. Bruce said he was going back to fetch something, but it was better that he wasn't here, as a fight might break out, and Bruce could get injured.
"The serial numbers of several batches of precious metals you purchased recently appeared on the Smuggling Bureau's wanted list. They should have come to you, but since you're a superpower users organization, it's under the jurisdiction of the National Security Agency, so I'm here instead. Here's the search warrant; I need to go in and take a look."
"No." Victor blocked him and said, "You can't go in."
He knew that Shiller's search warrant was definitely real and that blocking him wasn't wise, but he had to do it because Bruce had warned him the Space Station's blueprints and materials had to be kept completely confidential.
Even if Bruce didn't warn him, Victor knew the nature of these people. If you're researching something and there's law enforcement nearby, they're either here to cause trouble or to steal your work. In either case, Victor absolutely wouldn't allow it.
Thinking about his mother's death, Victor's eyes shone with a denser cold light, and the weapons on his arms started to warm up. Shiller didn't disappoint him; he stepped back two steps and then said, "Sorry, but this is a legal search, you have no right to obstruct. If you insist, we will be forced to take violent action."
Victor resolutely refused. He originally thought he would be facing the guns of law enforcers, but unexpectedly, a massive figure descended from the sky. Victor took a sharp breath: "Why is it this guy?!"
Doomsday roared, and his enormous body slammed into the ground, causing the whole street to tremble. Victor quickly lifted himself up, but to his surprise, Doomsday could also fly, and he flew faster. Carelessly, he was caught by Doomsday and slammed into the ground.
The mechanical eye fired a laser beam, but Doomsday's eyes emitted two laser beams. Victor struggled to roll in the pit to avoid it, then rolled twice more to dodge a punch from Doomsday.
Victor intended to send out a message for help, but he knew the situation wasn't good for the others either. They still had to deal with Savage Wolf, who was even stronger. If he sent a message now, it would distract them, potentially causing a disaster.
So he gritted his teeth and got back up, extending both hands and focusing his attention. The outline of the missile gradually appeared, but halfway through crafting, he gave up, realizing he was now in downtown Metropolis. If he launched a missile here, he'd truly be a terrorist.
He withdrew his hands, his thoughts racing—what could he generate to deal with this big guy? He couldn't exactly generate Superman, could he?
If he could, Victor would do it, but the problem was he couldn't create living creatures, not even cats or dogs, let alone people, so the only things he could conjure were weapons.
He thought for a moment, and several rows of rocket launchers appeared behind him. He quickly ascended, firing rockets at Doomsday. Doomsday extended his arm to block them, but these weren't regular rockets—they were firefighting rockets, and suddenly, smoke billowed.
Taking advantage of the smoke obscuring Doomsday's view, Victor skimmed low, flying past his feet to reach behind him. A thermal spear gradually materialized, and he stabbed it into Doomsday's back, but the sensation made him shocked—
The spear went in but couldn't penetrate. Thermal weapons should slice through like a hot knife through butter, cutting through iron easily, but in reality, only the spearhead penetrated, while the scapula inside resisted thousands of degrees of heat. Victor struggled to exert force, but it didn't budge at all.
Attacked, Doomsday let out an angry roar, turned around, directly yanked out the spear, and flung Victor, attached to the other end, off to the other side of the street.
Doomsday wielded the spear, veins bulging in his arm. With a "whoosh," the spear was hurled with terrifying force. Victor, newly thrown to the ground, felt dizzy, and then saw a streak of light heading straight for him. He was shocked, attempting to dodge, but the spear moved too quickly, leaving no time.
Victor, despairing, closed his eyes and instinctively extended his arm to shield himself. With a "boom," the tremendous impact cracked the street surface, yet the area where Victor landed exploded with an extremely bright light.
Shiller squinted, staring in that direction. He realized that Bruce's intent in having him cause trouble at headquarters might not just have been to pressure them but also to inspire their potential—the mechanical parts attached to Victor's body were part of the Mother Box, and that thing did more than just hacking.
When the light dissipated, a figure shot skyward. Victor emanated a faint white glow all over, and the mechanical parts on his body transformed into a gleaming silver-white. Within his vision, everything now appeared as flowing data.
This is a very peculiar feeling, as if suddenly breaking through a barrier and arriving at the backend of the program's development, observing how this world appears in the eyes of some higher existence.
More amazingly, Victor discovered that he could edit these data. Although the majority of it still looked incomprehensible to him, he could rely on guesswork to figure out which was the most formidable enemy.
Victor reached out One Hand, intercepted one stream of data, and his eyes emitted a faint white light, altering that piece of data.
Suddenly, Doomsday's figure began to shrink, becoming smaller and smaller from its original gigantic form, finally resembling the size of the potted plants at the Metropolis Headquarters entrance.
All the police were stunned. But that was not all. Their weapons suddenly changed in appearance, the magazine part turning into an orange water canister, and the gun body turning into bright blue plastic. One of the police, frightened, pulled the trigger, and the gun muzzle directly sprayed a jet of water, drenching another police officer's face.
The police car behind them also shook a bit, and when they turned around to look again, the police car had turned into a giant donut—not a metal donut, but a real edible donut, with syrup still dripping down from it.
Afterward, Victor seemed to have caused enough mischief, the cracks in the entire street began to gradually repair themselves, and the knocked-down streetlight poles stood back upright, as if some nameless power was fixing the program errors.
When he descended again from the sky, everyone stepped back in unison, including Shiller. To be precise, Shiller retreated two steps. He felt it was time to leave, but unfortunately, he couldn't drive off in the donut.
Victor did not intend to let him go; he landed in front of Shiller, squinting his eyes and asking him: "Why can't I see you?"
"Then you should buy a pair of glasses," Shiller said, "I'm such a big guy, and you can't see me..."
"You know that's not what I meant; I can't see your data; you don't belong to this cosmos..."
"It's a long story," Shiller stretched out his hand to point behind him, then said, "I think you should worry about yourself first."
Victor turned around and saw a strong figure landing at the end of the street. He called out its name: "Savage Wolf..."
"It was you after all." The just-landed Savage Wolf straightened up and stared at Victor, "Earlier, I detected traces of the Mother Box in this city, this time you won't escape."
Victor also snorted coldly: "With the modifier in hand, I'm supposed to be afraid of you?"
But just as he was staring at Savage Wolf, analyzing the data, his vision suddenly flickered. The next second, he directly fell to the ground, his sight restored to normal. He tried to get up, but felt a sudden weakness, as if he had gone hungry for three days and nights.
"You should be out of energy," Shiller still mocked from beside him, "You're finished now, you definitely can't beat him."
Victor couldn't resist rolling his eyes at him. He didn't agree with Shiller's words; "out of energy" was just a surface issue. His body consisted of two parts: one part was his own flesh, the other part was a mechanical structure, and the two achieved a delicate balance.
Earlier, the mechanical structure in his body seemed to have been activated, displaying all its power, but his physical strength couldn't keep up. Continuing to maintain this state, the mechanical part would be fine, but his flesh might collapse.
However, it was easy to see that what he had observed earlier was clearly not a world that carbon-based organisms could perceive; even just observing it required an unimaginable amount of power to be consumed, not to mention that he tampered with it. Simply letting these forces flow through his body, his physical energy was consumed rapidly.
Victor couldn't help but glare at Shiller again; if he wasn't so infuriating, he wouldn't have wasted his precious energy playing pranks.
Savage Wolf had already approached, and Victor, enduring the weakness, climbed up. He panted for a few seconds, preparing for one final fight. But just then, a giant wave washed in from behind, and Arthur, holding the golden trident, and Mera appeared at the end of the street, right behind him.
When the seawater fell, Victor widened his eyes—Arthur was covered in blood, and three huge claw marks on his chest were continuously pouring out blood. Mera was constantly controlling the water flow to help stop the bleeding, but the effect was insignificant.
It turned out that Arthur, who had battled against Savage Wolf in front of Atlantis, had not managed to gain the upper hand. Despite fighting with the power of Water Control from the trident for a long time, the massive disparity in power left him clawed by Savage Wolf, and the golden trident slipped from his grasp.
Savage Wolf charged ahead to capitalize on his victory, but fortunately, Mera and Orm returned in time. Orm picked up the trident and directly knocked Savage Wolf away. Mera helped Arthur up, using Water Magic to heal him.
Arthur was still eager to rush forward, but Mera quickly stopped him. Arthur gritted his teeth and said, "Orm can't beat him alone; this guy is too strong—I need to go help him."