Chapter 126: The Master of Fire and Lava

Connor, locked in a fierce battle with the Broodmother Lilith, suddenly heard intense electromagnetic interference within his mech. Moments later, he lost all contact with the flagship in the sky. A flicker of alarm stirred in his heart.

"What's happening? Flagship... calling flagship!"

No matter how many times he called out, there was not a single response. Connor frowned, an ominous premonition washing over him. Seizing the opening, Lilith struck hard, swatting Connor away. The heavy blow caused the right shoulder of his mech to cave in significantly. However, the armor was crafted from memory metal; within moments, the dented area reverted to its original state, reminiscent of a T-virus-like regeneration.

Watching the energy gauge drop rapidly, Connor let out a cold snort. "Careless. I actually let this mutant land a hit. The energy consumption required to activate the memory metal's rapid repair is far too high... Still, this giant spider is truly astonishing. It seems she can control not only the gravity around her but also alter her own. That last strike must have been her imbuing her body with immense gravity at the moment of impact, exponentially increasing her speed and force. That is why I was caught off guard. To think she could deform this Sirius-grade quantum metal alloy... the raw physical power is unimaginable."

Just as Connor marveled at this, a sharp glint appeared in all eight of Lilith's spider eyes. In an instant, her massive body appeared behind him as if she had teleported.

"What? How is she so fast? Damn it... has this spider been holding back all this time?"

For a long while, their fight had consisted of Lilith standing her ground, passively defending while Connor danced around her like a fly. Her massive frame had given the impression of sluggishness, and her attacks—whether the exploding spiders, the psionic webs, or her gravity manipulation—had seemed deceptively slow. Under this illusion, when Lilith suddenly shifted tactics, nullifying her own gravity and using repulsion to accelerate, her speed reached a terrifying level, catching her opponent completely off guard.

Furthermore, the moment her spider legs or mandibles struck, she would focus intense gravity onto the point of impact, dealing devastating damage. Even if the specialized alloy of Sirius was too tough to be severed by flesh and blood, Lilith’s attacks functioned like a crushing blunt force.

As she appeared behind him, Connor desperately pushed his mech’s power system to the limit to evade, but a vast psionic web descended from the opposite direction, shrouding him. The web was incredibly heavy. Initially, Connor had tried to charge through it, relying on the mech’s superior defensive strength, but the moment he made contact, he realized how wrong he was. Infused with Lilith’s gravity, the web was as heavy as a mountain. The massive weight caused the mech to collide with it and be sent crashing backward with a deafening roar. Trapped by the web's momentum, the mech could not break free in any other direction.

Lilith’s assault was far from over. As the web slammed into the ground, a horde of exploding spiders erupted from the earth. A thunderous explosion followed, tossing the heavy mech like a pebble hundreds of meters away, where it landed with a bone-jarring thud. The sturdy alloy shell was left in ruins by the blast.

Yet, despite the carnage, Connor inside was merely knocked unconscious. The mechs developed by the Broli family offered the ultimate protection for their pilots. If Javier were here to see this, he would immediately associate it with antimatter mechs. Clearly, the Broli family’s research into pilot protection and recoil suppression systems had reached the pinnacle of the Leviathan system—a necessary precursor for the development of antimatter mechs.

Seeing that the mech, though severely twisted and deformed, remained intact after such a powerful onslaught, Lilith did not pause. She reappeared beside Connor and raised her spider leg, bringing it down with crushing force toward the helpless pilot.

Suddenly, Lilith sensed danger from behind. She instantly aborted her attack and leaped into the air with a powerful push from her hind legs. Two high-energy beams grazed beneath her. Another mech sped across the ground, grabbed Connor’s machine, and quickly dragged it away from the battlefield.

The moment Connor was clear, a barrage of long-range fire rained down on Lilith’s position, followed by a massive explosion. The dust stirred up by the blast obscured everyone's vision. Yet, when the mech knights engaged their infrared sensors—specifically calibrated for mutants—they found that the Broodmother was gone.

A moment later, the ground beneath the densest cluster of mech knights began to shake violently. Sensing trouble, they tried to take flight, but they felt a tremendous suction pulling from below, coupled with a massive repulsive force pushing down from above. Lilith had used the earth as cover to deploy a gravity field beneath them.

When the field fully detonated, the dozen knights were instantly dragged into the ground. After being spun around like items in a vortex, their mechs collided violently, and the pilots were knocked unconscious and buried underground.

The remaining knights, sensing the gravity of the situation, took to the skies and regrouped. Their vice-captain, "Big Mouth," took temporary command. Having underestimated the mutants, they hadn't utilized the flight advantage of their mechs, but after Lilith’s display of power, these "tin cans" finally dropped their arrogance. They prepared to exploit the fact that the ART-2s could not fly and rain destruction upon them.

Just then, they heard a buzzing sound from the distance. High in the air, they could clearly see that about a kilometer or two away, a bottomless crater was spewing out a swarm of giant bees that were rushing toward them.

"Damn it... flying mutants! Everyone, focus fire and wipe out those bees!"

But just then, the situation took a sudden turn. Along the path of the ART-3 army attacking the mechs, a pillar of molten lava erupted from the ground, instantly swallowing more than half of the ART-3s.