The Almighty Ring

Qin Tian had assigned to Jiang Fei his very own personal voice-key. With a few words and numbers, the Android nodded.

“Identity confirmed.”

Without turning around, the other Androids eased themselves, removing any hostile intent toward Jiang Fei and his fellow martial artists.

“Condition Red lifted. Proceed with the battery replacement,” said the leader of the Androids to his fellow soldiers.

Each of the Androids carried three additional battery pack, not including the battery pack that they were using. Those that had created them knew that firing energy cannons would consume too much power.

Unfortunately, the designers had left out one important flaw in their design. To exchange battery pack in combat was not a simple task. No enemies would allow the opponent to silently change their batteries. That feature was the Achilles heel of the Androids.

“Brother Jiang Fei, what are they?” Bai Wanli paced over to Jiang Fei and asked him quietly.

“These are the military’s latest invention, the Supreme Android Soldiers,” said Jiang Fei nonchalantly. Those Android had their living tissue burnt away during the fight, leaving their internal parts exposed. There was no need for him to hide anymore.

“How many are they?” Bai Wanli asked, worried. Although he may not know about the Androids or modern machinery, he was experienced enough to understand their threat.

“Slightly double of what you see here,” said Jiang Fei. He was not sure himself although he knew that there would be a second batch of Androids that was being delivered to the military base. The details of the second batch were unknown to Jiang Fei.

“I see. Good to know,” Bai Wanli shrugged and walked away. He was relieved when he understood that these machines were not mass produced. The Androids were strong but they were not invincible. He understood their weakness after spectating the battle between the Androids and the Mutants from a safe distance.

The only reason the Mutants were “defeated” was because the Androids and the martial artists had caught them off guard. The initial fight with the Androids was devastating for the Mutants. They had not predicted the enemies would possess such powerful killing machines. If that was not enough, the sudden appearance of the martial artists had really knocked them off of their feet.

Energy cannons were strong. Their projectile speed was almost at the speed of light but there was a catch to it. After each shot, there would be a buffer period for the weapon to recharge, allowing the Mutants to know when and where the next shot would be. As long as one kept their eyes locked onto the enemy, one could dodge the lethal shot like a pea from a peashooter. Hence, after a few shots, the Mutants had gained the advantage and kept their casualties low.

Once all the Androids had changed into a new battery pack, the leader made another command that left everyone stunned and horrified.

“Retrieve memory chip. Consolidate the infantry.”

All the Androids started to make their way back into the dark, silent battlefield. They kicked away dead bodies of the Mutants and picked up the disabled bodies of their former Android comrades. With a few pries and pulls, they opened the chest piece and removed the undamaged memory chip that was inlay deep within the Android chest.

The retrieval of the memory chips was seen as an oddity to everyone but not to Jiang Fei. He knew that the Androids had such a feature. The only thing he did not know was the procedure.

After all the memory chips and mechanical bodies of the fallen Androids were collected, the still operating Androids started to disassemble the fallen Androids’ bodies. This was what stunned everyone.

Those fallen Androids were disassembled into many different parts. Arms, legs, weapons, head, eyes, were removed like they were taking apart life-sized Gundam Plastic Model Kits. At the same time, two Androids, not equipped with weapons but a blow torch and a soldering kit walked in and started to reassemble the parts into a perfectly functional Android soldier. In less than two hours, all the parts that were gathered had been rebuilt into over a hundred fully-functioning Android soldiers.

The “repairmen” withdrew from the field and the Android soldiers inserted the memory chips collected back into the empty shells.

With a push of a button, the Androids rebooted and came back to life.

“Did-Did they just came back to life?” Bai Wanli gasped.

“Yeah. They just did. The most important part, aside from their battery pack, was their memory chip that is embedded deep inside their chest. As long as the memory chip is not destroyed, they can be revived as many times as they want. Provided that there is a new body ready,” said Jiang Fei as he nonchalantly revealed the one weak point of the Androids to the martial artists. The other martial artists, especially the sect leader made a mental note to inform the others in their sect to cough up a new set of martial art to counter these Android, should they decided to see them as a hostile entity.

These martial artists were the golden generation with little to no knowledge about modern technology. Even so, they understood human ambition and greed. They knew that if these Android were being controlled, the controller must be after something. When Jiang Fei first knew about the Androids, he immediately understood that something was wrong. If the young, greenhorn could do that, the older, cunning sect leaders could do it better.

Hence, once they had learned about the prowess of the Androids and the potential threat they could be, the old folks made early preparations to counter them should it be necessary. Right now, all they could do was make a mental note since they still had to worry about their current enemy, the Mutants! They had to work together with the military until the mess was over.

After reviving over a hundred Androids, Z7 Special Assault Team had over 420 battle-ready Android soldiers. Besides that, they were able to collect about 200 undamaged memory chips. At the end of it all, the number of Androids that were considered as permanently disabled was less than a hundred.

Jiang Fei turned around and saw how the martial artists had reacted to these new entities. At the very least, they knew where to strike them to properly end their lives.

All the parts that were left unused were stashed away with the “repairmen” for possible future use. They were parts that could not be used to recreate a new body but useful enough for emergency repairs.

After all the Androids were ready to move out, the leader turned to Jiang Fei, which prompted Jiang Fei to talk to him.

“Are you done?” Jiang Fei asked.

“Affirmative,” the leader answered. These Androids worked without resting, all they needed was power supplies and they could work forever.

“Alright then. Let’s go. There is still that alien artifact that needs to be protected,” said Jiang Fei.

The fake Planet Namek Bio-Laboratory was the perfect bait to lure in both the Mutants as well as the greedy China military.

“We are ready,” the leader said. Jiang Fei’s “suggestion” was in line with his prime directive; hence he had agreed to follow Jiang Fei.

‘These Androids had high intelligence! I need to be careful,’ Jiang Fei thought. He did not waste much time with them since they were robots in the end.