Chapter 530 Operation Rat Extermination
Gazlowe's brain was operating at high speed.
Everything that had happened in the past fifteen minutes replayed in his mind like a videotape.
From the female adept being put on the ground by the fire adept, to her casual stroll past the barrage of energy beams. From her walking past him, making it past the heavily guarded steel door, to where the space furnace was; the entire process was clear and direct. There was nothing out of the ordinary or conspicuous about it.
However, this was a battlefield where life and death were decided in a single instant!
How could such a vast oversight occur with Gazlowe's strengthened brain and ubiquitous spiritual sense? How had he let a terrifying female adept walk by him just like that?
That was something that absolutely should not have happened, yet it had happened just like that!
Gazlowe still didn't understand why he had ignored an enemy adept in that manner, even after reviewing his memory. Why had he let her walk into such an important place?
It wasn't invisibility or vision avoidance or incorporeality. After all, any form of spell would cause an unavoidable magic flux, as small as it might be. With Gazlwoe's current Spirit, what kind of spell could be hidden from his spiritual senses?
After much thought, Gazlowe could only regard it as an innate ability of the witch.
This witch seemed to possess a strange power that allowed her to become an invisible person of sorts. She could cause both enemies and allies to ignore her existence subconsciously. Much like the natural charm of succubi, and the elvish affinity with nature, it was a kind of innate ability; magic flux would not appear when it was used. Consequently, individuals who were unaware of her talent were very likely to fall prey to it.
White light immediately surged around the giant brain once he understood the situation. He prepared to instantly teleport to the space furnace and murder this strange witch with the swiftest attack he had. However, just as the giant brain was about to complete his teleportation, a blast of fire beneath his body interrupted him.
Greem used his Fire Teleportation to break free of the metal corridor's restriction. He appeared near the giant brain and used a large cage of fire to imprison the monster. The Fire Prison only lasted for three seconds before being destroyed an explosion of mental powers. However, he had foiled the giant brain's plan to teleport away.
The anxious brain furiously brandished his nerves and blasted several mental beams of various colors.
These mental beams fired with a mere thought of the brain and were hard to avoid. Moreover, they also possessed strange effects, unlike most ordinary spells. Most people would be unable to determine the effects of each beam from their appearance alone without allowing the attack to hit them.
Some of these mind beams would turn into curse effects much like Weaken. Others would cause direct damage by turning into Soul Whips. There were also some that would open up portals on the ground where they landed, instantly teleporting the enemy in front of them.
Ever since he had turned into a giant brain, Gazlowe had become a mysterious monster that possessed Third Grade powers. If it weren't for Gazlowe's lack of a powerful body and his unfamiliarity with his new state of existence, Greem would have been hard-pressed to deal with the array of mental powers and reinforcements, even if Greem used every last bit of energy he had.
More and more portals were opened under Gazlowe's will, and he instantly summoned a goblin army of two hundred individuals into the hall.
Two hundred goblins might not sound like much. However, if every one of them was equipped with a magical machine or a goblin chariot, these weak goblins would be more than enough to threaten a Second Grade adept like Greem.
Greem even saw two familiar silhouettes among these goblins.
Mechanical Adept Sabrina and Goblin God of War Tigule.
Both of them seemed to have lost control of their bodies. They moved along with the goblins, launching wave after wave of ferocious attacks at Greem. Sabrina, in particular, was not only firing all her weapons but had also summoned the adept-level golem that Greem had given her– the Roaring Monster.
Greem could only rely on his Fire Teleportation to avoid the barrage from two such formidable opponents. Not to mention he also had to deal with the storm of magic energy weapon attacks from the other goblins. During the downtime between each Fire Teleportation, Greem would cast a large-area fire spell and try his best to whittle down the number of goblins.
Gazlowe took the opportunity provided by his subordinates delaying Greem and successfully teleported. He transported himself into the underground cave where the space furnace resided.
Countless researchers in white robes were bustling about the towering metal container inside that massive cave filled with thick metal pipes and wires. They continually checked on all sorts of equipment, adjusting the valves of the tubes and the switches of the cables, keeping a close eye on the energy and pressure balance within the metal structure.
It was not a battlefield, but the intensity with which they performed their job showed that this was no less of a battle!
A single, tiny mistake on the frontlines could mean the loss of a soldier's life. Here, in this place, any error by a goblin researcher could cause a pressure imbalance in the space furnace and result in an apocalyptic explosion.
The explosion of the flying ship's space furnace had been able to result in a disaster that engulfed an area of several dozen kilometers; this space furnace was ten times the size of that one. The resulting catastrophe of this space furnace exploding was something that no one could imagine.
A slender and pretty figure had mixed in amongst these busy researchers. She looked right and left, occasionally moving toward a researcher to observe their work. She appeared to be quite excited and intrigued.
The giant cylinder in the middle of the cave was not at all conspicuous regarding appearance. Plenty of pipes of various sizes had been attached to it. These pipes spread all over the ceiling and delved into the stone walls. Who knew where in the Steel Capital these pipes extended?
The bottom of the cylinder was crudely patched. From a distance, one would only think of this structure as a crude goblin creation. It was hard to relate it to the astounding invention that was the Space Furnace.
Yet this thing that looked like a broken toy cobbled together by goblin children represented the highest alchemical and engineering achievement of the Goblin Plane. More importantly, it carried with it the hope of the Goblin Plane to cast off their shell as a lower civilization and ascend to a higher level!
The metal cylinder looked ordinary, but it was entirely forged from the extremely rare Queyras alloy. This alloy not only possessed surprising malleability and hardness, but it also possessed the magical resistance that the other alloys of the Goblin Plane so dearly lacked.
It could even make a top ten list for magic resistance when compared to the other magical materials in the World of Adepts. It was invaluable for a small plane!
What made it even more valuable was its limited production.
Even with Gazlowe's influence over the Goblin Empire, he had obtained no more than two hundred tons of Queyras ore after scouring the plane. The Queyras ore was the most important raw ingredient for creating Queyras alloy. Forging this space furnace had required a total of thirty tons of Queyras alloy.
Even if the Goblin Empire dedicated all of their efforts and wealth to the construction of space furnaces of this scale, they could make no more than six or seven of them. If they were still unable to obtain new sources of ore upon exhausting all of their Queyras alloy, then the Goblin Plane's journey of expansion would come to an end.
Within Gazlowe's faction, classified information like this was privy to only a few goblins. However, Alice had perfectly grasped this information after a couple of rounds around these goblin researchers.
Just as Alice was wondering how to best maximize their benefits via this space furnace, white light flashed above the hall. A brain the size of a hill appeared out of nowhere.
Gazlowe's one dozen brain nerves struck at Alice the moment he teleported over. These thick tentacles were one-meter in diameter and whistled through the air, seemingly apathetic to the fates of the goblins around Alice.
Gazlowe no longer thought of himself as a goblin after his consciousness had wholly revived inside his brain. These familiar goblin researchers, engineers, alchemists, and technicians were no more than loyal slaves in his eyes. If it weren't for the difficulty of finding new slaves to replace them, Gazlowe wouldn't have minded wiping away all traces of these lowly creatures from his body.
Alice's pretty eyebrows furrowed when she saw the tentacle striking at her. With a single flash of her body, she appeared next to the metal cylinder. The fleshy tendril appeared to be soft and non-threatening. However, it crashed into the metal control platform and smashed it into pieces, crushing the six researchers who had been standing by the platform.
The giant brain's nerves quickly retracted when he saw that physical attacks were ineffective. Five or six mental abilities shot towards Alice in the form of beams.
He was in a hurry to exterminate this rat that had entered his heart, but he was still extremely cautious with his actions. A dozen beams of lights all grazed the metal cylinder and went past it. None of them dealt any damage to the container.
After Gazlowe had turned that mechanical adept known as Sabrina into his slave, the powers and information about each member of the adepts was no longer a secret to him.
In Sabrina's memory, this witch known as Alice was skilled at manipulating the powers of Fate but possessed no combat ability of her own. That was undoubtedly great news for the giant brain Gazlowe!
If it had been that powerful Second Grade fire adept who had made it into this hall, then he would have incurred significant losses even if he managed to defeat the adept. That was why he was in such a hurry to use his two new slaves to hold the fire adept back and take the opportunity to catch this 'rat' that had snuck into his heart.
Indeed, a First Grade witch with no combat abilities was only a rat to the Third Grade giant brain Gazlowe!
Moreover, it was the kind of rat that was extremely harmless!