Chapter 327: Chapter 174: Armored Monster
Yan Fei hadn’t expected to witness a free show. A dramatic scene unfolded before the thief squad ahead: one member flipped, another was seriously injured, and a third was trapped, leaving the “Mona Lisa” gallery ahead swarmed with Louvre Museum guard personnel. Seeing the passage blocked ahead, Yan Fei decided to take a detour. Though he no longer had the thieves to lead the way, Yan Fei could rely on the 3D map provided by the Auxiliary Brain. He proceeded based on this map, and although he had to take a few additional routes, he was still able to reach his destination.
Without the technical support of the thief squad, the possibility of Yan Fei being stopped by surveillance cameras and sealed doors greatly increased. However, luck was on his side. After entering the core area of the Louvre Museum, he encountered no more obstructing doors, but there were more surveillance cameras. Without the interference of Kitty, Yan Fei would certainly have been discovered by the monitoring personnel.
But Yan Fei was well-prepared. His eyes sharp, whenever he spotted a surveillance camera, he dashed past it with utmost speed. The monitoring personnel were focused on the arrest operation in the “Mona Lisa” gallery, so they paid less attention to other galleries. Plus, with Yan Fei’s quick movements, he would vanish from view in the blink of an eye. Even if they did notice a shadow on the video, they would think it was an illusion and not investigate further, nor did they consider the possibility of another force invading the Louvre Museum.
Guided by the 3D map from the Auxiliary Brain, Yan Fei moved forward. Once he descended through another passageway, he re-entered the massive underground complex. Combining the location of the gallery where the Louvre Museum accepted d artworks during the day, and extending the surrounding passageways, he eliminated the rooms that were unlikely to store artworks. After repeated calculations by the Auxiliary Brain, he finally pinpointed where the d artworks were most likely stored—in a few hidden underground warehouses.
Upon entering the underground area, the number of surveillance cameras diminished, which facilitated Yan Fei’s actions. He rapidly approached the rooms suspected by the Auxiliary Brain, pried open the doors with a Special Alloy Dagger, and entered. Finding neither the rusted disc nor the d artworks, he immediately exited the room. After prying into several adjacent rooms, he found them all empty. That’s when Yan Fei realized why the surveillance here was so lax and why there were no alarms when he broke in—it was because the building had been abandoned.
However, Yan Fei was not discouraged. After the Auxiliary Brain determined the purpose of these rooms, the data became more complete, and it continued its calculations, identifying a few more suspicious galleries with an even higher probability. Checking the 3D map, Yan Fei noticed these galleries were deep underground but not far from his current location. So, he cautiously headed there. The surveillance cameras were more numerous, but he swiftly evaded them all.
Yan Fei continued to search the galleries underground but couldn’t find his target. When he reached the last suspicious gallery near a stone wall, he discovered it was an expansive hall with a smattering of cabinets of varying sizes, holding unidentifiable artworks. On top of a cabinet at the very back, the rusted disc was haphazardly placed, clearly not valued by whoever had put it there.
Finally finding his sought-after object, Yan Fei was overjoyed and moved forward to store the rusted disc in Universal Space. Suddenly, there was a soft “snap” inside the room, and all the lights went out. He then felt an unusual tremor on the ground and a strange rumble coming from the stone wall. Before he knew it, a large section of the stone wall began to crumble from the inside out, followed by the tip of a fast-spinning Drill Bit emerging from the wall.
This drill moved quickly forward, its trailing section growing larger, and as it continued to widen the hole in the wall, a huge steel frame emerged—it was an Armored Monster made of a Special Alloy, capable of burrowing through the underground.
Yan Fei had exceptional eyesight. Despite the blackout, he could still make out the changes in the hall from the afterglow of the extinguished bulbs. As soon as he spotted the colossal Armored Monster, he sensed trouble. Taking a quick step forward, he reached to grab the rusted disc and pull it into Universal Space. He then saw a bizarre cylinder extend from the side of the monster, with a flash of fire, and a barrage of bullets came hurtling out. Their target was Yan Fei, who was sprinting at full tilt.
Yan Fei was startled. A shield, crafted from Fine Steel, suddenly appeared behind him, blocking the incoming bullets. Unexpectedly, the bullets from the bizarre cylinder were of a large caliber, identical to that of a Drone’s Naval Cannon—with each at 30 millimeters. Moreover, the cylinder fired armor-piercing rounds with immense destructive power. Yan Fei’s Fine Steel Shield couldn’t defend against the 30-millimeter armor-piercing rounds, which pierced straight through it. Although Yan Fei’s body dodged the bullets, the massive kinetic energy they carried still sent him flying far away, smashing into a distant wall. He then fell to the ground and awkwardly steadied himself.