Chapter 179: Arc 5: Chapter 23: New Movement

Merlin watches as the two cars speed off, he stands by the road while monitoring the soldiers' movements with his raven spirit Victor.

Victor's field of vision was wide, it had the supervision of a Harrier, and as the military vehicles got closer to the road, Merlin successfully identified who was the leader of the group through Victor's shared vision.

The indifferent-looking colonel in green uniform on the first vehicle was clearly one of the three key personnel Merlin was looking for.

Colonel George Burns of the Department of Defense.

Merlin knew of the core secret of 'Sector Seven' from Agent Simmons, the Allspark as well as the mysterious NBE-1 frozen in ice, he had high expectations of what intel he would receive from Colonel Burn's memories.

As the soldiers were about to reach the remote part of the road, Merlin's figure abruptly aerosolized into faint black fog spread across the road. As Merlin injected more mana, the fog got thicker, and eventually covered a space of 100 meters.

It looked like a clump of threshing fog with low visibility on the inside.

"Stop the car!"

The small brigade led by Colonel Burns reaches the road covered in fog, and the experienced DoD agent frowns and gives his orders.

The few military vehicles are parked on the road as the lethal weapons are brought up.

Colonel sees the road being cut off by fog and senses that something was wrong, but before he could relay new orders, the threshing fog begins to move toward them as if it were being blown by the wind.

"Get back! Get back! Stay alert!"

The colonel's eyes become sharp, he waves his arm and orders his soldiers to fall back.

But under Merlin's manipulation, the fog spread quickly, and in a short few seconds, the military vehicles parked by the road were enshrouded by fog.

Merlin was like the phantom in the fog, he snuck into the military vehicle in the back, and in the sound of beating flesh, the fully armed soldiers in the car are struck down one by one.

This movement immediately attracts the wariness of the other soldiers, a few gunshots could be heard in the fog before the sound of something heavy falling resounds from within.

The odd occurrence caused the other soldiers to feel fear from the bottom of their hearts.

They held their guns and looked around them, but in the thick fog, their vision was greatly limited, and one could only see the fuzzy black figures a meter away.

Any bit of movement would attract a hail of bullets, but this much could not harm Merlin.

He slowly knocks the soldiers unconscious one by one from the back to the front.

He intentionally makes some sounds to create pressure on the remaining soldiers. But attempts to weaken Colonel Burn's will so he could extract more information when he does so.

And Colonel Burns senses the danger.

Ha takes out the gun from his waist and carefully walks in the fog with his back to the other soldiers. He attempts to rush out of this damned fog following his memories, but the signals on his communicator fall silent one by one, seemingly showing that the phantom in the fog was not planning on leaving them alone.

"Steady!"

The colonel says to the soldiers behind him:

"Stay wary of your surroundings, fire if anything happens...don't hesitate."

As he finishes, a green glow flies out from the fog and accurately hits a soldier next to him. As the colonel watched, the soldier staggers and falls to the ground, and snoring could be heard moments later.

Then the second, and the third.

In a short few seconds, in this suffocating fog, Colonel Burns was now the only one left awake.

He squats down, extends a finger, and checks the fallen soldier's pulse, the still-beating pulse meant that they were not in lethal danger, which let the colonel let out a sigh of relief.

He stands up, looks at his gun, shakes his head, and throws it onto the ground.

The situation now was clear.

Something in the fog was targeting them, but they were not seeking to end their lives, which means there was space for negotiation.

Colonel Burns raises his hands to show that he was not hostile while shouting at the fog:

"What are you trying to do? Come out and meet!"

What responded to his shouting was a crimson red glow shot from behind him.

The light glow was different from Bewitching Sleep.

What the dangerous light glow carried was a forbidden dark spell.

Crucio!

As the light struck him, Colonel Burns immediately feels unbearable pain begin to emit from his insides, this pain was different from normal gunshot wounds and burn wounds, it was something torturous that could not be handled with pure will alone.

The tough soldier clenches his fists and breathes heavily to keep himself conscious.

Merlin in his black fog looks at the resisting Colonel Burns and shakes his head, he taps his wand forward and the pain caused by Crucio immediately increases twofold!

"Ah!"

The increasing pain caused the colonel to nearly losing his posture as he staggers and collapses onto the ground, his body twitches irregularly while his eyes grow red, he could hardly even speak.

As his consciousness fades, he sees a slender figure exit the fog and comes beside him.

The colonel clenches his fist and tries to retaliate, but then Bewitching Sleep strikes him.

His vision blackens, and in the exhaustion from being tortured, he quickly falls asleep.

Merlin half kneels beside this sleeping colonel who had cold sweat all over his forehead and says to him:

"Sorry, Mr. Burns, but this is for both our sakes."

As he finishes, he reaches out, flips open Colonel Burn's eyelids, and stares into it.

"Legilimens!"

A sliver of light flashes in Merlin's eyes as his will seeps into the mind of this tough-willed soldier, and albeit his will had been continuously weakened, there was very little information Merlin could extract from Burns' mind.

This was the con of Legilimens, it's basically an itchy scratch against someone with a tough will.

But a few is better than nothing.

Merlin enters the colonel's memories, and the first thing he sees is in the upper layer of a base, the colonel seems to be standing behind glass while looking down below.

One could see from his sights that in a lab filled with devices down below, two Cybertronians which Merlin had never seen before were lying on the ground while a group of researchers connected their bodies using communicators.

The two Cybertronians looked very different from Cliffjumper and Bumblebee.

Their mechanical exterior was aggressive-looking, on their arms, body, legs, and shoulder, were signs of weaponry. And their sharp yet tough-looking form reminded Merlin of NBE-1.

Their form seems to be similar.

And in front of the lab was the electronic projection of the world map with flickering red spots scattered across the map.

"So we just give them access to all our satellites like so...god knows what they found with those satellites!"

Merlin hears Colonel Burns complain to another person:

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"It's like asking a tiger for its skin!"

"Patience, Burns, we can't look at things by the surface alone."

The person says in a deep tone:

"That's right, we borrowed our satellites for these Decepticons to use, but you see, they had taught our researchers how to find that mysterious B-127, even a way to track all of its kin...a good hunter must look at the grand scheme of things."

"Follow them and find B-127, Burns."

The person who seemed like the leader of the base says in a confident tone:

"Once we've locked onto all the Cybertronians hiding on Earth, I'll give the order to tear them all apart! And use them for scrap for our warriors!"

"Roger, sir!"

Burn's memory ends here, and as the memory dissipates, Merlin glances at the electronic projection at the end of the lab.

From the Colonel's conversation with the scientist, Merlin could confirm that the DoD is hiding their reasons for working with the Decepticons; they granted the Decepticons access to their satellites so they could find all the Cybertronians hidden on Earth.

And how many Cybertronians were there on Earth?

Merlin looks at the electronic projection, and on that map were nearly a hundred different red spots.

This caused chills to run down Merlin's spine.

Cliffjumper, Bumblebee, and the two Decepticons, they were not the first batch of Cybertronians to arrive on Earth...in Merlin's world, there were plenty of other hidden mechanical lifeforms that were yet to be discovered, and they may have hidden on Earth for a much longer time than he could imagine.

Hundreds, thousands, nearly tens of thousands of years...

"Hell! Is this still our world?"

Merlin complains as he quickly browses through Colonel Burn's other memories.

But unfortunately, there was no news about the whereabouts of Sector Seven's secret base in these memories.

"Such a pity."

Merlin exits from Colonel Burn's consciousness, he stands up, takes out his phone, and dials a number. Moments later, he says to the phone:

"Fury, Cybertronian lifeforms' involvement has been confirmed, 2 Cybertronian Decepticons are currently working with the DoD, and I even found something even more terrifying, but I'll write a detailed report on that when things are over. For now, please be ready to provide support."

"Mmm, what kind of support do you need?"

Fury asks, Merlin looks at his watch and replies:

"Normal weapons won't do much against those mechanical lifeforms. How's our scientists' research on the Kree weapons? If it's alright, I need some usable weaponry."

"I'll have someone send it to you."

Fury didn't hesitate much, he then says:

"It's best if you can capture a live mechanical lifeform, if not, then a dead one would do."

"Mmm, I'll try my best."

Merlin hangs up the call and moves his fingers as he collects the surrounding black fog. He casts Obliviate on Colonel Burns before aerosolizing into black fog and quickly leaving this 'corpse-filled highway.

Alright, they're just unconscious, the soldiers will wake up in a dozen minutes or so.

---

Following the message Cliffjumper had left him, Merlin soon finds an abandoned mine in the mountains near the town.

He walked in the dark mine for a few minutes before seeing Cliffjumper, Charlie, and the ignorant B-127, Bumblebee.

"How's the situation? How'd your communication go?"

Merlin raises his head, looks at Cliffjumper, and asks.

Lost and bewilderment appear on Cliffjumper's human-like face as it answers Merlin:

"I just checked B-127's memory database, when it had just arrived on Earth, it was attacked by a powerful Decepticon. Its vocal system was destroyed and its memory is short-circuited, which means it has lost its memories, and it can't remember anything..."

 "I have to figure out a way to restart its program, but not only does this need time, but it also needs a powerful energy source."

"Lost its memories?"

Merlin looks at the ignorant Bumblebee, there was a silly expression on B-127's face. It was currently talking with Charlie, it even used the projection device on its chest to play an old movie in the dark mine.

It looked like the friend of children, one could not tell at a glance that it was Cybertron's most elite secret agent.

"Tough life."

Merlin shakes his head, he looks at Cliffjumper and says:

"We have an even bigger problem now, I've confirmed that there are two Decepticons tracking you with the DoD, they're aggressive, and may soon join the fight..."

"Two?"

Cliffjumper asks:

"Describe to me what they look like."

"One's red, the other's blue, both have parts similar to aircraft, and they look about the same height as you. They sound ferocious."

"Ah, it's Shatter and Dropkick!"

Cliffjumper says in a disdainful yet heavy tone:

"They were the ones who almost killed me before, the two secret Decepticon warriors; they're both highly aggressive, Dropkick is brutal while Shatter is cunning."

"Oh, so you're familiar with them."

Merlin shrugs, he looks at the robot in front of him and asks:

"How's your condition? Can you fight?"

"I..."

Cliffjumper glances at its remaining left arm and grits its teeth:

"I'll do my best!"

"So you're not sure, right?"

Merlin shakes his head, takes out his phone, and tells Cliffjumper:

"Looks like we'll have to be smart and split them up. If only one Decepticon comes, then with you and me combined, then..."

"There shouldn't be much issue dealing with it."

 

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