"How… did I end up on this early-war battlefield?"
"How… did I get here?"
Sui Qiong, after hearing Lin Lan's words, stood frozen in place, her expression blank as if her system had crashed.
She kept repeating Lin Lan's question over and over again.
"White Mist… Huaiwu City… Massacre… Protect Orlan citizens…"
Looking at the mecha girl before him, trapped in self-doubt and repeating the same words like a broken record, Lin Lan quickly pieced together her situation based on what she had said.
Sui Qiong must have been swept up by the Sirens' micro-layer mixture, dragged into the Mirror Sea, and brought to Huaiwu City.
Then she must have witnessed the large-scale slaughter taking place.
As a Overlord-class mecha, there was no way Sui Qiong would stand idly by while Orlan's citizens were massacred.
Naturally, she engaged the Natlan army in battle here.
However, Lin Lan quickly realized a contradiction.
Sui Qiong was a ninth-generation Overlord mecha—meaning she should have no memory of any of this.
Even if the Sirens had extracted her memory data, the best they could do was simulate a battlefield from the late war period, during the island conflicts.
So how did this early-war Huaiwu City battlefield come into existence?
Just then, Sui Qiong suddenly clutched her head and collapsed to the ground. Her previously emotionless face contorted in sheer agony.
"Sui Qiong, what's wrong?!"
Seeing her in such a state, Lin Lan instinctively wanted to rush forward and help her up, but was stopped by Hipper.
After all, Sui Qiong was clearly acting abnormally—no one could predict what she might do next.
At that moment, Sui Qiong's murmuring changed.
"Lieyun, take the other three and go. Protect our transport fleet at all costs—break through the encirclement. I'll stay behind in Huaiwu City and draw their fire."
"I hereby appoint Lieyun as the new captain of Skyhawk Squad. From now on, we are Lieyun Squad."
"No matter what… protect the Orlan citizens and bring them home."
As these strange words left Sui Qiong's lips, Lin Lan suddenly noticed something terrifying—the entire scene around them, the fires, the corpses, the ruins of buildings—everything was beginning to blur.
It was as if the whole world was turning into an illusion.
"What's happening?"
Shocked by the bizarre transformation, Lin Lan voiced his question aloud. The one who answered him was Prinz Eugen.
"Commander, this is what happens when a Mirror Sea's node data overloads. This Mirror Sea is about to collapse."
Hearing Eugen's explanation, Lin Lan instantly understood the source of the problem.
He looked down at Sui Qiong, who was still trembling on the ground, her face twisted in pain, and muttered angrily:
"So that's why… The Purifier wasn't lying to us after all…"
"The Sirens… They really did use their Cubes to turn Sui Qiong into a Mecha Maiden and then generate this Mirror Sea based on her memory data. Damn it, I should have realized sooner!"
Then, anxiously, he turned to Eugen.
"If the Sirens used Sui Qiong as the node to create this Mirror Sea… then if the Mirror Sea collapses, will she…"
The silver-haired, red-streaked Ironblood heavy cruiser girl looked at the distressed commander before her and regretfully shook her head.
"Creating a Mirror Sea using a node consumes an immense amount of raw Cube energy."
"If the node collapses from within, it will cause irreversible damage—possibly even complete destruction."
"No… How could this be the outcome…?"
Lin Lan stood there in stunned silence, his mind blank. He looked at the others.
Nearby, the Ironblood shipgirls—Roon, Ägir, and Hipper among them—clenched their fists in frustration, nodding in confirmation.
Among all the factions in the port, Ironblood had spent the longest time studying Siren technology and had achieved the deepest research.
Every word Eugen said was true.
As silence settled over the group, cracks began to appear in the space around Sui Qiong, like shattered glass.
This was a sign—the entire Mirror Sea was starting to break down from her position outward.
But just as Lin Lan was frantically thinking of ways to save the girl before him, he suddenly noticed something chilling.
"Wait… Weren't her wings blue? Why are they turning black?!"
Under Lin Lan's gaze, Sui Qiong's originally pure blue, razor-sharp wings—almost like spectral blades—were slowly being tainted by an inky darkness.
The blackened area on her delicate wings expanded relentlessly. At the edges of this corruption, a burning, high-temperature dark orange glow flickered, like dry leaves consumed by fire.
When the darkness completely overtook her wings, it began spreading across her flawless white back, forming ominous dark yellow patterns that slithered over her body.
"No way… This can't be happening…"
Lin Lan's heart skipped a beat. His pupils shrank in shock as he stammered.
He knew exactly what this transformation meant. As the commander of the port's shipgirls, he understood all too well.
And it wasn't just him. Every Ironblood shipgirl present immediately aimed their main cannons at the mutating Sui Qiong, as if facing a terrifying enemy.
Then, Sui Qiong spoke.
"I remember now. I remember everything. Report… Commander, I am Sui Qiong. I am also Qiong Ying."
"Fensun, Zongye, Poxiao… They are all my memories. They were once my names."
"The core system installed in Sui Qiong was upgraded using recovered, battle-damaged cores from previous-generation mechas."
"That is how it has always been for Overlord-class mechas. Every generation is built upon the previous ones. How… how could I have forgotten?"
Her voice no longer carried pain or confusion. She lowered her head, swaying as she rose shakily to her feet.
A suffocating pressure radiated from her small frame, turning the very air around her into a dark haze.
At last, the truth was revealed.
Lin Lan finally understood why the battlefield around them was set during the early war between the Orlan Confederation and the Natlan Empire.
It was because the system core of Overlord-class mechas had been repeatedly upgraded and reused across generations!
Aside from Lieyun, the captain of Lieyun Squad, Sui Qiong's system core had previously been used by three other battle-damaged Overlord mechas—Fensun, Zongye, and Poxiao—before finally being inherited by her.
Sui Qiong slowly lifted her head, gazing at Lin Lan and the Ironblood shipgirls beside him.
Her small frame, now continuously eroded by the dark energy, bore an expression more sorrowful than crying.
Her once-blue eyes… one of them had turned into a horrifying shade of deep crimson.
Gone was her previous obedient, icy demeanor—now, she radiated chaos and ominous intent.
As the wind howled around them, black and dark-orange ash-like particles drifted from her wings, scattering into the air.
Tears ran down the cheeks of the pitiable white-haired girl. Her mismatched blue and red eyes locked onto Lin Lan.
"Sui Qiong remembers everything now."
"When Sui Qiong woke up… Orlan was gone. Sui Qiong couldn't find home anymore."
"Commander… Sui Qiong wants to go home. Please… take Sui Qiong home…"
"No, Commander… Destroy Sui Qiong. Sui Qiong has no home left…"
As the mecha girl's trembling voice, thick with sorrow, reached his ears, a black, crimson-glowing energy blade materialized in her hands.
Lin Lan stood in silence, staring at the now-transformed Sui Qiong. Finally, from between clenched teeth, he forced out the term for what had befallen her—
"Meta-fication…"
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50 advanced chapters on p@t re on (.) com/SenatusTheta
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If any of you noticed an error, please point it out in comments!
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50 advanced chapters on p@t re on (.) com/SenatusTheta
_______
If any of you noticed an error, please point it out in comments!