Snow. Snow, everywhere.

Antarctica is a land of endless ice, a land of white glaciers, frozen mountains and plains so white that they are barely visible in the sun. There was also silence all around. The few penguins and wild animals that live on the continent nest along the coast, leaving the interior of the continent completely lifeless.

Dressed in Saturn armor, Ryan flies through the icy wasteland with only Leo Hargraves by his side. The courier remembers that on one of his longest pick-up missions, he had stopped in Scandinavia and later in Greenland, but the South Pole remained a mystery to him.

"Did you find anything?" Ryan asked him via telecommunications.

"Winter is coming," Ryan replied ominously as he and the sun flew over a high glacier.

"Ruili, every time I call you, you're repeating that."

"Because people have to know!" Ryan replied jokingly. "Most of what I saw was snow, but on the bright side, I didn't see mosquitoes. Well, except for the one we put in the warehouse. ”

No wonder he never came to this place, there was nothing to do!

"I'm very disappointed." The messenger shrugged and shook off the frost knotted on his arm's arm. "I thought there would be an ancient civilization buried under the snow, or a base for a mad scientist."

"What about the armor readings?"

"It actually found a spatial anomaly, but the signal was weak." Truth be told, the whole area stenchs of them. Whatever happens here permanently disrupts the space-time continuum of this region. "Sunshine and I are trying to narrow down the source."

"I ...... At last. "It's been three days since they arrived on the Antarctic continent, and many members of the expedition are annoyed that there is no progress." Don't act recklessly. ”

"Shorty, Rush is my middle name," Ryan replied happily, "somewhere between hip and immortal!"

The sun must have heard him, for the living sun looked over his shoulder. "I also thought of being witty," he said.

"Witty is my son, fun is my daughter," Ryan replied, and after his armor picked up a stronger signal, he turned to the left. Leo Hargraves followed. "By the way, Sunshine, how did your presence not melt the whole place?"

"I can control my gravity and heat." The superhero observes Ryan closely, his sparkling gaze that is both warm and intimidating.

"Do you want to explain some unanswered questions, my stargazing friend?" Although they have been traveling together for several days, the leaders of the carnival have been surprisingly silent so far. The courier saw him staring at Ryan when she wasn't noticing, his best friend had done his best to avoid the living sun. "Bloody questions?"

The living sun looked away, at the frozen mountains in the distance. “Le

Sabi

o are you listening?"

Ryan guessed right. "Shorty, the sun wants to call you."

"I'm listening," she replied after a short, tense silence as Ryan turned on the megaphone.

"I want to apologize on behalf of my team," Su

shi

E said. "To you both. What happened four years ago......"

"Wasn't that your best day?" Ryan sighed. "Trust me, things could get worse, you've apologized. At least for me. ”

"In the previous loop?" Hargraves asked.

"So you believe us?" Ryan asked. Since their departure from Monaco, The Living Sun has not brought up the topic.

"I admit I find the Shroud's story unbelievable, but I've seen many things in my life that I once thought impossible." Leo Hargraves' light seemed to dim for a moment. "You have a right to hate us, I totally understand. I would say that my teammates just followed my instructions and that day was the decision I made. If you want to blame anyone, it's me. ”

Ryan thought for a moment before answering. "Do you know who he used to be?" Are we with him?"

"Yes," Sunshine admitted. "I know Freddie Sabino is a nice guy and he travels with his kids."

"Then why? She asked, but her voice didn't change. Ryan could see that the topic was still painful for her, but not as painful as it used to be. "Why did you follow him?" Why don't you try to heal him? Your genius, your genius could have helped. Or at least tried. ”

"We even thought it was impossible to cure him," Su

shi

e Acknowledgement. "Time is not in our favor."

"You prophesied that he would bring a catastrophe," Ryan recalled his conversation with Sh at the beginning of the cycle

OUD's conversation.

"Yes." Su

shi

E seemed a little hesitant, but finally plucked up the courage to say it. "We have reason to think that if we don't act quickly, he will kill both of you."

Ryan could almost see Ryan pondering the words, reading between the lines. If left unchecked, the blood would have killed his daughter anyway, and Carnival saved her life.

In a way, she probably knew all along.

"I ...... I do not know. Len took a deep breath. I...... I understand why you ...... "Why did you kill Daddy, I don't support it, but I understand." I...... I'm not sure if my dad is still there. ”

"If we can cure him, we will," Sunshine vows. "We made our decision based on the information we had, but now ...... Now I doubt we made the right decision. ”

"Hindsight," Ryan replied. If anything, it was that after seeing the blood destroy New Rome in the previous cycle, the messenger decided that Carnival had not done enough to eliminate him.

His armor suddenly received an electromagnetic signal near the ice crevices below them. Bingo.

"I'm ......," Ryan cleared his throat on the other end of the line. Whatever happens, it's my decision. Let me do it. ”

"I understand." Leo Hargraves said he and Ryan landed near the rift. The snow under the heels of the living sun melted, and he had to float on the ground so as not to fall. "However, you have to understand that if there is a possibility of blood leaking out, threatening millions of people, I will have to call."

Ryan didn't say anything.

"But if there is a way to cure your father, we will definitely find it." Leo Hargraves swears that he will always be a shining knight. "What did Dinas do...... Inhumane. If we had known, we would have stopped it. I promise you. ”

"It's okay," Lunn replied. "I ...... I don't want to talk about it. Not now. ”

"I see. I'm sorry to uncover the old wounds. ”

"Trust me, you haven't scratched the surface yet." Ryan glanced into the crack, gloomy and ominous. The crack stretched for miles, and it was a deep ice canyon that he needed to wear a light on his armor to see the bottom. But most importantly, his system found traces of Violet Flex in that area. "Okay, okay, okay, what is this......"

"Did you find anything, Rayleigh?"

"A thin place, but not a natural place," Ryan replied as he analyzed the energy readings. "And it's not the popular kind."

"What do you mean?" Sunshine asked, arms crossed.

"This pocket size not only prevents intruders from entering," Ryan explained. Like the place where he and Livia fatalize their dates, the thin places of nature often open up at rare cosmic or electromagnetic connections. But not this. "It also prevents what is already inside from escaping."

In short, this is the second Monaco.

"The Living Sun" quickly realized the implications. "She's holding prisoners," he guessed. "I don't see any other reason to complicate the evacuation."

Neither did Ryan. Bacchus tells him that alchemists often set up illegal laboratories to test elixirs. The Courier speculates that she may have done the same thing in her center of power.

"Can you take us in?" Len asked worriedly.

"I can open the way with my armor and keep it open with the Resonator." Ryan always carries these devices with him when he travels, in case he finds a way to carry out the clown genocide. "This will create a passage for the import and export of bag space, allowing us to communicate with the outside world while we are inside."

"In this case, Stitch and the atomic cat will stay on the other side of the portal, just in case," said Leo Hargraves, who immediately made a plan. "The rest of us can see what's inside. If the alchemist is smart, she will have defenses to repel the invaders. ”

"Don't you want to talk about it first?" Le

Asked.

"I will," the superhero asked. "But I don't feel like it's an option."

Ryan agrees. "The woman killed everyone who tried to track her down, or drove them crazy," the courier said. She doesn't mind ending the world as an experiment. I doubt she's going to work with us. ”

"I'm going to tell everybody to get ready," Ryan said.

"We'll come back to pick you up." Ryan said, and flew away with Sunshine again. "Maybe we should bring an army of robots. They make everything easy. ”

"That's the problem," Sunshine replied. "When you let those who ordered the war not pay, the result is always bad." War shouldn't be a computer game. ”

Truly. But Ryan still regrets condemning the bunker when they left. Lightning Bart goes into his paranoid mode, and shortly after ordering the attack on Felix, he sends soldiers to investigate the junkyard in an attempt to figure out what happened to the Superpowers. Augustus found McKellen's armory too risky, especially since they had the resources to take it over.

As for the other bases, Leo Hargraves had cleared two of them when Soruti Marty called him for reinforcements. Half of the carnival is deployed in Antarctica, and the rest of the members stay in warm places to destroy the remaining arsenals.

According to Ryan's understanding, only the bunker in New Rome has been focused on research and development. Others are standard armed robotic production facilities capable of producing armies in a matter of weeks. Sunshine is right, such a facility will not yield any benefits.

They were gone, and McKellen's legacy was buried forever.

"I have to admit, I'm a little surprised you agreed to join this side quest," Ryan told his companion.

"Task? Like the medieval kind?" Leo asked, then shrugged. "The cure for psychosis would make the world a better place, and honestly, if alchemists really lived here...... I want to ask her a question. ”

"Release date for the Pink Elixir?"

"No," Sunshine replied. "I want to ask her why."

Ryan suspected that Sarin wanted to ask the same question, but with more violence involved.

The short flight ended half an hour south of the rift valley, where a steel facility was half-buried in a snowy desert. The modular base consisted of 24 metal cubes, which were joined together in an "L" shape, some of which were destroyed.

Thanks to Bacchus and Simon's information, Ryan's team quickly found the lost Orfinn station. The French government cleaned up the station after it was abandoned, but left enough for the geniuses of the expedition team to restore it to half capacity. Ryan speculated that the military had intended to reactivate the site at some point, but never had time to do so before the end of the world. To be on the safe side, the group left the alchemist and the doll on the submarine a few hours to the south, and only entered with their fighters.

Mr. Bo and Panda are the only members of the team who can survive the extremely low temperatures without special equipment, and they light a bonfire outside. Even then, Bo had to swap his gorgeous cashmere suit for a sleek sealskin suit. Ryan's panda didn't change his clothes, even though he kept his beastly form throughout.

It turns out that the super panda can survive in Antarctica without power armor. Their indestructible fur and fat protect them from cold, radiation, rain, and cupcakes.

Ryan checked.

"At one point, Mr. Bo turned up the heat," the superhero said to the panda, who gulped down warm seal milk. "This is the beginning of global warming."

"Yes, is it true?" Panda asked innocently. While his power gives him great insight, he still has a lovable inclination to believe everything his hero says.

"Mr. Bo never lies, he enlightens us," the superhero replied, at which point Ryan and his sunny friend landed near them.

"When the sun lights the way," Ryan joked.

"Only in the dark," Bo added.

Leo Hargraves smiled and glanced at the panda. "How's the milk?"

"He-he's noticed me!" The panda lowered its head, avoiding the gaze of the sun, and almost stuck its nose in the milk. Unfortunately, due to the frost, the boiling liquid soon froze on his fur. "He's talking to me!"

"I'm ......," Leo Hargraves looked a little uncomfortable. Yes, I am. ”

"If you stare at the sun for too long, you could go blind," Ryan said. "My panda people are just taking care of their own health."

"Master, is he still looking?" Panda asked, he was too scared to look up.

"Don't worry, his vision is based on sport," Ryan added. "You should be safe."

"I ...... I'm flattered, but this reaction is unnecessary," Leo argues with great embarrassment.

"But you are the living sun, the greatest hero on earth!" The panda said, taking a deep breath. "I've got a poster of you in my bedroom!"

"Heroism is not a popularity race," Su

shi

E said. "You've proven your worth in the fight against the Superpowers, Timmy. Mathias thinks highly of you. In fact, I would like to invite you to the carnival. We need people like you, with kindness in their hearts. Of course, it's a dangerous job, and if you refuse—"

The panda was so frightened that he dropped the cup on the ground, and the milk turned into ice in a matter of seconds. The poor bear began to gasp and rolled on his back in the snow. Then he let out a very strong scream, and Ryan wondered if the penguins could hear it in the wasteland.

"Mr. Bo thinks you just committed the crime of panda extermination," Mr. Bo said to his bewildered teammates.

"This is the first time I've gotten such a reaction," Sunshine replied when the station's doors opened. Ryan and Shalin walked out first, both wearing evolved strength armor. The Atomic Cat and the Shroud followed. The former is draped in a white second layer of skin, conceived by Steage, that covers the entire body and even the eyes; Either way, it made him see. As far as Ryan knows, this protection is made up of trillions of cold-adapted bacteria. At the same time, the Shroud adds layers of tempered glass to his spacesuit to keep the heat inside, turning his spacesuit into a heavy and almost indestructible piece of armor. Stitch finished his march and put a heavy heat jacket over his plague doctor's suit.

"Are you sure you want to go with us, Atom Cat?" Sunshine asked when she saw Felix. "We are in great danger. If the alchemist did build her lair in this area, then she was certainly not defenseless. ”

"I owe you a favor," the young man replied, glancing at Ryan and Matthias. "I have some questions that I want answers."

"Me too," Salyn snickered. "I can see that you have some things for yourself. It's like a secret otaku conspiracy. ”

"The oranges are in the chicken coop," Ryan replied ominously.

Lovely sarin stared at him. "I don't get it."

"That's right." Ryan whistled, even as the psychopath raised her challenge in his direction.

"I still can't believe it." Felix said with his arms crossed. "Livia would never work with Carnival. Something is wrong. ”

"The world is impermanent." Sh

Oud replied with a shrug.

"You're dating my sister," Felix added. "Somehow, I think that's the weirdest part."

Ryan decides to postpone telling him about time travel.

One shock at a time.

As the team arrived at the rift on foot with the resonator device, Ryan froze time, purple and black particles swirling around his body. Just as he opened the way to the black world in the previous loop, he quickly found the entrance to the pocket dimension and forcibly opened it with his bare hands.

After throwing one resonator in and the other in the snow, a stream of particles formed between the two ends of the inlet, slowly opening it up. When time returned, a purple portal floated ominously above the icy rift.

"So?" Ryan asked. "Who's going in—"

"First!" Mr. Bo said as he immediately jumped over.

"Damn it!" Not to be outdone, Ryan immediately followed his idol, and the world around him brightened up in the flash of purple particles. The transport lasted only a split second, but the contrast between the two sides could not be more stark.

It was still daylight in Antarctica, and on the other side of the portal was a dark, starless sky. Purple lightning thundered above everyone's heads, and Ryan almost took the howling wind for a scream. An ominous building stands alone, surrounded by a vast expanse of boundless ice.

yes, what a warm and welcoming place.

Ryan saw a brief sight of the alchemist's base a few loops ago when he tried to open the way to the purple world, and he immediately recognized the structure. A huge black metal dome appeared in the snow, and reinforced blast doors were large enough for an airplane to pass through. All in all, this building is one of the largest Ryan has ever seen, and it rivals the Egyptian pyramids.

It's right here. Where it all began.

Ryan may have felt a sense of surprise at the sight, but some worrying details immediately caught his attention.

First, the dome was destroyed, and a hole with a diameter of more than 50 meters was blown open on the left. Judging by the way the metal is bent, the explosion that caused structural damage came from within. Second, although Ryan noticed that there were reinforced, stained portholes here and there, he couldn't see any light inside. Third, the building's blast doors are tilted to the left, as if the entire dome has sunk into the snow.

and the fourth ......

"What is this?" Lunn said that she walked through the portal and noticed it immediately.

The dead shell of a huge monster more than eight meters tall lies in the snow. Frost preserves the creature's flesh, even though half of its body is made of control implants. The left arm is a cannon, and the right arm is a technical blade large enough to split a tank in half. The creature had scales as red as blood, horns curved like bulls, three rows of fangs, and eight spider-like eyes. From its shoulders to its waist, its black armor was torn open with a gap, and brown foreign organs were sprinkled on the ice.

Everyone except Stitch and Atom made their way through the portal, and everyone carefully surrounded the shell, and Sarin pointed at the shell's face with her gauntlet to prevent it from waking up. It doesn't. By all accounts, the monster has been dead for a while, although Ryan doesn't know how long it has been because of the ice.

"Looks like McLaren's war beast." Sunshine said.

His teammates weren't so sure. "Mr. Bo never killed the model, he killed them all."

"At least it's dead," Sarin said, then wiping the snow off the monster's shoulders. "Look, on the shoulder."

Leo approaches the husks and illuminates them. On the armor of the monster is carved a cross mark similar to the letter "M" and the Omega symbol. Somehow, looking at it, Ryan was a little uneasy, and he couldn't tell why.

"What's that?" Mr. Bo asked. "An upside-down W?"

"I've mastered linguistics, master." Panda tells Ryan to try to help him. "If I had more information, I would be able to figure it out."

"Maybe we can hack into the implant and find out more from it." "They must have recorded what happened."

"This technology is ......," Ryan shook his head. I don't even know where to start. But it's not ......"

"It's not Mech

o

technology," Rya

Say. His own armor could not be attached to the monster's control implant.

"Hmm......" Shalin glanced at the hole in the dome. Do you think it blew itself up?" It may be that the laboratory experiment has failed. Don't you geniuses like them?"

"It's too early to tell." Sunshine replied before flying away. "Shroud, follow me. The rest of the people, go and hold the perimeter. If the alchemist still lives there, she might have noticed us. ”

The group scattered around the portal to ensure its safety, and they found the remains of old defensive turrets, which had either been destroyed or buried in ice. Ryan himself had his armor system analyze the structure, and various sensors slowly provided a larger overall view. The more the messenger sees, the more he squints. "Sunshine" and "Mr. Perspective" flew around the dome while maintaining a considerable distance.

"First of all, portholes are not made of glass," Sh

Oud said as he returned to the portal. "I can't control them. On closer inspection, I don't think they're portholes at all. They look like lenses or cameras. ”

"They don't seem to be active," Su

shi

E added. "As for the wasteland, it goes around in circles after a certain point."

"These fortifications haven't been maintained for years," Ryan said, inspecting a broken turret.

"The whole place looks empty," Sarin replied coldly. "To be honest, it gives me chills."

Ryan glanced at the robot's shell. The knife edge is not clean enough to be cut with a blade or laser.

Claw.

Claws kill this thing.

Ryan was still active when he saw the base in his vision, but not anymore. At one point, something went wrong.

"Why is the door tilted?" Panda asked worriedly, the whole place intimidating him.

"Because it's not a bunker," Ryan said, his armor readings showing simulated construction.

The dome is just the tip of the iceberg; The tower of a submarine, under the ice hides a larger structure. The entire base is a massive, kilometer-long war machine with massive metal wings and a reactor larger than most skyscrapers.

"It's a spaceship."