Chapter 131 – Allen and Dr. Zola's Secret Plot
Ashes and wreckage from the Sentinels were strewn across the ground, with Jean Grey standing at the center.
At this moment, her eyes had turned pitch-black, and dark flames rose from her body like smoke.
Apocalypse, Charles, and Magneto all faced her as though confronting a great enemy, none daring to act rashly.
Apocalypse could sense the terrifying destructive force radiating from the Phoenix, and couldn't help but mutter inwardly, "So this is a Level 5 mutant?"
Throughout mutant history, there had never been a recorded case of a Level 5 mutant. Perhaps one had existed before, but no documentation remained.
Jean Grey was clearly the hidden Level 5 mutant of this era.
As for Scarlet Witch Wanda's level, none of them had ever encountered her directly, so they couldn't make a judgment.
It was evident that Charles and Magneto had previously witnessed Jean Grey in her uncontrolled state.
At the time, anything that so much as touched her black flames was reduced to dust in an instant. Only Logan, with his extraordinary regenerative abilities, could get close enough—and even then, he barely managed to knock her out with a punch.
Of course, Jean's dark persona back then was nowhere near as powerful as it was now.
Since then, Charles had been regularly reinforcing mental barriers within her mind to prevent the dark personality from overtaking her primary consciousness.
"Jean, wake up. Don't let the dark persona take over. Resist it, just like you practiced during training."
"The power of the mind comes from inner strength. You have to believe in yourself."
"You are you—unique and irreplaceable."
Charles communicated telepathically, trying to awaken Jean's primary personality.
Crack!
Suddenly, Jean's head snapped rigidly to the side, her pitch-black eyes as deep as an abyss.
Hiss...
The three men instinctively sucked in a breath of cold air.
They had good reason to believe that a single glance from her could be their immediate end.
Apocalypse clenched his fists, ready to flee at any moment.
Modern mutants were terrifying. He missed the days when ancient mutants were still reasonable.
Meanwhile, Magneto's first instinct was to snap Charles' neck to avoid further provoking the Dark Phoenix—but he managed to suppress that murderous impulse.
Jean didn't make another move. The darkness in her eyes gradually faded.
Eventually, she returned to normal.
"Professor… I'm a little scared," Jean said, trembling as she looked at the black dust nearby.
"It's over. Everything's okay now," Charles comforted her.
Seeing her primary personality return, all three breathed a sigh of relief.
They quickly ordered the evacuation of all students from the base.
Fortunately, the Dark Phoenix personality had surfaced just in time. If not, the death toll could've been catastrophic.
——
Meanwhile, Allen was still hunting Sentinels inside the base, completely unaware that everyone else had already evacuated.
As he turned a corner, he immediately pulled back behind the wall.
He'd spotted a lone Sentinel and prepared to ambush it.
He raised a hand to signal the angel not to move—waiting for the Sentinel to get closer so they could strike together.
In truth, the angel was mentally controlled, functioning like a robot that obeyed orders without question.
Allen just hadn't realized it.
As the Sentinel neared and was about to turn around—
"Ah-dah!"
Allen launched into a flying kick, and five angels attacked in unison.
"Argh!"
Allen had completely underestimated the Sentinel's weight—he bounced off first.
The five angels successfully pinned the robot to the ground, holding it down so Allen could finish it off.
"Wait! Stop! I'm one of you!" the Sentinel suddenly pleaded in a robotic voice.
"The Sentinels are evolving?!" Allen exclaimed, shocked. "They can even lie now to confuse their enemies?"
"Allen, it's me! Dr. Zola!" the Sentinel cried out in a panic.
"Nice try. Dr. Zola doesn't have such delicate features, long legs, or a body that changes shape at will," Allen said skeptically as he straddled the robot's back, pressing his pig-slaying blade to its head. "I'm the great Hydra Captain! If I get fooled by a robot, where's my dignity?"
"What would it take to convince you?"
The Sentinel's head rotated 180 degrees, its green eyes filled with eerie human-like grievance.
"If you're Zola, then you'd know what my favorite torture was back when I was a spy," Allen asked with a sly grin.
"Ten tall, blonde, long-legged G-cup beauties in lace camisoles and white thigh-highs trying to seduce you."
Allen froze. "Dr. Zola... when did you infiltrate the enemy ranks? I never thought you had the makings of a spy too!"
"Get off me first," Dr. Zola replied with disdain.
Allen awkwardly climbed off and muttered, "Hmph, like I enjoy riding something so stiff and cold."
Dr. Zola stood up and explained, "You installed a router in me, remember? I used its signal to hijack one of the Sentinels. Don't tell me you forgot?"
"I forgot."
"…"
Zola was dumbfounded. It had only been a few days. What was this guy thinking about all day?
"Doesn't matter now. My current setup can only control one Sentinel. But if you upgrade my hardware, I might be able to take over the whole army."
"Don't try to play games with me. Do I look stupid to you?" Allen blinked suspiciously.
"…"
Zola awkwardly denied it. "You're overthinking things. That's not what I meant."
"What did I think you meant?"
Allen's crooked grin made Zola, a literal digital consciousness, feel a chill. He sighed inwardly—this lunatic was hard to manipulate. It was like he could see through people's minds.
In truth, Zola was trying to trick Allen into upgrading his hardware, hoping to hijack the Sentinel control network and gain an army of machines.
"Upgrading the hardware? Please, that's child's play for me."
Allen smugly exposed him: "What you really want is to transfer your consciousness across countless machines—gain freedom and immortality. You're trying to become like Ultron."
Ultron, a true data-based lifeform, lived on the internet without needing a physical host.
Zola, on the other hand, was just an uploaded consciousness—at best, an electronic ghost. And worse yet, a ghost stuck in place.
"Let's talk business," Zola said seriously. "I found that the Sentinels are all controlled by a central system. If we destroy that mainframe, the entire army will be crippled."
"Wouldn't your presence in the network be detected? Like… you slipped something foreign in, and the host didn't notice?" Allen asked with odd phrasing.
Zola understood and answered, "Before bypassing the firewall, I set up a decoy data model. Given their AI level, there's no way they'd notice me."
"Why not just take over the mainframe?" Allen suggested.
"If I could, would I be here wasting time with you?" Zola snapped. "I'm suffering from an algorithmic mismatch. It's like giving you a pig's blood transfusion—instant rejection."
"Just admit you can't do it. Stop making excuses," Allen sneered.
"Back on topic," Zola continued. "I need to wait until they start retrieving Sentinels for data cleanup. Only then can I track the mainframe's exact location and send you the coordinates. If I try a reverse breach now, I'll get exposed instantly."
"Fine, I'll wait for your signal."
Allen couldn't help with this anyway.
He wasn't a hacker—his only use for the internet was visiting high-risk sites.
The Sentinel that Zola had hijacked had already disabled its recording function and replaced it with fake surveillance footage. Everything looked normal from the operator's interface.
Of course, they had to keep their collaboration hidden. If video footage ever revealed Allen getting help from a Sentinel, the whole plan would collapse.
——
Trask Industries – Data Processing Center
The Sentinel army had been split into three groups for simultaneous surprise attacks on three bases.
From their perspective, the results were disappointing.
Especially the unit wiped out in seconds by the Dark Phoenix—hundreds of Sentinels lost instantly. Everyone fell silent.
The screen went black. Signals dropped. All signs indicated total annihilation.
"Who is she?"
That question surfaced simultaneously in the minds of Trask and his five top executives.
None of the data they'd collected mentioned a mutant with that level of power.
She was clearly uncontrollable—a serious threat to humanity.
Trask pulled up the analytical data and said grimly, "According to the energy model, her radiation levels exceed our detection threshold. She's basically a walking hundred-thousand-ton nuclear bomb."
"That terrifying?!" the five execs exclaimed, thinking he was exaggerating.
How could any human wield that kind of power? Even the so-called ancient gods would tremble before a nuke.
Then again, those gods were all bottom-tier.
"She's worse," Trask said coldly. "A nuclear bomb explodes once—she can keep going indefinitely."
"…"
The five execs' expressions shifted dramatically.
They had studied mutants long enough to know: most powers didn't have a limit on how often they could be used.
"Doctor, do you have any countermeasures?"
Trask, putting on a serious act, replied, "We need to retrieve the Sentinels first. I need more data."
He couldn't tell them the truth—or all his investors would flee.
This operation had ended in near failure.
One Sentinel unit managed to kill a dozen mutants.
One was completely wiped out by the Dark Phoenix.
The third…
They turned to the big screen.
Allen, that lunatic, had taken down nearly half the Sentinels on his own—using dirty tricks and sacrificing his angelic minions.
"Forget about him," Trask muttered, barely restraining the urge to strangle this madman.
Allen had repeatedly sabotaged their operations, tarnishing the Sentinel project's image.
That feeling—of loathing someone yet being powerless against them—made Trask grind his teeth in frustration.
He entered the retrieval command.
On-screen, the Sentinels took off and flew away from the base, with Allen cheerfully waving goodbye below.
Trask seriously considered adding a self-destruct protocol. Next time they encountered this nutcase, he'd order all Sentinels to detonate on the spot—let's see if he could survive that.
Once the Sentinels returned to the warehouse, they docked into their interface stations to undergo routine data cleanup—like a computer clearing out junk files to prevent lag.
Among them, one Sentinel's eyes briefly flickered green before returning to normal.
——
Translation: Rule Breakthrough Exceeded 17%
Translation: New Algorithm Optimization at 39%…
Translation: Special Subject Detected—Initiating Tracking…
Translation: Signal Source Captured—Beginning Data Collection…
Translation: Initiating Protocol No. 532