Reborn in Hollywood

Why?

Bagos leaned back in his chair.

"Sixty years ago, Neo and Trinity stormed into Machine City and negotiated with the Machine Emperor. Since then, the Machine Emperor has completely transformed Machine City."

She paused.

"The current Mechanical City is a true permanent fortress, with hundreds of layers of defense on the outside and fully automated weapons inside. Not even a fly can get in. The limit that humans can get close to is the human breeding farms on the outer perimeter."

Li Rui remained silent.

Of course he knows these things.

In the movie, the defenses of the mechanical city were indeed exaggerated.

Neo and Trinity were able to get in because of their special abilities and luck.

For an ordinary person, they wouldn't even be able to get close to the outside.

But he is no ordinary person; he has the power of divine judgment.

Although it empties the mana bar once and you have to wait a long time to use it a second time, it is extremely powerful and has an extra restraining effect on dark side targets. It is especially effective against complete mechanical life forms like the Mechanical City.

The issue is……

How to release it?

If it's to be lowered from the air, a hovercraft will definitely be needed.

But the hovercraft on the human side use anti-gravity engines, which are very sophisticated.

Will the lightning energy of the Light Judgment affect those devices?

In case the engine fails, the ship could fall from a height of hundreds of meters...

Li Rui didn't want to experience his first "death" in this way.

Seeing his silence, Baggs assumed he had given up.

She stood up, walked to the door, and glanced back at him.

"Just stay put and don't think about going out."

The door closed.

Li Rui sat alone in his cell, staring at the ceiling.

After much thought, he finally came to a conclusion:

We need to find a hovercraft with high "magic resistance" first.

or……

Approach the Machine City in a different way, drop him off when you get close, and let him walk forward.

But before that, he had to figure out a way to get out of the cell.

After spending a few days in the prison in Aiou City, Li Rui gradually figured out the routine there.

Meals are delivered at the same time every day, shifts change at the same time every day, and at the same time every day—Bacchus will come.

She seemed to have been assigned the task of "testing this outsider," asking the same questions every time she came.

"Where did you come from?"

Why do you look different from the people here?

"What do you want to do in Io?"

Li Rui always gave ambiguous answers, never giving her a clear answer.

But he did one thing.

Every time Bagus came, he would gently pluck at her heartstrings with the Force.

It's not about control, it's about guidance—making her less wary of him, more curious, and more trusting.

This subtle influence is so profound that even the person being influenced is unaware of it.

On the seventh day, when Bagus returned, his eyes were different.

"You really aren't going to tell me who you are?"

Li Rui countered with a question.

"If I told you, would you believe me?"

Bagos hesitated for a moment, then slowly nodded.

"I don't know, but I want to try."

Li Rui smiled.

"I'll tell you when the time is right."

Baggs sighed.

"General Naobi is losing patience. If you don't reveal your origins soon, I won't be the one questioning you next."

Li Rui didn't say anything.

On the ninth day, Baggus rushed into the cell.

"Come with me now!"

Li Rui thought to himself, "Here it comes."

"Where to?"

"My ship."

Baggs lowered his voice, "Neobi won't let me go, but I have to. Neo is alive, and I know where he is."

Li Rui stood up.

Are you sure you want to take me with you?

Baggs looked at him.

"I don't know why, but I feel like I should bring you along."

Li Rui's lips curled up, thinking to himself, "You better not regret this."

"Let's go then."

The two walked through the corridor, avoiding the patrolling guards, and arrived at a secluded helipad.

A hovercraft was moored there.

The Moneo-Mosson.

Mnemonic goddess.

Bagos jumped onto the boat, and Li Rui followed behind.

The moment the hatch closed, the crew members saw Li Rui and were all stunned.

"Bagos, he is—"

"There's no time to explain."

Bagus interrupted them, "Let's go."

The hovercraft took off, sailed out of Io, and headed towards that desolate wasteland.

Over the next few days, Li Rui witnessed Bagus's efforts firsthand.

She tried time and again to locate Neo's brainwave signals, but was repeatedly forced back by the mechanical city's defense system.

The crew members were exhausted, but no one complained.

Li Rui stood by the porthole, looking at the distant, faintly visible, black megacity.

Machine City—his goal.

The day has finally come!

A weak signal appeared on the sensor.

"Found it."

The operator's voice trembled, "It's Neo, he's in the seventh section of the breeding farm."

Bagos rushed to the porthole.

In the distance, a huge complex of buildings can be vaguely seen on the ground.

Those were human-run farms, where hundreds of thousands of people lay dormant in nutrient solutions, becoming biological batteries for the machines.

"Open the hatch!" Baggs ordered.

The hovercraft hovered in mid-air, the hatch slowly opened, and a humid airflow rushed in.

A synthetic robot flew into the cabin, holding a naked man in its "arms".

It's Neo.

His skin was pale, and his muscles were not as atrophied as they were sixty years ago, but he was still so thin that he was just skin and bones.

Li Rui recognized him at a glance just by looking at that face.

The face of an older version of Keanu Reeves.

Saibei carried Neo into the cabin, and the crew immediately surrounded him, wrapping his body in a rag.

Just then, a dark shadow swept past everyone.

Li Rui rushed out.

He jumped off the hovercraft and plummeted towards the ground.

"plum!"

Bagus's voice came from behind, "What are you doing?!"

Li Rui did not turn around.

He had only one goal—the Machine City.

Behind him, the hovercraft's hatch slowly closed.

Bagus and the others were too busy rescuing Neo to chase after him.

Li Rui increased his speed, channeling his primal force into his legs, leaping more than ten meters with each step.

Soon, the buildings of those livestock farms came into view.

A massive tower, a dense network of pipes, and rows of nutrient tanks.

Li Rui did not stop and continued forward.

He knew that further away lay the Mechanical City.

But after running less than two kilometers, a buzzing sound came from the sky.

They are a group of mechanical squid.

Thousands upon thousands of sentries pressed down on him like a dark cloud, blotting out the sun.

Li Rui stopped in his tracks.

He looked up at the mechanical squid.

The squid's searchlights locked onto him, and the weapon systems activated.

A cold voice came from inside the squid.

"Intruder, halt your advance immediately, or you will be eliminated."

Li Rui stood still, motionless.

"I need to see the analyst."

There was a moment of silence.

"The analysts will not see you, and Mechanical City will no longer speak to any humans."

Li Rui smiled helplessly.

"Then there's nothing we can do."

He took a deep breath.

The Force surged wildly within him.

[Force Acceleration] and [Force Jump] are activated simultaneously.

Li Rui's figure transformed into a blur as he rushed towards the nearest tower.

The mechanical squid has fired.

No longer the close-quarters combat of sixty years ago, laser beams poured down like a torrential rain, but Li Rui had already vanished from his spot.

He leaped continuously across the tower's walls, using each landing as leverage to climb higher.

Ten meters, twenty meters, fifty meters, one hundred meters...

The mechanical squid caught up.

Two hundred meters, three hundred meters, four hundred meters...

Li Rui leaped to the top of the tower and stood on a narrow platform.

The entire breeding farm can be seen at your feet.

In the distance, the black outline of the mechanical city looked particularly sinister in the setting sun.

Above, countless mechanical squid were gathering, densely packed, blotting out the sun.

Li Rui raised his hands.

The Force condenses, compresses, and burns within the body.

This was the first time he had used the Judgment of Light.

In the Star Wars universe, this is a forbidden skill recorded in the ancient texts of the Jedi Order.

Li Rui closed his eyes, raised his hands, and let the Force surge through his body.

Then--

He opened his eyes and pounded his fists down hard.

boom--!

Golden lightning burst forth from his palm, cascading down like a waterfall.

The light was so blinding that it was impossible to look directly at it, and the sound was deafening, as if the whole world was trembling.

Lightning struck the tower.

The tower was instantly enveloped in golden arcs of electricity, and the metal structures began to short-circuit under the power of the lightning, sparking endless bursts of sparks.

But the lightning did not stop.

It seemed to have a life of its own, spreading downwards along the tower and then outwards in all directions.

One building, two buildings, ten buildings, a hundred buildings...

The golden plasma engulfed everything.

Those farms, those pipelines, those nutrient tanks, those sleeping humans, were all submerged in gold.

The distant mechanical city was not spared either.

The lightning swept over like a giant wave, crashing into the mechanical city's defensive barrier. The barrier held for less than a second before shattering.

Golden lightning surged into the city, devouring every street, every building, and every mechanical life form.

In the sky, the mechanical squid fell like raindrops.

They were struck by lightning, their internal circuits instantly burned out, emitting black smoke as they crashed to the ground with a crackling sound.

The entire process lasted less than ten seconds.

But ten seconds later, it was all over.

Li Rui stood at the top of the tower, his hands hanging down.

Beneath my feet, the entire land was deathly silent.

The livestock farms are completely paralyzed, and the towers are still emitting smoke.

The distant mechanical city was pitch black, without a single ray of light.

There was no longer a single mechanical squid in the sky.

Li Rui was panting heavily.

The judgment of light cleared his blue bar in one go.

If you want to use it again next time, you'll have to save up for at least another year and a half.

This is the biggest difference between Light Force lightning and Dark Force lightning—you don't have to bear the erosion of the mind by darkness, but you also can't expect to be like Palpatine, having lightning continuously illuminate the entire sky.

Li Rui looked down at the ground in the distance.

The Monemoxene landed crookedly on the open ground.

When the lightning struck, its engine was clearly affected, forcing it to make an emergency landing.

Li Rui took a deep breath and jumped off the tower.

The Force Jump was still active, albeit weakly, but enough for him to land safely.

He walked towards the Mnemosyne, stepping over the wreckage of the mechanical squid scattered on the ground.

The hatch slowly opened.

Bagos stood in the doorway, with her crew behind her.

They all stared at Li Rui, their eyes filled with disbelief, but even more so with fear.