The Mage of Primordial Chaos

"And...I think that's everything..." I muttered to myself. I then spun around and looked at the mirror attached to the back of the door of the fitting room I was in.

Holy shit.

I looked completely like a girl. I had searched up a guide on my phone on how to do makeup, and followed it strictly. And now, I looked exactly like Obsidia, except taller. We could pass for twins. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

The girls, upon seeing me, dropped their jaws.

"Wow...I don't even recognize him anymore," Feng Mian remarked, amused.

"Yeah...it's like we're looking at a second Obsidia," Yu An Yan added, looking between the real Obsidia and I.

Even the dragon herself was pretty surprised. "Oh...I never realized how similar we looked."

"Shut up," I muttered. "Let's get on with the mission...I want to get out of this outfit as soon as possible."

"Aw, why? You look cute, Big Brother Xuan Kai!" Qing Yue exclaimed, hugging me tightly. "Mm...you still have the same sweet scent though...that's good!"

"Whatever...let's go," I said, heading for the door. Xiang Peng already paid for the clothes, so we were free to leave.

Around ten minutes later, we were back at the movie theatre. The receptionist at the front recognized our faces, so she didn't ask us for another payment. As an aside, I took off my wig for this so I wouldn't be mistaken for a new guest. The mask was part of my original look, so keeping that on was fine. In fact, it worked in my favor since it could block my female-style makeup for the most part.

Once we were inside the female bathroom, I opened up the comms again after making sure no one was around.

"Okay, so...we figured it out. We're inside the female bathroom right now...where do we go next?"

"Sweet," the lady's voice came back through the earpiece after a while. "Look in the third stall from left to right. There should be a secret trapdoor in there somewhere."

"Secret trapdoor..." I entered the stall the lady indicated, and began looking around for any secret buttons, mechanisms, et cetera...but couldn't find any. Then, I searched the one last place that I couldn't see from the outside...

I lifted the toilet's tank lid, where all the valves and stuff were located. And there, I found what I was looking for - a tiny button beneath the float.

"Kuku...how sneaky," I muttered, and pressed down on the button - hard. It took quite a bit of force to activate, since obviously whoever set this up didn't want the button to go off automatically from the water pressure or anything when someone flushed the toilet.

I heard a faint rumbling noise, and one of the floor tiles slide sideways to reveal a ladder leading downwards. I smirked, then called the girls.

"Hey, I found the entrance," I said.

"Oop, let's head inside then," Feng Mian replied, inspecting the entrance before preparing to drop down. The rest of the girls soon followed, and I was the last one to enter. As an aside, I locked the stall door so that no one would come in and stumble across this secret entrance. That meant we were more or less on a time limit here - if we took too long, people may start getting suspicious and for example, call some employees to check out what's going on in the stall.

In any case, the room we dropped down into was very different from the stall. It was clean, and...white. Yep, everything was white. The ceiling, the floor, the walls - everything. The color scheme made it seem like a laboratory, which further confirmed that Old Man Leng's wife's info was correct, and there was indeed some sort of scientific research going on down here. But my question was...why they wanted to hide it.

I turned on my Third Eye, looking for any presences around us. Surprisingly enough...I couldn't sense any.

No security, no staff, no nothing? That's...interesting. I don't see any security cameras or anything of the sort, either...

We continued walking down the white corridor, and eventually arrived before a large door. It slid open automatically when we got near, and it the way it unlocked was almost like a vault. But what was inside of this room, was the real surprise.

"What...is  that?" I muttered.

What we were currently looking at was a massive head. A massive...robotic head. It was contained within a display case, and it had holographic labels of some kind showing the different parts of the head.

"Uh...some kind of robot thingy?" Xiang Peng said, stating the obvious.

"No, I mean...what does this have to do whatever they are researching down here?" I murmured. "Let's...explore further."

The girls all nodded in agreement, and we continued past the mechanical head, venturing deeper into this underground facility.

As we walked through the corridor, we looked out the windows on either side of us, and spotted some pretty...creepy things. Human skeletons and frames, being put on display and labelled the same way that head was. Until at last, my Third Eye picked up on something - a single presence.

I signaled for everyone to stop walking, and then slowly crept up to the door in front of us. I placed my ear against it, and heard a man, yelling something.

"At last...after years of hard work and research...at last I have completed it...my life's work," he said, laughing uncontrollably. "HAHAHAHA! Yes...with this invention, I can finally prove to everybody that science is a power far greater than magic!"

I narrowed my eyes.  Was this guy a...mad scientist? And...what invention is he talking about? I obviously can't just barge in there to see. I need to report this information to Old Man Leng's wife first, then see what she wants us to do.

I backed away from the door, then turned to the girls, and pointed in the direction we came from, signaling that we're leaving. But then, the man within the room just happened to head out as well, and he spotted us.

Both parties froze, but I was the first to come back to my senses and react accordingly.

"Go!" I yelled, before running away. The girls did the same, and the mad scientist's face contorted in rage.

"You...how did you find this place?!" he yelled in anguish. "Ngh...Activate Defense Protocols! Level: Severe!"

A calm, AI female voice responded amidst the chaos.

"Activating Defense Protocols. Level: Severe."

Suddenly, sirens all around us began blaring, and the originally bright lights turned crimson red. The walls, to our surprise,  opened up, and multiple mecha robots equipped with what seemed like artillery weapons slowly walked out of them.

"W-What do we do, Xuan Kai?!" Lan Xiao Su yelped, having never been in such a dangerous situation before. Back in the Bloodthirsters fight, she had been relatively safe, staying behind cover all the time, but now we're pretty much dead meat out in the open.

"Damn it...just run! I'll do what I can to hold them off!" I yelled, before facing the robots.

The machines looked down at me, and pointed their gun towards my head.

PEW!

Several bullets flew out, of its right 'hand', which was in reality a minigun of sorts. The other robot also shot out a barrage of bullets out of its own minigun, since I assumed all these robots were of the same model and had the same functionalities - eliminate their target.

But I had a plan in mind. If my guess is right, then these guns and bullets should be based on the MPCs of real guns...which meant that the bullets were essentially made out of mana. If that's the case, then...

I'm really hoping this works...!

I raised out both my hands, one to each robot, the bullets flew directly towards me, but I merely activated my Chaos power, and absorbed the projectiles into my body with ease.

The mad scientist, looking at this scene, widened his eyes in shock.

"W-W-W-What?! How did you just do that?! Ugh...damn it, Clora, activate the lasers!" he yelled.

"Activating Laser Artillery." Clora, the female AI, replied to his voice command.

Damn it...I really wish I could get past all these robots and just give that damn scientist a good punch in the face, but I'm kind of busy right now with all these robots around me.

There were eight of them in total, and they had me surrounded, I succesfully dragged their attention away from the girls, who had already gotten out safely.

I chuckled.  This is...a good challenge, I suppose.

I slid underneath one of the robots, right in between the legs, I then ran, the robots trailing behind me while shooting their guns. But at this rate, I would outrun th-

"Oh shit!"

I jumped up, just in time to avoid being vaporized by a laser beam.

D-Damn you, mad scientist....

I spun around and absorbed all of the incoming gunfire, converting it into mana for myself. I didn't know if I could absorb the laser though, and I really didn't want to risk it, but I was pretty much trapped here. The way to the massive head, where we came from, was completely blocked by these rotating laser beams. And behind me were eight massive mechas...this situation definitely wasn't looking good.

"Xuan Kai!" Feng Mian yelled in worry.

"I'm fine! Just get out of here!" I responded, before pulling out Ace.

"B-But-"

"He's right. Let's go!" Xiang Peng yelled, pulling on Feng Mian's arm and dragging her away.

Heh. I appreciate it, Xiang Peng. Now then...

I turned around, and grinned despite the grim situation.  This is going to be a close one...