Chapter 239: Consciousness Reservoir
"Interesting, but that's about it."
George kicked the corpse of the Absorber away, then raised his head and smiled at the surveillance camera in the upper right corner:
"Dr. Zola, if you have any trump cards left, you'd better bring them out now. Otherwise, you won't get another chance."
"How can this be? What kind of ability is that? Why did the Absorber die instantly without even putting up a fight?"
Zola stared at George's smiling face on the monitor, his consciousness involuntarily trembling.
"Damn it!"
Trump cards? What trump cards did he have left?
"This humiliation—I'll repay it a hundredfold next time."
No longer hesitating, Zola turned and activated the flight system on his body, leaping out the window and flying away from the island.
Although he had a consciousness reservoir, and in the event this body was destroyed, he could immediately upload his consciousness to a pre-prepared storage unit via the network, then install that consciousness into a backup robotic body—
—thus achieving infinite resurrection.
But it didn't come without cost.
First of all, creating a consciousness reservoir was incredibly complex, requiring a massive investment of time, as well as thorough preparation in advance.
Once he resorted to this method, he would have to devote a long period afterward solely to producing another consciousness reservoir, in case he was killed again and couldn't revive.
Secondly, every consciousness transfer would severely weaken his mind for an extended period before it could return to normal.
So unless absolutely necessary, he didn't want his robotic body to be damaged.
In fact, this robotic body of his was not weak—it was equipped with various weapons systems and had recently been enhanced with the Tesseract's energy as a power source, including powerful energy weapons.
Far superior to the mass-produced HYDRA soldiers.
By his calculations, even in a one-on-one fight against Iron Man, his chances of victory exceeded eighty percent.
But his opponent could control metal, which directly countered him. There was no way he could win.
However, just as he flew above the base and was preparing to accelerate and escape, he suddenly found himself unable to move.
"Dr. Zola, where do you think you're going?"
At the same time, George's voice came from behind him.
George had noticed that the tracking spell's direction had suddenly shifted, pointing outside the base—how could he not realize Zola was trying to flee?
And with his exceptional eyesight, as soon as he reached the window, he immediately spotted Zola above the base, and used Apparition to teleport behind him, using his ability to seize control.
The power to control metal was a complete counter to anyone relying on technology.
"Hail HYDRA!"
Realizing he couldn't move and that George had appeared before him, Zola knew he had to abandon this body.
But before giving it up, he planned one final counterattack.
Because of his ability to transfer consciousness, he had long since installed a self-destruct device within the robotic body.
When facing an unbeatable enemy, he could take advantage of the opponent's final moment of carelessness to detonate the robot and kill them at the cost of his body.
However, George reacted swiftly.
The moment he heard Zola shout "Hail HYDRA," he realized something was wrong. While still controlling Zola's robotic body, he raised his wand and cast a freezing spell.
"Total Immobilization."
In an instant, all of the robot's internal components seemed to freeze in time, completely immobilized.
Only Zola's consciousness on the robot's chest display screen could still move.
"How can this be? Even the self-destruct device won't work!"
Zola's consciousness was now flustered.
He realized he had completely lost control over the robotic body. Forget activating the self-destruct—he couldn't even upload his consciousness to the reservoir voluntarily.
Originally, if this body were destroyed, his consciousness would automatically upload to the reservoir. Or, if he actively abandoned the body, it would upload as well.
But now, having lost control of the machine, he was like a prisoner, trapped within the robotic shell.
"Fortunately, his psychic powers only work on living beings."
At this point, Zola could only be thankful that George, who had inherited Professor X's psychic abilities, according to the data, could not affect computers.
So he couldn't read his mind or learn of his current condition.
Soon, if he could just provoke George into destroying his robotic body, his consciousness could escape and transfer into the reservoir to revive elsewhere.
Unfortunately, he miscalculated again.
After immobilizing Zola, George reached out and touched the robotic body, using electromagnetic powers to hack into it.
While Professor X's telepathy couldn't read computers, George's electromagnetic abilities allowed him to hack them, making him one of the top hackers in the world.
Misaka Mikoto's electromagnetic power allowed her to control electronics, decode all pre-programmed systems, and bypass any firewall.
She didn't even need cables to hack a computer—through electrical signals and electronic manipulation, she could perform hacking behavior, even destroy devices through communication lines.
By simply touching a computer or PDA, she could control it. As long as she transferred her thoughts to the machine, the computer would respond like an echo, doing whatever she wanted.
And George, having inherited Misaka Mikoto's electromagnetic power, could do the same.
"So that's how it is."
A moment later, George withdrew his hand from Zola's robotic body. He had already understood all the data and intelligence stored in Zola's mind.
"If there's consciousness, there's a soul. And if there's a soul, it's easy to deal with."
Looking at Zola's consciousness on the robot's chest display, he raised his hand and cast the Killing Curse again:
"Avada Kedavra!"
A green light struck the robot, and Zola's consciousness on the display began to dissipate.
"How can this be? Impossible! My consciousness—"
He had thought that even if George didn't destroy the body and kept him trapped inside, at worst, he'd remain imprisoned, and would one day escape.
He never imagined George could directly kill his consciousness, completely eliminating any possibility of uploading to the consciousness reservoir and reviving.
"Good thing the Killing Curse works on the soul and consciousness—otherwise, he'd have been hard to deal with!"
Someone like Dr. Zola was indeed extremely difficult to kill completely under normal circumstances.
No matter how many bodies you destroyed, his consciousness could exist through the network and later revive in another robotic body.
This was somewhat similar to Ultron.
But as long as there's consciousness and intelligence, that means a soul has been born.
And if there's a soul, then soul-targeting magic can be used.
That's the advantage of being a wizard—versatile enough to deal with any kind of enemy.
(End of Chapter)