Regressed with Omnipotent AI on Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 196: Remote Armor

Hank's eyes widened. It was dead. Or more accurately—a headless corpse. It had been ripped apart.

Griffin stared at the scene, mouth agape.

"Holy shit... That looks like—a machine?!" And then he saw them. The Fearless Warriors. Four-meter-tall figures standing in perfect formation, their power armor gleaming under the bloodied sky.

Griffin laughed in disbelief. "We're saved! Those are human-made weapons!" Hope flickered in his voice. But before he could even finish his words— The chill arrived. Unseen. Unstoppable. It cut through the zombie horde, leaving behind a frozen path—directly toward the truck.

Like a phantom, it seeped inside. Through the walls, the metal—through flesh itself. Leo, sitting in the back seat, stiffened. His skin blackened, looking burned— His organs turned to ice. "Shit!" Hank didn't think—he acted. Kicking the door open, activating his hardened skin, he jumped out.

"Hank! Help—" Griffin's scream barely left his mouth before it froze—his face twisted in terror, locked in an eternal moment of agony. His body shattered like fragile glass.

Back in the mansion. Zack sat in front of a massive screen, analyzing data when Ego's voice cut through the quiet. "Sir, we've lost sixteen Fearless Warriors."

Zack's fingers froze over the keyboard. His eyes flickered with surprise. "What?"

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"I'm sorry, sir," Ego continued. "Just now, the power armor of sixteen warriors detected the loss of all vital signs." Zack's expression darkened. "And the time interval between each signal loss was shockingly short." Ego's tone remained steady, but the meaning behind the words was chilling. "It appears... They encountered something they couldn't stop."

Zack stiffened. Sixteen Fearless Warriors. Dead. That had never happened before. "...Where?" His voice was flat, but his mind was already racing.

"The location is South Broadway and Main Street, Tarrytown."

Without missing a beat, Zack snapped, "Pull up the satellite feed." The basement hummed as the holographic display came to life. The screen zoomed in from high-altitude satellite footage—NYC, closing in on a small city nearby. And then, he saw it. A roundabout, surrounded by mountains of dismembered corpses. Blood. Limbs. Carnage. The aftermath of Fearless Warriors doing what they did best—mass slaughter. But just beyond that...A crashed truck, smoke billowing from its hood.

Zack frowned. "...Did the survivors attack them?"It was a possibility. Dragging the screen, he adjusted the feed, scanning behind the truck. Then—he saw them. The sixteen Fearless Warriors. Grouped together in perfect formation, all standing motionless, chain swords raised mid-swing—as if frozen in time. And next to them... A young man. Also motionless.

Zack's frown deepened. "...Ego." His voice was calm, but tense. "Are you sure these warriors are dead?" From the footage, there were no visible wounds. No damaged armor. No signs of combat.

Ego's voice came without delay. "Sir. Based on the biometric feedback from their armor, there is no doubt—They are dead."

"We're still receiving data from the armor," Zack muttered, his brows furrowing deeper. That meant the power armor itself was fully functional. But if the armor was intact, then how had the Fearless Warriors inside died? Was there something out there that could bypass the armor entirely and kill the person inside without leaving a single mark on the suit? The thought made his skin crawl.

He stared at the satellite image again. The warriors stood frozen in place, their chain swords raised mid-swing, as if time had stopped for them. Apart from their unnatural stillness, there was nothing visibly wrong with their armor. "Ego, check their internal status. Look for any anomalies inside the armor."

"Connecting to the power armor now." The moment Zack finished speaking, Ego accessed the warriors' suits remotely. Normally, when a Fearless Warrior died, their armor would automatically send a distress signal back to base. This time, however, Ego was conducting a full scan, diving deeper into the data.

"Sir, I've found something." Zack's eyes narrowed. "The life support systems are still running, but they're struggling—the interior temperature of the armor is currently at minus 157 degrees Celsius."

Zack's breath hitched. "Minus... 157?! And that's after the heating system has been trying to compensate for the drop."

Ego continued, "Additionally, there are severe burn-like injuries across the warriors' bodies." A moment later, a holographic projection lit up, displaying an internal camera feed from inside one of the suits. Zack stiffened. The face of the dead warrior filled the screen. What was once a hardened, battle-scarred soldier was now barely recognizable. His face was grotesquely distorted—charred black, frostbitten beyond repair.

"Frostbite..." Zack murmured, realization dawning in his eyes. But not normal frostbite. This was severe, the kind of damage one would suffer from direct exposure to liquid nitrogen. But that was impossible. Even if someone drenched a Fearless Warrior in liquid nitrogen, the armor's thermal protection would have prevented this level of damage. And yet... They froze to death inside their suits.

"This doesn't make sense..." Zack muttered. "How the hell does someone freeze to death inside a fully sealed, heated power armor?"

There was no rational explanation. But Zack knew one thing—he wasn't going to figure it out sitting here. "Ego, prep my armor."

"Sir, I strongly advise against going there in person," Ego interrupted immediately. "If there's something that can completely bypass the armor and kill the warriors inside, then the risk of you going is—"

"Who said I was going personally?" Zack smirked. He stood up and walked toward a section of the basement wall. As he approached, the hidden compartment slid open, revealing an array of gadgets and experimental tech. Among them was a sleek headset—a device that looked remarkably like a high-end VR setup. "See? Told you this thing would be useful." He grabbed the neural-link control system and placed it over his head.

Minutes Later... A power armor soared through the sky, leaving a fiery trail in its wake. Zack's remotely piloted armor—was en route.

BOOM!

With a deafening sonic boom, the suit broke through the sound barrier. "Hah! This actually feels real!" Zack's voice rang through the suit's comms, his excitement evident. Despite not physically being inside, Zack felt everything as if he was. The neural-link system transmitted sensations—the acceleration, the g-forces, the subtle vibrations of flight.

Back in his mansion, the real Zack was lying on a luxurious recliner, legs spread out lazily, wearing the VR headset like a gamer lost in a simulation. "You can even feel the acceleration G-force! This is insane!" If anyone walked in right now, he'd look like a complete idiot.

Luckily, all the girls were out—so no one was around to see his glorious gaming session. "Sir," Ego interrupted his excitement, "Because of the neural-link system, you will also experience neurofeedback from the armor. That means—if the suit gets hit, you'll feel it...And if it gets damaged, you might feel pain."