All the changes happened in a very short time.

Simultaneous with that series of system broadcasts, a set of heavy, complex, precise, and formidable-looking combat armor appeared on Lily. The combat armor stretched and deformed from the neck guard, with an obvious spatial folding effect in play. When the armor was fully deployed, seventy percent of Lily's body was completely covered in silvery-white metal. Solid and precise plating extended from her back to her abdomen and was connected by variable structures at the joints of her limbs. The areas not covered by armor were not without protection. A translucent, light blue barrier flowed between the armor gaps, clearly a further enhancement and effective supplement to the armor's protective capabilities.

The armor itself was just the basic framework of the system. The various combat kits mounted on the armor were where this equipment was most powerful. Two sets of twin-linked launchers were symmetrically mounted on either side of Lily's body. On her back were antenna devices and a weapon platform that looked like an anti-aircraft laser, while the head of the armor had a large number of precision sensors and things that looked like weapon launch ports. These gadgets made the whole suit of armor as awe-inspiring as a fully armed doomsday chariot.

Everyone was stunned when they saw the complete form of this thing—of course, only half the reason was being awed by its mighty appearance. The other half was due to some strange equipment mentioned in the system report…

"Holy..." Nangong Sanba, dumbfounded, managed to squeeze out half a sentence after a long while, "This is a little too fierce..."

Nangong Wuyue thoughtfully drew circles on the ground with her tail, muttering, "How'd it turn out like MetalGarurumon..."

"How is it, Lily?" Hao Ren ignored the Nangong siblings' whispers, looking at Lily, now a mechanized armored beast, with a smug expression. "Move around, see if it feels right."

Lily had been in a motionless, dazed state since the armor deployed, her eyes crossed (because there was now a gravity-sensing radar on the bridge of her nose). Hao Ren's words startled her awake from her silly-dog state. The husky girl seemed to have no idea how to control her body anymore, stiffly wagging her tail and clumsily lifting a front paw in front of her eyes. "Is this still me… Huh? I can talk?!"

A slightly distorted synthesized electronic voice sounded from the chest of the combat armor, but it was still clearly Lily's usual voice.

"Doggie communication device..." Hao Ren nodded with a matter-of-fact expression. "I said I had to solve the problem of you not being able to talk in fully beast form—which is actually one of your biggest weaknesses. Not being able to communicate with comrades on the battlefield will inevitably cause huge problems, so I had the data terminal design this thing for you using brainwave reading devices as a reference."

Vivian couldn't help but whisper, "Your function is good, but is this name really okay?"

"Perfectly fine," Hao Ren waved his hand. "Don't worry about the details."

Although the name was worth complaining about, everyone had to admit that this device, which allowed Lily to speak in husky form, was definitely one of the most valuable functions of the entire combat armor. Not being able to communicate in battle was already frustrating enough. Even more frustrating was having to communicate with Lily through eye contact in that situation—the difficulty of "reading the room" with a husky was ridiculously high, because Lily's eyes in that situation always had only two modes: "WTF is this?" and "WTF was I gonna say?"...

Now a device that allowed Lily to speak in husky form simply saved everyone who had to fight alongside her.

After confirming that she could really speak in this form, Lily gradually recovered from her initial shock, and then entered excitement mode. She couldn't wait to study what this armor, which looked particularly mighty, could actually do.

The giant husky began to jump up and down, running east and west, circling to bite her tail, and impatiently testing every function of the armor. The combat armor's control system was integrated into the brainwave reader in the head armor. As long as Lily moved her mind, she could know how many modules it had and the basic information of these modules, and her learning ability was actually frighteningly high (after all, she graduated from Peking University four times). She only needed to see these operations once to know what was going on, so Hao Ren's explanation from the side even seemed a bit redundant—she understood many functions before he even had time to introduce them.

Hao Ren, with a smile on his face, watched Lily frolic and said, "This thing takes flexibility into account as much as possible—because your main habit is still close combat, so every joint on the armor is designed to allow you to flexibly perform your usual movements, and to compensate for the resulting decrease in armor defense, I've also added shield generators to various key locations—but those are small, low-power models used on autonomous machinery, so don't rely on them too much.

"The antennas and sensors mounted on the armor can actually be retracted inside. The current configuration is just for ease of function display and testing. You can hide these gadgets when you select combat posture, which can prevent you from breaking them when you're fighting.

"The launchers can also be stowed away—but only semi-stowed. Part of the launcher housing will remain exposed, which can't be helped. Pre-loaded are four miniature nuclear bombs and four graviton missiles, and there are sixteen spare missiles inside the armor. After they're used up, you can replenish ammunition with the trans-spatial ammunition supply module. The ammunition depot is connected to Nolan's weapons factory, but due to power limitations, the ammunition supply speed is limited, so pay attention to that.

"The beam array on your back can be used for air defense. The attack power isn't very high, but it fires quickly and doesn't consume much energy. It'll be easy to deal with fragile units flying in the sky—this time you won't have to fire a dog cannon just to hit a gargoyle.

"In addition, your dog cannon is still your strongest attack skill. I've also designed auxiliary equipment for this. There's a set of tactical visual devices on the helmet, so you won't have to worry about line of sight issues next time you release your ultimate move—why don't you try it out now? Of course, just activate the eyepiece, don't actually fire a cannon here."

Lily was so immersed in excitement at this time that she completely ignored Hao Ren directly calling her gorgeous light cannon a "dog cannon." She shook her head, and a set of deformation devices immediately covered her eyes on the helmet. Suddenly, the original crystal-enhanced dog eyes became four tactical electronic eyes flashing with a faint red light, looking particularly imposing.

"Ooooh—" Lily exclaimed in a drawn-out tone, "This… this this… this thing can even correct my colorblindness?!"

Then she excitedly looked around everywhere, exclaiming as she looked, "Wow! This can also mark targeting frames for you guys one by one! And distance and defense parameters! And recommended ammunition! And firing priority!"

The crowd watching the excitement around Lily immediately retreated in unison. Nangong Sanba shouted as he retreated, "Calm down! This thing isn't played like that!"

"I'm not a brat!" Lily said, raising her head. "But then again… I always felt that this armor shouldn't have been designed in just a few days… and it looks a little familiar. Landlord, did you want to give me something like this before?"

Hao Ren had to admit that this husky was usually muddleheaded, but at critical moments, she really had a bit of keenness. He nodded with some embarrassment, "Putting it into action has really only been a matter of the last few days, but the idea was indeed there before—it was when we were time traveling before, didn't we fight that half-biological, half-mechanical Cerberus in the Underworld? At that time, I thought it was such a waste not to use your large size after you transformed, so part of the design inspiration came from that time..."

Lily immediately bared her teeth, "Landlord! You actually took inspiration from such a disgusting monster?"

"Anyway, the finished product is good," Hao Ren spread his hands. "You like it quite a bit yourself, don't you?"

"Forget it, I won't haggle with you since this thing is so awesome." Lily wagged her tail and said magnanimously, then continued to study the functions of this new equipment. She would turn on the crystal-enhanced headlights, making those four electronic eyes shake around like searchlights. She would turn on the fur grooming device, humming comfortably like she was on drugs. Finally, a windshield wiper even popped out from under her neck, scraping back and forth on the electromagnetic radar shield with a squeak…

Hao Ren had completely forgotten what state he was in when he came up with this ingenious design…

Finally, after Lily tested eighty or ninety percent of the combat armor's functions, she suddenly remembered something and looked down at Hao Ren, "By the way, Landlord, now that I have such a layer of armor on me, it's all smooth everywhere. Where do you stand when you ride me to fight?"

Nangong Sanba slapped his forehead, feeling that this dog had completely let herself go, accepting the setting of being Hao Ren's combat mount on the battlefield.

But the next second, he realized he had clapped too early, because he saw Hao Ren pull out a remote control from his pocket and press it with a "beep." The armor plate on Lily's head immediately opened, and a chair rose from inside…

"Besides this, there's also a crew pod under your neck, and there are two rows of seats on your back that can be raised." Hao Ren said without changing his expression.

Lily: "… Landlord, I feel like something's not right."

Hao Ren: "… Ah ha ha… Have you tested enough? If you've tested enough, let's put it away first. It'll be more tiring to control with brainwaves the first time you activate this device."

As expected, Lily's attention was diverted just like that. "Oh oh, I was wondering why I felt a little dizzy now even though I just ate. I thought I had low blood sugar. Then wait for me, I'll go change back~~"

After Lily changed back to human form, the combat armor turned back into a silvery-white small collar, like a piece of jewelry around her neck.

"Incredible," Lily curiously fiddled with the collar. "It just got so small… It could turn into such a large set of equipment before."

"I told you, this is actually just an activation end," Hao Ren explained with a smile. "Actually, it's a small spatial device, designed based on the spatial expansion device on the Petrified World Tree. Your armor is actually stored in another space connected to this collar."

Lily suddenly understood, and then revealed a bright smile, "Thank you, Landlord! I like this very much!"