Chapter 88: The War Begins
, an "unexpected" warehouse district.
Under the illumination of dozens of high-power floodlights, six brand-new " " short-range air-defense plasma cannons stood silently in the center of the warehouse.
Their enormous blue-black gun barrels exuded a cold, sci-fi beauty, like slumbering steel beasts.
Beside them, six heavy low-bed semi-trailers reinforced by welding were lined up in a row.
Each vehicle's loading platform had been fitted with two additional layers of I-beam crossbeams, and the hydraulic support legs had been fully lowered, biting hard into the ground.
"Crane No. 1, get ready! Slowly, watch the angle!"
stood beside one of the vehicles, directing calmly.
She had participated in an emergency transport of these plasma cannons once before, and had accumulated quite a bit of experience with the process.
Under her direction, the installation progressed very quickly.
After the installation was complete, looked at the spectacular sight of these six great killing machines lined up in a row, her eyes almost brighter than the lights.
Ever since operating the plasma cannons a few times, she had completely fallen for this kind of super weapon that combined beauty with violence.
Seeing six of them at once this time—not jumping on the spot was already her showing considerable restraint.
On the other side, several engineers with professional expertise from the electrical team had also argued their way to a final plan.
From the power station's supply network, they would run multiple independent 10kV high-voltage feeder lines, then connect them in parallel to the energy storage capacitor banks at each gun emplacement.
Each emplacement would have its own separate power supply system. That way, as long as they didn't fire at maximum power, it should hold up.
With the plan settled, the electrical team immediately sprang into action, laying high-voltage cables along the pre-planned routes.
***
Outside , at the several scheduled fire positions, the operation group's soldiers had already built solid fortifications using modular quick-drying concrete.
In addition, they had placed many rows of obstacles in front of the positions, to guard against Rot-Beasts that might burst out of the and counterattack.
Beside a command vehicle, and were studying a map, conducting the final tactical confirmation.
"How are the ammunition reserves?" asked in a low voice.
"Conventional shells are more than enough," pointed at several supply distribution points on the map. "No need to worry about the stockpiles of 122mm rockets and 105mm armor-piercing rounds, and they're in continuous production.
It's just that special munitions like fuel-air bombs aren't numerous—we'll have to use them sparingly."
nodded, his mind somewhat put at ease.
At the positions, all personnel slated to take part in the battle had already changed into full protective suits, with high-filtration masks prepared in advance against a possible abnormal spore outbreak.
"Rumble..."
Just then, in the distance, six oversized trucks carrying the plasma cannons slowly drove into the scheduled positions.
turned around and stared at those cannons for a good long while. The old man's lips curved up slightly at the corners, his eyes unable to hide his excitement and curiosity.
This thing—he'd noticed it as soon as he first arrived, but had only caught a distant glimpse and never seen it actually fire.
"How powerful is this thing?" He turned his head to ask .
"Don't you worry!" laughed, a smug pride in his tone. "Once the fighting starts, I guarantee it won't disappoint you, sir."
"Oh?" The old man grew even more interested. "Then I'll be waiting to see it."
And further behind them, a steel dragon made up of several hundred trucks and engineering vehicles was streaming endlessly from the direction of .
Ammunition, fuel, prefabricated fortification components, rations, medical supplies—these were all the material preparations necessary for war.
This road had been swept once by the leading combat units, and afterward, swarm drones had been left behind as temporary broadcast devices.
On both sides of the road, every few hundred meters, a drone hovered in midair, continuously broadcasting high-frequency sound waves to drive off scattered zombies.
This newly opened lifeline, under the drones' escort, looked exceptionally "clean" and safe.
This was originally a plan prepared for opening the transport line; now it had received its first field validation here.
Most of the 's manpower and material resources had been mobilized.
But this time, they were no longer defending passively—they were striking out on their own initiative.
***
Meanwhile, in the thick-fog-shrouded .
The total number of the various swarm drones in the fog had risen to eight thousand, and was still climbing.
During the time the had been preparing for war, new changes had taken place in the fog.
The zombies on the city's outskirts had nearly vanished, seemingly all serving as food for the Rot-Beasts.
And the closer to the city center, the greater the number and variety of Rot-Beasts.
Through a drone skimming close to the ground, even caught sight of several Rot-Beasts resembling winged tigers, casually gnawing through the ruins of reinforced concrete buildings, a metallic luster even emerging on their bodies.
Their jaws were so formidable that felt his cooling circuit run half cold.
If they kept evolving like this, what would be left to stop them? Eventually, they might really end up chewing him up like a snack.
This monster absolutely could not be allowed to live!
The cleanup work began at once.
First, three thousand drones carrying spray devices conducted a grid-based chemical spray across the entire fog zone, bounded by an altitude of three hundred meters.
White coagulant dispersed from the spray nozzles beneath the drones' bellies. On contact with the dark-red spores in the air, it quickly formed fine, deep-red particles visible to the naked eye, which then came fluttering down to the ground.
Then the remaining four thousand drones, fitted with suction-filtration devices, began collecting those fine spore particles from within the fog.
The entire process was silent and efficient; in a brief moment, it significantly reduced the spore concentration in the city center's atmosphere.
Of course, this also disturbed the Rot-Beasts entrenched in the city.
As one of 's drone squadrons was passing over a residential area, a new type of leaped abruptly from a rooftop—a monster resembling a giant locust, its hind legs propelling it to an astonishing height, its sharp mouthparts crushing a 's fuselage outright.
The instant this anomaly occurred, the squadron's other drones converged, their intersecting lasers slicing that into shreds of flesh in midair.
Skirmishes like this had barely ceased all night, but as more and more drones poured into the , the spore concentration was still successfully pushed down.
When the first ray of sunlight pierced the thinning fog, the air quality in 's city center had finally returned to an acceptable level.
And by then, the preparations at the positions outside had finally been completed as well. The moment had come!
[Almost there. Time to send you a big gift.]
Without the slightest hesitation, directed the roughly three thousand-plus self-destruct drones in the fog to press in from all directions toward that colossal fungal edifice in the city center.
The next second—"BOOM——!!!!"
The deafening explosion even reached the positions more than ten kilometers away.
At almost the same instant, on the long-ready ground positions, shouted the order into his .
"Fire!!!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Dozens of rocket launchers and howitzers roared, a steel rain of shells blanketing the entire sky.
From another direction, the accelerator rings of the six " " plasma cannons lit up simultaneously, and six blue-white meteors more dazzling than the morning light streaked across the sky.
After obliterating every obstruction in their path, they reached the city center almost in the blink of an eye. The burst of blue electrical light was clearly visible even from out here.
And it wasn't over yet. A second, then a third round flew out in succession, blue-white plasma bolts raining down upon the center of .
The war had begun!
's eyes bulged at the scene, like divine judgment. His mouth hung open for a long while without closing. Now this was something!
At the same time, a new mission popped up on 's system interface.
[Ding!]
[ No. 5: Burn the Rot Soil Clean!]
[Mission Description: Embers from another world are spawning new terror. Trust me—you'd better not let it truly descend upon your world.]
[Mission Requirements: Completely destroy the Rot-Flesh Mushroom and its underground mycelial network.]
[Mission Reward: 55,000 , unlock technology "Origin" ecosphere construction module, blueprint Ă—1.]
[Mission Countdown: 05 days 16:52:43]
***
On the other side, City, .
The led by had successfully opened a passage to the surface, and the exploration force made up of and 's groups had finally reached the surface of .
, wearing the silver-gray " " power armor, stood on the rooftop of an abandoned office building, glancing sideways toward the direction of .
"It's already started over there?"
[That's right,] 's voice sounded from his tactical helmet. [The first wave of rushes has been suppressed. Situation's still fine for now.]
"That's good." beside him picked up the conversation. He was currently peering through binoculars at the present face of .
knew very well that attacking could hardly be decided quickly, so he had never thought of winning it in a single stroke.
In fact, because their understanding of the enemy was limited, their current actions were only to suppress the enemy's rate of development, buying time for and the others' research.
Therefore, had never considered pausing the 's other plans that could be carried out now. After all, the could fully support operations on multiple tracks.
So the plan for and to lead a ground survey and data recovery operation in had naturally been launched in parallel.
Considering this had once been one of the world's most celebrated science and technology hubs, their technology recovery mission was equally important.
—once the pride of City—was now nothing but an appalling mess.
More than half of the skyscrapers' glass curtain walls had shattered, and the parts that stubbornly remained were coated with a thick layer of grimy decay.
This place was different from both and District. The number of zombies wandering the streets wasn't very high, but they were rather strange—each one had a kind of blue crystal growing from its back.
"What is that?" frowned. In the apocalypse, any anomaly could mean danger.
[Not clear yet. We can collect some samples later and bring them back for analysis.] 's voice sounded at just the right moment.
"Copy."
Then raised his and swept down all the sluggish zombies in front of him in a few shots.
This was their current exploration mode—using " " for stealth, then relying on the 's silent firing to complete kills.
With this combination, they moved through the crowds almost as if no one was there.
As for the higher-risk areas where mutants appeared, had already scouted and marked them in advance with swarm drones; all they needed to do was carefully steer clear.
" , search of the Institute of Microelectronics complete. No advanced mutants found. No valuable data found." reported quietly into the communicator.
"Copy." 's aged but steady voice came through the channel. "For your next target, you can check out the Xinxing Energy Storage Group headquarters building. Before the disaster, it housed a pre-research lab working on chemical batteries."
"There should be some useful materials."
"Understood."
stood up and made a gesture to the team members behind him. The squad immediately melted into the shadows of the buildings like phantoms, moving silently toward the next target.
brought up the rear, his gaze sweeping across the buildings on both sides of the street.
Suddenly, he noticed that many of the building walls in this area were covered with a thin, translucent, crystal-like substance, refracting strange, colorful light in the sun.
"What do you make of this?" He couldn't help speaking up.
"Crystal?" one team member asked in confusion.
"Not sure. Let's take some back to study." shook his head, then crouched down and carefully scraped off a small piece with his tactical knife, placing it into a sample collection tube.
" ," he called softly on the team channel. "Log it. , coordinates (244, 781). Unknown crystalline attachment discovered. Sample collected."
[Received. Marked.] 's voice was as steady as ever.
As they advanced, they witnessed even more bizarre sights.
Some zombies' bodies were pierced through by that crystalline substance, their forms frozen in stiff postures, like twisted sculptures.
The mutation in this area seemed to be heading in a direction completely different from "rotting flesh" and "blood and meat."
And further on, something even stranger happened: some severely crystallized zombies could still move even after having their heads blown off.
All of this made the exploration squad more and more cautious.
Fortunately, though, they didn't run into too many surprises along the way, and successfully found a pile of documents plus several experimental battery prototypes in the lab.
[Ding! Detected that a survivor has mastered "high-energy lithium-sulfur chemical batteries." [Energy Storage Optimization (Lv1)] has been unlocked.]
[Reward: 400 .]
Hearing the chime in his mind, 's control rod couldn't help giving a happy little lift. Even a mosquito's leg is still meat.
Afterward, they went on to visit a string of high-tech enterprises and research institutions, copying down large amounts of useful—and useless—technical data.
It wasn't until they finally neared the that all of them froze.
A creature resembling a giant python—its diameter estimated at over three meters, its body length unknown—was coiled in the center of the institute, seemingly asleep.
Its body was covered in translucent crystal scales that flashed with a dazzling light under the sun.
***
Meanwhile, on the battlefield.
The war had entered a white-hot stalemate.
After the first round of saturation bombardment, the main structure of the colossal Rot-Flesh Mushroom in the city center had already collapsed by more than half. On the charred remains, plasma-melted glassy substance mixed with scorched rotting flesh, emitting a pungent stench.
But the battle was far from over.
[New fruiting body structure discovered in Zone J-12, growing rapidly!]
[ incubation reaction detected in Zone K-9, estimated count exceeds fifty!]
"Copy. turret No. 2, adjusting firing data... Fire!"
's voice echoed calmly through the command channel.
At the beginning, the mushroom's main structure in the city center had indeed suffered heavy damage.
Two-thirds of the cap had been blasted down, and the stipe had been punched with several penetrating holes by plasma bolts. Large amounts of dark-red liquid gushed from the wounds, pooling on the ground into a steaming swamp.
But the mycelial network buried deep underground had not been destroyed. So, all over the city, more than a dozen small mushroom structures had sprouted up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
Although their size was nowhere near the original at the center, each one was rapidly producing new Rot-Beasts beneath it.
The roar of rocket artillery and the hum of plasma cannons had barely paused, turning nearly all of into a sea of fire.
But the whack-a-mole feeling of it all left everyone thoroughly exhausted.
"This is way too troublesome," said in a frontline command post, staring at the swiftly depleting ammunition reports with furrowed brows. "Just how much can it grow?"
"It looks like we still have to find a way to destroy its underground mycelial network." shook his head.
[But it's not all bad news,] joined the conversation. [Based on continuous observation, the quality of the Rot-Beasts produced by the new mushrooms has dropped noticeably. The ones charging out now are basically the most basic canine type—none of the hybrid evolved types from before.]
[At the very least, our goal of buying time has been achieved.]
Just then, 's voice—weary yet abnormally excited—abruptly cut into the command channel.
"I... I think I know what it is!"
"It's not a single organism, not a simple individual. It's a living ecology itself."
"Those Rot-Beasts aren't its 'products' or 'weapons'—they're its 'subordinate tiers.'"
"What the populations are to it is like what tissues are to an organ, and what organs are to an individual, in the biological sense."
"And—" 's voice suddenly became very soft. "Its intelligence is positively correlated with the density and complexity of its ecological community.
The more Rot-Beasts there are, the richer their variety, the stronger its 'thinking' ability becomes."
"Gradually, it will learn to imitate, then learn to think..."
"And as it learns self-awareness, it will truly awaken!"