184: Chapter 184 Tanks vs. Robots? This is a Dimensional Reduction Attack

On the Wasteland outside Dawn City, two vastly different torrents of steel were in a standoff.

One side was the silvery-white Machina Legion. They hovered in mid-air, their bodies sleek and streamlined, surrounded by pale blue energy shields, their particle rifles emitting a terrifying heat. In their precise logical algorithms, those clunky iron monstrosities opposite them, still spewing black smoke and roaring with tank treads, were practically antiques that had crawled out of a museum.

"Carbon-based biological vehicle detected."

The frontline commander of the Machina Legion, a heavy mech codenamed "Arbiter," had a contemptuous red light flickering in its massive single eye.

"Internal combustion engine propulsion, chemical propellant, no energy force field protection."

"Verdict: Death throes of a primitive civilization."

It raised its mechanical arm. Instead of ordering a charge, it broadcast a cold electronic message: "Surrender, or—be purged."

However, the response it received was not a white flag. Instead, a roar filled with a thick Long Country accent, brimming with irritability and impatience, erupted from the command vehicle flying the red flag opposite it: "Surrender your granny! All artillery groups, attention! Lock onto those coordinates for me!"

That was Brigade Commander Wang of the Long Country Expeditionary Army. Holding his binoculars, he watched the dense swarm of robots in the distance, which hadn't even bothered to spread out into skirmish lines, and his mouth stretched almost to his ears. He had never fought such a wealthy battle in his life!

In the past, they had to be frugal during exercises. Now, things were different; this was another world. There was no need to worry about damaging the flora and fauna, and even less need to worry about running out of ammunition—behind them, that perverted boss Jiang Chen was piloting his starship, continuously dropping supply crates down!

"Firepower saturation! Three-round rapid fire! Fire!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" The earth trembled.

Dozens of PHL-191 long-range rocket launchers opened fire simultaneously. The scene was like hundreds of fire dragons soaring into the sky at once, carrying a screech that tore through the air, smashing fiercely into the positions of the Machina Legion.

"Foolish." The Arbiter watched the rockets filling the sky, not bothering to dodge. In its database, these primitive weapons that relied on explosive shrapnel were incapable of piercing their high-frequency energy shields.

"Shields at full capacity. Prepare to counterattack."

Hum— Layers of blue light curtains lit up above the Machina Legion; it was top-tier defense capable of refracting high-energy lasers.

However, the next second, the logic circuits of the Machina commander froze. It discovered with horror that the incoming rockets were not being deflected or detonated prematurely as expected. Those heavy armor-piercing rockets, encased in high-hardness tungsten alloy warheads, didn't care about energy-countering principles. They simply smashed into them. They relied purely on kinetic energy to force their way through.

"Clang!" A 370mm caliber rocket, carrying terrifying kinetic energy at several times the speed of sound, struck an elite Machina unit square on the head like a heavy hammer. That energy shield they were so proud of was as fragile as a soap bubble in the face of pure physical impact. It held for only 0.001 seconds before the shield overloaded and shattered. Immediately after, the warhead drilled in, and the high-energy explosives inside detonated. "Boom—" The elite Machina unit that had been so arrogant just a moment ago instantly turned into a rain of flying parts.

This was only the beginning. What followed was a baptism of steel like a rainstorm. The explosions merged into one, and flames soared into the sky. The Long Country Army taught this group of high-tech robots a lesson with practical action: in the face of absolute yield, all flashy shields are paper tigers!

"This... this is impossible!" The Arbiter's single eye flickered frantically, its processor running at high load as it tried to analyze the battle situation: "Shields failed! Armor damage rate 70%! The enemy is using... solid ammunition? Why is the kinetic energy so immense? Why can it not be deflected?"

It could not understand. Why were these primitive kinetic weapons so painful when they hit?

"Counterattack! Counterattack immediately!" The Machina Legion finally reacted, raising their particle guns and beginning to pour fire onto the Long Country positions. Deadly beams of light cut through the air, scorching the ground with charred marks.

But the Long Country tanks did not retreat. The 99A main battle tank group roared as they charged out of the smoke. Their thick composite armor, though somewhat melted under the irradiation of the particle beams, remained sturdy.

"For the Empress! For the Father God!" The warriors of the Wasteland were not idle either; they followed behind the tanks, charging as if they had been injected with adrenaline.

"Do you see that? This is the army of the Father God!" Grand Commander Lei Zhen waved his broken blade, his eyes brimming with tears of excitement. "That artillery! Those barrels! It's freaking awesome!"

Seeing that the Machina Legion was preparing to reorganize its formation, a whistling sound suddenly came from the sky. It was the second wave of "gifts" dropped by the luan niao starship. Countless black cylinders, hanging from parachutes, drifted swayingly over the heads of the Machina Legion before exploding in mid-air.

There was no fire, no shrapnel. Only a ring of invisible, blue-purple strong magnetic pulse waves swept across the entire battlefield in an instant. EMP electromagnetic pulse bombs! This was the bane born specifically to deal with electronic equipment, an advanced version of "bug spray" that Jiang Chen had specially exchanged from the system mall.

"Sizzle—" The Machina soldiers, who had been shooting calmly, suddenly became rigid. The red light in their eyes began to flicker frantically, and the circuits inside their bodies emitted a series of crisp sounds like popcorn popping.

"Warning... system error... core logic... lost..." They were like puppets whose souls had been ripped away. Rows upon rows of robots suddenly lost power, collapsing to the ground in a clatter, some still twitching on the ground as if having a seizure. The entire battlefield suddenly quieted down by more than half. Only the engine roar of the Long Country tanks remained, still thundering, as if mocking the fragility of this "high-tech" force.

Inside the command tower at the rear of the battlefield. The supreme commander of the Machina—that massive red electronic eyeball suspended in nutrient solution and connected to countless fiber optic cables—was currently in a state of extreme logical chaos. Its vast computing power could not, for the life of it, calculate the scene before it.

"Logic error... logic error..." The red eyeball spun frantically, emitting an electronically synthesized voice laced with electrical static: "The enemy is using... clearly primitive chemical energy weapons. Why is the power so great? What was that magnetic storm that fell from the sky? Why did my soldiers go offline instantly? This is not scientific... This does not conform to the war evolution model..."

It tried to connect to the frontline data link, only to find that all it received back was garbled code and static. Just as its CPU was about to burn out, "Boom!" The door to the command tower was kicked open.

Amidst the smoke and dust, a young man walked in leisurely, holding a "fishing rod" (a new one) that was still sparking with electricity, with a yellow mouse licking its paws perched on his shoulder, and a murderous, silver-haired Empress following behind him.

Jiang Chen blew on the muzzle (there was no gun), looked at the huge red eyeball, and revealed a nuclear-friendly smile: "Yo, big eyeball. Still calculating? Stop calculating. No matter how strong your computing power is, can you out-calculate my 'cheat'?"

He pointed to the battlefield behind him that had already been flattened, his tone reaching the pinnacle of humble-bragging: "I said it before. These days, having high technology alone is useless. You have to understand what it means to... overcome ten thousand techniques with one force."