110: Chapter 110 Emergency Construction of Defense Zones and Forward Bases
Sai Wei looked at the land below, which had been blasted beyond recognition, and was silent for two seconds. "You call this a 'symptom'? This is a terminal illness, isn't it?"
"Terminal stage, hopeless." Chu Xinghe's voice was full of pride. "Our motto is: If we can flatten it, we never use guns; if we can bombard it, we never engage in melee combat."
The first round of bombing ended, and the smoke and dust slowly dissipated.
The originally rugged mountainous terrain had now turned into a scorched, flat plain. A few scattered Zerg units that hadn't been killed by the blast struggled in the ruins, only to be quickly finished off by automatic mobile armaments rolling out from the second wave of landing pods.
Immediately after, the automatic mobile armaments made their appearance.
Densely packed landing pods landed steadily, and their doors unfolded. Squads of unmanned combat vehicles, automated turrets, and reconnaissance robots rolled out from the pods, quickly establishing a temporary defensive line. Some units even engaged in firefights with Zerg rushing in from further away, but they quickly completed the annihilation of the small, unorganized groups of Zerg units.
These landing pods did not stop working after landing—their armor plates began to deform and unfold, splicing with adjacent pods to form patches of metallic ground. More crucially, the shield generators built into each landing pod began to synchronize their frequencies, with multiple shields connecting to one another, merging into a single joint shield with a larger coverage area.
Li Yuan and his team's transport shuttle began to descend. Through the porthole, one could see the temporary base below, which was already taking shape—over ten thousand square meters of metallic ground had been laid, a pale blue energy shield enveloped the entire area, and automated units were constructing a defensive line on the perimeter.
"Hiss—"
The transport shuttle landed steadily within the shield-protected area. The hatch opened, and Li Yuan was the first to jump down, immediately feeling a slight vibration from the metallic ground beneath his feet—the sound of more landing pods touching down.
Looking up, the "steel rain" in the sky continued. Supercomputer modules, radar arrays, prefabricated building materials, missile silos, white emperor mecha, Thor mecha, railgun bases... all kinds of war equipment, some Li Yuan recognized and some he didn't, were precisely landing in their predetermined positions, then automatically unfolding, splicing, and assembling.
"This efficiency..." Sai Wei was stunned.
"The joint shield is strengthening." Elia perceived the energy fluctuations around them. "As more modules connect, the shield strength is increasing exponentially."
"We need to start working too, let's get the temporary forward base established first." Chen Jingyi and Chen Yao appeared from the side and jumped down.
They had just gone to a nearby high ground to observe the layout plan for the landing pod deployment in this area.
Fortunately, the academy team had been precisely dropped directly into the center of the planned base area, and the interlocking shield structures effectively protected the academy's safety.
Time to get to work; Chen Yao and Chen Jingyi were the only two students in the team with talents for controlling large-scale mechanical units.
The two looked at each other and took a deep breath simultaneously.
"Let's begin," Chen Jingyi said softly.
The next second, her eyes shimmered with pale blue data streams—the talent [Daoyan Military Nexus] was activated.
All the surrounding automated equipment, engineering robots, and even the freshly landed building material modules all "came alive." The robots began to autonomously divide their tasks, crane arms precisely grabbed materials, welding arms spat out electric arcs, and building after building rose from the ground at a speed visible to the naked eye.
As for Chen Yao's side, the style was even more fantastical.
She didn't even need to touch any equipment; she simply stood in place, her hands raised in the air. Within a radius of five hundred meters, all objects—steel, concrete blocks, electronic components, and even the dust in the air—all began to move, combine, and take shape according to her will.
[Heavenly Control], controlling all matter.
"Holy..." Chu Xinghe's jaw dropped. "With these two girls working together, one person is an entire engineering corps!"
Luo Lan adjusted his glasses. "To be precise, it's an engineering corps with super artificial intelligence and self-replication capabilities. Chen Jingyi can create and imbue equipment with intelligence, and Chen Yao directly controls matter. The efficiency of their cooperation... theoretically has no upper limit."
Indeed, there was no limit.
Under the watchful eyes of Li Yuan and the others, a fully functional military base was taking shape at an astonishing speed. Dormitory areas, command center, armory, hangar, medical station, energy core... in just half an hour, a steel fortress already stood on the previously empty ground.
Of course, Li Yuan didn't just stand by. His Light Guardian was widely recognized as useful at the Weapons Research Institute, and it could do anything; Li Yuan immediately arranged for over 100 summoned creatures to go out and help.
The efficiency was quite high at first; a single Light Guardian had much higher construction efficiency than a single engineering robot.
However, those engineering robots could also self-replicate. One robot would dismantle discarded packaging materials, manufacture new parts, and assemble another robot. The replicated robots joined the construction team, and the construction speed became faster and faster.
"At this rate," Sai Wei estimated, "they could build a city before dark."
The base construction was in full swing, and the various squads also began to get busy.
Li Yuan directed the Light Guardian to assist in moving heavy equipment—these light element constructs were strong, tireless, and were perfect laborers. Laya pretended to be using [Song of Light] to "cheer everyone on," but in reality, she was casting backtracking magic on the engineering robots, keeping them in their peak state as if they had just been put into use.
Elia was testing the newly deployed turrets. She discovered that these automated turrets could actually recognize her talent energy and automatically adjust to "coordinated attack mode." With one shot, the surface of the shell would be covered in a layer of frost, and it could cause a freezing effect over an area upon impact.
"The combination of technology and talent..." she sighed softly.
The squads in the other three defense zones were also busy. The Angel squad deployed holy light beacons, and the Demon squad laid shadow traps. As for Sailuo... he was attempting to install a "Light Energy Fusion Amplifier" onto the turret.
"This way, the fired shells will have the holy light attribute!" Sailuo explained earnestly to the bewildered robot engineer.
The robot engineer's processor overloaded.
Everything was going according to plan. The base was becoming more complete, the defenses were becoming more solid, and the coordination between the various squads was becoming more tacit. At this pace, a forward base capable of long-term defense could be established within the day.
Until—
"Rumble..."
A dull vibration came from the distance.
It wasn't an explosion, not artillery fire, but some kind of... heavy footsteps.
The alarm inside the base suddenly sounded: "Warning! Super-large biological signal detected! Distance 37 km..."
Everyone stopped what they were doing.
Li Yuan leaped onto the nearest watchtower and raised his binoculars to look in the direction the vibration was coming from.
Then, he saw it.
On the horizon, a "mountain" stood up.
No, that was not a mountain.
That was an Ultralisk.