Chapter 106 The Crazy Production Line

"Zzz— Zzz—"

The sound of a high-energy plasma beam slicing through special alloy sounded like a ten-thousand-fold amplified version of nails scraping across a blackboard.

Sparks splattered like a waterfall. Sitting in the cockpit of the ghost, Lin Yuan expressionlessly manipulated the mechanical arm to draw an irregular circle on the three-hundred-meter-high giant industrial gate in front of him.

"Open... for me!"

Lin Yuan slammed the joystick forward, and the ghost delivered a kick to the section of armor plating that had been cut away.

Rumble!

With a deafening roar that made the ground beneath tremble, the ten-meter-thick metal door slammed heavily inward, kicking up metal dust that had accumulated for millions of years.

However, before the dust could settle, a nauseating scent first wafted into the sensor's sniffing system.

It was the smell of extremely stale engine oil mixed with the ozone scent of scorched circuits and the burnt smell produced by excessive metal friction.

"Cough, cough... This smell is even more pungent than the sewers in the Old District." Lin Yuan frowned and casually turned on the air filtration system.

But the moment the ghost's searchlights pierced the darkness and illuminated the world behind the gate, even Lin Yuan, who was used to grand spectacles, felt a layer of fine goosebumps instantly break out across his scalp.

Over the communication channel, Li Na let out a suppressed cry of alarm: "My God... what is that?"

Before them was a super-workshop so vast that the end was nowhere in sight.

It wasn't deathly silent like the docking bay corridors outside.

On the contrary, it was very "lively."

Thousands of fully automated assembly lines were currently operating at a staggering, frenzied speed.

Conveyor belts emitted shrill shrieks, and massive mechanical arms swung through the air, leaving afterimages.

But the problem was... they didn't have any raw materials in their hands.

A welding robot was frantically firing lasers at an empty conveyor belt, burning the heat-resistant belt until it was riddled with holes;

A stamping machine was slamming into the air at a frequency of three times per second, making the ground thud loudly;

A painting robot was spraying long-dried paint into the void, its nozzles only emitting puffs of dry red smoke.

This was a factory that had gone insane.

It was like a giant that had lost its brain's command but was still twitching frantically.

Lin Yuan didn't speak. He piloted the mecha forward several hundred meters and then came to a sudden halt.

At the end of these crazed assembly lines was a mountain.

A mountain of metal corpses piled high with "defective products."

Due to a lack of unified scheduling and key parts, what these production lines spat out weren't complete mechas at all.

Some had only half a body, dragging a mess of tangled wires;

Some had heads mounted on their crotches, their single eyes still flickering with an eerie red light;

Some were even just several mechanical legs forcibly welded together, resembling a giant metal spider.

They were stacked together, squeezed, deformed, and twisted.

The most terrifying part was... they were "alive."

Even though they were defective products, the underlying logic of Titan Heavy Industry still granted them basic power.

Creeak... Creeak...

It was the sound of metal grinding against bone.

These defective products writhed on the corpse mountain, trying to crawl down, trying to execute commands that no longer existed. They trampled each other and were flattened by the defective products that followed, emitting electronic shrieks like malevolent ghosts.

Lin Yuan felt his stomach churn. This was far more disgusting than any zombie tide in Resident Evil; it was a type of physiological discomfort brought about by the total collapse of order.

Just then, the hum of the ghost's engine broke the chaotic balance of the area.

Swoosh!

The mechanical arms that had been idling aimlessly suddenly froze for an instant.

Thousands of red electronic eyes installed on the production lines, as if unified by some will, turned simultaneously in an instant, staring fixedly at the intruder.

At the same time, the massive "corpse mountain" stopped writhing.

Countless pairs of backward-mounted, broken, red-glowing mechanical prosthetic eyes all looked toward Lin Yuan in unison.

Beep—!!!

A piercing alarm instantly exploded throughout the entire workshop.

[Warning! Unregistered lifeform detected!]

[Determination: Intruder.]

[Directive: Clear! Clear! Clear!]

"Roar—!!!"

The corpse mountain collapsed.

Countless bizarre mechanical defective products poured out from the production lines and scrap heaps like a bursting flood.

Some ran, some crawled, and some even used their bodies to drag themselves across the ground.

Though their postures were strange, their speed was startlingly fast!

It was a tide of metal, carrying a malice that sought to tear everything apart, lunging toward the ghost.

"Captain! Retreat quickly! There are too many! Preliminary scans show over a hundred thousand units!" Li Na screamed.

"Retreat?"

Looking at the mechanical tide surging from all directions, a cold, hard arc instead curled at the corner of Lin Yuan's mouth.

Far from retreating, he pushed the joystick, making the ghost strike an extremely arrogant assault posture.

"With so much mobile scrap metal, if I dismantle and sell it for parts, it'll be enough to feed me for several lifetimes."

Lin Yuan's fingers became a blur on the control console.

Vroom—!

A circle of pale blue ripples erupted around the ghost—Kinetic Deflection Field, activated at full power!

Immediately after, the Plasma Beam Sword on the mecha's right arm, which was originally only five meters long, surged to forty meters the moment Lin Yuan frantically injected energy into it!

That was a true Greatsword of the Heavens, its blue-white radiance illuminating the entire dark workshop.

"Come on, little babies."

Lin Yuan growled, the engine roaring like thunder.

"Let me perform a free 'amputation surgery' for you!"

Boom!

The ghost turned into a bolt of black lightning, crashing directly into that gray torrent of steel.

The Kinetic Deflection Field acted like an invisible wall, instantly sending the hundreds of defective products in the front flying, their metal parts exploding in the air like raindrops.

Then, the forty-meter-long beam sword swept out.

Sizzle—!

It was like a hot knife through butter.

Within the fan-shaped area, thousands of mechanical zombies were neatly sliced in half at the same time. The cut surfaces were red-hot and molten, followed by a continuous chain of secondary explosions.

Flames reached the ceiling.

Lin Yuan went into a killing frenzy.

He charged in and out of the dense corpse tide seven times, clearing a massive area with every swing of his sword.

Left thrust, right charge, whirlwind slash!

Not a single defective product could get within ten meters of the ghost.

"This feel is even more satisfying than chopping vegetables!" Lin Yuan laughed, his adrenaline surging.

However, three minutes later, the smile on Lin Yuan's face froze.

Something was wrong.

He had clearly destroyed at least twenty thousand defective products, but the number of monsters in this workshop... why did it look like it hadn't decreased at all?

In fact, there were even more!

He suddenly looked up toward the depths of the workshop.

That sight made his scalp tingle.

Those assembly lines that had been idling were now operating at triple speed, as if they had been injected with stimulants!

Clack clack clack clack!

The conveyor belts were moving so fast they were smoking.

Mechanical arms were flying up and down.

On average, every 0.1 seconds, a new defective product was "assembled" and then thrown directly off the conveyor belt to join the group besieging Lin Yuan.

Moreover, because of the lack of raw materials, these newly produced things were becoming increasingly absurd.

Some were simply iron barrels fitted with engines, or pillars stuck with blades.

But that didn't stop them from rushing over, trying to bite a piece of meat off the ghost.

This was an infinite troop-spawning strategy!

"Damn it..." Lin Yuan cleaved a mecha that only had an upper body into pieces, gritting his teeth. "Is this freaking playing a tower defense game with me?"

"And the kind that cheats with infinite gold?!"

He could never finish killing them.

As long as this crazed production line was still running, these mechanical zombies were endless.

Even if he drained all the ghost's energy, he would be worked to death right here.

"Stop fighting! Lin Yuan!"

Academician Wang's voice rang out urgently in the communication channel, carrying a hint of sudden, horrified realization.

"Something's wrong! Something's wrong here!"

"They aren't attacking you! They are 'consuming' you!"

"Look at those shattered parts!"

Lin Yuan looked down.

He saw that those metal corpses sliced apart by the beam sword were not stationary. On the ground, countless tiny nanorobots were writhing frantically, like porters, dragging those fragments back to the entrance of the conveyor belts.

Recycle. Remanufacture. Re-charge.

It was a perfect closed loop.

"This is a dead end..." Lin Yuan took a deep breath, the fever in his eyes fading, replaced by extreme calmness.

Engaging in a bayonet fight with a pile of scrap metal that could resurrect was the most foolish behavior.

He had to find the source.

He had to make this damn production line... stop!