Chapter 179 The Gaze from the Ruins

While that head-on "mechanical brawl" just now felt satisfying, it completely exposed a problem: the number of monsters in this place is like bugs in a rice jar.

A head-on clash with an army of billions of tons of mechanical undead? Only a blockhead with a loose screw would do that.

"Total ship silence. Except for the life support systems, turn off every light you can."

Lin Yuan lowered his voice in the communication channel; his tone didn't sound like a Commander, but rather like a ringleader preparing to steal a chicken from a neighbor's house. "Old Chen, watch the ship. This place is evil. If you see anything unclean crawling onto the ship, don't hesitate—use the flamethrower and burn it."

A muffled reply came from Chen Weiguo's end, clearly uneasy about this "living on the edge" tactic.

Lin Yuan cut the communication and turned to look at the elite squad behind him.

Five soldiers, plus the one-armed girl named Alita, were currently crammed into a dilapidated shuttle. This thing had been conveniently seized from the pirates earlier; it was even a manual-shift model, without a single decent smart chip inside—which was perfect, as it didn't have to fear that damn "Rust" virus.

"Hold on tight; the veteran driver is starting the engine."

Lin Yuan pushed the control stick, and the shuttle, which looked like a coffin lid, spewed out a plume of black smoke and wobbled into the mist.

The deeper they went, the more absurd the surrounding scenery became.

This wasn't just some ordinary space graveyard; it was a giant's dump.

Looking out through the porthole, the objects floating in this Void Energy were terrifyingly large. A broken section of a cannon barrel was as long as half of Mount Everest, covered in dark red rust spots like necrotic blood vessels. There were also shattered remains of star gates that still flickered with eerie blue electric arcs, occasionally "crackling" and tearing open gashes in the surrounding space.

"The gravity in this place is chaotic."

Lin Yuan felt his stomach churning. One second he was falling, and the next, it felt like someone was grabbing his ankles and pulling him upward.

He tried to mobilize the Void Energy within his body, but the power that usually obeyed his every command now felt like it had been shoved into a jar of glue, operating with extreme difficulty.

"Damn, the suppression is this heavy?" Lin Yuan cursed under his breath. "If that so-called Rust Lord suddenly pops out, I'm afraid I'll have to resort to hand-to-hand combat."

"If you don't want to die, turn off all active detection radar."

In the co-pilot seat, Alita was quickly fiddling with the primitive dashboard using her only remaining good hand. "Every piece of metal scrap here could be a dormant 'eye.' If you scan them with radar, it's equivalent to streaking down the street."

Lin Yuan glanced at her: "You're quite experienced."

"Experience is bought with one's life."

Alita tucked the empty syringe back into her pocket like a treasure and pointed to the right outside the window. "See that ship? Don't turn on the lights; glide past it quietly."

The shuttle shut down its engines and glided silently, utilizing inertia.

It was a titan-class battleship that still maintained its complete form, with a hull stretching for dozens of kilometers, resembling a dead steel leviathan.

As the shuttle flew past its bridge, Lin Yuan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up instantly.

By the faint electrostatic light in the mist, he saw the scene inside the bridge porthole.

Densely packed human faces.

Thousands upon thousands of shriveled, gray-white, iron-like faces were pressed tightly against the thick bulletproof glass. There were no eyeballs in their sockets, only dark red indicator lights. As the shuttle moved, those red dots turned in unison, staring lifelessly at these uninvited guests.

Several soldiers subconsciously tightened their grips on their guns, their breathing becoming rapid.

"Don't look into their eyes." Alita's voice was cold. "They are 'Rust Slaves.' Hundreds of years ago, my ancestors thought this was a treasure trove and plunged in with their exploration ship. As a result... this ship became their coffin."

"Those are your ancestors?" Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow.

"They used to be." Alita lowered her head, fiddling with the cutting knife in her hand. "Later, when the food ran out, they started eating rats and the organic coating inside the cables. Then, the Rust virus got in... About half of those stuck to the glass now are related to me by blood."

This girl is a tough one. Lin Yuan evaluated in his heart.

The shuttle continued to glide forward, bypassing a mountain-like piece of thruster wreckage.

Just then, a golden exclamation mark suddenly popped up on Lin Yuan's system panel.

【Ding! High-energy reaction detected!】

【Three o'clock direction, ancient armory wreckage. SSS-rank individual weapon discovered: Micro Black Hole Grenade (Inactive).】

Lin Yuan's eyelids twitched violently.

Looking in the direction indicated by the system, a broken section of a cabin was floating there. Although it had been blown open, the shelves inside were surprisingly intact. Several pitch-black metal spheres were sitting quietly in their fixing slots, the surrounding space slightly distorted due to gravitational collapse.

Black Hole Grenades? These are good stuff!

In normal times, such weapons of mass destruction would have been fought over by all sorts of powerful figures. It's only in this godforsaken place, where no one dares to approach, that these treasures have survived until now.

"Take a slight detour." Lin Yuan suddenly jerked the steering rudder.

"Are you crazy? The radiation levels over there are off the charts!" Alita screamed, reaching out to grab the control stick.

"Relax, I'm just going to graze it."

Lin Yuan pressed Alita's head down with one hand, pushing her back into her seat, while his other hand skillfully maneuvered the shuttle into a barrel roll.

Just as the shuttle swept past that cabin section, Lin Yuan's Void Energy hand, which had been tightly suppressed, suddenly reached out of the cabin. Although he could only exert thirty percent of its power, it was enough for telekinesis.

Hum! The space vibrated slightly. The two pitch-black spheres that were originally stuck on the shelves vanished instantly.

The next second, two heavy little cuties appeared in Lin Yuan's system inventory.

"That feels good." Lin Yuan whistled and pulled the shuttle back onto its course. "A thief never leaves empty-handed; that's professional ethics."

Alita looked at him like he was a madman: "You nearly got us all killed for two pieces of scrap metal!"

"Shh—"

Lin Yuan suddenly raised a finger, his playful expression instantly vanishing, replaced by the alertness of a predator. "Something has boarded."

Just a moment ago, an extremely slight vibration came from the roof of the shuttle. The vibration was so light that even the sensors didn't react; it was like a falling leaf landing on the roof. But in Lin Yuan's perception, it was a mass of cold malice.

The atmosphere in the cabin instantly froze. Everyone held their breath, staring fixedly at the thin layer of alloy plating overhead.

Sizzle... sizzle... A teeth-grinding friction sound came from overhead, as if some soft-bodied creature were crawling on the metal surface. Immediately after, a corner of the ceiling began to slowly cave in, and several mechanical tentacles flickering with red light were trying to find a gap to drill inside.

"It's a 'Roamer'! A reconnaissance guard!" Alita's face turned deathly pale, her voice lowered to a whisper. "Don't shoot! It has a signal transmitter in its body; if it dies, it will attract all the monsters in the graveyard!"

"Don't shoot?" A cold sneer curled Lin Yuan's lips as he unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up. He didn't draw his sword or pull out a gun; instead, he took a deep breath, and his entire right arm instantly transformed into a translucent Void Energy form. Since the laws of physics were chaotic, he would solve it in an unreasonable way.

Just as the mechanical octopus was about to drill through the ceiling, Lin Yuan suddenly raised his hand. His Void Energy arm ignored the obstruction of the alloy armor, passing through the ceiling without resistance, as if dipping into water!

Pfft! A muffled explosion sounded in the vacuum of the outside environment. Lin Yuan's hand grabbed fiercely outside the ceiling, precisely pinching the mechanical octopus's core processor.

【Void · Annihilation】. There was no explosion, no flash of light. The core of the reconnaissance guard was crushed into the most primitive particle dust in an instant. It didn't even have time to send out its final alarm signal, and like a stubbed-out cigarette butt, it completely turned into a dead object.

Lin Yuan retracted his hand, holding a clump of debris that had turned into scrap metal in his palm, and tossed it casually at his feet.

"Done. I told you it wouldn't be able to make a sound, didn't I?" Lin Yuan brushed the dust off his hands and sat back in the pilot's seat. "Continue navigating, girl. Don't always be so easily startled; it's bad for the heart."

Alita stared at the clump of scrap metal on the floor, swallowed hard, and finally said nothing more.

Who... exactly were these monsters that had popped out of nowhere?

The shuttle accelerated again, and after passing through a patch of mist as thick as milk, their view suddenly opened up. A terrifying "tower" appeared before them.

It couldn't really be called a tower.

It was a grotesque structure built from the wreckage of thousands upon thousands of warships from different civilizations and eras. They had been forcibly twisted and welded together by some immense power, like a steel totem piercing deep into space.

The red rust was at its most intense here, as if it had a life of its own, slowly flowing down the tower body like streams of bleeding waterfalls.

"That is the 'Anvil'." Alita pointed to the middle section of the high tower, where there was a huge, cracked fissure emitting a ghostly blue light. "It used to be the core of the Titan Race's arsenal, and now it's the lair of the Rust Lord. The purifier is in the reaction pool inside there."

"This godforsaken place really looks like a haunted house." Lin Yuan narrowed his eyes, preparing to look for a landing spot.

Just then, that deathly silent tower suddenly "came to life." Click-clack-click-clack—! A rhythmic, uniform sound of mechanical operation echoed through the void.

The wreckage of the warships that had been quietly embedded on the surface of the tower, whether it was broken main cannons or damaged close-in weapon systems, all shifted direction in that instant. Thousands upon thousands of pitch-black muzzles, like countless eyes that had suddenly opened, locked onto Lin Yuan's tiny shuttle in unison.

In all the communication channels, the original static disappeared. Replacing it was an extremely hoarse, electronically synthesized voice that sounded like it had been polished with sandpaper, carrying a bone-chilling sense of pleasure: "Outsiders... found you."

"...Meat... it's been a long time since I've tasted... fresh meat..."