Chapter 183 Give it to me!

"Bzzt— Warning! Gravity anchor damaged by 35%!"

"Cracks have appeared in the base of planetary engine No. 4! That ghost hand is trying to rip us out, ground and engine alike!"

Inside the Earth Command Center, the alarms blared in a chaotic mess.

On the big screen, a pale, colossal mechanical hand reaching out from the depths of the fog was gripping the tectonic plate near the Himalayas with a death grip. Several hydraulic fingers, thicker than mountain peaks, dug deep into the bedrock. The teeth-gritting sound of the Earth's crust fracturing seemed to pierce through the vacuum and the heavy armor, reaching everyone's ears.

Chen Weiguo braced his hands on the command console, his weathered face flushed a deep liver-color.

"Forget the base! Pump all the reserve fuel in! Burn it! As long as it doesn't blow up, push it for all it's worth!"

The Earth trembled violently.

This wasn't an earthquake; it was a clash of two magnificent forces. On one side was the ancient undead attempting to drag this planet into its grave; on the other was human civilization, desperate and determined to survive.

Meanwhile, in Earth's orbit, those hundreds of red-eyed warships were like sharks that had caught the scent of blood. Braving the firepower of the "Daxia Longque," they frantically tore at the already overloaded energy shields.

"Where is Lin Yuan?! Is that kid still not making a move?" Chen Weiguo roared into the communicator.

The only response was a cacophony of static, and the dark red toxic cloud in the distance, which was churning ever more violently.

...

At the center of the toxic cloud, it was terrifyingly quiet, save for countless tiny rustling sounds.

It was the sound of billions of nanomechanical insects gnawing on the mecha's armor plating.

Lin Yuan felt as if he had fallen into a bathtub filled with strong acid.

The shield had shattered three seconds ago. Even with the xingtian mecha's monstrous defensive capabilities, it was as fragile as a wet tissue in the face of these high-dimensional viruses born specifically to devour metal.

"Warning... Exoskeleton armor damage rate at 70%..."

"Warning... Life support system going offline..."

Pain? He had long since gone numb.

Lin Yuan's current sensation was quite peculiar. The red particles drilled in through the cracks in the mecha, attempting to assimilate his flesh into metal and rewire his nerves into circuits.

If it were an ordinary person, or even a high-ranking Star Spirit, they would have already become a puppet for that giant skeleton.

But Lin Yuan had a good appetite. Or rather, the bandit system inside him had a good appetite.

【Warning! S-class high-dimensional bacteriophage intrusion detected!】

【Warning! host's body undergoing carbon-based collapse...】

【Detected... Wait, this thing is also metal?】

The system panel, which had been flashing red frantically, suddenly stuttered.

Immediately after, the red exclamation mark representing "Danger" anthropomorphically transformed into a currency symbol representing "Resource."

Lin Yuan's fingers, which had been spasming from excruciating pain, suddenly twitched.

He strained to pull at the corners of his mouth, revealing a grimace that looked worse than crying.

"I knew it... why did this toxic gas smell like rust..."

"So it's all just... unrefined ore?"

That made things easy. To a qualified scavenger, there is no such thing as trash in this world, only resources in the wrong place.

Even this deadly virus, as long as you slap a "recyclable" label on it, becomes a hot buffet.

"System, don't play dead! Serve me dinner!"

Lin Yuan roared in his mind, and the void engine, which had previously dimmed, ignited as if doused in a bucket of gasoline, roaring into action.

【Void · Gluttony Mode, force-activated!】

【Overwriting virus underlying logic... Classified as: High-energy fluid mineral.】

【Commencing consumption!】

Those red clouds that had been frantically gnawing on Lin Yuan's mecha suddenly seemed to hit a bottomless pit.

Hum—!

On the surface of Lin Yuan's body, where the wounds had been corroded, there was no blood; instead, blinding, ghostly blue vortices lit up.

Before those nanomachines could even react to what was happening, they were forcefully dragged in by an incredibly domineering suction force.

It felt just like using a vacuum cleaner to suck up a pile of loose sand.

"Hiss— this taste is a bit pungent."

Lin Yuan let out a muffled groan, his bones popping and cracking all over.

As these viruses entered his body, they were instantly crushed, purified, and reorganized by the void engine. That terrifyingly massive amount of energy not only repaired his damaged mecha but also acted like a shot of adrenaline, stabbing directly into his cranium.

"Burp—"

From deep within the toxic cloud came an extremely ill-timed burp.

...

Outside. The Rust Lord sitting atop the high tower was focusing on dealing with that little broken planet that was still struggling.

In its logical calculations, that little bug that had burrowed into the toxic cloud should have long since melted into a pool of molten iron.

It had even reserved a thread, preparing to receive that new puppet.

But in the very next second, that thick, impenetrable red cloud suddenly looked as if it had been stabbed hard from the inside.

A beam of light, intertwined with blue and red, carrying a violent aura of savage growth, pierced straight through the clouds, shooting directly tens of thousands of meters into the sky!

"What?"

The Rust Lord's large, searchlight-like eyes constricted sharply.

Boom! The toxic cloud exploded and dispersed.

A figure emerged, wielding a ridiculously exaggerated greatsword. It was Lin Yuan.

But his appearance had completely changed. The originally dark-gold mecha surface was now flowing with eerie dark-red patterns—that was the bacteriophage armor he had forcefully "digested" and attached to the surface.

The greatsword in his hand, entirely condensed from Void Energy, was a full kilometer long, looking like a slab of a door, with liquid red energy still dripping from it.

"Old bones! Did this buffet of yours expire? It's a bit tough to chew!"

Lin Yuan laughed wildly, swinging his greatsword around in a full arc, and delivered a crushing downward strike straight at the giant mechanical hand that was still pulling at Earth.

Crack! There were no fancy techniques. Just pure energy discharge, combined with the "virus corrosion" attribute imbued on the sword.

That mechanical finger, thicker than a mountain peak, was actually severed by that single strike!

Over on Earth's side, the previously taut gravity anchor instantly snapped loose. The entire planet recoiled violently due to inertia, like a rubber ball released from a stretched band.

"Beautiful! Ram it!"

Although Chen Weiguo didn't know what had happened, the window of opportunity was fleeting. He looked at an enemy destroyer in front that had lost control and was in a state of paralysis, a flash of ruthlessness in his eyes.

"Turn the nozzle of engine No. 4 towards it! Don't bother firing the cannons! Just ram it with our rear!"

The Wandering Earth completed an incredibly clumsy but devastatingly powerful tail-whip maneuver in space. The massive planetary engine exhaust plume, like a tens-of-thousands-of-kilometers-long lightsaber, swept across.

That unlucky destroyer didn't even have time to activate its shields before it was melted into two pieces by this stream of high-temperature ions, which was nearly as hot as a star's surface. It was then instantly captured by Earth's massive gravitational field and crushed into powder.

"Damn it... bug..." The Rust Lord was finally enraged.

Its massive skeletal body stood up abruptly, and the high tower behind it, built from countless wrecks, emitted a groan of unbearable strain.

As it raised its hands, the entire graveyard of the starry sky began to boil. This time, it wasn't just a few dozen ships. It was all the metallic trash within a radius of tens of thousands of kilometers.

Screws, armor plates, broken cannon barrels, shattered engines... hundreds of millions of tons of metallic waste converged under the pull of gravitational waves, forming a metallic tsunami that blotted out the sky.

This was a true torrent of steel. In the face of this torrent, Lin Yuan, wielding his greatsword, looked as insignificant as a speck of dust.

"Give my iron... back to me!" The Lord let out an angry roar and pressed its hands downward.

That metallic tsunami, carrying world-destroying kinetic energy, crashed down directly upon Lin Yuan.

If he were hit by that, forget the mecha; even if they drove the Earth over, it would be smashed into a crater.

Looking at the "sky" pressing down above him, Lin Yuan didn't dodge; instead, he dissipated the greatsword in his hand.

He hovered in the void, arms spread wide, assuming a posture as if he were about to embrace this ocean of steel.

The purple light in his eyes was so intense it was about to overflow, and the progress bar on the system interface was jumping frantically.

【Energy reserves overflowing...】

【Analyzing undead logic...】

【Analysis progress: 99.8%...】

"Come on!" Lin Yuan roared at the scrap metal raining down from the sky, his voice filled with a vicious, extreme greed.

"Let's see if your iron is harder, or if my teeth are sharper!"

"With so much junk, it'd be a waste not to sell it for money!"

Rumble—! Hundreds of millions of tons of scrap metal slammed down heavily.

Lin Yuan's figure instantly vanished into the endless sound of metallic impacts. Immediately following, the Rust Lord's massive bone hand slammed down, pressing tightly onto that pile of rubble as if crushing a stinkbug.

Everything returned to calm. Only the mountain made of new trash continued to tremble slightly.

"It is over." The red light in the Rust Lord's eye sockets flickered—a mockery peculiar to mechanical life.

"Become... a part of me." The red light in its palm flared brightly, attempting to begin assimilating all the matter in the pile of rubble.

However, just as its nanovirus touched the core of the rubble, a crisp, pleasant notification sound abruptly rang out in this dead-silent graveyard. It even pierced through the heavy metal, echoing clearly in every consciousness channel.

【Ding!】

Lin Yuan, pinned tightly at the very bottom of the rubble, opened his eyes in the darkness.

His pupils had turned completely into a pure, ghostly blue, and deep within that blue, one could vaguely see countless tiny data streams rushing frantically.

【Analysis complete.】

【Congratulations host, scavenger authority promoted!】

【Unlocked intermediate authority: Mechanical Undead Resurrection (Undead Scourge Version).】

Lin Yuan smiled. Under that weight of hundreds of millions of tons, he lightly snapped his fingers.

"Old bones, you just said... all this junk is yours?"

"Sorry."

"Now, they belong to me."