56: Chapter 56 Backlash

Lin Yan saw the wall behind the mecha.

The wall was covered in dense rows of names, line after line, stretching from the bottom of the wall up to a height of over two meters.

Some names were carved neatly, stroke by stroke, as if someone had spent a long time carving them slowly. Others were scrawled messily, crooked and distorted, as if done with trembling hands. Some names were followed by dates, while others were marked with simple symbols—a star, a sword, a flower.

In the bottom row, the handwriting had blurred to the point of illegibility, but Lin Yan crouched down to examine it closely and could still make out the character "Zhao."

"This is the list of the fallen." Jiang Ruoxue had approached him at some point.

Lin Yan nodded and stood up.

He didn't count them one by one, but every name on that wall belonged to someone who had piloted a mecha, someone who had stood on these walls and fought against the giants.

"Let's go," Lin Yan said.

The stronghold was small, but it had everything it needed.

Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng took them on a tour, without any unnecessary chatter. He simply walked, occasionally stopping to point and say, "This is the armory," "This is the infirmary," "This is the mess hall," before continuing on.

The armory was located in the deepest part of the stronghold, a massive excavated cellar. It was quite large, covering at least two or three hundred square meters.

Workers were busy here.

They didn't use electricity or runes; they used steam. A massive steam engine hunkered in the corner of the cellar, its boiler burning red-hot. The reciprocating motion of the pistons drove a series of drive shafts, which then distributed power to each machine tool.

The machine tools were of an early 20th-century design: cast-iron frames, hand-cranked feeds, no CNC, no automation—everything relied on the workers' feel and experience. Lathes were machining gun barrels, slowly turning iron rods into smooth cylinders under the cutting tools, while reamers gradually cut the rifling into the inner walls. Milling machines were processing bolt mechanisms, shaping parts under the cutting tools. Where edges had burrs, workers carefully filed them down by hand.

The rifles were bolt-action.

Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng picked up an assembled rifle from the workbench and handed it to Lin Yan. The barrel was significantly longer than modern weapons, and the wooden stock was polished dark and shiny from sweat. The metal parts bore fine machining marks; it wasn't a perfect industrial product, but something assembled by hand, piece by piece.

"7mm caliber, five-round magazine, effective range of 500 meters," Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng said, handing him the gun. "It's enough for people, but against giants, it only causes superficial wounds."

Lin Yan took the rifle and weighed it in his hands. It was heavy, at least four kilograms, with the center of gravity forward of the bolt mechanism. It wasn't perfectly balanced, but the craftsmanship was solid.

"Unless you hit vital spots like the eyes, mouth, or the back of the neck," Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng added. "But when giants are charging, those targets are constantly moving. Hitting an eye from five hundred meters away is harder than winning the lottery."

Shen Xin walked over, her gaze sweeping across the armory before finally settling on the steam engine.

"Why not develop higher-tech weapons?" she asked.

Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng glanced at her, his expression complex, as if to say, "Are you genuinely ignorant, or just asking for the sake of it?"

"Developing technology requires time, talent, and an industrial base," he said, his tone flat, yet every word sounded like a statement of a disheartening reality. "We've been trapped behind these walls for over a century. We dig iron ore from ruins, carry coal from abandoned mine shafts, and smelt steel in small blast furnaces, one batch at a time. Maintaining our current production capacity is already our limit."

He didn't continue.

Jiang Ruoxue remained silent and didn't ask again.

The infirmary was on the other side of the stronghold.

Before they even entered, they could smell a pungent mix of antiseptic and blood. It felt like having a soaked cloth pressed against one's nose, making it hard to breathe.

The infirmary wasn't large, but it was packed with beds.

A row of simple wooden cots lined the walls, the sheets stained by blood and medicine until their original color was unrecognizable. People lay on every bed; some were sleeping, some stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, some groaned softly, and others bit into their pillows without making a sound.

Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng walked in front, his footsteps lighter, though he didn't deliberately lower his voice. Here, the volume of one's voice no longer mattered, because those who would be startled awake were already awake from the pain; only those with the lightest injuries were asleep.

Lin Yan's gaze swept over every bed.

A young man lay on a bed, his right leg missing from below the knee. The stump was wrapped in thick bandages, the bloodstains on them dried to a dark brown. He had no expression on his face, his eyes half-closed, his lips cracked, and his breathing was shallow.

A woman sat propped up against the headboard, her left arm suspended in a sling that wrapped all the way to her shoulder. Her right hand clutched a wooden carving, shaped like some kind of animal; the craftsmanship was rough, but it was clearly a bird.

Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng didn't offer any introductions, simply walking past these beds.

In the innermost corner, there was a bed partition separated by a canvas curtain.

Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng paused in front of the curtain.

He didn't look at Lin Yan or anyone else; he just stood there for two seconds before reaching out to pull back the curtain.

The person on the bed was wrapped tightly in bandages.

Arms, legs, and torso were all wrapped, but the face was exposed. The bandages covered the person from the top of the head down to the neck, leaving only a mouth and a pair of eyes visible.

His eyes were open.

But the look in those eyes made Qin Chuan instinctively take a step back.

It wasn't ferocity or madness, but a kind of chaos. It was as if two completely different operating systems were running in the same brain, conflicting and tearing at each other. The eyeballs rolled incessantly in their sockets, sometimes focusing on a spot, sometimes completely unfocused, as if staring at an image that existed only in his mind.

His lips were moving incessantly.

It wasn't speech, but some kind of unconscious action, as if driven by something to perform a task but unable to complete it. Sometimes it looked like chewing, sometimes like licking, and sometimes his lips would suddenly curl back to reveal his teeth, only to slowly close again.

"He was once one of our best pilots," Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng said, his voice so soft it sounded like he was talking to himself.

"He killed fifteen 30-meter-class giants single-handedly."

He stood by the bed, looking down at the bandaged figure. His face remained expressionless, but Lin Yan noticed his right thumb repeatedly rubbing the second joint of his index finger.

"Later, his mecha was smashed," Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng said. "The cockpit was crushed by a giant's fist. When the three of them were rescued, the primary pilot was already dead, and the co-pilot had a broken spine. He was the third pilot and had the lightest injuries. But…"

He paused.

"But his consciousness suffered a backlash."

Qin Chuan's voice sounded a bit dry: "Backlash? Is that what you were talking about?"

"Yes," Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng didn't explain in detail, just looking at the person on the bed. "He can no longer distinguish whether he is human or a giant. When he's lucid, he can recognize us and call our names. But when it flares up…"

He paused.

"When it flares up, he bites himself."

Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng pulled the curtain back shut.

The gray canvas curtain slowly closed, hiding the bandaged face. The crooked cross on the curtain swayed gently in the air before coming to a stop.

"Let's go," Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng said. "There are other places to see."

After leaving the infirmary, Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng didn't take them anywhere else.

He brought the four of them directly to the council chamber.

The council chamber was a small stone room. On the wall hung a heavily worn map of the city's defenses, and on the table were several parchment maps and a logbook with frayed edges.

Mecha Captain Zhao Tiesheng sat in the chair behind the table, not inviting them to sit or pouring them any water.

"Let's keep this brief. The giants will attack the city tomorrow morning, with numbers likely between three thousand and five thousand. The four of you are assigned to Arrow Tower No. 3 on the eastern section. The pressure there is less than at the main gate, which is suitable for you to get used to the rhythm of defending the city."

He paused, tapping his fingers lightly on the tabletop twice.

"But I didn't bring you here just to tell you that."