38: Chapter 38 The City of Machines

Rubble rained down from the dilapidated buildings with a clatter, and everyone was shaken so violently they could not stand, falling to the ground one after another.

Their faces were filled with terror, unsure of what earth-shattering catastrophe had occurred.

The next second, a shadow that blotted out the sky descended from the horizon, carrying an overwhelming pressure.

Immediately after, an immensely thick, jet-black steel pillar, carrying the momentum of destruction, slammed straight into the ground of the service area!

"Hum! Clang!!!"

Steel collided violently with the ground, a deafening roar shooting straight into the sky, the piercing boom exploding in everyone's ears.

It made everyone's eardrums ache and their heads throb; they could not even scream, only clutching their ears tightly, their faces filled with shock.

Zhou Che was also left dizzy by the deafening sound, stumbling and nearly falling.

Forcing himself to endure the discomfort, he slowly raised his head, his gaze traveling from the base of the steel pillar, inching upwards.

The higher he looked, the more his pupils contracted, his heart pounding wildly, his breathing becoming rapid.

This steel pillar was unimaginably thick, its surface covered in intricate mechanical patterns.

Its entire body shimmered with a cold metallic sheen, stretching endlessly into the clouds, with the top nowhere to be seen.

Everyone present suppressed their shock, craning their necks to look up, and when they saw the scene at the top of the pillar...

Everyone froze in place instantly, their minds going blank, leaving only an extreme, soul-striking shock!

At the top of that sky-supporting pillar stood an endless Mechanical City!

The entire city was forged from refined steel, its walls incredibly thick, covered with dense mechanical turrets and guard posts.

Towering steel buildings stood row upon row, magnificent and imposing, like a sleeping steel behemoth; just looking at it made it hard to breathe.

A name that only existed in apocalypse legends instantly surfaced in everyone's minds.

Mechanical City!

This was no mere city; it was clearly a mobile steel war fortress!

Zhou Che stared fixedly at the behemoth before him, his heart pounding frantically.

He roughly estimated that this Mechanical City was a full 3,000 mu in size, which converted to exactly two square kilometers, several times larger than an ordinary small town before the apocalypse!

Eight identical steel pillars stood beneath the city, like the limbs of a giant beast.

They supported the behemoth as it moved slowly; every step it took caused the ground to shake violently, its power boundless.

Zhou Che instantly recalled the records in Captain Wu Jue's diary, which mentioned that the Mechanical City was a top-tier faction in the apocalypse.

He had previously competed with himself, thinking that with his own methods, he would eventually be able to compare to it.

But seeing it with his own eyes now, that feeling of visual and spiritual crushing made him instantly understand what it meant to be worlds apart.

His Dawn Convoy, in front of this Mechanical City, was like an ant facing a dragon, insignificant and not worth mentioning, lacking even the qualifications to be compared.

The other Transcendents in The Convoy—Lin Wan, Captain Liu Ruyan, Wang Zhiming, Sister Zhang, and the others—all widened their eyes, their mouths agape enough to fit an egg, their faces filled with shock, completely unable to speak.

This feeling was as if they were still playing with mud on the beach, molding little sandcastles.

While others were already living in a truly impregnable, fully-armed castle; the gap was so large it was despair-inducing.

This was the first time Zhou Che had felt such a massive gap in the apocalypse, and a sense of powerlessness could not help but rise in his heart.

But this feeling of powerlessness lasted only a few seconds before he forcibly suppressed it, his eyes becoming firm again, even igniting a stronger fighting spirit.

He had the system's support, an heaven-defying advantage that others could never compare to; as long as he was given time, he might not be unable to build a faction even stronger than the Mechanical City!

The Dawn Sanctuary he wanted to build would one day have to be more magnificent, more powerful, and more awe-inspiring than this Mechanical City!

Since his strength was insufficient at this stage, he would develop cautiously and avoid head-on collisions; one day, he would make the Dawn Convoy a top-tier existence in the apocalypse that no one dared to provoke!

Meanwhile, high up in the Mechanical City, a guard clad in mechanical armor walked quickly to the tall, cold-aura captain, bowing respectfully to report.

"Captain, there is a small convoy in the service area below, fighting against a creature. That creature is not weak, and The Convoy is clearly outmatched and about to collapse."

The guard paused and continued:

"Captain, should we slightly adjust our course and use the steel pillar to crush this creature?"

The captain looked down from above, indifferently sweeping a glance at the battered Dawn Convoy below.

And that strange Black Slime, with no expression on his face, as if it were just a trivial matter, he simply nodded lightly, granting permission.

To them, resolving such a creature was nothing more than lifting a hand, no different from stepping on an ant.

Receiving the order, the Mechanical City slowly adjusted its direction, and one of the steel pillars below lifted slowly, then brought down with the force of ten thousand jun, slamming fiercely into the Black Slime at the supermarket entrance!

There was no resistance, no ripples.

That powerful creature, which even Zhou Che had been helpless against, was fragile and vulnerable before the steel pillar.

Instantly crushed into flying ash, it turned into a puff of black mist, completely dissipating into the air, leaving not even a trace behind.

"We survived! We really survived!"

The remaining survivors in the supermarket, watching the creature completely disappear, collapsed to the ground one by one, crying loudly as if reborn.

They had thought they would surely die, either swallowed by the creature or abandoned by The Convoy.

They had not expected this suddenly descending steel giant city to solve the deadly threat so casually, letting them save their lives.

The Transcendents and ordinary survivors in The Convoy, watching this scene, were shocked to the extreme, their hearts filled with awe.

The apocalypse had only arrived for a few short months, yet a faction had already developed to such a terrifying degree.

Being able to casually crush a creature they could not deal with even with all their might—this gap was simply despair-inducing.

Many ordinary survivors and new Transcendents felt a deep sense of powerlessness in their hearts.

Facing such a behemoth, what could they use to compete? They did not even have the qualifications to resist!

If even such a top-tier faction had to migrate to survive in the apocalypse, how could their small convoys possibly live better in these chaotic times?

The ground's tremors gradually subsided, the Mechanical City adjusted its course back, continuing to take heavy steps.

Moving slowly towards the direction of Shancheng, that overwhelming pressure gradually receded along with it.

Zhou Che watched the receding figure of the Mechanical City, his heart filled with mixed emotions.

With a top-tier faction like the Mechanical City participating in the competition for the top ten strange objects in Shancheng, his original determination to compete instantly became a bit heavier.

Then again, it was only natural for such a faction to participate in the competition.

He just had not expected the Mechanical City from the notes to be like this.

Competing against such a faction, could he really win?