72: Chapter 72 The Whole Army Opens the Box

The smoke of battle had yet to clear. The corpse of the C-grade Ironclad Tyrannosaurus, massive as a mountain, still twitched.

Lin Fan stood atop the shattered abdomen of the Tyrannosaurus, his feet in thick, searing-hot beast blood. Without the slightest pause, he pressed a single hand against the creature's exposed spinal column. A flash of golden light shone from his palm.

[Detected Martial Master Peak-grade materials: Tyrannosaurus Essence, High-Density Alloy Bones.]

[Converting into a large batch of C-grade blind boxes...]

"Fatty, catch!"

Lin Fan tossed the item backward with a flick of his wrist. A box emitting a dark golden luster cut through the air, landing precisely in the arms of Fatty, who was reloading his magazine not far away.

"The first-kill reward for an Elite Peak grade, it's yours."

Fatty's entire body of flab trembled. Not bothering to wipe the blood and grime from his face, he tore open the box with savage force the very instant a newly-charging Elite-grade Saber-toothed Tiger lunged to bite.

No wasted words.

No prayers.

A muffled metallic *clang* exploded.

Fatty's originally plump physique instantly swelled. A layer of heavy black-gold armor materialized on the surface of his skin, and his arms transformed into two high-speed rotating alloy drill bits.

[Item: Tyrannosaurus Armament - Heavy Assault Form]

[Duration: Ten minutes. Effect: Strength increased by 500%, Defense increased by 300%.]

"DIE FOR YOUR GRANDPA!!"

Fatty let out a shrill shriek that belied his massive frame. Instead of retreating, he charged forward. The alloy drill bits, shrieking through the air, plunged directly into the Saber-toothed Tiger's throat.

Flesh and blood flew everywhere.

This scene acted like a signal, utterly igniting the entire defensive line.

West side of the battlefield, amidst a pile of corpses.

Rookie Zhao Xiaohu leaned against a half-collapsed wall. The rifle in his hands had long since overheated, its barrel glowing red, now discarded and useless beside him. Before him, over a dozen "Ghost-faced Demon Spiders," known for their speed, spat corrosive venom threads as they closed in step by step.

A hopeless situation.

Zhao Xiaohu's hands trembled as he reached for the last remaining "Glory Grenade" on his belt.

Suddenly, his foot kicked against something hard.

It was a white blind box that had fallen when a supply truck passed by earlier, now covered in mud and the blood of who-knows-whom.

"All or nothing!"

Zhao Xiaohu released the Glory Grenade, grabbed the blind box, dug his fingernails into the seam, and tore it open with all his might.

It had to be a weapon.

Even just a knife would be good!

*Click.*

The box sprang open.

There was no knife, nor was there a gun.

There was only a palm-sized, silvery-white metal sphere, flashing with an urgent red light.

[Item: Self-Destructing Mechanical Spider Mother (Single-use)]

[Description: Contains three hundred micro high-explosive spiders. Automatically locks onto targets, fights to the death.]

In the moment Zhao Xiaohu stared in disbelief, the metal sphere in his hand split open on its own.

*Skitter, skitter, skitter...*

The dense sound of mechanical friction was enough to make one's scalp crawl.

Countless silver mechanical spiders, each only the size of a fingernail, surged out like a tide. Fearless and astonishingly fast, they scurried along the ground, up walls, even leaped through the air, accurately pouncing on the group of Ghost-faced Demon Spiders opposite.

One for one.

The mechanical spiders burrowed into the spiders' maws, eye sockets, and joint crevices.

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

An unbroken chain of explosions instantly drowned this area.

Flames shot into the sky.

The previously arrogant and aggressive spider swarm was instantly blown to smithereens. Green insect blood mixed with mechanical parts splattered in all directions.

Zhao Xiaohu stared blankly at the now-cleared fan-shaped area before him. Over a dozen mutant beasts, gone in the blink of an eye, not even scraps remaining.

"This... this is a blind box?"

This drama of snatching life from the jaws of death was playing out frenziedly in every corner of the battlefield.

Trench Number Three.

Company Commander Wang Tiezhu leaned against a sandbag. His legs below the knees had been crushed into pulp by a massive boulder, white bone starkly exposed. The excruciating pain nearly caused him to black out several times, but he stubbornly gritted his teeth, refusing to let the medics carry him away.

"Commander! Retreat!" his adjutant roared, eyes red.

"Retreat my ass! Your old man can still fight!"

Wang Tiezhu shoved his adjutant aside and grabbed a blue blind box that had just been distributed, lying nearby.

This was the hope he had bought with half a month's allowance.

"GIVE YOUR OLD MAN THE GOODS!!"

The box shattered.

Two streamlined silver metal components appeared out of thin air. As if alive, they automatically attached themselves to Wang Tiezhu's mutilated stumps. The sting of neural connection made him grunt, followed by an unprecedented surge of power.

[Item: Mechanical Exoskeleton - Leg Components (C-grade)]

[Traits: Direct neural link. Possesses jumping power and explosive force ten times that of an ordinary person.]

*Crunch~ Whirr!*

The sound of hydraulic transmission activated.

Under the adjutant's horrified and despairing gaze, Wang Tiezhu, who had lost both legs, suddenly stood up. The alloy tips of his feet stamped heavily on the ground.

The concrete ground cracked.

Wang Tiezhu shot into the air like a cannonball, leaping a full fifteen meters high. His combat saber, leveraging the momentum of his descent, cleaved an Ironhide Bison attempting to breach the defensive line clean in half from head to tail.

"AWESOME!"

Wang Tiezhu landed, his alloy legs sinking deep into the soil, steady as a mountain. He wiped the beast blood from his face and roared at the sky, "WHO'S NEXT!!"

Chaos.

Utter chaos.

The City Defense Force, originally being pressed hard by the mutant beasts, now underwent a bizarre shift in style.

No longer was it uniform volleys of gunfire, but rather a "Grand Bazaar of Ten Thousand Realms."

To the left, a soldier held a talisman, muttering "as swift as law decrees," before flinging out a palm thunderbolt that fried a beast to a crisp.

To the right, a burly man hefted an exaggerated-looking flamethrower, spewing not ordinary fire but purple alchemical poison flames that ignited on contact and could not be extinguished.

Someone else had opened a [Gravity Trap], tossing it to form a black aperture on the ground. Beasts charging in were instantly flattened, their internal organs rupturing.

There were even those who opened a [Group Taunt Loudspeaker], hanging it on their waist to automatically broadcast noise, drawing aggro, then coordinating with teammates' [High-Explosive Landmines] for pit kills.

A motley assortment, a pandemonium of demons dancing wildly.

The beast tide, which had been advancing relying on numbers and physical superiority, stalled for the first time.

The mutant beasts lacked high intelligence, but they possessed instinct.

These humans before them were too bizarre.

One moment they were fragile flesh and blood, the next they could pull out all sorts of inexplicable things, blasting them into disarray.

*Roar...*

A Bloodthirsty Demon Wolf at the forefront halted its charge.

It looked at the human before it, who was only a One-Star Martial Artist. That human held an unopened pink box in hand, and not only was there no fear on his face, but rather... greed?

That was the look a hunter gives its prey.

The demon wolf flinched. It tucked its tail and instinctively took a step back.

That one step marked the reversal of offense and defense.

To the rear, atop a off-road vehicle.

Lin Fan sat cross-legged, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. His hands moved through the air like playing a piano, fingers flying in rapid rhythm.

On his retina, system prompts cascaded like a waterfall.

[Customer Zhao Xiaohu opened a D-grade blind box, obtained Self-Destructing Spider Swarm. Triggered twenty-fold critical hit return!]

[Obtained: Mechanical Legion Summoning Token (C-grade) x1]

[Customer Wang Tiezhu opened a C-grade blind box, obtained Exoskeleton Components. Triggered thirty-fold critical hit return!]

[Obtained: Full Set Blueprints for Single-Soldier Powered Armor (A-grade) x1]

[Customer Li Si opened an E-grade blind box, obtained a bottle of Stinky Tofu (Thank You for Your Purchase). Triggered ten-fold critical hit return!]

[Obtained: Stinky Tofu x10]

...

Satisfying.

So damn satisfying.

Lin Fan looked at the supplies multiplying geometrically in his system warehouse. The grin on his face was so wide he couldn't suppress it no matter how hard he tried.

What kind of battle was this?

This was clearly the entire city working to farm monsters for him!

These soldiers not only paid for his blind boxes, but also risked their lives killing mutant beasts to provide him with raw materials. All he had to do was sit in the middle, acting as a ruthless "blind box processor," and reap the profits of hundred-fold critical hits.

Even the mutant beasts themselves started looking pleasing to his eye.

They weren't man-eating monsters. They were walking resource materials for leveling up, mobile experience packets on legs.