235: Chapter 235 Why does that face look so familiar? Close combat, don't touch the cannon!

The morning data report didn't take long.

Shen Wanbing pulled the holographic projection to its maximum size, her finger pointing at the densely packed mineral vein distribution map.

"No. 0 Source Crystal Reserve."

"The exclusive top-tier raw material storage of the Gray-White Mechanical Holy Court. Theoretically, the mineral reserves here are enough for them to rebuild ten Tier 6 peak command mechs."

The main control room was silent for a moment.

Copper Hammer was the first to break.

He stared at that holographic mineral map, his beard twitching for a full three seconds, before letting out a howl that nearly shattered the bulletproof glass.

"Lord!"

His voice was already cracked. "Let me dig this entire mine!"

Mio's projection drifted to the side, the projection itself distorting.

"Can you think about how we're getting out of here first?"

"Dig before we leave."

Copper Hammer hoisted his great hammer onto his shoulder, his eyes as red as if he'd drunk three pounds of mineral water.

"If I don't dig this, I won't be able to sleep for the rest of my life."

Chen Chen didn't give Mio a chance to speak and directly opened the city-wide broadcast.

"All personnel listen up, mining operations start immediately. Mine slaves are now miners. Engineering teams have priority allocation. Excavation volume will be settled with a triple coefficient based on contribution points."

The Lower Deck exploded almost the same second the broadcast landed.

The Boss Lady reacted the fastest.

The sign outside the commercial district was already hung up.

[Mining speed competition betting pool for each district, open for a limited time!]

Before the ink was even dry, Yi Chang's projection slammed over from the side.

"Seized."

The Boss Lady's fox ears stood up straight.

"I'm stimulating production enthusiasm!"

"Stimulating what?" Yi Chang tucked the data board under her arm. "The frontline mining registration area is missing a checker. It's you today."

The Boss Lady was silent for two seconds, her fluffy tail drooping down.

"...I'll go."

Deep in the mine depot.

Jiang Yanxue carried her blade in one hand, walking back and forth in the third branch of the mineral vein.

This place was unusually quiet.

Dozens of mining mechs were roaring, drills smashing into the mineral walls, crystal sand falling with a rustle. The whole place was filled with noisy mechanical sounds—yet there was no other movement.

Qin Hongye set up the Meteor Sniper Cannon two steps behind her left, frowning as she adjusted the parameters.

"Too quiet."

"Yeah."

Jiang Yanxue stopped in front of a mineral wall and tapped it with the back of her blade. "Quiet enough to make my hands itch."

Blood Rose followed from behind, clicking her high heels. She walked up to the edge of an underground water vein, spread her fingers, and squeezed a drop of pink poisonous blood into the flowing water.

She was just casually testing the activity concentration, but her expression changed the next second.

"Something's here."

She crouched down, placing her palm against the ground, her brows furrowed tight.

"Living pulse, a big one."

Before she finished speaking, the ground beneath their feet shook first.

The mineral wall began to shed crystal sand.

"Retreat!"

The moment Jiang Yanxue shouted this word, the mineral wall of the fifth branch behind them collapsed entirely, shattered crystals flying out in an arc.

Boom—!

The entire deep area of the mine depot roared.

Forty meters.

A mechanical skeleton stitched with bloody flesh, its chest cavity a solid piece of twisted Gray-White alloy, crystal marrow conduits embedded in the joints of its two mechanical arms, pulsing violently.

Everyone noticed that face.

The main control head was suspended on the beast's shoulder, half-mechanical, half-flesh. The contours and proportions of the face were seven or eight parts similar to Stage Name, the top idol who had incited the ten-thousand-person petition in the Lower Deck earlier.

Qin Hongye narrowed her eyes.

"Isn't this..."

Mio's electronic voice spiked directly in the communication.

"Don't ask why, listen to me!"

"This is the clone backup body vault of the Gray-White Mechanical Holy Court! They use humans like Stage Name who have extremely high public Spirit weight to replicate biological templates with Spirit-calling frequencies, then build the templates into weapons."

"The original body is used as fuel, the clone as a weapon. Ordinary people are sold twice."

The main control room was silent for a full three seconds.

Shen Wanxing hugged her aromatherapy pillow tighter.

"This is more disgusting than the apocalypse itself."

Su Xiaoqi, drinking bone soup, nodded earnestly.

"Waste of ingredients."

Mio completely gave up on correcting her.

In the mine depot, the giant beast completed its awakening judgment.

Its mechanical eyes locked onto the fortress. Its chest cavity split open, and deep blue Absolute Zero rays seeped out from the gaps. The temperature plummeted by more than thirty degrees instantly.

Dozens of mining mechs in the mine tunnel froze on the spot, the iron shells didn't even make a sound, turning into a row of ice sculptures.

The mine slaves cried out and ran outside.

Chen Chen had already reached the dome of the City Lord Tower.

He jumped down directly.

Smashing down from a height of fifty meters, the sea-stabilizing needle touched the ground first. Blue-gold patterns exploded, and a twenty-five-fold Absolute Control: Gravity Field spread out violently, like an invisible wall stuck firmly in front of the Absolute Zero rays.

The blue-gold patterns and frost collided in the air. The rays were compressed into a flat arc, spreading to the wings, freezing another batch of mining mechs that couldn't escape in time, but the mine slaves' escape route was blocked.

Jiang Jiuyou's channel cut in.

"Main cannon authorization locked."

"The underground spatial structure has a very low critical pressure threshold. If the Star-Splitting Main Cannon fires, everyone will be buried alive."

Copper Hammer roared from the engineering cabin, sending a communication.

"Then use the secondary cannons!"

"If the secondary cannons fire more than three times, the top rock layer will collapse."

Copper Hammer was silent for two seconds, then said in an unusually calm voice:

"Mio, I remember we still have welding torches."

Mio: "Shut up."

Chen Chen stood straight in the mine tunnel, holding the sea-stabilizing needle, and glanced at the giant beast that was greedily absorbing Source Crystal energy from the surrounding mineral walls.

Just while he was staring, a small piece of outer armor on the beast's chest that had been scraped off grew back on the spot.

The speed was ridiculously fast.

"This thing uses mineral veins to heal."

"As long as there are unmined high-tier Source Crystals nearby, its self-healing speed is twenty times the normal state."

Chen Chen looked up at this forty-meter-tall chaotic beast, the Void-Splitting Gravity Ship-Slashing Blade gripped in his palm.

The city-wide communication channel was silent, waiting for him to speak.

"No cannons."

"Close-quarters combat."

"All-out close-quarters hunt."

There was a brief silence in the main control room.

Then, Blood Rose's laughter came out first.

Su Xiaoqi put down her pot and started tying her hair.

Qin Hongye carried the sniper cannon, frowning at the forty-meter beast, and asked in a low voice:

"Does my gun count as close-quarters?"

"Yes."

Chen Chen took a step forward with his blade. "Within fifty meters, precisely blow up its joints."

Qin Hongye thought for 0.5 seconds.

"Fine, that's fair of you."

The giant beast lowered its clone main control head, which looked seven or eight parts like Stage Name, its mechanical eyes aiming at Chen Chen, and let out a low howl. The crystal walls of the entire mine depot began to resonate.

The Absolute Zero rays recharged again, the blue light in its chest cavity growing thicker.

Chen Chen took the second step forward.

Right at this moment, Su Xiaoqi's voice jumped into the communication channel, fast and bright, righteous and confident.

"Brother, we can't use cannons for this, but can I use my pot?"

Mio: "..."

Jiang Yanxue jumped down from the side, holding her blade. Her clothes flared up with the airflow. She lowered her blade, eyes fixed on the thickest crystal marrow conduit on the beast's left arm, a smile on her lips.

"Finally, something worth fighting."

The frozen mine tunnel began to crack beneath Chen Chen's feet. A deep pit was pressed out at the edge of the twenty-five-fold gravity field. The countdown for the rays in the beast's chest cavity was full. The cloned face on the main control head slowly split into a mechanical smile that didn't belong to any living creature, facing him.

Chen Chen turned sideways. The Absolute Zero rays grazed his left shoulder, brushing an entire section of the mineral wall behind him into an ice screen.

He raised the Void-Splitting Gravity Ship-Slashing Blade, Gravity Collapse condensing into a black dot at the tip of the blade, and swung it into the gap of the beast's right knee joint.

Boom!

The forty-meter behemoth tilted to the right by half a step. The mechanical knee made a metal shattering sound under twenty-five-fold gravity, and the first crack appeared in the entire lower limb structure.

But the next second, the Source Crystals in the surrounding mineral walls began to surge toward the crack at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the crack closed.

"It's using the mineral veins to heal."

Shen Wanbing's voice was clear. "Every time it absorbs one unit of mineral vein, its defense value increases by 3.2. It has already eaten seven units now. You must interrupt the absorption link before it refills."

Chen Chen didn't wait for her to finish; his Mental Power was already spreading out.

Four hundred points of Mental tentacles covered it like a dense net, pinching off the three thickest crystal marrow conduits on the beast's right side. The flow of Source Crystals jammed instantly.

The beast let out a strange noise similar to a human wail.

That cloned face twisted for a moment.

It was very painful.

Chen Chen remembered this detail.

"Jiang Yanxue, left arm conduit."

As the words fell, Jiang Yanxue had already pounced up from the edge of the beast's left shoulder armor.

She didn't go for the joint; she went straight inside along the seam of the flesh stitching. She inserted the Shadow Instant-Kill Blade and twisted it, snapping three parallel crystal marrow conduits together.

Bloody liquid sprayed out.

The self-healing network of the beast's entire left arm crashed directly.

It swung to the left, trying to shake Jiang Yanxue off. Jiang Yanxue hooked the edge of the stitched flesh, shifting her entire body five meters across the mechanical outer armor without falling off.

"The feel is average."

She pulled out her blade and wiped it on the outer armor. "Not as solid as a Tier 6 Hunter King."

On the other side, Su Xiaoqi circled to the back of the beast.

She didn't have her pot.

There happened to be a piece of frozen cracked mine tunnel steel rail at hand, 1.5 meters long, as thick as a thumb. She pinched it with two fingers, tested it, felt it was handy, and started swinging.

The first hit landed on the beast's right ankle joint.

The outer armor dented.

The second hit followed on the same spot, the outer armor shattered, and two of the mechanical ligaments inside snapped directly.

Mio's channel transmitted an extremely painful electronic voice.

"You... that's a steel rail, not a weapon..."

"If it can hit, it's a weapon."

Su Xiaoqi changed the angle of the steel rail and smashed it down at the same crack again.

"Mio, is this thing flesh or pure machinery inside?"

"Half-mechanical, half-flesh. There is pure biological tissue in the spinal core area."

"Then it's not all iron."

Su Xiaoqi nodded, feeling this information was very useful. "Can it still be eaten?"

Mio gave up on answering.

Qin Hongye had already found a corner in the mine tunnel twenty meters away.

She knelt on one knee, a little red seeping from the bandage on her right shoulder.

She wedged the mount of the Meteor Sniper Cannon onto a protrusion of the mineral wall, aiming the lens at the seam where the machinery and flesh met on the left side of the beast's neck.

There was a main control nerve bundle with a diameter of ten centimeters there, wrapped only in a translucent biological membrane, with no metal protection.

She held her breath, waiting for the moment the beast turned its head.

Two seconds.

The beast turned to the left to dodge Su Xiaoqi's steel rail, and the neck seam was exposed for 0.4 seconds.

Enough.

Pull the trigger.

The Gauss projectile shot out from the corner of the mine tunnel, grazing the edge of a protruding mineral crystal to change direction, drilling into the biological membrane at an extremely tricky angle, piercing the main control nerve bundle.

The beast's right arm lost connection on the spot, the entire mechanical arm hanging in mid-air, unable to move.

In the Lower Deck, someone didn't know who put the real-time battlefield projection on.

The mine slaves and craftsmen crowded by the passage to watch. Some covered their mouths, some had already started cheering.

Iron Wall stood on the high platform maintaining order, but his eyes kept glancing at the screen. While roaring "Everyone sit down for me," he sneakily turned his head to confirm if Chen Chen's strike had landed.

Blood Rose didn't engage from the front; she went to the deepest part of the mine depot.

There were dozens of unmined high-tier Source Crystal veins there, which were the source of the beast's healing.

She crouched down, dug open the wound on her palm, and let the pink poisonous blood seep into the underground water vein.

Same operation as before, but the dosage was tripled.

"Sister Wanbing."

She stood up, clapped her hands. "Are there biological conduction pathways in the mineral veins?"

Shen Wanbing scanned for two seconds.

"Yes, the Source Crystal veins and its crystal marrow conduits share the same energy transmission frequency band, equivalent to the same blood vessel."

Blood Rose smiled.

"Then that's easy."

She pressed the still-bleeding wound on her palm against the outer wall of the thickest mineral vein, lowered her head, and pressed inward earnestly.

The pink poisonous blood drilled into the diversion gaps, followed the energy transmission frequency band all the way up, and was transmitted into the beast's crystal marrow system.

The effect appeared ten seconds later.

The beast's self-healing speed began to show obvious lag. Every time it absorbed one unit of Source Crystal, it took three times longer than before.

It looked back at the depths of the mineral vein and let out the lowest mechanical howl to date.

"Chen Chen, the window is here."

Shen Wanbing: "It's distracted, the absorption link has a 1.2-second gap."

Chen Chen was already running.

He didn't use flight; he was just running. He stepped on the steel frame of the mine tunnel with his right foot to gain leverage, changed direction in mid-air, and smashed toward the center of the beast's chest cavity from an oblique angle above.

The sea-stabilizing needle arrived first, blue-gold patterns striking into the mechanical outer armor, triggering the Sea-Stabilizing Domain. The entire chest structure of the beast was forcibly stilled for 0.5 seconds.

The Void-Splitting Gravity Ship-Slashing Blade pressed down accordingly.

The blade cut in along the crack in the outer armor that Blood Rose's toxin had already eroded.

First layer, cut open.

The second layer of mechanical plates lit up with a shield.

Gravity Collapse exploded at the tip of the blade, the micro-black hole pulling the shield structure inward, shattering it.

The third layer was pure biological tissue.

Chen Chen didn't use the blade; he used Mental Power.

Four hundred points of Mental tentacles pressed in the moment they touched the biological tissue, stabbing directly toward the main control core buried deep in the chest cavity.

The beast let out a dual howl that belonged to neither machine nor human.

That cloned face showed an expression of fear for the first time.

System red text flashed out.

[Target Spirit defense collapsed.]

[Core exposed.]

Chen Chen pulled out the sea-stabilizing needle, switched to the blade, and pressed the Gravity Domain to the max inward.

A blade fell.

Golden light exploded outward from the blade, and the crystal walls of the deep mine depot all lit up.

Boom!

The beast's chest cavity collapsed, the main control core exploded into three sections, and fragments of the outer armor nailed into the surrounding mineral walls.

The forty-meter behemoth fell backward, smashing into the underground mine tunnel, kicking up large clouds of crystal sand.

The vibration lasted for nearly five seconds.

Then it stopped.

In the main control room, Mio stared at the readings. After a long time, the projection finally stabilized again.

"Life signal... zeroed."

In front of the Lower Deck screen, someone applauded.

Iron Wall shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Just looking! Hurry back and get your tools, the mine hasn't been finished yet!"

The mine slaves scattered.

Qin Hongye stood up from the corner of the mine tunnel, exercised her right shoulder, and walked toward Chen Chen.

She handed over the tactical board, which showed that her exclusive affix had leveled up again after the end of this battle.

Chen Chen took it, scanned it, and returned the board to her.

"Noted."

Qin Hongye took back the board, her expression unchanged, but the tips of her ears turned red slightly.

Su Xiaoqi walked over, holding the bent steel rail, tilting her head to stare at the remains of the fallen beast.

"Brother, can we open a blind box with this?"

Chen Chen looked at Shen Wanxing, who was peeking in through the gap in the cabin door, holding a pillow in the corner.

Shen Wanxing realized she was being watched and immediately squeezed the door gap narrower.

"I was just passing by..."

"Come in."

The door gap was silent for two seconds.

Then Shen Wanxing walked in barefoot, holding her aromatherapy pillow.

She stepped on the crushed crystal sand, her soles feeling chilly, and walked to the remains with a frown.

"Just... just this one, right."

Su Xiaoqi shook her head earnestly.

"There's that one on the back too."

Shen Wanxing looked down at the size of the beast's remains and gripped her pillow tighter.

"How long is this going to take to touch..."

Chen Chen walked past her and patted her head.

"Hurry up, eighty percent of the mine is still left to be dug."

"..."

Shen Wanxing took a deep breath, supported the pillow with one hand, and slowly reached the other hand toward the remains.

Her fingertips hadn't touched it yet.

In the deepest part of the mine depot, a low mechanical resonance suddenly came.

Shen Wanbing's voice exploded from the communication.

"Wait—!"

"The host index of this reserve is still running."