56: Chapter 56: Successfully escaped danger, and the women's favorability towards him increased significantly!

"Su Xiaoqi!"

In the rear compartment, Su Xiaoqi was crouching beside the folding table, a half-eaten energy bar dangling from her mouth, her eyes glued to the weapon console screen, watching with great interest.

On the screen, flames lit up the sky as monsters were torn to shreds. She watched it as if she were binge-watching a show, occasionally letting out "Oh, oh!" exclamations of wonder.

Hearing Chen Chen call her, she didn't even have time to swallow the energy bar before she sprang up like a coiled spring.

"Present!"

"Feed your fist to it."

Su Xiaoqi chewed up the remaining half of the energy bar in two or three bites and swallowed it, wiped the crumbs from the corner of her mouth, and her pupils rapidly constricted within her big, round eyes.

The hydraulic rods of the armored door at the back of the compartment hissed as they depressurized, and the thick steel plates slid open to both sides.

The wind, carrying the stench of rot and blood, rushed in. Su Xiaoqi's petite figure stood at the doorway, her twin tails blowing backward in the airflow.

Outside was a dense swarm of stitched monsters—tentacles, severed limbs, sharp teeth—a dark, overwhelming mass.

Su Xiaoqi licked her lips.

She crouched, kicked off the metal floor with her toes, and darted out.

She was 160 centimeters tall and weighed no more than 50 kilograms.

But the moment her right fist struck out, the air was compressed, emitting a sharp, cracking sound.

"Bang!"

The Aberration-class leader charging head-on had its calcified chest carapace completely caved in, with cracks spreading from the point of impact.

That monster, larger than an ox, was lifted off its feet, half its chest cavity collapsed, as its entire mass flew seven or eight meters backward, crashing into the pile of monsters behind it and knocking down a whole group.

Inside the compartment, Jiang Yanxue's hand tightened on the control stick.

The explosive power of this punch—it was at least double that of the one at the town entrance last time.

Those energy ingredients scavenged from the town hadn't gone to waste.

"Su Xiaoqi, come back!"

Chen Chen's voice came through the communicator, leaving no room for negotiation.

Su Xiaoqi's combat instincts were much stronger than she looked.

One strike, one success!

She didn't get greedy for more results; instead, she reached into the ruptured chest cavity of the Aberration-class leader and plucked out a fist-sized, still-pulsating dark purple core tissue—and casually stuffed it into her mouth.

She ran while chewing.

Her cheeks were bulging, and purple-black juice dripped from the corner of her mouth; she was no different from a child sneaking a piece of candy.

Her movement jumping back into the compartment was clean and agile; no sooner had her feet touched the ground than the armored door closed behind her.

"Is it tasty?" Shen Wanxing leaned over to ask.

Su Xiaoqi nodded vigorously, mumbling two words:

"Crunchy."

Shen Wanxing's face turned green.

"Ammunition remaining: 500 rounds!" Shen Wanbing's voice pulled everyone back to reality.

The smell of scorched, overheated metal drifted down from the roof of the vehicle.

The temperature of the two heavy machine gun barrels was approaching the critical limit; if they kept firing, the barrels would either be ruined or explode.

Chen Chen slammed the steering wheel hard to the left.

The 18-ton "Ghost Fortress" carved an arc through the zombie horde, the vehicle tilting to an angle that made one's stomach churn.

The magnetic levitation thruster units beneath the chassis emitted blue-white arcs of light, and the power of the six thrusters was instantly redistributed—weakened on the left, full throttle on the right.

The vehicle body completed a lateral drift in mid-air.

Shen Wanxing's head bumped against the frame of the weapon console, and she hissed in pain.

Su Xiaoqi slid right off her seat, landing on her bottom, the piece of core tissue she hadn't finished swallowing almost choking her.

The pursuing flock of Corrosive Wyverns was caught off guard by this sudden change in direction!

The two leading ones collided in mid-air, their wings tangled, spiraling as they plummeted toward the ground.

"Ahead, a rift valley! 800 meters!"

Shen Wanbing's voice pitch rose.

Her psychic tentacles had already probed the three-dimensional structure of the terrain ahead—

A natural rift valley less than 20 meters wide and over 50 meters deep, with sheer rock walls on both sides—a natural anti-aircraft barrier.

But the entrance was incredibly narrow.

The fortress was over four meters wide.

"Can we make it through?" Jiang Yanxue asked the crucial question.

"Less than three meters of clearance on each side," Shen Wanbing reported the data.

Chen Chen pushed the control stick to the limit.

"That's enough."

The output power of the A-grade magnetic levitation engine was pushed to the max, and all six thruster units simultaneously entered overload mode.

The numbers on the speedometer began to jump—180, 195, 210, 220.

The engine no longer roared; it transformed into a high-frequency vibration akin to a shriek, piercing through the vehicle shell and drilling into their bones.

"Ammunition exhausted!"

Jiang Yanxue and Shen Wanxing released the firing keys almost simultaneously.

The machine guns went silent.

But 18 tons of mass multiplied by a speed of 220 kilometers per hour was the best weapon in itself.

The stitched monsters blocking the way were shredded by the serrated collision bumper, their flesh smearing the windshield, only to be scraped to the sides by the wipers with a "creak, creak" sound.

The entrance to the rift valley rapidly expanded in their field of view.

Shen Wanxing subconsciously closed her eyes.

Su Xiaoqi hugged the table leg.

"We're in."

The rock walls on both sides flashed past the vehicle windows; the gap between the armor plates and the stone walls was so narrow that one could hear the whimper of air being compressed.

Sparks flew from both sides of the vehicle, and the C-grade nano-repair units activated immediately, oozing silver-gray repair fluid onto the scratches.

Behind them, the zombie horde surged to the rift entrance and became jammed.

The stitched monsters were too large, crowding together, shoving and biting each other, blocking the entrance completely.

The Corrosive Wyverns in the sky had wingspans too wide to fly in at all; they circled back and forth above the rift, dripping mucus that fell onto the rock walls, causing them to hiss with white smoke.

"We've escaped."

Shen Wanbing exhaled, her shoulders slumping as she leaned back into the passenger seat.

Chen Chen didn't stop.

The engine output dropped to 70%, but the speed was still maintained at over 150.

The rift did not run straight; several sharp turns forced him to continuously decelerate and change direction, the vehicle weaving left and right in the narrow space.

The magnetic levitation system demonstrated its true value under such precise control—

Without the limitations of tire grip, the steering response was freakishly fast.

Half an hour later.

The rift gradually widened, eventually disappearing into a gray-white Gobi desert wasteland.

The speed of the "Ghost Fortress" dropped, eventually hovering behind a giant rock eroded by the wind.

Shen Wanbing braced herself up and activated the omni-directional scanning module.

A 3D topographical map with a 10-kilometer detection radius unfolded in her mind.

"It's clean. No high-energy reactions within a ten-kilometer radius."

She opened her eyes and glanced at the vehicle clock.

"We've covered about one-third of the depth of the Flesh Wasteland. At our current speed, we can reach the edge of the wasteland within six hours."

The compartment was quiet for a few seconds.

Then Su Xiaoqi "gulped" down the last bit of food in her mouth and raised her small, purple-black juice-stained hand:

"Can I have another piece?"

Shen Wanxing couldn't help it and burst into laughter.

This laughter seemed to open some kind of valve.

Jiang Yanxue leaned against the back of her seat and snorted, the curve of her lips more relaxed than usual.

Shen Wanbing shook her head, but the string in her eyes that had been taut for too long also loosened a bit.

Just then—

On Chen Chen's retina, a series of system notifications exploded.

[Ding! Significant breakthrough in karmic relationships with female confidantes detected!]