176: Chapter 176 Establishing the Third Forward Base

Ten minutes later, the portal lit up again.

The survivors subconsciously took a few steps back.

Then, the ground began to shake.

A rumbling sound came out from the portal, like thunder rolling deep underground.

The first to come out was a heavy Bulldozer.

The huge Bulldozer had an eight-meter-wide blade, and its engine emitted a low roar.

Black smoke spewed from the exhaust pipe, carrying the smell of diesel, which spread through the air.

Its tracks rolled over the ground, pressing the gravel into the soil and leaving deep traces.

Then came the second, the third, the fourth...

Bulldozers drove out one after another, lining up outside the portal.

The yellow bodies appeared particularly eye-catching in the blue light.

Someone in the crowd went weak at the knees and sat directly on the ground.

"Th-this..." The man opened his mouth, unable to speak.

Then came the excavators.

One after another, there were at least five hundred of them.

Their mechanical arms hung with huge buckets, each bucket more than 3 meters high with sharp edges, capable of easily digging through the hard ground.

As the excavators drove over, the vibration of the ground became even more intense.

Some survivors could not steady themselves and almost fell.

An old man supported the person next to him, and tears suddenly streamed down.

He didn't say anything, just looked at those machines as tears flowed down his wrinkled face.

"Th-this many..."

Someone muttered, their voice trembling.

They had never seen so many large machinery before.

In the Zerg World, a tractor was considered a treasure, and was often shared by people from several shelters.

But what was before their eyes... five hundred excavators, their yellow bodies forming a torrent of steel under the lights.

Not only that, there were also Bulldozers, concrete mixer trucks, transport trucks...

Concrete mixer trucks drove in slowly, with the logo of "Daxia Eighth Construction Company" printed on their bodies, and the mixing drums spinning with a gurgling, dull sound.

Following closely behind were transport trucks, one after another, their truck beds fully loaded with Materials—reinforcing bars, cement, bricks, timber, everything one could imagine.

The reinforcing bars poked out from the edges of the truck beds, emitting a cold and hard metallic luster under the lights.

Cement bags were neatly stacked, printed with the words "425 silicate cement".

Bricks were tied into piles with iron wire, and timber was also stacked in bundles, exuding the unique fragrance of fresh wood.

Driving in last were dozens of cranes, their tens-of-meters-high boom arms acting like huge steel long arms pointing straight into the sky.

Professor Li stood in the crowd, looking at this equipment.

His mouth was wide enough to stuff an egg into.

"Th-this much equipment..."

Having lived for decades, he had never seen so many engineering equipment appear all at once.

After all, buildings in the Zerg World were all built by hand.

A few people, a pile of bricks—if they could build it, they built it; if they couldn't, so be it.

If the house leaned, they propped it up with wood.

If the wall cracked, they plastered it over with mud.

Foundation? It didn't exist.

They just placed a few stones directly on the ground and started stacking bricks on top.

With good luck, the house could last a few years.

With bad luck, it would collapse after a rainstorm.

But what was before their eyes...

Professor Li looked at those Bulldozers, excavators, and concrete mixer trucks.

Every single one was made of steel, every single one weighed dozens of tons, and every single one exuded an industrial aura.

The smell of paint, diesel, and steel mixed together—pungent yet making people feel secure.

"How many people would it take to operate these?" Professor Li asked.

His voice was somewhat trembling.

Su Mingyuan beside him turned his head: "Not many. One person per piece of equipment, five hundred Bulldozers means five hundred people."

"Five hundred people?"

Professor Li widened his eyes, feeling like he had heard wrong.

"Five hundred people can operate so many large-scale equipment?"

"Correct."

Su Mingyuan's tone was very calm, as if he were talking about a very ordinary matter.

Professor Li stopped talking.

He looked at those equipment pieces, his brain unable to fully process it.

In the Zerg World, wanting to level a piece of land required thousands of people digging with shovels.

A person digging for a day could only dig a pit one meter square.

For a thousand people, taking a month to dig out a flat land of several hundred square meters would already be considered pretty good.

But these Bulldozers...

Professor Li watched a Bulldozer start up.

The engine roared, black smoke spewed out, the blade lowered, and it moved forward closely hugging the ground.

As the Bulldozer drove past, the ground became level.

Gravel was pushed aside, soil was compacted, and the originally bumpy ground became smooth and level.

The speed was very fast.

In one minute, the Bulldozer advanced dozens of meters.

In an hour, it could flatten several thousand square meters of land.

One hour could finish the work of a thousand people in a day.

Professor Li stood there, watching the Bulldozer roar past.

Wherever the blade passed, the ground became level, and gravel and ruins were pushed to both sides, piling up into small hills.

He thought of those buildings in the shelter.

In order to build a wall, over a hundred people dug foundations for two months.

They got up before dawn every day, holding shovels, digging spade by spade.

Blood blisters formed on their hands, burst, bled, scabbed over, and then burst again.

Their shoulders were bruised, hurting at first until they eventually went numb.

As a result, before the wall was even finished, the Zerg attacked.

The wall collapsed, and people died.

All those efforts, all that sweat, all that blood were completely wasted.

But these machines before his eyes...

Only required one machine, one operator, and one hour.

Professor Li clenched his fists.

His fingernails dug into his palms, but he didn't even notice.

"Is this the power of Daxia..."

He muttered, his voice somewhat trembling.

He didn't know what to say.

Shocked?

Far from enough.

This was a kind of... utter suppression.

It was like using firearms against stone axes, or using tanks against spears.

They and Daxia were simply not on the same level.

Even compared to the Zerg, they were not on the same level.

The Zerg suppressed them.

Daxia suppressed the Zerg.

"Professor Li."

A voice sounded beside his ear.

Professor Li came back to his senses and turned his head.

It was an engineer wearing blue work clothes, holding blueprints in his hand.

"Hm?" Professor Li's voice was a bit hoarse.

"Regarding the anti-corrosion coating you mentioned earlier, we need a detailed formula."

"Okay, okay."

Professor Li nodded hurriedly.

"I will write it down for you right now."

The engineer handed over a pen and a piece of paper.

Professor Li took the pen, his hand trembling slightly.

He gripped it tightly for a few seconds, took a deep breath, and then began to write the formula on the paper.

As he wrote, he thought.

He finally understood.

It wasn't that the Zerg World lacked hope.

It was just that they were too weak.

Too backward.

In front of the Zerg, they were like ants, only to be crushed, slaughtered, and parasitized.

But Daxia was different.

Daxia had these machines, these weapons, and this power.

They would definitely win.