102: Chapter 102: The walls of the Lv.3 fortress have collapsed! 2600 points credited.

The explosion tore a two-meter-long gap along the welding line at the top of the opening.

The armor plate rolled outward by thirty degrees.

The original four-meter-wide, three-meter-high hole in the middle section of the wall had become a four-meter-wide, five-meter-high breach under the impact of the harpoon implosion.

The armor plate above the breach lost its welded support and began to tilt under its own weight.

The groaning of metal turned into the sound of metal snapping.

The dozen-meter-high armor plate in the middle section of the entire wall snapped in the middle.

The upper half tipped outward.

The lower half collapsed inward.

Dozens of tons of steel armor plate smashed into the internal cabin structure of the wall under the force of gravity.

A heavy thud echoed out!

A thunderous sound erupted from the left side of the lv.3 fortress.

Dust and debris gushed out from the breach.

Lu Chen saw the full view of the middle section of the lv.3 fortress's left wall through the periscope.

Was that still just a hole?

It was clearly a gap four meters wide and eight meters high; the wall had been completely torn open at this location, extending from the middle section all the way to two-thirds of the way up.

Through the gap, the internal cabin structure of the lv.3 fortress could be seen.

Four or five steam pipes were broken, and high-temperature steam and white mist gushed from the breaks.

The inner walls of the cabin were deformed by the collapsed armor plate.

Two layers of decks had snapped at this location.

"Commander Tieji."

The communicator was silent.

"Commander Tieji, your wall has collapsed."

Dense shouting and the sound of metal colliding came through the communicator.

That was the chaos inside the lv.3 fortress.

Five seconds later, Iron Spine's voice cut through the noise.

"I know."

The commander's voice was a pitch lower than before.

"The middle section of the left wall collapsed entirely, three layers of decks snapped, and cabins seven through eleven lost pressure."

He paused for a beat.

"You win."

"Stop the vehicle."

"It won't stop."

Iron Spine slowed his speaking speed by half a beat, enunciating every word more forcefully than before.

"Ice Thorn's order is to bypass to the north side of The City-State's wall at all costs."

"Your Power Engine only has forty percent output left, your speed is three kilometers, and you are still twelve kilometers away from the north wall of The City-State."

"Even if you have to crawl, you will crawl there."

The communicator cut off.

Lu Chen glanced at the radar screen.

The light spot of the lv.3 fortress was tending toward stillness.

At three kilometers per hour, covering the distance of twelve kilometers would take four hours to crawl to the north wall of The City-State.

Four hours later, this battle would have long ended.

The northern lv.3 fortress had lost its tactical significance.

Its wall had collapsed.

Its Power Engine was dying.

Its effective firepower remained at nine guns.

But it wasn't dead completely yet.

This City-State Lord didn't intend to wait for it to die completely.

What he needed was the wreckage.

Polaris circled to the direct rear of the lv.3 fortress at a speed of sixty kilometers per hour.

Black smoke was still billowing from the exhaust vents at the rear of the lv.3 fortress, and the Power Engine emitted a dying sound of metal friction.

Lu Chen aimed the Heavy Machine Gun at the exposed area of the drive shaft at the bottom of the rear wall of the lv.3 fortress.

Two hundred rounds of continuous fire.

Chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi!

The bullets hit the bearing housing of the drive shaft.

The protective cover of the bearing housing was riddled with holes after three hundred rounds of exhaust port bullets.

Two hundred bullets knocked the bearing housing off the chassis.

The drive shaft lost support, shook crazily for three seconds driven by the remaining power of the Power Engine, and then jammed.

The sound of the Power Engine turned into a sharp metal screech at the moment it jammed.

Then it stalled.

The lv.3 fortress stopped.

The 120-meter-long steel behemoth stood still on the ice of the Rustwind Wasteland.

There were still a few guns rotating on top of the wall, but the muzzles couldn't find the position of Polaris.

He circled to the right side of the lv.3 fortress, far away from the firing range of those muzzles.

"City-State Lord Lin Xiao."

"I'm here!" Lin Xiao's voice was mingled with the sound of artillery.

"The northern lv.3 fortress has stopped, the Power Engine is stalled, the wall has collapsed, and it has lost its tactical value."

The other end of the communicator was silent for a second.

"How long?"

"Thirteen minutes."

"You said fifteen minutes; you were two minutes early."

"The error is within the acceptable range."

Lu Chen parked Polaris three hundred meters to the right of the lv.3 fortress.

At this distance, the remaining nine guns of the lv.3 fortress couldn't reach him; the rotation angle of the turrets was blocked by the structure of the wall itself.

The Mechanical Arm ejected.

The gripper of the left Mechanical Arm grabbed the first piece of armor plate scattered on the ice after the lv.3 fortress wall collapsed.

The high-dimensional degradation activated the moment it touched.

A blue light engulfed that piece of debris.

[Degradation complete. Truth Points obtained: 87.]

The second piece.

[Degradation complete. Truth Points obtained: 134.]

The third piece.

A large number of armor fragments and structural debris were scattered in the collapsed area of the lv.3 fortress, and every piece was Truth Points.

This City-State Lord controlled both arms while parked, alternating left and right, working like an assembly line.

Three minutes.

All the wreckage in the collapsed area that could be reached was degraded.

[Cumulative degradation income: 2637 Truth Points. Current balance: 3205 points.]

3,205 points.

From 568 to 3,205, a portion of the wreckage of one lv.3 fortress had given him 2,637 points.

If he could degrade the entire lv.3 fortress, the income would at least triple.

But there was no time left.

"Chief of Staff Zhou, what is the situation on the front and south sides?"

"Ice Thorn's main city has advanced to twelve kilometers! The outer layer of The City-State's wall has been penetrated in twenty-three places! Multiple structural fatigue cracks have appeared on the second layer!"

Zhou Yuan's voice was stretched to the breaking point.

"Horton says the outer armor can still hold for twenty-five minutes!"

"What about the southern lv.3 fortress?"

"Speed is twenty! Fifteen kilometers away from the south wall of The City-State!"

"iron wall?"

"Battalion Commander Zhao has turned on the supercharger, speed is thirty-five, twenty-two kilometers from The City-State, arriving in forty minutes!"

Forty minutes.

The southern lv.3 fortress needs forty-five minutes to advance fifteen kilometers at a speed of twenty.

iron wall arrives in forty minutes.

The time difference is five minutes.

"Chief of Staff Zhou, have all seven Patrol Cars turn to the south and hold back the southern lv.3 fortress."

"Received!"

Lu Chen glanced at his balance.

3,205 points.

The core at the top of the Power Engine requires 4,000 points.

Missing 795.

Not enough.

"Lin Wan."

"Here!"

"We are going to the south."

"Go to the south? Not fighting this one on the north side anymore?"

"The one on the north is dead completely; what remains is just an iron coffin that won't move."

Lu Chen slammed the supercharger to the bottom.

Polaris's Power Engine roared.

The twenty-plus-ton steel monster ejected from the right side of the lv.3 fortress, and the front of the vehicle turned south.

On the radar screen, the light spot of the southern lv.3 fortress was moving toward the south side of the Black Rock City-State at a steady speed.

Distance from Polaris's current position: twenty-five kilometers.

Eighty-five kilometers per hour, seventeen minutes.

"Battalion Commander Zhao, you still have forty minutes to reach The City-State."

"The supercharger is on, iron wall is shaking! The supercharger that hasn't been maintained for a month is shaking so hard my teeth are rattling!"

"Can you fight that southern lv.3 fortress?"

The other end of the communicator was silent for two seconds.

"lv.3 against lv.3, I'm not afraid of it in a head-on bombardment."

"I will help you."

"You? You were fighting the one on the north side just now, right?"

"The one on the north has stopped."

"Stopped?" Zhao Tiezhu's voice rose half a pitch. "You, a lv.2, stopped a lv.3?"

"The wall collapsed, the Power Engine stalled, and the drive shaft broke."

The other end of the communicator was silent for four seconds.

"City-State Lord Lu Chen, what the fuck kind of monster are you?"

"A monster that's on its way."

Polaris crushed toward the south at a speed of eighty-five kilometers per hour.