124: Chapter 124 The Ten-Hour Bloodbath Ends! A Pot of Meat Soup Soothes the Mortal Heart

Lu Chen returned to the third-deck cockpit, a walk that took twenty minutes.

A full twenty minutes.

From the main engine room on the first deck to the cockpit on the third deck, he had passed through more than sixty cabins, four elevator shafts, and thirty-seven airtight doors.

In its Lv.2 state, walking from one end of the Polaris to the other only took fifteen steps.

He sat down in the pilot's seat, and the data on all six fire control displays lit up.

The scanning lines on the three radar panels rotated at a constant speed, with the detection range expanded from three kilometers to eight kilometers.

All heat sources within an eight-kilometer radius were clearly visible.

The wreckage of the Black Rock City-State appeared one hundred meters away as a massive, dim thermal outline, the faint heat from its auxiliary engines barely keeping the temperature on the fourth to seventh decks within a survivable range.

The iron wall was two kilometers away; its thermal outline was much smaller than that of the Black Rock City-State, but the heat source in its engine core remained bright.

Both its engine and tracks were intact.

There were no other heat sources within two hundred meters of the fortress.

To the north and south, there were remnants of two lv.3 fortress, both completely dormant with no signs of life-sign heat sources.

"City Lord Lin Xiao." Lu Chen switched his communicator to Lin Xiao's frequency.

"I'm here!" Lin Xiao's booming voice came through the communicator, the background noise much quieter than before.

"The upgrade is complete."

"I saw it." Lin Xiao's voice was mixed with heavy breathing that hadn't fully subsided. "A two-hundred-meter-long lv.3 fortress; I watched it with my own eyes for one hundred and eighty seconds from the fourth-deck exit platform."

"All thirty thousand people saw it too."

"Where are your blueprints?"

There was a pause on the other end of the communicator before Lin Xiao's voice sounded again.

"I've already had Zhou Yuan go organize them."

"All the blueprints, including the few best ones we kept."

"We had an agreement: the lives of thirty thousand people."

"I know."

Lu Chen glanced at the time on the panel. It was 11:45 PM.

From waking up at 1:30 PM until now, he had been fighting continuously for over ten hours.

"When can the blueprints be delivered?"

"Zhou Yuan estimates he can finish organizing them in half an hour. Do you want to receive them now?"

Lu Chen thought for a second. "Tomorrow morning."

"What?"

"I need to rest."

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

"Alright." Lin Xiao's speaking pace slowed. "You fought for ten hours today."

"You dismantled two lv.3 fortress, withstood a suicide charge from a Lv.4, saved my people, consumed my city, and leveled up."

"You are the toughest person I have ever seen."

"But you are human."

"Humans need to sleep."

Lu Chen cut the communication and leaned back against the backrest of the pilot's seat.

The backrest of the Lv.3 pilot's seat was twice as thick as it had been in the Lv.2 era, and the material had changed from hard sheet metal to a composite material with shock-absorbing lining, making it more than a grade more comfortable.

"City Lord." Lin Wan's voice came through the communicator.

"What is it?"

"Have you eaten?"

Lu Chen recalled. The last meal was at 5:00 PM with Lin Wan, before they set out to fight the Ice-Rift Swarm. It had been nearly seven hours since then.

"No."

"I'll go make you something to eat."

"Do you know where the kitchen is?"

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

"I don't. This new vehicle is too big."

"Mid-section of the second deck, in the public living area next to the residential zone. There are stoves and cookware."

"Cookware?"

"The iron pot is still there."

"That iron pot?"

"It expanded along with the rest when we leveled up."

Lin Wan laughed on the other end of the communicator.

"That iron pot has been with us for thirty-three days, from Lv.1 all the way to Lv.3."

"After you find the kitchen, stew a pot of soup using the beast meat bricks from the cold storage and the Cabbage roots."

"Alright!"

Lin Wan's footsteps disappeared from the communicator. She went to find the kitchen, searching for a kitchen in a 48,000-square-meter fortress.

Lu Chen closed his eyes for a moment; fatigue seeped out from the marrow of his bones.

Ten hours of high-intensity combat, two collisions at eighty-five kilometers per hour, three emergency disengagements, and countless fragmentation grenade reloads and Heavy Machine Gun volleys.

After the adrenaline in his blood ebbed away, his body honestly presented the bill.

He didn't fall asleep immediately but rested in the pilot's seat for five minutes.

Five minutes later, the communicator rang.

"City Lord!" Lin Wan's voice was filled with excitement. "I found the kitchen!"

"The salt and spices in the seasoning cabinet are all there! The iron pot is hanging on the hook above the stove!"

"The stove is an induction cooktop! It's not the coal-burning kind at all!"

"It's powered by the hybrid electric engine."

"Turn the faucet and hot water comes out! It's pure!"

"The production capacity of the snow-melting water purifier has expanded proportionally."

"City Lord, this kitchen is ten times better than the one in my home."

"Cook."

"Alright!"

Fifteen minutes later, Lin Wan carried the iron pot from the public living area on the second deck and got on the elevator.

The steel cables of the elevator running between the three decks were steady and quiet.

When she walked into the third-deck cockpit, Lu Chen was still sitting in the pilot's seat.

Inside the iron pot was a stew of Cabbage and beast meat.

The Cabbage consisted of tender leaves that had sprouted from the old roots left over from the fourth harvest. There wasn't much, but enough for two people to have a bowl.

The meat was thinly sliced from the Icefield Wolf meat bricks in the cold storage, blanched in the hot soup for three minutes, with the salt and spices added just right.

Lu Chen took the iron bowl Lin Wan handed him. The bowl, too, had changed after the upgrade from the original small iron bowl to a normal-sized metal dining bowl.

He took a sip of the soup. It was hot. The saltiness was just right.

The Cabbage leaves were cooked until soft and tender, coated in the umami of the meat slices.

On the frozen wasteland at minus forty degrees, in a fortress just reborn from the ruins, at midnight, the taste of a bowl of Cabbage and meat stew was better than anything else.

"It's delicious."

"Right?" Lin Wan crouched next to the console, holding her own bowl with both hands. "The tender Cabbage leaves have a better texture than the old leaves, and the nutrient density is higher too."

"After the greenhouse goes into full production, I'll be able to pick fresh leaves every day."

The two of them finished the soup in the cockpit, and Lin Wan cleared away the bowls and the pot.

"City Lord, you should sleep."

"Mm."

"There are new beds in the residential zone on the second deck; they are much better than the original metal plate beds and have shock-absorbing linings."

"I'll sleep in the pilot's seat."

"Here?"

"The backrest of the pilot's seat is more comfortable than the bed."

Lin Wan glanced at the upgraded pilot's seat. The composite backrest with shock-absorbing lining, adjustable armrests, and seat width enough for an adult male to curl up and lie on his side.

"Alright then."

She turned around and paused at the cockpit door.

"City Lord."

"What is it?"

"The Polaris is very beautiful today."

She left without waiting for an answer.

Lu Chen reclined the backrest of the pilot's seat by thirty degrees, turned off the main lights in the cockpit, and left only the low-brightness indicator lights on the console panel.

Everything was calm within an eight-kilometer radius on the radar screen.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep thirty seconds later.