81: Chapter 81 The elite Gray Bees delivered themselves to our doorstep! All three vehicles were taken.

Fourteen minutes later, three moving targets appeared in the periscope sight of the Polaris.

Three Lv.2 combat vehicles were arranged in a triangular formation, their fronts pointed directly at the position of the Polaris.

They were moving at extreme speed, marching at full capacity.

Their paint jobs were the same as those destroyed previously: blood-red skulls with grey honeycomb patterns.

However, their formation was much tighter than the peripheral squads encountered earlier.

The distance between the three vehicles was only thirty meters, allowing them to provide mutual fire cover.

An elite squad of the Grey Bee.

Lu Chen reduced the vehicle's speed to fifteen kilometers per hour and stopped behind a pre-civilization transformer casing half-buried in the ice.

One kilometer from the target.

He was in no rush to open fire.

The fact that the three vehicles were approaching at full speed in a triangular formation meant they already knew what had happened on the east side.

The Grey Bee had sent them out specifically to find him.

The enemy was prepared.

Then he would change tactics.

Lu Chen canceled the loading command for the fragmentation grenades.

Fifty points per round was not worth it against three vehicles; the spacing of these three was extremely small, so the area-of-effect efficiency of fragmentation grenades was not as good as concentrating fire on single points.

Heavy Machine Gun and Harpoon Cannon.

Wait for them to get closer.

Eight hundred meters.

Six hundred meters.

Five hundred meters.

The turrets of the three vehicles began to rotate, scanning the terrain ahead.

Lu Chen kept the engine of the Polaris at idle.

Motionless.

The transformer casing blocked their line of sight.

Four hundred meters.

Three hundred meters.

The turret of the lead vehicle stopped rotating, its muzzle aimed at the direction of the transformer casing.

They had found him.

Bang!

A 75mm shell flew over.

The shell struck the transformer casing, sending the half-ton metal shell tumbling and scattering fragments everywhere.

The Polaris was not affected.

It was fifteen meters behind the transformer.

Under the cover of the smoke from the shell explosion, Lu Chen started the engine.

Supercharger engaged.

The Polaris surged out from the smoke.

Three hundred meters.

The reaction speed of the three enemy vehicles was a notch faster than the previous peripheral squads.

Three 75mm cannons fired simultaneously.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three shells flew toward the Polaris within half a second.

The first hit the front bumper, sparks exploding, and ricocheted off.

The second hit the wedge-shaped surface of the left angled deflective armor, ricocheted, and flew off with a whiz.

The third hit beside the base of the roof-mounted Heavy Machine Gun turret, leaving a white streak on the sloped armor surface before ricocheting.

All three shells deflected.

Lu Chen didn't even blink.

He rotated the Heavy Machine Gun turret to the front and locked onto the right front drive wheel of the lead vehicle.

Fifty-round burst.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

The humming sound of the rotating barrel cut through the air.

Dense impact points created a rain of sparks on the drive wheel.

Bearings shattered, and the tracks came loose.

The lead vehicle was paralyzed.

The distance closed to one hundred and fifty meters.

The second and third vehicles split up, attempting to flank from both sides.

The one on the left.

Lu Chen aimed the Harpoon Cannon at its side.

One hundred and twenty meters, side exposed.

Bang!

A fifty-jin harpoon left the barrel.

The barb embedded into the weld seam of the side armor.

Three seconds.

Boom!

Implosion.

Two side armor plates flew off, boiler pipes ruptured, and steam gushed out.

The second vehicle, scrapped.

The one on the right circled to the direct rear of the Polaris, its muzzle pressed against the rear armor.

Bang!

A 75mm shell hit the rear at a ten-meter distance.

A vibration came from the rear.

A warning line popped up on the holographic panel.

The rear armor sustained an impact; the angled deflective outer armor module successfully deflected it; structure intact, no penetration.

Ten-meter distance, 75mm shell, still ricocheted.

He pulled the control lever for the left mechanical arm to the bottom.

An eight-meter-long hydraulic arm ejected from the left side of the vehicle, circled around the rear, and the claw clamped onto the combat vehicle's cannon barrel.

Hydraulics tightened.

Creak!

The cannon barrel was twisted off right at the base of the turret.

The mechanical arm continued to press down, the claw moving from the broken barrel to the opponent's roof armor plate.

Clamped, pressed down, pulled.

The roof armor plate was peeled back at a corner under the violent pull of the hydraulics.

The Steam Spray Gun was aimed at the opening.

Hiss!

Two seconds.

The third vehicle, destroyed.

Three vehicles, five minutes and twenty seconds.

Nearly two minutes longer than fighting the peripheral squads.

The Grey Bee elites were a bit tougher than the ordinary Icebreaker Swarm vehicles.

But the result was no different.

Lu Chen degraded all three wrecks.

A pale blue light enveloped the three steel corpses.

The system popped up statistics.

Lv.2 combat vehicle wrecks multiplied by three, converted to obtain 651 Truth Points.

Net income after replenishing consumption was calculated at 601 points.

Current balance: 6124 points.

Six thousand one hundred and twenty-four.

Lu Chen stared at this number.

Before he came to the Rustwind Wasteland, this number was two hundred and fifty.

Now it had increased twenty-four times.

The efficiency of supporting the war through war was extremely high.

The communicator rang.

It was Zhao Tiezhu's voice.

"City-State Leader Lu Chen, the four vehicles of the Icebreaker Swarm command group have started to retreat."

"Retreating?"

"Retreating in the northeast direction, at extreme speed."

"Are they running?"

"They ran."

The Grey Bee discovered that the three elite reinforcements had disappeared.

Added to the previous eleven.

Out of the twenty-three Icebreaker Swarm combat vehicles, fourteen had been eaten by the Polaris.

Nine remained.

Four had run off with the Grey Bee command group.

The location of another group of five peripheral vehicles was unknown.

The Grey Bee chose to retreat.

This matched the description in the file.

The Icebreaker Swarm did not fight head-on; when encountering a strong enemy, they would shrink back and wait for the White Bone.

"Should I pursue?"

Lu Chen asked Zhao Tiezhu.

"My recommendation is not to pursue."

Zhao Tiezhu's speaking speed remained unchanged.

"Pursuing them would mean leaving the fire coverage range of the iron wall; it would be troublesome if the Icebreaker Swarm had set up a pocket outside."

"Agreed."

Lu Chen did not intend to pursue.

Pursuing the Icebreaker Swarm was not cost-effective; the Grey Bee's skirmish tactics would exert their greatest advantage in a pursuit battle.

Pursuing too far would mean moving closer to the Ice-Rift Swarm.

The White Bone was still on the way.

The time window was getting narrower and narrower.

"Battalion Commander Zhao, when will City-State Leader Lin Xiao's reinforcements arrive?"

"In another forty minutes, ten Lv.2 patrol vehicles."

"After the reinforcements arrive, do not change the position of the iron wall; continue to pin it fifty kilometers to the northeast."

"The Icebreaker Swarm has retreated, but the Ice-Rift Swarm will arrive by evening."

"The iron wall plus twenty patrol vehicles must build a complete defensive line in the buffer zone."

"Understood."

The communicator cut off.

Lu Chen turned the Polaris around and drove toward the Black Rock City-State.

Go back to replenish ammunition and recharge the Ray Cannon.

Eat, and wait for the Ice-Rift Swarm.

He glanced at the wall clock.

Ten forty-five in the morning.

There were over five hours left until the cabbage Lin Wan mentioned would be ripe.

There were seven to nine hours left until the Ice-Rift Swarm reached the buffer zone.

The timing was just right.