93: Chapter 93 Elite-level Mass Production

"After work starts tomorrow, the Underground Room in Hells Kitchen will no longer be a warehouse."

"It will be an operating table."

This sentence hung in the air from the night of August 16th to the early morning of August 23rd, and the composition of the air in the Underground Room changed three times over.

The day the sweet, rotting smell of formalin was strongest was the 17th; Yan Zheng spent nine hours dismantling No. 4 through No. 7, stacking the skeletons neatly on the refrigerated tables, carefully peeling off the inscription layers, recycling the Undead Energy into his mental core, and clearing out four control slots.

The second wave was on the 19th; the stitching of the Acid Walker had to be done in a sealed chamber. During the fusion phase, the corrosive genes leaked trace amounts of vapor, choking Yan Zheng enough that he had to go out and change his mask twice.

The third wave was today, August 23rd at 2:00 AM, during the final step of the Thunder Guard's assembly—the power-on test. The air in the entire Underground Room was permeated with the smell of ozone and the acrid scent of burnt metal, which the exhaust fans, even at maximum setting, couldn't suppress.

Yan Zheng took off his goggles; a layer of fog had formed on the inside of the lenses.

He wiped them with his shirt cuff, put his gold-rimmed glasses back on, and stood on the inspection line in front of the workbench.

Three new creations were lined up in a row.

On the far left, the Frost Archer.

Its figure was lean and long, half a head taller than a standard Skeleton Soldier. The skeleton used the skull of No. 4 as the core framework, with the proportions from the spine to the limbs elongated. From the elbow joints down, the arms were covered in a layer of ice-blue crystalline scales. The edges of the scales were translucent, reflecting fine blue scattered light under the cold white lights of the Underground Room. The finger joints were half as thick as those of a normal Skeleton Soldier, with acoustic resonance glands embedded in the joints. When the energy was silent, only a faint blue fluorescence flowed along the arm bones.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ✧ ⌓ ✧ ˵ )

"Mr. Archer, please demonstrate."

The Frost Archer raised its right arm, splayed its five finger bones, and blue energy converged at the fingertips, causing the moisture in the air to crystallize visibly. A half-meter-long ice spike formed from its palm, sharp at the tip, revealing a cold, blue-white hue under the light.

Acoustic pulses were released simultaneously from the finger joints; they were inaudible to human ears, but the surface of the half-cup of black tea sitting on the workbench rippled with fine waves.

"Range."

The Frost Archer aimed the ice spike at the target wall at the far end of the Underground Room and released it.

The ice spike traveled thirty meters, pierced two centimeters deep into the concrete surface, and the wall within a twenty-centimeter radius of the impact point instantly frosted over.

"Thirty meters. The accuracy is acceptable."

Yan Zheng wrote a line in his inspection log and turned to the one in the middle.

The Acid Walker.

This thing didn't look like a proper skeleton.

Its body contour was on the shorter side, and there were no conventional rigid connections between the bones; instead, they were linked by cartilage tissue modified by elastic constitution genes. The whole body was dark green, covered with a layer of translucent mucous membrane. Under the membrane were patterns of distributed acid glands. When at rest, the glands contracted, making it look like the skeleton was simply wrapped in a layer of gelatin.

Yan Zheng reached out and pressed its shoulder; the tips of his gloves sank in three centimeters before touching the hard bone core.

"Mr. Walker, squeeze through that gap."

He pointed to the fifteen-centimeter-wide gap between the exhaust pipe in the corner and the wall.

The Acid Walker's skeleton instantly loosened, and its entire body became a mass of cartilage and mucous membrane. It flowed along the ground, squeezed through the gap, and stood up again on the other side three seconds later.

"Now, test the corrosion."

A piece of scrap steel plate was set upright at the target position. The Acid Walker opened its mouth—or more accurately, the spray port at its skull's jaw opened—and a thick, yellow-green liquid sprayed out from five meters away, landing on the surface of the steel plate.

A hissing sound rang out, white smoke rose, and the steel plate was corroded with a fist-sized hole; the metal at the edges was continuously dissolving.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ≖ ᗜ ≖ ˵ )

"Infiltration and assassination candidate, qualified."

Finally, the Thunder Guard.

It was two meters tall, overall a head shorter than the Brute, but its width was not much less. The outer layer of the skeleton was covered with an alloy skin generated by metal skin genes; the color was dark silver, with fine hexagonal textures on the surface. Its fists were disproportionately large, with four electric shock gland protrusions embedded in the knuckles. In a resting state, faint blue-white electric arcs jumped between the protrusions.

"Mr. Guard, discharge at full power."

The Thunder Guard raised its fists and smashed them together. The moment the knuckles collided, electric arcs erupted from the point of contact, and blue-white lightning spread along the metal skin over its entire body, turning the entire creation into a walking Tesla coil. Electric arcs extended outward from the shoulders and elbows, reaching a range of up to 1.5 meters.

The lights in the Underground Room flickered twice.

The exhaust fan stopped for half a second before resuming.

Yan Zheng stepped back twice; the hairs on the back of his hands stood up, and static electricity made his shirt stick to his back.

"The power is sufficient."

He finished writing down the three test results, closed the notebook, walked to the tea set rack, poured a cup of cold tea, and took a sip to moisten his throat.

"Roll call."

In the Mental Link, five main pulses lit up simultaneously.

Knight, gold. Brute, dark red. Frost Archer, ice blue. Acid Walker, dark green. Thunder Guard, silver-white.

There was also another faint green pulse—the newly assembled No. 8 Skeleton Soldier, pieced together from leftover scraps from the recycling process, purely for guarding the door.

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ˘ ͈ ω ˘ ͈ )

"Gentlemen, starting today, you are no longer a ragtag group."

"From now on, the designations will change."

"Knight plus Brute, Frontal Assault Group."

"Frost Archer plus Thunder Guard, Fire Support Group."

"Acid Walker, assigned to the Infiltration Group alone."

"No. 8, guard the door."

In the Mental Link, the five pulses responded individually; the frequencies were different, but all were stable.

Yan Zheng carried his teacup, walked to the center of the inspection line, and looked left and right.

"Change positions; Mr. Archer and Mr. Guard, move two steps closer."

The two creations adjusted their positions, shortening the distance to one meter.

Yan Zheng looked at the gap between them and tapped his fingers on the edge of the teacup twice.

"Mr. Archer, cast Freezing Ray at the target wall, hold for three seconds."

The Frost Archer raised its arm, and the ice-blue ray hit the target wall; three seconds later, the entire wall was covered in a layer of ice half a finger thick.

"Mr. Guard, strike the ice surface with an electric arc."

The Thunder Guard stepped forward, extended its right fist, and blue-white electric arcs jumped from its knuckles, striking the surface of the ice shell.

Yan Zheng had only wanted to see the effect of the electric arc on the ice surface.

But what happened next made the teacup in his hand freeze at his lips.

The moment the electric arc hit the ice, it didn't discharge locally as it would on metal or concrete. The blue-white lightning spread along the surface of the ice layer at an extremely fast speed; the entire ice shell became a conductive medium, and the electric arc covered the entire wall.

The water molecules inside the ice layer were violently shaken, and the ice shell shattered from within, but it wasn't an ordinary shattering—each fragment carried an electric charge, and as they flew outward, they dragged blue-white electric arc trails behind them.

The concrete target wall was covered in a layer of scorched ice residue, its surface riddled with radial electric burn marks.

If that wall had been a person, or a group of people...

The system panel popped up in the center of his vision with a golden border prompt.

[Tactical synergy detected.]

[Frost Archer · Freezing Ray + Thunder Guard · Arc Discharge = Tactical Synergy · Ice-Lightning Chain.]

[Effect: When the electric arc conducts through the ice surface, damage multiplier increases to three times. Charged fragments generated by the shattering ice layer have a splash damage effect.]

[This synergy has been recorded in the Legion Tactics Library.]

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ✦ ᴗ ✦ ˵ )

He set the teacup back on the table; the sound of ceramic hitting wood was very clear in the quiet Underground Room.

"Linked effect."

He walked to the target wall, used a scalpel to scrape off a piece of scorched ice residue, and placed it under the light to observe.

"The ice surface acts as a conductive layer, the electric arc as the source of damage, and the ice fragments as splash ammunition."

"One plus one does not equal two."

"It equals three times."

He turned to look at the Frost Archer and Thunder Guard standing side by side.

"Mr. Archer, Mr. Guard."

"Starting today, the distance between the two of you is fixed to within two meters."

"Freeze first, then electrocute; cover first, then detonate."

"The tactical name shall be Ice-Lightning Chain."

"My legion is no longer a collection of individual soldiers fighting on their own."

Yan Zheng put the scalpel into his pocket, walked back to the workbench, and wrote a summary on the last page of the inspection log.

Legion establishment full. Control slots at full capacity. Tactical system initially formed.

As he put down his fountain pen, he glanced at the Mental Power panel. Current value: 8; it would recover to 12 tomorrow.

"Gentlemen, today is a holiday."

"Starting tomorrow, we sharpen our blades in The Bronx."

He turned off the desk lamp, and the Underground Room plunged into darkness, leaving only five phosphorus fires of different colors slowly flickering in their respective positions.

Yan Zheng walked up the stairs, his fingers lightly brushing over the handrail.

"Next time I encounter a gun that can dissolve stone armor, I'd like to see if it can dissolve its way through the Ice-Lightning Chain."