97: Chapter 97 The Ultimate Control of the Quarry

"And its alloy shell, is it worth collecting?"

This question had been turning in Yan Zheng's mind for three days, but there was no answer.

But another matter could not be delayed any longer.

September 20th, 1:00 AM.

Northern New York, on the border of Westchester County, an abandoned granite quarry.

Yan Zheng had brought all his creations here for the fourth time.

The quarry was quite large, with the excavation face cut more than twenty meters down from the surface, forming an irregular, oval-shaped deep pit. The pit walls were exposed grayish-white rock strata, weathered and eroded by rain into vertical grooves of varying depths.

The bottom of the pit had accumulated half a meter of rainwater, murky and rusted in color, with fallen leaves and broken steel cables floating on the surface.

Yan Zheng stood on a platform halfway up the pit wall, with the old tracks for ore carts beneath his feet. The rails were rusted through, and the wooden sleepers had rotted into brown fragments.

He held a piece of chalk in his hand, drawing a tactical deployment map on the pit wall.

"Fourth training session, upgrading the subject."

He drew five circles on the rock wall, labeling the starting positions for the Knight, Brute, Archer, Walker, and Thunder Guard respectively, and used arrows to indicate the movement routes between the circles.

"The first three sessions practiced extreme output for single unit types and coordination between two unit types."

"Today, we are practicing synchronous command of all unit types."

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ≖ ꒳ ≖ ˵ )

"Gentlemen, take your respective positions."

Five pulses lit up simultaneously within the Mental Link.

The Knight walked out from behind a pile of rubble on the west side of the pit bottom. Its golden orb of light was like a deep-sea lantern in the night, illuminating the texture of the rock walls within a three-meter radius.

The Brute crouched by the drainage ditch on the east side. The three dissolution wounds on its chest armor had completely healed, and the brightness of its inscriptions had recovered by ninety percent.

The Frost Archer clung to a protruding rock on the north side of the pit wall. Its icy blue fingertips emitted a faint light in the darkness, and ice crystal particles the size of fingernails constantly precipitated and melted from its shoulder joints.

The Acid Walker was plastered beneath the water's surface at the bottom of the pit, its entire body flattened into a layer of dark green mucous membrane that covered the surface of the accumulated water, making it almost invisible to the naked eye.

The Thunder Guard stood two meters behind Yan Zheng, its fists hanging at its sides, with blue-white electric arcs dancing between its fingers.

"Tonight's imaginary enemy."

Yan Zheng drew a large X on the rock wall.

"A fifteen-man paramilitary armed squad, equipped with energy rifles and armored vehicles."

"The direction of attack is entering from the south pit opening, advancing along the ore cart tracks toward the bottom of the pit."

"The objective is to eliminate all targets in the pit."

He turned to face the five creations.

"Our tactical objective—total annihilation within thirty seconds."

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ˘ ͈ ω ˘ ͈ )

"Knight, center of the pit bottom, suppress the south entrance with long-range firepower."

"Brute, east drainage ditch, charge head-on to break the formation when the imaginary enemy passes the second curve."

"Archer, high position on the north side, cover the first echelon with freezing rays."

"Thunder Guard, after the Archer completes the freezing, strike the ice surface with the Ice-Thunder Chain."

"Walker, lurk in the accumulated water, flank to the rear of the imaginary enemy, and cut off their retreat."

He wrote the startup sequence numbers next to the five circles on the rock wall.

"Archer initiates, Knight follows up, Brute cuts in, Thunder Guard reaps, Walker seals the rear."

"Run all five lines simultaneously."

He took a scalpel out of his pocket and spun it between his fingers.

"Start."

Mental Power radiated outward from his cerebral cortex, and five commands were distributed simultaneously via the Mental Link.

The first second.

The Frost Archer raised its arm from the protruding rock, and icy blue rays swept toward the south pit opening. Three ice cones hit the preset targets, bursting into ice shards on the rock wall surface.

Yan Zheng's forehead had already begun to throb.

Five command lines were running simultaneously, each requiring independent spatial judgment and timing calibration.

The Knight opened fire at the third second, its Photon Ray firing horizontally along the direction of the ore cart tracks. The white-gold beam cut across the surface of the accumulated water, raising a curtain of steam.

The Brute leaped from the drainage ditch at the fifth second, its petrified arms crossing to strike the rock wall, creating the preset vibration disturbance.

Every action required real-time calibration of Yan Zheng's Mental Power.

The Knight's shooting angle was off by two degrees, requiring correction.

The Brute's leaping timing needed to be coordinated with the Knight's ray interval.

A headache started at his temples and spread to both sides, and slight static noise appeared at the edges of his vision.

"Archer, second round of freezing, fifteen degrees to the left."

"Thunder Guard, wait for the Archer's ice to cover the target area before discharging, don't rush."

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ✧ ⌓ ✧ )

The Frost Archer adjusted its angle, and the second round of freezing rays covered an area of about ten square meters on the south side of the pit bottom.

The Thunder Guard stepped forward, pushed out its right fist, and the electric arc struck the ice surface.

The Ice-Thunder Chain took effect again, blue-white lightning spreading along the ice layer, and charged ice fragments flew out, clattering against the rock wall.

At the same time, the Acid Walker had emerged from the accumulated water and flanked to the preset rear blockade position.

The five lines crossed, overlapped, and squeezed in Yan Zheng's mind.

His nose began to heat up.

A drop of blood fell from his right nostril, landing on the sleeper fragments beneath his feet.

"Continue."

"Brute, retreat to the second curve and form crossfire with the Knight."

"Archer and Thunder Guard, third round of Ice-Thunder Chain, shift the target area five meters to the left."

"Walker, acid spray, cover the three-meter-wide retreat path at the rear."

Mental Power was being consumed rapidly.

Every command line was dragging on his consciousness, and his brain's computational load had reached its limit.

When the Brute retreated, its left leg stepped into the puddle, causing a half-second delay.

This half-second error caused a gap in the Knight's firing window.

A sharp, stabbing pain shot through Yan Zheng's temples, and his vision in his right eye blurred for an instant.

"Knight, pause firing, wait for the Brute to return to position."

"Archer, extend freezing by two seconds to fill the window."

When the correction command was sent, a high-frequency ringing sounded in his ears.

But the movements of the five creations re-engaged after the correction.

The ice spread, the electric arc detonated, the Brute returned to position, the Knight fired follow-up shots, and the Walker blocked.

Thirty seconds.

When Yan Zheng called to stop, he tasted rust at the corner of his mouth.

He wiped the nosebleed with the back of his hand and smeared it on his jacket cuff; the dark red mark was not very visible on the black fabric.

"Gentlemen, return to your initial positions."

"One more time."

The five pulses in the Mental Link flickered, their frequency not quite uniform.

The creations were also tired; the decrease in control precision meant their action responses were also slowing down.

"Employees without complaints are good employees."

Yan Zheng used his scalpel to shave off a wood chip from the sleeper, cleaning the bloodstain smeared on the tip of the blade.

"Fifth time."

After the fifth time, Yan Zheng's vision was already very unstable.

Color differences began to appear at the junction of his left and right fields of vision, and a string in his brain was stretched to its limit.

He sat on the rails, the back of his head resting against the rock wall, the cold granite surface pressing against his scalp, the texture rough.

The system panel flickered in the corner of his vision.

Yan Zheng looked down at his hands; his fingertips were trembling slightly, not from cold, but from the stress response after nerve ending overload.

"Sixth time."

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ˘ ͈ ꈊ ˘ ͈ )

The sixth time was slower than the previous five.

The Brute's reaction delay reached 0.8 seconds, the Frost Archer's ray precision dropped by three percentage points, and the Acid Walker's flanking route deviated from the preset position by more than a meter.

But it was completed.

Seventh time.

Yan Zheng's nosebleed had stopped, but he had bitten his lip, and the metallic, bloody taste would not dissipate in his mouth.

The seventh time was not completed.

The Brute knelt on its knees while retreating, Yan Zheng's Mental Power disconnected for 0.3 seconds, and the Brute maintained its last inertia action after losing the command, then stopped in place.

Yan Zheng sat on the rails for three minutes without moving.

The night wind of the quarry blew in from the pit opening, cold, dry, carrying the scent of the distant pine forest.

The system panel popped up a prompt with a golden border in the silence.

A golden border.

He opened his eyes.

[Mental Power threshold exceeded. Current Mental Power: 15.]

[New ability unlocked: Mental Branch × 2.]

[Description: The host can split Mental Power into two independent command lines, each of which can simultaneously control a tactical squad to execute independent missions. There is no distance limitation for the two command lines in space, but single-line precision decays with distance.]

Yan Zheng stared at this prompt.

The golden characters on the panel flickered twice in his blurred vision, then stabilized.

He smiled.

The wound at the corner of his mouth was pulled, and it hurt for a moment.

"Mr. Brute, Mr. Knight."

He stood up slowly, his knees weak, and he had to step on the rails to stabilize his center of gravity.

"From now on, you can operate separately from the Archer and Thunder Guard."

"I no longer need to tie everyone to the same rope."

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ✦ ᴗ ✦ ˵ )

He used the back of the scalpel to scrape off the dried blood scab on his chin, the coldness of the metal pressing against his skin.

"Dual-line control."

"One squad fighting in the open, one squad looting corpses in the shadows."

"The Undead Legion is officially upgraded from a squad to a detachment."

The accumulated water at the bottom of the quarry rippled finely in the wind, and the phosphorus fires of the five creations were reflected on the water's surface, each a different color, spaced evenly.

Yan Zheng walked along the ore cart tracks from the pit wall platform toward the pit opening, his steps a bit unsteady, his hand resting on the rusted-through rail guardrail.

"Going back tomorrow to catch up on sleep."

"Then finalize the detachment organization for dual-line control."

He looked back when he reached the pit opening.

Five clusters of phosphorus fire danced quietly in the darkness at the bottom of the pit: icy blue, golden, dark red, dark green, and silver-white.

"Gentlemen."

"The days of going on a business trip are almost here."