63: Chapter 63 Fishing in Troubled Waters

"This blueprint dropped at the perfect time! EVA, activate construction permissions, deduct the materials directly from the warehouse, and install this legendary-grade defense system and armor plating onto the fortress immediately!"

Zhou An did not hesitate at all. In this perilous volcanic restricted zone, waiting even one more second would be a disrespect to this blueprint.

"Ding—System prompt: The current engineering workload is massive, with an estimated time of 12 hours. Do you wish to consume 100,000 units of Tier 3 supplies for [Rapid Construction]?"

"Deduct them! Max out the speed, I don't care what it takes!"

"Command confirmed. Importing blueprints for [ 'Immovable as a Mountain' Defense Matrix ] and [ Dark Gold Composite Armor Plating ]... Materials deducted, armor undergoing reorganization."

Accompanied by the violent sounds of mechanical locking and reorganization from within the fortress, the blue fourth-tier composite protective shield that originally covered the hull surface shattered with a boom. Replacing it was a layer of dark gold force field, deep as a black hole, wrapping the entire fortress airtight. At the same time, the outer shell of the fortress was covered in a layer of dark gold composite armor flickering with a cold, eerie luster.

Just by hovering there, the sense of oppression from the entire [ Cloud Top Fortress ] instantly climbed to a new dimension, like an unshakable steel behemoth.

Zhou An summoned the system panel, looked at the refreshed attributes, and snapped his fingers in satisfaction:

[ Cloud Top Fortress ]

[ Level ]: LV4

[ Area ]: 400 square meters (three floors)

[ Max Speed ]: 200 km/h

[ Core Devices ]:

[ Void Warp Stealth Field (Legendary) ]: Perfect optical and radar stealth, can bypass detection across tiers.

[ Poseidon's Tear Water Source Sublimator (Legendary) ]: Produces blue-quality psionic sweet spring water.

[ Weapon Configuration ]:

High-energy electromagnetic main cannon, plasma bombardment matrix, dual rapid-fire cannons, high-frequency cutting beam.

[ Defense System ]:

[ 'Immovable as a Mountain' Defense Matrix (Legendary) ]: When facing energy-based attacks, forcibly scatters 70% of damage and converts the remaining 30% into shield recharge.

[ Dark Gold Composite Armor Plating (Epic) ]: Physical resistance increased by 200%, comes with extremely strong self-healing and anti-corrosion properties.

[ Gravity Interference Anchor (Epic) ]: Can forcibly stabilize the ship, immune to high-tier control and traction effects.

[ Auxiliary System ]:

Wide-area life radar (scanning radius 100 km), secondary energy booster pump, A70 carrier-based hypersonic fighter, drone swarm hangar capacity 2000 LV1 drones.

...

In the blink of an eye, only three hours remained before the "Cinder Fire Purgatory" adventure ended.

At this moment, in Zhou An's warehouse, treasure chests radiating bronze, silver, and gold light had piled up into small mountains; there were even three platinum treasure chests.

Zhou An leaned back in the captain's chair, tilted his head back to down a bottle of mental recovery potion, and let out a long, weary breath.

"You really need these kinds of large-scale adventure events to build up any real wealth..."

Zhou An sighed.

"Once this event ends, who knows how long we'll be eating dirt. You have to realize, our squad has five mouths to feed. The combat training and talent upgrades for Muzi and the other three all depend on the foundation we've raked in during this 'Adventure Week'. If I don't squeeze this place dry, I'd slap myself twice before going to sleep tonight."

Luo Ning rolled her eyes dramatically to the side, just about to complain about her boss's outrageous capitalist face, when the fortress's alarm system suddenly emitted an unprecedented, shrill shriek!

[ High-Level Warning!!! ]

[ Current spatial structure is extremely unstable! ]

Hum—

The originally violently churning dark red magma river suddenly stopped flowing at this moment, as if time had been forcibly pressed on the pause button.

Boom—!!!

The entire dome of the adventure space was actually torn apart by a pair of monstrous hands that appeared out of thin air, covered in dark gold scales, as if it were fragile glass!

[ Region-wide Announcement: Warning! Warning! Data overflow... ]

[ Unknown mutation has occurred in the adventure event!! ]

[ Projection of the World-Ending Black Flame Nidhogg has forcibly descended! ]

[ All surviving squads have their height restrictions forcibly removed! Before the countdown reaches zero, kill it or survive its attacks to obtain special rewards! ]

Zhou An and Luo Ning felt their scalps tingle as they rushed to the panoramic porthole.

They saw that above the torn dome, a pitch-black dragon head, even larger than the several obsidian mountains below combined, slowly poked into this space.

That pair of giant dragon eyes, like two blood-colored suns, looked down coldly at what was below.

"Bo... Boss..."

Luo Ning swallowed hard.

"Is this thing for real?"

Facing that giant dragon head that seemed to want to swallow everything, the survivors who had originally been fighting in various corners and frantically accumulating wealth finally felt the oppression of death.

On the radar screen of the [ Cloud Top Fortress ], the light points representing the surviving squads began to rapidly converge towards the center of the space.

Counting Zhou An and the others, there were exactly four squads left.

Four massive LV4 vehicles hovered in a safe area a few kilometers away from the black flame dragon, maintaining a distinct safety distance of at least five kilometers from each other.

No one dared to get too close at this time; in this survival world of deceit and betrayal, the "peers" around you are often more lethal than the monsters.

"Beep— Received a region-wide holographic communication request. Connect?"

EVA's cold voice sounded.

"Connect, and project the feed to the main console."

Zhou An leaned back in the captain's chair and sneered.

Whoosh!

Three holographic projections lit up in the cockpit simultaneously. Including Zhou An's feed, the four top-tier squads that had fought their way out of millions of players met formally for the first time.

In the projected images, the configurations and vehicle styles of the other three squads were different, but without exception, none had more than five members, and everyone's eyes revealed a fierce aura of someone who had crawled out of a pile of corpses.

[ District 009 ] 4 members. The leader was a burly man covered in cyan lightning scars, bare-chested, with eyes as sharp as an eagle's. The team members behind him were all fully armed, like an elite special forces unit.

[ District 112 ] 5 members. The one who spoke was their captain, a seductive woman with wavy red hair, whose left eye had been replaced by a high-tech mechanical prosthetic eye.

[ District 404 ] 3 members. The captain was a gloomy youth with a face as pale as paper, wearing a white lab coat; half of his face even had dense Zerg compound eyes.

The red-haired woman from District 112 broke the silence first: "Everyone, I won't waste time with pleasantries. You all know what a LV5 projection means. Although the height restriction has been lifted, the spatial passage is completely sealed. If we don't kill it, we'll all be burned to ashes by its black flame before the 12-hour countdown ends."

"Let's team up."

The scarred man from District 009 had a voice as low and muffled as thunder. "If four LV4 warships focus fire, we might just be able to slaughter it. As for that unique reward, once it's dead, we'll each grab it based on our own abilities."

The pale youth from District 404 let out an extremely unpleasant, weird laugh: "I agree. LV5 flesh... it's just so wonderful."

Zhou An looked at these three temporary allies expressionlessly and spat out two words: "Seconded."

"Good! Prepare to engage!"

The moment the communication cut off, the four top-tier LV4 vehicles flanked the [ Nidhogg Projection ] in the center from four directions.

...

"Roar—!!!"

Feeling the provocation of this group of ants, the black dragon phantom let out an earth-shattering roar and spat out a black dragon breath with a diameter of hundreds of meters, sweeping over like a world-ending tsunami.

"Fire!"

In an instant, the four camps simultaneously erupted with a brilliant web of firepower.

District 009's battleship fired dense electromagnetic currents, District 112's fortress released a sky full of high-explosive energy orbs, and District 404's fortress launched countless small acid-spitting insect drones with strong corrosive properties.

On the [ Cloud Top Fortress ] side, Zhou An didn't show any weakness either; the bombardment matrix and rapid-fire cannons poured out fire frantically, filling the sky with brilliant light and shadows. The entire battlefield was radiant, and the explosions were deafening.

However...

Looking at the boss on the screen that was barely even taking damage, Zhou An's mouth couldn't help but twitch uncontrollably.

"Boss..."

Luo Ning sat in the co-pilot seat, looking at the energy peak data fed back on the radar, her expression becoming extremely strange.

"Why does it feel like... the damage this group is dealing isn't even enough to scratch this big lizard?"

"They're all fucking slacking off!"

Zhou An laughed in anger, pointing at the battle situation on the screen and cursing: "Look at that guy from District 009, he was talking so righteously just now, but his super-large main cannon that takes up the entire bow hasn't even sparked yet! They're just firing the cheapest conventional ammunition!"

"And that woman from District 112, she's just grazing the outside with the most basic energy orbs! That pervert from District 404 is even worse; the small drones he releases turn to ash the moment they touch the black flame. Is he here to provide a snack for the BOSS?!"

The four top-tier squads displayed the most realistic and selfish side of survivors—no one wanted to be the first to stick their neck out.

Everyone knew very well that whoever used their trump cards to deal high damage first would immediately draw the full aggro of that LV5 BOSS! Being targeted by a LV5 BOSS, even a LV4 warship absolutely couldn't withstand a few hits of its dragon breath.

Everyone's schemes were loud and clear: use the cheapest firepower to put on a show, keep the core trump cards, wait for other squads to lose patience and pull aggro to tank the damage, and then reap the benefits of the fisherman to snatch that reward.

"Boss, what should we do then? Just keep playing along with them?"

Luo Ning looked at this group of "Oscar-winning actors" and was speechless.

"Play along? When it comes to acting, we're the ones taking home the Oscar!"

Zhou An sneered and ordered decisively.

"EVA, lock the output power of the high-energy electromagnetic main cannon at 50%! Just make enough noise to be heard!"

"Understood, Captain. Switched to 'Low-Energy Fire Suppression' mode."