187: Chapter 187 Dangerous Starfall

The horizontal maintenance tunnel beneath the pipe shaft was both narrow and long.

The metal walls were smeared with grey-black sludge, and sticky coolant pooled beneath their feet.

Zhao Mengmeng had just landed when a fourth thunderous crash slammed down from overhead.

The waste bin sealing the shaft entrance was severely deformed from the impact, and the screech of tearing metal drilled straight into their eardrums along the pipe.

Zhao Mengmeng raised the Magnetic Rail Crossbow, aiming upward.

Lin Ye grabbed the two backpacks and rapidly checked the shock-absorbent layers.

The dark gold dragon bone nail, dormant valley seed, and frost-patterned stone box fragments were all there.

He buckled the shoulder straps tight again.

The blue light of the Abyss Thorn on his right arm glowed eerily in the darkness.

"Move forward, don't wait for them to fall down."

The two of them pressed against the maintenance tunnel and charged forward at full speed.

The shaft entrance behind them was violently smashed open.

Half of a mechanical spine plummeted down, slamming fiercely into the pipe opening, its blackened bone saw scraping frantically against the shaft walls.

Zhao Mengmeng turned and pulled the trigger.

"Hum!"

The Magnetic Rail short-bolt cut through the air.

The aberrant's skull was pierced, pinning it firmly to the ladder rack.

Lin Ye swept his horizontal saber forward, knocking aside a patch of dangling insulated cables.

At the end of the tunnel lay a rusted-shut circular bulkhead door.

Its surface was marked with mottled lettering.

[Armory Lower Level]

Zhao Mengmeng kicked the bottom of the door.

It didn't budge.

Lin Ye raised his right arm.

The Abyss Thorn extended six auxiliary wires, drilling straight into the door gap and keyhole.

Blue electromagnetic arcs jumped wildly against the corroded lock cylinder.

"Click."

The locking pin melted through.

The bulkhead door slid inward by half a foot, and a gust of cold air immediately poured out.

The two squeezed inside.

The maintenance tunnel behind them was already filled with the dense sounds of the aberrants' impacts.

Lin Ye backhanded the Nano-wire out, directly severing the support axle on the inside of the door.

The circular door dropped heavily, firmly wedging the entrance shut.

Several sharp mechanical appendages forced their way in from the door gap, frantically cutting at the door panel.

Zhao Mengmeng was just about to raise her crossbow when Lin Ye pressed down on the bow arm.

"The door can still hold for a while, save your ammo."

"Then we'd better hurry up and find something that can make them shut up."

Lin Ye looked up.

An extremely spacious underground armory appeared before their eyes.

The dome was incredibly high, with cold white lights flickering intermittently.

Rows of metal lockers extended infinitely into the depths of the darkness.

Some of the cabinet doors were wide open, with exaggerated, futuristic weapons lying quietly inside.

Long-barreled laser guns.

Foldable plasma cannons.

A whole row of silver power blade racks.

The Great Xia Live Stream chat exploded instantly.

[Holy crap! It's all f*cking high-tech heavy firepower!]

[If you took just one of these out, Great Xia's tech tree would jump two hundred years!]

[Forget everything else! Use the plasma cannon to blast this bunch of junk!]

Lin Ye stopped in his tracks, not reaching out.

Left Eye opened silently.

In True Vision.

The entire armory was submerged in thick, impenetrable grey-black spots.

The casings of those shiny laser guns were all enveloped in deadly grey spots.

It was even worse inside the plasma cannons.

Red light and black spots were strangling each other within the energy conduits.

Extremely heavy pollution.

Touch it, and you die.

Lin Ye's gaze swept over the nearest silver rifle, and the Right Eye's light screen popped up on cue.

[Disintegration Laser Rifle]

Lin Ye immediately withdrew his gaze.

Seeing him not moving, Zhao Mengmeng stopped her movements as well.

Lin Ye used the back of his horizontal saber to very lightly touch the edge of the nearest rifle stock.

A fingernail-sized piece of silver coating immediately peeled off.

The coating hit the ground, hissing as a wisp of black smoke rose up.

Just the shockwave transmitted from the saber's touch had raised the pollution level.

Zhao Mengmeng immediately stepped back, moving away from the shelves.

"We can't even touch them?"

"Touch them, and you mutate."

Lin Ye moved rapidly along the locker aisle.

Left Eye flickered open and closed frequently.

Red light and grey spots alternated, stinging his optic nerves.

He ignored all the heavy firepower weapons, walking straight to the most secluded corner of the armory.

There was a semi-circular waste pool there.

The bottom of the pool was filled with thick, black-green waste liquid, and the surface was covered in heavily corroded rust flakes.

A pungent, acidic stench rushed straight into his nostrils.

Lin Ye stared at the bottom of the pool.

In Left Eye's view, large areas of the waste pool were glaring dark red.

Only under a pile of rotting sludge at the deepest part of the pool floor.

Was a hidden speck of extremely bright golden light.

The light was clear, without a single grey spot.

A faint, safe green light clung to its side.

Lin Ye held his right arm level.

The Abyss Thorn extended two auxiliary wires into the waste pool, accurately avoiding all red corrosion points.

The ends of the wires wrapped firmly around a grey metal box beneath the sludge.

He didn't pull it up immediately.

Three dark red laser alarm lines wandered along the edge of the waste pool.

Once the angle of the box rising triggered the red lines, the toxic liquid in the entire pool would explode outward.

Lin Ye opened Left Eye wide.

His wrist turned in a minute motion.

The auxiliary wires pulled the metal box, sliding it out bit by bit along the gaps in the waste.

The box had just left the surface of the liquid.

The red line at the bottom of the pool suddenly flickered for an instant.

Lin Ye's wrist stopped abruptly, and the auxiliary wires froze in mid-air.

The red light vanished.

The auxiliary wires vibrated at high frequency in mid-air, flinging off all the toxic liquid droplets from the surface of the metal box.

Only then did the metal box land steadily on a dry floor tile by his feet.

It had no luster and was pitted and uneven.

It didn't even have a serial number.

Lin Ye flicked his horizontal saber diagonally, the tip accurately twisting open the broken lock.

"Click."

The lid popped open.

There were no finished weapons.

Only a rolled-up, aged blueprint and a fist-sized lump of dark gold metal alloy, shimmering with tiny starlight.

Light screens popped up one after another.

[Miniature Source Energy Magnetic Storm Grenade Construction Diagram]

[Star-Flowing Gold Alloy Blank]

The mood in the Great Xia Live Stream shifted instantly.

[Holy sh*t! He found the big loot!]

[This is my Brother Eye! Fishing out out-of-print materials from a trash pit!]

[I knew it! Why would he ignore the laser cannons? Turns out the truth was in the sewer!]

Lin Ye picked up the blueprint with one hand and unfolded it.

Source energy guidance ring.

Magnetic storm discharge core.

Directional blast shell.

The logic was very clear.

"Go to the maintenance cabinets on the left, look for uncorroded spare parts," Lin Ye instructed in a low voice. "Dismantle short metal tubes, rails, and shielding boxes."

Zhao Mengmeng didn't hesitate, turning and rushing toward the maintenance area.

Her bronze rod smashed the cabinet locks in succession, and clean, loose parts were swept out one by one, kicked over to Lin Ye's feet.

Lin Ye did not sit down.

The blueprint was laid flat on the metal rack nearby.

The Abyss Thorn's Nano-wire auxiliary filaments extended to perform precision operations.

The sand spider tendon bundle quickly secured the guidance ring.

A broken magnetic rail from a Scavenger was forcibly pressed into the discharge core slot.

Red-scaled snake scales were cut into explosion-proof insulation pads.

The trickiest part was the Star-Flowing Gold blank.

Lin Ye applied force to his horizontal saber, pressing the blade against the metal surface to cut it by force.

Amidst a piercing, sharp screech, a tiny nick appeared on the blade's edge, and he barely managed to shave off three extremely thin fragments.

The Star-Flowing Gold shards were forcibly embedded into the directional blast shell.

A roughly shaped spherical bomb was formed.

[Crude Miniature Source Energy Magnetic Storm Grenade]

"Handle with care, don't bump it, or we'll be vaporized instantly."

Lin Ye gently tucked the first grenade into the shock-absorbent layer of his tactical belt.

Then, the second, and the third.

Three grenades in the bag.

He wrapped the remaining Star-Flowing Gold blank tightly and stuffed it into his main backpack.

Just at that moment.

The metal dome above the armory groaned under the unbearable weight.

Large sections of the alloy plating bulged severely downward.

Thick, black blood poured down in massive quantities through the cracks in the ceiling.

Zhao Mengmeng leveled the Magnetic Rail Crossbow.

"The boss of those monsters upstairs is here."

Lin Ye looked up.

The dome shattered in response.

A mass of scarlet flesh nearly five meters high slammed down, accompanied by a sky full of shattered iron.

Mechanical limbs.

Rotting organs.

Dense gears and steel bones were intertwined within the mass of flesh.

A blood-red warning flashed across the Right Eye's light screen.

[Relic Central Fusion Entity · Glutton]