168: Chapter 168 The Pioneer of the Twelfth Floor Ascension

At the deepest part of the eleventh-floor space, the entrance to a massive alloy tunnel resembled a pitch-black abyss.

Gu Shen stopped at the edge of the tunnel.

He gripped the golden Omega-class access card in his right hand and pressed it against a sensor panel covered in dust and fungal mats.

"Beep—"

Accompanied by a dull mechanical roar, the lead-steel isolation door, weighing tens of tons, slowly lifted upward.

A scorching gust of wind, mixed with high-frequency radiation fluctuations, surged out from within the tunnel.

The thunder shadow boots on Gu Shen's feet flickered with a faint light, and his figure remained as steady as a rock.

The black flood dragon black gold armor on his body emitted a dark golden protective halo, blocking the radiation-filled wind—which could cause a Mortal's flesh to fester instantly—three feet away.

The scene inside the tunnel was laid bare.

This was a straight tunnel, several miles long, constructed entirely from special lead-steel and explosion-proof concrete several meters thick.

On the surrounding walls, heavy lead-steel coffins were embedded at regular intervals.

"My Lord, the microwave radar is experiencing severe interference."

Crab's eight mechanical legs were tightly clamped onto Gu Shen's shoulders, and it projected two faint red beams from its head to scan the tunnel ahead.

"Thirteen extremely high-energy heat source reactions have been detected ahead. The Thirteenth Floor's The Mainframe has cut off power to all external life-support Systems and channeled the reactor's massive energy into this tunnel."

Gu Shen's gaze was calm, and the AI Crystal at the center of his brow was running at full capacity.

He gripped the thunder pattern gold-slaying blade in his hand.

The twelve Cyber Iron Guards, with the No. 3, No. 7, and No. 9 Third-Order Demon Bone Iron Guards as the vanguard, formed a wedge formation and steadily stepped into this death tunnel, known as the "Radiation Buffer Zone."

As they stepped inside, the lids of the thirteen lead-steel coffins on both sides of the tunnel were already pushed open.

Thirteen corpses, their flesh withered like dead wood and appearing a strange grayish-brown, sat cross-legged at the bottom of the coffins.

At the back of their necks, each had a thick black energy pipeline inserted, and a continuous stream of nuclear energy was being injected into their spines along the pipelines.

In the eye sockets of these corpses, eerie green radiation flames rose.

Their withered muscles swelled up like they were being inflated by the nuclear energy, and dense, dark green mutation patterns emerged on the surface of their bones.

"Intruders... Eradicate..."

A emotionless thought, composed entirely of a mixture of brainwaves and mechanical resonance, echoed through the tunnel.

The thirteen Ascension pioneers leaped out of the coffins simultaneously.

Their movements were uniform; their withered feet stepped onto the lead-steel floor, creating visible spiderweb-like cracks.

The battle erupted in an instant.

The nuclear battery inside the chest of the Iron Guard No. 7 (Golden-Horned Rhinoceros Beast) erupted with a dull roar, and its titanium-tungsten alloy heavy fist, carrying immense kinetic energy, smashed head-on toward the pioneer at the very front.

The pioneer did not dodge or evade; it raised its withered right arm, spread its five fingers, and forcibly grabbed the Iron Guard No. 7's heavy fist.

"Boom!"

The collision between Physical Body and titanium-tungsten alloy kicked up a violent shockwave within the tunnel.

The Iron Guard No. 7's massive body shuddered violently, its forward momentum coming to an abrupt halt.

The muscles in the pioneer's right arm ruptured under the immense kinetic energy, and dark green, viscous blood splattered out, but its bones, like the hardest divine iron in the world, held firm against the blow.

Even more eerily, the energy in the pipeline at the back of its neck surged wildly, and the pioneer's ruptured muscles healed at a visible speed within the eerie green radiation light.

The No. 9 Iron Guard (Flame Poison Crocodile King) cut in from the flank.

Dark red, highly corrosive poison fire erupted from its armor's exhaust vents, instantly enveloping two other pioneers.

The poison fire, capable of melting alloy, burned the pioneers' bodies, emitting a harsh hissing sound.

Their grayish-brown skin was charred over large areas, but this group of living dead, who had long since lost their basic pain nerves, completely ignored the damage to their bodies.

They pushed through the poison fire, waving their fists and violently pounding on the No. 9 Iron Guard's titanium-tungsten armor.

Within a few breaths, the No. 9 Iron Guard's chest armor was covered in deep fist marks.

If not for the support of the Third-Order Flame Poison Crocodile King's skeleton inside, this Iron Guard would have long since been smashed into a pile of scrap metal.

"The Physical Body hardness is comparable to a Golden Core Early Stage Body Cultivator of the Great Yu Cultivation World, and the regenerative ability completely defies logic."

Gu Shen's eyes were deep, and dozens of parallel logic threads in his brain were rapidly building combat models for these pioneers.

The No. 3 Iron Guard (Thunder Cloud Snow Leopard) transformed into a bolt of black lightning, attempting to use its absolute speed to maneuver behind the pioneers and cut the energy pipeline connected to the back of their necks.

A pioneer turned suddenly, its eerie green eye sockets locking onto the No. 3 Iron Guard.

It clamped its hands together, and a visible high-frequency radiation force field formed in its palms, turning into a beam of eerie green light that precisely blasted onto the No. 3 Iron Guard's armor.

The violent radiation energy was different from conventional thunder-magnetism, and the No. 3 Iron Guard's thunder-attribute demon bone could not fully absorb it.

The array patterns on the armor's surface began to flicker uncertainly under the erosion of the radiation.

These thirteen corpses, driven by obsession and infinite energy, formed a Wall of Sighs that was almost impossible to destroy through purely physical means.

The thunder shadow boots on Gu Shen's feet suddenly erupted with a burst of eerie blue thunder light.

His figure vanished from the spot instantly.

He entered the fray himself, transforming into an afterimage and cutting into the most core area of the battlefield.

A pioneer sensed Gu Shen's presence, and its swinging giant fist, carrying a sonic boom that tore through the air, smashed fiercely toward Gu Shen's head.

Gu Shen raised his left arm horizontally, and the newly forged mutated Black Tortoise Shield expanded rapidly in the wind.

"Clang—"

A sound like a great bell reverberated through the tunnel.

A layer of dark black spiritual light rippled across the surface of the Black Tortoise Shield, and the indestructible alloy spikes held firmly against the pioneer's heavy fist.

The terrifying kinetic energy was transmitted through the shield to Gu Shen's arm, and his Dark Gold Thunder Bone emitted a dull sound of bone friction.

He slid backward along the ground for several yards, plowing two deep trenches along the way.

The shield remained undamaged.

Gu Shen steadied himself, and the thunder pattern gold-slaying blade in his right hand, utilizing the momentum of his backward slide, slashed forward, unleashing a Geng Metal thunder blade aura several yards long.

The thunder light tore through the darkness, precisely striking the neck of another pioneer.

"Squelch!"

The sharpness of the top-grade Magical Artifact sliced through the outer withered skin, but when it touched the layer of mutated cervical vertebrae glowing with eerie green light, it encountered immense resistance.

The blade embedded an inch, but could not go any deeper.

The pioneer grabbed the blade with its backhand, ignoring the paralysis of the thunder, and attempted to drag Gu Shen, along with the blade, into its attack range.

Gu Shen decisively released the hilt, his Dantian Qi and blood erupted, the thunder shadow boots flashed again, and he retreated back into the protective circle of the twelve Iron Guards.

With a thought, the gold-severing saber stuck in the pioneer's neck turned into a stream of light and automatically flew back into his hand.

On the blade of the thunder pattern gold-slaying blade, there was actually a trace of dark spots corroded by high-frequency radiation.

"The speed of purely physical destruction is far from keeping up with the repair speed provided to them by The Mainframe's energy."

Gu Shen watched the pioneers, who were rapidly healing their wounds in the eerie green light, and the AI Crystal's calculations reached a final conclusion.

These pioneers were all ordinary people when they were alive; their ability to unleash such powerful combat strength was entirely based on their extremely mutated Physical Body and the nuclear energy provided by The Mainframe.

They had no Divine Soul like cultivators, nor did they have independent thought.

The "core" that supported these shells in their actions was the dedication to the success of the Ascension Project back then, for the sake of humanity's own survival—it was that extremely pure mental obsession.

"As long as this mental obsession attached to the corpses is erased, this group of monsters will become out-of-control empty shells."

Gu Shen took a deep breath, and the dark golden Qi and blood surging around his body slowly converged.

Deep in his Sea of Consciousness, that vast and dormant Divine Sense power began to operate according to a brand-new trajectory.

Facing these living dead, which had no Divine Soul or spirit and were driven only by obsession, conventional attacks were like clay oxen entering the sea, unable to cause substantial damage.

He had to find a way to materialize his Divine Sense and imbue it with the sharpness to sever all illusory obsessions...