62: Chapter 62 Lu Bu Riding a Dog

When that low and steady hum came from the high sky to the east, the entire blood-splattered battlefield experienced a brief moment of stillness.

Whether it was the players suppressed at the entrance of the starship wreckage or the Orks wildly firing their guns on the perimeter, they all looked up in unison.

Above the yellow-green radioactive dust, a strange dark shadow broke through the clouds.

"What the hell is that thing?"

An Orc Boss holding a large cleaver scratched his bald green scalp and cursed in a coarse voice,

"This mosquito is too noisy! Shoot it down for me!"

And after Old Liver, hiding in the ruins, saw the outline of that dark shadow clearly, his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

"Holy crap!"

Old Liver pointed at the sky, his voice trembling,

"A biplane?! Is that a fucking propeller-driven wooden airplane?!"

In the sky.

A wooden biplane with a quite retro design, looking as if it had been driven straight out of a World War I museum, was soaring through the air in an unbelievable manner.

The fuselage of this plane was entirely pieced together from wooden boards and some metal parts.

But the weird thing was, it didn't have the exhaust pipes of an old-fashioned internal combustion engine spewing black smoke, nor could the deafening roar of engine knocking be heard.

On both sides of its wings, two wooden propellers were spinning wildly under the drive of electric motors, emitting that low hum like a swarm of bees.

In the plane's crude open cockpit, two people were squeezed together.

"Holy shit! This is awesome! It actually flew!"

ikun True Fan wore a pair of goggles on his head, his hands death-gripping a control stick. The gale made the skin on his face shake violently, but he was so excited he almost fainted.

Several mechanical tentacles behind him firmly fixed him to the seat, saving the need for a seatbelt.

"I told you there was nothing wrong with this aerodynamic model! I didn't expect this thing to actually fly; Lao Ming's idea was great!"

Sitting in the back seat, Elbow-Strike Helicopter gripped the edge of his seat tightly and shouted back at the top of his lungs:

"This is fucking Lu Bu riding a dog!"

Elbow-Strike Helicopter looked down at the solid hydrogen battery encased in an iron box at his feet, along with a mess of wires, and shouted loudly:

"The energy density of the solid hydrogen high-energy batteries from the Mall is fucking incredible! Using two industrial motors to pull this few-hundred-pound wooden frame is more than enough!"

"The wood never expected in its life that it would be carrying a solid hydrogen battery."

He reached out and tapped a crude circuit board nearby:

"The power supply is absolutely fine! It's just that this inverter we slapped together ourselves is too trashy; the voltage isn't stable at all! When we get back after this wave, I'm definitely going to redraw the blueprints and design a better one!"

ikun couldn't hear what the back seat was shouting at all. He glanced at the level indicator spinning wildly on the dashboard and simply kicked it away.

Under the goggles, his eyes shone with a green light.

"Hahahaha! Whatever! This is the feeling of freedom!"

ikun looked down at the earth below. Suddenly, he noticed those ruins surrounded by crimson vehicles.

"Eh? How did so many Greenskins pop up in this broken camp again? And they're driving cars?"

ikun excitedly pulled the control stick. "Old Heli! There are mobs below! What's the call?"

"We're already here! Might as well test the power of our autocannon on them!"

Elbow-Strike Helicopter patted the heavy autocannon mounted in front of the cockpit.

"Alright! Hold on tight!"

ikun suddenly pushed the control stick forward, his thumb pressing hard on the red firing button at the top of the stick.

This crude wooden plane immediately entered an almost vertical, suicidal dive. Like a falcon spotting its prey, it whistled as it plunged toward the Ork bikers on the ground!

"Da da da da da!"

Accompanied by the roar of the heavy autocannon, a series of dazzling tongues of flame erupted from the nose of the plane!

On the ground, those Orc Boyzs who were still looking up to watch the show didn't react at all.

The large-caliber high-explosive rounds were like the Reaper's scythe, plowing two deep trails of death through the crimson convoy.

Boom! Rrrrrumble!

A half-track vehicle full of rockets was hit directly by the autocannon and instantly detonated.

A massive fireball turned the dozen or so Greenskins around it into charcoal on the spot.

"Sweet! This is what you call ground fire suppression!"

ikun laughed maniacally in the cockpit, maneuvering the plane to skim past at a low altitude of less than thirty meters from the ground.

The Orks on the ground finally reacted.

They angrily raised their crude muskets and submachine guns, firing wildly at the sky.

But Ork marksmanship was already pathetic, and besides, such backward physical ammunition posed no threat at all to a high-speed moving aerial target.

The bullets either missed or merely punched a few inconsequential small holes in the wooden wings.

"Not enough firepower! Let's do another pass!"

ikun didn't feel satisfied yet.

He pulled hard on the control stick. The wooden plane made a tooth-aching creak in mid-air as it forced a thrilling Immelmann Turn.

The plane dove again!

Another storm-like barrage of autocannon fire!

Nearly a hundred rounds of large-caliber ammunition were poured onto the Ork positions without reservation.

In just two minutes of aerial strikes, that arrogant Greenskin biker gang had more than ten vehicles completely destroyed, and over thirty strong Orks were shredded into mincemeat.

Just as ikun was preparing for a third climb.

Elbow-Strike Helicopter in the back seat suddenly smelled a pungent burnt odor.

"Holy shit! ikun! Stop firing!"

Elbow-Strike Helicopter slapped the front seat in panic,

"The barrel overheated! The wooden support underneath has caught fire! The plane is on fire! Return to base! Quick!"

ikun looked down, and sure enough, the wooden board fixing the Logging Gun had ignited with an open flame, and the fire was spreading toward the cockpit with the help of the wind.

"Shit! This cooling design is flawed! Let's get out of here!"

ikun broke into a cold sweat. He quickly released the firing button, slammed the throttle to the floor, and controlled the wooden plane—which was trailing black smoke from its tail—as it wobbled and fled toward the Shelter.

On the ground.

The crowd of players hiding in the ruins were all dumbfounded as they watched that wooden plane trailing black smoke disappear into the distance.

"Since when did our Shelter... have air support?"

Miracle Walker's mouth hung open, and he even forgot to lower the gun in his hand.

"Don't fucking worry about who supported us!"

Flash had the fastest reaction.

He kicked away the nearly shattered iron plate blocking his front and gripped that Melta Greatsword with both hands.

The blade instantly lit up with a blinding red light.

Taking advantage of the Orc Boss on the perimeter still looking at the sky, Flash charged out directly.

The glowing blade traced a half-moon arc, and with a 'pssh', it cleanly cut off that Orc Boss's head!

The headless corpse crashed down, green blood gushing out.

"What are you all standing around for! The mobs were crippled by the plane! Kill them! Snatch the kills!"

Flash roared while holding the bloody greatsword.

Over two hundred old and new players were instantly jolted awake.

"Charge! Loot the gold!"

The Fourth Calamity, who had been suppressed to the point of being unable to lift their heads, were now like beasts released from a dam. They grabbed their gear and engaged in close-quarters combat with the remaining Greenskins who were dizzy from the explosions.

The veteran players were on average level six. With their strength attribute plus the boost from exoskeletons, they were not at all weaker than ordinary Orks.

Add to that over two hundred newbies who didn't care at all about losing respawn points and only knew how to charge forward.

This encounter, which was originally full of despair, quickly turned into a one-sided group beatdown.

In less than fifteen minutes, the remaining dozens of Greenskins were chopped into meat paste by the players.

"Holy shit! I got the last hit on this Nob! I leveled up twice directly!"

A blood-covered newbie looked at the notification on his terminal and danced with excitement.

On the wasteland, dozens of player corpses lay scattered about.

But this didn't cause the survivors any sadness at all; instead, everyone's face beamed with the joy of getting rich.

"Brothers, quiet down!"

Old Liver stood on a scrapped Ork vehicle, wiped the blood from his face, and shouted loudly:

"This time, because we veterans didn't bring heavy weapons, everyone got pinned down at the door and we lost quite a few brothers. So, the protection fees from farming Squigs earlier will all be refunded!"

Old Liver pointed at the wreckage and Ork weapons covering the ground:

"We'll transport all these spoils back together! Hand them to 73 for scanning and appraisal. The points exchanged will be split equally among everyone who participated! For the brothers who died and are on the respawn timer, each will get an extra 20 points as compensation for the respawn fee! Any objections?"

"No objections! Old Liver is righteous!" The new players were naturally happy with this.

According to the Shelter's unspoken rules, any spoils recovered by players in the field must first be brought back to the second basement level and handed to 73 for scanning and value assessment before the system issues points.

Among them, useful firearms or special equipment would be listed by the system in the [Armory Mall] at a low price.

Of course, the player who turned in the item has a ten-minute priority right to buy it back at the original price.

As for those scraps of iron and useless bones, they would be thrown directly into the material recycler to be crushed into basic raw materials. Players then use these raw materials to exchange for points, forming a perfect internal economic cycle.

The grand procession of transporting corpses and goods began to head toward the Shelter.

...

Fire Seed Shelter, third basement level.

In the spacious gym area, only a heavy and rhythmic clanging of steel could be heard.

"Ninety-eight... ninety-nine... one hundred!"

Lin Li had his lean, strong upper body bare, sweat sliding down his extremely well-defined muscle lines.

He had just put down a five-hundred-pound barbell and exhaled a long breath.

In order to reach level 20 as quickly as possible and unlock the ultimate permissions for the fourth basement level,

Lin Li now spent almost all his time here pumping iron, except for the few hours of sleep he absolutely needed each day.

By pushing his body to its limits and supplementing it with the nutrition of mutant beast meat every meal, his level had now laboriously climbed to level 13.

"Whew... this leveling speed is getting slower and slower."

Lin Li picked up a towel to wipe his sweat, just about to go take a shower.

In mid-air, STC-73's cold red light flashed, and it drifted over slowly.

"Creator. The system has detected that a large number of clones have experienced zero vital signs just now and are currently queuing offline in the incubation pods for reconstruction."

Lin Li's movement of wiping sweat stopped abruptly, and his brow furrowed:

"Large-scale offline? Is it the batch of new players recruited today?"

"Yes, over 80% are newly promoted clones."

Lin Li was very puzzled.

"Didn't they follow Old Liver to that old camp to the west to farm Squigs and Gretchin? That's a cleared safe zone; what kind of accident could happen?"

The old Ork camp was a full twenty kilometers from the Shelter.

Currently, the Shelter's monitoring probes could not cover that far, and if the players' pv terminals were at too great a distance, they could not transmit images to the main computer in real-time. Therefore, Lin Li knew nothing about what specifically had happened.

"The short communication distance is a big problem."

Lin Li immediately realized the shortcoming,

"It seems a large signal tower must be built on the surface as soon as possible. Only by using a signal tower as a relay station can the players' PV channels cover a wider range."

Thinking of the pv terminal, Lin Li asked casually:

"By the way, 73, has the new batch of PV equipment I asked you to rush out been made?"

"Three hundred units of the new terminal have already been manufactured."