Chapter 991 - 97: Exploration 3
The massive Mechanical Black Tortoise takes one step at a time, forging a path toward the North Ice Heaven.
The Arctic of Immortal Energy Star is not called the Arctic, but North Ice Heaven, because when the atmosphere of this planet covers the two high-latitude regions, cold air forms a pot-lid-shaped ice shell in the sky, spanning from one end of the horizon to the other. Under this cold reflection are icebergs, ice blocks, seawater, rocks, and coldly moving zombie hordes.
As the Mechanical Black Tortoise moves, splitting icebergs and treading over the icy sea, its huge mechanical legs, encircled by layer upon layer of heavy engines, start to emit a thunderous roar.
Under the operation of hundreds of connected engines, the legs of the Mechanical Black Tortoise lift high and then slam down with force. Amidst the shockwaves, zombies from tens of miles around are sent flying by the sonic boom, while even more zombies, alerted by the commotion, rush toward the Mechanical Black Tortoise.
Soon, the corpse tide scales the four giant mechanical pillars, crawling toward the upper half of the Mechanical Black Tortoise, in dense, endless streams.
Affected by this, the ’shell’ of the Black Tortoise begins to slowly open, revealing ion cannons that extend outward. A massive concentration of radiance begins to gather, and when it shines at its peak, thousands of beams sweep across, instantly vaporizing tens of thousands of zombies. Yet more ice zombies attack, their hands becoming transparent. When their palms touch the alloy exterior, blue ice forms, and with a forceful squeeze, they manage to pinch tiny holes into the shell designed to withstand basic energy weapons, much like ants eroding a tree—these tiny holes continue to multiply rapidly.
"This isn’t exactly scientific."
Above the sky, below the ice shell, an exoskeleton mecha silently watches the corpse tide below. Inside the mecha, Baozi exclaims into a group chat channel.
"The Legion’s fortress-level heavy mecha, with shell strong enough to withstand energy cannons, is cracking under the zombies’ claws. I feel like I’m going to crack too."
"Whether you crack or not is irrelevant. What’s important is whether you’ve completed your mission," pp Leader sarcastically replied.
"Completed, the four Mechanical Black Tortoises have entered the deployment point, now it’s up to Ji Ji."
"I warned you, if you call me Ji Ji again, I’ll take you down," an electronic voice of threat from the Mechanical God Supreme echoed in the chat.
"Huh, why aren’t you threatening to brainwash me this time?"
"For someone like you, it’s better to remain in the carbon-based species sequence. I’m worried if you became one of us, you’d contaminate us."
"Alright, stop bickering, Supreme, have you sorted things out over there?" pp Leader asked helplessly.
"It’s done, the players on this planet have infiltrated under the cover of the Black Tortoise, now we can only wait to see if they can find Lord Celestis."
...
Meanwhile, in the underground hollow of the Alien Factory, a zombie squad is advancing slowly. Rakish Knight, Sea Wave, Birds and Fish, and Jia Hei are cautiously feeling their way forward, almost entirely covered by zombie shells.
There have been ideas before about infiltrating this ’Alien Factory Wreckage’ to loot equipment or something, but first, there was a lack of transportation tools, and second, the environment was extremely harsh—it gets freezing, directly draining health, not to mention the corpse tide density two or three times higher than outside.
But even though it’s their first time here, these players inexplicably feel a sense of familiarity with the environment.
The gray-black, already fossilized fetal membranes on the ground and the biological pipelines on the walls of unknown purpose invoke an instinctive sense of restlessness in these players.
"Have you noticed?" Jia Hei suddenly spoke, "Upon coming here, our human body transformation rate began to fluctuate."
"Is there fluctuation?" Birds and Fish puzzledly opened their personal panel, finding no change.
"Only when the transformation rate drops below 50% in a human body system will there be variation, and at least three 50% or lower systems are needed to detect it," Sea Wave suddenly said.
Rakish Knight and Birds and Fish exchanged glances, being City Lords, there was still a difference in strength; Sea Wave and Jia Hei were veteran City Lords, with incredibly low human body transformation rates, and they were multi-system flow players.
Typically, players on the Immortal Energy Star that follow the ’Zombie Hunter’ route choose to deeply reduce a single human body system to maximize attribute point benefits. However, veteran City Lords choose a more difficult path by reducing several human body systems simultaneously.
Most players choosing this kind of point allocation end up abandoning their accounts, but a few become the elite of the elite.
Not long after starting, zombies from the depths of the underground factory seemed to be alerted and surged toward them.
𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢
"The number is less than a hundred."
"Let’s just take them out directly."
Sea Wave and Jia Hei exchanged a glance. With a thought, their bodies, already zombified, suddenly swelled. One transformed into ’Brother Huyulu,’ becoming a zombie in a bodybuilder version, head nearly touching the ceiling, while the other had limbs that shrunk, mouth significantly enlarged, torso elongated, and strands of corpse snakes growing from the head.
The more recklessly a player’s transformation rate burns, the stronger their transformation ability.
These players, with multiple transformation systems burned out, perform ’inhuman’ evolutions based on ’zombification.’
After all, once the human body system is no more, one naturally stops being human.
A ’Brother Huyulu’ and an ’Orochimaru’ thus dive into the monster horde ahead.
The remaining two City Lords shared a glance, feeling less monstrous, one pulling out a giant axe with an arm thickened considerably, the other drawing a double-barreled shotgun, and they charged in.
Soon, the zombies were all cleared out.
...
There are six teams like this, all deployed inside, executing the Interstellar Camp’s ’Cybertron Corps’ task chain.
Currently, the mission goals are twofold: a super NPC named ’Lord Celestis’ and the missing ’interstellar player.’
This is the task for this phase.
Upon completing this task, the City Lord players will earn a ’Advanced Camp slot.’
Although the content of this ’slot’ is unclear, according to the mission note this ’slot’ will greatly enhance the players’ strength.
The six teams, exploring inward along the Alien Factory wreckage, quickly made various discoveries; for instance, the team of Rakish Knight discovered a production workshop while wiping out waves of zombies, finding a large amount of biological fluid inside. Touching these fluids drastically reduces human body activity. Another group found some casting molds, although all in human form structure... With the ongoing exploration, mission progress is continuously rising.
Meanwhile, high above the ice, Gao Gong gazes down with a curious look, muttering to himself.
"Have you found me? So you’re deliberately hiding. Well, at least it proves you’re not some Calamity Level monster, but I still need to push you..."
As his words fell, the image of the Ancestral Hall flickered on Gao Gong’s palm and disappeared.
The six-member team of Rakish Knight, Sea Wave, Birds and Fish, and the rest finally found their target.
Deep inside the factory, a massive mechanical body sat in the darkness, its abdomen alight with golden flames, except within the flames, several blood veins were inserted, continuously absorbing the Spark’s power, growing bones, flesh, brain mass, organs along the metal shell.
This gave the impression of the mechanical body trying to grow a human shell.