NABC Chapter 62 Destroyed Spaceship
Chapter 62 Destroyed Spaceship
The gunfire became sparse. Not stopped, but the pace slowed. The intervals between the Green Soldier charges lengthened from the initial few waves to every few hours, and later from several hours to half a day. The roars of hundreds of thousands of Green Soldier soldiers on the opposite side of the gentle slope were still there, but they had stopped charging.
Kara patrolled back and forth in the recessed area in the middle of the passage, a thick layer of spent heavy explosive shell casings carpeting her feet. A pack animal stood at the rear of the position, its six legs firmly planted on the passage floor, the fully loaded cargo boxes stacked neatly. Veterans off duty leaned against the bulkhead, eyes closed in rest; some removed their helmets, breaking off pieces of compressed rations and stuffing them into their mouths, while others used bayonets to carve marks on the spent shell casings.
Liu En stood inside the arched breastwork, his consciousness extending into the depths of space opposite the gentle slope. The outline of the ancient junk became clear in his perception—over ten meters tall, bipedal, with stacked and welded armor plates, and weapon platform ammunition belts hanging from its sides. The low-frequency rumble of the reactor penetrated the pile of scrap metal and debris, the dull vibrations felt even hundreds of meters away. The narrow slit of the control room skylight was still there, the rivets on its edge faintly visible in the afterglow of the searchlight.
The greenskins roared in their rough language, their voices surging from the depths of space. Occasionally, a few words borrowed from Imperial language would be thrown in: "WAAAGH! What the hell! Kill! Charge!" But mostly, it was a low, muffled thud, like a pile driver. They were pushing each other, none willing to be the first to charge. The leader stood on the flat ground at the edge of the workshop area, hands on his hips, roaring the loudest, but he himself didn't charge. "WAAAGH! What the hell! Get up! Get up!" The greenskins huddled behind the scrap heaps, peering out, the muzzles of their rifles twitching, but they dared not pull the trigger.
Kara walked out of the dent, her boots crunching on the spent cartridge cases, and stopped beside Liu En. "Captain, the Greenskins aren't going to charge anymore."
"I saw it."
"This can't go on forever. We've replenished our ammunition and the crew can hold on, but with this behemoth stuck here, we can't move forward." Kara glanced towards the depths of space. The shadow of the ancient junk was cast on the pile of scrap metal, a dark mass.
Liu En's consciousness swept around the ancient junk again. The tech gurus were arguing in the workshop area, their leader shouting from the side, while the green-skinned kids huddled in the back. "This is just a tribe. If we break it up, so be it. We can only move forward after we get rid of the ancient junk."
"What should we do?"
"I'll take the mechs over. Some of you will go out and draw the Greenskins' attention from the flanks. The rest of you will stay and hold the position. If things don't look good, retreat the way you came."
Kara didn't ask any further questions. She turned around and selected two squads in the garrison channel.
Kara led two squads out from the flank of the gentle slope. Their footsteps bounced among the scrap metal, their boots grinding against the debris with a soft, scraping sound. The greenskins poked their heads out from the workshop area, their shouts erupting. "WAAAGH! What the hell! What the hell is coming from over there!" The sound of rifle fire exploded from the flank, the roar of heavy grenades echoing in the air. The greenskins' line began to shift to the flank. The techies stopped their welding torches, their leader's shout coming from the edge of the workshop area, pointing towards the flank.
A gap appeared around the ancient giant garbage.
Liu En slid out from the inside of the arched breastwork. Dozens of Casterland mechs followed behind him. His feet moved quickly across the debris on the gentle slope. Armed servants remained behind, waiting for orders. His route weaved through the gaps between the scrap heaps, approaching the ancient junk as the Greenskins turned their attention to their flanks.
The leader reacted faster than expected. It turned around from the edge of the workshop area, its body, a size larger than the average green-skinned boy, standing out conspicuously in the darkness. It gripped a machete in its left arm and pointed in Liu En's direction with its right. It roared, "WAAAGH! What the hell!" The green-skinned boys guarding the giant junk turned and surged forward.
The miniature thinker within the skull emitted a burst of pulses. "Free fire. Fan formation, block the frontal field of fire."
Three seconds later, the pulse was confirmed. The Casterlan mechs unleashed a barrage of bullets amidst the scrap heaps, creating a dense web of fire. The green-skinned kids in the front fell, while those in the back continued their charge, stepping over the corpses. Liu En's field of vision covered the area ahead; his consciousness touched it, and the bullets disintegrated into atoms in flight. The green-skinned kids' rifles went silent halfway through their shots. Some turned and ran: "WAAAGH! That's amazing!" Others charged with machetes, but the Casterlan mechs' explosives took them down before they even reached the scrap heaps.
The leader charged ahead. Faster than any of the green-skinned kids, its machete slashed at the base of the leading Casterland mech's legs, sparks flying, the leg support deformed. The second blow struck the mech's side, the blade wedged into a seam in the armor plating. It tried to pull it out but failed, so it loosened the handle, drew its rifle from its waist, pressed the muzzle against the mech's optical lens mount, and pulled the trigger.
Liu En walked past it. The orc leader was still roaring—"WAAAGH!"—halfway through the roar, its massive body dissolved into an atomic cloud and surged into the warehouse. The machete was still stuck in the wreckage of the mech, and the rifle was still clutched in his hand. Nothing was left.
But Gu Juji moved.
The moment the boss was disassembled, a skilled tech-savvy individual leaped from the scaffolding into the cockpit and pulled the start lever. The reactor's roar suddenly intensified, transforming from a muffled low frequency into a piercing shriek. The weapon platform's ammunition belts began to rotate, and the crudely made cannon barrels slowly rose, aiming at Liu En. A pair of crimson eyes peeked through the narrow slit of the cockpit's skylight. The ancient junk's body began to tremble, its hydraulic pushers emitting a loud metallic scraping sound as it slowly straightened from a kneeling position. Piles of scrap metal cascaded down its shoulder armor, crashing to the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.
"WAAAGH!!!" The Techies in the cockpit roared a deafening battle cry. It wasn't fear, it was fanaticism. Its boss was dead, and the Ancient Giant was its boss's legacy; it wanted to avenge its boss.
Gu Juji raised his right arm. It was a giant cannon made by binding together multiple warship barrels. The rifling on the inner walls of the barrels had been haphazardly modified by the green-skinned welder, but the energy coils were still running, and purple arcs crackled at the base of the barrels. Tech Master pulled the trigger.
It wasn't a cannonball. It was an electric arc. A purple energy beam as thick as a bucket shot from the muzzle, leaving a twisted trail, and slammed into a pile of scrap metal twenty meters in front of Liu En. The pile of scrap metal was blasted open, creating a hole several meters wide, and molten metal fragments flew everywhere.
The second blast is already charging.
Liu En did not retreat. He continued forward. The Thinker within the skull emitted a continuous pulse signal. "Focus fire on the cockpit. Suppressive fire."
The remaining Casterlan mechs unleashed a barrage of bullets, the hail striking the Ancient Giga's breastplate with sparks and dents, but failing to penetrate the half-meter-thick terracotta armor. The Ancient Giga took its first step, then its second, each step sending the ground trembling violently. Its left arm rose as well—a massive chainsaw claw welded with serrated edges, its blades spinning at high speed, emitting a piercing shriek. A second energy beam erupted from the muzzle of its right arm, this time aimed at the mech line. The two beams swept across, striking three Casterlan mechs. Their repulsive grids overloaded and flashed under the impact of the purple arcs, their terracotta armor melted through, their wet cores exploded, and their nutrient solution evaporated into white steam in the intense heat.
Liu En quickened his pace. Twenty-five meters, twenty meters, fifteen meters.
Gu Juji noticed him. Inside the cockpit, the tech expert piloted Gu Juji, lowering his head, his crimson eyes fixed on Liu En through the shattered observation window. Gu Juji's left arm chainsaw claw slashed down, carrying the weight of his entire upper body. Liu En dodged to the side; the saw blade grazed his shoulder armor, carving a deep trench in the ground behind him.
The field covered Gu Juji's left arm. Consciousness reached it. Decomposition.
The chainsaw's drive shaft dissolved into an atomic cloud at the atomic level. The saw teeth lost power, their high-speed rotation turning into inertial idling, before disintegrating piece by piece. The giant's left arm vanished below the elbow, the cut as clean as if laser-cut, without sparks, without fragments, only the armor plates layer by layer turning to nothingness. The Tech-Master's roar turned into a scream. It frantically pulled the trigger of its right-arm cannon, but the power supply to the energy coil had already been stripped from the field, and an electric arc exploded inside the barrel, shattering the entire barrel from the inside. The broken barrel hung down, billowing smoke.
Liu En walked to the foot of the giant monster. He looked up at the steel shell, which was over ten meters tall. The field radius covered the entire lower half of the giant monster's body and was extending towards its torso. Upon sensing it, the decomposition command was issued.
Gu Juji's right leg vanished below the knee. The machine tilted, its heavy torso losing balance and falling to the left. It braced itself against the ground with its remaining left arm, but the left arm was also disintegrating. Armor plates, hydraulic thrusters, energy conduits—layer by layer, they turned into atomic clouds, silently dissipating in the darkness. Gu Juji collapsed to its knees with a thud, while the tech master in the cockpit was still roaring, still pulling on the now-ineffective control sticks.
Liu En reached out his hand. The field of influence covered the cockpit. Consciousness reached out.
The tyrant's roar came to an abrupt halt.
The ancient Titan's outer shell, skeleton, reactor, weapon platform, hydraulic lines, control cables, operator's cabin seat, safety harness, and the remaining indicator lights on the control panel—all dissolved into an atomic cloud at the atomic level and flooded into the warehouse. The crudely made Titan, several meters tall, vanished in seconds.
The material composition information of the entire Ancient Junk unfolded in high-dimensional space. The alloy formula of the armor plates, the energy conduit routing of the reactor, the ammunition delivery mechanism of the weapon platform, the sealing structure of the hydraulic push rods, the wiring logic of the control panel—not fragments, but a complete blueprint. He marked it as archived in the database, tagged "Green Skin · Vehicle · Ancient Junk · Awaiting Analysis".
The tech lords roared in the workshop area. "WAAAGH! Ancient Giga! My Ancient Giga!" But no one dared to charge. Without their leader yelling "Charge!" from below, they wouldn't dare go. The leader's command chain had broken. Ancient Giga disappeared. The WAAAGH force field was collapsing.
Kara said in the garrison channel, "Captain, the flanks are almost cleared. What's the situation on your end? Where's Gu Juji?"
"It's been dealt with. Withdraw it."
The squadrons converged behind the arched breastwork in the middle of the gentle slope. The pack-type mechs checked ammunition, the transport mechs organized cargo crates, and the veterans inspected weapons. The remaining Casterlan mechs stood by behind the lines, the wreckage of the few destroyed by the Ancient Giganotosaurus lying among the scrap heaps. No one went to retrieve them; there was no time. The shouts in the workshop area grew increasingly chaotic. The greenskins circled the spot where the Ancient Giganotosaurus had disappeared, some blaming each other, "WAAAGH! I knew the shrimp was powerful!" Others yelled for reinforcements, "WAAAGH! Deeper! Deeper, boss!" The reinforcements they were calling for were deeper within the wrecked ship. There were larger tribes there, larger bosses, and perhaps even more Ancient Giganotosaurus.
Kara stood beside Liu En, watching the cavity below the gentle slope gradually quiet down. The greenskins hadn't followed; they'd started fighting amongst themselves. "Captain, what do we do with these greenskins?"
"Don't worry about it."
Liu En's consciousness stretched forward. Behind the workshop area was a mostly buried passageway, shattered bulkheads and broken pipes crammed together, the debris blocking the way. He walked to the passageway entrance, the area covering the debris, his consciousness reaching it, and the decomposition command was issued. The shattered bulkheads and broken pipes transformed into an atomic cloud at the boundary of his perception, revealing the passageway entrance. The beam of the searchlight swept in; the depths of the passage were dark, but it was passable.
He said in the garrison channel, "Keep moving forward."
The pack-carrying mechs followed, carrying supplies, and the veterans checked the gun barrels. The remaining Casterland mechs led the way. The column entered the cleared passage. The shouts from the workshop area behind them faded into the distance; the orcs were scrambling for the scrap metal left behind by the Techies.
Liu En walked at the front, his consciousness covering a five-kilometer area ahead. The passage forked ahead, the right path leading deeper into the core area of the wrecked ship. He stopped at the fork, his consciousness probing into the right passage. There were signs of corrosion on the metal walls, but the structure was largely intact. At the end of the passage were cabins.
He turned and said in the garrison channel, "Pay attention to the markers, everyone follow."