Chapter 66 Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland 29

Zhou Jue suddenly stood up, the icy touch of the shovel spreading from her palm throughout her body. She quickly walked to the welded-closed gate and approached the pre-drilled observation hole.

Outside the hole, the corridor was dark and crowded with people.

They were dressed in the clothes of the base's inhabitants, men and women, young and old. But their faces were expressionless, their eyes empty and lifeless. Their movements were perfectly synchronized; the distance of each step and the height of each leg lift seemed to be programmed, exuding a chillingly inhuman aura.

They are not zombies.

They're puppets!

The man in the lead walked to the door, stopped, raised his hand, and pressed it against the door.

The skin on his palms melted like wax, turning into a black liquid that silently seeped into the gaps of the door lock.

[Host, it's nanobots! Technology from the same source as the Gray Gu!] The system's alarm blared in my mind.

"Clatter... Sizzle..."

The electronic lock, which Zhou Jue had physically welded shut, began to spew electric sparks, and the mechanical sound of unlocking could be heard from inside!

Zhou Jue's eyes narrowed.

That's not unlocking.

It's decomposition!

A torrent of black nanobots is savagely devouring and disintegrating the metal structure of the lock cylinder!

"Brother Tongzi, calculate the cracking speed."

[Analysis in progress... Based on the erosion rate, the door lock will be completely destroyed in thirty-seven minutes.]

Thirty-seven minutes.

There are still seven hours left to manufacture the power armor.

Time is running out; it's a dead end.

Without the slightest hesitation, Zhou Jue turned and rushed into the depths of the workshop. Since the lock couldn't stop him, he would use a more primitive and purely physical method to solve the problem!

Her eyes scanned the workshop rapidly, locking onto her target.

He grabbed a high-strength alloy cable from the tool rack with one hand and a high-powered welding machine with the other, moving like the wind as he rushed towards the door that was being "corroded".

"Sizzle—!"

A blinding arc of electricity exploded, and Zhou Jue used the most brutal method to weld one end of the cable to the thickest center point of the alloy gate.

She dragged the other end of the cable and rushed toward the heavy gantry crane in the center of the workshop. The crane's base, cast directly into the reinforced concrete ground, weighed tens of tons and was the most solid "anchor point" in the entire workshop.

The welding machine was started again, and the other end of the cable was welded to the base of the gantry crane.

After doing all this, she dragged over a heavy solid steel pillar, braced one end against the door, and inserted the other end diagonally into the ground, forming a stable triangular support.

She didn't stop, like a tireless ant, frantically moving things around in the huge workshop.

With the system's assistance, she pushed the CNC machine tool's control panel over.

They piled up boxes of heavy spare parts.

She piled up all the heavy objects she could carry.

Behind the door, a three-meter-thick wall made of steel and debris rose from the ground.

This is the most basic method, and also the most effective one.

Nanorobots can disassemble door locks, so could they also disassemble this obstacle weighing tens of tons in a short time? However, she had just straightened up and hadn't even had a chance to catch her breath.

"Thump!"

A muffled thud came from the ceiling.

Zhou Jue suddenly looked up.

The ventilation duct! Her trap has been triggered!

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

Dull, resounding impacts echoed from different directions on the top of the workshop.

A feint to the east while attacking in the west, then split up and act!

Zhou Jue's face darkened. She had only set up a simple heavy trap; it could kill one or two people, but wouldn't stop a whole group. Sure enough, after several loud crashes, the iron bars of one of the ventilation shafts were smashed open from the inside.

A man in a maintenance worker's uniform fell straight down from a pipe opening more than three meters high. He landed in a bizarre posture, his limbs twisting as if they had no bones, before he stood up straight as if nothing had happened, his empty eyes fixed on Zhou Jue.

Then, the second, the third...

One by one, the puppets fell from the ventilation shaft. They stood up silently without uttering a word, formed a small team, and marched in unison toward Zhou Jue.

Zhou Jue's heart skipped a beat. With a flick of her wrist, she had the boundary-breaking shovel in hand. Instead of fighting head-on, she pushed off with her feet and rushed toward the material storage area on the other side of the workshop. There, various sizes of steel plates and metal pipes were piled up. The terrain was complex, making it a perfect place for guerrilla warfare.

The puppet squad immediately changed direction and gave chase.

Zhou Jue dodged behind a standing thick steel plate, concealing his aura, but his mental energy spread out like a spider web, accurately capturing the movements of every enemy.

One of the puppets was the first to catch up. It circled around the steel plate, its empty eye sockets just catching sight of Zhou Jue. What awaited it was a strike already brimming with power! The blade of the Boundary-Breaking Shovel, with a muffled thud as it tore through the air, without any fancy moves, viciously slashed upwards towards the puppet's jaw!

"Crack!"

The sound of bones shattering filled the air. The puppet's entire head was flung off by the immense force, tumbling through the air before crashing to the ground some distance away.

A bizarre scene unfolded.

The headless corpse did not fall. It merely swayed, and from the severed neck, countless black nanoparticles swarmed out like ants, wriggling and attempting to reform into the shape of a head!

Zhou Jue's inner alarm bells rang loudly: destroying the physical body was useless; the core was the nanobots!

She stopped fighting and turned to run, maneuvering through the maze of materials to fight these undead monsters, using the terrain to create obstacles and slow them down.

At the same time, a new strange noise came from the direction of the gate.

"Sizzle... sizzle..."

It was a sickening metallic scraping sound coming from behind the mountain of barriers. Those puppets were actually using their bodies to drill, squeeze, and break down that obstacle weighing tens of tons!

Zhou Jue's heart sank lower and lower. The enemies coming down from the ventilation shaft had already exhausted her, and if the main door were breached, she would be caught in a pincer attack with no way out.

Time ticked by, second by second. On the holographic projection, the countdown to the power armor's production was a blinding crimson.

【06:17:42】

【06:17:41】

Every second that beat felt like a heavy hammer blow to Zhou Jue's taut nerves.

While dodging, she quickly thought of a solution. A direct confrontation would lead to certain death; she had to find a way to solve the problem once and for all, or rather, a way to delay the inevitable for a long enough period of time.

Her gaze swept across the corner of the workshop, where several yellow gas cylinders marked with "high risk" came into view.

Acetylene!

Highly explosive gases used in industrial welding!

A bold, even insane plan instantly took shape in her mind.

Having already destroyed the mutated plant once, she didn't care about destroying the nanobots again! She suddenly changed direction, no longer hiding, and instead charged towards the pursuing swarm of puppets.

"puff!"

With a sweeping motion, she cleaved the foremost puppet in two at the waist. Without pausing, she used the puppet's still-twitching upper body as leverage to leap high into the air, landing on a pile of materials nearby. From her vantage point, she looked down at the dozen or so puppets gathering below, a resolute glint in her eyes.

She took out several remote-controlled bombs from the Starry Sky Box, and without even looking at them, threw them forcefully towards the acetylene cylinders! The bombs traced an arc in the air and landed precisely next to the cylinders.

After doing all this, Zhou Jue jumped heavily from the height, making a loud noise – a blatant provocation.

Come on!

She ran wildly towards another corner, far away from the gas cylinder.

The puppet's logic seems simple: eliminate the most recent threat.

They immediately abandoned their original encirclement, turned around, and marched in orderly steps toward Zhou Jue, their route passing right by the yellow gas cylinder.

Zhou Jue's heart was in his throat as he stared intently at the puppet's movements.

The lead puppet raised one foot, about to step into the trigger range of the landmine.

"Now!" Zhou Jue pressed the remote control switch.

"boom--!!!!"

A deafening roar instantly engulfed the entire workshop!