Genius Mechanic: Chapter 120

Coria Contaminated Zone (Restricted Zone)

120. Opening Up A Path

Proofread by Cloud Chip Cake and An Zheee

“You guys watch out,” Ying Chenlin said.

Zhao Lejie: “What?!”

The tunnel was so narrow, how the hell were they supposed to watch out!

The fire that burst in from outside quickly dispersed, but it was all blocked by Zhao Lejie’s shield. The protective shield could only reach 40% at the moment, and several cracks had already appeared. The small tentacles that had been burned by the fire from outside stopped for a few seconds, and then resumed their attack on the mining group.

Zhao Lejie noticed the cracks on the shield and was about to speak.

At this moment, Lin Yao stepped back and took out his tattered shield, leaning it against Zhao Lejie’s side. “It’s okay, double-layered shields can withstand burning.”

Zhao Lejie: “…”

“There might be a fusion weapon above, can’t you be more careful when using fire?” Zhao Lejie changed his tone and advised, “Not only could you accidentally burn your teammates, but what if you trigger an explosion from the fusion weapon above!”

“No way,” You Su said coldly, “This thing has extremely high resistance to fire.”

The sea of fire and the Wind-Enhanced Energy Cannon shot exploded up top. Some of the pollutants chased after Ying Chenlin but were caught off guard by the two sniper shots coming from both the left and right. The core part of the pollutant was burned by the sea of fire, lasting for seven or eight seconds. Finally, the fire caused by the two sniper shots gradually dissipated, and the pollutant could be said to be unharmed. Clearly, it was a plant-based pollutant, but it was completely unaffected by the fire, indicating its strong resistance to fire.

You Su knew the power of Ying Chenlin’s weapon. It was one thing for his wind-based weapon to show no obvious damage, but Ying Chenlin’s fire-based weapon also couldn’t cause any harm to it, which meant that cannons were ineffective against the core of the pollutant.

“Our attacks are useless against its core,” Huo Yan said, “We might need to think of another way.”

“It should work,” Ying Chenlin closely watched the core’s position. “If our attacks are useless against its core, it wouldn’t have used its tentacles to block us in the first place. Obviously, it has a self-preservation instinct.”

According to the Frontier Army’s original theory, the core of the fusion weapon was the special pollutant weapon. Since it was a weapon, it must have been programmed by the Frontier Army. This could explain the stiff movements of the fusion weapon when capturing pollutants and its contradictory behavior of letting the pollutants escape. However, if this were the case, the weapon would not be aware of the danger, which seemed more like a biological response.

“According to the design concept of the weapon,” Ying Chenlin avoided the attacks of the tentacles and explained, “even if it’s a biological weapon, it’s obvious that there are contradictions in its current control over its own body. Even if it’s a fusion weapon, its design after fusion is unreasonable. If this thing grew out of the weapon, it wouldn’t be able to defend itself completely.”

The flashlight swept over the pollutants on top. Initially, there was more metal and mechanical debris on the tentacles on the surface, but it was clear that the body parts growing underground had differences in appearance. There were tentacles of varying lengths and thicknesses, and its body was unevenly covered with metal plates, indicating that this thing should have weak spots.

After being burned by the fire, the pollutant seemed to be enraged, and its speed while moving towards Ying Chenlin became faster and faster. Ying Chenlin noticed that most of its attacks were aimed at the weapons in Yuan’s hands. He slightly avoided the tentacles, and his peripheral vision caught sight of the increasingly hot weapon. Normally, when a weapon reaches this temperature, Ying Chenlin should consider the possibility of it exploding and should not continue to use the weapon.

But Ying Chenlin knew that the weapon temperature reaching this point was not a problem with its internal circuits or components. Such high temperatures would only appear at one point, the anomalous crystal, which served as the core energy source of the weapon— the anomaly crystal within Hell Fire.

Ying Chenlin furrowed his brows slightly as he looked at the tentacles. Hell Fire’s anomaly crystal had a reaction to this pollutant, and similarly, this pollutant urgently wanted to take the weapon from him.

“It’s even more resistant to fire.” Huo Yan said, “So we don’t have to worry about detonating the fusion weapon.”

Ying Chenlin regained his senses. “At least in this cavern, we can go all out to deal with it.”

The distant flames disappeared, and the entire cavern was about to plunge back into darkness. You Su said, “Since you mentioned that there’s a weak spot around its core, then we have no choice but to find it.”

Ying Chenlin once again adjusted the weapon’s parameters. He saw that Hell Fire’s output was at 30%, which was the highest temperature he could resist and its output threshold for the moment. He replied, “Let’s go.”

Zhao Lejie listened to their vague conversation, “Wait?! How are you going to find—”

Before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly saw the flames reignite in the distance. The ground shook, and the ferocious fire dragon once again rushed towards them.

Ji Qingfeng turned his head and glanced, “You still don’t understand? Naturally, we’ll keep blasting until we find it.”

Lu Xi kindly reminded them, “Let’s try to dig faster.”

Zhao Lejie: “…”

He must have been out of his mind to follow KID into the cave!

At Base Station C-147, the Frontier Army’s reinforcements finally crossed over the Restricted Zone’s system and arrived at the station’s site, providing much-needed relief to the defensively positioned Gale team. As soon as the Frontier Army arrived at the base station, they immediately split into two teams. One team assisted Gale in clearing the scattered pollutants around the perimeter, while the other team took over control of the base station.

The base station’s response function couldn’t be restored immediately. The Frontier Army, skilled in repair techniques, remained in the main control room, led by Lieutenant Lu, along with several Frontier Army mecha regiments, quickly entering the innermost research institute of the base station.

In Coria’s main control room, after Old Qiu raised the issue of the pollutant [Fire]’s remnants, the Bureau’s staff immediately focused on the abandoned waste treatment room where [Fire] was handled, located 100 meters below the research institute.

“Lieutenant Lu has led the team into the waste treatment room.” The staff shouted, “It will take 5 minutes to reach the destination.”

Old Qiu stood solemnly on the side, watching as the information from the base station gradually came in, his expression becoming more and more serious. The other personnel in the control room didn’t dare to do anything unnecessary. When the Frontier Army was in action, they could only invest more energy into their own jobs. All information regarding the pollutant [Fire] was retrieved, and the staff conducted searches on relevant terms one by one.

“There are no special pollutants among the processed pollutants in the waste treatment room.”

“At that time, in order to deal with Fire, the treatment room should have been cleared out. The only S-level pollutant body remaining inside should be Fire…”

Zhang Ge and Shen Xingtang also didn’t have time to relax. With limited personnel in the control room, when assistance was needed, they also joined in searching for data. However, the more they looked up information related to the pollutant [Fire], the more alarming the initial disaster in Coria Restricted Zone seemed.

Twenty years ago, Fire broke into the Coria Contaminated Zone. At the time, its degree of variation was already at the highest level among the S-Level pollutant files in the Frontier Army’s records, and no other S-Level pollutants have surpassed it to this day.

“Major General Ying must have been quite something…” Zhang Ge looked at the data. “This thing’s pollution value exceeds 20,000.”

“If there’s another regenerative pollutant,” Shen Xingtang lowered her eyes, looking at the data, “back then, the pollutant was practically immortal.” Perhaps that’s why Old Qiu was so nervous. It was already so difficult to deal with back then, and now, with the fusion weapon added…

Just then, an alarm sounded in the control room.

Everyone looked at the team led by Lieutenant Lu, who had entered the depths of the base station.

The sudden report made everyone tense, especially Shen Xingtang, who put down her work and went over. After Ying Chenlin’s reminder, this team entering the depths of the base station was equipped with special gear, capable of dealing with frontal attacks, but still unable to use large mechas for combat in narrow spaces.

The main screen in the control room popped up with a contact from Lieutenant Lu. As soon as it was connected, Old Qiu hurried forward. “What’s going on!?”

“Old Qiu, we’ve encountered an attack down here,” Lieutenant Lu’s tone was serious. “The situation is currently under control, but we couldn’t find the remnants of Fire in the waste treatment room… Or rather, this place seems to have been occupied by something.”

Old Qiu’s heart raced. Then he saw the image request from Lieutenant Lu, and as soon as he looked, he saw the Frontier Army using a special light mecha to block the front, with the space occupied by bizarre tentacles on the other side of the deployed defense shield. These tentacles seemed to have drilled out of the wall, filling the entire interior of the treatment room with darkness. As for the remnants of the pollutant left in the treatment room, they had long since disappeared.

“This is just the outer space; we can’t enter the interior of the treatment room,” Lieutenant Lu said. “But judging from the current situation, it’s likely that the body of the pollutant [Fire] is no longer here.”

“We encountered a large number of tentacles on our way here, all crawling out of the cracked walls,” Lieutenant Lu’s expression was grave. “We’ve never reconnoitered the waste treatment room before… but judging from the current situation, your guess is probably right.”

Old Qiu was taken aback.

Zhang Ge was puzzled. “What does that mean?”

“In all the Frontier Army’s previous reconnaissance missions, there were these cracked walls, and the waste treatment station has been abandoned for many years, so underground cracks are normal,” Old Qiu’s voice grew hoarse. “Given the scale of this, it’s likely that the mutation caused by the fusion weapon began… most likely in the waste treatment room.”

Shen Xingtang’s face turned even paler. At that time, only the body of Fire was processed in the treatment room, and now there were so many strange tentacles… If it was really a possibility of pollutant mutation, then it could only be Fire.

Several Frontier Army soldiers stood guard outside the treatment room. The tentacles’ aggression wasn’t that extreme, just slightly mad in appearance. The Frontier Army couldn’t enter inside at all and could only watch from the outside. Lieutenant Lu saw the current situation and probably understood that these tentacles should be growing from a deeper position, probably from the same source as the ones outside.

Lieutenant Lu looked at the situation and realized that their current light mecha equipment couldn’t clear the way at all. The location was too narrow, making it impossible to release large mechas here unless they could enter the interior of the treatment room.

The interior space of the treatment room was larger, enough to release the mechas stored in the mecha keys – but under the current circumstances, they couldn’t enter the interior of the treatment room.

A staff member whispered, “Can’t we do anything?”

“No,” Shen Xingtang looked at the other side of the contact screen, “under these circumstances, we simply can’t enter underground through the base station, and the mecha regiment doesn’t have enough space to use large mechas.”

After a quick thought, Old Qiu replied, “Lieutenant, leave that place first. We’ll find another entrance to go underground—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Old Qiu seemed to catch a movement on the other side of the contact screen. “Wait? Is it shaking over there?”

“We felt the tremors when we entered the underground space, probably 15 minutes ago,” Lieutenant Lu felt the increasingly strong tremors around him. “But it seems like the tremors are getting stronger now…”

“The shaking seems to be getting closer.”

“Do you feel a bit hot?”

“It seems so, the temperature has risen.”

Lieutenant Lu’s pupils contracted, and he hurriedly said, “Everyone, retreat!”

All mecha soldiers felt the intense shaking of the ground as if something was about to break through the surface. In their urgency, they stepped back. Just at that moment, the fragile base station ground was pierced by something, and everyone looked towards the treatment room. They saw a blade-like weapon emitting a blue light break through the ground, accompanied by the sound of giant thrusters echoing through the space. A large mecha broke through the bottom of the treatment room, and the disgusting tentacles from the treatment room rose with it.

The mecha soldiers were stunned.

Lieutenant Lu exclaimed, “KID!?”

The mecha that emerged was none other than the familiar red and white patterned KID mecha.

The Frontier Army was dumbfounded, and the Management Bureau, which was receiving the image from the Frontier Army’s communicator, was also dumbfounded.

Zhang Ge looked in astonishment, “??? Isn’t that a KID mech?”

Shen Xingtang recognized the mecha, “Ji Qingfeng!?”

Seeing the situation, Lieutenant Lu hurriedly shouted through the special extender, “KID!”

Ji Qingfeng, the leader, heard Lieutenant Lu’s voice and fumbled to switch on the external communicator.

The external communicator, echoing through the room, was deafening. “Damn it! Lieutenant Lu!”

The next moment, before they could even establish contact with KID’s mecha pilots, they saw the leading mecha pushing aside the tentacles in a rush, seemingly eager to climb up. One mecha emerged, followed by another, quickly filling the entire interior of the underground treatment room.

“F*ck! Ji Qingfeng, hurry up!”

“The shield is about to crack!”

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

“F*ck, there are tentacles everywhere up above!”

“There’s no way to squeeze through! Lu Xi, use the Water Flow Cannon!”

“Ji Qingfeng—” Lieutenant Lu was stunned, only to see the surrounding temperature rapidly rising. “No, everyone retreat!”

“Lieutenant Lu, run!” Ji Qingfeng shouted, “The two below are firing, and it’s about to collapse!”

In the control room, the bewildered leaders and staff had just recovered from the deafening noise when they saw the violent shaking of the entire screen. With Ji Qingfeng’s shout of ‘fire’, the ground trembled violently, the Frontier Army fled in panic, and the mechas inside the room struggled to climb out amidst the tentacles. The walls turned reddish.

Then, the walls of the base station completely cracked open, and the ground collapsed!

The sounds of vibration and calls mixed together, the alarm in the control room buzzing incessantly. Everyone was too shocked to speak. When the shaking finally stopped, they saw the dramatically changed underground treatment room, with the collapsed walkways revealing a vast space.

All channels fell silent, until a staff member spoke up, “Seems like the shooter… opened up a path.”

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