readbooksol Chapter 1317 Mining Begins
Chapter 1317 Mining Begins
The nameless saint's lips twitched. He had seen many suicide attacks, but he had never seen one like this, where someone died and came back to life, died and came back to life again, and each resurrection was accompanied by an explosive effect.
This is not a suicide attack; it is a cyclical suicide attack.
If you kill him, he'll explode.
Even if you don't hit him, he'll explode.
If you ignore him, he'll squat in the pit and cry, then stand up and explode in front of you.
The contractors of Apocalypse Paradise scattered in all directions like grains of sand blown by the wind.
No one felt they were overreacting, because on the battlefield, facing an enemy that you can't kill, who will die even if you don't attack, who will explode even after death, and who can come back to life after the explosion, running away is not cowardice, it's rationality.
boom.
A second mushroom cloud rose into the sky in the center of the camp.
Someone was thrown out by the blast wave and crashed into the hull of the spaceship with a dull thud.
The little boy reappeared in the giant pit.
He still had that aggrieved expression, still wore those tattered clothes, and still squatted at the bottom of the pit with his hands wrapped around his knees.
The nameless saint looked at him, remained silent for a few seconds, and then took out a palm-sized scroll from his robes.
This is his trump card, a one-time use item that can create an independent spatial barrier in a short time, isolating the target from the outside world.
He originally planned to use it when vying for the power of spacetime to form a fusion body, but now it seems he has no choice but to use it.
He unrolled the scroll, and the runes on the parchment began to glow. Golden light emanated from the paper and condensed into fine golden threads in the air.
The threads flew toward the little boy, weaving a tight cocoon around his body.
The little boy struggled inside for a few moments, then stopped moving. He squatted in the cocoon, hugging his knees with his hands, resting his chin on his knees, his eyes half-open and half-closed, looking as if he were dozing off.
The nameless saint put the scroll away, turned around, and looked at the contractors who were getting up from the ground.
Healers moved through the crowd, casting healing spells on the wounded one after another. White light flickered in and out of the camp, like a broken flashlight flashing incessantly.
The nameless saint walked to the body of the deer hunter, knelt down, and reached out to close her half-open eyes.
Her face still held the expression she had when she was alive, a mixture of shock and disbelief, like the look on the face of someone who had slipped on the edge of a cliff and was falling.
The nameless saint looked at her, remained silent for a few seconds, then stood up, turned and walked towards the spaceship.
His adjutant followed behind, holding a tablet computer with a list of supplies and casualty reports displayed on the screen.
The adjutant's lips moved a few times, as if he wanted to say something, but seeing the nameless saint's ashen face, he swallowed back the words that were on the tip of his tongue.
"Casualties."
The adjutant cleared his throat and began to read the report.
"Seven dead and forty-one seriously injured. In terms of supplies, the tail section of the spaceship was severely damaged, and about one-third of the supplies inside were lost. The equipment in the northern supply storage area was stolen."
The nameless saint paused for a moment, then continued walking forward.
Who stole it?
"It's still unclear. Judging from the traces at the scene, the other party must have used special abilities to pass through our defenses, bypass the guards, and enter the spaceship directly. The guards said they didn't find anything unusual, not even a shadow."
The nameless saint remained silent, walked through the hatch, and entered the main cabin of the spaceship.
The atmosphere inside the main cabin was even more oppressive than outside. The contractors who were not involved in the defense of the main gate sat around the dining table with their heads down. No one spoke, no one ate, and no one even dared to breathe loudly.
A near-frozen silence filled the air, like a string stretched to its limit, poised to snap at any moment.
The nameless saint stopped in the center of the main cabin, turned around, and looked at the bowed heads.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about whether this war can still be fought, whether we can still win, and whether we will be trapped at our doorstep and beaten so badly that we can’t even lift our heads, just like before.”
"I can tell you, we can fight, we can win, but we won't. The madmen of the Samsara Paradise are indeed stronger than us, madder than us, and more fearless than us. But they have a fatal weakness—they are outnumbered. There are eight hundred of us; one spit from each of us could drown them."
"I know your morale is low right now. You have no mood to fight for the power of time and space to form a fusion body, and you have no mood to fight to the death with the people of the Reincarnation Paradise."
"So I'm not asking you to do anything right now. We're not playing today. Go back and rest, recover from your injuries, eat, and sleep. We'll talk about tomorrow tomorrow."
The nameless saint watched those retreating figures, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
It's like the bitter smile someone gives when they discover their carefully built tower of blocks has been kicked away by someone else.
The morale of Apocalypse Park has now plummeted to rock bottom.
It's not because of how many people died, but because the way they died was so humiliating.
If you are killed by an enemy charging head-on, you will be furious, want revenge, and shout before you die, "You wait, I'll haunt you even as a ghost!"
But being smeared to death by a lump of black, rotten flesh that appears out of nowhere, or being blown up by a little boy—these kinds of deaths leave you with no reason to be angry.
The nameless saint knew that he couldn't rely on these people to seize the condensed body of spacetime power in the short term.
They need time to recover. Before they recover, they are like a flock of frightened birds. Let alone trying to steal a fused body, even patrolling around the camp would be a challenge.
At this moment, all five amusement parks have completed their landing, and their respective bases have basically stabilized.
Although the Suicide Squad caused chaos at Apocalypse Park, their camp was undamaged, their spaceship did not sink, and their personnel did not scatter. All 830 people were still there, but they just didn't want to move for the time being.
The area around Holy Light Paradise was peaceful. The girls had set up tents and parasols at their base camp. Some had laid out picnic mats on the grass, some were eating snacks, and some were having afternoon tea. It looked like they were on a picnic rather than fighting a war.
On the Sacred Paradise side, the cult members knelt in prayer, their white robes spread out on the grass, resembling a blooming white flower from a distance. The Death Paradise side, however, was as quiet as a tomb.
Construction was in full swing at the Reincarnation Paradise. The engineering students were working overtime, and the sparks from welding flashed in the night sky like a swarm of tireless fireflies.
The existence of the base camp is of great significance to each side. Putting aside the fact that it provides a way out, the healing aura within the base camp alone is a pleasant surprise for the contractors.
It restores 1% of your maximum health per second. This number may seem insignificant in combat, but during lulls in the fighting or while waiting, it can restore you from near death to a point where you can continue fighting within minutes.
The mad doctor pulled a compressed biscuit from his pocket, tore open the packaging, and took a bite. The biscuit was hard, making a crunching sound that was particularly loud in the quiet night air.
He swallowed the biscuit, then took out his water bottle from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip.
The water was cool, and it brought a refreshing feeling as it slid down my throat.
No one in the Death Park camp noticed the person lying on top of the spaceship.
On the battlefield, people tend to focus their attention on the horizontal direction because the enemy usually comes from that direction.
Few people look up at the sky, and even fewer look at the top of the spaceship.
Even if someone did look at it, they would only see a blurry black shadow and assume it was a vent or antenna on the top of the spaceship, without giving it a second glance.
After finishing the cookie, the mad doctor stuffed the wrapper into his pocket and continued lying down.
He was waiting for the signal that the spacetime force condensed into a unified entity. When someone discovered the unified entity, no matter who it was or which side it was on, the news would spread like a plague through the war channel.
At that time, everyone will get moving.
In the distance, a light appeared on the horizon.
In the center of the Death Paradise camp, the people in the camp began to stir.
The mad doctor observed the reactions of those people and silently noted down a few key pieces of information.
The mad doctor dusted off his robe and strode toward the center of the camp.
Within minutes, the Death Paradise team had assembled, with about two hundred contractors standing in a loose square formation in the open space in the center of the camp.
No one spoke, no one whispered, everyone was looking at the person standing at the front of the formation.
The mad doctor recognized the man; his name was Cohen, and he was on the sixth level of the Death Paradise card.
His fighting style is known for its ferocity; he excels at killing the most enemies in the shortest amount of time with the fewest movements.
He disliked anything fancy, disliked giving impassioned speeches before battles, and disliked using words to boost morale.
He did only one thing: lead his troops to charge forward, wipe out the enemy, and then return.
Cohen's gaze swept across the formation, confirming that there were enough people, before he spoke.
"Set off."
The group began to move out of the camp, passing through the camp gate and into the gray wilderness.
The mad doctor mingled at the back of the line, keeping pace with those around him, synchronizing his breathing with their rhythm, and even mimicking their walking posture.
He went unnoticed by anyone, because in the Death Paradise group, silence was the best camouflage.
The headquarters of the Paradise of Reincarnation presents a completely different scene in the morning light.
If the people at Apocalypse Park saw this, they might think they'd come to the wrong place. The walls near the base camp were no longer the half-person-high alloy plate fences of yesterday, but three-meter-high alloy walls, smooth as a mirror, gleaming with a cold metallic luster in the morning light.
Every ten meters along the city wall stood a howitzer, its muzzle pointing into the distance, the dark barrel reflecting a dim light in the morning sun.
There was a heavy machine gun every five meters, with the gun body fixed to the city wall and the ammunition belt hanging down from the left side of the gun body, swaying gently in the morning breeze.
At each of the four corners of the city wall stood a watchtower, taller than the hatch of a spaceship, with searchlights slowly rotating at the top, their white beams drawing streaks of light through the morning mist.
The construction of the city wall was entirely done by robots. The students of the millennium had a simple philosophy in engineering: use machines whenever possible, because people are too slow.
Those robots worked tirelessly, completing in just a few hours what would take humans days or even weeks to do.
Rion stood at the highest point of the city wall, holding a tablet computer in her hand, with a 3D model of the camp displayed on the screen.
Every corner of the model is updated in real time; the height of the city walls, the location of weapons, the amount of supplies, and the distribution of personnel—all the data is under her control.
Lin Yi stood at the foot of the city wall, looking up at the towering steel wall that rose from the ground, with only one thought in his mind.
What exactly were these students doing in Kivotos during the millennium?
He hadn't been to Millennium much while he was in Kivotos, and his knowledge of the academy was limited to hearsay.
He knew that the millennium was the place with the strongest technological atmosphere in Kivotos, and that there was a group of genius students there conducting all sorts of cutting-edge technological research.
What he didn't know was that these students were not only good at research, but also at construction, and the speed and quality of their work were astonishing.
Yuka stood next to Rion, holding a tablet computer in her hand, the screen displaying the inventory records of supplies entering and leaving the warehouse.
Her expressions were much richer than Liyin's. Her brows were slightly furrowed, her lips were pursed into a line, her eyes were fixed on the constantly changing numbers on the screen, and her fingers were swiping around on the screen, as if she was trying to solve a math problem that she could never get right.
“President Rion.” Yuka’s voice wasn’t loud, but there was an underlying anxiety in her tone. “The construction of the city wall is progressing faster than expected, but the materials are being consumed much faster than expected. At the current rate, our steel reserves will only last for one more day.”
Liyin did not look up; her gaze remained fixed on the 3D model.
"Speed up the mining progress. The shipment from Hinata has already started, and once she returns, the materials will no longer be a problem."
“But—” Yuka swiped her finger across the screen a few times, turning to a page of the supplies list. “Hina brought back iron ore, not finished steel. It takes time to smelt the ore into steel.”
"Go and call the head of the engineering department over. I have something to discuss with them."
Yuka withdrew her gaze and quickly walked down the city wall.
Standing below the city wall, Lin Yi watched Yu Xiang and the girl hurry past, his curiosity about the Millennium students growing even stronger.
He didn't know what Millennium was like, but he knew one thing: these students must have done a lot of great things while they were in Kivotos.
Judging from how skillfully Rion builds her fortress, could she have been doing this back in the year 2000?
The headquarters of the Paradise of Reincarnation entered a frenzied construction mode that morning.
The millennial students went all out, putting all available equipment to use. Engineering robots shuttled back and forth in the camp, moving materials, welding steel plates, and pouring foundations.
The height of the city wall was increased from three meters to five meters, and the thickness was increased from half a meter to one meter. The structure of the wall was changed from a single layer of steel plate to composite armor, with a thick alloy steel plate on the outside, a honeycomb buffer layer in the middle, and a high-strength carbon fiber composite material on the inside.
The weapons installed on the city walls are also constantly evolving.
The howitzer barrels were replaced with longer models, and the heavy machine gun barrels were replaced with more heat-resistant alloy materials, doubling the continuous firing time.
The searchlights on the watchtower were replaced with a more powerful model, increasing the beam's range from several hundred meters to several kilometers.
Behind all this is the students' insatiable thirst for knowledge.
The contractors of the Samsara Paradise handed over the weapon samples they had brought back from various worlds. These weapons came from different worlds and had different design concepts and technical routes. Some were based on gunpowder propulsion, some on electromagnetic acceleration, and some on energy focusing.
The students disassembled the weapons, studied their structure, analyzed their principles, and then incorporated the valuable parts into their own designs.
The weapons on the city wall are replaced every few hours.
The contractors of the Paradise of Reincarnation stood below the city walls, watching as the weapons were upgraded in just a few hours, their expressions changing from surprise to numbness.
You saw an electromagnetic cannon in the morning and were surprised.
By noon, the electromagnetic cannon had transformed into a laser cannon, which surprised you again.
By the afternoon, the laser cannon had turned into a particle cannon, and you were no longer surprised.
You would just lean against the city wall, light a cigarette, and watch the students running around on it.
At 2 p.m., the last section of the steel plate of the city wall was welded.
Rion stood on the city wall, looking at the steel fortress that had risen from the ground in just one day.
She raised her hand, swiped on the tablet, rotated the 3D model of the camp, confirmed that every corner was completed according to the design drawings, then closed the tablet and tucked it under her arm.
Yuka stood behind her, holding a long list of supplies, her expression much more complicated than Rion's.
“President Rion.” Yuka’s voice carried a hint of helplessness. “The wall is finished, but we’re almost out of materials. If Hina can’t bring back enough ore before nightfall, we’ll have to stop work tomorrow.”
Rion turned around and looked at Yuka.
"Hina will not let us down."
Just as Rion finished speaking, a commotion broke out outside the camp.
Lin Yi raised his head and looked in the direction of the camp gate.
Hina Sorasaki returned with the fifty students.
“Teacher, we’re back,” said Hina Sorasaki.
Lin Yi looked at her and nodded.
"Thanks for your hard work."
“This is iron ore.” Hina Sorasaki took a piece of ore from her spatial storage bag and handed it to Lin Yi. “It’s of very high grade. The students in the engineering department said that this grade of ore doesn’t require much fuel to smelt into high-quality steel.”
Lin Yi took the ore, weighed it in his hand, and then handed it back to Hina Sorasaki.
Hina Sorasaki put the ore back into her pack, zipped it up, and then stood up.
"You guys go and rest first," Lin Yi said.
Hina Sorasaki shook her head.
"No need, we'll go help the engineering department unload the goods. The ore needs to be processed as soon as possible, otherwise we won't have any materials to use tomorrow."
Yuka quickly walked down from the city wall to meet Hina Sorasaki.
"Captain Hina." Yuka's voice was much lighter than before.
"The quality of these ores is much better than expected. With this batch of materials, we can last at least three days."
The noise in the camp reached a new level after the arrival of this batch of ore.
The engineering students gathered around the packs, emptying the ore from them and piling it up into small hills on the ground.
Their eyes shone with excitement, anticipation, and a fervent fervor that had been suppressed for so long and had finally found an outlet.
It's not their fault; after all, they didn't have that many materials to squander back in Kivotos.
The budget for the millennium symposium was limited, and every penny had to be spent wisely. If they wanted to undertake a large project, they had to first write an application, wait for approval, wait for funding, and wait for all the materials to arrive.
Sometimes the application is approved and the funding arrives, but the materials are delayed due to supplier issues.
Sometimes the materials arrive, but the application is rejected because the person reviewing it feels the project is meaningless.
Things are different now. They have the materials, the equipment, the venue, the needs, and a boss who doesn't need to write applications or wait for approvals.
They can create whatever they want, however they want, and this freedom gives them an unprecedented sense of satisfaction.
At 3 PM, something unexpected happened.
A beam of light shot into the sky from the direction of the Holy Light Paradise.
The beam of light was at least three meters in diameter and so bright that it was impossible to look directly at it. The top of the beam exploded below the clouds, forming a huge umbrella-shaped light curtain. The edges of the light curtain slowly spread across the sky, turning half of the sky white.
Everyone in the entire headquarters of the Reincarnation Paradise saw that beam of light.
Someone found a condensation of spacetime power on the grounds of Holy Light Paradise.
On the north side of the Reincarnation Paradise camp, Su Xiao leaned against the fence, half-closing his eyes as he stared at the pillar of light.
"Should we go rob it?"
Su Xiao glanced at Lin Yi, remained silent for a moment, and then shook her head.
"hold on."
"Wait for what?"
"Let them make the first move." (End of Chapter)